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In the mornings, Kobeni takes the train.
Her blazer is stuffy, and it only lends to the closed-in feeling that makes every ride on the train uniquely miserable. She hates the feeling of bumping into other strangers, and she shies away from contact in the crowded train car. A slight jostle, an incidental touch; she does not quite flinch, but her body twists away, a strange contortionist on a morning commute, grasping her dirtied hand strap like a lifeline.
She's never liked trains much, but she likes them even less, now. People of all ages, all walks of life, crammed in a small space together, reeking of sweat and perfume and mint chewing gum, and don't they know that if there were an attack right now, there would be nowhere to run—
But if she walked, she would be late to her job interview. So Kobeni takes the train.
She's late anyways. She apologizes relentlessly when she gets there, but she knows, knows her palms are sweaty, and her hair is falling out of its once-neat bun, and her pencil skirt won't stay straight no matter how many times she smoothes it. Her interviewer - the manager of a fast-food restaurant - gives her a once-over when she arrives, and doesn't look particularly impressed.
He glances over her resume, a long list of short stints that never amounted to much. She can see where he stutters in his reading, where, in the long chain of mediocre work at convenience stores, gas stations, and fast-food restaurants, one job sticks out.
She hadn't wanted to include it, honestly. She had written up a version of her resume before without it, printed it out neatly at the local library, but it hadn't felt right. And she thought it may be an asset, anyways, if her future employer thought she was half-decent at self-defense; or that she would be able to keep her calm in situations of stress; or, if they thought, beyond the nervous exterior, that maybe she was secretly competent.
She steels herself, prepares for him to ask.
"Higashiyama-san," he says. The sound of her name in his mouth startles her into a flinch. Her fists, balled up in her skirt, tighten against the fabric.
"Y-yes?"
"This is quite an interesting history of employment," he says neutrally. Her head ducks down, and she stares at her knees.
"Y-yes, sir," she says quietly.
"What led you to... hm. What led you to leave your... past career choice?" It hangs between them, the words he won't say. Just say it, Kobeni can't help but think, shocking herself with the sudden anger coursing through her veins, you asshole, you coward, you good-for-nothing piece of shit, just say it, just fucking ask, I know you must want to know so bad—
"It just wasn't really a good fit for me," she tells him meekly.
"Mm," the interviewer says, shuffling his papers. Kobeni knows she will not be getting a call back.
She walks back home. There's no time table to adhere to, nothing to rush to, nothing to be on time for. Her skin feels itchy, like there's something crawling in her blood, coiling around her heart.
She could be doing more. This is a fact: one which chokes her every day, makes her feel like she cannot breathe beneath the weight of her own worthlessness. She could be working harder, doing better. Maybe if she wasn't so useless, she could stop whining and finally do something with herself.
But she can't suddenly stop being useless, in the same way that a penguin can't suddenly decide to fly, or a devil can't suddenly decide to be good. It's a matter of nature. So she ducks her head down, doesn't make eye contact with any of the passing strangers, and quickens her pace.
She keeps her eyes down as she navigates the crowded sidewalk, but there, out of the corner of her eye, she sees -
a calming presence, a friend, a lighthearted laugh-
a frightening mask-
a gentle soul-
a broad-shouldered man, taller than the people around him, wearing a white hoodie, walking in the opposite direction. She turns around, and, for a moment, her heart soars-
It's not Violence.
Kobeni stands still in the middle of the sidewalk and feels very stupid. She watches the broad-shouldered stranger walk down the street until he disappears into the crowd. She stands there for a long time.
She's chopping the peppers for the stir-fry she's making for dinner. The knife gleams dully in the dim light of the kitchen, only illuminated by the TV in the corner. She's hardly focused on anything - the movement of the knife is rote, nearly mechanical.
It's a familiar feeling, the knife in her hands. The only thing missing is the blood dripping down the tip. She lifts it gingerly, holds it up flat before her face, so that she can see her reflection in it. There's something hypnotic, almost, about the dullness of her eyes reflected in the gleam of the metal.
The sesame oil starts to burn. Kobeni startles, dropping the knife on the cutting board. How long had she been standing there?
She turns the stove off in a panic. Lifting the pan off and into the sink, she puts on the water to cool down the pan, berating herself all the while. A puff of steam lifts into the air.
In the background, the TV continues to drone. Apparently, the confirmed deaths in the Tokyo neighborhood that had been destroyed by Chainsaw Man had risen as rescue teams sorted through the rubble. She thinks about her last job, then, and the memories wash over her like a bucket of ice. She remembers ice cream and arcade games. She remembers tripping, and falling, and failing, failing worse than she had ever failed before.
The pan is forgotten under her hand, the peppers abandoned in the corner, but the TV stays on. She watches the news anchors, small and solemn on the screen, and commits the numbers to memory: the dead, the missing, the injured.
Each moment of the program stings, as she watches the edited-for-television footage of a massacre she inadvertently caused. It hurts so badly, she can't breathe.
She doesn't turn it off. She lost that right when fear and sentimentality combined created cowardice, when that devil walked into her workplace all those weeks ago and she did nothing. The steam from the pan is choking her, but she doesn't dare move.
Her mother stopped calling once she realized Kobeni wouldn't pick up.
She keeps her answering machine unplugged, now, only turning it back on every few days to see if any potential employers had called her back. They never do, and so the answering machine mostly stays in the drawer Kobeni had unceremoniously shoved it into.
She has another interview scheduled for tomorrow: a gas station in need of another attendant. It's part time, and the pay is dirt, but she's desperate and honestly doesn't care. So Kobeni smoothes out her button-up shirt and pencil skirt as best as she can, folding them up on the floor next to her futon.
She doesn't think tomorrow will be any different. But something stops her from giving up on this charade of a life, the endless monotony of failure and disappointment and loneliness. Maybe, even though she hasn't spoken to her family in weeks, it's her sense of duty toward them, toward the brother she tried so hard to put through college.
Maybe it's the idea of someday going herself.
She thinks, after all the pain, she'd like to do something beautiful with her life - not dirty, or violent, or painful. Something pleasant, something kind.
Perhaps she'd like to be an artist, the kind who painted sunsets and drew people smiling.
She doesn't know if she can do it. She doesn't even really think she can do it. But she thinks about someone she once knew. A person who defied every expectation of what he was, what he was meant to be, and found the strength within himself to be good. The strength to be kind.
For a moment, she imagines it: hair tied back, a brush in hand, a canvas stretched before her. It settles something within her, like a piece locking into place.
She holds the feeling tight as she curls up in her futon, clutches it to her chest and doesn't let go.