Chapter Text
“God is asthmatic. God is involved in all the world's causes on a daily basis. Omnipresent, omniscient, he has met every challenge and emerged victorious. Yet evil gnaws at us all, creeping in everywhere without God being able to control it. It is that being God is exhausting. Let's face it, God isn't the athlete he used to be, he's lost his superbness: from now on, he's short of breath…”
The year is 2024. Takuto Maruki is found hanging upside-down in front of the biggest screen in Shibuya, his stomach slit open horizontally. The body has been there for two and a half weeks and it is starting to rot away, green and white like a moldy strawberry, cut in dark shapes over the non-stop ads. “This is a warning.” You say.
-A warning ?
-Someone's trying to send a message.
Futaba's voice, reaching you from your left side, is curious, coated in a layer of acid sugar. She's wearing a green flannel shirt, something thin for mid-january - she's right, though, it's hot enough that one can allow themselves to go out like that. The sun is trying its hardest to shine between the heavy light-gray clouds amassing over Shibuya, rays filtering like fingers of hands trying to tear apart the noon cumulus.
There's nothing else to say ; you twirl on your ankles and start walking away, again. Futaba is having trouble keeping up with you - even at twenty-two, her legs are still way shorter than yours. The air is crisp ; you're looking at your phone, switching quickly between apps with your thumb to try and see if anything happened in the five seconds since you last checked. It's become an habit, you got it since...
-Hey ! Get off your phone when we cross the street !
Futaba's hand catches you by the hood ; you were about to cross a street traversed by moving cars. It kinda strangles you, when she does it, but you're grateful. She gives you a slap on the back of the head, and she has to get on her tip toes for that.
She leaves you at a street crossing, she has to meet up with Kasumi, the two of them have been seeing eachother pretty often lately - you wish them all the best, of course, of course. This isn't how your outings usually go, though - usually, you walk her back to Sojiro's house, leaving her at the front door, sometimes she'll invite you to her room to play some fighting game. You can't blame her for still living with her father at 22 - after all, you're still stuck in the Leblanc attic, and have been so for the best part of eight years. There's something much more intimate about that dusty attic with a cardboard bed frame than there ever was about your room back in your old (home)town, with its white walls and empty balcony. You used to be on the lookout for an apartment, but you just gave up in the end. You're not mad about it. Leblanc is where you should be. Tokyo is where you should be. When one year turned into two turned into eight, your parents didn't object. There is nothing to go back to. Vague sketches of brown houses, two floors, right under the powerlines - you don't even remember your parent's faces, if they ever had one.
You think about the body again, dangling in front of the ads, one leg crossed behind the other. It evokes far away memories in you, imagery from a time passé, but you can't quite recall what. This is a message, you said. But what is it saying ?
Everyone knows Dr. Maruki is unkillable, anyways. How are you gonna kill the seven most influential people in the world ?
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You walk some more, get lost in the familiar district. You encounter quite a few families, clusters of teenagers taking selfies, street artists, couples locked in eachother's arms. Far away, Dr. Maruki's spire glistens, a smooth white claw born from the crust of the Earth itself, looking like the bones of something too much for the human mind to handle. The queue there extends for what feels like miles ; you presume the inside is some kind of hollowed out amphitheater, you wouldn't know, you've never been in it, you don't have any issues to resolve.
If you looked down, you'd see the small white spikes between the pavement stones ; crystallized needles of wellbeing that poke through reality's fabric, everywhere, in flower planters, windowsills, railings, under refrigerators, everywhere where they could be. You know if you were to get closer to the spire, there'd be many more, bigger, sharper, harder. You don't look down, though ; you already know they're here.
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[-7Y]
-Hey, are you gonna eat that ?
-I thought you didn't like whipped cream on your crepes.
-You memorized that ? Anyways, I thought maybe this one could change my mind.
-Sure then, finish it. I'm not really hungry anyways.
You watch as he turns the crepe in his hands, examining it under all sides to try and find an angle to bite into. He bites into the side you left untouched. It's kinda silly. You're walking around Yoyogi park, cherry blossom petals twirling all around you without ever sticking to your clothes, you have your hands in your pockets, fiddling with an empty candy wrapper. You're kind of nervous, which is stupid, you hung out with him plenty of times before. But the way no schemes, no intel gathering, no competition is tacked onto your outing, makes the conversation feel naked, the air empty. It's like the words that come out of your mouth are so much lighter, they feel about to pop.
-The cherry blossoms are really beautiful this season." You say to fill in the blanks.
-When are the cherry blossoms not beautiful ?
And it sounds kinda mushy if you don't know what he's talking about, but your heart sinks when he says it, and you can feel his burning gaze on your face as you turn your head to the side, crushing the candy wrapper between your fingers. You chuckle.
-I was thinking, the other day, about taking you to the zoo.
-The zoo ? Seriously ? (He raises an eyebrow.) It's just, I wouldn't expect that from you. Never took you for an animals enjoyer.
-I like pretty things. The zoo nearby has peacocks roaming free, although their wings are clipped so that they don't stumble into the great felines' enclosures.
-Do peacocks even fly ?
-Probably. Even if they didn't, I'm sure they wouldn't appreciate having their feathers taken away from them.
-They're still less threatened than in nature, tho. They live longer, and they make people happy. . .
-Oh, I wasn't putting down zoos. Sometimes, what seems the most cruel is the most needed." He's smiling with his eyes closed." Just food for thought.
-You like feeding my thoughts a lot, don't you…
-Don't sound so bored. I'm doing you a service. You don't do much thinking in college nowadays. Where are you going, by the way ?
-Oh... I don't know yet.
-I knew it. So neither of us has plans for the future…
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The night is setting fast as a guillotine. Soon enough, you find yourself laying in bed, twisting and turning to try and find a comfortable position. It's so hot in this badly isolated room in mid-january - you can feel the sweat dripping on your neck and forehead. Your hair is sticking to your forehead, and you can't stop sneezing, and and and and, a billion other things, a microcosm of annoyance. Everything around you is blue under the moonlight ; the streets are empty, so is Leblanc. You are 24 years old and afraid of nightmares when falling asleep.
Eventually, they do come, while you're still awake - if you won't come to Epiales, Epiales will come to you. You can feel his slender fingers slipping under your shirt as you churn the blankets harder ; a gunshot echoes in your ear, enters by the left, goes out by the right, or was it the forehead ? You start thinking the nightmares away.
The word you think is "actualization". You chase it away from your mind like one would a spider their house.
The noise you hear is the loud THUD! of metal against metal, someone falling sitting, cringing an iron door with their armor. A knight of old, devoted to lady death, or perhaps a robotic husk. BAM! BAM! You close your eyes as hard as you can. You trap those noises in a mental cup, throw them out of an imaginary window ; never to be seen or heard again. Good riddance.
The memory you conjure is crepes ; strawberry whipped cream, you remember how he told you later he didn't like it that much because one of the strawberries was moldy - you swore to never buy from here again, but you ended up coming back anyways, you had forgotten about it. He probably had not.
The ache you feel is that of a modern-day Atlas, carrying a burden of knowledge, heavy, pulsating, sizzling knowledge that could break above you at any moment and drench you in its boiling fluids.
The feeling you experience is fear.