Chapter Eleven
[Mikagami Tokiya]
After that incident on the roof, we kept our distance from each other. There were so many things to say, we could not talk. So we lived that way, together but apart, each wrapped in our own universe. The apartment, so big for urban standards, seemed to shrink and grow smaller with the days, as we avoided each other.
She never ate when I was around, and the only evidence she did eat was the slowly diminishing stash of salad leaves and vegetables in the fridge. If she ate anything else, it was in such minute quantities that I was not able to notice. Only once or twice did I realize she had eaten more than usual – it seemed like half the food in the kitchen was gone. A binge. It sickened me to think of her after that, regurgitating all the things she had consumed.
On one of her endless runs she must have noticed the library; most of the time she was holed up in her room with stacks of books, reading. Like my swordplay or my studying, books were her way of walling herself off from the world. Behind her hedge of words she was invincible. Nobody could touch her.
I hardly saw her. It was much less than was to be expected, seeing as we lived in the same apartment. When I did see her, what I saw scared me. She was noticeably shrinking; her clothes were growing looser. Her head took on the appearance of a skull as her hair thinned. Her skin, once smooth, pink and glowing, had become pallid and yellow. But what was the worst was her expression. Her eyes no longer looked lost and confused as they once did. They no longer looked terrified, or desperate. In her eyes was only an endless chasm of – of nothingness.
The way she could suspend herself on the cusp of insanity frightened me. I looked at her and I was scared. And then, I realized, slowly I was growing to pity her. I began to be in awe of the person she had become.
In her obsession she was approaching and going beyond a reflection of what I had been. She had a hunger for something that was as great as and larger than the hunger I had. She had control over herself that was as absolute and more than the control I had. She had become the person I once was. The person I once wanted to be.
I struggled to understand. I checked out from the library books on anorexia and read them cover to cover. But it was no help. At the end of it all, I had gained so much knowledge on the disorder but no insight at all.
There were so many things it could have been. It could have been a silent protest against things like gender stereotypes, things like society's standards of beauty. It could have been a physical manifestation of a subconscious desire to return to childhood and its security. It could have been an obsession for self-control and self-respect, a need to fill a void where it existed. It could have been a perfectionism extended to an unrealistic degree. It could have been an outward symptom of extreme repulsion from her growing sexuality. It could have been the result of a warped search for an identity that mattered, or of anger taken out against herself. It could have been triggered off by some trauma, by overly-protective parents, or even a love relationship gone wrong – Raiha? It could have been all or none of these.
These things made sense. But it was impossible to apply such clean-cut, objective logic to the muddle of reality. Because in the throes of her eating disorder it didn't matter to Fuuko why she had it; all that mattered was that she did. And that something in her ached for her to become more than what she was.
It was such a pity, I think, mostly because she was so nice. We all felt it a great waste and a great shame that such a wonderful person was being turned into a shadow of herself by her consuming, uncontrollable eating disorder. She didn't deserve this to happen to her. She deserved much better. She deserved to be happy.
In all of my life I have only known happiness in the times when I have been loved. Even when I was too young to learn of it, when I could only vaguely feel its effects, I had realized instinctively it could not last forever. And I was right – it had not. But while in the midst of that horrible and wonderful darkness that consumed my life, I held on to those memories of unconditional love, and that kept me sane. Because I don't think I could have survived without the spirit of my sister giving me strength in my mind. Later on I drew on the love in the friendships of others to dispel the remnants of that darkness. I couldn't emote it, but I was grateful to them.
Now it was time to repay what had been given me.
The moment I stepped through the door I was floored. It smelt like she had ordered take-out. The aroma was too appetizing – I was determined to have whatever it was for dinner too.
I realized that though Fuuko had bought all that food, she would just throw it up after anyway. It was so pointless.
Then I walked into the kitchen.
I couldn't believe my eyes.
"I didn't know you cooked," it took all the self-control I had to keep a straight face.
She cocked a grin at me, "Sure I do."
She gestured to the table. "Sit down, it's almost done. Hope you haven't eaten dinner yet."
As I followed her directives, I noticed she only laid out one setting.
"Not eating?" I asked quietly.
"No," she shook her head, "not hungry, thanks." There was sadness in her movements as she set the food out before me.
"I feel really bad, you know. I didn't do anything for this meal." The entire tenor of my traditional upbringing would not allow me to accept a meal I had not worked for.
