Chapter 54 - Acceptance Part 2

By the time Risa found Kusuo, it was 2:00 a.m.

She found the young man in the empty hospital cafeteria.

The place was eerie, as only half of the overhead fluorescent lights were on. There were no other people, except for the occasional hospital employee that had found the area to be on the straightest path to their next destination.

Kusuo had a composition book, something that looked like a personal journal, on the square cafeteria table. He was placidly flipping through the pages of the journal, seemingly poring over what appeared to be jibberish. There were a couple of rings on his fingers, no doubt accessories that modulated his powers. The hairpins on his head were of a different model and appearance. All black, without the pink ball, these hairpins blended in more like a unique hair dye job than some kid's desire to draw a caricature of a person with alien antennas.

All in all, he looked like an entitled yuppie ready for a day of business meetings at a job that daddy gave him. His affect through was flat.

Upon closer inspection, one would note the bags underneath his eyes and the slight hunch to his posture.

Risa was already prepared.

"Here, Kusuo-kun," intoned Risa gently as she placed a styrofoam cup with a sipping lid in front of Kusuo and placed it in front of him, "hot barley tea."

Without waiting for further acknowledgment, Risa slid into the chair next to the young man.

The two sat, sitting at a 90-degree angle to each other.

Kusuo accepted the drink without comment.

"I'm going to assume," began Risa carefully, "that it's useless to ask if you've been sleeping?"

Kusuo took a sip of the barley tea. "You assume correctly."

The nonanswer seemed to end the conversation right there, but Risa only smiled. "I see that you've started speaking normally now," said Risa encouragingly. "It's good. I could never break Miha of that habit."

That statement seemed to interest Kusuo as his eyes stopped flickering back and forth across the pages of the journal.

It was a gesture that Risa caught.

"Miha, my youngest sister, never spoke verbally," said Risa, her voice laced in sad nostalgia. "Where you've developed both your psychic and physical speech without issues, Miha saw no point in verbal speech. Our parents never tried to encourage her to do so." There was a soft sadness in her voice. "In Miha's last moments, when the power overtook her body, when she could no longer speak to us telepathically, she could only utter animalistic shrieks and grunts. It was a demeaning end."

Oddly enough, Kusuo seemed curious. His attention now off whatever he was reading, staring straight ahead like the blind, he asked, "Why is that?"

"Why is what?"

"That she was never encouraged to speak?"

Risa pursed her lips. "At the time, it was a foregone conclusion that Miha was never going to live very long," said Risa with a hint of regret. "Food, education, medicine, time were not plentiful like now. The genders were not as equal. There was no reason to waste limited resources on someone like Miha."

Kusuo seemed to consider that. "She couldn't help? To get resources? with her psychic powers?"

Risa gave a wane smile. "Miha had very little control over what she could do," she said, "Psychokinesis and pyrokinesis were difficult for her to affect consistently, often causing damage. With anything else, she had even less control. The telepathy alone drove her nearly to insanity. At times, she couldn't tell the difference between reality and clairvoyance. Later on, she used pyrokinesis, to offset the energy accumulation, but it wasn't fully voluntary." Risa swallowed as she pressed on, in a smaller voice. "My own little boy, Kasei, didn't live long enough for me to gauge his abilities completely, outside the few things he received without his prompting. He never spoke either. The more powerful the ability, the harder the control." She gave Kusuo a look. "But you never had problems, did you?"

There was a deeper meaning to the question, one that caused Kusuo to return to studying the journal. "Couldn't be here if I did."

There was a moment of silence as Risa gauged the response, assessing if it suited her needs. When it did not, she tried something else. "You know, I spoke to Toritsuka-kun earlier."

In an unusual display of impatience, Kusuo uttered, "And?"

"And I did not know that he was one of few people who knew Kuusuke-kun in life, saw a glimpse of his true nature," said Risa. "Toritsuka-kun had an interesting theory; he seemed to think Kuusuke-kun was a teacher of psychic abilities. Torituska-kun suspected that your Kuusuke-kun taught you much of your control. Toritsuka-kun was sure of it."

