Hanged Man's Eye
Chapter 2: Why The Devil Smiled.
"Oi, Shintaro. The latest chapter of the 'Snakes and Angels' manga is out."
"Thanks." Is what Shintaro replies automatically before he realizes what Takane said, "...wait. What did you say?"
"The new chapter of that crappy shoujo manga that you really like is out." Takane repeats, "Y'know. The one with the snake goddess and the tortured dark-haired ahoge-idiot protagonist. Who's all brooding and stuff and looks like every other damn person in there."
Shintaro sputters for a bit and Takane cackles, "I can't even believe Mr. Gold-Medal-Sniper actually likes his manga with sparkle-sparkle-glitter-glitter, flowers and a shitload of pink!"
"Shut it! It's a good manga, is all. And at least I'm not the sore-loser-always-second-lightning princess. How you managed such a cult following is beyond me."
"Oh, the latest issue came out?!" Ayano interjects before Takane could retaliate, "What happened? Did he talk to the humans?!"
"No, it's just a filler chapter of him and the girl floating around in darkness while everyone in Heaven fends off the snakes. There was gags and sad stuff and the fanbase is having a lot of conflicting feelings."
"I can't believe I'm hearing the word 'fanbase' coming from you." Takane mutters.
"Shut up, lightning princess."
"Can't you get better insults?"
"Doesn't change the fact that you are one."
"Shh! You'll wake Haruka up!" Ayano says and the voices immediately quiet down, "Show me the manga too, Takane. I wanna see!"
"Wait, you read it too, Ayano-chan?"
"Yeah! It's really, really good!"
"I thought you told us to quiet down." Shintaro says.
"You were the one being loud!"
"Since when was I screaming about shoujo manga?"
"Shhhh!"
But Haruka could have told them that he didn't mind.
It wasn't like he could fall asleep anyway.
Not with the pain that wracked his body.
A steady stream of pain, throbbing under his skin with every cursed heartbeat, a constant, steady, itch that pulsed through him, his wings, his back, his lungs, his everything. He only pretends to sleep to stop himself from talking.
Because if he tries to talk...
He feels a warm hand squeeze his own.
"...Yeah, I like that manga. So what?" Shintaro says, suddenly, "The story is pretty good. Once you get past all the sparkles."
"And the main character is pretty interesting too!" Ayano adds, "You can never tell what he's thinking."
"Huh? What do you mean?" Takane asks.
"Well..."
"He doesn't want to be an angel."
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"You can just tell us not to visit, you know."
Haruka opens his eyes to see Shintaro. Sitting in the chair beside the bed. Placing Haruka's hand back onto the bed in a businesslike fashion.
He does all this without meeting Haruka's eyes. Not even once.
"Even I know you have bad days, senpai." He continues.
Haruka smiles. It's a tired smile on his drawn, pale face. His fingers are trembling slightly, he realizes, trembling against Shintaro's hand.
"How do you feel?"
Haruka shakes his head slightly. Shintaro's eyes flicker towards him and then back out the window.
The awkward tension in the air was palpable. Almost solid in form.
Shintaro tries to fill the silence, but it's even stranger.
He doesn't talk.
"Did we wake you?"
Another slight shake of the head. His fingers rub at his eyes wearily, he can barely keep them open.
"Go back to sleep if you want."
"W...hat will you...do?"
Shintaro flinches.
Too late, Haruka realizes that he had spoken out loud.
The raspy, rattling breath of a dying man reaches, registers in his ears.
Again he feels his stomach sink, already he can taste the bile on his tongue. He tries to will the nausea away and starts a little when something suddenly blocks his line of vision. Cutting off the blinding white light above him.
"Go back to sleep." A demand, much more harsh than it needed to be, "Don't think about unnecessary things."
"Ah..." His skin was cold. It felt nice against his fever-wracked body, "Thanks..."
"And don't talk."
"Mm..."
"...Ever heard the story of the girl with the wishing flower?"
"...Huh?"
"Just a question. Well, have you heard about it or not?"
Haruka shakes his head, a minute movement.
"Not surprised. It's actually not very well-known." Shintaro sounds slightly nervous for some reason. He cleared his throat,"...Uh. Momo, my sister, she used to tell me a story when I couldn't sleep. And this isn't the same thing but..."
A warm, feverish hand placed on top of Shintaro's. A light, gentle squeeze and from underneath, an even more brittle smile. Warm and gentle and patient as Haruka always was.
"...Once upon a time, there was a poor little girl. Now she was friends with a very rich young man who was like a big brother to her..."
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Sometimes, Haruka is not the one sleeping.
