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Life leaves scars on a person. Over and over, people run through the same routine, the same habits picked up from a life more harsh than it should have been. And when things take a turn for the better, they don’t always change with it.
Both Ritsu Kageyama and Shou Suzuki, without realizing, were tracing over scars that should have healed.
The moon was only beginning to set on the Suzuki household. Nonetheless, Shou laid in his bed, though he was not trying to sleep. He stormed. He was glad to be in a safe house, with someone who loved him, with someone he loved, but sometimes that love smothered him and a childish, broken part of him wished he could go back to his old life, to being untethered. Because sometimes his mother’s smile set him free and sometimes it chained him up to an ideal he couldn’t uphold.
He was restless. He had asked if he could go for a walk. “Not at this hour,” was the reply. It was already a struggle to have to ask for things. Now he was being denied. It was imperative, he thought, he needed to get out, he thought, he was feeling like a stranger in his own house and words he wished he could forget echoed in his ears and the walls were reflecting them back at him, and he didn’t know how to explain it, that he needed to get out of himself somehow.
His hamster’s wheel squeaked. It needed oil. He needed it to stop being so noisy. Before the sound could grate on him further, he telekinetically suspended his pet. He looked up, watching her attempt to swim through open air. A harsh laugh leapt from his mouth. He was very, very aware of the beating of his pet’s heart. The creature was completely at his mercy. He hated it, but he relished in it. Becausehe had control. Then the moment faded and he set her back down, diving back onto his bed, filled with heavy regret. Getting excited over something like that. That’s who you are. That you want to be powerful so badly that you’ll take anything you can get. But you can’t even do that right. It’s laughably stupid.
And it wasn’t in his own mental voice that the word was spat out, Disappointing.
He sat up. Because he didn’t want to address it, but he had to. His father lived on in him in more ways than one and he wanted to crush it and he wanted to foster it and in this moment he couldn’t do either. So he was going to make a decision.
He opened his window, brisk air tickling his face, and watched the lights blurring and blinking in the city. He paused. He then went to scribble a note to his mother, in case she came to his room. “I’m going out. I have my phone. I’m sorry. I’ll be back soon.” And then, something even more alien to him, but somehow comforting, “I love you. Bye.”
--
Meanwhile, at the Kageyama household, the family was having dinner. Fried rice. The parents were clearly anxious to talk about something. Their children had barely sat down before they began.
Mrs. Kageyama started, “Ritsu, we received a phone call from school today.”
Ritsu froze, memories of his sins rushing back; He thought he was forgiven, but if he couldn’t forgive himself, then would the others really--Wait. She sounds happy. That’s good. That’s a good sign. In spite of this, he stayed rigid. His father continued. “They want to put you in an advanced math program. Isn’t that great?”
“Wow, Ritsu, I’m happy for you. You’re really smart,” Shigeo interjected.
“They asked if you would be interested. We told them, ‘Of course’. It won’t interfere with your activities; It’s during
your class, and then a few minutes after school. Is that good?”
Of course, his mother’s voice resounded in his head. Of course.
“Yes. That’s exciting. Thank you for telling me.” He wasn’t really excited about it, but he needed to be, so he replied and hoped they would change the subject.
The sound of plates being scraped filled the room. Ritsu eyed his brother’s spoon. It lifted, solid, and did not bend. Today was a safe day. Ritsu continued with standard protocol.
“Brother, how was your day?”
Shigeo’s eyes lit up. “Actually, I beat my best time running after school today!”
“I’m so happy for you,” Ritsu replied, relieved.
“Great job, Shige.”
Even with his usual mild expression, he was clearly beaming. His pride was genuine and powerful.
Idle chatter continued. Ritsu gave the usual replies. “Oh, interesting.” “Really?” “That’s nice.” “Sorry to hear that.”
He wasn’t really listening closely. He was busy mechanically forcing food down his throat. He hadn’t had much appetite, but he needed to eat. So he did.
When he finally finished dinner, he wasted no time excusing himself from the table.
“Thank you for the meal. I’m going to study.”
He, of course, took his plate, and, of course, washed it. He filled a glass with ice and added water. He then could continue to his bedroom where he would, of course, study.
