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“Hey, I’ll be back soon,” She lies, “Take care of Zenko for a while, okay?”
“How long?”
She looks down and doesn’t say anything, hand on the doorknob. The cold floods the living room, carried in a draft. It ruffles Bad’s undershirt as he gazes at her longingly, “How long, mom?”
She purses her lips as tears threaten to fall, turns around, and walks out.
Bad sits up in bed, hands holding fistfuls of the sheet to either side of him. As with any tumultuous slumber, there’s a brief moment after waking up where the brain lags to discern dream from reality and all that has been witnessed is real for one fleeting minute. For one fleeting minute, his mom is still here and she just left. For one fleeting minute, he can run after her. But the minute is over, and he’s seventeen years-old and Zenko is sleeping down the hall and their mother isn’t here anymore. The minute is over, and he stares at the wall in the dark as Garou snores next to him, sleeping with a peace that borderline makes Bad jealous. The minute is over, and reality punches him in the gut. Time and time again, the minute comes and goes. And he chases it like a high because his favorite dream is the one where he actually runs after her, catches her, and convinces her to stay. Any minute where that’s real is worth all of the other minutes spent crying afterwards.
Bad gets up, a sting at the back of his throat. Garou catches his arm harshly and rolls over halfway, golden eyes glinting in the dark like the lens of a flashlight, “Where’re you going?” He murmurs.
Bad yanks himself out of Garou’s grasp and stands, “I’m gonna go get a drink of water. Probably gonna piss too. What, you wanna hold my dick?”
Garou snorts and rolls back over, “Don’t take too long, your body heat is the only thing keeping me from freezing to death in here. Your house is like a damn igloo.”
“Oh, shut up. Freeloader.”
“Love you.” He stirs and closes his eyes, drifting off back to sleep. Bad watches like he were watching a shooting star, goddamnit, you’re lucky you’re pretty. He plants a gentle kiss on Garou’s forehead before walking down the hall with slank. Garou opens his eyes and watches Bad’s silhouette move in the dark through a sliver in the doorframe, and he can tell by the way Bad stomps down the stars that something isn’t right.
Bad goes to the kitchen. He fishes out a container of cup noodles, heats up some water, pours it in the cup, and waits for double the recommended cooking time with his chin on the dining room table, tears rimming the whites of his eyes. He sniffs, curls of vapor rising from the cup.
Garou slinks into the kitchen, pulling one of Bad’s undershirts over his chest. “Hey,” He says, eyes heavy with a post-slumber drag. Bad can’t hear Garou over the sound of his own mother’s voice playing on repeat in his head like a broken record: “I love you son. I’ll be home soon. I’m so proud of you. You make me so happy—“
Garou clears his throat. The record stops. Bad turns around, “Uh.”
Garou points to the noodles with a crooked finger, “Did you make me any?”
“No.” He wipes his eyes, leaving a wet trail on his shirt sleeve.
“Hey,” Garou approaches and kneels before his chair, “What’s up?”
“Don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Okay,” Garou pulls up a seat next to him, “whenever you’re ready, I’ll listen.”
“It’s not—“ He sniffs, eyes downcast to the linoleum, “Why are you out of bed? Now you’ve got me crying and—“
“Shut up. I came down here to check on you and see if you’re okay—which you aren’t. Now, if you want me to leave,” Garou gets up, Bad catches his arm.
“No, don’t.”
“Okay, then.” Garou sits back down, “so get on with it already, what’s up?”
Bad, half out of his own stubbornness and half out of pride, stares absently into the noodles without saying anything. Garou has an eyebrow raised, leaning back in the chair. He waits. Bad takes a shaky breath, the first tear falling. “It’s complicated.”
“Pssh. I figured.” Garou says sarcastically. Bad shoots him a glare. “What? I didn’t come down here because I thought you were crying over spilt milk. I know it’s complicated, dipshit.”
Bad wants to call Garou a stupid cunt but his mind is busy with what to say next, month open but no words coming out. He stutters, eyes downcast in shame. “It’s my mom. She—“ he hiccups, “I had a weird dream and it was like, she was there. You know? It just—“ he pauses, “Shut up,”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“Your silence speaks volumes.”
