Chapter Text
November 1st, 2018
He must have succumbed to slumber at some point, because he woke up in a dream. Hiromi didn’t dream, let alone sleep, often—so the few he did have, few and far between, stuck out to him.
He was in a field of sunflowers, the sky above him black like a void as if it were just him and the flowers taking up the empty space. The yellow of the sunflower petals stuck out immensely against the harsh black of the atmosphere. They spread out as far as the eye could see, as though the field went on for infinity alongside the void.
Hiromi took a step deeper into the field, having to carefully brush his way between the stalks of sunflowers to create somewhat of a path. The blooms his hand touched began to wilt, drooping down towards the ground the more he looked at them. The longer he spent in one spot, more flowers in his radius started to lose the liveliness in their petals.
It was as if his touch were poisoning the blooms and infecting each subsequent one around it.
He kept moving, walking through the blooms as quickly as possible as to try to find a place where they ended. Surely they couldn’t go on forever. But the field went on endlessly, each flower wilting at his presence enough to create a visible path when he looked behind him.
Hiromi ran. It didn’t lead him anywhere except to more flowers decaying in his vision as he got closer.
Suddenly, after what seemed like hours of watching flowers wilt faster and faster as he ran from them, he found a large gap in the field.
It was a clearing, circular in shape like someone had taken a cut out of it. Hiromi slowed his pace to a walk, carefully walking towards it.
Even in a dream, he felt dread creeping up on him for whatever he would find in the center. Still, he stepped on, killing more flowers as he went. It didn’t take too long for him to reach it, the drooping deadened flowers creating a clearer path as he walked.
He pushed aside a quickly wilting sunflower poking at his back. He had reached the opening in the field.
Immediately, he found the source for his dread. In the center laid two bodies stacked on top of each other carelessly, both seeming to have been decomposing for several hours.
The judge and prosecutor. He could tell without even looking at the obvious spot where he’d slammed his weapon. They looked almost exactly as he’d left them, if not a little paler and giving off the rotten sickly-sweet smell associated with the dead.
He fully entered the area slowly, inspecting his brain’s seemingly perfect recollection of their corpses with idle curiosity. The dread he had felt upon seeing them had faded in favor of clinical observations.
He didn’t often dream, but this level of detail had to be unusual. He looked up at the blank sky to stop looking at the bodies, and then back down at the field which seemed to have almost completely died out.
Scanning across the entire scene saw nothing but wilted sunflowers spreading across the blank void. Then , his eyes widened, catching on something that wasn’t there before– a man standing across from him in the field gap.
He was wearing dark robes akin to a monk's, his black hair long enough to reach his lower back and tied up in a half-bun. A long stream of stitches laid across his forehead, as though his head had been cut through and sewn back on.
Danger. Hiromi could sense it before the man even looked at him.
Noticing his wide-eyed staring, the man looked at him. The dread came back at full force. The man peered at him the way one might look at a dead rat on the side of the road.
Hiromi took a hesitant step forward towards the corpses, to try to look at the man closer. People in dreams were often made of people your subconscious registered– strangers on the street, or a cashier at the izakiya check out. Somehow Hiromi knew with absolute certainty he had never seen this man in his life.
The man stayed in his position as Hiromi approached him, his posture casual and serene like the two gruesomely desecrated bodies in front of him were nothing but scenery alongside the dead flowers.
The man didn’t stop looking at him, his gaze revealing nothing of his intentions. It made Hiromi extremely uneasy, but he didn’t let it show. The man most likely already knew.
Hiromi felt paralyzed by the man’s eyes on him. It wasn’t like Oe’s stare– visceral hatred and blame keeping him locked in place. No, it was more like an overwhelming alarm that made him pause breathing, not so much as twitching as he watched the man inspect the two bodies in the center bemusedly.
Terror unlike any he had felt before had begun to bubble up the longer they stared at each other, the man’s gaze searching yet also apathetic to his existence entirely.
Just as he broke out of the paralysis and took a step forward towards the man– for some inexplicable reason Hiromi couldn’t identify– he disappeared with a swish of his robes with little fanfare, smiling at Hiromi as he went.