"Oh, don't talk nonsense. You're putting me up in your place aren't you? Besides, I felt like cooking today. I warn you, though, it isn't very good."
"It isn't?" But it smelled so wonderful. I tried some of the soup. It wasn't all that bad. In fact it was rather nice.
"That's from a can," she pointed out.
"So," I ventured, as she propped herself up beside me, "you cooked all this for me?"
She scratched her head. "I didn't cook it for you. I cooked it, and you just happened to be convenient. It isn't like I would cook all this for me, right?"
I shot her a long-suffering look. "Come on."
Silence. She looked down and played with the grain of the table, avoiding my eyes.
"It's time we had a talk about this, Fuuko."
Immediately a flush spread over her peaked face. "You know I don't want to."
I ignored that. "I won't say things like 'you must stop doing this to yourself' or 'people care about you'. I think you've had enough of these trite sayings, and they don't mean anything to you."
"You're right," she said quickly, "so that's it."
"No. I'm not finished. Tell me, Fuuko, why?"
"Why what?"
I didn't reply, and she was quiet for a long time.
"I suppose you want to know why, everything. But I have to tell you honestly, I don't know. Sometimes it seems like I'm thin enough, and that there's no point torturing myself like this. And then I look around me and I see people skinner than I am. I see my classmates in school, girls on the street, I see you. I see all of you and I feel like crying inside. What I wouldn't give, I tell myself, for a body like that. What I wouldn't give."
"You do know that you're destroying yourself?"
She smiled wanly at me. "Do you think I'm stupid? Of course I do."
"Then?"
"Don't you know, yourself? If anyone else could understand me, it would be you. You know what it is to separate the body and the mind. If I control this one basic function, eating, I would be perfect. I would have control. I would be pure and flawless. What does it matter that this entails the destruction of the physical aspect? In your need for revenge you sacrificed youth. Is that so much different from what I do? In my need for perfection I sacrifice comfort."
"It is different," I insisted, "of course it is. You can put all those pretty words to it, beauty and restraint and things like that, and underneath it all is hatred – my hatred of a killer, your hatred of yourself – but it is different, precisely because of that. It is common to hate another, particularly when that person killed someone you loved. But to hate yourself – that is madness."
"What gives you the right to hate another person?" she asked slowly. "Who gave you the right to destroy another person? Don't you think that is rather self-centered? Just because you want to feel better, someone else has to be sacrificed. At least my hatred is directed against myself, and my destruction is only of someone who completely welcomes it."
She turned away and looked out of the window, out into the clear blue sky that stretched out away from us. "You know, Mikagami, I don't know why you bother. When I die, it wouldn't matter how fat or thin I was."
"So why are you…?"
"When I die, the body will not matter. The soul will. I don't know what sort of afterlife is waiting for us. Maybe there isn't one. But whatever it is, I don't want to give it a soul that has been pampered and spoilt. I want to remain of me a soul that is used, that has suffered and ached. Because it seems to me that it is that sort of soul that is actually worth having."
There was nothing I could think of to say to that and there was a long silence. Fuuko fluffed her hair out of her face as she played with her empty hands. Finally she got up to clear the plates, scraping her chair back.
"It's difficult, this… you know how with a habit or a routine, the longer you keep doing it, the easier it gets? This is different. Every day I struggle with the hunger is worse than the day before. It never gets easier. When you're hungry in the morning it makes no difference whether or not you were hungry the night before. I can't look back over the past and say, 'I've been dieting for this many months' because that just wouldn't make sense. Each moment is a struggle. Because I am weak.
"Do you think I am weak, Mikagami?" she asked, her back to me.
I almost said, immediately, No. But I didn't, because I thought she at least deserved an honest, thought-through answer.
Physically, she was not. Or was she? Her muscles, once hard and well toned, were wasting away. She was extremely sensitive to the cold, and suffered from joint pain and mild arthritis. Electrolyte imbalance caused slowed nerve conduction and muscular function, which made her enervated. She was often faint, and anaemia gave her constant dizzy spells. Dehydration dulled her; low blood pressure caused intense headaches. She was so depleted of energy, there were times she had difficulties walking and sitting, even. Certainly she was much weaker than she had been a year before.
Mentally, it was even less clear cut. Obviously extreme amounts of mental strength were required for her to maintain her disorder – to abstain from food when she was starving, to keep running when she was exhausted. At times, I felt, it was only her mental strength that kept her from collapsing. She was severely depressed, and had violent mood swings. She had no energy to think about anything other than food. She was preoccupied, obsessed. Was this strength? Was this weakness?