The response was unusually quick. "Yes. So?"

Risa frowned. The conversation was not progressing in the manner that she was expecting. "So Toritsuka-kun's theory was correct?"

"Does it even matter? If it is the truth?"

The response had an element of backbiting to it. Risa guessed that was to be expected, given how drastically life had changed for him. So she swallowed the minor irritation and simply remarked, "You don't seem very surprised."

Kusuo barely shrugged. "It's probably the most correct explanation of why there were so few screwups in my life, at least the ones that I can remember, anyway."

Now this was news to Risa. "Explain."

For a moment, it seemed like Kusuo was not going to satisfy her as he idly turned a page in the journal. After several pages, however, he seemed to have concluded the study or whatever mental organization he had to do.

"I could lift an entire skyscraper with my mind by the time I was 7 years old. So why haven't I accidentally hurt or killed someone? Especially my family?" ask Kusuo hypothetically. There was a minor pause as he added, "My temper is bad. The littlest things set me off. But I've never lashed out?

"So I thought, maybe my future self went back to the past? But my free-ranging temporal abilities did not develop until recently. The butterfly effect would've been too great to risk. Have I truly never made an irreversible mistake? It can't just be the three school transfers that I don't even recall all that well, right?"

Still staring at the journal, Kusuo continued. "Then you keep on saying it's so surprising that I retained my sanity for so long, without any aid. It made no sense when you hinted that everyone who came before me, because of the telepathy, eventually went insane. Then I thought about mom's mental illness and your statement is even more unexpected. That part of Mom's genetic influence should've compromised my mind as much as it did for Kuusuke."

Kusuo stopped, taking many small breaths. Whether the reaction was from being so unaccustomed to lengthy verbal expositions, or something deeper, his expression did not give away such indication.

Risa, though, caught the subtle change in the manner that Kusuo referred to his older brother. Referring to an elder sibling directly by name was terrible manners, an offense that Kusuo was unlikely to commit, an indication of agitation. So Risa gave Kusuo gave Kusuo a moment to calm himself, catch his breath, before asking gently, "How was Kuusuke-kun's sanity compromised?"

For a moment, Risa could see Kusuo trying not to roll his eyes with impatience.

"Kuusuke was never the most mentally stable person. He's smart, that's a given. But he has certain...tendencies. Everyone knew that," said Kusuo with a sigh, one that was barely noticeable. "Dad was the only one who ever did anything about it."

Risa frowned at that, not so much at the surprising statement, but more from the nonlinearity of the conversation. It seemed, to her, that Kusuo had hit an unexpected mental development milestone, one that she could not hope to be ever to match. "Your father, Kuniharu? What did Kuniharu do?"

"He sent Kuusuke away to be fixed." Kusuo swallowed. "I realized this, after mom...hurt herself. And after knowing what she did, it finally made sense to me why Ani was examined and was sent away. Dad knew what mom was like. Mom never could hold a job. She has violent outbursts. She could never be independent in society. She is forever dependent, raised by society for her expected role, and fated by her innate makeup. It'd be stupid to think that she didn't pass it on.

"Kuusuke was so mentally unhinged that even Dad, a first-time father, knew something was deeply wrong and the psychologist confirmed everything he feared. The long-term prognosis for Kuusuke was either prison or asylum. So of course dad jumped at the chance to avoid that. It's why mom didn't want dad to tell me the reason that Kuusuke was missing from so much of my younger memories, because it was a reminder that she was a cause of it."

During the exposition, Risa's lips parted as she took in Kusuo's self-derived revelations.

It seemed, however, that Kusuo wasn't done.

"I know, now, that mom's illness is the reason why you never approved of their marriage in the first place. It couldn't end well, not for the long run, time had proven that. No love can endure that type of weathering. Dad just didn't have the fortitude for it.

