Thank you so much readers for your time, favs and your follows. I will do my best to get more of this story to you in some expedient way, so I might continue to post in smaller installments.
Aso this chapter make references to the lyrics to Glaring Dream which don't belong to me.
In response to bakayaro onna:
Thank you so much for your encouragment and positive feedback. I hope I didn't sound like I was fishing for a compliment back in my preface, but I am very grateful you were kind and generous enough to offer me one anyways haha!- and it coming from you, an extraordinary writer whom I revere and whose beautiful work I love and admire is an added boon. Truthfully I am always taken aback when anyone out there actually reads or takes interest in my stories . I questioned myself as I posted this: ' What are you doing ? Nobody wants to read a fic with that strange/ excruciating/ whacked out concept?! Why are you exhibiting/ giving credence to/ subjecting people to your crackpot stupidity ?' but I think that with every story or new chapter of a story I post - and 99.9 % of the time I am right, quite deservedly...But if someone out there enjoys it -even if it were just you, or some other person - that's more than good enough for me and more then I (given what I write ) can expect and hope for. I hope this chapter continues to intrigue and pull you in too and thank you always .
Shuichi looks up from where he is.
He sees: Eiri Uesugi is bowed and slumped where he is, or where he has landed, on what appears to be a mountainous pile of dirty laundry, his head folded into his hands.
He says in a low emphatic growl. "...I told you not to come in."
Hearing that, Shuichi clamours up to his feet.
He snatches for the door knob and kicks aside whatever he's sunk into.
When he's reached the door, Shuichi takes one last disbelieving look behind himself.
Eiri Uesugi is still there. In the midst and overwhelmed by the nightmarish disorder around him. Amongst whiskey and wine bottles. Abandoned appliances. Empty food containers. Furniture and litter.
He hasn't moved either. As if he has been implanted, propped up on a pedestral of trash. He is silent and still, almost as lifeless as all the objects enclosing him in, his face still hidden in the cup of his hands
"...I'm sorry." Shuichi stammers. " I'm sorry-"
As soon as he's out the door, Shuichi runs.
Later in the afternoon, Shuichi waits in the park.
He is sitting on his usual park bench, but this time with his head down and drawn into his knees in order to contain himself.
But when Shuichi spots Hiro drawing near in the distance ,he huffs in relief, and hurls himself forward , pumping his arms to hasten his already perilous momentum. Launching through space, skipping like a stone across the grass.
""Hiro-! "Shuichi cries towards his best friend. He is dizzy, drenched cold with perspiration, and heart rattling painfully like it means to riot and eject its way out of his body. "You won't believe what just happened- !"
Taking in the full scene, Shuichi stops himself.
Hiro is not by himself.
He is with his girlfriend, Ayaka Usumi.
Besides Hiro, Ayaka looks pretty, self-collected, and unconcerned. Her arm and hand looped with proprietary in Hiro's. Hiro's blazer slung over her shoulders.
She glances as Shuichu with a delicate frown and then checks her watch.
Ayaka reports to Hiro in her clear lilting voice. "Hiro, I'm sorry to mention this- but we are going to be late to Fujisaki's performance. If we dally too long, they'll close the doors to the theater, and they won't let us in-"
Hiro takes a constrained look at Shuichi's desperate and shell-shocked expression.
Then he considers Ayaka's calm and insistent one. As her thumb pets Hiro's hand.
"Ayaka." Hiro then turns and speaks to her in a gentle, diffident intimate tone -and rests both hands on her shoulders. " It'll just be a minute. Give us a moment alright?"
Ayaka smiles politely. "Sure."
Hiro then walks away with Shuichi down the concrete path they've walked down together many times before.
The added urgency (and novelty) of the suitation spurs their pace into a near jog.
" Alright. What happened." Hiro confers to Shuichi in a low voice, both of them still walking faster and further down the path, away from Ayaka, away from anyone's eye or ear shot for privacy's sake." Why'd you call me up- sounding like you've seen a ghost?"
"I went back. " Shuichi gasps besides him . "To see him."
"See who?" Hiro asks, barely catching up.
" Who else?! " Shuichi snaps. " Eiri Uesugi! "
"Damnit Shuichi- what do you mean who else?! " Hiro hisses and rushes forward, trying to get in front of him and does, then bounding backwards in large steps. "And why did you do that!"
"I don't know Hiro." Shuichi only paces faster and faster, and as he does, he shakes his head repeatedly. " All I know is I wish I hadn't."
Hiro stops in his tracks.
"Woah woah woah-wait- what happened? Did he ... attack you or something ? " Alarmed , Hiro catches and grabs for Shuichi's shoulder. "Christ man. Are you okay?"
Dazed, Shuichi allows Hiro's hand to stop and steady him.
