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King feels like he’s in a movie when he sees the man silhouetted in his broken wall. Dark feathers frame the scene, drifting down, sent flying from the bird monster when the man defeated it in one hit.
He’s saying something. His voice seems deeper than it had been before, more alive somehow. He’s turning and King can see his face, something’s familiar, the look in his eyes sliding in place over a memory—
With the power of love! With the power of love you can do it!
King’s eyelids peeled open, drifted shut, blinked weakly several times at the sound of his alarm, set to the theme of the latest Heart Fighter anime. His hand slapped down, missed, and finally landed on his phone and he shut it off without having to look.
The dream again.
Blankets slid off him as he pushed himself up and dragged a hand over his eyes. He’d fallen asleep on the couch again and could see the blue light of a “Continue?” screen coming from his television, a game he hadn’t bothered to turn off. King brought his phone up and saw he’d been asleep for only four hours.
Why did I even set this alarm—Fuck. Job interview.
He kicked his legs out over the side of the couch and forced himself to his feet.
-
The suit was ill-fitting, a little tight around the shoulders, though thankfully baggy enough to hide his gut. He’d slicked his hair back to make it look somewhat presentable without having to wash it. His shower had been quick, probably too quick, but good enough. At least with deodorant on he didn’t smell.
The subway was packed and uncomfortably warm and King couldn’t seem to squeeze in on himself enough to make people stop bumping into him. He held tight to the hanging strap and tried not to be embarrassed about how sweaty he was making it.
A stop was announced on the loudspeaker and he gave a quiet sigh through his nose as a good amount of people started to file out.
His eye caught on something moving. A shine, reflecting off of something—someone.
King stared openly, still not awake enough to process what he was seeing. A bald head?
His conscience chastised him for being rude but he couldn’t seem to look away as the person shifted through the crowd to the door. They were slim and young, or seemed young in their hoodie and cargo shorts, an odd figure to pair with being completely bald.
Something jerked in King, an odd urge, a word rising up, but the person had stepped out onto the platform and was gone.
-
The interview had gone… okay.
He maybe got the job. The interviewer had seemed nervous the whole time, but acted genuinely impressed by his work on independent projects. Coding for business websites wasn’t King’s dream job, but it would pay the bills.
There was a used bookstore near the station and he stopped there to semi-celebrate, still dressed in his suit and tie. He was an odd sight by the used manga, tall and imposing and dressed like a businessman, but it at least kept strangers at bay.
He ran his finger up the spine of a volume he was interested in, some romance story he’d heard of once or twice.
“It’s out of stock?”
King took a sharp breath at the sound. A voice, muffled by bookshelves between King and the front counter. The sound hadn’t been startling, but the low monotone, something about it—
His hand froze on the top of the book as he tried to listen. Why was it familiar? An old classmate? A cousin? He couldn’t put a name to it but something about it had shocked him. Maybe a celebrity?
“Sorry, someone bought it yesterday.” This voice was the cashier, King had heard him when coming in, a middle-aged guy with a frail voice.
“It’s okay.” This voice was that voice and King flinched again and felt his leg kicked out without his permission to take a stiff step towards the front.
He was walking slowly, stiffly, automatically, then he moved himself to hurry and the front door came in sight just as it closed and the bell jingled on the doorknob. King’s shoulders sank in disappointment as he saw only legs disappearing out of view through the glass, not enough to tell who it had been.
“Do you need something?”
King looked over to see the cashier looking alarmed. His face must have looked intense. King forced his posture to relax. “I’m fine.”
He stared at the door, debating going out after them. Whoever it was had probably hurried off already. King bit back a sigh and turned to grab the book he’d been considering.
-
Two weeks had gone by and the job still hadn’t called him back. King chalked it up as a loss and got back in his suit to go to the unemployment agency.
It never felt like much help. The agent he got suggested working in security, again, disregarding his application geared entirely towards work in game development. They at least directed him to another interview, though it was another company he’d never heard of and had no interest in.
Afterwards he sat on a bench outside, eating takoyaki he’d bought from a food stand and pondering his existence. The day was sunny and bright, cheerful despite his mood. King sighed and shifted his legs, spreading them comfortably. He didn’t feel bad about taking up space. No one would sit next to him anyway.
That was almost certainly why no one had hired him yet. Fear. His resume was fine, short on job experience beyond part-time but still a good impression. Despite his nerves he knew what to say in interviews to make himself look good. The only thing holding him back was his actual looks.
He thought on this, debating hairstyles that could soften his face, when a rumble passed through the ground beneath his feet and somebody screamed.
King flinched bad enough that his toothpick went flying. When he looked towards the sound he fumbled everything out of his hands, mayonnaise and flakes splattering across his pants.