He entered his room and closed the door behind him. He let out an audible sigh and took out his history book. He began to read. One hand kept the textbook in place; the other had picked and held an ice cube from the glass in an iron grip. The sheer cold blooming in his hand anchored him to the present.
The text’s words came in fragments. Ritsu could not put them together. He read the same sentences over and over. He let the freezing water from his hands drip down his arms and onto the floor. It would disappear before anyone noticed.
Eventually, he managed to finish one section. But it was all a topic he already knew. He had already learned this lesson. He took another ice cube in his hand.
He felt like his life was already history, words floating on a page that came together in bits and pieces, too late to matter. He knew what he would say before he said it. He knew what he would do before he did it. Of course. He remembered what he learned in science. He was running over mostly the same tired neurons day after day.
But what sickened him was that he didn’t have to be this way, yet it seemed necessary. He hated feeling like a paradox, something he himself could neither control nor understand.
--
Shou, however, understood exactly what was wrong with him, even if he didn’t want to think about it.
He wove through throngs of people in the streets, couples and friends and drunkards, disappearing and reappearing, looking for trouble.
It was a night full of energy and noise, a perfect in-between time where people of all types were still out. They were all so different, some of them angels and some of them devils, some ready to change the world and others to leave without a trace, and Shou was caught up in the middle of all of it, thinking about how insignificant it all seemed, when the universal truth was that it could all snuff out in an instant. The sights and sounds echoed in Shou’s head, drowning out the aggressive clamor from before. He flickered in and out of view, in and out of existence.
Eventually the roar became too much, and he retreated to a rooftop, unseen, pressing himself to the ground. Having quelled the sharp ache of memory, he slipped back into more heavy thoughts about the present, regretting his recklessness, his blatant lack of concern or care, his arrogance and his loathing. His spirit was pinned down by a weight in his chest, but he still felt like he was bursting out of his body. There was too much and too little going on. He slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out his phone. 7 missed calls, 5 voicemails, and a handful of text messages revealing anger, sympathy, fear, and regret in varying degrees. Though the texts barely registered in his head, Shou tapped out, “I’m fine,” as his only response. His phone buzzed as his mother tried to call him again. He declined it.
His energy was roused by the sounds of shouting from the alley below.
“Hey! I told you to leave me alone! I’m not interested!”
“Don’t be like that, it’ll be fun. Come on--”
“Let go!”
The voices were young. It stirred up something inside Shou.
He stood up, hid his presence, and looked over the edge into a backlit alleyway.
A teen exuding arrogance and poor intentions, hand gripping a schoolgirl’s arm.
“It’s just some fun with me and my friends. Don’t you want to go?”
“No, I told you, no!”
Shou materialized behind her.
“You heard the kid. Leave her alone.”
The boy looked up at Shou, fire in his eyes.
“Does it look like it’s your business? Go crawl back into whatever hole you came from.”
He had at least as much bravado as Shou. Lamentably, any confrontation was already settled; he had no aura.
Maybe I’ll let him get a few hits on me, Shou considered. For the bruises.
The girl wrenched her arm out of the boy’s grip and pushed him away.
“I can defend myself,” she huffed. “Get lost.”
But they had provoked a dangerous beast, and the scales inside Shou tipped to a more malevolent side.
“Nah, I’m not done here,” he said, casually, kicking up a rock with a challenging look.
Both teens, enemies to each other, turned on Shou.
Shou whipped his hand out of his pocket and jabbed it at the unknown boy.
“You need to learn how to listen. ‘No’ is an important word.”
He did not comment on his own hypocrisy.
“And you,” he pointed at the girl, now, “Should keep away from creeps like him.”
“Well, maybe you should leave us the fuck alone.”
Shou grinned. “Make me!”
The boy, filled with machismo, accepted without hesitation.
“Oh, I will!”
He threw a right hook that didn’t connect. Shou pulled up a barrier, redirecting his pain at the enemy. Despite the surprise and frustration in the other boy’s face, he received a gut punch next, impact lessened but not eliminated. The pain was refreshing.
Shou dashed his hand to the side, and the boy went with it. He didn’t have the technique to wrestle or the power to harm Shou. He was weak, and Shou found himself chuckling again, stuck on a poison high.
