So, the Cicadas Return
Due to a family curse, every night Kaneyama Sho leaves his corporeal body to speak with a boy with horns. It is through this boy that he finds a medium to live the life he has been denied, but as his involvement deepens with each passing night the two are drawn together in a culmination of dying camellias.
Night One, We Think, Therefore We Are
Were dreams reality and was reality a mere accumulation of sensible dreams? The tangible darkness seemed to be undeniable proof that the room and objects settled in the shadows were real, and that the cicadas would not cease their songs despite his efforts to will them away. The day that replaced the dark never failed to return, the activity and vitality of life beyond the door and walls mere centimeters thick always in logical flow. These facts never changed. No matter how many scientific journals and encyclopedias he searched, day was always day and night was always night, with no variation except in dreams.
A dream that was reality did not exist. Dreams symbolized reality, reflecting inner desires or fears according to any book on the subject. Except in the realm of fiction where magic and dragons were possible, dreams were never another realm in which physical desires and actions could be satisfied. Seventeen years had proved and solidified these elementary facts, and seventeen years had also disproven every single one with the same brush used to paint night and day. For normal people, dreams were dreams.
For Sho, dreams were his days, the opportunity to step outside the house and wander the streets of any city or town in Kochi prefecture. The festivals were his favorites, seventeen years old and depressingly cynical or not. As a child the tourists had captured his intense attention for months at a time and as a teenager he found intense solace in the mountains' lively solitude. More than any of the peers he had never met, Sho experienced the diverse wonders of the world that encompassed Kochi with intense attention.
The tangible dinner of rice, steamed vegetables, and savory meat slid down his throat at impossible speeds. Every now and again he choked and swallowed long draughts of water until everything was gone. Neatly sliding his chopsticks across the empty rice bowl, he opened the door and slid the tray into the hallway. When he was younger he had taken the time to wash the dishes himself in the adjacent bathroom, but those days were long past. The servants were paid to clean the house, anyways. Satisfied, he drew the heavy curtains shut across the single window overlooking an expanse of forest and mountain, despite the fading daylight.
His eyes were comfortable in the dark, so he shut the overhead lights and quietly slipped between the covers of his bed. Though a familiar friend, he always had a crawling disturbance whenever he lay flat on the bed, as if he were settling in to sleep with another stranger every night. At certain points his hands twitched on the sheets and his body tingled with the promise of pleasure, but he had resisted those desires for quite some time now and urged them away with a deep breath.
One hand finally moved without hesitation, flying to the night table and grasping the delicately sharpened object on the cool surface. Eyes still closed, he positioned his hands across his chest and squeezed the instrument between three fingers. When he knew he had a firm grip, he pressed the point against the tender flesh of his other hand at an angle that pierced the skin with a minimum amount of effort. The barely healed barrier tore with ease as he traced familiar shapes, the warmth of blood seeping over his hand, through the sheets, and on his chest.
His brows naturally tensed at the pain, but he fought to relax his eyelids and maintain careful breaths. With practiced ease he conjured images in his mind, first of blackened text from the books he had read that day, and then of places outside and of one person in particular. The lithe boy too skinny to be considered healthy with eyes that never searched beyond a certain point formed from the darkness. He traced every contour of the boy's features until he had completed the picture, and willingly slipped into the "dream" of Sugita Makoto's reality.
The foster home was a busy, rambunctious household unable to accommodate a proper conversation. Sugita had just slipped on his beaten sneakers and yanked the door shut when Sho walked up to him, hands folded behind his back and his bare feet padding against the concrete. The younger boy pushed a few inky black strands of hair behind his ear and trotted down a few dusty streets until he reached the rusted park where only the older kids hung out. With an emotionless face devoid of any human characteristics besides a mouth, a nose, eyes, and all the rest, he kicked around stray cans and wrappers in silence.
The cicadas sounded identical here. Sho frowned, avoiding garbage and broken glass as he trailed after the boy. He tugged at the folds of his pajamas, feeling infinitely silly in his night clothes. Not that there was anyone around to laugh. He had never heard so much as a snicker from Sugita in the months they had been speaking. The boy did not bother questioning those types of things.
