Reasons
Blurry and shifting in a nausea inducing way, the world slowly came into focus. At first he didn't know where he was; all he could tell was that it was white and smelled unpleasantly. When his vision had mostly returned, he could make out that the white he saw was the ceiling tiles above him. With a grunt he tried to roll over, but something made that attempt an unsuccessful one.
Confusion. Look around...
...Bindings.
His arms and legs were bound down tight to the bed and it hurt when he tried to struggle against them. His addled brain was reminded of the kidnapping attempts of his childhood and began drawing conclusions swiftly, but before a solid hypothesis could be formed, he began to see the rest of the bright room better.
A hospital.
Confusion again.
Why was he in a hospital? He hated them: the smell and sounds. Again he struggled and again his struggles met with a sharp pain down his arm. He stopped. He thought. His mind was beginning to clear: an odd sensation after being so long in a daze. He remembered… and his semi-functional mind began to process the situation when the door opened.
"Hello," the woman said. He quickly analyzed her clothes and stance reflexively. She had authority by how she stood, but wasn't the boss of her area. She made a reasonable living by her clothes, though her distressed shoes said she not only walked a lot, but she also didn't make that reasonable of a living and certainly her work clothes were, to her, expensive, too expensive to buy a new pair of shoes. Her finger nail polish was pink: tasteful, subtle, and soft. That and the way she held her hands, cradling the file she carried: she wasn't a doctor. A nurse he would say, but her hands didn't look worn by the repetitive washing that nurses must do. Also she was dressed in office like clothes, not a nurse's uniform, and her hair was long and loose, when a nurse, doctor, or technician would have to drawn back.
Authoritative (but not in charge), intelligent (by the look of her eyes), nice clothes, soft hands, gentle body language, worn shoes, loose hair. She was a hospital psychologist. Addled though he was, he was still sharper than most anyone else.
"Hello," he replied, but said nothing more.
She stepped in. "My name is doctor Stepler. How are you feeling?" she asked as she stood beside the chair, but didn't sit, yet.
He would have shrugged if his upbringing hadn't kept him from making such lowbrow response. "As well as can be expected I suppose."
She nodded, gauging his every response he knew, but didn't much care to manipulate that. For once he no reason to lie. "Would you mind very much if I sit down and talk with you a moment?"
"No," he answered. Arguing was pointless and again, he had no reason to lie.
She sat and got out her pen. "Do you remember why you're here?"
"Yes. My apologies to the staff for making work for them."
She shook her head. "That's alright. That's why we're here: to help people that are hurt. I'd like to help you, too, if you'll let me. Can you tell me why you would try to hurt yourself, Mr. Yuudaiji?"
Reflexively, he looked down at his bound left arm at the thick bandages around his wrist.
He could remember the sound of the wood and glass shattering, the feel of his fists hitting and shoving anything within reach. The telegram, the decree, the death sentence that lay in tattered bits on the plush carpeting. It had been his first victim of the evening and he wouldn't rest until everything else joined it. Rage... Rage tasting like copper and smelling like ash blurred the world around him as he finished the job he had started fourteen years ago.
Destruction.
It had been freeing to go so utterly where he had only been tiptoeing. He would not be sentenced to the icy hell the telegram foretold. He was the weapon, the stain, the poison that smashed other's lives. He would not stand by and let another do such to him. A violent end. Let it all break, leaving fragments of wood and paper and convenient shards of thick glass.
No more.
He shook his head to the nice, if over worked woman (by the look of her eyes). "That would take years to list off. I could give you the dime store answer, but really we both know there's never one reason, but thank you though."
She gave him a kind look, nodding. For a moment her eyes remind him of Nokoru, but they weren't deep enough to match his. Once you get through his mask, a person could drown in those eyes. "Well, I guess I'll take the dime store answer then."
A telegram. He shrugged. "I've been going to school here and elsewhere in Europe since I was young, but as I just graduated yesterday I received a telegram from my father that I was required to return to Japan."
A telegram in pieces on the floor, tattered in his fists, clutched whole in his shaking hands... sitting unopened on the floor by the door.
He'd found it when he'd gotten home that night, already three sheets to the wind. He'd almost missed it in his controlled and well practiced stagger, but he'd managed to scoop it up on his way to the sofa. The envelope had been ripped open quickly if awkwardly to let him scan the contents.