It was like he was never there. It was just Hiromi and the dead bodies in the field of dead flowers, the man’s absence now glaring in the emptiness of the void. Only Hiromi and the evidence of the breakdown of his morals, of his materialized deadening touch.
The judge and prosecutor’s bodies seemed to have deteriorated further as Hiromi got closer to them. Hiromi stopped where he stood, not wanting to watch as they both became little more than bone. It was a dream, he knew– bodies didn’t decompose that quickly. But still the notion of Hiromi’s bringing nothing but rot and decay brought a hint of despair to peak through the dream, and his typical apathetic mindset.
He didn’t want to look anymore, but there was nowhere for his eyes to turn. Only dead sky and dead plants and dead bodies. The only live thing in the vicinity was Hiromi.
He wanted to wake up, to get out, to leave. He didn’t want to look anymore. Damn keeping his eyes open. Hiromi wanted to stitch them closed. He wanted to be blind, to be ignorant, to embrace the nothingness of the void above him and cease having to know. He wished to don a blindfold like Lady Justice, and finally accept the apathy that came with unbias and inhumanity.
He wanted to die. He wanted to sleep and never wake up.
But here, in this nightmare, all he wanted to do was return to the waking world. To escape the madness drowning him inside his head. It seemed not even dreams could bring him out of his own growing insanity.
—
He woke up in a cold sweat, curled on his ratty futon. He had taken off his shirt at some point, now only wearing his suit pants which were surely terribly wrinkled. Not that Hiromi cared.
He stayed under the covers for a few minutes more before forcing himself up and out of his bed. He felt both simultaneously rested from the few hours of sleep and a new kind of exhausted. The emotions that had dominated his ominous dreams had been abandoned in favor of tired indifference– it was the start of a new day.
Natural light peaked through his blinds in rays across his apartment, the dust in the air visible in the sunlight. The space felt calm, the despair and loneliness clinging to the walls the night before vanishing as the morning arrived. Hiromi took a deep breath. It was a new day.
A new day. The world hadn’t ended. He had woken up from his sleep. His life hadn’t ended.
He was still alive. Still breathing.
He hadn’t fully processed the revelation as he trudged out of the room and into his cramped bathroom. More out of routine than anything.
His reflection in the mirror was mostly the same. He didn’t let himself look too long, in case he started thinking again. It was too early for thinking.
Maybe he should take that hot shower now, Hiromi’s brain offered, in search of something to do. Why not, there was nothing stopping him.
Hiromi reached for the knob for hot water almost without his own input, his body moving on autopilot typical of mornings spent bare of any thoughts outside of getting to the office on time.
He let the water heat up instead of just taking it cold out of impatience. Hiromi had time. He had all the time in the world.
Only when steam had started clouding up the mirror did Hiromi step out of his wrinkled dress pants and stood under the stream of hot water. He had almost walked in with his pants still on, but only at the last second did he decide he might as well not ruin them further. Maybe that was something to try later– bathing in his clothes.
Hiromi had all the time in the world, didn’t he?
The water pressure in his shower wasn’t too great– but it beat hard enough against Hiromi’s back that he didn’t ever bother to call someone to fix it. The water had heated up enough to turn his skin red and raw.
Perfect.
Mind still on autopilot, Hiromi went through the motions of a typical shower while mostly ignoring his skin’s protest at the high water temperature. Let it run through his hair, squeezing product onto his hands to run through his scalp. Lifting his limbs to get his underarms, his knees, the soles of his feet. Scrubbed himself as clean as he could manage, the invisible dirt covering his body refusing to come off with his bar of soap.
He scrubbed harder. The longer he spent aware of his naked body, the more he registered how dirty and disgusting he felt. The blood, long washed off, lingered in his mind’s eye as Hiromi scratched at it with blunt nails. His entire body itched with the urge to crawl out of his skin, peel it off until it was just bare muscle and skeleton. Molt like a cicada, leave the shell behind.
