Chapter Six: The Pyromaniac Emerges
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You know how, sometimes, you can stare at something for so long, it becomes disconnected from itself? It loses meaning and purpose. Once, after sensei, I... I was sitting in Seguchi's kitchen. He gave me a glass of cola, and then went off to talk to one of his lawyers on the phone.
I had done a lot of crying. I knew it was pathetic for a boy to cry, but I couldn't stop. I didn't know how else to deal with what had happened. If I could cry myself senseless, then I'd become almost catatonic. That's what crying is, I think. There's a high to it, something chemical that it does to the brain. Something that we instinctively know we need. Cry hard enough and long enough, and the neurons overdose. Your brain begins to shut down, and attempts to protect itself from bits of sadness. Grief's own counterbalance. Detached numbness.
It's also how people like me begin to build walls. Eventually, we don't even need crying to attain the numbness we require. It's just always there.
That glass of cola... I think it was called Mr. Pibb. I remember...
I was sitting at Tohma's kitchen table. White formica with a stylish red inset of a nine-pointed star and a chrome border. Clean. So clean, one doubted it had ever been used, just like the perfectly cylindrical glass which held the Mr. Pibb.
I couldn't think of anything to be happy about. I knew that if I did think of anything happy, I'd begin to associate that thing with what happened to sensei, and it would never make me happy again. Everything good was slowly being turned disgusting by my mind. I didn't know how to stop it. I didn't know how to stop the world from wilting, from shriveling, from withering into something horrific and unrecognizable.
Staring at the Mr. Pibb, I decided to try to think only about the glass of cola. This would be safe, because cola didn't make me happy, or sad. Cola was just cola, and I felt no attachment to it.
I wouldn't let my mind go back to sensei. I would think only about Mr. Pibb. I'd memorize every zig-zagging bubble, the sound of the fizz, the not-quite-brown, not-quite-red, color of the liquid. I'd focus on the patina of the glass, the reflective properties of both the cola and its container. I'd fill my senses up with Mr. Pibb, so much that there wouldn't be any room to think about sensei.
After staring at the glass for a long enough time, everything else in the room began to disappear. I couldn't feel my own body anymore, and I wondered if I'd found a way to stop time. The glass of cola stopped having meaning as an object relative to all other objects. I didn't know what it was, or who I was. I wondered if I was a glass of cola looking at a motionless young man.
And that's when I thought to myself, "Maybe I can trade places with a glass of cola."
I figured it would be better to be an inanimate object than Uesugi Eiri. Uesugi Eiri killed people he loved. But, even before that, Uesugi Eiri wasn't much liked by anyone. In Japan, classmates laughed at me. But, in America, they just ignored me. Even my family didn't really seem to care. They just passed me off to my brother-in-law, the only person decent enough to give a damn.
But, a simple glass of cola has none of these worries.
My arm felt exceedingly heavy when I lifted it, as if it were filled with tightly-packed sand. I stretched out one fingertip, and pushed it against the glass. That's how you transfer souls, according to my teenage mind. The warmth in my fingertip leaked out into the glass. When I pulled my hand away, it left behind a perfectly oval fingerprint. All I received from the transfer was a bit of moist condensation.
I was still me, and the cola was still cola.
I tried again, this time a little more forcefully. I had to switch with the drink. It was the only way out. Once again, it didn't work. So, over and over and over, I pressed my finger to the glass.
One definition of insanity is: Doing the same thing over and over, hoping for different results.
When Tohma found me, I was sitting perfectly still, staring blankly at the empty formica table. He said not to worry, not to fret. It was just a glass of cola, he'd clean it up. He said to stay there, he didn't want me to get shards of broken glass in my feet.
I turned my head, and looked at the floor.
My fingerprint stared back at me from a jagged piece of glass.
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Sometimes, you can stare at something long enough that it becomes disconnected from itself. It no longer has the meaning which human minds have assigned to it. Once, it was a glass of Mr. Pibb. Today it's a pack of cigarettes sitting on my coffee table. You know, I think people don't really look at the things in their lives with unbiased eyes until they are faced with the prospect of losing those things.
Cigarettes. Shuichi's right. They're bad for me. But, I think he doesn't understand addiction. Shuichi doesn't comprehend the consequences of being powerless to put aside the things that are bad for you. He's never had a real addiction, as far as I can tell.