"What did you learn in school today?" Sho asked as the boy sent a glass bottle flying, the object shattering as it crashed against a metal slide. His fists were clenched, his shoulders giving a little shrug. Bemused, Sho said, "Well, I read Discourse on the Method by Descartes and listened to Arashi's new single, at the same time of course. I choked on my dinner and rushed to meet you, without even waiting for the food to digest."
"I'm touched," Sugita muttered sarcastically. Though his tone came off as harsh, Sho understood Sugita's gratefulness between the cold words and stiff posture. Some people were not experts at expressing emotions, Sho included, and so he had developed a certain skill towards reading an individual's feelings. The boy continued, "I learned that if you stick chewing gum in a girl's hair, she'll still cry and screech at this age. And people don't like it when you throw baseballs at their noses. But beside that, we started a chapter on the Meiji Era and the revolution."
Sugita was an outcast by nature with a disagreeable personality and distinguishing features people were naturally disturbed by. Sho, who had been surrounded by disagreeable personalities his entire life and always felt detached with other people, had chosen this particular boy to "haunt". If possible, it was the boy who had almost never stepped outside the ten meter area surrounding his room that was the more sociable of the two. Sugita refused to call them friends, but spoke to him as if he were another person on the street.
"Tonight we'll take the train into the city, since today's Friday. Promise me you won't do anything stupid. Weird things have been happening in other parts of Japan, so I don't need you to draw any unnecessary attention to me like before." Sugita spoke differently from others, or at least that was Sho's impression. He had never spoken to anyone his age except for his cousin, Akiyama Norio, and Norio had a unique, intelligent pattern of speech. Sugita was much more informal, borderline rude on most occasions.
"I won't do anything odd," Sho promised. The boy stepped away from the park and started down the street, unconcerned about whether or not Sho was behind him. Sho was always behind him despite his numerous protests, even when he took a minute to go to the bathroom. Not that Sho stared or anything, but he wasn't fond of standing in a narrow hallway so that people could pass through him without batting an eyelash. He never thought he caused that much mischief, but had read the news his cousin brought him lately.
The possibility was high that Sugita was far beyond a normal middle school boy. The only reservations Sho had were the boy's apparent sense of judgment and his obvious gender. Of the latter Sho had confirmed that Sugita was a boy, purely by accident, of course. While Sugita might have been unnecessarily morbid and had a tendency towards violent thoughts, Sho personally found little problem in it. There were times when he entered bouts of depression and intense pits of loathing. There were times when he humored the idea of leaving his house.
Not that he would be able to function properly if he stepped out that door. The real world, as it had been dubbed, could possibly push him over the delicate balance maintained in his room.
Sugita's problem had everything to do with his dyed hair and red eyes. Most people assumed he was albino and kept their distance anyways, but most people had never seen the odd protrusions on his head. Sho had his fair experience in bone matter from detailed pictures in medical journals and from a few incidences of personal understanding, but he had not understood Sugita's problem in the least. Protruding bone was normally an ugly sight and painful to the point of deliriousness, but Sugita had none of that. The protrusions didn't hurt unless they suffered some sort of trauma, just like any other body part.
"Hey…do you have a problem with this? With me following you around and all," Sho asked after a time. The streets were mostly dark by now, as shadowy and looming as the warped dimensions in his room. Others had reacted badly to his presence in the past, some spiraling into the depths of insanity and others so desperate that they killed themselves. A ghost, people had called him before, a vengeful ghost. He prodded Sugita with a finger crusted over in blood when he didn't receive an answer. He liked the boy; he was the only person who had never overreacted when he touched them.
"Not really," Sugita finally responded. His loose tone was enough for confirmation. "You're better than the other me. Even though you do stupid things sometimes, you're not really violent. You don't tell me to kill things. And well, I can talk to you and you make sense, most of the time. Even if you're annoying, you're less annoying than the other me. It doesn't bother me much."
