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“I am long gone, dearest. No magic spell or ritual will bring me back into your arms again, but do not forget, my love, that I will haunt your waking hours with my voice and your dreams with my lips. You will yearn for me, but I will never return. I have loved you with every last ember of my soul, but now I have burnt into nothingness. I would ask you to forget me. I would ask you to move along and find a new spark, but I’m afraid I am far too much of a coward to even dare. You have dared to love a coward, a liar, a fraud, and now you must pay the price, my dearest.”
The lights of Shibuya never dimmed, much to Dice’s distaste. He never paid much mind to this in his time on the streets as a teenager. He grew to adapt and ignore the blinding neon as he ducked into a safer looking alleyway he could find refuge in for the night. Tonight, though, they were dreadful. Dice’s head throbbed as he tucked his head into his folded arms. He had hoped to return to his old park; there he could sleep on the same old bench he used to haunt and get away from the glaring city lights, but the unending rain seemed to dislike this plan of his.
Dice’s pockets felt heavy with nothingness. He couldn’t remember where his phone went. Did he gamble it away? Did he pawn it off for extra cash? Did he leave it at the bar? God, he really couldn’t remember. Not that it mattered anyways. The aftertaste of cheap whiskey stung his throat. Who would he call anyways? Ramuda? No, he couldn’t face him. He couldn’t face anyone now. Dice had finally become what onlookers had always thought of him. Dice had finally become truly pathetic.
“Now you must pay the price, my dearest.”
Dice’s chest heaved somewhere between a sob and a cough. He felt ill, truly ill. He remembered going into that bar, the one just down the street. He remembered grinning at the bartender and requesting whatever would get him fucked up the fastest. He remembered her laugh and the pouring of the first drink. That was it. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Dice tensed, curling further into himself.
Dice was never a fan of thunder. He remembered the stormy nights in his large, quiet home as a child. Mother and Father were off on work trips or in important meetings as the storm outside his window raged. He cried, huddling himself into his duvet. He had hoped, just once, Mother and Father would put their work down for a moment to hold him; to pull him into their warmth and tell them he was safe with them. That never did happen, no. Rather, the next time it stormed, Mother and Father yelled outside his room. They argued and roared along with the booming lightning outside.
“Dice?” His voice called, beckoning Dice back from his trance. He hadn’t realized he was beginning to tremble. Dice was staring out the window, duvet clutched tightly in his grip and unwilling to lay back down. “Dice are you okay?”
Gentaro sat up, leaning closer to observe Dice’s whitened knuckles and wet cheeks. A storm had rolled in some time after they had gone to bed. The thunder shook the apartment, waking Dice from his peace in a storm of memories.
“...Are you afraid of thunder?”
The question made Dice feel small again, but he could not find it in himself to feel any shame in front of his lover. Not anymore, at least. Dice met his gaze, pupils dilated in child-like terror. Gentaro’s features softened uncharacteristically, lifting a hand to gently hold his lover’s face. “Oh, darling…”
Dice had felt safe then. That was when Dice realized that “home” was in fact not a place he could find, but rather a feeling; a person. He shivered, the shelter of the alleyway did only so much for the heavy rain that pounded down on Shibuya tonight. His coat was now soaked through, providing such little warmth to his already trembling form.
God, he felt so pathetic.
Never before had the prospect of death bothered Dice. Death was not a threat to him, but rather another gambling piece in the game that was his life. If he played his cards right, he was to live another day on the high that was victory. If Lady Luck had finally gotten bored of him, he would rightfully lay his life down before her new devotee. That was before things began to change; before they ruined his simple way of living.
Dice remembers the first time he feared death. Ramuda was doubled over, blood coating his hands and face as he coughed in a way that made Dice’s gut twist in disgust. Ramuda yelled, yelled for the two of them to get him his candy and never even think of bringing him into a hospital. This fear, this overwhelming dread Dice had begun to feel that night, would never leave him again.
The second time, Dice remembers, was the first time he had been in a hospital as a visitor rather than a patient since his youth. He remembers standing in the sterile waiting room, anxiously fidgeting with his lucky dice in his pocket. Surely luck would get him out of this, no? Luck was what he had lived off of in this simple life, and he was still here, right? That was what he told himself as the doctor pushed the door open, a solemn expression covering his face.
“I’m afraid he won’t make it, Mr. Arisugawa.” The doctor had stated quietly, hand resting on Dice’s shoulder carefully. Dice’s head felt dizzy, spinning and numb. The doctor continued to softly speak, but Dice could not process a single thing he was telling him. His eyes were wide as he stared seemingly at the doctor, but Dice did not see him. His heart raced, the same way his heart would race when he had just hit the jackpot, but this time the feeling made him sick to his stomach. Something had changed within him.
“...He wants to speak to you.” Dice managed to catch amongst the many other things the doctor said to him. He nodded his lead-heavy head and followed the doctor back into the hospital room.
Bile crawled up Dice’s throat at the sight before him. Gentaro lay there, pale and unmoving, as though he had become a corpse already. His jade eyes were cloudy, pupils dilated by the harsh artificial light of the hospital room. His soft pink lips have become chapped and white with sickness. The pleasant flush that always seemed to cover his soft cheeks when Dice entered the room was drained from his complexion. Dice gagged.
“Now you must pay the price, my dearest.”
Dice was laying down now. The cold, wet cement of the alleyway welcomed his shivering form in its embrace. He was becoming rather numb to the biting cold, actually. His fingers and toes felt pleasantly warm now despite their heavy numbness. He remembered feeling hungry a few hours ago, when he first left the bar, but now his stomach felt a pleasant warmth as well.
It had been a month; a month since he passed in that cold hospital room. Dice had not seen Ramuda since the funeral. Dice did not say a word to Ramuda, nor did he say anything to anyone else. Dice had simply said his goodbyes and left. It seemed to all that that was it of Arisugawa Dice. Some saw a cold, uncaring “friend” of Yumeno’s, while others saw the walking corpse of what used to be Yumeno’s hedonistic lover.
On nights like these, Dice would find himself huddled on Gentaro’s doorstep, weakly knocking and pleading with the author to let him in, at least until the storm passed. Reluctantly, Gentaro would always oblige and let him, eventually, spend the night by his side. He would feed and bathe Dice, providing a warm and safe place for his beloved friend. He would let Dice hold him while the thunder passed, whispering soft fantastical stories that distracted him from his childish fear. Dice learned to love stormy nights like these.
It had been a month, though, since he had the safety of his lover. Dice embraced the cold, uncaring streets once more, turning his back on all that had changed since Ramuda recruited him.
The soft yowling of a familiar stray cat brought Dice back from his thoughts. Her wet head pushed against Dice’s face that had previously been buried in his arms. She stared at him, another demanding meow directed at his shaking self. If Dice had the energy, he would have laughed and opened his arms, letting her curl up against his body for any remaining warmth he had, but Dice could no longer feel his arms.
“Oh, darling…. shh… you’re okay, I’m here… I won’t go anywhere, I promise. Rest, my dearest, you can rest now. The storm will pass soon. I promise.”