"When I was a teenager, I wrote stories for the kids at the hospital. That was when I first wrote fantasy," Sensei says, smiling a warm smile that banishes all the coolness from under the shade of the tree.
"Tell me one," I say, leaning in closer with eagerness.
"Ah, Eiri-kun, they were all written for little kids," Sensei replies lazily, stifling a yawn. "I don't think you'd like any of them."
"Oh, please?" I persist. "Just one. I want to hear something you've written!"
"All right," Sensei relents with a chuckle. "But don't lose confidence in me if you don't like it." He lifts his hand above his body, and his finger curves horizontally to point to a small distance off before us. My eyes follow the direction in which his finger is aimed and come to rest on a young girl, clothed in a white kimono, sitting with her back to us on a boulder. "Go talk to her," Sensei's words echo in my mind, and I follow his order without question as if hypnotized.
She seemed very far away from the shady tree in the park, but seemingly in no time I stop just a few meters away from the boulder and stand awkwardly in place, unsure of what to say.
"My name is Ayame," the girl says in a soft voice, but sweet to the ears. It has an almost angelic tone to it, seeming to echo in both power and gentleness. "I was given the power to dispense beauty a long time ago."
"Why are you here?" I ask in the pause, feeling something close to fear overcoming me.
"You asked for me, didn't you, Eiri-kun? Tell me, do you think you're beautiful?" Ayame says in her lovely voice.
I hesitate in answering. "No one in Japan thinks so."
"You didn't answer my question."
I let out a sigh, fearing that I will sound arrogant with my words. "Yes, I do. I like the way I look."
"And what would you do if your looks were marred beyond recognition, if you became ugly?"
"I would," I start, and fall into silence. I think about my life in Japan, where all the kids bully me because of my foreign looks. If I were ugly…that would be even worse. "I would hide away in solitude. I would write books without ever putting an About the Author, and no one would ever see me. Or maybe…maybe I would just kill myself."
Ayame giggles, a piercing noise that sounds wicked when considering what I had just said. Her laughing subsides quickly, though, and she turns around to reveal her face.
I step back from the sight of it—it is nothing less than frightening, so ugly it is. Half her face looks young and beautiful, brimming with life and defined with delicate features, but the other half is ghastly pale, dotted with green blemishes. Her eye on that side is beady and black, drooping down and creating a thick wrinkle across her cheek, and her lips are white and dead, skinny, pale, lifeless. I inhale sharply, trying to will my body into running away, but I am caught in her gaze.
"I was given the power to make people beautiful," Ayame repeats, a sad smile touching the living half of her face. The other half seems to be relaxed and paralyzed. "I didn't understand why it was given to me, when I was so ugly myself. I was warned not to, but I tried anyway—I tried to make myself beautiful. But as it turns out, Eiri-kun, for better or for worse, you can never hide what you really are."
……………
"That was fun," Shuichi whispers, lacing his fingers together with mine as he squirms against me. "Kind of kinky though." A mischievous smile floats across his face, and he reaches down with his free hand to wipe at my cheek. "You have dirt on your face."
"You have dirt all over your body," I reply with a small grin, letting my eyes snake across his naked form pressed against mine. I allow my eyes to continue to wander, though, until they come to rest on the deep blue sky, it pureness marred only by the occasional puff of white cloud, and framed by the pointed tops of the cornstalks.
Shuichi giggles and sits up, straddling my waist as he begins to brush away the dirt, which crumbles off easily into dust now that our sweat has dried. He doesn't get it all, neglecting his back mostly, but once he's satisfied, he returns to his position on top of me and rests his forehead against my chest.
"I love you, Yuki," he whispers, and I can feel his smile brushing against my bare skin.
"I love you, Yuki."
My body clenches involuntarily, but it's more than I can hope for Shuichi not to notice. He pushes himself up again and peers down at me with a worried expression. "Is something wrong?" he whispers with hurt audible in every sound, and with that voice I am almost led to believe that I am betraying him somehow.