Her sense of self-worth was based upon the way she looked. Was this strength?
But I realized there was no way I could tell her she was weak, even if I did not really think so either. She would interpret it in the wrong way – it would only cause her to eat less, to exercise more, to do all the sorts of things I did not mean for her to do.
"Do you think you are weak?"
"I – well – I don't know. Sometimes I think so, sometimes I don't. But – but I don't suppose it matters. Doesn't it? It doesn't matter if I am strong or weak. It just matters that I am."
"So what matters to you, then?"
She spread her fingers against the window. "This."
I frowned. "Glass?"
"No, don't be idiotic. This. Look. You can see the bones." I looked, and shuddered. Her hand was skeletal, the skin was translucent and pale, and her bones stretched out over her palm. I could almost see through her to the mountains beyond.
"I'm sorry, but I think that's disgusting."
She smiled at me. "I think so too. But that's what matters, don't you see? It's not so much the result – the thinness – but the journey. The control, the tiny steps I take towards perfection. Knowing that I'm heading in the right direction. It doesn't matter when I get there, just that I am going to, one day. It's more than just thinness, more than just becoming thin. It's – it's everything. I am an artist, and this is my art."
I blinked. "But you – but you don't even have any energy."
She sighed. "No, I don't." Her fragile hands swept the limp hair fallen into her eyes as she pulled out a chair and sat down next to me.
"And you aren't happy."
"No, I'm not. But… are you? Is Domon? Is Recca? Is anyone happy?"
"But – okay, point taken. Then, but – but what then is it that you feel? What do you go through? I cannot begin to imagine – "
"I don't suppose you could, could you? It's like - sometimes it's a deep melancholia, a terrible desperation. But most of the time it's just… emptiness. A paralyzing indifference. Even suicide doesn't seem appealing, because… it just doesn't matter. I would say 'nothing matters', but that has connotations of ideals, of romantic cynicism, of beautiful disregard. That isn't how I feel.
It's like dryness. Blankness. And you're tired, so tired, but you don't go to bed, because you're too tired to move.
"And I don't care. I don't care about anything, I don't care that I don't care. It's like being imprisoned within my brain. Because I can't be bothered to extend myself. I don't want to talk to anyone. Do anything. Apathy. Blah. I'm looking, but seeing nothing. Listening, but hearing nothing. Touching, but feeling nothing. Or – seeing, hearing, feeling everything, but nothing matters. Yet I know I should care. All the things I do then, I do because I know I ought to, rather than because I want to.
"I only want one thing, and that is – nothing. To exist in nothingness. Time could flow away into forever, and leave me standing here."
As she struggled to put words to her heart, I heard the echoes of the past resonate in the air, in the grain of the mahogany table I sat at. I felt almost as if I were listening to a younger version of myself speak.
"I know you," I whispered softly so she could not hear, "you are me." But she wasn't, not really.
"Do you remember Fujimaru?"
"How could I not? He had a Fuuko fan club or something, didn't he?"
She blushed. "That's not why I remember him."
"He tore your clothes to shreds," I said, matter-of-factly. It had not been a big deal to me.
She nodded. "I remember feeling only pissed off at him for being so disrespectful to a female. He was telling me that the only thing of worth about me was my body, that I was not a person, not an individual, not Fuuko, but a body. A 'chick'. Now when I think about it though, I doubt that, if it happens today, being rude would be the only thing I would be upset over."
"Oh?"
"I would be so embarrassed! I mean, exposing my fat ugly body for the whole world to look at? I can't imagine that I was not mortified then about letting everyone see how disgustingly pudgy I was!"
"I saw. But I didn't think you were, as you put it, 'disgustingly pudgy'. In fact I vaguely recall thinking that you had rather a nice body. If that happens today, I wouldn't have seen the healthy, shapely body I saw a year ago – what I would see is an emaciated, wasted cadaver."
She frowned. "Don't talk rubbish."
"I'm not. And you know it too. So tell me why you still starve yourself."
"Mikagami – I'm tired. I don't want to explain myself any more. I don't see the use. Why must I tell you all this? It isn't anything useful to either of us; we're not going to have better lives or anything if I do. Just let me be alone, okay?" She placed a hand on the back of my chair as she stood up.