"No. No it wasn't that- infact I was the one- who bothered him- b-but- but I don't even know how to explain it. "Shuichi chokes , anchored by Hiro's solid grip. "I can't really explain - but I ...somehow went into Eiri Uesugi's place! But I didn't mean to do was an accident- but it's what I saw in there-"
Shuichi's face crumples.
"It was full of... stuff Hiro. ... Not even... stuff. Most of it- junk. So much so you could barely move- until you had to ...wade or climb through it. I've seen messy places, but I have never seen anything like this. Like a landfill had been dumped inside it! It was ... horrible... And the guy ...just lives like that - by himself! But I could tell he was ashamed that I saw it! He must have hated me for seeing it..." Shuichi shakes uncontrollably.
Hiro 's eyes widen.
"And worse. I just- I just ran away, and left him there Hiro . But it was ...so terrible. I couldn't stay there for another second . "Shuichi's voice breaks into a raw whimper. With what feels like a gulf opening inside him, he groans aloud, a slew of tears burbling and pulsing down his throat. " It was just.. so damn awful and sad... Seeing him- like that... Especially knowing what ... what he was before. When he was so... promising and - "
Shuddering,Shuichi stops himself.
He realizes he was about to say : 'beautiful.'
Hiro releases Shuichi's shoulder.
" Listen. You don't have to say anything more Shuichi. " Hiro tells him sternly. "Or feel responsible for this ... guy's ... well-being- or whatever his twisted... problems are. It's alright. I'd just...forget about it. Put it out of your mind. I would if I were you."
After a moment, Shuichi utters." ...I don't think I can."
Hiro says impatiently. "What do you mean you can't? Ofcourse you can."
Hearing that somehow afflicts him like he's been physically struck. Like a fist to his core , batting through himself like flimsy paper. His vision is wavering, his open hands spasming before him -
Shuichi then tosses his head, turns and stumbles away. Blindly. He falls back, to lean against the nearest tree , panting and inarticulate with pain. Tears wetting, dribbling into his gasping mouth.
It's difficult to breathe- and to think or to function at all, and the world suddenly never has felt more indifferent and uncertain, more alien and accusatory, like something to be reviled, something to flee and fear.
He shakes his head again, speechless. And somewhere he can't discern, a bird cries, as if its coming out of him.
"No." He only says near inaudible.
Hiro leans in to hear him better.
Shuichi then says.
"...You know Hiro- you're really - smart. You're going to become a doctor... or something important. We both know that. You got a lot going for you. And me, well, what ... what do I got?" His voice rises and quivers, and he swallows down a silent sob- or perhaps a giddy laugh of complete despair." I- I've.. I've quit everything I've ever begun. I've ... never succeeded at anything. I'm not... good at anything. I don't know what I'm doing or have a clue what I want to do with myself. I don't have any talent. I know nothing."
Hiro stares back at his friend confusedly.
"Thats not true Shuichi." Hiro says finally. "You know it isn't."
"I don't know anything-" Shuichi says in a tight burst, and wipes at his burning eyes. "I don't-"
Then another sharp breath, and he gnaws at his own lip.
"I don't even know who I am Hiro." Shuichi admits with a crushed breath.
Leaning back agianst the tree, miserably, fearfully, Shuichi glances back at his friend to apprehend his reaction.
Hiro stares back at him awkwardly. Mouth askew. Brow set with pity and sad comprehension.
And Shuichi realizes by saying that, he has committed some irreversible error. That he has said, and revealed too much, and effectively finished or destroyed something.
For a moment, they say nothing.
"Hiro-" Ayaka calls out - interrupting them out of their critical silence. "Its time."
They both simultaneously jolt and straighten up.
Now grasping, that Ayaka has followed them- and may have witnessed something that she and no one else was meant to.
"It's time to go and I do think we may already will be late- I hate to rush you Hiro, but we really have to right now - to even have a chance to make it-" Ayaka continues softly. Her pleasant nonchalant tone contradicts her stance . She stands behind them both, her refined feature displeased , her arms crossed infront of her chest.
Hiro grimaces.
"Look- I'm ... really sorry that happened man." Hiro then sighs , his hands outspread and haplessly open, but he's already walking backwards- drifting back towards Ayaka like a kite being tugged gently away, away from him.. "But ...I -promised her and my room mate that I would go to this- and Ayaka's waiting -"
From where he stands, Shuichi watches his friend retreat.
"Later Shuichi." Hiro calls out over his shoulder, unconvincingly as he goes to join Ayaka."We'll talk about this later. "
Shuichi watches Hiro put his arm around Ayaka's waist as they head off.
Shuichi spends the rest of the day sitting on the park bench by himself.
When he comes home late that night, (again, he's lied to his parents, saying that his work ran over time, and that he's had dinner with Hiro ) Shuichi rushes to his room before his parents can ask him any questions.
