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When you go to bed at night, don’t leave the back of your geta pointing at the bed. Evil spirits can see it and they will know where to find you.
Takasugi woke up. He had this dream again, about his deceased mother and the legend she used to tell him when he was little. He never knew why this random piece of memory always came back to him, most of the time in dreams. Anything about his mother sounded calm and gentle, like a failed attempt to make up for the childhood he only had for a short time.
He tried not to resent the dreams, but they hit him with a sense of sadness. Or was it anger? His heart had long let go of sorrow to leave space for the burning rage, and eventually, Takasugi could no longer tell these emotions apart. He knew that he should not be angry thinking about his mother, and yet he could not help. She brought back a lot of good feelings, the ones he knew that he never deserved.
Takasugi turned to the side and was welcomed by the familiar smell of the person lying there. Their faces almost touched, and Bansai’s breath gently caressed his face, calming down the spiral of pains churning within him. Takasugi opened his eye and reached up. It was dark, but he knew where to look. They had been like that forever, every night, and sometimes day, when they had nothing better to do.
Bansai’s skin felt cold under his touch, almost icy. He heard the man turning, and was soon engulfed in an embrace. He knew that Bansai did not wake up – the man’s breath was even, suggesting that he was still asleep – so the hug was almost an act out of instinct. Takasugi could not help a fainted smile. It was typical for Bansai, always think toward him, even when his mind was not there.
He wrapped his arms around Bansai again, pulling him closer, and buried his face in the man’s chest. He sniffed, letting his mind be at ease for a few seconds, thinking about nothing but how good his subordinate smelled and how strange it was for an immoral manslayer to smell that assuring.
Perhaps it was his mind doing the trick, letting him have whatever it desired to feel. Perhaps it was not real. Perhaps none of it was real–
Takasugi woke up again. The sun was piercing through the gaps of his curtain, hitting his one good eye with its rays. The rumbles from outside of his cabin could be heard through the thin walls, and right now they sounded louder than ever. Takasugi rubbed his eye and tried to sit up. He was alone in the room, his geta placed neatly on the floor, with its back side pointed to the bed.
Bansai must have joined the other members out there. To him, every day was a busy day, doing trades and negotiations, delivering Takasugi’s messages, and helping him build his destruction plan. A thankless, painful job. The man should have seen this coming when he took Takasugi’s offer to join a terrorist group, but Takasugi doubted that Bansai would choose anything different even if he was well-informed.
It was never the job that drew Bansai to the Kiheitai. It was neither the wicked desire to destroy everything, nor the dream to rid the Earth of the despicable Amanto. It was hardly Takasugi’s ideology, either. Takasugi lit up the kiseru, took a long breath, and shook his head. Bansai never joined the Kiheitai because of them, or because of his cruel nature. He joined, precisely and solely, because of Takasugi.
He knew it the moment their eyes first met in the crowd, and he felt it again when they sat back to back in the prison cell. He could tell, by the passion in Bansai’s gaze, and by how he immediately wanted to return it, that they had a weirdly strong bond that could not easily break. It was indeed a bond made of sheer recklessness and from pure physical attraction, never rational or wise, but it was something.
And it was not like Takasugi would prefer anything else. It suited his nature. His whole life was already deranged and chaotic, another reckless decision, or in this case, bond, could not wreck it any further. He returned Bansai’s passion as soon as he could, never bothering the others’ eyes. Their lives were too short for embarrassment and minding judgments.
And Takasugi realized, at some point, that life was shorter than he thought. At one moment, Bansai was there with him, safe and sound, messing around the ship and scaring away whoever was unfortunate enough to walk into them in the act. Then the next moment, he was sent away, thrown into difficult tasks or suicide missions, designed by none other than Takasugi himself and his iniquitous mind.
There was the Kamotarou one, where Bansai got sliced by the chopper’s blades. Then the deals with the Amanto, where he first met that abomination Kamui. Then the time when Takasugi was unconscious and the damn Yorozuya was involved, and Bansai took a huge strike. Then the Enshou ambush. Were it another person, they would have run away from Takasugi and his deathly plans.