I wonder why he started smoking.
I imagine the little wrinkles in the cellophane wrapper around my cigarette box to be spelling out some sort of cosmic message. I imagine all the people involved in making a box of cigarettes. I try to conjure up the smell of fresh tobacco in my mind. The texture of the filter against my lips, the sound of a lighter, each curl of smoke. I fill my senses with a box of cigarettes.
This is how you avoid thinking. This is the meditation of materialism.
This is writing, and consequently why I like writing so much. It is the best way to forget what a fucking asshole you are.
The television continues to blare. I'm almost afraid to turn it off, for fear that Shuichi won't come home and turn it on again. My depression is laced with the abject stupidity of listening to loud noise. Because if Shuichi isn't here to annoy me, something should be.
Rule number nine for writers and assassins: Happy endings are a lie.
"Uesugi-san?" I look up to find Tungesh standing in the doorway. He looks a bit disheveled, with his usually slicked-back hair falling in his face and the left half of his shirt untucked. "I'd been knocking for a while, and calling your name... Well, it was open, so I just..."
Well, everyone else breaks into my house. Why not the guy who runs the local newsstand, too?
"I don't really have the time to discuss literature right now." I don't. I should be trying to figure out what's going on with my supposed boyfriend. I should be at my editor's office, threatening to switch publishers. I should be grabbing every knife I own and planning out a detailed strategy to find and eliminate my ex-partner. But, all I am doing is sitting my living-room, staring at a box of cigarettes.
"No, I didn't come for that, I wanted to..." Tungesh walks over and squats down next to the couch. "Uesugi-san, you don't look good. Is something going on? Let me guess. Fight with Shindou-san?"
I grunt and pick up my pack of cigarettes. You can analyze something to death, but in the end, a thing is what it is. A box of cigarettes is a box of cigarettes. A murderer is a murderer. A lie is a lie.
But, why didn't Shuichi's phone messages -feel- like a lie?
I glance over at Tungesh. He really looks genuinely concerned. In this light, though, there's something about his eyes that I've never noticed before. Maybe it's because he's usually outside, and he wears sunglasses all the time. They are kind eyes, on the surface, but below the facade lives a cutting wisdom about things most people wouldn't comprehend. I can't quite put my finger on it.
"I've grown fond of you and Shindou-san. Who would have known that famous people could be so..." Tungesh chuckles a little. "Real? Just regular people like anyone else I know."
I wonder if he's ever going to get around to making a point. "Yeah. Regular."
"That's why I was worried. Some people have been around asking about you, Uesugi-san."
Asking about me? Damn. "Probably just the press. Ignore them, and they'll buzz off eventually."
"I wish they were just journalists. But, they showed me their identification. They were government agents. They kept asking about some exile. I thought for sure they might deport me. Seriously, Uesugi-san, if you two are in trouble, I'll do my best to help out."
Government agents asking about Exile? FUCK!
No, no. No need to panic. I'll just tell Seguchi. He knows how to "handle" these sorts of things. That's what he's good at doing.
Still, I have to wonder if this is all part of Uriel's plan. Would he stoop that incredibly low? No. I don't think he wants me behind bars. He can't watch me fall to pieces if I am in prison.
Who, then? Or, how?
"It's nothing to be concerned about," I tell Tungesh, as calmly as possible. No need to alert the neighbors to the fact that I moonlight for a vigilante organization.
I need a PDA just to keep track of the many ways in which my life is falling apart.
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Tungesh hangs around for only a few minutes, and then excuses himself to get back to his newsstand. At least there's someone who doesn't overstay his welcome or ask too many stupid questions. And actually, despite the fact that he brought me bad news, I feel slightly better. At least Tungesh has no reason to lie to me, or jerk me around. He's just...a normal sort of person.
Though, that isn't exactly difficult to achieve, when you consider the sorts of people I know.
But, I do feel better, for some reason. I don't know why. Maybe it's just that... Maybe knowing that someone cares... No, it isn't even that. I don't give a shit if people care about me.
There's a whole world I've created. The phantasm, the fantasy I've built. The famous romance novelist... This place which I believe to be a home... And then there's Shuichi.
