Looking Back

or thirty steps to swallow the good in you

"In which his old self melts and joins the beast waiting within. And thus a beast with flickering memories becomes alive,

a beast born to perish in a purple blaze."

...

(1) Glaring at no one, he bends to pick up the fallen stack of documents. Folder, plastic envelopes and files that laid dropped by his feet. Not on purpose he manages to get a few papers creased were he grabbed them.

(1.1) Tsk.

(1.5) His hand twitches and he puts the item back in the shelf. Stupid, this is not something he needs any more. Annoyed with himself, he walks away. Though there was once a time when someone appreciated the gesture, not quite openly but gratefully enough.

Habits are hard to break, he's learned.

(1.7) It happens again, he takes the wrong turn. It is too late when he notices and he can see the familiar buildings around him. Muttering expletives, there's nobody to yell them beside him, he shoves both hands on his pants' pockets and heads home. No detours this time.

(2) How annoying.

(4) This time he's at the park. It is seven in the morning and he could be using his free day in a more profitable manner, he could be burning. But he is not. He's standing by the gate, not waiting for someone that won't come. He never waits, not any more.

Fushimi Saruhiko believes he's better off not waiting for anyone. Acting on his own he'll do what's necessary to gain the upper hand, he'll burn the body, the flesh and the ashes. To consume in a purple dawn.

(5) And just like that, there are places he doesn't go to any more. Rusty, he's turned. He'd probably make a couple of strikes before hitting the ball. Yet it is not something he misses.

It is at late night in his apartment that he starts reminiscing, not more than fleeting thoughts, for he's gained something much more valuable in the long run. He needed, he yearned, someone to go all out on him. What he could only obtain by betrayal.

That is Fushimi Saruhiko's resolution. "Make him angry, taunt him, make him lose control.

And then he will unrestrainedly face you."

(6)

(9) He wonders when was the last time he left his window open at night. He not gazes through it, it is nobody's threshold now.

(10) The CDs, the dust-gathering tri-socket and wax are gone. There's no more grip-tape lying around.

He walks out of his room, the stickers on his headboard intact.

(20) The shower stops, he pulls back his bangs. Once his companion has wrapped her body in a towel, he speaks.

"Let me blow your hair" He seaches in the cabinet for the hairdrier. "Ha ha, don't worry sweetie. I'm a big girl, you know~"

"Let me" and so he does. He wants to, his hands irk and eagerly proceed.

"What a princess, your girl must have been" she singsongs as his hands go through her hair. She hums in pleasure as his fingers massage her scalp.

"...a princess, eh?" he mutters hours later as he lies on his bed, eyes focused on a smudge in his roof.

He smirks.

(23) So many errors, he did. So many here's and there's that would lead him to old places, restricted areas.

(24) Habits he recalls that are long forgotten, he hasn't taken a wrong turn in weeks. Sometimes, he waits for the time his feet will lead him to the skatepark. They don't do.

Things he recalls and finds hilarious, things that make him grin and chuckle in the office. He tries to not guffaw in from of that woman, though, for the time he did she wouldn't get off his back.

So bothersome.

(25) He watches over his kouhais, his new kouhais, and makes sure the new data is properly organised.

(25.5) He used to be a damn good waiter.

Memories of drink-mixing, lady-charming and bar-cleaning. Fushimi Saruhiko smirks while writing a report.

(26) He wants to pick certain things by mistake, toy with those objects he threw away months ago. Because, unstoppably his feelings are being replaced with long hours of typing, surveilling and silence. He can't go out and play as much as he wants.

His kouhais wonder about his reluctance to board the van, but Fushimi Saruhiko is one to run to his destination, to corner his prey on a narrow alley and obliterating them in the most brutal way. He wouldn't take a ride before and there's no way he's taking one now.

(29.9) He stands and walks away from his desk. He needs this.

(30) Fushimi Saruhiko taunts, smirks and fluidly avoids. He feels alive and retaliates. He makes the most out of the fleeting moment for in a minute it will all be over. In an hour he'll be reporting his findings and in a day will strike blows again.

And so he finds those feelings he's lacking, he grasps them and savours them all. He wants them all, and so he grabs piece by piece with each movement. As long as that person breathes he'll do so too, he'll feel too.

All those feelings, he wants to strip them and leave his source bare. Raw, blank and in pain. It is in that moment, when there's no more feelings to steal, not before or later, that he will cease to exist.

(consequence) This is what traitors live for. He licks his red-stained blade, the coppery taste tantalising.