But Bansai remained. Takasugi was not sure if it was due to the man’s desire toward him – if it was, then Bansai was hopelessly stupid – or because Bansai had other motives – then he was extremely smart and persistent. Both of them – stupid and smart – suited him well, and yet there were times Takasugi felt like he could use none of the words to describe his mysterious subordinate.
And it did not help one bit when he put on the sunglasses later on, which blocked his eyes thoroughly and shielded his true thoughts away. As if reading him with his naked eyes was not hard enough. The man was like a puzzle of madness with endless twists. One mystery solved only opened another, and Takasugi feared that it would go on and on, into the vastness of unknown concepts, where Bansai’s true mind may be found.
“My mind is with you, always, Shinsuke. You know that.”
Startled, Takasugi turned to where the voice came from. Bansai was standing in a dark corner of the room, away from the sunlight. Darkness fell on his stern face, but some of the distant light could be seen reflecting in his sunglasses. As always, his feelings were well hidden, but Takasugi knew he meant the truth. He had no reason to lie to him, after all. He was his most trusted subordinate.
The air became damp and hot, all of a sudden. Takasugi set his kiseru aside, feeling like the smoke from it alone could add up to the heat. His vision wavered for a second, blurring Bansai’s silhouette in the sunlight. He blinked, and the man returned to his sight. Takasugi did not remember Bansai getting back to the room. He must have snuck in while Takasugi was deep in thought.
“Yes, I know,” Takasugi mumbled, half to himself, half to Bansai. He knew the man could hear him well, even without speaking it out.
“How can I help you today, Shinsuke?”
“Come closer,” he ordered. It sounded like a stupid command, but Takasugi knew Bansai was used to it. Sometimes verbal communication was too much for both of them, especially when they knew exactly what the other wanted.
As Bansai approached, Takasugi cast his eye up to the ceiling again. The sun seemed to get brighter, and his room felt hotter. He could hear a breeze at his curtains, but it was not enough to make it up to the heat. Then Bansai sat next to him on the bed. He grabbed the man’s arm, feeling the chill running through his body, chasing away the heat. Bansai felt cold when the world was hot.
Then Takasugi looked at his geta on the floor. The backside was pointing at his bed.
When you go to bed at night, don’t leave the back of your geta pointing at the bed. Evil spirits can see it and they will know where to find you.
Takasugi swung his eye open and darted to the floor. His geta was placed there, with the back side pointing to his bed. His mother’s words just came back to him, out of nowhere. He should have been used to its sudden strikes by now, and yet he still found himself startled. It was almost as if his deceased mother was trying to communicate with him.
He smiled bitterly. It was nice of her to reach out to him, but it would be too late. He was far too wrecked to be healed by the callback of a good time he never deserved. She should have been there when Sensei was killed, or when Takasugi lost his left eye, or when he met his friends again during the damned Benizakura incident. There was hope for him then, although the hope shrank after each time.
There was no hope now. After the Enshou ambush, hope to Takasugi sounded like faraway fantasy, unachievable dream, and fairytale snatched from his hands harshly by strokes of reality. Little by little, he felt the will to live squeezed out of him. He could feel the hands of Death clench around his heart. He used to stare Death in the eyes. Now he did not even bother.
If anything, he felt a slim strand of happiness, seeing his old friend-enemy-and friend again, feeling the firmness of his boney grip. If he died, perhaps all of these would end. If he died, perhaps he could talk to his mother and test if the legend she told him was true. If he died, he could meet Sensei. And if he died, perhaps he could see–
Bansai suddenly turned to him and wrapped him in his arms. Takasugi could feel the man’s hand over his hair, slowly petting him, like an owner to his fragile cat. He struggled out but was kept at bay by Bansai’s firm grip.
“It’s OK, Shinsuke. Just a bad dream.”
