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It wasn’t like they meant anything to Aoba, the scars on his wrists. He couldn’t remember putting them there, and he couldn’t even remember them not being there in the first place. He remembers first noticing them maybe a year or so after getting out of the hospital—an employer pointed at them and very casually (but Aoba could hear the strain of caution behind that nonchalance) mentioned that maybe he should think about wearing wristbands to cover them?
And then Aoba realized, oh, there are scars on my wrists. They were just a part of his life, his body, and he got over them quickly. After all, there were many things he didn't remember quite well from his teenage years.
But after he caught two more people looking at them, their eyes filled with concern and questions, Aoba decided it would be better, easier, if he just hid them. It wasn’t that big of a deal. Wristbands, bracelets, his coil, long sleeves, there were countless ways to hide them from prying questions and nosy acquaintances.
Aoba knows Mizuki knew, but Mizuki was always smiling and cheerful and mindful of others, what with his overabundance of love and need to make people feel welcome, so he never mentioned them. If Koujaku knew, Aoba didn’t know, nor did he particularly care. Without reminders, Aoba would never even recall the faint crisscrossing lines that ran down his forearms.
It took years for the answer to come. Five, six, seven years, Platinum Jail has fallen and Ren is by his side, Mizuki smiles more often, Virus and Trip have disappeared to God knows where, and his hair isn’t sensitive to touch. Sometimes he’ll lay in bed and ask Ren questions about when he was Rhyme, when he was Sly Blue, a menace. Ren answers everything thoughtfully and diligently, and Aoba takes in the information in a quiet bewilderment. Sometimes he remembers, sometimes he doesn’t.
It had been a hot day, mid-summer, so he had worn short sleeves, and one of the bratty brothers practically announced to the entire neighborhood that Aoba had marks on his arms. Aoba wasn’t any more annoyed than always, but that night, after everyone had turned off their lights and the neighborhood outside his window was pitch black, he asked Ren if he knew anything about the scars.
Ren was flustered at first. “Y-yes, I do.”
Usually Ren was quick to give a full response, so when nothing followed, Aoba flips over on his bed to look him in the eyes. “…Will you tell me?”
Obviously uncomfortable, Ren averts his gaze. “It was… When you weren’t yourself. When your ‘Desire’ was in control.”
“Well, I had guessed as much. Did I do these to myself?”
“…In a manner of speaking, yes.”
Aoba doesn’t push him any further—he could sense just how uncomfortable Ren was answering this (he was always uncomfortable talking about Aoba’s past injuries, it’s no wonder he would be loath to speak of self-inflicted ones), and after a quiet apology and goodnight kiss, he allows themselves to fall asleep, tangled in the summer night heat.
He dreamt of his past. It happened much more often after Platinum Jail. Maybe his other side was trying to offer explanations and apologies that Ren couldn’t? There wasn’t really anyone to confer with, so Aoba liked to believe that was the truth.
His Desire reigned, Reason shoved away in a choked and lonely silence, Deterrence delegated to an easily ignorable outwards influence. Sly Blue. He was almost unrecognizable to Aoba.
Aoba knew well enough that Desire, Sly, that he hated him. Aoba knew Sly wanted destruction and absolute freedom, and even when they had joined hands on the beach in his consciousness, he could still feel the barely controlled river of betrayalangerdisappointmentragehurtdesperation under the fragility of forgiveness and acceptance. It had hurt, and it had continued to hurt, until well after Ren came back to him, but by this point, he was mostly resigned. He and Sly had some sort of quiet tolerance towards each other, something that was better than the wild emotions that would’ve occasionally wreak havoc.
But this memory was different, much more painful.
Sly, hunched over in an alleyway, his body trembling as Ren frantically attempted to paw his presence against Aoba’s—Sly’s—knee. It was nighttime, in the backstreets of somewhere, the memory wasn’t fleshed out enough for the small details, and Sly held a cheap box cutter in his right fist, the blade pressing into the skin of his left wrist. Aoba’s stomach churned when he saw, his teeth clenching when the metal cut into the skin and Ren let out a whine.