Garou purses his lips and Bad can tell by the tone of his voice that he’s sincere when he says, “I’m not here to judge. We’re dating now so we’re kind of like, two ends of a seesaw working to keep each other balanced emotionally or some shit. Bang told me that. The guy’s got good metaphors.” And there’s no sarcasm whatsoever. Garou’s words are sharp and they can be as dangerous as his hands, but these words are tender and it makes Bad feel as if he were in a gentle embrace.
He takes a deep breath, “yeah, you’re right.” A damp sleeve takes to his eyes again, “You know, my mom walked out on us when I was erm, thirteen.”
“Mhm.”
He’s silent. He’s not choosing his next words, they’ve already been chosen and thought of over and over on many sleepless nights in preparation for the day someone actually leans down and asks him what’s wrong. Like tonight. But it’s hard to open his mouth, and his jaw is tight, and his brain is flashing a warning as he goes over the many instances that can occur once those words come out. Words that have already been chosen and thought of over and over on many sleepless nights in preparation for the day someone, someone like Garou, asks him what’s wrong.
He talks and it’s like a choke, “I wish she just died.”
Garou doesn’t react, instead looking at Bad with the same intent he had a minute ago. Bad continues, “I wish she had just died instead of leaving. Because then I could pretend she still loved us. I wish she had just died in something tragic and uncontrollable like a monster attack or a car accident because then it wouldn’t be our faults. I’ve thought about the police coming to our door and telling us ‘I’m sorry, there was nothing we could do,’ and we’d attend her funeral and that would be the end of it.”
He’s sobbing now, body jolting sporadically as if it were hard to not outright wail in despair. His grief is like a dragon in a birdcage: angry, unhinged, and eager for release. His voice is reduced to squeaks and hiccups, tone jagged like a mountain range and tears cresting his lips, nostrils flared and face red. He goes on, “and we’d attend her funeral and that would be the end of it. She’d be dead and I wouldn’t ever wonder where she is now or what she’s doing in her new family or if she even has a family at all. I wouldn’t ever wonder anything because she’d be dead. Thing is, she isn’t dead and she is out there somewhere and I don’t know where or with who or why she even left in the first place. I’ll never know what I did wrong or what made her go, but I know I just wasn’t good enough for her to stay.”
Garou takes a sharp inhale, “You know,” he looks ahead, face blank with a focused flint, the face of someone who’s heard it all before because he’s said the inverse of it all before many times to Bang about the absence of his own parents and he’s jaded to death with it. “I’m sure you weren’t an easy kid because you’re sure as hell ain’t an easy teenager, but it’s not your fault. And I’m not gonna pretend like you haven’t heard that a million times but it’s true, you can think of every ending to the same story but the fact is: shit happens and sometimes there ain’t a damn thing you can do about it besides cry and find some closure.”
“I know.” Bad sniffles, “it just sucks.”
“Yeah. People like us just get shitty starts to life but the good thing about us being kids when it happens is that we’ve got the whole rest of our lives to figure shit out.”
“But we’ve also got the whole rest of our lives to live with it and suffer.”
“True, but like I said.” Garou clicks his tongue, “shit happens. And it’s not your fault if it does.”
“I feel like a piece of garbage for wishing my mom was dead.”
“I’m sure you do, but I can tell you right now,” Garou says, recalling the dual funerals he attended years prior, “It’s not much better.”
Bad turns his head and looks at Garou, and their eyes meet. Gold and black. The white-haired boy speaks, “My parents are actually dead. And sometimes I wish they had just walked out on me because death really is the end of it and if they were out there somewhere, if there were even the slightest chance that I could see them again, then I would be ecstatic. You’ve got that chance. Now, granted, your mom sounds like a piece of shit for leaving you but, at least you can find some closure somewhere.” He looks away, face contorted into a snarl, “My closure is buried in the City Z cemetery.”
Bad blinks, face twitching with each teardrop, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m sick of it.” Garou looks back to him with seriousness lining his face, “You’re not a piece of garbage, Bad. You’re just another kid in grief, there’s millions of them out there, there’s one sitting in front of you right now, and it doesn’t get better. It gets tolerable.”
“That’s how it seems.”
“Yeah.”
“You really suck at this.”
“But aren’t you feeling better?”
“Kind of. In some weird, tough-love way.”
“D’aww.” Garou’s gaze falls to the table, “So, where’s your dad? Grandparents? Uncles? Aunts?”