“That was easy.”
Standing over the capsized kid, he jabbed his finger again down at his feet.
“Your shoes.”
“What about them?”
The boy was battered, but still defiant. The girl was too shocked to move.
“They’re mine now. Give them here.”
It was pathetic, he knew, but Shou wanted a reminder, both that he had so much power and that he had no need to use it.
“Bastard,” the boy spat.
Impatiently, Shou twisted his hand and untied the shoes, floating them within reach.
The girl did not approach him, but attacked with her words.
“What are you?”
“Special,” he sneered.
“Give him back the shoes. You didn’t need to do this, you should’ve just left us alone. You--freak!”
Shou turned, his whole body exuding gravity and cracking the sidewalk beneath him.
“Oh, I forgot to mention something before,” he began. “You shouldn’t get involved with creeps like him,” he gestured with the shoes, adding insult to injury, “but you also definitely should stay away from freakslike me. We’re nothing but trouble,” he noted, dryly.
She flung a rock at him, trying gain back a point or two. But Shou just disappeared, laughing.
Out of sight, out of mind. Shou didn’t care what happened to them next, he told himself.
But he did. He didn’t think it was right. As he wandered aimlessly, invisibly, through the quieter streets, he knew he wasn’t helping himself. But in that moment, it just felt so, so, good.
He held the shoes up by the laces, inspecting them. They were a larger size than what he usually wore. Though he first wanted a memento, he now wanted to bury it in a shallow grave and forget forever. But then he might make the same mistakes.
Well, he already did. This was one of many objects he took from his victims, another point on an increasingly large list.
He never chose innocent people to exact justice upon, but he still came out the most guilty. Somehow, taking their stuff was a bit more impactful than just taking their dignity, a tangible reminder of the stabbing feeling in his chest that grounded him to reality in the worst of ways. Each time he took something, it was as much a trophy as it was an ultimatum. This will be the last one, he vowed, until it wasn’t true any more. The objects accumulated around him, daily reminders offering no solution.
He kept making the same mistakes, kept being the same person. The person he loved and the person he hated. The person who loved and the person who hated. Someone who, on the turn of a dime, exerted so much force and influence and gravity, and then disappeared without a trace. He had so much power, but not enough to stop what he cared about. But feeling weak was what he hated most of all.
The shoes. What would he do with them?
He considered. And, approaching a familiar street, he decided to head for the Kageyama house on foot.
--
Ritsu took out his diary, a plain thing, a nondescript black book. The real visual interest was on the inside, where he employed the different pens and stationery he received and bought. Today’s entry was already written in his mind, but he had yet to record it. He grabbed a red pen for today, and then a rubber band. The pen went in his hand, the band, on his wrist.
A red pen, to correct mistakes.
He had not written in red pen in seven days.
Seven.
He counted carefully.
He did not expect to get through to an eighth.
“Today was alright. At school, there was a math test. It was easy. I finished first.”
He pulled the rubber band back and released.
Snap.
“In history, we started discussing the Meiji Restoration. It was kind of interesting. They went into a lot more detail this year.”
Snap.
“Other than that, there wasn’t much to note about class. Some kids stayed in the classroom during lunch. They were talking about a popular TV show from last night. I think Brother watched it too, but it was hard to tell.”
Snap.
Ritsu turned up his arm, inspecting the pink swaths that formed.
They stung.
He changed the band’s trajectory, sliding it farther up his arm.
Snap.
Snap.
Snap.
“Student council met after school, but there wasn’t anything to talk about. It mostly ended up being more talk about TV. The show didn’t really sound interesting, though I sort of wish it did.”
Snap.
“I went for a walk after school. I hope the track season starts again soon. The weather’s gotten very nice. It’s a bit cold, but with a jacket, it’s just fine. I’ve always preferred warmer clothes, anyways.”
Long sleeves, he did not mention, gave him a sense of security.
“I passed by a new takoyaki stand. The prices were cheap. I’m sure Reigen-san will take Brother there soon. Maybe I can go with him one day.”
Snap.