Satisfied with the answer, Sho leaned down and wrapped his arms around the boy's shoulders, exhaling a light laugh that shifted the black hairs sneaking out from beneath the hat on his head. Sugita's reluctance to touch him amused him, even as he dejectedly released the boy and fell back a step or two. To that day, Norio was the only human being who enjoyed and could stand touching him affectionately. For him to carelessly disregard human contact as important was foolish, and for him to announce that he was independent of it was also foolish.
Sho truly craved contact, more than Sugita could ever understand. The younger boy hated being around people and complained about others at every chance he had. Sho was unable to comprehend people in any significant way, but he ached for the ability to sympathize and share common empathy with them. Instead, this desire dragged him farther and farther away from social competence and he wound up rejecting all around him. That desire for touch, however, never left. Any book on development and growth had scientific proof that touch was essential to both humans and animals.
"I wish you'd let me touch you…" Sho whined after his companion, innocently and perversely with the same token. He had never interacted with others well, and had every understanding of maturity and sex from books and Norio's limited explanations. No matter how many years he pleaded for, Norio refused to breach the title of cousin. He never touched Sho in any way he deemed "inappropriate". The furthest he ever went was to embrace him and perhaps press his dry lips to Sho's forehead if he was feeling unwell. Whether this was because Norio simply didn't like guys or found incest wrong and disgusting was up for debate.
The point was that Sugita didn't appreciate his words or actions either. Sho gave up easily, aware that Sugita would never compromise on much, let alone this issue. Besides, the boy actually spoke with him instead of screaming in fear. That was an improvement for both of them, apparently. Not that Sho understood what life was like while suffering from schizophrenia.
"I want something to eat. Get something and go eat in a movie theatre! I never watch television at home," Sho rambled as they boarded the train. There were few passengers boarding at this time, so Sugita chose the seat farthest from the others with Sho right next to him. He knew that his happiness was affecting Sugita by the moody airs about him, but ignored it. Sugita would blatantly tell him to shut up if he truly hated what Sho was saying. Not often, but sometimes he did silence the older boy in such a manner.
"Hey, haven't you ever…wondered if I'm real? Maybe you're dreaming or maybe I'm not here at all and you're just crazy…haven't you ever thought about that? And if I'm real, where's the real me?" Sho considered after he had calmed. Of course, he knew that this was a dream of reality, and whatever happened to him here happened to his "real" body at home. But Sugita had never really asked about it before, just accepted his presence in stride. "I, of course, consider myself real and existing. That's why I read Descartes today, but existence can be rather subjective if you ponder it hard enough."
"…Sometimes," Sugita said slowly after a time, "Sometimes I consider you another piece of my imagination, another detachment of myself somewhat like the other me. However, I also accept you as real. I know I'm all too real. And you can't be part of my imagination sometimes. Though truthfully, I don't care either way. You can be real or imaginary for all I care. Even if you do exist somewhere that is your concern alone."
"I exist. I live in Kochi, the same as you, in a huge Western styled house at the edge of a forest and a mountain. My family never allows me to leave my room. I damage my body every night to experience this separate life where I can have a self and feel as if I belong in society, while in reality I don't understand people at all. Sometimes I even wonder if I can be called a human being when I am such a horrible character. 'Human beings' are strange creatures I cannot relate to in the least. Speaking with them and walking among them gives me great apprehension and anxiety.
"Should I take one step away from formerly established doctrines, I feel as if people will immediately catch me for the lies I live. By slipping past my masks, they will understand in a single instant the worth of my worthless life. Though I've read every respected book on the subject, understanding human behavior is still a challenge to me. Of course, I theoretically know why a person does the things he does, but I cannot understand how people are ruled by these actions. If that makes any sense, that is," Sho finished. "I cannot say I have ever experienced true love or true hatred. Does that make me inhuman?"