On rare days when Ayano and Takane have tests, Shintaro visits him alone. Haruka asks him whether he feels bored in the hospital, but Shintaro shakes his head and says he has nothing better to do. He sits in the chair a little ways away, staring at the window outside, talking to Haruka every now and then so the silence doesn't seem stifling.
Finally, he settles down in it and closes his eyes. Haruka usually takes the opportunity to go to sleep as well.
Today, when he wakes up, it's sunset and Shintaro was still there.
In the dying red of the sun, he sees him. Hunched over, Shuddering slightly, murmuring under his breath.
A single tear running down his cheek.
Haruka tries to get up but he can't. Sleep smothers his body, his lungs and his eyelids fall back down before he knows it.
When he wakes again, he sees Shintaro acting his...usual self. So far removed from the scene of the sunset that he's left thinking it was an unsettling, strangely heart-wrenching dream.
Somehow, he doubts it.
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"Your wings are strange."
Haruka blinks up and looks up at Shintaro, sees him stare back with an intense look of concentration on his face.
"Huh?"
"It doesn't look like the other angel wings I've seen."
"Really?"
"I thought it was just in comparison to Ayano's but...they're strangely dented a bit."
"Dented...how?"
"Like...I can't really explain it." Shintaro says and he squints a little. His fingers trace some sort of angled motion, tracing out the rough shape of an angel wing, "I don't know how to. They just look slightly strange to me."
"Ah, I see! But no-one else has told me anything like that..."
"It could be my imagination." Shintaro says and he waves a hand, as if to dismiss his claim. He doesn't look convinced though.
Haruka looks back to his sketch warily, before he closes the book.
Sure enough, Shintaro gets up from his chair and walks up to him.
"...Can I touch them?"
"Huh?" Haruka repeats. Feeling embarrassed for some reason.
"Your wings. Can I touch them?"
"A-ah. I..."
His wings.
His wings.
His...
"I-I think that you're right about them though!" Haruka says and it sounds more like a protest than he had intended. It doesn't slip past Shintaro; he blinks and his expression reverts back to suspicion.
He doesn't say anything else though; he wordlessly extends his hand.
"W-wait, don't-!"
But it's too late and his fingers brush upon the thin fabric on Haruka's back before they reach for the feathery base.
"...!"
The sketchbook hits the floor and Shintaro barely manages to catch himself before he's pushed back as well.
"Ngh! Haruka, what-?!"
"Don't touch them!" The words come out a near scream. His heart is beating fast, too fast, it's a lead weight in a chest that scares him.
His chest heaves, straining with the effort of merely spreading his wings out. His wings that curl protectively around him, blocking him from the world outside.
His wings that still burned from the unexpected warmth of Shintaro's skin.
And Shintaro pulls his hand back, nursing his wrist like he'd been burned as well.
"...I'm sorry." Shintaro says curtly, "I won't do it again."
Even after he leaves, his wings haven't calmed down.
It takes a whole day for his wings to forget that strange heat.
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Shintaro returns the next day with a book in hand.
He slams it down on the table with unnecessary force, startling the rest of the group.
"E-eh? What the hell was that for?!" Takane snaps before she takes a look at the cover, "What's this?"
"Oh, I haven't seen this book!" Ayano says, picking it up gingerly. She takes a look at the cover and blinks, "Huh? This is different from all the books I've seen."
"Different?" Haruka asks. Takane peeks over Ayano's shoulder and frowns, "Eh? That...doesn't look like japanese?"
"That's because it isn't." Shintaro says simply, "It's written in English."
"Huh?! A book in English? What are you doing with that?!"
"If you'd actually scored 7o marks on your damn test like I've told you to, you'd be able to read this much." Shintaro snaps, "It's a story book. I used to read it all the time when I was a kid."
"Ehhh?! You could read all this when you were little?!" Ayano exclaims as Takane flipped through the pages.
"Oi, be careful with that! It's a pretty old book. And yes, I read this all the time when I was little." Shintaro shrugs, "Not much else to do back then."
"'Not much else to do'?! You read a book written in complete English for fun?! I thought you couldn't be more like an overachieving game protag if you tried but shit was I wrong!"
"A what?" Shintaro squints at her.
"You're seriously like one of those loser protagonists from ecchi or harem games that do weird or crazy things just to get laid!"
"And you would know all about those type of games wouldn't you." Shintaro snorts, "Pervert."
Takane turns bright red and was barely being held back by Haruka from ripping Shintaro a new one when Ayano interrupts, "It looks interesting! Would you mind reading it to us later?"
"Sure. I brought it out anyway because I wanted to read it again."
"What kinda stuff is in there anyway?"
"Fairy tales mostly. All kinds, collected from foreign lands by a pair of brothers. Apparently, they'd made it their life mission to collect whatever they could find and write it down for prosperity. Or something like that."
