Insanity is Colored White
Day Two
Rain pelted the pristine glass windows and sodden ground three flights beneath his feet. Little distorted pearls clung to the panes and slipped down the surface leaving a feeble trail in their wake. An overcast grey sky rumbled in ear-shattering volumes above the institution, sharp flashes racing across the land and the groan of great trees on the wind. If before he wondered at the fearsome might of thunderstorms in the far off distance as a curious child, he now knew that their source of power was hidden deep in the mountains where they were free to roam.
On occasion the building shivered in an aftershock and his hand trembled on the windowsill. Morbid curiosity filled him as his fingers tingled. How would an earthquake affect a building so high in the mountains? Every now and again all of Japan rumbled from the quakes out in the Pacific, but if a true earthquake were to hit he wondered if it might be worse in isolation. No power and no hope of power any time soon; live earth beneath their feet and looming trees all around, untouched and unburdened by man and his chemicals and axe. His parents might worry.
A soft, barely heard knock broke through his concentration and the door yielded to Hitomi's thin figure with a smile plastered on her face. She beckoned and a single glance at the clock revealed all about the situation, more than any person's words could describe. He slipped his shoes on and followed the caretaker into the hallway, eyes stinging at the bright contrast from his darkened room. The natural grey that washed over the floor was much preferred to the unnatural white lighting the fixtures offered. The warm yellow glow was in other rooms, where relaxation was the intention.
Their rooms were meant for quiet reflection and dream yielding sleep.
Hitomi stepped inside the elevator and held the door for his entrance. She pressed the button for the second floor, the dreaded floor in some cases. The contraption lurched and his stomach with it as they arrived. They stepped out into another whitewashed hallway lined with metal doors with little glass panes and locked doorknobs. Caretakers and interns and doctors passed with brief greetings. He'd seen them plenty of times before, never cared to know more than their faces, and responded with a pleasant smile all the same. Sometimes the reason behind his effort baffled him.
Hitomi slid her key into a locked door, as everything was done in the hospital, and stepped inside with him with another greeting. His doctor stood in the center with a clipboard and a tray on the exam table, which he pointedly ignored. The man was fairly old, should be retired by now really, but had simply retreated into the mountains and continued his work here rather than give up his career. At least, that was what Hitomi had told him and he had little reason to doubt her. Dr. Sasaki had once had a reserved, all-business countenance but working in an environment where everyone was either overly emotional or more emotionally detached than a rock had changed him.
"You haven't been feeling too well lately?" Dr. Sasaki inquired as he motioned for him to take a seat. Sometime during his musings Hitomi had left him alone, and would return in twenty minutes. As he slid onto the biting cold metal his eyes inadvertently trailed off to the tray the doctor's hand went towards. The man picked up a small amber bottle and ripped open a fresh syringe inside a plastic bag. The tender skin on the inside of his elbow already itched in anticipation.
"I've just been tired lately," Naoto said though it wasn't quite the truth. He still had enough of his mind to recall how the body screamed in a satisfying agony when it was actually fatigued. The doctor nodded and lifted his arm, the syringe with its deadly thin tip dripping small droplets of medication on the tray. He wrapped a band of rubber around his arm and tightened it until the pressure passed the uncomfortable stage and took up the needle. Naoto took in a deep breath and when he exhaled the ordeal was over. Except for the prick, he hadn't felt anything.
It was a psychological fear, he decided weeks ago. The knowledge that a small yet extremely effective amount of drugs was entering his bloodstream unsettled the mind.
"My heart aches sometimes," he admitted as Dr. Sasaki disposed of the needle. The man gave him a sharp look that demanded the reason why that was not the first thing out of his mouth. Naoto shrugged and unbuttoned his shirt as the man expected of him. The normal tanned complexion on his skin had faded; his own body was foreign to him now. He had no state of mind to care about the muscle he had once attained through careful exercise. The stamina everyone once praised him for had gone, too.