There exists a warmth within these things, a warmth and comfort such as I have never before known. Maybe it is a stupid dream, a ridiculous farce. Maybe these lies only barely cover up the monster within me. But, this is what I wanted. I want these things, despite the fact that I don't deserve them.
Even though it is better for Shuichi, and probably better for me, if we're apart... I still want to keep the lie.
Sure. I could pack my bags and run off to find Uriel. He'd take me in, and together we'd destroy Exile. After that, we'd kill indiscriminately. We'd begin a process of purging the world of those creatures which do not face the reality of their own existence. I could revel in the surreal horror of my monstrous nature.
But, that's not what I want.
I want the lie.
I want the immeasurable stress of trying to beat my publisher's deadline.
I want phone calls from the press, and obnoxious teenage girls weeping about how much I moved them with my novels.
I want an idiotic pop star who burns toast, has never read a book that doesn't include pictures, and who can't, for the life of him, remember to turn off the goddamn television when he leaves the house.
I want Shuichi. I want him to tell me that he loves who I want to be, instead of who I am, or who I have been. I want him to tell me today, and tomorrow, and when I have arthritis and wear dentures.
And I will fight any man, beast, or deity who gets in the way of what I want.
I pick up the remote and shut off the television.
It's time to go get Shuichi.
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I formulate my plan while I drive. First, I'll go talk to Shuichi. If it is true, if what he kept saying in those phone messages is true, then together we'll figure something out. I will not strangle that Okita, even if he did sleep with my boyfriend. (But, I might threaten him a little.)
Then, I'll go talk to Seguchi. I'll ask his help in tracking down Uriel and Lampyridae. I'll tell him about the damn government agents which have been snooping around. He'll probably send me into hiding, but what do I care? As long as Shuichi's there, and they have electricity for my laptop, we can muddle through.
And then I'll call Mizuki and demand an explanation regarding her little luncheon with Akasugi.
There. It's resolved. Simple.
Alright, there are a few unknowns in that plan. But, I'll figure those out when they become pertinent.
The late-spring weather has taken a turn for the gloomy. Dark clouds have gathered on the distant horizon, but it has not yet begun to rain. The world, cast in the grayish-blue of false twilight, appears preternaturally chilly.
I showered before I left. And maybe I did put on the silk shirt Shuichi bought me for some ridiculous occasion. He makes a holiday out of anything, really. What a moron. Well, I didn't wear it for him. It just happened to be the first shirt I grabbed, that's all.
It isn't long before I'm driving through the same neighborhood I visited yesterday. "Yesterday? It seems so long ago." People are always saying that sort of stupid thing in songs, but I guess sometimes even clichés are right on the money. That's why we have so many of them.
It seems even darker here, and something about the smell of this place makes me uneasy. I keep catching just a faint whiff of something familiar.
It isn't until I turn onto the street where Okita lives that I see it. Huge plumes of brown-grey smoke blasting into the air. Tendrils and arcs of flame consuming the windows and wood of the second story. The street is littered with onlookers, most standing motionless with their arms crossed or their hands over their mouths in shock. There's a fire-truck, and several firemen running about, shouting orders and uncoiling hose.
Fuck. Fuck! That's Okita's house. It's on fire! Shuichi's in there!
I leave my car in the middle of the street, door open, keys still in the ignition. Someone could steal it, but I don't give a shit. In times like these, it's hard to give a flying fuck about anything. Not my car, not my expensive shoes. I don't even think about the fact that Uriel probably started this fire. I just...
I. Just. Want. To. Find. Shuichi.
"Shuichi!" I'm yelling and running. People's faces blur, and I think I almost knock over a few different bystanders. "Shuichi!"
"Sir, you can't go..." Some asshole firefighter is pushing me backwards. "...near the fire. It's dangerous."
"Fuck off!" I try to punch this moron, but I'm immediately restrained by several more firefighters. "Get the fuck off of me! Shuichi is in there!"
And that's when I see that deviant, boyfriend-stealing asswipe, Okita. He saunters over to us, looking rather morosely upset. Having your house burn down can do that to a man. "You're Yuki-san, right?"
God, I hate his voice.
And since my upper torso is being restrained by firefighters, the only thing I can think to do...
Is kick Okita. In the jaw.