I turned to look at her, and had only a moment to notice the way her side profile seemed to disappear in the light from the window before she stumbled. It was all I could do to somehow twist and steady her as she collapsed. It all happened really quickly.
"Fuuko!" I called, alarmed. For a moment she lost consciousness, and then she blinked dazedly. She frowned slightly, and her lips moved without sound. I looked into her eyes, her pupils were dilated and blank.
"Mika- Mikagami?" She struggled in my arms, so I let her down onto the floor.
"Are you okay? What happened?"
She shook her head, confused. "I don't know. All of a sudden I felt all strange and – woozy, like everything was tilting this way and that. I thought I was going to faint, so I grabbed your chair. Suddenly it seemed to be – really bright, as if all the colours in the room turned extra deep and green and yellow. And next thing I knew, I was falling down." She rested her head against the wall.
I stood up to get her a glass of water. "How are you feeling now?"
"I don't know. Okay, I guess. Kind of strange." Her voice sounded weak from the floor.
"You want to go see a doctor?"
"A doctor? Whatever for?"
"You just fainted," I pointed out.
She shrugged. "It happens," she said vaguely. "I'll be fine in a minute."
"You know why you fainted."
She shot a glare at me as I sat beside her. "Because I don't eat, yes?"
I took the cup from her trembling hands and placed it on the floor. "Well – "
"Everything happens because I don't eat, you know? That's the only reason anyone ever gives me," her tone was sarcastic. "I'm cold – because I don't eat. I'm tired – because I don't eat. I'm sleepy – because I don't eat." She looked out of the window. "It's afternoon now – because I don't eat. It's cloudy today – because I don't eat. It's ridiculous!"
I tilted my head towards her. "Well, it's true. Not the bits about the weather of course. But the rest is true. For example. Because you don't eat, you lack sodium and potassium in your extra- and intra-cellular fluids respectively. These are important chemical compounds that break down into their ions within the bloodstream. As a result of this electrolyte imbalance, your body cannot carry out homeostasis – the processes that keep the internal environment of your body constant. This manifests itself in several ways, one of which is a general weak feeling and tiredness."
"Are you done," she snapped. "I know all that already, Mr. Biology Teacher. You think an anorectic does not know about her own disease?"
"Your actions do not imply an understanding of how dangerous it is."
She pursed her lips. "I – yes, I know the physical implications."
"So?"
"So what?"
"So why do you keep doing it?"
A pause. "Because it doesn't matter."
Another pause, where it was right for neither of us to speak. Then I shook myself. "Okay, I think I had better put you to bed. Now is not the time to discuss such things. You think you can walk?"
She smiled. "Yeah, of course. I'm not an invalid you know. Just could you support me please?"
"Okay."
She was not an invalid now. But if she didn't do anything about it, soon she would be. Already I could feel the soft downy hair on her arms that was a symptom of advanced stage anorexia.
Oh, Fuuko, what have you done to yourself? Why do you not listen to reason?
[Kirisawa Fuuko]
He sat by my bed for some minutes until I sent him out. It was the stuff romance stories were made off – damsel in distress, damsel swoons, hero rescues, hero loves. Real life, though, is not a romance story, and the hero would not love.
I sat up in bed against the headboard, squeezing my eyes open and shut. That moment he had his arms around me, I had thought immediately of Koganei. I understood then what the boy had meant by feeling safe. It was as if all my frustration had drained away, and there was only joy within me. In that instant of semi-consciousness, I had been warm and secure and nothing could touch me, not even myself. I could feel the rich sinew of his arms beneath the cloth of his shirt, and I smelt the faint perfume of his body. His eyes had peered into mine for a moment, and it was as if the entire world existed inside of them.
"Damn you," I whispered, clutching my blankets to my cheeks.
The sheets were soft and had a light clean scent of detergent. Like the pillow. Like the towels. A maid came in every couple of days to clean up, it was a service apartment. And it was beautiful. Carpets everywhere, glass everywhere, metal shining silver all the time. The interior decoration said two things: one, that the owner of the apartment had impeccably good taste, and two, that he had money.
I thought of my own home. I slept on a futon on a tatami floor, not a plush bed with two sets of covers. I covered my windows with plastic blinds, not curtains (again, two sets). I wore clothes that I bought on sale, not tailored-looking designer dress. My family was not poor, but we were not rich. We lived within our means, very middle class.