The doctor placed the cold stethoscope above his heart, across his chest, his back, and pressed two gloved fingers against the vulnerable underside of his jaw. He frowned and made a few scattered notes in his file. "There's nothing wrong with your heart that I can tell now. Stop by every other day for two weeks just to be sure." Dr. Sasaki muddled about his cabinets as Naoto slipped his shirt back on and carefully redid the buttons. The cold splotches where the metal had touched him still tingled.
"I'm almost certain it's purely psychological, though. Moving here as a permanent patient is a difficult process to adjust to," Dr. Sasaki said. He left unsaid that the transition was much harder on the recipient if they had little to no contact with their former lives. Naoto had known all along that the ache in his chest had been of a completely different type than the pains inflicted by his heart disease. His illness had never made him so helpless and isolated, not even when he had been hospitalized as a child.
"Don't stress yourself too much in your therapy. I'll remind them it isn't good for your heart, especially at this stage. And, I may not be a therapist but Hayama-kun," Dr. Sasaki said, his wrinkled old eyes staring at the younger boy. "The science I believe in may not have an explanation, but I've seen it too many times to deny it; there's a strange strength in friendship and love. With it, people pull through the most hopeless situations. Keep that in mind."
The therapists had been repeating the same mantra since his arrival, urging him to socialize and open the heart he had learnt to fear for other people to examine. They warned against any of his previous behavior, but they didn't understand how hard it was to resist those urges despite how precious or worthless the recipient was. Naoto couldn't hurt another friend or another perfect stranger. He graced the doctor with a smile of acceptance though his insides churned and his resolve strengthened at the thought. It was a smile that didn't convince anyone, the strained types he seemed to wear more and more often.
"Dr. Sasaki," Naoto said suddenly, some faraway thought having returned to him with a remarkable, frightening clarity. The pinprick of red itched underneath his blunt fingernails and the doctor moved to find the bandage he'd forgotten in his talk, muttering apologies as he shuffled through drawers. That wasn't what Naoto meant. "The therapists said I have…narcissism. But if I'm not remembering wrong, you can't treat narcissism with medication, right? Then what're these shots for? Are they just…placebos or something? Is there really no way to cure me?"
The second session with the therapist had brought that personality disorder up, but Naoto couldn't grasp the concept as applying to himself. He understood what a narcissist was of course. As was the nature of his condition, he was often unaware that he had done anything wrong. The only hope he had held onto for these weeks trapped inside this prison was that the treatments and therapy would control those urges enough for him to function without being a threat to society. In his desperate desire for that small chance at redemption, at that hope that he might someday be able to apologize without being condescending, he'd forgotten that it was one of the few disorders unaffected by drugs.
The realization that these efforts were for naught struck him harder than being told he had a problem in the first place. A sickening film of bile formed in his throat but he kept his mouth clenched so tightly that his jaw began to ache. Dr. Sasaki had torn the protective covering off of a band-aid and pressed it against the puncture wound while he talked. He didn't look up for some time.
"They probably haven't covered this with you yet," the doctor sighed heavily, as if he were the bearer of bad news. Naoto stiffened; more problems he didn't have any notion of were just what he needed. "It's the reason you've been so tired lately, and your heart has been 'hurting'. They're not quite sure yet, whether or not it's clinical depression or just a phase of adjustment. In any case, you don't need to worry. The shot is just a mild relaxant, a sedative of sorts. In the days before you come here, Hitomi has said that you've been increasingly restless and irritable."
Naoto blinked. They believed he might be depressed. That he might consider suicide was an absurd concept to him. The past few nights sleep had eluded him and he did run a short temper but he had attributed that to his parents' calls. The tantalizing images of a life- one that had once been his- always stirred uneasy emotions in him. The bitterness at hearing such things had always gone with the visits to the doctor, but Naoto had never stopped to consider that those feelings had nothing to do with narcissism. He'd just assumed the injections were for that disorder, the one that concerned him the most.
Society didn't scorn the depressed as much as it did narcissistic rapists, now did it? Naoto frowned; what kind of narcissist called himself a rapist? Maybe the depressed, guilty type did. Maybe being here did help, even if he could barely wrap his mind around it now.