Takasugi did not ask why Bansai could tell that. It was probably a lucky guess, as a bad dream seemed to be the most probable thing that knocked people out of their sleep in the middle of the night. But he knew Bansai did not usually do lucky guesses. He knew about Bansai’s ability to hear songs that reflected people’s souls. He never knew Bansai could do it asleep, however.
It was amazing and terrifying at the same time. It made Takasugi wonder what Bansai may have known when he was awake. Perhaps he had witnessed it all, his past and his losses. Perhaps he had seen his guilt and self-hatred hidden well behind walls of irrelevant feelings. Perhaps he had heard the muffled scream of his dying soul. Perhaps he had known it all and decided to stay with Takasugi out of sheer pity.
“Is it, though?” Takasugi whispered his question.
“It's not. It's not pity that keeps me around, I daresay. It's never been. You know it.”
Takasugi was caught by surprise, and he was sure that his mouth was ajar. He was indeed referring to the pity as he said it, but Bansai should not know that. The last thing the man said to him was just a bad dream, so a more probable answer should be wrapped around the topic of bad dreams, not pity or Takasugi's other trains of thought.
What the hell is Bansai thinking? No, what the hell is Bansai?
“I am yours, Shinsuke. Always. Forever. Until the end of time. As long as you let me find you, I'll be there for you.”
His voice was warm, a stark contradiction to his icy skin. His breath was calm, and although it was dark, Takasugi could tell that Bansai was looking at him with his gentle eyes, full of longingness and passion. He knew because he was looking at Bansai the same way.
Mine. Always. Forever. Until the end of time.
With Bansai's assuring words chiming in his mind, and Bansai's hand gently stroking his head, Takasugi closed his eye, sinking into the land of dreams or nothingness. Nightmares were also there, but he chose not to think of them as a probability, now that Bansai was by his side.
The last thing he saw before his consciousness left reality, was his geta. They were placed nicely underneath, with the back side pointing at his bed.
Takasugi left his cabin, for the first time in many days. He felt the sun against his skin and the breeze ruffling through his hair. It was a beautiful day and he hated it.
Takasugi was a demon, and it was natural for a demon to despise nice things. A warm, sunny day, but not too hot because light breezes were around to balance against the sun's enthusiasm was the exact definition of what a demon could not stand. He was about to return to his cabin, but something caught his eye, and he decided to stay out for longer.
It was a turquoise silhouette carrying a shamisen on his shoulders, with a pair of sunglasses that reflected the sunlight. Sometimes Takasugi wondered how Bansai could keep a hidden identity with such an appearance. The colors of his hair, his clothes, the size of his shamisen, his height, all of them looked like a moving billboard. Once people laid their eyes on him, it was impossible to look away.
Takasugi was a living example of that. He could not be the only one.
The creaking of the floor behind him startled his thoughts. Takasugi turned around, right at the moment Matako approached him. The girl looked a bit puzzled catching his gaze, but she soon fixed her posture and nodded at him as a greeting gesture.
“Shinsuke-sama, I'm glad to see you out of your cabin.”
“Glad to see you, too. How long have I been in there?”
“Ten days. Takechi has started to worry, and so do I,” she said, then bit her lips, “I know it's hard, we are grieving, too, but–”
“We don't grieve, Matako,” Takasugi said, surprised at her sudden ominous attitude. He knew Matako, and the girl always seemed too hot-headed and too ruptured for such calm words. And now half of what she said did not even make any sense, “what are we even grieving for?”
“We– I– You– We should really–” she babbled, then cast her eyes away. “You are not ready for it, it seems.”
“I'm not ready for what, Matako?”
“The truth,” her words were flimsy like a breath, but Takasugi was sure it was what she said. The truth.
“The…truth?”
“You need some rest, Shinsuke-sama,” Matako sighed, and diverted the subject. It was a clumsy attempt, but Takasugi felt like agreeing to it. There was a wall in his mind preventing him from pressing further into whatever the truth was. Surprisingly, he did not resent it. He even felt more comfortable as they let it slide.