The subject of humanity, this questioning of existence, always struck Sugita the wrong way. Perhaps this was due to the bone protrusions on his head and his innate wrongness among people, but Sugita never felt as if Sho were different from others. He included the older boy in his definition of "society" and "human beings". It was he himself who did not belong, Sugita argued. Sho stared at the boy's dark green hat with an expression of long suffering discontent. It was no secret that Sugita hated his current position in life. This was the reality that belonged to another, and to Sho it was the greatest thing in the world.
"Existing isn't enough," Sho continued. "You have to live your life, too. You have to find and give your life a meaning by walking in this world, experiencing different things and testing new waters. That is what human beings do. Animals cannot accomplish this. Even a migratory bird will never travel outside its predetermined path of flight, nor will it ever question why and how things are the way they are. It's not easy to define the word 'human' that is for sure. What is humanity, what are humans? What is the difference between humane, inhumane, and inhuman?
"Are we related by general body make-up or by our thought processes – the fact that we can experience emotions and formulate questions? Do our perception and actions in this world affect the definition? No matter how many books I read, I fear I'll never find that concrete answer. Freud says this, Descartes and the Queen of England says that. You say I'm human and I say you're human. Do you see the quandary here?"
Sugita cast him a glare from the corner of his eye and faced the opposite wall again. The moody boy crossed his arms and pretended to sleep, regarding the being beside him with calculated calm before scoffing. He muttered, more to himself than to Sho, "It doesn't matter; humans are all rotten creatures anyways."
The seventeen year old leaned against the seat and breathed a deep sigh of whatever air his incorporeal body consumed. The train's rumbling nature traveled up his spine, through every piece of him that came in contact with any surface. The plastic seats were cold beneath his fingertips. He drew his lanky legs up and hugged them tight to his chest, his feet freezing and body shivering. The bright white lights seared his eyes, but he refused to close them for fear that if he did this dream would melt away.
"One day I'll walk among the rest of you. No matter what happens, please promise me you'll like me 'till the very end…To tell you the truth, I don't expect to live much longer. My entire life has been in wait of that final moment," Sho said softly, tone gentle, as if he were explaining to a child a terminal illness. It caught Sugita's attention, inevitably. He had never spoken about such topics in the months they had known each other, despite the wide variety of things he mentioned.
With a wry, invisible smile Sho continued, "When I turn eighteen my parents will be able to kill me."
"I don't understand," Sugita said bluntly, now awake. Sho shook his head and exhaled a breathless chuckle. His fists clenched the folds of his pajamas, pale knuckles turning a more ghastly shade of white.
"They won't be accused of murdering a minor. In their official records I am mentally unstable, so it won't be so outlandish if I acted out and tried to hurt someone. It would be manslaughter, self-defense in court. My entire life they have kept me sated with whatever material objects I desired; even my beloved cousin was forced to befriend me as a child. He had once been afraid of me, I think, even though I'm younger. They have kept me satisfied and indebted to them since. I would rather have lived a half life than not to have lived at all, after all."
"You of all people are not such a monster," Sugita said. To the casual listener his voice maintained an air of unperturbed calm, but to Sho, who had heard this boy's every thought and manner, it was a voice of discontent. He was perturbed by Sho's words. It came in small ways, through his slight motions and the influx of his tones. He might as well have been screaming his disturbed nature. Sho shrugged and withdrew his slightly numb fingers. He folded each one down as he muttered the months until his birthday.
"It's July and my birthday is in the beginning of March. That gives me roughly nine months. Nine months to enjoy myself in whatever way I want," Sho declared, though by nature of the topic he wasn't very happy.
The two boys were silent for a long time. Sho thought about nothing in particular, his mind wandering through phases of literature and math and science texts as the time ticked off. Sugita finally spoke after four stations had passed. There were more people on the train, so he kept his voice very quiet and muffled in the crook of his elbow.
"That's not fair. What have you ever done to anyone besides a little mischief? Do you see what I mean? Humanity is rotten. Even relatives are horrible monsters to each other. Your own parents want to kill you; doesn't that say something? My parents loved me, on the other hand, but for some unfathomable reason I caused their deaths. I really hadn't meant it, but had no chance to properly explain. So, they died with betrayal on their faces. No one has loved me since; I have not loved anyone in turn.