"As for you, social norms were changing into something even more unforgiving. You could not continue your career and fulfill the expected role society had for you, not with the burden that mom will eventually become. You were logical. You had to look out for yourself. Dad's feelings and choices couldn't come into it."

The change in reasoning nearly caused a mental whiplash as Risa's eyes widen a little bit. "How...? When...?" Her eyes darted to the unassuming rings on both of their hands. Did the germanium ring fail? "Did you...?"

"...read your mind? No. It didn't take much brain to figure that out." Kusuo tapped the side of his head meaningfully. "You were wrong, grandmother, the distraction had never been the details of the past. The distraction had always been telepathy. Once I silenced it completely, both receiving and projecting, and I forced myself to withstand the silence like a human, everything came into blinding focus on its own."

Risa gazed at Kusuo, trying to read his body language, what little he was giving. And in his voice, there was something monstrous and contemptuous in the way that Kusuo had said 'like a human.'

It was strange, as Risa felt that she was seeing Kusuo clearly for the first time, the truly frighteningly intelligent, powerful esper that, against all odds, had defied the will of nature.

Yet, there was something incredibly opaque at the same time. There was a queerness, to the very fact that this conversation was held at human speed, when it was clear that Kusuo's mind and abilities could vault such neanderthal method of communication. Still, she did not let that realization affect the conversation's progress.

"How has any of that led to Toritsuka-kun's assumption?" asked Risa patiently.

"Because he was right," responded Kusuo, like he already knew what she was going to ask, even without telepathy. "Thinking back, it's strange just how much of my memories around stressful times are missing."

Kusuo paused to gently touch a line of a formula in the notebook. "You know...Kuusuke wrote these when he created my first set of limiters. He had embedded so many psychometric memories here, ones that I was a party to but I do not recall. After reviewing so many of his notes, I know for certain that he did teach me how to channel my psychic powers into abilities and how to avoid the mistakes he made."

For a moment, Risa saw anguish flash across Kusuo's face. It came and left in a blink of an eye.

"But teaching me wasn't enough," said Kusuo with a hint of scorn. "I needed practice."

"Practice?" echoed Risa.

Kusuo barely nodded. "Nonstop, focused, flawless practice." He took another sip of the barley tea, not being used to speaking so much. "But, the thousands of challenges weren't enough. It needed to be much more than that. So, Kuusuke came up with a simpler solution."

"What solution was that?"

"A desire to appear perfectly normal."

Risa furrowed her eyebrows, not understanding.

"It's the perfect obsession to practice control of psychic abilities," Kusuo explained. "Modulate the abilities so that the power release can never be too much or too little, and I must do so with the constant bombardment of telepathy. It's like I'm being forced to meditate at the front row of an endless rock concert. Every day, every moment, whether I'm asleep or awake. Every moment was a test, a conflict, forcing me to practice, to derive solutions, relentless, with or without psychic powers. I had mastered avoidance precisely because it's often the best solution. I've been doing this, for years, without realizing that it's happening."

The confounded look on Risa's face did not change. The simplicity of the explanation seemed almost ludicrous.

However, the look on Kusuo face, neither confirmed nor denied his belief, as if to emphasize his point.

"Kuusuke's specialty had to be mind control," continued Kusuo, seemingly not noticing his grandmother's disbelief. "It explains so much of telepathic incongruence whenever a third party interacted with us. It explains why people scatter when he wished. It explain why I couldn't lift secret passwords from people he had interacted with. It explains why people never thought it was unusual for him to fly overhead with a jetpack or whatever else never caught attention.

During Kusuo's explanation, Risa steeled her resolve to remain stock still, to not react.

"But mind control lingers like a person's soul. The return of the bits and pieces of memory was an indication that it was breaking. On the day that mom had her incident, I had that feeling of dread. I didn't realize it then, but that was the moment that Kuusuke's soul had completely moved on.