This room I lay in was definitely not middle class. I knew it was not meant to intimidate me, but I was intimidated. I had slept in it for so long, but still it was impossible to think of it as somebody's home, though it was. It was more like a hotel, and not just any hotel, a five-star luxury hotel. Sure, it was designed for comfort, not opulence, but it lacked that slight gaudiness and mess that I thought homes should have. It was too neat, too expensive, too classy for me.
And this was the world Mikagami lived in.
It was not mine.
What had I been thinking, going after that sort of guy? He was way out of my league. I was not good enough for him, even on this so superficial a level. Though I had no idea how an orphan like Mikagami had so much money, I didn't dare ask. At any rate, he obviously had more money at eighteen that I could ever in my entire life aspire to earn.
Right then I longed to go home, to be back once more in the place I belonged in. Those bright cluttered streets I was familiar with, with the aunties in the doorways and the kids in the roads – that was my place. This, with its impersonal coolness and stiff politeness, was not where I belonged.
I whimpered involuntarily. I felt so out-of-place and alone. Because for all of his kindness and generosity, Mikagami was meant for a girl better than me. For all the times he had obeyed my fractious commands and tolerated my will, he was the one to whom submission was due. Another cry escaped my locked heart.
Immediately there was a knock on the door. "Is everything okay, Fuuko?" His voice carried through the heavy wood.
"I – huh – er – " How had he heard me?
He knocked softly and entered. "I don't think I should leave you alone."
"You can hear me? What, were you pressing your ears to the door?"
"No," he said, looking slightly confused. "I was in my room. It's just next to yours."
I raised an eyebrow, incredulous. "You can hear me through the wall?"
He shrugged. "Look, it's no big deal, okay. I've had training. Are you okay or not?"
"Sure I'm fine." This conversation was getting old. Are you okay? Yes I am. Is everything alright? Of course it is. Is anything the matter? No I'm fine.
He sat next to me on the bed, slipping out of his jacket and covered my shoulders with it. Such a gentleman.
I slipped it off, and read the label. "Yohji Yamamoto?"
He cocked an eyebrow at me. "What about it?"
"Was it very expensive?"
"Oh, this one wasn't too bad. Normally this brand is, because rather ironically he isn't all that well-known in Japan. But this particular piece was quite cheap." I almost laughed at that.
"Cheap? Meaning how much?"
"Well, er, I don't remember actually."
I shook my head. "You're really loaded, aren't you?" The unspoken question I left hanging in the air, he could sense it.
"Huh?… Oh. I see what you're getting at. Come on, Fuuko, I'm not a snob. It doesn't matter to me how much money people have. Besides, for years I didn't know I had all this money! And even if I did, it wouldn't have mattered. You know where I studied the sword: it was not the most luxurious of places, to put it mildly. I had to get used to living here too. Don't be silly. I'm not like that."
I shifted slightly. "Sorry."
Saying these things didn't help. It – this money issue – was only one of the barriers that lay between us.
The silence grew heavy, and I desperately wanted to say something interesting, so that he would not find me too boring to deserve his company.
"Was it really all that bad? It couldn't have been, could it?"
"What was?"
"You know… your dojo."
He frowned, his reaction surprising me a little. "I don't belittle you, Fuuko, so do not me. You do not know what my life could have been like. You could not have known." His voice was hoarse, and in his blank white eyes flashed the remnants of a past madness.
"Sorry…"
"You are proud of your anorexia, are you not? In that same twisted way, I am proud of my past. It has shaped me. It has made me. It is who I am. It is my life and my identity, although I exist in another world now. Do you not know how I hurt still?"
"I want to." But would he tell me? I was selfish with my experiences, and there was no reason to suppose he was not with his.
He shook his head. "I can tell you, but if you have not really experienced it yourself you can never understand," he said, "in the same way that I can never really understand what you go through.
"Have you ever had a friend you loved very much?"
I opened my mouth to say no, but I remembered a girl, three years ago, with an open heart, who gave without being given in return. I remembered a gift, and a farewell. [This is from a side story in the manga where some girl makes friends with Fuuko, who used to be quite a scary b***h.]
"I – yes. She moved away."
He looked away at the floor, speaking in a quiet voice. "Imagine, then, that you with her again. You spend so much time with her. You go out together, and watch movies together, and shop together, and do with her all the things friends do. You love her dearly, do you not?"
"Yes."