Hitomi arrived a few minutes later, sent him outside to wait, and spoke with the doctor while he leaned against a pale wall and tossed the words around in his head. She emerged shortly and gave him another of her unchanging smiles, and together they headed further down the hall for group therapy. Naoto winced at the prospect of the next one or two hours. As if speaking about his problems wasn't enough, he had to reveal it to these perfect strangers and care about their issues too. These group sessions occurred every now and again, not that he kept track anymore. He was sure that they ran on a specific schedule, too.
The woman left him at the door to the large room with the couches and chairs and awkward silences. They almost always stuck him into groups with similar disorders, so he supposed that they'd start sending him to sessions with depressed patients next. Beyond the door with its metallic handle and small glass window were other creeps like him- molesters and rapists and everyone unable to control their desires. For obvious reasons they sat apart from each other. Naoto sucked in a deep breath and stepped inside.
Some familiar faces were wandering the room on restless feet already. Others were slouched in chairs, some talking quietly with one another. Naoto picked a seat apart from anyone else, but not too obvious as to his antisocial tendency. Today was a good day, he decided as he allowed his shoulders to slouch and relaxed into the plastic chair. Today he didn't straighten his posture and assume himself better than anyone else here. Today he was quite aware as to who they were and who he was. It didn't bother him that the other patients strutted around the room with high chins and hardened, superior eyes.
When they were all trapped within these whitewashed walls pride started to melt away into an entirely different substance.
The two regular therapists for this group- Takeda and Kobayashi- walked in as the last stream of stragglers trickled inside. Everyone took what places they pleased and the low hum of chatter lapsed into silence. Most sessions were gender inclusive with the exception of Takeda. The pure male dominance that filled the room didn't unnerve the female in the slightest, and Naoto had figured over time that most would rather cross Kobayashi than her. He still hadn't figured out why everyone stayed well away from her, but wasn't too willing to find out.
This round had brought new two patients transferred from another group, an event that happened often enough. The influx of additions to the hospital was an extremely low number; Naoto had been the first in nearly a year. Understanding the marginal difference between him and the others, he had opted to keep to himself within the first week. Everyone knew him as 'narcissistic' anyways, so it wasn't much of a stretch to assume that he thought he was 'too good' to talk with them. Inside these walls, few bothered each other about trivial things like that. There were worst disorders than narcissism.
"Alright, since Ueda-kun and Watanabe-san have joined us, we should welcome them," Takeda said in that optimistic voice of hers that left no open room for argument. Some, Naoto included, grumbled at her words, not that the system had changed in the last three weeks. Whenever they received new members they all retold their individual stories in order to prove that yes, they had no choice whatsoever in revealing their darkest secrets. Not that anyone had secrets in this place anymore.
They made progress around the circle and the nerves in his stomach tightened and strangled themselves in an effort to end this prematurely. A few of the guys looked almost bored when they spoke and nearly all of them paid zero attention to each other's stories. There were some Naoto had never heard before from lack of attention, so he listened with half an ear in morbid curiosity.
Fujiwara Hiroki was a decent salary man unable to be tried for the attempted murder of his wife and two other women, on the basis of tampered evidence. Most men spoke the empty words with little shame, a simple mantra that held no meaning and no bearing on their future actions. If not for Takeda's hardened stare, Fujiwara might have attempted to laugh the matter off. Naoto saw the corners of his lips twitch upwards as he lowered his eyes, not from shame, but to hide his utter elation at escaping prison. The deep churning in his stomach intensified and his hands clenched into fists.
Murder was a sin. Every person in this room with the exception of the doctors- unless they, too had dark secrets they would rather keep hidden- were sinners for viewing themselves as superior at one point in their lives. Not just 'superior' in the simple sense of the word either, Naoto considered. Everyone felt self-confidence at some point in their lives. No, their egos had overtaken their senses and humanity, had emerged as some deadlier beast and wounded others and perhaps taken joy from the act.