There was a moment of silence as Risa took that in, and after a few seconds, she uttered a small gasp as she realized what Kusuo was implying, and felt an awe as she blinked at him.

"So...so...you mean...?" Risa left the words hanging, almost too astonished, too unsure to complete the sentence.

"Whatever Toritsuka was trying to do with the occult club and seance, it wouldn't have worked," said Kusuo. "He is too late. He wasted his time. Kuusuke is never coming back." Kusuo paused a little as he made a face. "But none of that matters anymore. Kuusuke already got what he wanted."

It took Risa some time to mentally catch up. She took a moment to remind herself that Kusuo was born far different than others. Finally, she managed to ask, "What result is that?"

"Win."

"What do you mean?"

Kusuo seemed to have reached the end of a section in the journal and looked up. "Even now, despite all that's happened to me, anyone else should've been completely overwhelmed. I am not.

"My reactions to all of this are too muted. My brother is dead. My family is falling apart. Time is against me. Everything is going wrong at the same time but it's been tolerable? How? Even when I thought about the moment of his death, why did I react as if he just issued an ultimatum? Like I'm still in the middle of a game with him? As if he's asking if I'm going to take his interruption to my 'normal' life laying down? There is this irresistible compulsion to search out for the win. To force my will upon a situation that I cannot change."

At this point, the lights in the dark cafeteria began to flicker.

Kusuo did not seem to realize it. He stared ahead, as if in a trance.

"I react. Setback after setback meant nothing to me. I kept on trying. I go about everything like I already knew what to do. Never once did I panic," said Kusuo. "This nonstop work, the constant pressure that if I don't fix my control devices, I could just burn up and there is no one to catch my fall, it's enough to make anyone despair. But I keep on going, and responding like I'm a Pavlovian dog to a bell."

In the midst of this, Risa heard a low humming. The floor, the table, the chair sat on seemed to vibrate.

Nearby, time seemed to have frozen. The people near the cafeteria seemed to have stopped, each person in mid-motion, as if they did not notice the something obviously supernatural happening in this darkened area of the hospital.

"Kuusuke planned for this all along," said Kusuo without acknowledging the energy that seemed to be imbued into the very air. "He manipulated my memories, forced me to do his ridiculous challenges, forced me to hone my telepathy, precisely to enforce that nonstop practice, never once allowing me to deviate, to rest."

There were flashes of electricity that arced through the air like tiny lightning bolts. Furniture, restaurant equipment, loose cups and plates, and even plants, began to float. Kusuo's expression, however, remained expressionless.

"He did all of this, the forced endless conflict, the building of a commercial and industrial empire, everything left to me so I have the resources. All of it, was for this moment, for when he would no longer be here, that I'd spare no moment in extraneous effort and focus on the flashover because he knew he'd run out of time.

"I've been played."

Not witnessing the slight drop in Risa's jaw, Kusuo suddenly shut the journal. The floating objects in the cafeteria all fell. The lights had stopped flickering, glowing exponentially brighter for a fraction of a second before suddenly bursting, causing a shower of glass, plastics, and metal to rain down.

Simultaneously, outside, several transformers in the substation all around the town buzzed, the electricity arced, threatening to explode.

But they did not.

Back at the hospital cafeteria, Kusuo took a deep breath to calm himself. With a wave of a hand, the shattered lights, luminaire covers, and bits of metal flew back to their original, undamaged state.

The hospital staff, contractors, and occasional patients continued walking by as if nothing had happened.

"Good grief," said Kusuo as he rubbed his temple. "How is my karma so bad that I ended up being a younger brother to such a control freak?"

For the moment, there was a long silence as Risa took that information in. There was nothing to say to that, as the revelation was just an understanding of the past.

"Well, control freak or not, you are here and he is not," said Risa.

"Yes. I win," said Kusuo with the smallest hint of bitterness in his voice. "As planned."

Risa's felt her heart constrict and ache inexplicably. "Well, then you must know why I'm here."