A giant something—an ape, a creature, a monster?—was rising up above the tops of the office buildings, screeching horribly and stomping hard enough to crack asphalt. It crashed its arm through a building and slammed its hairless palm into a tree, making it splinter and fly into a parked car. The car alarm harmonized with the monster’s screech and a woman screamed as it stomped further down the road.
King was shaking too badly to run. He held onto the bench for support as he pulled himself up, his legs quivering, the remains of his takoyaki dropping to the ground. His jaw dropped and he gave short breaths and felt sweat start to bead down his face as the monster flashed its teeth, too sharp for an ape, too sharp for anything, moving closer--
It was gone.
King blinked and rubbed his eyes. Still gone. The building it had crashed through was intact. The car alarm was just an echo in his head. His legs still quivered but the moment he’d gotten to his feet it had disappeared, not even leaving an after-image.
“Did you see?”
King whipped his head around.
No one there.
But he’d heard it. And as he turned he’d seen something in his peripheral, a blur of yellow and white.
He made himself take slower breaths. His hand stayed tight on the back of the bench to hold himself up.
People were starting to stare. King grabbed his napkins, wiped what he could from his pants, and hurried back home.
-
Was he crazy?
King had searched the news once he’d gotten home and changed his pants. Then he’d searched the next day. And the next. The closest story he found was about a gorilla that escaped for a minute then went right back in its enclosure.
Funny pictures in the comments joked that it was relatable. King closed the tab.
He’d never had hallucinations. Mental health problems weren’t new to him, but it was limited to anxiety, fear, nothing like seeing and hearing giant ape monsters. He didn’t think hallucinations were quite that vivid even for people they happened to anyway, or at least not quite that elaborate. King knew that the buildings had been destroyed. He’d heard the echo of the car alarm.
He’d heard the voice.
What does it mean?
King curled in on himself on his couch, knees sticking out over the side, his frame too big for it. The blanket over him was a comfort, but it couldn’t shield him from his own head.
What did it mean?
With a flick of the remote he shut off the TV, putting himself in the dark.
-
Another interview. King had no idea how it had gone. He’d been too easily distracted.
The hallucination—vision?—had shaken him up for a while but today he was just tired. He’d started having that dream again but woke up right away, and every time he fell asleep and it went deep enough for him to dream the same thing happened. It felt like he was falling and his body would jerk him awake to protect him.
He went straight to the station after the interview, not interested in going anywhere this time. Though he was mostly over the scare, home was still where he was safe. Tempting fate was a job for someone else.
As he walked towards his apartment building he looked up to see the wave of a curtain. Probably his own; he hadn’t bothered to close his window before he left, and it seemed high enough to match. His thoughts wandered to bugs getting in. Nah, they wouldn’t be up that high, right?
Something flickered. King shook his head, did another take. It was gone but he had seen it, a small figure in the distance, hopping up with ease like a flea onto the back of a dog.
Had it gone in his window?
King stopped and stared. He half expected whatever it was to hop back out, with a sack over their shoulder and a handkerchief around their face like a classic cartoon thief.
No. No way. That was over twenty stories up. Literally impossible.
He chuckled at himself and kept walking towards the building. A trick of the light, or another hallucination. Hopefully just a trick, but definitely not real.
Still he couldn’t help the feeling of dread when he stepped into the building. The feeling only got worse in the elevator, his heart beating hard, hard enough that he almost imagined he could hear it. When he got to his door he held his key in front of the doorknob for a long while, leaning in and listening for someone in his apartment.
The key scratched against the metal doorknob when he missed before adjusting and unlocking his door.
The front hall was empty aside from his shoes. He kicked off the ones he’d worn to the interview, black dress shoes he’d gotten on sale, and pulled off his jacket. He draped it and his tie over his arm and stepped over the genkan towards his kitchen.
He tossed the clothes onto the counter and opened his fridge, ducking his head inside. It was empty aside from leftover takeout and a liter of soda. King took the styrofoam container and kicked the door shut with his foot as he grabbed a fork from a nearby drawer.
A forkful of cold noodles was halfway to his open mouth when he turned around.
For half a second he thought he was dreaming again. But the sight didn’t fade. The noodles fell from his fork and landed on the ground, unnoticed.
The hole had definitely not been there five minutes ago. It was massive, most of his wall obliterated, the city laid out beyond it. A cloud of dust slowly settled around the room like a wrecking ball had come through mere moments ago. He’d heard nothing, felt nothing, but King could see plain as day, his wall was gone, his living room was destroyed, and all around big black feathers drifted down onto his hardwood floors.
He didn’t so much drop his food as forget it was there to hold. When it landed half on his foot he gave a small flinch but didn’t look down. He could only stare dumbly, dragging his feet as he moved around the counter.
As he got closer he half expected it to waver, like a mirage. It only seemed to get more real. He bumped into a chunk of ceiling with his big toe, knocking it aside. A feather brushed against his ankle. When he got up to the hole he could put his hand through it.