"It's nothing," I say, and return my eyes to the sky so as to be unable to see whatever expression has crossed his face.
"Yuki, please tell me what's the matter."
A soft wind whistles over the tops of the cornstalks, and in it I can almost hear Ayame's words ringing back to me: "…You can never hide what you really are." Sensei had asked me before if I understood the meaning of that story, and I told him I did, even though back then it had no significance for me. Now, though, that very meaning hits me so painfully that I speak without even thinking about it, breaking the first of my pain for Shuichi to see plainly.
"Don't call me that," I say hoarsely, closing my eyes.
I feel Shuichi lean back further on top of me, and his weight shifts to one side. "What?"
"Don't call me that. My name's not Yuki." I open my eyes again to find him studying me with searching eyes full of both confusion and worry. I have a sinking feeling in my chest when I find that there is no understanding in those eyes, just the usual dumb naïveté. A deep-rooted hurt courses throughout my body, transformed into anger as soon as it touches my heart, and I shove Shuichi off me harshly. He yelps in some imaginary pain, though I ignore him and begin to hastily search out and pull on my clothes, which are now scattered and twisted around the nearby cornstalks. I gather my shoes and, without bothering to put them on, sprint away towards the house. I find myself almost sad not to hear Shuichi calling after me, but I quickly push the feeling away.
Shuichi doesn't deserve me, and I don't deserve him. I'm only starting to realize that now. It was the same way with Sensei, so much so that I drove him to do such awful things… Relationships only work if one person deserves the other more than the other deserves them. Things can't be equal; it goes against nature. That has to be the reason… I can't think of why else this isn't working.
I enter the house and am greeted with a waft of musky air, littered with the presence of old dust and mold so thick in the atmosphere I can even smell it through my tarred lungs. The whole house seems all too empty—we still have yet to furnish it, and have so far only put linens on the bed and stocked a few of the cabinets with food. Shuichi has already gone through and pulled the white sheets from over all the furniture, but even so, the interior is dark and old, leaving me to think that perhaps the white sheets added some brightness to the otherwise dead house. The only place that looks remotely inhabited is our master bedroom, probably due to Shuichi's colorful clothes scattered around the floor. I walk over to the ancient wooden dresser and pull my laptop from the top of it, realizing now just how much I've neglected my work.
The bright light of the glowing white screen gives me the beginning of a headache, which I merely curse and attempt to ignore as I open up my latest project. I watch as my laptop loads, displaying the lines of Japanese across the screen, and I stare at it in some sort of vague awe, wondering why my mother language looks so foreign all of a sudden. I lean back against the pillows on the bed, gazing at the novel-in-progress, reluctantly allowing my mind to wander away from my work.
I don't know why, but I just can't forget what that old man said in the park. It wasn't something out of the ordinary, and more resembled one of those clichés so commonly present in the mindless chick flicks that Shuichi is so attached to.
Once you get close enough to death, you realize it's better to be alive than to be pretty… I've been close enough to death plenty of times, both with my own life and with others', and I still think it's better to be beautiful. It was just one man's opinion. If I could die pretty, I would already be dead. Still, I can't help but wonder what Sensei had known before he died. The story about Ayame, I only found out later, had never been submitted among his other stories to the hospital he wrote for, and I still am partial to the idea that he had made it up for me that day. There was Ayame's character, her words and her physical appearance, and it's meaning was all too obvious. But, deeper down, there's still something I don't quite understand, even now after pondering over it for nearly seven years. I know there's something there, just by knowing Sensei, there's something that isn't right. Sensei couldn't write a story so formula. My memory is too fuddled, though. I wish I could hear it one more time. All that I have now is bits and pieces of the story, acted out by my own imagination in my dreams.
Ayame is beauty. Ayame is truth. Ayame whispered to me that I could never hide what I truly am. I could see Ayame in Sensei's eyes, even after they both had died. Ayame was sick, just like Sensei… Just like me. Ayame was given the power to change other people, when she couldn't change herself. Ayame laughed when I told her I would kill myself if I became ugly. That old man laughed at me, too.
