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He never thought it was weird that he had never met them. He just kind of assumed it would come with the territory of not having his parents - his one link to his grandparents severed. It’s not that he didn’t like talking about it. Rather, he didn’t really have much to say about it, always dismissing any questions with a wave of the hand and a simple “It’s not an interesting topic…”
He was from Revachol, so it didn’t really matter anyways. Though, it’s not like many people cared enough to worry about where he was born. It didn’t matter to them, and so it wasn’t a concern for him. He could talk until his throat was hoarse but it wouldn’t have changed a thing - he didn’t belong here and he never would.
Sometimes, when he woke up, it wouldn’t occur to him. He could shower, drink his coffee, and zip up his jacket before the thought even entered his mind. But it always would when he went to fix his hair, readjust his glasses. Putting on the frames cleared what muddiness covered the reflection staring right back at him. Judgment reflected back at him, a mimicry of the looks he got in Martinaise.
Kim could see it in his facial hair, the way his skin maintained a warmth throughout the overcast months, the build of his body. His eyes were the most obvious part, a genetic expression created from generations of survival and adaptation. Instead of shielding his eyes from the cold or maintaining vision in windy climates, they only served to delineate him from his neighbors.
Of course, the thought creeped into his head, stealing the voices of childhood bullies, one-night stands, teachers, random passerby, his fellow officers.
“You don’t belong here,” it whispered. “You never have.”
His glasses came off again. A splash of cold water made its way onto his face, droplets used to cleanse the mind and face from the grime. Even so, Kim straightened out his back, smoothed back his hair. In the mirror was a shield of confidence, of stoic sobriety, and unbreakable disposition. It was the look of a man tired of this world, but still hopeful for the next.
He adjusted the collar of his jacket. The orange of the aerostatic fabric seemed to highlight the warm sunset he had woven into his skin. He may have been born in Revachol, but his body retained the memory of Seol. A white picket fence and front lawn wouldn’t change that. Nothing would.
When the detective made it clear he knew nothing of Kim, shaking hands and enthusiastically adjusting the horrid smudge of a necktie, it came as a surprise. Even if he had never met most of the members of the RCM, his name was common knowledge. That this man, stumbling and chatting awkwardly, would have no clue of who Kim was… it was refreshing.
No preconceived notions. No “Kimball.” No mumbled slurs under the breath. This man was a new chance, albeit one dressed in the most outlandish shoes Kim had ever seen. Who was Kim to judge? He was standing in his aerostatic jacket - a piece of clothing decidedly not the standard RCM attire.
The black aerostatic jacket had been a gift to himself when his thirty-ninth birthday had rolled around. While it was, arguably, an unnecessary purchase when compared to his already well-worn orange one, it had made Kim happy. The color, for some reason, reminded him of Seol. When he had shrugged the jacket around his shoulders, he had felt an immediate strike through his core, bringing the isola to the front of his mind.
He had wondered why it had happened. Maybe one of his grandparents had been part of that revolution, flying into a future they hoped to shape for their children. Kim tried to imagine his grandfather. Maybe he had kept a notebook in the interior breast pocket, much like his grandson would when he joined the RCM. Maybe he had kept a photo in that notebook, of his son and his family - a reminder of the reason for the fight.
Kim thought of his father’s father, almost certainly dead at this point, and was hit with a sense of grief for a man he had never met.
Had his grandfather been buried with his family? Did they visit him during the mid-autumn to brush leaves from the grave? Would cousins and sisters and brothers and parents gather around tables, eating and chatting in thanks to the name of the dead? The answer to all of these questions was a resounding “almost certainly so.”
Would Kim be buried alongside his family? Would anyone spend their autumn evenings with his spirit at their table? Almost certainly not. His mouth had never formed the sounds of Seolite, his boots had never held the soil of the land in their soles. He wasn’t a Seolite, but a Vacholiere - if anyone could ever conceive of using the word to describe him.
The weight of his thoughts caught up with him, like a cold breeze slamming into one sitting in the warm sunshine. Kim fiddled with his pockets, pulling a chestnut-smelling cigarette from one of the interiors. It was quite early for this , he thought, lighting the end. But there is little to do now.
He wasn’t sure how long he had been “Kim Kitsuragi.” He had been told the name was chosen especially by his parents, one of the few things they had given him in their short time together. His eyes, his name, his being - the only three things left of them he had.
The first time another person said his full name aloud, he was told his name was unusual. Not a very common name for a man, they had said; let alone a Revacholian man remained unsaid. Kim had known this. He had inhabited the shell of his name for twenty years at this point, the edges worn and softened like a favorite garment of clothing but with none of the nostalgia. It had been a sense of turmoil for him at one point, he recalled. But he hadn’t wanted to discard that thing so precious, left to him by his parents, so he maintained it, while his body and his mind changed throughout time. The name had remained a constant as his body was reborn, all bony and lanky and lean, desperate to cling to life.
He had crawled out from the earth under this name, and he would be entombed back into the earth with it. It would be engraved in his heart like a name upon a headstone, no matter how much it had hurt to chisel it in. The dirt under his nails could be covered by his gloves all he wanted, but it would always be there.
It was there in his eyes, in his voice, in the steadiness of his gait. It sloped off his shoulders as they gently bobbed along his steps, and whispered in the wind that caught his hair off the top of his head. It persisted when he swallowed and breathed and let nothing but his heart beat. All of it said, “I am Kim Kitsuragi, and I am here without compromise.”