"If humans are defined by morality, then we are all monsters. There is nothing redeemable about humans, humans who destroy each other and their surroundings. The earth had been peaceful before humanity came into being! Now they will even devour their own kin…Why won't you fight it? If you don't want to die, then live. It's simple. An animal understands that much about life. Get back at them or run away and change things."
Sho allowed the information to dutifully sink into his head before he formed a proper response. He chose his words carefully, pronouncing each with care. "Nothing in life is ever simple and nothing worth something ever comes out of things that are easy to accomplish. There are also times when every possible effort you exert into some task may never come to fruition. No matter how hard you endeavor, your efforts will never be realized; they will not even succeed in fact. We cannot determine how we are born, but we can choose our decisions.
"That is not true for my family and me. Our decisions and choices are created at birth. I can no more escape my blood than you can escape those protrusions on your head. If I run away, I will be hunted down and slaughtered for the fraud that I am. It is better to die quietly with a little remaining dignity than to die with utter shame. Others may disagree; many philosophies would disagree, but that is my firm belief. Besides, I have absolutely nowhere to go. My cousin wouldn't help me no matter what.
"…However, perhaps I myself fear happiness," Sho contemplated in a low tone. "All I have ever known is discontented happiness. That is why you must live for me. Live, so that maybe I'll change my mind. If it is worth the fight, I'll gladly take on the challenge."
A long time passed, then, "Sho…have you ever thought about killing someone?"
"Perhaps; I am human, after all. I am an unfortunate human. Why?" he asked bemusedly.
"Because I'm not human and the other me isn't either. He tells me weird things, but I like you as a person, so I've never listened to him seriously. I was wondering if everyone gets the urge to kill every now and again and how they would go about it. You know, whatever's happening on the news, is a horrible way to die. Being killed by strangers would be frightening, but being killed by those who were supposed to love you is even worse. No one my age thinks like this. I know it."
"A narrow-minded mouse asking a narrow-minded rat about the world of birds is a conversation that will never get anywhere…" Sho said with a flick of a wrist. He closed his eyes very briefly as his mind kept the afterimage of the train's interior, memorizing each and every detail so that he could rest without retreating to his room. But as his mind also conjured the picture of his beloved cousin, gentle smile and laughing eyes and all, he naturally faded from the reality of the dream. "Personally, if Norio were to be my executor, I would die happy with no regrets."
"I think, therefore I am." (René Descartes)
• This isn't a new idea; it's been baking in the back of my mind for months now. Reading Rocci's Elfen Lied epics had influenced me, though for the longest time I had no idea how to incorporate the scrambled ideas in my head into a cohesive story. A thanks goes out to Rocci for creating such wonderful stories.
• Perhaps the idea of male Diclonius' have been becoming a trend in EL stories? I'm incredibly bad at writing female characters, especially as main characters, so I really had no doubt about creating a male. I've also noticed characters with Western or non-Japanese names living in Japan in many stories, and that is one of my pet peeves of anime/manga, so my characters are Japanese with all of their values, customs, etc. "Sho" is the main character's first name while "Sugita" is the Diclonius' surname. "Norio" is his cousin's first name. Japanese believe in a type of spirit called the yurei, and some of these are the vengeful sort unable to pass on to the afterlife.
• I think a warning is unnecessary in the EL fandom, but this story will probably include the usual gore, mature themes, etc. Sho does have incestuous tendencies towards his cousin, because his cousin is one of the only people he has ever held a real conversation with and had a real attachment to. His cousin is also a guy. If any of it bothers you, don't read it. The story will also have heavy tendencies towards literature and philosophy, as well as quoted passages, none of which I own. I don't own the group Arashi, either.
• There were heavy references to Osamu Dazai's book No Longer Human in this chapter, in which the main character cannot feel as if he is a "human being" because he sees himself isolated from society, unable to communicate and relate to others. Note that Sugita uses "human" and Sho uses "human being". Sho has, of course, read this book many times.