This is giving me a headache. I've thought about this for much too long, and yet I can't accept that there's nothing more to it than what is on the surface. When Sensei told me that story, I was so much different than what I am now. How could he have known what I would become? How can Ayame's words still make me sick to the stomach, even though I don't understand why?
I look at the screen of my laptop, eyeing the cursor still blinking at where I left off last time I worked on the story. I sigh as I close it, thinking about how much I've failed when considering Sensei's grandeur; all I write is mindless drivel for rabid young girls to prey on—in a few years, my work will be forgotten. I can't even understand the power of Sensei's stories, much less write anything that comes close to having the same strength of meaning. Something like Ayame is beyond my abilities.
I put my laptop back into its case, simultaneously removing a few thin packets of paper as I do so, looking over the titles of all the stories printed on them. I've kept these stories in my case for a long time now, and I'm not sure why. They're the stories that Sensei had written for the hospital, though none of them are even close to being as good as the Ayame story. I'm still at a loss as to why Sensei never submitted that one.
……………
"Do you get it, Eiri-kun?" Sensei asks, leaning his head against the tree. I frown and look down at the ground. He's right: I didn't really like that story at all, but I don't want to tell him that. The problem is, it's not because it's a children's story that I don't like it; it's more like there was some quality to it that I just didn't quite agree with. When I become an author, I doubt I'll ever write stories like that one.
"Be yourself," I say, repeating what underdeveloped moral I had picked out. "Don't hide your true self just because of what other people think."
"You're wrong," Sensei says, grinning as he touches my nose with his finger. "But I'm not going to tell you. You'll have to figure it out by yourself. It'll be good for you, if you really want to be an author."
"I probably won't think about it anymore," I reply sullenly, crossing my arms. I've already fallen into a pouting mood, due to some sort of disappointment I have with the dislike of the first of Sensei's stories I've ever heard.
"Ah, I guess I can't change that," Sensei says, his grin having yet to falter. "However, you might want to remember it anyway. Maybe you'll come to appreciate it someday."
"Appreciate what?" I mutter, silently wondering if I'm offending Sensei at all, though even if I am, he isn't showing it at all.
"Appreciate the meaning that this story holds. You might not be able to see it, Eiri-kun, but this is a commentary on life, with a moral that may come in handy one day. Though, since you didn't listen hard enough, I suppose it just went over your head."
His words sting at me a little, as I start to realize that perhaps he's a little disappointed in me for whatever I've failed to understand. I start to think over the story again, but give up again quickly. I still can't say I like it.
"Just think about it," Sensei adds, rising to his feet. He starts to make his way away from the tree, though he stops before he reaches the end and turns around. "I'll give you a hint. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Okay, Eiri-kun?" And with that, he continues to stalk away with his head lowered to the ground, all traces of the grin vanished from his expression.
……………
"Shh, be quiet! I'm fine, don't worry."
The soft whispering draws me away from my sleep, something which I don't remember ever even entering. I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling, knitting my brow when I realize that it doesn't look that familiar. Slowly I turn my head to the side to see a large window adjacent to the bed, letting in streams of sunlight illuminating thousands of dust particles contently floating about. Papers are strewn across my bed, surrounding me in an unorganized attack, and my laptop is on the floor in its case to the side. I feel incredibly dirty, like I've just been rolling around on the ground. I'm about to get up to take a shower when I hear another whisper that stills me once more.
"No, I found his cell phone in his stuff. He's asleep right now."
I fall silent, anxiety creeping upon me as I realize once again I am eavesdropping on Shuichi's conversation. I even shallow my breathing so as not to alert Shuichi to my conscious state. I assume he's sitting in the hallway outside the room, judging by the sound of his voice, but I dare not turn my head to confirm in fear of rustling the papers around me.
"I'm fine, really! I'm sorry I haven't called sooner, but no one here speaks Japanese."