The asswipe flies backwards and ends up sprawled on his neighbor's lawn. He better be glad that I'm restrained. If I had my arms free, I'd be carving off his face with a machete, right about now. That punk! I'm blaming this...
"Yuki?"
I become absolutely still. I think my heart just began the process of imploding. It takes forever until he comes into view. Oh god. He looks awful. His face is covered with dirt, soot, and fresh scrapes. Half of his shirt appears to be missing. Burned off or torn off, I don't know. And his hair is...completely unrecognizable. I think some of it is missing on the left side.
"Yuki!" He barrels into me, like a coiled spring let loose. At some point, the firefighters unhand me, apparently sensing that I am no longer a danger to myself or others. (If only they knew.) I wrap my arms around Shuichi, and it...
It feels so good. Just utterly...good.
He keeps whining my name, over and over, sobbing it into my shirt. I can't do anything but pull him closer. I want to melt him into me, so that we can't ever be separated. I'm sure that I must be crushing him, must be making a spectacle of the two of us, but I don't care.
He's shaking, I can feel it. And maybe I'm shaking a little, too. He smells like our kitchen after he's tried to cook breakfast, but more acrid. Shuichi starts babbling random words, most of which I can't make out because he's taking into my skin. "Scared...fire...accident...you...last night...Yuki...scared..."
And I start saying things, things I didn't even know I knew how to say. I tell him that it's okay, that it's going to be alright, that he doesn't have to be scared anymore. I tell him all this goofy crap people say in the movies, and in novels, stuff I thought no one in the world actually said to one another. But, I guess we do. In the end, we all say the exact same crap to each other, because even though it isn't eloquent, it certainly is true.
It takes a little while for us to both become sensible, again. Shuichi calms down a bit, and just hiccoughs his sobs. He rubs his cheek against my shirt, leaving smudge marks of ash all over me. I reach into the back pocket of his pants and retrieve his hair tie, and then try to sort out his hair with my fingers. I finally manage to get it into a little puff of a ponytail at the back of his head. "Shuichi," I try to tilt his face back, so I can get a better look, "Are you hurt?"
"Scrapes...just scrapes..." His teeth chatter a little when he talks, and he's leaning his entire weight against me. Fucker weighs more than you'd think, so I decide to sit us both down on the curb. Unfortunately, we almost sit the head of an unconscious Okita. "Yuki, why'd you kick Okita-kun?"
I just grind my teeth a little. I don't really want to ruin the moment by remembering that Shuichi is sleeping around on me.
"Come to think of it, how'd you know I was here, Yuki?"
Well, fuck. That is hard to explain. I look around and point at a news van. Hopefully, Shuichi won't think too hard about it, and will just accept the explanation as is.
Shuichi appears to not really care about getting answers. Instead, he just clings to me, and we both gaze at Okita's burning house. It's a strange thing to watch a building burn, get eaten from the inside out by little mouths of flame. Uriel used to say that you didn't really know how sturdy buildings are, until you watch them burn down. He loved fires. That damn pyromaniac. I'm going to kill him.
"It's all my fault," Shuichi mumbles suddenly, "All my fault... And now the painting is ruined, too. I tried to go back in to get it, but I couldn't reach it. Okita-kun had just finished it, too."
"Painting?" What the fuck is he talking about?
"Yeah. Okita-kun is an artist. I've been coming here to get a picture painted of myself. I wanted to give it to you for your office, so... So I could be with you while you write. Then even if you lock me out, I'm still in there with you."
A painter? The fuck? He's lying to me, right? I glare at Shuichi, warning him not to try this shit. I'm fucking tired of being lied to all the time. Shuichi just blinks at me, and then puts on his 'completely confused' face. "Yuki? What's wrong?"
He's not lying to me.
Shuichi has never lied to me.
"Shuichi, was it a nude painting?"
"Yeah! How did you know?"
That's why he was just wearing a damn towel. Not because they'd just finished fucking, but because Shuichi had been modeling. Yesterday, Shuichi wasn't smiling because he loves Okita, he was smiling because he loves me, because he was excited about giving me some stupid painting.
They were talking about painting, and about Okita's tight -schedule-. Not about sex.
Goddamnit. I'm the idiot. Fuck. Fuck!