Once in his room, he closes the door behind him.
Immediately , he yanks, tears his shirt off- the burden of having to maintain some standard of decency beyond him , the extremity of the events of the day now making him feel wild and scarcely human- he takes off and throws his jeans aside too.
Clad in his boxer-briefs, he throws himself atop on the bed.
There he lies , dispossessed, collapsed, face down, hands planted on the back of his neck. Bewildering words, thoughts and images cloud and swarm, and echo in his mind and clock his pounding heart, and he suppresses the urge to tear his hair out, and shout and swear and scream until his voice gives into the stuffy suffocating darkness of his pillow.
Finally needing air , he turns his head to the wall to breathe.
Next to him he discovers, with a tentative hand, tucked in the crevasse between the bed and the wall, is his badly beaten up composition notebook.
The one he used to carry everywhere in high school, if ever 'inspiration' struck. Scribbled in it are his 'ideas'.Personal observations. Some titles . His 'songs'. Most of them mercifully never to be finished.
Hoping to distract himself, Shuichi then grabs and claws for it, and forces himself to look through his writings.
It doesn't help.
His face knots, contorts and twitches as he reads through his book. Sometimes he blushes, winces, flinches- mystified, agonized by his 'work.'
It's uncomfortable, and embarrassing, as if he is intruding, trespassing into an partial acquaintance's diary, or like it were badly plagiarized, but plagiarizing himself -an already bad writer.
Shuichi is also appalled and amazed at the quality and condition of the writing itself. All the crossing out. How it's scattered all over the page in no coherent structure. Discontinued sentences. Laboured phrases. Hackneyed word-play. Hesitation marks. Unnecessary question marks, Riddled with so many cliches , and obvious grammatical errors ,gaps and blank spaces where he's forgotten how or has skipped, or incorrectly written certain characters . Often he can barely comprehend why he wrote it, or what he meant to say at the time.
It wasn't so long ago when Shuichi had written these songs in earnest
He vaguely recalls writing them. How the activity had felt so important. Pure. Essential. Like a spiritual calling or a passionate, deeply gratifying yet gruelling endeavor. At one point , when these thoughts had occurred to him , dissatisfying him, refusing to leave him alone, begging him for his time,for utterance and expression. He had felt so much he needed to record his thoughts tangibly,so strongly to communicate them to other people, like someone seared by consuming questions or a holy revelation might have to write it on any open surface whether it be on a bathroom wall or in the sand , or shout it to unknowing passerby on the street.
Now he thinks, he 'd rather crawl into a hole, be shot into the sun, be flayed alive, then let this be seen by anyone.
Or maybe something had been lost, gone amiss, from mind to paper . It is as if the moment his thoughts had been put down, exposed and realized, they had lost their power, their potency, their beauty. Somewhere along the way, they had died .
Without Shuichi even knowing it .
Or maybe instead, he had changed- changing from when he had written it to changing right this moment ,right now as he read them?
But could he have changed so drastically, within such a short laspe of time ?
Throughly disillusioned Shuichi concentrates on the entry on the back page.
He wrote this one not long ago- a few months back one night in the park, during another one of his between- job periods. Back then, he was then still( fruitlessly, futilely ) attempting to write lyrics- to convince himself and his friend that his dream of pop success was still viable- and maybe it was, if he could just write one good song.
The next day , he had called up, showed his lyrics to Hiro in the park -thinking he was onto something- possibly his best work, even incomplete as it was .
However Shuichi had not been greeted with the reaction he had hoped for .
Hiro, although outwardly kind and diplomatic in his response, had been noticeably (to anyone who knew Hiro as well Shuichi did) unimpressed.
Shortly after that Hiro had told him his experimental gap year (the time-frame in which he would try with Shuichi to make their band work ) was over, and that his parent's patience had run out. That and he said , he wanted to quit the band to go to university . (Which Shuichi knew that had been with some encouragement from Ayaka , that he go to school and quit the band was a condition of them seeing each other more seriously )
And like that, the dream was over.
Without Hiro , Shuichi didn't want to go on with Bad Luck.
Also, since then Shuichi has been writer's blocked.
Meaning, this was the last song Shuichi ever wrote .
Of all things, it had been a love song.
Shuichi rips out the page out of the note book to read it better.
He reads:
"The whisper that melts into the bustling crowd.
Blurs the memories scattered underfoot.
The lights of the town where I wander lost, glaring one way
you are reflected in a wavering illusion
If the kindness tells only of a uneasiness,
flourished forever, I don't want a tomorrow"
the words that should be able too reach you (its talk to myself)
even certain things are too uncertain,
What would I have to believe in to see you again?"
Shuichi then folds the paper up.
He watches himself, as if it's another person, crumple the song up in his hand.
He remembers taunting Eiri Uesugi about not publishing a second book.