Idomu san. stop
Your childish games are overstop You will be on the 7:00 am flight to Japan tomorrow stop The ticket is there waiting for you stop Don't waste your time making arrangements for your music items stop You won't be wasting your time on that foolishness ever again I assure you stop I also assure you this order will not be circumvented stop If you are not on the flight I will cast you out and you can fend for yourself stop Don't cross me again stop
…Broken pieces everywhere, the decayed remains of his life finally put out of its misery. He knelt amongst the wreckage, tired from the effort as his eyes caught sight of the shattered fragments of some glass artifact, be it a vase or sculpture, the heroine and vodka had robbed him of the memory. It was sharp. There was nothing beyond that. Sharp.
With barely an after-thought the glass found his wrist and the rush of red was the only way he could tell it had bit home, any sense of pain long since lost in the chemicals. Relief. Perfect relief. A burden falling from his weary shoulders. Numb hands fumbled the slick glass to his other hand to finally cast off the last of the weight.
"I see," she said after his flat, unelaborated answer. "You don't wish to return home?"
"No." A cold grave he helped to fill, a cold house, a cold sin he shouldn't have been forgiven for. No, he didn't want to see Japan again and after all, he'd been working at sending himself to his own lonely grave for too long anyway.
"May I ask why not?" she asked quietly.
"There was nothing but bad memories there." A crying woman, fighting with the guards again, trying to get inside for only a moment, a piano with cut strings, a pair of snips in the hand of a servant, his father standing over it all.
"No family you'd like to see?"
A grave. A monster. "No."
"Is that why you turned to drugs?" Judgment was missing from her soft face, just concern painted it.
He automatically looked back down at his arms, higher than the bindings and gauze, to the ugly track marks that told the tale of years of foggy days and numb nights. A bite of a needle becoming a promise of a day of lessened regret and dreamless sleep. Never free of his pain, the drugs had only made it easier to ignore.
"How long have you been addicted to heroine?"
"About six years. I've been an alcoholic for I'd say eleven."
She seemed pained at that as she shook her head. "Did you ever try to quit?"
"I never had a reason to." The push in the back of his mind was already demanding a drink and he could only guess they had administered something to kill the need for the needle as so far.
He watched her consider him, carefully choosing her next words to attempt to save him from his own destruction. "You were the one that called for the ambulance, though," she commented, checking he notes. "Did you find a reason to stop that night?"
Wet glass attempting to flee his bloody fingers, he looked past it by chance, trying to force his eyes to focus so he could finish this task. A picture... lost in the turmoil. Shards and splinters over it, though still leaving it visible. Glass forgotten for the moment, a stained hand reached for the photo. Old and faded, the photo showed a brief happy moment, almost dreamlike in its oddity. The woman who he had helped to her grave. A boy who had brought pain and regret to all he touched... Another boy. Sunshine. Warmth. The sole reason smiles had found the faces of the poor wretches who shared the photo with him. A smile. A smile made truer for its depth, for the loneliness behind it. What depth is there in the joy of a creature that knows no unhappiness? He was happy. After that day he saw the boy fake many smiles for others but that one? That day? It was real.
Like a bucket of cold water, he could suddenly see him, happy in his bright, beautiful life, getting the news of his death. Sweet, empathetic, Nokoru wouldn't shrug and spit at his memory for the sins he'd committed (as he should), instead he would weep. He would think he should have stopped it. He would mourn him, though he wasn't worth it.
Panic. Sobriety came up in a quick burst as he realized what would happen and he lunged for the phone. With blurred vision he tried to find the emergency number as he did his best to cover the bloody wound. Prayers repeated in his head, not for him, but for Nokoru. He couldn't die, he couldn't make Nokoru hurt again. He prayed the help would reach him before he hurt Nokoru again with his selfishness.
"Yes, I did," he answered. "The best reason possible. So you don't have to worry. This won't be happening again."
Air. Fresh clear air. Released from the hospital with a set of borrowed, ill fitting clothes, he took a deep breath of the cool October air before rushing off. The push was there, stronger than he'd ever felt it and the drugs they had given him had started to wear off, making his hand twitch for a fix. He wouldn't though, he had no doubt of that. Now he had to hurry back to his flat hopefully before the locks were changed. He needed to see what money he could find, some clothes, his music, and of course the photo. He had no intention of seeing Nokoru again, quite the opposite. He most hoped he wouldn't. He didn't want Nokoru to see the scarred up mess he'd become. He was happy just knowing that he was out there somewhere, in his bright shining world. It made his own world of dirty streets and rusted cars seem worthwhile.
Cold, filthy, filled with vagrants, streetwalkers, and drug pushers, and though the autumn gray covered the sky, he knew, somewhere, high above the ugly city, the sun was shining. For the first time in years, Idomu remembered how to smile.