12: In the Bleak Mid-winter
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
… We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.
—Mark Strand, Keeping Things Whole
You can't believe it's already December.
You can't believe it takes you by surprise every time.
You know what tomorrow means—the second day of the month is the full moon, and come the Dark Hour, you will regain Pharos and lose Aigis (for a little while, you remind yourself). You don't want to know what tomorrow means, so tonight you slip on the red bandage dress and head to Club Escapede. There has never been a more suitable name.
Except when you go there, you realize that this is the last time you will see the stupid monk.
This is the problem with solving everybody else's problems. You think you are sad. You like Mutatsu, because he is as jaded as you are, and he buys you drinks. You also hate him, because you know he's going to reconcile with his family and leave lonely drinking at the club eventually. With nobody to be surprised by the masculinity of your Godfathers and also to pay the hefty bill of sipping Taliskar, you revert back to cheap greyhounds and mojitos. Look, Hemingway's favorite drink was the mojito, so let nobody call it too girly, as if sugar is a bad thing.
He is sneering at you again, kind of like how he sneered at you the first time you stepped inside here, but this time, it is less with disapproval and cynicism, and more like how a grumpy grandpa miscommunicates his fondness.
"Go enjoy yourself, kid," he commands you, leaning back and draining his drink with a long, satisfied swig, tossing you the tag for the bottles he reserves at the club. "I'm outta here."
You can't imagine why you didn't hear the goodbye in that the first time.
-.-.-
The moon shines brightly over Moonlight Bridge—it sounds like some cheesy, 50s Sinatra song, but the sight is fit for Lovecraft.
It might sound a little callous of you, but Aigis is strewn all over the bridge, and only one arm is attached precariously to her head and neck, and when she talks to you—well, this part of her talks to you—you can't help but feel like it's a dark comedy sketch about the severed talking head of the Fisher King.
"I'm … sorry … that I failed you … I want to be … by your side," she says.
"It's alright," you tell her, holding her hand, knowing that she will be reborn, with touch and feeling in even greater capacity.
"I'm sorry," she tries to look at Ryoji, but only one of her eyes follow, and she ends up looking demented.
You know that she's not just talking about being unable to defeat Death now. "It's alright," you repeat, but this time forgiveness.
"I'm sorry," she says yet again, and then you realize that she's just stuck repeating, probably because of some technical glitch that you don't understand. She is a robot after all. Maybe the next few years, you can take up robotics.
Meanwhile, Ryoji had been mournfully telling the rest of the team what he has realized—before fainting himself.
Choice of the century, you think wryly, do you hold his hand, or Aigis's? (Just guess whose you choose?)
-.-.-
When Ryoji awakens, you know that he remembers it all now—and when you say all, you mean all.
"I'm sorry," he tells you, taking your hand in his like the way you held it when he first appeared as a transfer student (palm cupping the base of your hand), because now he understands what it signifies.
You're sick of hearing 'sorry'.
"How…" he struggles to ask, "Just how long have we been doing this?"
You lean back into the sofa, sliding to rest your back against it. "I don't know," you shrug disinterestedly, "Something like a thousand." You think it's closer to ten thousand, or maybe even a million—you wouldn't have a way of knowing, and you're feeling dramatic.
He grimaces. "Eternity," he mumbles, "when you first sealed me—you probably don't remember, but I do—then I thought that we will have eternity together, and it wouldn't be so bad, as long as we both look down at humanity struggling and standing up again. But," he slumps into the couch next to you, "I guess I was just stupid."
"Hm," you grunt.
"It's pretty awful," he says, tone partly in jest and partly in utter misery.
"Understatement," you admit.
"Yeah," he breathes out, "understatement alright."
"Hm," you hum again.
"So what are you going to do?"
You prop your feet up on the coffee table, kicking off your mid-heeled pumps. "What I did last time."
"So I take you're not out to kill me?" he says in an attempt to be light-hearted.
"Don't see a point in trying to change anything," you drone out.
"There's no way of defeating Nyx, I told all you guys," he grumbles.
"Where is the rest of the Scooby gang?" you change the topic.
"Who cares," Ryoji says, sighing and dropping his head on your shoulder. "I don't even want to talk about it."
"Guess what," you say sardonically, "I don't ever want to talk about any of it. At least you come in at the end—I have to deal with Yukari's daddy issues, Junpei's grandiose insecurities, Akihiko's utter incompetence at getting past things, Mitsuru's breakdowns as her life cracks, Ken's mommy dependencies and murderous instincts, Shinjiro's depression and suicide, Koromaru's weird transfer of loyalty and guilt thereof, and all their problems. All the time."
"You forgot Fuuka," Ryoji replies, just as sardonically.
"Oh," you try to come up with some witty retort of why you purposefully left her out. "Well," you say simply.
"What are you doing?" Junpei yells out in indignation as he throws the door open and sees you two—for a lack of a better word—cuddling.
Ryoji lifts his head but doesn't straighten up. You don't even bring down your feet. "Ah," Ryoji says, "here comes Shaggy." The girls come in next, who look at you in concern, then Ken, who looks betrayed, and then finally Akihiko, who's growling so loudly that you can hear him. "I think you all have questions," Ryoji begins diplomatically.