There were days where Kim had not been “Kim Kitsuragi.” He had been “John Shao.” He had been “that one with the glasses.” He had been “sit up straight and pay attention!” But in all, his heart had kept beating, a rhythm he neither recognized nor could ever fully replicate.
It was like the slow thrum of a melody behind his ribcage, comforting like a baby would find its mother’s. When his lungs had wheezed and blood was spilled, still his heart had beat its remarkable tune. Eyes had once asked him where he thought the beat came from and Kim could not answer, though he had wanted to. Any answer he could form in his mind felt like a lie, and Eyes could always see through a lie. In substitution for a better answer, Kim had shrugged and looked off into the distance where the sun met the horizon for its nightly slumber. The sunset had never looked so new.
Laying in bed at night was one of his least favorite pastimes, he had decided. Too many thoughts clouded his mind, each one like a gauzy film tangled in the threads of his mind, unable to be unknotted without his complete conscious attention. On these nights, he had often sat on the ledge of the large window nearest his coat rack. If he hadn’t yet indulged, it was maybe the best time for his daily cigarette.
The bright red orange of the flame softened the hazy blue that seemed to cover the world, bathed in moonlight and blanketed in quiet. Everything had felt muted, more gentle during these nights. Smoke curled around his fingers and floated up to the ceiling before dissipating and Kim wondered if he could do the same one day; to float and be taken by the world.
No matter how long he had stayed in the apartment, no matter how maintained his routine was, it always felt slightly uncomfortable. It was like a sweater with the sleeves slightly too short, shrunk in the dryer but not so much as to make it immediately obvious. Kim felt isolated in these moments, the moon seemed to nod in agreement. The lights of the city were a shallow imitation of the stars.
He had never felt so alone in these moments as the last of his cigarette burned down. But, he wondered, had he ever felt anything but loneliness? The cavern in his chest was hollow, save for the same rhythmic beating of his lonesome heart. Though he usually would not have pondered it, these moments seemed to prompt him to think of his parents, his grandparents.
Where would they have been at this point? He’d like to imagine them, greying hair and curving spines, sitting knee to knee at a table, drawing breaths in one another’s space. They would talk about their son and how much they hoped he was doing well. His mother would hold out her hand and his father would grasp it in his. They would look out at the moon together, knowing their son was staring at the same moon somewhere out there.
Sometimes, he could imagine his father looked like him, with more salt and pepper hair (slowly being overtaken by the salt), thick frames with even thicker lenses. The same nose, the same crooked smile, and the same patchy facial hair. His mother was less easy to imagine, but he always thought of her as gentle. Her hair would probably be pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck, soft shoulders under a softer blanket, and delicate hands like that of a piano player. Maybe they shared his eyes, but he was never too sure.
More often than not, however, they were like fuzzy photographs, the outlines of their bodies clear and chiseled, but their faces a hazy blur - as if someone had smeared the ink on the drying image, out of focus like they were obscured by a layer of the Pale. But they were always smiling, and he knew without seeing that there were crows’ feet wrinkling at the outsides of their eyes.
They murmured in Seolite, a language so foreign to Kim, yet all the more familiar. It sounded like gently played piano keys, softened vowels and gentle consonants held in the mouth. When he was out in the world, he could recognize its sounds and its letters, but never what they meant. It was like that same beat in his chest - familiar but never quite distinguishable. His heart had ached when he thought about it.
Where did he belong? He knew he had been born on this soil, learned to read and walk and speak and breathe its being. But he had a part of him on a far off isola, in the soil where his grandparents had planted peach trees and been buried amongst them. There were sprinkles of him in buildings he would never touch, paths he would never walk, and relatives he would never meet. Was there a word for this aching he felt? Was there a way to describe the feeling of missing and mourning that which he had never grasped?
On those nights that felt especially blue, he drank in honor of that Kim-that-had-never-been. He drank for the Kim that could speak in piano keys and hold the hands of his parents in his own. He drank for the peach tree burials and the Paled faces he could never seem to recall. And he drank especially for the rhythm he could never accurately name.
There was never any shame in it, he asserted. He had survived and been given a life he could have been deprived of. But still, he felt empty on those nights when it was just him and the Kineema, driving down winding roads and quiet streets. His gloves tightened around the steering mechanism, willing his mind to settle in the familiar crevice of soft repression. The lights of Martinaise seemed to twinkle like bokeh lights in a photograph, a hazy representation of the backdrop upon which he had grown.
He stopped sometimes, upon that great hill that overlooked the inlet, and felt the nerves of the city. His partner had once called it the “shivers.” No matter how hard he tried to electrify himself, the nerves felt dulled, repressed, almost ground down. The connection he had so desperately craved was so deeply unfulfilling. He pretended not to notice the lump of disappointment in his throat as he climbed back into the driver’s seat. He should have known better than to have hoped the city would take him as he was.
Maybe nobody ever would. For all the small moments of belonging Kim had felt, he had felt twice as many moments of depression that settled in his spine. The Kineema, ever the loyal companion, carried its driver home, never asking questions or judging the weight of emotion within it. How sad it is to have a car be your best friend .
Kim locked his door, untied and nudged off his boots by the door, hung up his orange jacket next to the black one, and ran his hands down his face in exhaustion. His perch in the window was vacant, as it always was, and so he sat and looked out at the starry city.
The sky was turning a lavender color, shifting pink and orange. The sun was rising in Revachol and in Seol. But who was to say if they were the same sunrise?