Kusuo stared at her for a moment and then shook his head. "No. I do not."

"You're not going to guess?"

At this point, Kusuo crossed his arms. "You're going to make me work even more? Haven't I already been forced to do enough?"

Risa pursed her lips again. Instincts bid her to pull him into her arms and hold him.

Her intellect, however, noted that Kusuo was on the edge of completely shutting off all contact with his family. The fact that he no longer referred to his older brother by rightful title, but by name, was an indication of Kusuo's frustrations. And even if Kusuo experienced none of the expected physical atrophies of a psychic, speaking so much must still take effort.

And Kusuo still made everything seem so easy.

In the end, Risa decided to get to the point. "Toritsuka told me that you spat out blood."

Kusuo's eye roll was more felt than experienced. "So?"

It was Risa's turn to demonstrate her impatience. "So, you know what I'd want to see."

Kusuo closed his eyes as if deliberating whether to share such a thing. Then, after another sigh, Kusuo reached into a pant pocket, pulled out a folded handkerchief, and placed it flat on the cafeteria table in front of him.

Wordlessly, Risa leaned in to take a look at the handkerchief. With care, she unfolded it.

The white handkerchief was sooty as if it was it was blotted with ink then dried. In the center of the handkerchief was a hole, with loose, scorched threads.

"The burning is getting worse," observed Risa, clinically. "Exacerbated by your most recent growth spurt."

"It's managed," reassured Kusuo.

Risa pressed on. "How well?"

"Well enough."

Risa responded by furrowing her brows, showing a touch of worry.

To appease the old woman's concerns, Kusuo said, "Relax. I've already created a version of my control devices. It's what I'm using now. It's not as perfect as Kuusuke's device, so my powers are a bit out of whack. The device itself is not as durable, but it works. There is no immediate danger of flashover if I break these devices like there was a few months ago."

Risa considered that. "But, how were you able to so quickly assemble these...limiters?"

"That control freak left me instructions." Kusuo gently floated the journal to Risa using psychokinesis. "He left nothing to chance."

The aged woman took some time to quickly flip through the journal. As an educated woman and a professional with intellectual inclinations, she quickly recognized the deeply intricate logic that quickly devolved into something nearly impossible to understand. "Kuusuke-kun was deeply intelligent, wasn't he? A genius, as your father had described."

"Maybe," said Kusuo. "He always claimed that he was an ordinary human. But lying is second nature to him, at least whatever imagery of himself that he wanted everyone else to believe. How he understands himself, the details of his abilities, I haven't figured that out. There's...also another piece, a major piece, that's missing." Kusuo touched the germanium ring again. "But I suppose it'll come to me, eventually. Now that I know how not to be distracted."

Risa looked through the journal again, idly flipping through, noting the doodles of cats, rockets, and the precise, scaled sketches of lobotomy pick-like control devices that she had seen when she first met Kusuo.

Seeing how Kusuo had pored over the notes, and the care and respect he took in handling the bounded papers told her that, despite the harsh tone, Kusuo was far more affected by the recent revelations than he was letting on. And judging by the deep bags underneath the eyes, the slouch, and the momentary loss of control, Kusuo was probably far more exhausted than he was stating.

"Come," said Risa resolutely as she stood up. "You're tired, Kusuo-kun. You must sleep."

"No," began Kusuo. "I still need to figure-"

"-Do not argue with me," Risa cut off. "I know you can push through, and you've trained and prepared your whole life for this pace. I see that now. But what you need is mental clarity and acuity. Mistakes happen when you are tired. The very fact that you've allowed this level of burning, is a sign that you're getting slow and sloppy."

The negative description caused a slight rise in Kusuo. "I am not getting slow-"

Again, Risa cut him off. "-And since you're so into this principled suffering, then why don't you sleep on the couch in my office? Would that satisfy your need for self-flagellation?"