He leaned his hand on an exposed support beam and leaned carefully forward. Sprawled out on the road was the carcass of an enormous bird, its head no more than a splatter of blood across the ground.
King’s breathing got heavy. His heart thumped, even harder than it had in the elevator. A dizzy numbness started to sink into his head.
“King.”
He jolted up and turned around.
A figure, silhouetted by King’s own shadow, standing in the center of the room.
It spoke, gentle and monotone.
“Can you see me?”
King stumbled back. He saw a hand reach out for him as his foot slipped on the edge of his shattered floor, air rushing around him as he started his descent towards the ground.
-
He woke up.
The ceiling was intact. That was the first thing he noticed, though it was a half-awake thought and he wasn’t sure where it had come from. But as he remembered more he tilted his head back to look at the wall. No hole, no big dead bird.
But the weight on his lap was too much for just a blanket. He rolled his head back up and looked down to see eyes on him, a bland yet intense stare.
Bald. Slim. Young, at least a few years younger than him. Bald.
“You can stop staring at my head, y’know,” the guy said, voice still an unreadable monotone.
“S… sorry.” King shook his head quickly to clear his fog. “Wait. Wha… Who are…?”
The guy sat up. He was sitting on the floor by the couch and had been resting his head on King’s lap. “You’ve seen me, right?”
“…yes,” said King, unable to deny it, “…sort of.”
That blank stare stayed on him. The guy offered no explanation, no reassurances, just stared. As King stared back he seemed to flicker, for a moment in a shadow, another moment in a tracksuit with thick dark hair. Then, for a moment, gone. But he came back in less than a second, so fast that King wasn’t sure if he’d seen any of it.
“I can’t stay.” He started to get up, keeping a hand on King’s leg, either to support himself or just to keep it there. “I miss you.”
King frowned as the guy leaned over him. “Wha…?”
Lips pressed to his forehead, a long kiss that left his skin warm when it broke away.
Those eyes met his once more, a little more intent now, close to alive. A warm hand brushed up King’s cheek and down his hair, knuckles pressing through the strands against his neck.
“I’ll visit soon,” he said, “Wait for me.”
King blinked. His eyes were halfway open when he disappeared, a flicker of his shape all King got a glimpse of.
-
Saitama.
He didn’t remember the dream, but he remembered the name. It was firm in his mind when he woke up. King tried to think of anything else that had happened but all he could think of was Saitama, Saitama, remember that, Saitama.
Visits were sparse, not even visits, just glimpses. It seemed like Saitama came more to see King than for King to see him. Often he wouldn’t even announce his presence before he disappeared, leaving King with only a glance to know that he’d been there at all.
When they could talk, it seemed like the guy couldn’t hear him. That or he just ignored everything he said. King would ask who he was, what he was, why he was there, why he knew King, but all he’d get were blank stares or statements that had nothing to do with his questions.
A look at his embarrassing games collection. “You still play these, huh?”
A brush over his arm. “You should eat better.”
A kiss against his forehead. “I miss you.”
It should have been creepy. Even scary. It kind of was, when he thought about it, but when Saitama was there he just felt safe.
One night, in the bathroom, Saitama appeared as King was getting ready for bed. King saw him in the mirror’s reflection but didn’t turn around. He felt like when he turned, Saitama would be gone.
Saitama was staring at something and King followed his gaze to the reflection of his left eye.
Scars, three of them, thin and long down his face. King gasped and they vanished.
“I had to go.”
King nearly turned around at this but stopped. His eyes stayed frozen on Saitama’s reflection. For once he wasn’t looking at King, instead staring at the ground as though lost in thought.
“I could take it all with me,” Saitama went on, “but I couldn’t stay.”
King didn’t bother to ask more. He wouldn’t be heard.
Saitama’s eyes stayed on the ground.
“I don’t really get it either. Probably a dumb thing to do when I didn’t understand what I was doing. You would’ve told me off if you’d been there.”
King laughed a little. It felt empty.
“It’s weird here. And crowded. There’s no empty space between anybody.”
Saitama flickered out of sight for half a second. When he reappeared he was staring at King again.
“I miss you,” he said, “I’ll visit soon.”
His reflection stayed in the mirror, but frozen, like a frame of a buffering video. When King turned around he was gone.
King felt a kiss against his cheek that night as he drifted into sleep.
When he woke up his ceiling was intact, his chest was light, and Saitama was gone. And Saitama stayed gone. Years passed, until King forgot all but his name.
It was an echo in his thoughts that he couldn’t place, a sound associated with nothing. Something he mumbled aimlessly while washing dishes or drying himself after a shower.
“Saitama, Saitama,” he hummed, his towel circling over a plate. It was winter but he felt warm, like he’d been freshly hugged by arms he couldn’t see.
Snow drifted by the window outside and King watched it from the sink, feeling safe.
—