"And then one day after going shopping, as you walk home together, she sees something you don't. Behind you on the road is a bus heading towards you. There isn't a moment to lose. She throws herself at you and pushes you over to the sidewalk.
"But, in saving you, she falls under the wheels of the bus and is killed."
There was a long silence. I bit my lip to keep from tearing.
"Can you imagine the immense guilt that comes from having someone die for you? It is a great and terrible burden. Is my life more valuable, because it carries with it now the worth of two lives, or is it more worthless, because it has taken away that of another? I feel like I have a duty to – to do something, I know not what."
He looked up at me. "This feeling is with me, every day, all the time."
"It is in everything you do."
"It is in everything I say."
"In every thought you think."
"In every face I see."
"In your heart."
"In my mind."
"It never goes away."
"It never lets me go."
"It never gives you rest."
"It never gives me respite."
"You will never forget."
"I will always remember."
"It is in your life."
"It is my life."
"Your burden."
"And your hunger."
His eyes searched mine as I searched his, as we spun in the enchantment we had woven.
He looked away first. "But you do not know me," he said softly.
"Nor you, me."
He blinked, unreadable. "No."
His face as he sat unmoving was blank, expressionless. Like it was when he fought.
At the tournament, he was one of only two people who did not scream in an attack. Recca, for example, yelled as he went of the offensive, displaying his power in a none-too-subtle way. Mikagami never said a word, he just went straight at his opponent, silently, swiftly, effectively. The other person who fought noiselessly was Raiha. In him, it had been the mark of an assassin. But in Mikagami it was a mask.
A mask he still wore.
"Who am I to you, Mikagami?" I asked softly. "You never told me. Why are you so nice to me?"
"You are Fuuko," he said simply, as if it were enough, and smirked. "And I am nice." I frowned slightly, irritated with his everlasting implicit innuendoes.
"Sure you are," came the automatic sarcastic reply, which he ignored.
"Say, I wonder – " he looked up at me, "don't mind if I ask, but do your parents know about this…"
"No. I don't want to tell them."
I turned away from his forceful gaze. "I love my parents, Mikagami. Like my mum, she's a simple woman, she works hard to keep the house nice and neat, and all that matters to her is her family. My dad, he loves us, he is in the office until late at night. Earning the money to bring up a family. My folks are fantastic. They would go through hell to put me through university and give me all the opportunities in life they can.
"The least I could do for them is to not destroy their hopes for a wonderful daughter. I want to study hard and get into Tokyo U and later on find a good job and a good man and make them proud. I love them, Mikagami. I don't want to hurt them with all these – these little things. I want to be a perfect daughter."
I studied his expression. His eyes were closed, his breathing was even, and his face was carefully schooled – by habit – to show not a trace of emotion. But the knuckles of his clasped hands were white.
"Mikagami – " I tried. He flinched.
"I'm sorry." I realized how insensitive I had been to the boy without a family.
His eyes opened slowly. "There's nothing to be sorry for." He shook himself. "Look, I personally think your parents should know about this. But I'm not going to make you tell them. It's your choice."
He stood up. "I'm going out to buy some porridge. And you are going to eat it. Do you understand?"
I wanted to scream at him, but he had already left.
He must have been really pissed off.
The ten minutes I waited for him stretched into an interminable wait. With each moment, I grew more panicked.
I couldn't. I couldn't eat. I'd already eaten enough for the day, the porridge would be above my quota. I could purge it after, but I doubted he would let me.
Who knows what would be in that bowl? Tons and tons of oil and grease and calories, that's for sure. Sodium. Fat. All that. I could feel the flesh creeping back onto my bones already, and felt sick to my stomach.
My breathing was shallow and terrified. I couldn't think of anything but the piping hot, fresh, steaming bowl of porridge. With chives and herbs perhaps sprinkled on the top, the aromatic fragrance diffusing into the room. With slivers of juicy chicken marbled through the rice.
By the time he returned, I was almost hyperventilating.
He dragged me out of the bedroom, sitting me at the dining table. Before me was a Styrofoam bowl filled to the brim, the way I had imagined it.
"Now," he said, placing a spoon in my hand, "Eat."
I stared at the bowl. I could see the food. And I was conscious of myself sitting there. I knew what he expected to see – me dipping the spoon into the bowl and putting it to my lips.
But I couldn't.
It just didn't seem doable. It was as if it were physically impossible for me to let the food enter my mouth. I was Fuuko, and that was food, and never the twain shall meet.
He sighed. "Put some of it in the spoon."