Bad shakes his head, “I don’t know.”
Bad is a family-oriented person with no family and that in of itself is the real tragedy. Garou has mercy and takes Bad’s hand in his, “Well, you’ve got a sister. She’s a little shit but she loves you.” Bad laughs. “And then you’ve got your future husband right here. We’ve got our own little family, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Bad’s smile dissipates. “God, it’s like a fucking black hole in my heart, dude.”
“I know,” Garou holds an arm out, “come here.”
Bad takes the invitation and they embrace. The yellow light emanating from above casts their bodies into long shadows and in the silhouettes moving over the tile, they become one in a tight, open-armed, full-bodied hug. Bad digs his face into Garou’s shoulder and outright wails in despair. The dragon is in a birdcage no more. He grips Garou by two white-knuckled fistfuls of fabric and his cries, although muffled, are loud and desperate. He closes his eyes tightly, body jolting sporadically, hiccuping, squeaking, wheezing for air as if he were drowning in his own sorrow. Garou is still and emotionless, arms around Bad with the same sincerity he carried in his voice earlier.
Bad stops and realizes that Zenko is sleeping upstairs. He pulls away and their two faces are inches apart, and Garou is looking exhausted and Bad is looking twisted in a weep. “Oh, I’m gonna wake up Zenko.” He sniffs, “I should— uh,”
“Oh, shut up.” Garou pulls Bad’s face back into his shoulder. “Zenko can deal with it. Let’s think about you for a minute, yeah?”
Bad’s still in the middle of a sob, “Y-Yeah...” and he cries and cries and cries some more because the floodgates have been opened and they won’t shut until every last teardrop has been expelled. And once every teardrop has been expelled and the gate doors rattle in the wind, he’ll still cry. It’s almost a talent, the way Bad feels emotions to a higher degree than everyone else. He cries even when there’s no tears left to fall, he gets angry even when there’s no energy to be spent, and he gets happy even when there’s nothing to be happy about. His emotions are like a dragon in a birdcage.
It’s been about fifteen minutes and Garou’s content just sitting here being used as a human pillow for Bad’s sobbing. There’s a wet spot in the shirt he’s wearing where Bad’s tears have accumulated but he couldn’t care less because it’s not his shirt. Finally, Bad is quiet, and he’s so quiet that Garou thinks he’s fallen asleep until suddenly he sits up, fixes his hair marginally, and leans back in his chair with a satisfied exhale. “Thanks.”
Garou blinks tiredly, “No problem.”
“I do actually feel better now.”
“I’m sure you do.” Garou clicks his tongue, yawning, “It’s okay to break down like that every once and a while so long as you pick yourself back up and keep going. Sometimes though, when you put yourself back together, you leave a few pieces behind, and that’s why I’m here. I’m gonna help you put yourself back together one-hundred percent each time. That’s like, relationship shit.”
“Did Bang tell you that one too?”
“No, I made it up. Pretty good, huh?”
Bad rolls his eyes, “Oh, the poetry.”
Garou points at the cup noodles on the table, now gone cold, “what’s the deal with this? The noodles are overcooked to shit now.”
Bad looks at it like he’d just noticed it was there, “oh, it’s dumb. My mom used to put one out for me before I got home from school and I’d always overcook it because I’d be too busy watching cartoons or some shit. I was gonna eat them and put on some cartoons and pretend she was still here for a minute... until you came down.”
“Do you do that often?”
“Often enough to have a cabinet full of noodles.”
“Oh, that’s...” Garou is about to say sad but stops in a rare stint of self-restraint. “That’s... neat.”
“Hm.” Bad looks out the window. The sun starts to rise. Their shadows no longer blot out the floor for the yellow light hanging above is dwarfed by the sunlight cresting over the horizon and gracing the kitchen with a golden blanket. The sky is a pink and navy blue gradient, stars fading away like individual lights switching off one after another over the view of a great city. The clouds have golden underbellies. The birds start to sing. And the black of night recedes like a tide, only to rise again later. “What time is it?”
“Time to watch the damn sunrise and forget things for a minute.” Garou says, head turned to the window. Bad looks, and in their faint reflection he can see Garou looking at him as if he were the sunrise. It makes his ears feel hot but he endures the blush to see that dreamy look on Garou’s face as he watches him like a shooting star.