“Stop fuckin’ bugging me, Jesus Christ!” Sly spat, jerking his leg and pushing Ren off him. Ren remained steadfast and jumped back to Sly’s side, attempting to nudge the weapon away.
“Aoba, please stop,” Ren pleaded, the voice all too familiar and desperate. “Please don’t injure yourself further.”
“Will you just fucking quit?” The blade was removed, the blood rising to the surface and beginning to pool and spill. Aoba wanted to look away, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t ignore this memory, something that wasn’t his and something he had to see. “Why do you fucking care anyway? This isn’t my fucking body! Who gives a shit what I do to this!”
“We have to stop the bleeding. Aoba, please,” Ren’s deep voice sounded like he was going to cry, not something Aoba remembered hearing very often, and Sly’s only response was a callous scowl. “This is your body, and you have to take care of it.”
The laugh was like a bite, like a sting. “Don’t give me that bullshit. I hate this body. Let me do what I fucking please with it. It’s the least I should be allowed to do, right? Give this bastard some memories?”
If Aoba had a hand to use in this recollection, he didn’t know if he would use it to slap Sly or hold him.
He watched silently (as if he even had a mouth to speak, as if he had the will to interfere) as Ren succeeded in knocking the box cutter out of Sly’s hand and Sly threw his uninjured arm to his face, concealing the way his face twisted as sobs poured out of him. Aoba knew his body—Sly’s body—and his voice—Sly’s voice—enough to know that Sly wasn’t crying from sadness but instead bitterness, that agonizing poison that he would definitely hold for the rest of his existence.
When Aoba wakes, his throat is sore and he feels as if he hadn’t slept at all. The memory isn’t foggy like dreams are, with blurred beginnings and ends, with forgotten motivations and undecipherable meanings. If he closes his eyes, he can still remember Sly’s desperation and Ren’s anxiety.
After breakfast, Tae is off to work and she scolds Aoba to be responsible, just because he doesn’t have work today doesn’t mean he should be lazy, and Ren awkwardly fills her demand that he promises to her that he’ll take care of Aoba. They walk back upstairs to Aoba’s room, the endless singing of cicadas their background to the customary and comfortable silence.
Ren isn’t stupid and can tell Aoba doesn’t feel well, and his worried question is something Aoba gives a sad, troubled smile to. “I had… A dream. A memory.”
He can see the way Ren’s jaw clenches, how his nervousness comes out in the form of tensing up, and Aoba wonders faintly if that was his habit or Sei’s. “…And? What did you dream of?”
Aoba seats himself next to Ren on the bed, keeping his eyes on Ren’s hands laying limply in his lap, the fingers intertwined tightly, nervous and uncomfortable with the current topic. “The reason behind these scars.”
Ren looks away. After a long silence, he says, “He… He must’ve known that he wouldn’t have been in control long. He hated that he wasn’t able to have a body for his own, that the one he used was ‘on loan’, if you will.”
Aoba grips his wrist, the memory of blood and agony making it throb. “He said he wanted to give me memories.”
“Things like irresponsible intercourse, occasional drug use, Rhyme… None of them would leave lasting scars. It seemed as if he himself didn’t want to have to deal with repercussions, so he never did anything that would put his time in control in jeopardy, but something like… What he did. That was okay.”
There is a long stretch of silence as Aoba tries to understand his Desire better and Ren watches Aoba struggle.
The worst part was that he could comprehend the emotions that Sly must’ve felt. Aoba didn’t hold anger towards him for something like this—instead, he felt a very deep sorrow, a desire to apologize, a wish to try again. To have spent over a decade with no ability to make final decisions, only to be granted a body that would ultimately reject you and lock you away again? At least Ren separated himself, put himself in charge of a discarded Allmate, gave himself a body that would listen and behave, one that wouldn’t turn on him. Even when he was in power, Sly still didn’t have full control.
“I don't,” Aoba starts, his voice creaking under the strain of his ignored consciousness. “hate him for this. I don’t.”
Ren smiles and stretches out his hand to rest over Aoba’s, still clenching his wrist tightly. They spoke no more, and allowed the heat of summer to slowly dissolve the weight of a past forgotten.