Anesthesia - Epilogue

And that was the last time I ever saw him. It's just as well; he was too high maintenance for me. He asked too much, and his demands were some of the most unreasonable I had ever encountered.

I'm lying, of course.

I'm used to impossible demands. As for Muraki, I would have given him anything he wanted, if he only asked me nicely.

But that's not the lie I mean.

I did see Muraki after that. It was months later, and by then Akihito was dead so I'm not certain it matters. Even now, I feel as though I was one man before that night, and I am another as I tell this now. But in the days after his death, things were different, still transitory. It was a week, two at the most, that lasted the millennia it takes continents to drift apart and resettle.

After it was over, I tried to fill in what I didn't remember. I could have asked Kurauchi; he saw everything, much to my embarrassment. But of late I've noticed a change in him. Or maybe I've only now realized something that's been there all along. I don't like the way he watches me anymore, like I'm a piece of crystal poised to break. I don't like the way that he seems perpetually ready to fly to my rescue.

It's not that I'm not grateful to him. That night, he led me into the parlor and constructed the story we would tell the police. It was simple, uncomplicated. It kept my hands clean and, and it exonerated Akihito. I like to think I could have done no better myself.

When the authorities came, they believed it. And they left us for the night.

It was then I finally lost consciousness.

"Hirose. Hirose. Hirose. Hirose!"

"Who…?"

I try not to move. My damn neck feels like it's broken.

It probably is broken.

Kurauchi is probably waking me up in the hospital to tell me that my neck is broken and I'll never move anything below my eyeballs again.

Only this isn't Kurauchi's voice.

I turn my head, and that at least rules out the broken neck, although it doesn't explain why I am most certainly hallucinating.

"Muraki?"

He looks up from the needle he's preparing.

Imagine that you've washed ashore on a desert island. Imagine that you spend ten years on that island, with nothing to drink the milky yellow sap from the cacti; with nothing to eat but locusts and scorpions. Then, imagine that one day, onto your island, someone drops fresh meat. Kobe beef, rare, still steaming and leaking rich red juice over the sand.

Imagine that, and you'll have some idea of how good that needle looks to me.

It doesn't hurt that it's Muraki holding it, either. Now I understand why they use lingerie models to sell sports cars.

"Hirose…" He shakes his head, and I find that I'm watching the spot where his face disappears behind his hair, as though it will be easier to catch a glimpse of it now that I know what I'm looking for.

"Or is it Nanjo-san now?" He sits on the edge of the bed beside me and holds up the needle.

"I don't know anymore…" I'm not sure if it's my voice that's slurred, or if it's everything else. "Muraki. What…?"

"What am I doing here?" He smiles. "Kurauchi called me. You didn't take my number out of your Rolodex. Should I be flattered?"

Actually, I had been trying to ask him what was in the syringe. But maybe it doesn't matter. Morphine, heroin, drain cleaner, lye… anything would be good enough right now.

"It only hurts for a moment," he says as he slides the needle into the bend of my arm. I can feel warmth crawl slowly towards my heart.

"You've been in shock," Muraki continues once the shot has been administered. "You're dehydrated, blood sugar is down. You're a mess. What happened, Hirose?"

I know. I remember everything, but I think that even if I wanted to tell him, I wouldn't have the words.

"Nothing. It was nothing."

"I see," he sighs, and then nudges me over a little, stretching out next to me. The bed isn't big. We have to lie close. "A charming enigma as always, Hirose."

"Since when do you have this kind of bedside manner?" My voice seems to pass through sandstorms and broken glass in the back of my throat; it sounds rough and shredded.

"I reserve it only for my best patients."

He takes my hand. He's laying so near me that I can't quite see his face; everything blurs together.

"Where did the bruises come from?" he asks abruptly.

"Bruises?"

Two of his fingertips glide over my left wrist.

"Not Koji…" he muses quietly, while, in the back of my mind something screams for me to stop him from seeing this through. But I can't do anything except watch him, and I feel faint pinpoints of heat behind my eyes. I won't cry. I'm dehydrated, like he says; I'll save the moisture.

His lips pull tight, and he says. "Akihito, then."

"Akihito is dead."

He blinks, startled. The mark of a man who doesn't surprise easily is that he doesn't know how to hide it when he is shocked. "That does explain a few things."

Before I can move to stop him, his arms are around me and I'm curled against his chest.

"The shock," he says quietly. "You ought to stay warm."

Of course, it doesn't make me feel any better, but, how strange, I do feel for the first time as though, at some distant date – maybe years from now – I might begin to.

"Muraki…" When I breathe, I can smell cigarettes and flowery shampoo, and I realized that I've missed that. "If I asked you not to leave this time, would I be making a fool of myself?"

"Perhaps not a fool, but…"

"But you won't stay." I had expected nothing else from him, but, there in his arms, I permit myself a little pang of bitter disappointment.

"No," he says. "I will not."

"I know. You're still searching for something."

"No." I feel him sigh, soft and weary. "Not searching any longer."

"Your demon?"

It wasn't that long ago that saying something like that would have made me question what little sanity I had left. But now, it's not so strange, is it? I think I could begin to believe in demons, as long as I start with the one in whose shadow I have lived for the last sixteen years.

Muraki shakes his head. "Not quite. My little ghost."

"You believe in ghosts now?"

"There are more things in Heaven and Hell… Well, in Heaven, at least."

"Who is this ghost, then?"

"In truth?" Muraki sighs. "He's your replacement."

I feel the hollow sting of jealousy in the pit of my stomach, like an old friend.

"Impossible," I say

One of his hands slides down my back, and he shifts so I can hear his heartbeat when I think to listen for it. "Perhaps."

And in a way, that word alone leaves me with hope, which is all I've ever had anyway.

"Muraki, please…" My fingers curl in the front of his clothing. "Stay here. Or let me go with you. I…"

My breath catches. The bitter salt I can taste on my lips is from my tears. "I'm ruined. It's not your fault. It had nothing to do with you. But if you leave now…"

His fingers move through my hair. "There's nothing else I can do for you, Hirose."

Already, he's pulling away, and I don't know what to say to stop him. All I know is that anything I try will be futile, and humiliating for us both.

"Won't you at least tell me what I should do now?"

He slips out of bed and straightens his clothing again before looking back. "Live, Hirose. That's all."

"Why?"

"Because I want to know you're here. That's all."

"Selfish bastard."

"I know. But will you do that much for me?"

"I can't tell you no."

He doesn't smile, but he leans over me again, kissing my lips first, then my eyes. Tasting my drying tears.

Koji was right when he said I had never cried. Not in years, since long before he was born. But now, even as Muraki pulls away, licking his lips and surely tasting salt, it never occurs to me to be ashamed.

I sit up, to see him out. My head aches, and it's too much trouble to straighten my slumped shoulders. "I hope you find what you're looking for, Muraki."

"And you, Nanjo-san."

"Not likely."

"You'll be all right. I know it." He shakes his head, and his hair falls over his eye again. I know it will be the last time I see his face, and he stays where he is, letting me look for a moment more.

When he leaves, neither of us say goodbye.

~End