How could he, when he was not even capable of finishing one poorly-written (lying) love song?
Shuichi knew it was a lie ,because Shuichi has never been in love.
Lost, Shuichi looks out his window.
Down all the way to the bottom.
The next morning Shuichi leaves the house before his parents wake up.
Instead of going to the park-(the incident with Hiro yesterday has since 'spoiled' the place for him- for now and the foreseeable future), Shuichi goes to the closest convenience mart.
He takes his birthday money with him, in case he wants to make a purchase.
Once he does, he takes the train out , his bagged purchase stowed under his arm.
Shuichi's hand hovers over the now somewhat familar door twice.
He is back at the industrial building, standing before at Eiri Uesugi's apartment.
And somehow , the box he has delivered , two days in a row, is standing outside in the hallway again too.
It shouldn't be. Shuichi remembers when he accidently fell in, he dropped the box inside too. That they fell over it.
Then again, he shouldn't be here either.
But if the box is outside, then Eiri Uesugi must have made a point of picking it up, and taking it back outside again.
Shuich stares at the box, how ominious and disquieting it seems, sitting there, alone by itself.
He feels strangely afraid, as if this box has somehow gained consciousness , and not only that is aware of him and has been waiting for him to return.
He blinks hard to eradicate that thought. And any other thoughts of staying any longer.
But at the corner of his vision, he notices something else.
That the door is slightly open, because something shining is wedged at the bottom of it.
Before he loses his nerve, Shuichi looks downwards to check what it is.
It's Eiri Uesugi's tortoise shell glasses.
Shuichi then remembers those (ugly) glasses had been knocked off Eiri Uesugi's face, during their fall.
He bents down and takes a closer look at them.
The glasses have been broken in two. The lenses cracked. The back wires bent.
Shuichi the carefully tries to nudge the broken spectacles back inside through the door, through it with his finger.
But as if compelled by itself, the door creaks open. Little by little .
Finally , not to delay the inevitable, Shuichi stands up and nudges the glasses forward with a prod of his toe, to get the pair is glasses completely back inside the apartment.
By accident, the entire door suddenly swings open.
The entire dreadful tableau is opened before him again, like a portal to hell.
His foot still extended, Shuichi eyes the closest stacks of newspapers by the door up to the ceiling. The monstrous amount of stuff crowding it inside, and the big smothering dark presence of the place, followed by its heady and oppressive odor.
Then his eyes veer to the middle of the room.
Eiri Uesugi is in the center of it.
Sitting in an beaten up armchair thats been embedded in the middle of the scene, his fingers digging into the armrest whose seams have split and have been crudely duct-taped together. His legs are extended, his shoed feet stationed on a stacked pile of cardbox boxes and books that have formed a make-shift ottoman.
There seems to be a small path through the refuse, like one might machete a trail in a dense thicket, where his things have been shoved aside, like a clearing from the armchair to the door.
Shuichi realizes- Eiri Uesugi has done that, in order that he can get to the door to his chair whenever he needs to
Eiri Uesugi is also staring right at him.
Enormous-eyed, Shuichi stares back.
Somehow the man does not seem worried or concerned to see Shuichi standing there at his door way.
He only looks grimly, wearily at Shuichi. Expectant almost.
This time his eyes are naked, face bare, because his glasses are gone. What remains of them are lying at Shuichi's feet.
With more of his bearded face visible, Eiri Uesugi looks younger. Paler. And with it, his countenance looks more exposed, open and assailable. As a reminder of that assailablity , there is a even a deep purple-red scratch down the side of Eiri Uesugi's nose from where the spoke of the glasses had cut into him when they had been struck off. At the same time, with the eyes uncovered , the dark shadows under them are more pronounced, the gold color and affect of his eyes are more piercing , perturbing and uncanny than before.
Shuichi then croaks weakly, as if to explain himself. "...The door was open."
Eiri Uesugi says nothing. He continues to gaze motionlessly at Shuichi as if he's heard nothing.
" I swear this- is the last time we're ever going to meet ...or see eachother. But I just wanted to apologize. for ... for ...my behavior yesterday. The box thing ... was ...out of line. ...and I'm sorry ...about ...breaking into your place. That was... unacceptable...and I wanted to give you something as an apology. " Shuichi trembles and manages to say in a uneven faltering voice.
He then clears his throat.
"So... I brought you a pack of menthols and a six pack of Sapporo's."
The younger man takes the six pack and the pack of cigarettes from the convenience mart out of the plastic bag , and lays them down on the floor.
" I will leave them outside if you want them. "Shuichi then bows deeply. "Goodbye Mister Uesugi."
Swiftly, he turns to go.
Just as he's reaching for the door knob again to close it, he hears a soft croak behind him.
"...Brat. "
Then another cough.
" You got a light."