He paused to look at the page. His handwriting, so precise, created blocks of red ink, separated by line breaks into nearly perfect parallel lines.
“At dinner, Mother told me about an advanced math program the school invited me to. She already signed me up, though she kind of asked if it was okay. I wish she would have asked me before she signed up. Even though I would have said ‘yes’ regardless.”
Regardless of whether I wanted to or not being the message Ritsu dared not convey.
“I’ve been thinking it might be nice to relax a bit. I don’t really have any TV shows to talk about, or many friends to talk about them with, but it would be nice. Maybe if I wasn’t so busy I could. But even in my free time, I don’t do much, so I don’t know. I’ll have to see if I can change something.”
He pulled the rubber band until it dug into his skin.
Snap.
Even then, the impact on his skin was not enough.
“I’d like to change a few things.”
He stood up and closed the book.
Even the diary felt like a performance piece. He left things out, added things in. Somehow, he could feel people’s eyes on him, on the pages. But if he did not get these feelings out, even if they were filtered and distorted, he might explode.
He might end up like his Brother.
So the residual emotion built up in a reservoir. Now, he held seven days’ worth of grimy feelings, inky motivations, and filthy regrets. Seven days that would not be eight.
He rubbed the marks from the rubber band gingerly. He held up the red pen in his hand. The ink, he thought, was too bright. Real red should be a bit darker.
He placed both the pen and the band back on his desk.
Then he walked to the bathroom and locked the door behind him.
The fluorescent lights were nearly blinding in comparison to the dim illumination in his room. Somehow, though, the flood of white made him feel less exposed.
He opened up the bottom drawer on the cabinet, the second column from the left. A bag of sanitary wipes, a box of cotton swabs, and spare bandages filled it to the brim. They were supposed to be a safeguard, a last resort, a checkpoint. He ignored them and dug below the surface.
There, at the very bottom, a razor blade.
Ritsu had an allowance, and gift money. Usually, he just bought clothes or books. But a small amount seemed to disappear, siphoned off into something else.
The blade was clean and glinted in the light. Ritsu inspected it closely, but found no rust or residual oils tainting its surface. He grabbed an alcohol wipe and sterilized both sides, watching the liquid residue evaporate away.
He hoped that today, all the filth accumulating within him would evaporate too.
He sat on the tiled floor, the cold surface sapping heat from his body.
He rolled up his sleeves.
The habit started a bit over a year ago. The thoughts started before that. When he closed his eyes, he saw blood. He felt something pooling under his unbroken, plastic skin. Noise. Fear. Sometimes, something triggered the feeling, and other times, it appeared from nowhere. But the thoughts wouldn’t go away. So he succumbed.
Nobody knew. He was good at hiding it. Well, at the beginning, he wasn’t. When he felt the fabric of his sleeves touching the raw cuts, nausea came over him. His face and breath and body changed. But nobody seemed to notice. It was Ritsu, after all, what would he be worried about? But the noise and the numbness in his head led to a habit leaving faint lines along his forearms, his shoulders and his thighs. They were nearly invisible, he made sure, but in his eyes they were a glowing reminder.
He thought it would be over when he got what he wanted most. But even after he could bend the razor blade without touching it, he kept tracing over the same scars.
And when he stopped, or tried to, it was patches of hair off his arms, scabs that didn’t heal, half-moons dug into his palms.
This was easier.
The razor was in his right hand. His left arm was primed. First incision, the meat of his forearm, the blade sliding over his skin. Beads of blood slowly formed at the surface. He exhaled, somehow lighter, then switched hands, making the mark symmetrical.
There was chatter downstairs. He didn’t understand it.
Next, the middle of his forearm. Careful, here, to avoid the vein. A short, methodical cut. It really did sting. The matching one felt a bit more comfortable.
The TV was on. He didn’t really want to watch, anyways.
Time progressed slowly. Ritsu was in a trancelike state. Between the first and the second sets, a third, further in, now. The blood was a kind of beautiful. He felt as though his sins themselves were bleeding out, bubbling on top of his skin and leaving his insides clean. Of course, they were only planting the seeds of further shame.
The fourth was risky, it was farther down, right near the wrist. Just far enough up to be obscured by his sleeves. The razor barely touched his skin before he was shaken to the core.