Hiromi was snapped out of his thoughts by the appearance of blood flowing towards the drain. He was confident all the blood from the courtroom had already long washed off, but looking down, he realized the blood must have been his. His nails once again had blood under them, no longer the dried brown of the judge and prosecutor’s, but his own from trying to scratch off his invisible filth.
The feeling of it clinging to him hadn’t left– he still felt dirty and disgusting like he had never felt before. Still, he ceased his harsh scrubbing and turned off the shower. The room was still clouded with steam. Hiromi had forgotten a towel going into the shower, so he stood still behind the curtain and watched as water dripped from him until he slowly but surely air dried, shivering slightly in the cold November air.
His hair was still damp, and he combed it back with his fingers in the slowly unfogged mirror until it looked suitable. For what, Hiromi didn’t know, but it was better than having it in his face. He had woken up a bit more now, the blood having brought him back into his body. The wounds where he had scratched too hard still stung, but the pain was quickly pushed to the side in favor of continuing his semblance of a morning routine. He walked to the rack with his clothes and idly picked out a two-piece suit that had been paired together in a bid to make his mornings quicker.
Hiromi dressed himself mechanically, distantly watching himself button up his shirt and smooth out his collar. His tie was a bit more difficult, but still he managed to tie it under his collar, tightening it like a noose. Now out of his bloody clothes, there was no more visible evidence of his abandonment of morals. Now he looked just as he did on any typical day, hair swept back, tie straight, and suit neatly pressed.
He didn’t look like anything unusual. He was just an ordinary man— average height, brown hair and brown eyes. Thin from going long stretches without eating but still filled out enough to be healthy. Nothing about him would stand out to anybody who could happen to observe him. He didn’t look like a man who had killed two men in cold blood yesterday. He didn’t look like anyone at all.
He was just an ordinary man, someone with unattainable ideals trying to bring justice to a system which ultimately snuffed it out. Why did Hiromi have any semblance of hope for change? He was just one average human being, weak and ugly. Just some idiot with only a delusion keeping him from snapping.
But the delusion had ended. All the strings tying himself together had snapped under the weight. He had fallen to pieces. He was nothing.
His reflection looked the same as it did on any other day.
The only thing missing was the pin on his left lapel, the two little holes from where it attached barely visible in the black fabric. Its absence felt glaring. The smallest deviation from his typical look, and suddenly Hiromi had the faint sense of no longer recognizing himself.
It wasn’t a new feeling– he hadn’t quite been able to recognize himself before, after taking up a gavel and killing a judge and prosecutor in cold blood. But now, it felt like a more existential difference.
The feeling made him uneasy enough that he walked back to his dingy sofa and picked up his bloody blazer from yesterday to unpin the metal sunflower from the lapel. The little splatter of blood came off easily under the sink, and after drying it with his shirt, he pinned it on his left lapel as usual.
He still looked like someone else entirely when he looked back into the mirror, but the sunflower pin somehow seemed to ease up the alien feeling just a little bit.
He couldn’t, in good conscience, call himself a defense attorney anymore. Especially after the events of yesterday– his abandonment of the law entirely left him with no claim to the title.
But Hiromi was only human. He allowed himself this little lie. After all, Hiromi had spent his entire life defining himself by his duty to the courts. It was more like an identity than a title, anyway. They could pry it from his cold, dead hands.
—
After eating a dismal breakfast of instant ramen and whatever it was he had left in his fridge, Hiromi stepped outside his apartment. He refrained from locking the door behind him as he went down the stairs down to street level, but he was indifferent to the possibility of robbery anyway. He hardly had anything worth stealing.
The air around him was cool in a manner typical of inland Japan. Hiromi didn’t bother bringing a coat, his blazer serving as his sole shield against the morning chill. The sun was warm against his back. Things he wouldn’t have properly appreciated before, all felt like little blessings in the darkness plaguing him and the dread for the inevitable.
The world outside looked the same as it had yesterday. The streets were still mostly empty, nothing unusual in the early of the morning. Whatever disaster that had been wrought in Shibuya hadn’t made it all the way through to Iwate. False alarm?