There was a long pause, in which I was almost worried that Shuichi had crept away, but soon enough his whisper drifted back into the room.
"I don't know. I think he's gone crazy. He just dragged me out here without saying anything. I'm really worried, actually, because today he said some strange things. He told me his name isn't Yuki. You think he could have split personalities, or something?"
Another pause drifts across the air, though my own welling anger disrupts the stillness and seems to make everything around me tense. I can't believe he's saying these things to…whomever he's talking to. It makes it worse when I think that it's probably his new lover.
"I'm in America. Uh, Iowa, I think he said."
I painstakingly push myself into a sitting position, wary of rustling the papers around me and silently cursing myself for leaving such a mess to hinder myself.
"Iowa's not a city? Oh, I don't know the name of the city, then. It's this really little town, and it's surrounded by cornfields, and there's a bunch of old people around. There's a park in the middle, and next to it is a swimming pool. Does that help?"
Shuichi wants to go home. I don't like this at all. I can imagine that he's already given away enough information that someone like Seguchi will be able to track us down. Without bothering to care about the noise of the papers, I angrily exit my bed and march into the hallway, where, sure enough, I find Shuichi leaning against the wall with my cell phone pressed against his ear. He looks up at me, his face stricken with terror, with his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide. I angrily snatch the phone out of his hands, and without a second thought, shout the very address of our house into the receiver, and then slam the phone onto the floor, breaking it into pieces to reveal its hidden insides.
I shrug off Shuichi's cries as I storm away, so angry that I barely see where I'm going until I realize I've ended up in the kitchen. I glare around the room at nothing in particular until my eyes settle on the rack of butcher knives perched on the counter. Quickly I grab one and shove it behind my back, turning just as Shuichi catches up to me.
"Yuki… I…" He trails off, and I smirk at the expression on his face—he's just realized he has nothing planned to say to me.
"What, Shuichi? Your friends will be here soon for you," I say, drawing out my words so that they almost sound like a mocking song, my tone cynical to the fault. "You can go home now to your new lover."
I have no idea what I'm saying. I can't control what I'm doing. This feels like a dream, the kind where one knows what dangers lie ahead and yet proceeds anyway. Again I become conscious of the knife hidden behind my back, and I worry about it; I'm so angry right now, I'm worried about Shuichi's safety. The wince on his face because of my words is irritating me beyond reason.
"I don't want to go home alone. I want to be with you, I swear! I love you, Yuki."
"I told you not to call me that!" I snap, though not just with my words. I can feel tears gathering in my eyes, and in my head I begin to swear over and over again every obscenity in every language that I know. Damn Shuichi and his lover. Damn those old people in this hic town, this house, these cornfields. Damn that therapist who made me realize what paradise really means. Damn Sensei and his stupid Ayame! I'm about to break down in tears at the worst time imaginable, right in front of Shuichi who doesn't deserve to see me like this anymore.
I really have snapped. I am crazy. I can see Sensei's dead eyes staring at me in all their lifelessness, and for once they look so much more beautiful than anything else I've ever seen.
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
If I were to die in fifty years I would not have as beautiful a death if I were to die now. If I were to tell Shuichi the story of Ayame, maybe I would understand it just a little bit better.
"That's not the point, Eiri-kun," I hear a voice, a whisper, floating around on the back of the wind. I look at Shuichi, but he doesn't appear to have heard anything.
"What do you want me to call you then?" Shuichi asks. His posture is different now, though I never noticed him change; he looks ready to dart away at any sign of danger, and for that I feel just the slightest bit of relief, for his sake.
"Call me by my name," I growl, clutching the knife and almost preparing to remove it from behind my back. "Yuki can't love you. He died over six years ago!" I don't bother to wait in suspense to see what Shuichi's reaction is. I don't wait for the results of his test, to see whether he really understands or if he's not all that I thought he was. Instead I lash out clumsily with the knife, lacking the usual grace I possess. I don't think I am really trying to hit Shuichi, but I miss anyway, lunging forward and having to stick my leg out to keep myself from falling onto my own knife. I hear Shuichi scream, and the noise of his bare feet thumping away on the wooden floor in a frightened escape sets my own nerves off. I too run away, but in a different direction.