“Ritsu!”
His mother’s voice. Sharp and bitter, for some reason. Downstairs, but it might as well have been in his ear.
“Suzuki is here to see you!”
The oddly steady breathing gave way to arrhythmic heaving. If he were in a better state, he would reflect on how late it was for a surprise visit. But right now, the threat of discovery was enough to leave him nauseous, back to his first time, head spinning. He somehow managed to squeak out, “Okay! Be out in a moment!” His voice betrayed him, cracking, but muffled by the door and the distance, it was hopefully untraceable.
He was at seven cuts. Seven that would not be eight. He took another alcohol wipe, aggressively sweeping his arms, wincing at the stinging sensation, numb hands fumbling to unwrap and press bandages with shaking fingers to the still-bleeding wounds. Seven, seven. He felt dirt accumulating in his right wrist, his uncut right wrist.
Footsteps, outside the door. Not his parents’, not his brother’s. Suzuki’s. Unusually heavy. The sound of his door opening. Silence.
Silence, exposing Ritsu’s ragged breathing, his hitched, panicked sobs, stifled as much as possible.
Why is Suzuki here? Why now, of all times? What if he sees? What if he doesn’t see? Can he hear me? Can he? Can Brother? What if they find out? What if nothing changes at all?
He couldn’t, he mustn’t keep thinking like this, it made his body burn, an electricity running just below the surface of his skin, sparking out the haphazardly bandaged cuts, overriding his system.
--
Shou didn’t come all the way here for Ritsu to be off in his own world. Was it too much to ask for someone to move at his speed for once? He felt energy building up in him, and was all at once too substantial.
--
Slowing his breathing slightly, Ritsu ran his finger along one bandage, the first cut, the texture and pain bringing him back to the present. The unfortunate present. It hurt, it hurt, but he was here. He splashed sink water onto his face, rubbing his eyes until he looked somewhat presentable. Please don’t notice, he prayed, half-lying, then returned to his own room.
--
“Hello, Ritsu,” Shou greeted, sitting at the edge of Ritsu’s bed.
The slight edge in his tone did not ease Ritsu’s fear. He tried to use formality to hide the quivering in his voice.
“Good evening, Suzuki. What brings you here?”
Shou lifted up the shoes, dangling them in front of Ritsu’s eyes with an odd sense of pride, like a cat might do with a dead mouse.
“Got you something.”
Ritsu scrutinized the shoes. They were mostly new, but there was dirt crusting the soles. Dirt. He didn’t really want to think about dirt. He clasped his right hand in his left.
It seemed like Ritsu wasn’t happy with the shoes. Shou wasn’t happy with them, either. Couldn’t Ritsu just take them? Shou tried to clarify, though the oppressive aura of regret and judgement was like lead on his tongue.
“I don’t know if they’ll fit, but they’re for you.”
Ritsu reluctantly let go of his own hand to take the shoes, holding them with his fingertips like they contained a plague.
What’s up with him?
“Thank you,” Ritsu said, gratefulness for his friend mixing with contempt for himself.
Shou, likewise, felt the grinding of love and hate in the pit of his stomach.
I need to stay calm, a thought they both shared. Act natural.
Ritsu sat down next to Shou, because that was probably something he would do if his brain wasn’t shattering in his skull.
“So, uh, what’s up?”
Hell if I know, thought Shou, piecing together strings of words he knew came from his mouth on a better day.
“Not much. Went for a walk around town. Got the shoes.”
“That’s good. Maybe we could go for a walk together sometime.”
I don’t think you want to go on this kind of walk.
“Yeah, maybe.”
Maybe it’ll be good to be somewhere where sharp objects aren’t readily available and witnesses are.
Shou’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Aggression flared up in him, and it showed when he blocked the call without even a glance.
“Who was that?”
My mom, probably, for the 10th time.
“Dunno. Don’t care.”
Oh, that was a bit too callous. Chill out. Nothing’s happening.
“It’s not that important, Ritsu.”
“Okay…”
Shou seems odd today, thought Ritsu.
Something’s up with Ritsu, thought Shou.
Silence.
The shoes.