It was only when he was all the way outside his apartment complex and well into the street when he saw it.
It was ginormous, wide and taller than his eyes could see reaching into the sky through the clouds. A big, so black it was almost void, wall. It cut through the street and the buildings around it like a barrier. Whatever it was made of was lost to him, as it seemed to be absent of any light all together.
He stared at it, the massive black structure that had appeared over night reaching high into the sky. The curiosity got the better of him– Hiromi started to make his way closer to the barrier. It was like something out of a story book, he thought.
Hiromi arrived at what seemed to be the bottom of the barrier, the middle of the street– and saw a growing crowd of confused people in sleep clothes showing up around the base as well. School children that had obviously woken up too early– families reuniting quickly in the growing crowd. More people in pajamas were popping up every few seconds, bleary-eyed as if just waking up.
Again, it was like something out of a story book. People appearing out of thin air didn’t just happen in reality. Hiromi couldn’t process it, the unrealness of it all creating mild panic he refused to acknowledge for fear of another complete shutdown. He needed to know what was happening.
A mother, clad in only a nightgown and her hair mussed from sleep called out for her child.
“Hikaru!” She yelled, scanning the crowd, fruitlessly. Worry overcame her features every second she went without finding him. “Hikaru? Baby? Where are you?”
Hiromi looked across the mob of people, as well, looking for a child that could perhaps have been hers. He had no luck, as well- to be expected, as he was oblivious to what this ‘Hikaru’ even looked like, let alone how old he was.
“Can someone help me find him? My kid, please, I don’t know where he is!” The woman said, panicked. No one offered to help.
How ugly. A mother separated from her child, no one assisting her- preoccupied with their own problems. The longer the woman went without someone offering to help the more she seemed like she was going to cry.
His mind made up, Hiromi walked over to the woman and tapped her on the shoulder. She jumped, then turned around and looked at him and sighed in relief.
“You. Can you help me?” She asked, clasping her hands together almost like she was praying. “I’m looking for my kid.”
Hiromi nodded. “Hikaru, you said? What does he look like?” He asked, gently, the same tone he used with panicking clients. The relief washed over the woman visibly, her shoulders slumping.
“He’s about 4, not in primary school yet. He’s got dark hair like his father,” She explained, trying to think of what could help identify a singular child in the sea of people. “That man– he said Hikaru would arrive outside with me– he has to be around here somewhere.”
“Do you remember what he was wearing?” Hiromi inquired, momentarily pushing down the imminent questions about ‘that man’ and arriving outside. It was unimportant for now, what mattered was reuniting this family. It was dangerous for a child to be without his parents in the middle of the street.
“Ah- he was wearing his car pajamas,” She answered. “Bright red pattern– I remember because they’re his favorite.”
“That will be helpful, thank you.”
The woman nodded, and Hiromi turned to search the crowd, keeping an eye out for bright red at knee-height. The thick crowd of people made the search difficult, but Hiromi was determined to find Hikaru, even if only to keep himself from thinking about the unreality of it all and his dizzying self hatred.
He maneuvered through the crowd gently to create a better view, and after a few more minutes of searching, he found him. A kid, looking around primary school aged, wearing pajamas patterned with bright red cars– just as his mother described. The kid also seemed to be looking for her, his face scrunched up with frustration as he looked and failed to find her.
Before Hiromi could even walk over to him, the kid appeared at his side and tugged incessantly at his suit jacket.
“Can you help me find my mama?” He whined, voice high in that way kid’s voices are. The kid didn’t seem wary at all of asking strangers for help, Hiromi noted. They must be close– Hikaru and his mother.
“Hm, I was actually looking for you. Your mother is very worried.” Hiromi stated, brushing the child’s hand off his blazer not unkindly. The kid was unbothered.
Hikaru beamed. “Really? Thank you, mister! You know where she is?”
“If she hasn’t moved from where I left her, yes.” Hiromi replied, motioning for Hikaru to follow him. It was a good thing Hiromi wasn't someone with bad intentions and that no one had taken advantage of this child's naivete.
