The Egg
Author's Note: The quotations in italics are taken from Saint Augustine's ConfessionsBook II. The only thing I own here is the words and the plot of this story. All the credit of the characters goes to Ishida Sui.
Important Note: I have no idea if this is really why the scene in chapter 53(?) happened, so this is just a speculation. Don't take it seriously – if it isn't how it happened and if we find out the real reason and it turns out to be a completely different issue, I apologize. I'm currently on the 54th chapter of Tokyo Ghoul:re and there ARE spoilers in this story if you haven't read that far.
I really hope you'll enjoy reading this! Do let me know how you felt about the story, I'm always glad to read reviews whether they're approving or disapproving.
Thank you.
A woman is there, in the middle of his chessboard mind.
Nothing deserves to be despised more than vice.
She raises her hands and hits the boy. The boy screams and begs for her to stop, but she doesn't listen to him. The tears fall down from his eyes with every blow on his tiny body.
What age was he then? 5? 6?
He begs there, Mommy please stop, please mommy, I'm sorry, I won't ask for it anymore, I don't need it anymore, mommy please, mommy I love you and she hits him and hits him and hits him. She never stops hitting him; she's silent and merciless, like a reaper. She puts all her anger and exasperation on her blows; her tired muscles move endlessly to harm his small body and paint it in blacks and purples.
He cries and begs her to stop. It hurt him; her blows hurt him too much for him to bear. He couldn't take it, he had to make her stop; maybe if he begged her enough and cried enough she would understand and pity him and stop and hug him like she always did and she would tell him nice words and make him a hamburger and read him some books and teach him some words and it would all be well – if he tried hard enough, maybe, maybe maybe he would make her life him again.
Screams and cries fill the room and the merciless woman never stops until the boy can no longer cry. She gets up and looks at the boy and walks away. The small child is left there shaking and hugging himself.
Yet I gave in more and more to vice simply in order not to be despised.
He thinks Just love me love me love me turn around and look at me mommy just look at me I'm here just turn around as the woman leaned on the table, cutting flowers. He wants her to stop working, but she wouldn't; she wouldn't spare a single minute for him but she wouldn't mind skipping meals and sleep for the sake of her sister or her boss or whatever friend needed her help. She would never turn around and he would have to bury his nose inside the books and pray the familiar smell to put away the tears.
She should've loved him at some point of her life. His mother, his reason to smile should've loved him and cared of him. She would bake him cookies and hamburgers and teach him new words and they would spent time together and nobody would care about the needy and lazy people who wanted to use his mother, his precious mother, his kind mother.
He takes his dad's book and looks at the cover of it. That's how it would happen if his aunt didn't lose her job, or if her son didn't get sick, or if her husband didn't hit his car. That was how it used to be before all this mess entered their lives.
He sits down on the table and reads his book, his father's book, ignoring the fury building up in his chest and tears falling down his cheeks. His mother truly loved him; she just didn't have time.
That's why he cried and screamed and told her he loved her each time she beat him because she loved him and she wouldn't want him to be hurt and she was just furious because he was a selfish boy and he should've been more careful. They were having financial problems, they needed money not books they didn't need books he didn't need anything there wasn't anything he needed and he told her, he screamed and begged and told her that he didn't need anything anymore.
At some point, he started laughing and trembling and lying between the hits and shocks of pain entering his body. He doesn't remember when he turned into a mask and believed everything he said, but during those times when his mother would beat him and punish him for being in her way, or asking for things, or for telling her to stop, or just because she wanted to let out some of her stress on the poor, helpless child, his mask would break and he would laugh at himself.
He started accepting blow after blow and he wasn't even hurt anymore. During those times, his cries and begs and screams would be lies and he would laugh at himself, he would smile and wait for the next blow; because it reminded him of the harsh truth. He was strong only at that moment to wake up from the dream of being truly loved and he would laugh at his stupidity.
When she let him go, he would tremble for a few seconds on that chessboard floor and giggle before recovering the pieces of his mask and cried.
If I had not sinned enough to rival other sinners, I used to pretend that I had done things I had not done at all, because I was afraid that innocence would be taken for cowardice and chastity for weakness.
He is beaten at home.
He is bullied at school.
He is all alone in the times between these two.
He knows he was never truly loved. He knows that one day, the chessboard sky will crush him and he would die; he would smile because he would be happy.
His mother dies and he's happy. Then he's sad because you are not supposed to be happy about the death of your mother; but he's happy because he won't be beaten anymore and he can live a normal life and he can be loved because everything everything every goddam thing that has happened to him was because of his crawling merciless worm of a mother. He wasn't a normal person because of his mother, he couldn't be a normal person even if he wanted to because there was violence in his veins on his mind inside that chessboard world there was violence and he knew he would never be normal.
Not even his friend would make him normal, with his hugs and his smiles and his support. His friend was the only thing that kept the mask on his face after that woman died and he turned to him like a sunflower turns towards the sun – because his friend was a sun, but he wasn't sure if he was as pure as a sunflower. He would be a red flower, the flower of the death and he would be dripping blood.
He would pretend – pretend that he was fine and normal – and after some time, he started believing in his pretense. He became the person who would rather turn the other cheek. He would rather be hurt than hurt others because if he hurt other people, he would be like his mother.
These were the companions with whom I walked the streets of Babylon.
Noe he knows. He knows, as he looks at the people around him, blood dripping from his hair and clothes and the need of violence is welling up inside him and he remembers the laughter and the twisted kind of pleasure he felt when he realized he wasn't feeling hurt at all anymore after so long and he remembers these lines as he attacks.
His masks and his lies he remembers.
His past and his mistakes, his endless need for love, the people he loved and the things he would do for them, the claws on his chest that makes him attack and kill even the most precious of people around him – he remembers.
He remembers the blood and the violence and the hate and the book where it was all explained.
"Your parents failed to raise you."
It's all he says and he remembers; he remembers the hate and the cries and the love and the filled in memories and the chessboard sky collapses and all of his masks are crushed under it, his Babylon is bombed, his sins and his mistakes are all gone; erased, cleansed, forgotten – and he's himself again.