“Hey, do you want to try on the shoes?”
“Sure, just a sec.”
Ritsu could barely feel his body, but sure, he’d try on the shoes.
He slipped one on with a bit too much ease, and realized it was a size too big. Closer inspection revealed scuff marks, marked with dirt. Where were they from?
His right wrist was burning.
“I guess it’s too big,” he sighed, kicking off the shoe with his foot and massaging his hands together.
“It’s a shame.”
Good riddance.
Shou grabbed the shoes and pushed them aside, a bit too eagerly.
Ritsu noticed.
“Where did you get those from, exactly?”
Off a kid I beat up, obviously.
“The streets.”
“Where in the streets?”
A crater in a back alley, right between a bar and a boutique.
“Just found them.”
“Hm.”
Shou was panicking, at least internally. Today’s violence blurred with that from weeks, months, lifetimes ago, but he was still at Ritsu’s house, sitting on his bed, telling boldfaced lies that did no good. He was burning inside and freezing outside.
Can’t he just take the damn shoes and stop asking questions?
Shou didn’t want to leave, he really didn’t, but he was struggling here too. He grasped at something, another topic, another tangible thing.
A behavior.
“Hey, what’s with your wrist?”
It was Ritsu’s turn to panic. He hadn’t even realized he was still rubbing it with his thumb. Now he might get found out for real, and by someone who thought so highly of him, too.
“Nothing! Just something I do sometimes.”
Bad answer. Not true.
“Uh, I’ve been writing a lot in school, so it kind of hurts.”
Shou grabbed for Ritsu’s hand, looking to inspect the damage. Ritsu recoiled instantly, violently, and far too conspicuously.
“Let me see.”
“No!”
Not good not good not good not good.
“Uh, sorry. I just--Here.”
Ritsu heard a roaring in his mind, a thousand rebuttals and judgements raining down on him. But he was here, sitting on his bed with Suzuki, in silence. He wouldn’t get caught.
He rolled up the sleeve, just enough to expose the clean wrist, the shadow of the sleeve obscuring any faint scars that Suzuki would likely catch.
“Ah. It looks like it’s just a muscle ache after all.”
Lucidity came back, just a little.
“One of my lackeys could probably help with that.”
Not really.
Silence again.
“So, what do you do when you go out?”
Not this again.
“Just walk. Clear my head.”
“You need to clear your head?”
Of course I do! You don’t go through what I’ve gone through and just--just come out totally fine!
“Yeah, of course.”
Him too…
They did have a lot in common, after all.
Shou’s phone buzzed. He rejected the call without a glance.
’Of course’…?
That was familiar.
With the sounds in his head quieting down, Ritsu noticed Shou was breathing a lot faster than someone should if they were just sitting on a bed in a room with their friend.
Of course.
“Suzuki, are you okay?”
No!
“I’m fine.”
Oh, that was too shaky.
Ritsu stared, unconvinced. Fragments were coming together, but they were just that--fragments.
Shou just really wanted to get out of his mind for a minute or two. It was dead weight pulling him back to a place he had left but had not forgotten.
“Suzuki. Please.”
Ritsu’s voice held an odd apprehension, an uncertain compassion.
Shou really didn’t think he deserved it, and it was breaking him.
The dam holding back his words, erected only in emergencies, failed completely.
“Okay. I got the shoes off of someone I beat up. Not a nice person. Probably deserved it. Still shouldn’t have done it. It was stupid. He didn’t even get a hit on me. I just, I didn’t want to be at home, everything was just so--” He gestured wildly with his hands, emphasizing motion around his head, “--I couldn’t. I can’t. I can’t--There’s just--A lot. Happening.”
He looked away, hoping to close the topic, to disappear from this reality completely, maybe. He couldn’t even coherently articulate the stupid reason he beat up random people on the street, and didn’t really want to, because he’d be a bit too weak, perhaps, in Ritsu’s eyes. And he hated feeling weak.
But Ritsu wasn’t angry. He didn’t even seem disappointed. He had that same look in his eyes, a sad kind of understanding.
Oh.
Understanding.
Shou couldn’t tell if he felt relieved or upset. Maybe he made the right choice after all, opening up, but, what did Ritsu know? What really happened?