“Now, excuse me. I have…chores to do. You take some rest, please?” Matako said, and walked past him, aiming for the machine room.
“You can ask Bansai to help, it looks like he's free today.”
Matako stopped. She did not turn around so Takasugi could not see her face, but he felt the tension suddenly grow. Like there was an invisible but unbreakable thread flung into the air, tying around their throats, strangling the easiness out of them, and holding them down in place, preparing for the weight of an unspeakable, uncomfortable truth to fall over.
“I…sure will,” Matako finally said, breaking the heavy silence, “not now. But I sure would, if he–” she mumbled, then stumbled on her words, then started speaking again, only to cut herself off in the middle of a sentence. Her voice was audibly full of pain, and Takasugi thought he could hear the tears lurking in it.
He had no chance to ask Matako for more, because she had run toward the machine room and soon vanished behind the door, leaving him alone on the board with his scattered thoughts. Her footsteps still echoed in his mind, mixing with the creaking of the floor. He frowned. It was the first time he realized that her footsteps sounded different from his. They were stronger, heavier, and more solid.
Then he figured out that it was because Matako wore a pair of warrior boots, as opposed to his wooden geta. Different footwear brought out different sounds against the floor, it seemed. He closed his eyes and tried to recall what Bansai wore. It did not take him a lot of time. He knew Bansai like the back of his palm. The man liked boots, like Matako, but heavier, and they had the clanking sound of metal.
He wondered if the legend his mother told him, about placing the geta in the wrong way could attract evil spirits to the wearer, applied to other kinds of footwear. Maybe he should tell Matako that. The girl always listened to him, she would never laugh at him, or his superstition. Maybe then, Matako would see the things he saw.
It was late at night. It was dark, even the moon and stars seemed to not want to show up. It was as if they were scared away by the presence of some terrifying entity, someone who surpassed the darkest of the darkest monsters. Someone like Takasugi and his favorite subordinate. Perhaps the universe finally recognized the threats they posed.
His room felt a bit hot, and Takasugi was not sure if it was due to the weather, the smoke from his kiseru, the candle on the table, which served as his only source of light, or all of them combined. They had lost the electricity on the ship, and he was informed that it took two days to fix the system. Apparently, Matako messed something up when she came to the machine room.
Takasugi's attention shifted to Bansai, who was not yet in bed. The man sat idly at the far end of the room, with a shamisen on his lap, playing a melancholic song. Although Takasugi did not hate it — Bansai's skill was too extraordinary for anyone to hate — he felt it extremely painful. It sounded like a harmony used to see people off at the last verse of their life. A funeral song, literally.
The thought of a funeral knocked on the wrong door in Takasugi's mind, and although he did not know how it worked, the door was flung open out of the blue, filling his thoughts with his mother's words again.
When you go to bed at night, don’t leave the back of your geta pointing at the bed. Evil spirits can see it and they will know where to find you.
The words came to him right as he took off his geta, and a crazy thought popped up in his head. He had been placing his geta the wrong way — the evil-spirit-luring way — for no specific reason other than the fact that he did not care about the legend and just randomly put them in the most convenient position. What if he tried believing in it this time? What if he placed his geta the right way? What could happen?
So he did it. He flung one away from his bed and smirked with contentment as it flew further than he wanted, with the back side pointing at the wall. He shoved the other underneath the bed, the deeper the better. He ducked and looked at it, then nodded gladly as he saw its lie in parallel with the length of the bed. Now everything was set. He just needed to wait.
He knew that it looked childish, and sounded even more ridiculous. He could not help it, however. There was no one in the room but Bansai, anyway, and Bansai had seen the worse, wilder, kinkier, more stupid, utmost unexplainable things he had done. Throwing the geta randomly seemed pretty normal in comparison.
Nothing happened. Bansai did not even notice him. The song continued with his shamisen, reverberating through the wall, sending a surge of melancholy to the air and plunging the room into an eerie atmosphere.