The bright mid-afternoon sun hits me with a wave of heat so thick and humid I almost feel as if I've been slapped. My knife glints the bright sun into my eyes, blinding me from being able to see the world, and I stumble with arms flailing out to catch anything to break my fall. I feel my hand close around something round and vertical, though it merely comes crashing down on top of me once I hit the sand. I return to my senses to find myself under the protection of the tall cornstalks, shading me from the sun with a welcome kindness, and once again everything becomes quiet. I am left alone once again to lose myself in the maze of my own thoughts.
Kitazawa Yuki. Sensei.
He died…over six years ago… He can't love Shuichi any more than he can love me. What have I been hoping for all this time?
Yuki, I am merely your ghost. I've been haunting this earth much longer than I should have. I've already avenged your death and killed the brat that shot you. He's been dead along with you for a while now. I've finished my work. I think…it's time to go.
My skin feels almost like loose sand as I bury the knife so easily into it. The blood that runs down is thick and dark, darker than blood seems like it should be. I watch as the redness colors my entire arm and trails down onto the ground. It wants to contaminate everything, to turn everything into a uniform color until nothing stands out and nothing can be seen anymore. I let my arm fall across my stomach, too weak to hold it up anymore, and let my eyes come to rest on a cob of unripe corn growing peacefully in the middle of a stalk.
I can see Yuki's silhouette, standing in front of that window, but the glare of the sun doesn't entirely block out all of his features. I can see his smirk tainting his face, and his eyes glowing with detachment. Sensei was sick in his mind, and now that I think about it, I suppose I am too. I was the one so far gone that not even the best psychiatrists could heal me.
"When you're in a stressful situation, just think about paradise, a beautiful place."
Paradise. Paradise can be found here in this cornfield, deep among the tall stalks. Here is a place separate from the world, lingering only for those brave enough to search it out. Here in the cornfield is an escape from the things that can't be handled. There is a silence here, reserved just for me. There is Shuichi, lying under me in the dirt, smiling and mewling and crying out in pleasure as he thinks about only me. But most of all, in this cornfield, lies death in waiting, thick blood that flows like molasses, darkened by the sunlight's cowardice, carrying with it life itself, and escaping far away into the ground. That's what truly makes this cornfield paradise—this place that brings about my very own death.
Six years ago, Kitazawa Yuki never found his paradise. He never really died, not entirely, because I still held half of his soul, and I've been carrying it around with me all this time. Uesugi Eiri was the one that really died that day, and now I think it is time to lay Yuki to rest as well. He asked it of me six years ago, he stared at me with those pleading dead eyes, begging me to put him to death, and now it's time that I finally fulfill his request.
Goodbye, Shuichi.
……………
TO BE CONTINUED…
(It's not over yet.)
And thank you to all those who have reviewed so far! Actually, I haven't gotten as many reviews as I would have liked for this story, but I guess that only makes me even more thankful to those who have reviewed. So, I'll write replies, even though my computer gets really weird if I have more than one program open at a time, which I always do…
So, thank you to:
Chu (Yeah, I do like Chinese water torture, but I'm a bigger fan of Chinese hydrogen peroxide torture). tatijana (I'm glad you like it.) duenna (I hope you continue to read!) kitty-nickel (Thanks for the pointer. I don't think I'll change anything right now, but the truth is I wrote that first chapter very late at night. I hope it's getting better now.) Kikvws (I'm glad I'm not the only one who likes crazy Yuki.) Flamingolo (Well, I always thought that Eiri was kind of crazy for being so mean to Shuichi.) And Patosan (Wow, it feels really good to be recognized by someone who I admire myself… Speaking of which, when are you going to update YOUR story? I've been waiting awhile now…)
Thank you again, and I hope I don't get in trouble for that!