It didn’t take long for him to find out.
“So, that’s what you do.”
Shou nodded.
“For me, when it gets… uh…bad,” Ritsu gestured to his head, “I don’t usually go anywhere. I just…” He trailed off.
Shou waited, anticipating the worst, but overshadowing concern.
Ritsu pulled up his sleeves, bandages symmetrical on both sides, except for his right wrist.
Shou processed what he saw. If he wasn’t really trying, he might miss the scars, but there was a regularity to them that made them more obvious.
Maybe, if someone really looked, they could pick out the incongruous items in Shou’s wardrobe. Or maybe he just imagined it.
So Shou directed his pain outwards. And Ritsu directed it inwards.
Ritsu was ashamed and afraid. He hadn’t told anyone, let alone shown them. Shou hadn’t said anything, just stared. But, he should understand, right? There was a tension in his wrist.
“I’m sorry,” Ritsu started.
“Don’t be,” Shou replied. “I understand.”
Maybe not exactly, he thought, but more than anyone else would.
The two looked each other over in silence, something changed about them. They were a bit more substantial, a bit more present. Though sound and silence and fear clung to the recesses of their minds, they were not restricted by it. Maybe, it didn’t have to echo through them any more.
Shou was the first to speak.
“It’s--it’s over the simplest things! Like, I was just doing whatever, but then I start thinking, ‘what if I turn out like Pops?’ And then, I think, ‘No, that won’t happen.’ But it opens up all these other thoughts. it’s like, ‘Hey, remember how you’re volatile as hell? How you don’t feel whole? How you’re weak?’ It consumes me, I don’t even want to be in my own skin! Even though Pops’s off who-knows-where now, he’s still with me… I feel like I have to remember. But then there’s this weird feeling in my chest and--and all over and I wish someone would just knock it out of me. Does that… does that make sense?”
Ritsu nodded gently.
“It does make sense. It’s like that for me too… One thing leads to another, and another, and another, and another... and then you just feel sick. Uh, today, Mother told me she signed me up for this advanced math program. ‘Is that okay?’ She already said yes. Really? I just want to live, you know, a free life. Maybe I don’t want to spend the extra time after school. I don’t want to do anything sometimes. It wasn’t a big deal, but I kept thinking about it, what it meant, how I felt, what how I felt meant, and then--There.” He rubbed his arm gingerly.
“I was thinking if I got psychic powers, it’d all be better, but now I know it’s just me. My fault. Even now, I’m still a little afraid. And that feeling, it just sits there, building up.”
“Yeah, building up! It sucks. Really.”
Though their eyes were tired, compassionate smiles were beginning to form on their faces.
“Suzuki, if you’re feeling that way, you can talk to me. I don’t want you to deal with that all by yourself.”
“Thanks. It might be a little hard to do much talking, though, when it’s really bad.”
“We don’t have to talk. We can walk.”
“Or fly.”
“Or fly,” Ritsu repeated, less enthusiastically.
“But, seriously, we should look out for each other. Since we’re not that good at looking out for ourselves,” Shou laughed, albeit dryly.
Ritsu managed to laugh too.
“We’re pretty fucked up.”
“Yeah, we are.”
They trailed off.
“But it’ll get better.”
“It’ll get better,” Shou echoed.
Shou’s phone buzzed. His hand hovered over it, then he picked up.
“Hi, Mom.”
Ritsu couldn’t discern what was being said, but he could certainly hear Ms. Suzuki’s anxious voice on the other side.
“I’m sorry. I just needed to go out.”
More obscured rebuttals. Shou was steady throughout.
“I’m at Ritsu’s house. I’ll be back home in 30 minutes, okay? We’ll talk then.”
It sounded like there was agreement on the other side.
“See you, Mom. Bye.”
Shou hung up, relieved. Ritsu gave him a reassuring smile.
“So.”
“Wanna get out for a bit?”
“That might be nice.”
“We don’t have to talk about anything bad.”
“Sounds good.”
--
Ritsu and Shou were still scarred. Neither promised that they could fix each other, or themselves. But maybe they would walk a different path, and move past their old wounds. Maybe, someday, they would heal.