"I-"

This time, Risa reached out and touched him on the cheek, setting off a storm of psychometric passing of feelings and thoughts. Strengthened by her empathy, she tried to impress upon him the feelings that she received from Kusuo's friends. Their gentle care. Their desire to cheer up their friend. Their recognition of Kusuo's deep sadness.

For a brief moment, Kusuo's gaze seemed to focus.

"Your friends only want you to be happy," said Risa gently. "They can't stand seeing you this way. That's why Toritsuka-kun risked summoning Kuusuke-kun, even when Toritsuka-kun is scared to death of him. Toritsuka recognized how important Kuusuke-kun was to you, how Kuusuke-kun made you feel like you could be yourself. Tortisuka had thought that, maybe if you get closure, that you'd be better. Several of your friends even overcame their general dislike of Tortisuka-kun, willingly participated in their dangerous ceremony, all for you."

Kusuo looked away, the shadows of his bangs covering his eyes. He took a deep breath, as if to steel his resolves. "I didn't ask them to do that."

"Kusuo-kun," addressed Risa more directly. "Your no-good, scummy, perverted friend turned selfless, and your other friends agreed with him, against their better judgment. You owe them a debt of friendship. Are you the type who does not repay his debts?"

Being hit with such a challenge, Kusuo's response was laced with irritation. "Of course not."

"The only repayment they want from you is that you allow them to be there for you," said Risa, "that you'd allow them to bring a smile to your face. Would you deny them such a cheap repayment?"

"That's just idiocy," scoffed Kusuo.

Risa bit her lips to prevent herself from launching into a full verbal assault. This was a powerful psychic, but also a young man on the cusp of adulthood with many unfair demands placed on him. The method to get through his skull could not be conventional.

"If you're not going to say it, then I will," said Risa. "You are in a bad place, Kusuo-kun. You want to cry and scream, but you know you can't. The psychic power release would be too great, too chaotic, and will increase the intensity of the burning. That is a luxury of mistake you know that you cannot afford. The pressure to solve the issue of your control devices is immense.

"You know that I understand that. Did you think I felt nothing as Miha and Kasei slowly burned and eventually flashed over in front of my eyes? I came from a time, a place, where there was nothing I could do. But you're different. You have everything to succeed, and that knowledge must weigh on you."

There was a moment of silence as Risa allowed the words to sink in. Satisfied that Kusuo was not going respond with his usual backbiting, Risa followed up on her advantage.

"Let people take care of you," said Risa. "Let me take care of you. I'm not asking much. I'm only asking you to sleep on an uncomfortable office couch. And before you ask, I'm telling you to stay here because I need to examine you as you sleep. Cellular cleansing and repair occur at rest, more so for psychics. I need to make sure that it's overcoming whatever damage is happening from the burning. It'd be easier on me if I don't have to chase you down.

Kusuo opened his mouth, immediately to protest. "Well...I..."

"You owe me this much, Kusuo-kun," pressed Risa, "out of respect to me as your grandmother and I owe you this much to you as my blood kin. Can you do that for me?"

This time, Kusuo could only get in a click of the tongue, as if to protest.

"Can you do that for me?" repeated Risa firmly.

Finally, Kusuo relented, "Whatever."


The hospital janitor hummed a tune to himself as he sweeped the linoeum hallway in the children's cancer ward at Keio University Hospital. It's been a rather busy day, he'd say, considering the bustle and hustle of people hurting themselves on summer vacation. Luckily, the cancer ward was typically reserved for those who were there for the long term. Sad, but the work was steady as it goes.

As he turned a corner in the hallways, he noted a small child galumphing down the hall, pulling along an IV drip.

"Hey!" barked the janitor in a voice that was just loud enough to catch attention. "Are you supposed to be out of bed?"

The child did not stop, but suddenly picked up speed. The child quickly turned another corner, dancing out of sight.

The janitor had to rub his eyes since he had not heard a sound. He did notice that something strange though. He had to groan, since now he just had more work cut out for him.

The child had left a trail of black, sooty foot prints.