"Do you have a headache, Yuki? You look like you have a headache." Shuichi sticks his bottom lip out, like he always does when he's concentrating a little too hard, and reaches up to touch my forehead. "Lemme rub it."
I pretend to bat his hand away, but he just tries again, so I let him. I do have a headache. Shuichi crawls into my lap, puts his fingers on my temple, and starts to move them in little circles. I seriously don't know where he picks up this shit, but it's quite soothing.
Still, something isn't right. How can Okita be a painter?
"Does Okita work for NG, Shuichi?"
"Ummmmmm, no. When he's not painting, he's a file clerk at a museum. Doesn't that sound like the boringest job ever? Just the word 'clerk' sounds like it should be a curse word, huh? How do they decide which words are curse words, anyway?"
I sneer slightly, and grumble, "Stop babbling."
"Okay."
Okita is a file clerk. And he doesn't work for NG. But, didn't someone tell me that he was a roadie for Bad Luck...?
That's when it hits me like a fucking ACME anvil falling on my head. All this time, I thought Uriel was out to ruin my life, to hurt Shuichi, and via Shuichi, me. But, that wasn't what Uriel ever wanted. I was just too wrapped up in the drama of my own life to realize his true motivations.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the picture I stole from Tohma's office. Very carefully, I unfold it, and hold it so Shuichi can see it, too.
"Hey, cool picture." Shuichi bends in close to look at it. "Who's this guy giving the toast? He looks familiar."
Sakano.
Sakano was the one who told me that Okita works for NG.
I put my finger over Uriel's face in the picture. Damn.
"Who told you to get a picture painted, Shuichi?"
"No one told me to do it, I just wanted to..." Shuichi smiles wide. "But, I guess Sakano-san suggested it."
I take Shuichi's wrists in my hands and squeeze them in the hopes that I will get his attention. "Did anyone ever pull a knife on you in the parking garage at NG?"
"Huh? What?"
"Did you meet any strange people in the parking garage at NG during the last few weeks?"
Shuichi looks up, as if he's trying to access backlogged data in his brain by literally -looking- for it. "Hiro and I don't use the garage. He keeps his motorcycle in the back alley under a tarp. Something about how he's worried Aizawa is going to vandalize it or something, I don't know. What's all this about, Yuki?"
Sakano couldn't have seen Shuichi in the garage, then.
And isn't Shuichi always saying that Sakano gets all flustered around Seguchi? Like he has a crush on him... Like he...
The best place to hide is in plain sight.
I know it, and Sakano knows it, too.
Because he's the best agent we ever lost.
Because Sakano is Uriel.
And he doesn't want me dead. He doesn't want to kidnap or hurt Shuichi. He just wants me confused. He wants me to be distracted long enough that he can go after the target he's been quietly stalking for years now.
Sakano, Uriel, is after Tohma.
As I realize this, the picture falls from my fingers onto Shuichi's knee. I take a deep breath as my entire body fills with annoyance. I really hate the fact that I didn't figure this out sooner, and I really hate...
The world becomes immediately ten times brighter than it should be. I'm slammed backwards, and my entire left side becomes incredibly hot. I don't know where up is, or where down is. I crush Shuichi to my chest, and both of us seem to be tumbling together. I taste grass and dirt. There's so much noise from our movement that I only barely register the sound of the blast.
When we finally stop moving, I tentatively open one eye. A huge plume of flames is shooting out of one half of Okita's house, and the other half no longer exists.
"Ohhhhh crap," Shuichi groans, "There goes my plastique."
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In Our Next Chapter: Shuichi's plastique? Yuki learns more about Shuichi's pyromaniac tendencies as the two race to save Tohma from Sakano's nefarious plans.
Author's Notes:
Congrats to those who pegged Sakano as Uriel, and those who figured out that Okita was a painter. Even more secrets and secret identities will be revealed in the next chapter of Brilliant Eidolon.
Super-duper thanks to all reviewers, including: gail, starlight, Aja, ht, LilyAvalon, Dana, PIKACHU GODDESS, Sesshomaru-bishounen, Satanic-Purple-Onion, Aacire, Catherine-Lewie-Rain, anon, Brittanga, Kracker Lace, animegirl12182, KuroiShinigami07 (Hope that was quick enough for you), Gyoki, Ashcat, Firebreeze (Island!), and firedraygon.