"I'm Hayama Naoto; it's a pleasure…" he said with a small incline of his head. He admitted his crime without the shame that broiled beneath his skin, well-adapted to the cold resolve the others used. "I'm here for chronically assaulting the underclassmen in my high school, and for abusing my younger brother since we were young."
Incest was also a sin. These were flowery words for the simple truth, words that gave off an illusion of grandeur. There would never be words for the terrible, wretched grimaces of betrayal on his little brother's face or his sweet, heart-wrenching cries or the innocent trust and adoration behind his eyes that slowly faded over the years.
The procession had long advanced without his knowledge, the experiences forcing his own to pale in comparison. They were almost reassuring. He hadn't tried to kill anyone. He hadn't burnt down buildings or destroyed families by tearing their foundations apart. He hadn't tortured anyone or played intricate mind games with them. Though in essence, he had destroyed his family, hadn't he? Or was that not his fault? It couldn't be his entire fault. But for the life of him, Hayama Naoto could not imagine anyone else having damaged his family more than himself, if he thought with a moment of clarity.
Maybe if his little brother had satisfied him-
"Hayama-kun," said a voice from beyond his realm of consciousness. Naoto started so badly that he slipped from his chair, banged his head against the hard plastic next to him, and landed in a heap of limbs and metal. Dazed for a moment, he glanced around and saw that everyone had left already. The clock said that an hour and a half had elapsed. Kobayashi entered his field of vision and offered a helping hand, mildly worried and amused. "I didn't mean to give you such a scare. You've haven't been here this entire session. Oh, Dr. Sasaki told me what happened today."
"I'm sorry," Naoto answered automatically. Society had engraved that reflex into them as children, so even if the phrase held no truth to it, he was not in the wrong for having apologized. Everyone had always accepted his- from his parents to his teachers to his little brother. Things went away if he said sorry- until he came here. Word stopped having such weight to them anymore.
"No, it's alright. Perhaps this isn't the best kind of therapy for you, though you've been diagnosed with narcissism. Takeda-san and I have been talking it over and thought you should transfer- would one-on-one with another patient bother you too much?" Unlike Takeda, Kobayashi's voice rarely held the same intensity that demanded obedience. His respect had been earned in different ways, and he always sounded easy-to-reach. He was a mortal man, not unobtainable and never superior. Maybe that was why he worked in this department.
Still, no matter how agreeable and painless Kobayashi's voice was, he was still within the institute's walls where refusal did not exist. Naoto pushed himself to his feet and shook his head though he inwardly protested. He graced the man with a thin smile and accepted the information in stride. His next session would be with Sato and her marginally smaller group that didn't just know each other's crimes, but their fears and their once-hopes and dreams as well. He'd have to befriend someone, reveal all of those insecurities that had overwhelmed him not so long ago.
And he would have to help them through whatever sins or tragedies they had gone through, too.
But first he had to think- think about that 'depression' the doctor had spoken of and consider if it really was depression. He had been acting dismal, but who didn't feel oppressed behind these walls in the middle of a land inhabited by nature's beasts and beauties? Such sights could never be theirs to cherish with someone important. They could only look through a window and dream, and today that window was foggy with endless pellets of water striking its surface.
"Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting" (Haruki Murakami).
• I haven't gotten a chance to read this over for mistakes yet, so if you spot inconsistencies or errors please tell me. Unfortunately, the clock is ticking for me too and when school starts I'll have less time for writing. I'll still update of course, especially this story, since the chapters are so short.
• Naoto is only partially diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, since he is able to feel remorse. A regular narcissist/sociopath would probably still see little fault in their actions. There is another underlying reason for his actions besides mental insanity, trust me.
• I am so sorry Takumi, but those words just slipped out of your brother's mouth. D: I don't think anything at the time, short of being drastic, could have sated Naoto. Oh, no first names in this because they aren't important, per say. Naoto as a patient would never call the doctors by their first name (unless something weird was going on there...).
