Reminiscence
A boy and a girl are sitting inside an abandoned shack.
"This is funny," she says, to no one in particular, "Have I been kidnapped?"
From the corner, the boy barely lifts his head. He's sitting in a slack position against the wooden boards, fingers curled laxly around what could only be described as a glorified fruit knife. He tilts his face just enough to gaze across at the girl through a mop of dirty hair. "Awake already?"
The girl stares dizzily into the surrounding darkness. Her eyes grow huge and unusually vigilant beneath the limited luminescence, "I'm a bright sleeper, I think. No wait—I mean light sleeper. What about you? Oh wait. Shit. I shouldn't be frat—er, fratern… itizing with the enemy. Fratern…it—Damn it, what was the word? That's going to bug me. Fratern-it-izing? Frat..nerd…icing?"
"Fraternizing."
"Ah, that was it. I shouldn't be frat-nerd-icing with the enemy."
"Fraternizing."
The girl blinks. "Isn't that what I said?"
The boy deadpans, "No."
"Hm. Say, why am I tied up?"
"I wonder."
"Did you do this? Because you did a pretty crappy job, you know. Don't you watch any yakuza dramas? You're supposed to triple-knot it, to tie in the bad luck. Shit, shouldn't have said that."
"You really haven't changed at all." The boy sounds like he's smiling, but he's not. It was a matter of fact he did not smile—ever. You were more likely to find a pigeon with a human head.
"How would—hey! Do I know you?"
The lack of light works to the boy's advantage. The girl tries to picture how or when she might've bumped into—and possibly offended enough to make him want to kidnap her—this dirty-haired boy.
"Can you come closer? I can't really see your face. Can I cut your hair? Oh wait. That would be too friendly, huh?"
The boy isn't looking at her anymore. If she didn't know better, the girl would guess that he'd fallen asleep. There's an odd familiarity to the characteristic slope of his jawline, and the jutted crook of his shoulder poking out from underneath his shirt. The girl has a strange urge to reach out and brush his bangs from his eyes.
"Are you ignoring me?" She asks him.
His jaw moves slightly in a miniscule effort of unclench-reclench.
She gives up—for the time being—when he doesn't respond.
The girl squints at the small slits of sunlight leaking through the cracks between the wood. She knows she should be wondering where the hell she is. Instead, she finds herself thinking about termites.
"What are you thinking right now?" She asks him, after the silence becomes too heavy for her liking.
"I should be asking you."
"I'm thinking about termites… and food. Do you have food?"
"No. Unless you want to eat rat poison."
"Shoot…. What does it taste like?"
"Like shit."
"You've tasted shit before?"
The boy makes an annoyed grunt.
The girl doesn't seem to care. "Does rat poison come in different flavors?"
"Only two."
"Really?"
"Garbage and sewage. Your pick."
"They should make it cheese-flavored. If I were a rat, I would like to die eating cheese." There is a vulnerability in her voice that makes the boy feel a little prick in his chest.
"Well," he says, "I'd prefer it to sewage."
They sit in silence for a moment, because the girl finds herself with another hankering to run her fingers down his cheek.
When she speaks again, he has to strain to hear her. "Did we used to be close before?"
He can't answer that.
"Because I feel like I know you really well. At the tip of my tongue. I just can't remember… I was in a car accident, you know. It was a couple years ago. I lost part of my memory. Should I be telling you this? Probably not, eh…."
"Your memory?"
There's an odd undertone to his voice.
"And my vision. But someone donated their eyes to me… I guess I'm still lucky."
"So you can see now?"
"Yeah… except sometimes I start tearing up for no reason. It's really weird. They start crying on their own."
He can't answer that either.
"Like right now." The slits of sunlight are dissipating in a blur as the heat fills her glassy orbs. "The boy who gave them to me… Mama says he was driving the car. I really wish I could tell you about him but… I can't remember." She could taste the warmth crawling down her skin now. "I think I was in love with him."
"Bullshit."
"It's true."
"Then why did you take his eyes?"
"I'd give them back if I could."
The boy twirls the fruit knife in his hand, "Then why don't you?"
Everything in front of her is a blur. She's distinctly aware that there's a blade pressed against her cheek, tracing tediously across the outline of her lower lid. When she responds, her voice is scratchy, like it'd been dragged across the gravel one too many times.
"Because he's dead."
There's a clatter as the knife drops to the floorboards. The girl can feel fingers moving down the side of her face.
"Bullshit."
She swallows the invisible lump of thorns wedged in her throat, "I saw him with my own two eyes."
It doesn't register that the boy is kissing her until his hands skim across the skin above her jeans.
Cold. Very, very cold.
The boy's bangs are sticking against her skin as she presses her forehead against his.
"What about you?" she asks him quietly, "Are you doing okay?"
He doesn't answer. But he smiles.
The girl wants so badly to remember.
Please…?
She closes her eyes in an effort to delve between the cracks of her subconscious psyche. It's in there somewhere, she thinks. Somewhere, a hypothetical stream of sentience. A nameless flood of headlights, the windshield in her eyes, the acid in her mouth…
Please.
Damn it, Kurata.
Cold hands touching her cheek, she grips it with her fingers. Wake up.
Why is it so dark?
Her forehead is pressed against a shirt. A button digs into her cheek.
Hayama, why is your face wet?
When the girl regains consciousness, the boy is gone. The fruit knife is still there, sleeping forlornly at the foot of her fingers.
The rope is loose. If she didn't know better, the girl would think it was an accident— 'That boy is really bad at tying knots.'
Instead, her mind is blank. She's sitting in the dark like one of those crazy old widows with twenty pet cats and forty pet lovers.
There is a note crumpled in her hands.
I don't hate you.
It submerges in a spew of recollection.
Take care of my eyes.
The girl doesn't know she's crying until she feels the salt seeping on her tongue, and she doesn't stop until she's sure that the tears are from herself.
FIN.