I skimmed the top of the bowl, watching the porridge accumulate in the cusp of the spoon.
"Lift it."
I did. And I noticed that my hand was shaking. I stared at it: the more I looked, the more it shook.
"Kirisawa…" his voice was loaded with warning.
"I'm shaking," I said, as if that were important.
I raised my head. "I'm shaking," I repeated. "Why am I shaking? I can't stop." I sounded more fragile than I meant to.
In an instant he was by my side. "Will you eat something? Please?" He leaned over me and took my trembling hand in his steady one. His left hand, his sword hand, felt rough from handling the weapon as it grasped mine. He raised the spoon to my mouth, and obediently I opened up. My mind was blank.
I ate.
[Mikagami Tokiya]
I had to do something to prevent her from throwing the food up again. So, when she was done, I immediately bundled her out of the house. "Let's go for a walk."
She was so weak I had to support her as we headed for the hills. I suppose she was able to walk by herself – I was pretty sure she still went for runs after all – but I thought it safer today. Besides, she didn't complain, and I could tell she was feeling too nauseated to say much.
What was I to do with this person who leant on me? I could not wait like this forever for her to save herself. But I could not help her either. The only thing that mattered to her was being thin. Nothing else did. How was I to do anything when she was this way? I was tired, tired with trying, tired with being put down, tired of living on the edge – her edge. I wanted to slap her and tell her to wake up, although I knew it would not do much good.
We were walking down a tree-lined hill when it started raining. Nagaoka is famous for its wet season, and in the summer it has an almost tropical-level rainfall. Water. One of the reasons I liked the place. I shook out an umbrella and held it over us.
"Wait," she said. "Let's just stay here for a while. I want to watch the rain."
I walked her over to a stone bench, which I dried, and we sat.
The road snaked on below us, turning after a ways and disappeared to the left. Trees, full and green, reached out to the sky and to us. Covered in droplets of water, roofed by a curtain of unbroken grey sky, walled by the green mist of the trees, I felt as if I were in some sort of cathedral. There seemed to be arches that soared high into the sky, and an expanse of space that spread out above and around me, and there was a sense of sanctity, of holiness.
It was also cold and wet. But this rain was not miserable, as could be expected. It was strange, but the misery seemed to turn itself inside out and become something else altogether.
There was a calm, a terrible calm. It was like the lulling moment before – before –
I shook my head; it was not good to think such things.
"Mikagami?"
"Hm?"
"You remember once, last winter, you loaned me a trench coat outside the library back home?"
I thought for a moment. "No, actually."
"What size was it?"
"How would I know? The same as the rest of my clothes, I suppose."
"The same as your Yohji Yamamoto jacket just now?"
I shrugged. "I guess so." I couldn't see what she was getting at and told her.
"When I wore the Yohji Yamamoto just now, did you think it was the right size for me? Or was it too big?"
"It was too big, obviously. Way too big." Pointless question.
But not to her. "That's wonderful! You see, the trench coat was my size then. And if it's the same size as the jacket just now, which was too large for me, then it means I've lost weight!" She beamed at me.
I raised an eyebrow. "Is this what all that was about? You were just trying to see if you'd lost weight?"
She shrugged, still smiling.
"You could just have asked, you know. I would have told you. You've lost weight. As if anybody couldn't tell."
Maybe not. Maybe she couldn't.
I took a good look at her, trying to imagine what she had looked like. It was difficult, and I finally realized just how much weight she had lost. A LOT.
Damn you, Fuuko, don't you realise what you're doing? I did a quick mental calculation. At the rate she was going she would disappear by next spring. By autumn she would have to be put on a drip and fed intravenously. In fact she should already be in a hospital.
"Let's go," she said quietly. She stood up slowly, hanging onto my arm.
"Just let me get my balance," she said. "I see stars when I stand up." Anemia. I waved a hand before her face; she did not notice, for her vision was masked by a curtain of spots. She leant heavily against me, putting all her weight on my shoulder. Her arms shook.
Everything inside of me raged at her. She was too young for this. She was just a girl. She was just a child. She was too nice. She didn't deserve this. She should have a happy adolescence. She should have a wonderful youth. Not – not this.
I had to stop her. But how? If I was not quick about it, it would come too late.
And then where would she be?
Where would I be?
[Kirisawa Fuuko]
He dragged a futon into my room and locked all the doors – the bedroom door, the bathroom door, even the door to the walk-in closet. "I'm not having you throw up," he declared.