“Bansai, come to the bed. I'm bored,” Takasugi said. He could feel Bansai's eyes dart in his direction, but much to his surprise, the man's gaze seemed like it had fallen into a void, running back and forth, trying to detect him. It was as if Bansai did not see where Takasugi was, and he was just trying to follow the sound of his voice to find him.
Bansai stopped playing, leaving his song unfinished. The melancholic melody lingered in Takasugi's ears, refusing to leave his head. He did not like the effect, but it was not what he should be worrying about now. His attention was on Bansai. The man looked…lost.
Bansai gently cast his shamisen aside and stood up. He started walking around the room, waving his arms in the air. He tilted his head to the left, squinted to the right, then turned around. His face looked puzzled. He took off his sunglasses, rubbing his eyes, which were clouded with confusion, and put them on again, only to take them off once more. His eyes landed on Takasugi and the bed a few times, but his face showed no sign of recognition.
As if they were not there.
“Shinsuke, where are you?” He asked.
“I'm right here. Is this one of your weird kinks? I'm not in the mood for it.”
“No, I'm serious. I can hear you, but I can't see you,” Bansai's voice now showed a hint of terror, “and where is the bed?”
“What do you mean, Bansai? It's here,” Takasugi raised his voice. Bansai was looking directly at him, yet the man did not seem like he had seen Takasugi.
His eyes left Takasugi again and were running madly around his head, desperately swiping from left to right.
“Where are you? I can't find you. Show me the way. Let me find you.”
Takasugi was about to retort when his eye suddenly caught something on the floor. It was his geta, the one he just sent flying through the room, with its back side facing the wall.
When you go to bed at night, don’t leave the back of your geta pointing at the bed. Evil spirits can see it and they will know where to find you.
“Let me find you.”
As long as you let me find you, I'll be there for you.
Evil spirits can see it and they will know where to find you.
“Let me find you, Shinsuke.”
As long as you let me find you, I'll be there for you.
As long as you let me find you, I'll be there for you.
As long as you let me find you, I'll be there for you.
As long as you let me find you.
As long as you LET ME find you.
The ambush on Enshou's ship.
Matako's weird reaction.
As long as you LET ME find you.
As long as you LET ME find you.
As long as you LET ME find you.
As long as you LET ME find you.
As long as you LET ME find you.
Takasugi sat in silence. A part of him observed Bansai scrambling around the room in terror and confusion, another part was drowned by his internal scream. As Bansai turned to look in the direction of his bed again, Takasugi saw his reflection in the man's sunglasses. His expressions were almost similar to Bansai's. Terror, confusion. Sorrow. Grievance. Pain. Anger.
He finally understood the meaning of the melancholic melody Bansai was playing.
“Are you OK, Shinsuke?”
“I am. I'm sorry. I will never do it again.”
“Do what again?”
“Not let you find me.”
He said, and gently stroke Bansai's hair. He kissed the man, passionately, the way he loved. His lips felt cold against Takasugi's touch, but he did not bother. As long as Bansai found him, nothing else mattered. They belonged together, always, forever, until the end of time.
Takasugi looked at his geta, which was placed neatly as usual under his bed. He guessed his mother was right, about evil spirits managing to find the ones who left their geta in the wrong position. Bansai was immoral when he was alive, apparently, he had become an evil spirit. And Bansai managed to find him only when his geta was placed like that.
The only thing his mother could be wrong was that she sounded worried speaking about an evil spirit. She thought all of the evil spirits meant to harm and brought misfortunes. It should be the other way around, at least in the case of Takasugi. An evil spirit brought him love and peace, comfort, and the cure for his pains. Or at least he hoped so.
He felt weak, and sometimes wrong. He knew that, somewhere from the depth of his mind, his logical conscience was screaming out for him to escape. Despite all of the hopes and lies he had lured himself into, he knew that it was an irrational and unwise decision to keep an evil spirit by his side.
But it was not like Takasugi needed anything rational and wise in his life. It was fucked up enough, nothing could wreck him further.
- fin -