The kid took hold of his blazer again as they surfed through the crowd.
“Did you go to sleep in your suit?” He asked innocently, peering at Hiromi bright-eyed. Hiromi did suppose he stood out– the people around them all donning sleep clothes and him in his black two-piece suit.
“No,” Hiromi answered, not pausing in his searching through the crowd. “I was outside when you all appeared.”
The kid’s eyebrows furrowed. “You didn’t have the dream then?” Hikaru asked quizzically, also not stopping as they walked closer to where Hiromi had met his mother.
“The dream?” Hiromi mumbled, cutting off the line of inquiry at the sight of Hikaru’s mother in her same nightgown and messy hair. Hikaru didn’t seem to hear him, running forward towards his mom and tackling her in a hug. Mother and son were reunited.
“Hikaru!” She cried, laughing in utter relief. Hikaru smiled wide in her embrace.
She looked over his shoulders at Hiromi.
“Thank you,” She sighed, gratitude evident. “Can I repay you in any way? For your help?”
“Ah- That won’t be necessary,” Hiromi said quickly, not meeting her eyes. “It was no trouble.”
The mother didn’t accept this response. “There must be something. I couldn’t have found him without your help–”
Hiromi interrupted, not meaning to be rude. “It’s alright. Seeing you two together again is compensation enough.”
She frowned, then smiled looking down at Hikaru at her side. “Still, I appreciate it. Hikaru, what do we say to the nice man?”
The kid seemed to have to think a bit before his eyes widened. “Ah! Thank you mister suit-san!”
Hiromi’s lips cracked into a semblance of a smile at the moniker. “Of course. I’ll be off now, then. If you don’t need any more assistance.” The woman shook her head.
The duo waved goodbye in his peripherals as he left. It was fulfilling, helping someone. Still, the lingering questions about the barrier and the crowd which was now dispersing pressed at his mind. Before he could think better of it, he pivoted and raised his hand to catch the mother’s attention.
“Yes?”
“I have a few questions, actually.” Hiromi stated, hesitant. “Your kid mentioned something about a dream?”
“Oh!” She exclaimed, “Yes, I know what you’re talking about. I don’t know that I’ll be any help, but I’ll answer the best I can.”
“That’s all I need, really. I was awake when all these people started appearing.” He explained, motioning to the remaining crowd and the giant black barrier serving as the ominous background to their conversation.
“That explains the suit, then.” She said, smiling. “Well, I went to bed last night as normal, right? But then I had this dream,”
Hiromi motioned for her to continue.
“I was in my bed, and there was this… man standing over me. The room was gone– it was like I was inside a black hole.”
“A man?” Hiromi pressed.
“Yes, he looked to be an adult– maybe late twenties, I would say. Long hair, monk robes. Handsome, too.”
Hiromi paused, recalling his own dream. The description matched that of the person in his dream as well, though the man had only stood across from him rather than over him.
“Did he have a line of stitches across his forehead?” He asked, leaning forward.
“He did, yeah. Why, do you know him?” She replied, tilting her head.
“No. Did anything happen in the dream? Besides him standing over you?”
“Oh, yes. He talked to me, told me he had erected a barrier, and that me and Hikaru were inside it.”
“He said something about a fight to the death going on inside, and that Hikaru and I had one chance to leave before we became players.” She explained, expression focussed while recalling the dream.
“I decided to leave. He helped me up from my bed, and I took his hand. We walked across this bridge– Covered in wreckage and these monster looking things– and then I woke up here. That’s all I know.”
Hiromi pondered this response, then realized he had been silent for too long.
“Thank you,” he bowed slightly in gratitude. “That’s all I need, for now.”
The woman smiled crookedly. “Glad to help. Take care, suit-san.”
Hiromi nodded, mind still contemplating the bizarre dream compared to his own, then walked back towards his apartment. The barrier didn’t get smaller behind him, almost watching him as walked away. He would revisit it later, he decided. Inspect it when there were less people around.
Right now, he was too tired to deal with all of this.
—