I only shrugged. It was too late, at any rate. Twenty minutes past consumption and it would be impossible to get everything out again – much less hours after.
But he was right, in that I would have tried.
What was I to him? If I could only make him cry. Him – or anyone. Because that would mean I was important in somebody else's life besides my own.
I watched him go through his night-time rituals. He placed the Ensui, fully fleshed-out in all its icy brilliance, crosswise on the mattress and knelt before it. I wasn't quite sure what he did after that because I felt it wrong to intrude on that private moment. Then I heard the sound of water splashing into a tumbler and looked up.
He was thinking of his sister again. His bowed stance had a heart-rending quality to it, a sadness I recognized from seeing all the time in his eyes. I had to bite my lip.
Was this what Meguri Kyoza had seen all those years? This was a different person from the indifferent, arrogant swordsman he was most of the time. This man – no – this boy was obedient, deferential, defeated. His hair, out of its ponytail, washed over his pale slender arms. This was no warrior completely in control of himself, this was a child who could not take care of his own life.
Suddenly I could almost see him, half a life ago, sitting that same way on the wooden dojo floor. I could almost see the candles flickering in the night, and I could almost smell the fear and the dependence he had of his teacher.
Was this the boy who had seen his life die before his eyes? What he had become, and what he once was – these were not the same people. Not by far.
Then he flicked his eyes up, and the spell was broken.
"Good night, Kirisawa."
"Eat."
I trembled at the restrained anger in his voice.
"Pick up the spoon. Eat."
I tried, but I could not touch it.
"Eat."
He put the spoon in my hands and brought it forcefully to my lips.
"Eat."
I could not but swallow.
"Eat."
And again.
"Eat."
Stop, I wanted to cry out. Let me be, I do not want to eat any more. Go away. Go away. I don't want to eat. Please. Please let me go and get rid of this.
But, no, the command still came.
"Eat."
Please – please – please – don't make me – don't don't – don't
"Eat."
I tasted the food, going down my throat, going into my stomach, going into my body, sitting and staying on my stomach and hips and arms and legs. I felt myself expanding, expanding, until I filled out the jacket I was wearing, until it tautened, until it burst at the seams.
"Eat."
No more – no more – please don't – don't – don't – terrified – cannot – cannot – I cannot
"Eat."
NO.
And the voice was gone, diminished, falling from its dominance into a small crying child. He looked lost. I loved him.
"Fuuko-neesan? Neesan?"
I shook my head. I loved him. But this was not a boy who would cry for me. Nobody would cry for me, because I did not mean that much to anyone.
"Neesan?"
He ran to me and hugged me, but the arms I felt around me were not those of a child, soft and chubby, but were those of a warrior, strong, slender, a warrior like Raiha, like Mikagami. I looked again at his face, and found not a human but a bowl, an empty bowl.
I ate all this???
I need to get it out! But the toilet is – is – I can't get in? It's locked.
I can't – I must – I need – I – I –
I twisted, and the covers fell off. I lay panting on the sheets, the food I had eaten sitting like lead in my stomach. I ran my hand over my abdomen, it felt rounded already.
It was dark and I could not see. I could not think. I could not purge.
I remembered the pills on the bedside table. Sleeping pills, vitamins, laxatives, lozenges, slimming pills.
Yes. Laxatives. Hadn't taken them in some time, but they would be useful. In the morning when I was free again it would all come out.
Blindly I groped for the bottle. Where was it? Too many bottles – couldn't tell. Turn on the light? No, that would wake him.
I felt a bottle beneath my fingers – no. Wrong one. Another – that felt like it. Or was it this one? They felt the same shape, size. No, it was the first. Yes. This one.
With my shaking fingers I unscrewed the cap. How many? The label said maximum two, or four before a surgery, but I had relied on them once, and had been up to ten or eleven at a pop. I couldn't remember, not in the dark like this. It didn't matter. I threw one into my mouth, winced, swallowed. I threw in another, swallowed. Hated swallowing without water, but, there was no water.
I lost count. It was a lot. Much more than I was used to taking, but my brain was too bleary too think. A couple more. Just to be safe.
Oh dear, the bottle was empty. Never mind. It should work in the morning. In the morning. It would come all, all of it, in the morning.
I seemed to be sweating. Never mind. It would be all okay in the morning.
Everything would be fine, in the morning.