"Ooooh, that sounds really cool!" Ayano's eyes were sparkling now, "Are there stories of heroes in there?!"
"Er...yeah, I think. Of princes and heroes of legend fighting dragons and snakes and such."
"Tell me when you're planning to read it! I'll be there right away, with a notepad and pencil!"
"W-what's with that...?"
"I need new stories to tell Shuuya and the rest! Pleeeeeease?!" Ayano pleads, getting right up in his face.
"Ugh, fine already. It's not like I even said no..."
"Yesssss!" Ayano cheers.
"I wouldn't get my hopes up too high, Ayano-chan." Takane mutters, "It's not like they're guaranteed to be particularly good stories just because they're foreign. He could just have bad taste."
"Fine, I'll read one for you too. That's what you want, right?"
"Wha-no!" Takane sputters, "I don't want to read your crappy stories at all!"
"Yeah, yeah."
"Why'd you bring it all of a sudden, Shintaro?" Haruka asks.
There's a slight pause before Shintaro answers, "I just want to brush up on my English. There are certain manuals and stuff I want to read. And, uh. I thought I'd start from something I pretty much know like the back of my hand."
"You're just showing off now." Takane says irritably, missing the way Ayano shoots Shintaro a knowing look. And Shintaro deliberately avoiding Ayano's gaze.
"Ah, I see."
When the girls leave, Shintaro gets up from his seat and walks up to Haruka. The first time since that awkwardly strange encounter.
"That story I told you...it wasn't entirely accurate."
"Hmm?"
"That one about the wishing flower. I mean, I told you what I remembered of it. But there are lots of different versions of it and this one has a different version so...if you..."
"Eh? If I what?"
"I-if you want, I can read this one. And any other story you like. I'm going to need all the practice I can get anyway, no matter how good I am at it. English is a weird language."
"Oh. Is that ok?"
"I just said I didn't mind." Shintaro says somewhat impatiently.
"If that's fine with you...thank you. I really liked that story." Haruka says with a smile.
"Yeah, I already know that."
"Eh?"
"N-Nothing. If you want I can read it to you now?"
"Maybe tomorrow? I'm pretty sleepy now."
"Oh. I see. Ok, then tomorrow." Shintaro gets up.
"Sorry."
"I don't mind. But you better be awake tomorrow."
"I will! Ah...wait, are you going already?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"...No, I was just thinking that you'd been going home pretty early recently. Is everything ok?"
"Everything...yeah. I just thought I'd leave so you could sleep."
"O-oh, but that's ok! I don't mind you staying here."
Shintaro frowns, "What, you don't mind me staying here and watching you sleep? I do, especially since I sound like a pervert in this scenario."
"I don't think you're one! And uh, I'm just saying it's fine. And you're tired too, aren't you? From school? So why don't you take some more rest?"
"I should be saying that to you. You look like crap."
"Yeah. So we'll both take some rest!"
"You're oddly stubborn about weird stuff..." Shintaro says with a slight sigh, "But it's true that I'm kinda tired. Alright, then."
He sits in the chair on the opposite end of the room. Keeps his book carefully on the desk nearby and settles down into a comfortable position.
Haruka wanted to lay back too. But not yet, not yet.
There was a familiar itch in his fingers again.
He takes out his sketchbook and flips through the pages. Stops when he reaches the very last one.
The sketch is slightly more detailed now.
With each discarded page, he sees the shadows in his eyes, the lines in his skin, the strange uncertainty in which he held himself.
Haruka sees the way he holds his hands, unsure. Uncertain. Shoulders slightly hunched in on themselves, as if further detailing the unseen burden upon them.
Haruka rarely draws him without the wings now. But he's changed them slightly, made them less opaque. They now resemble shadows cloaked lovingly around the boy's body, rarely stretched to full glory. As if hiding him from the world, like Haruka sees him try in real life.
In this sketch, his hands have found purpose, flipping through the pages of a book. Tracing out the words of a story.
His eyes...had a strangely, gentle light. His face was relaxed. His expression caught halfway in the retelling of a childish fairytale.
What kind of expression would he have if he told a sad story? A short story, a long story, a painful story with a happy ending? Haruka didn't know.
All he knew was the brief, glimmering moment of a pure smile on a storyteller, lost in the world of his own tellings.
And that happiness looked strangely befitting on Shintaro's face.
Haruka shuts his book.
I need to sleep.
He closes his eyes.
And before he falls asleep, he thinks he hears a soft murmur.
It sounded like a word he's never heard and he's forever said.
A word that tears at his heart for reasons he couldn't, shouldn't think of.
"I'm sorry."
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