"Like hell we do," Junpei snarls out.
It's not quite the right way of saying it, but you let it slip.
"Iori means," Mitsuru takes over, "that indeed we have many questions that need to be answered."
"Let me first begin by describing how I came into being," Ryoji says, spreading his palms out in a gesture of openness and truthfulness.
Junpei is about to say something, but Yukari tugs on him and Mitsuru stops him with a hand.
"I come as the Appriser to the maternal being, Nyx, she who is the mother of all Shadows, she who comes ex nihilo from the primeval abyss, she who bestows "Death" unto the world, she whose wakening brings darkness and the initial cosmic amorphousness over the lands blah blah blerg blech bluh."
That's what you heard, anyway. You zone out after like two seconds, because you have heard this a thousand times before.
"… I am the Appriser…"
His delivery of the speech is also worse time after time. He tries to be too dramatic—he talks as if there's an orchestra playing sombre, ominous music behind him.
"… Defeating Nyx is impossible, not based on a factor of strength or will, but is like throwing a stone at the sea or swinging a sword at air…"
And it gets longer every year, with more elaborate analogies. "Death in Venice is ever sure," you quip in a low voice, and of course nobody gets it.
"… You have a choice…"
Junpei doesn't do well with choices, you think. It's not a real choice though. Well, maybe to Junpei and the rest it feels like a real choice, a life-or-death, weighty choice for the entire world, but to you, every choice you make feel like Prince of Persia—if you jump and die you just start over. Sometimes you try things just for the sake of seeing where it leads.
"… I'll be back on New Year's Eve," Ryoji finishes with finality.
"What's the point of going away?" you ask him, half glibly and half curious. "It's not like we won't think about this 24/7 if you leave, and it's not like we'll throw rocks and try to stone you if you stay."
"Well," he touched his scarf, hiding his chin behind it unconsciously, "I thought you wouldn't want to see me after this."
You scoff, "Please, try a better excuse." You and he both know that you know what is to come.
He shrugs, "I meant 'you' as plural."
Junpei looks away. He knows that Ryoji is right—he wouldn't be able to face him as a friend anymore. Fuuka would always hold a tremor in the back of her throat. Yukari will always give him the sour-pout face but that's nothing new. Mitsuru would probably purse her lips in disapproval and swish her hair when she walks by, all airs of civility gone. Akihiko would try to punch him whenever possible, and not just for his flirtation. Ken would shy away, behaving like a kid for the first time. Koromaru would actually be the least affected, being so used to the air of death from his previous owner.
Only you and Aigis would be unaffected. You shrug, "Does that matter?"
"It does," he says solemnly.
Determined to prove that he's not a better person than you, you try to convince him, "You won't influence our decision either way."
He falls quiet.
"Or are you just trying to squirm your way out of finals?"
You get a weak laugh out of Yukari and a sigh out of Ryoji. "You always get what you want, don't you," he says resignedly.
"No," you reply, "I never."
-.-.-
The next time you all gather, Junpei lashes out at you, calling you a dimwit and a whore for holding that thing inside of you and never even noticing, and then pleading for you to do something, to make him go away and make all of it go away.
You wish you can.
Yukari kicks him and Akihiko grinds his teeth and refrains from beating the life out of Junpei. (You kind of think you deserve it.)
But he breaks down when Fuuka admits to being scared and invites him to be scared with her. He sobs, uncontrollably, and everybody is either looking at him awkwardly or looking at everything but him awkwardly. He sucks in a big breath through snot and gushes out, "Why are you so, so not traumatized? I just wish that you are softer, now and then, you know. It's not like I don't appreciate you being the solid rock for us, unsentimental and matter-of-fact, but sometimes I want it. The sentimentality. It's like, you're always trying to cram as much life into as short a time as possible, and I don't understand that. Well, I didn't, I suppose. I mean, not before Chidori. Not before now. Even with the whole Dark Hour thing, it was all a superhero comic strip to me. Nothing was real. But now that it hits me… we're going to die. Ugh, I'm rambling. But I mean, I just kind of wish that you're as scared as I am. It would make me feel … I dunno, feel less helpless, less useless, less like I'm doing something wrong, if you're also doing it. But I guess that wouldn't help anybody, huh. Well, keep on, I guess…"
He bolts from the sofa and goes upstairs, not to emerge from his room for the whole evening.
You try to remember what it was like when you were just as scared as he is, as they are—the first time, when the possibility of death was no longer a toy inside Tartarus, but tangible, cemented, a fact. How you felt—how everybody else felt about how you felt.
You're drawing a blank.
Maybe you've never been scared then, although that doesn't sound right either. But you honestly can't envision yourself being anything but apathetic towards this.
Oh, right, that's what they call it right? The Apathy Syndrome. You smile at the rest of them and ask who wants to go to Tartarus.
-.-.-
You breeze through the finals. Seriously, if you still can't remember what the fuck relates to Lorentz Force, you might as well just eat your brain. You can fill out the answers without looking at the questions, although the order is mixed up sometimes.
On the last day, Junpei tries to convince himself that the exam scores don't matter anymore, in the grand scheme of things. He's not sure if that makes him happier or more depressed.
Akihiko really doesn't care, but he's never cared about academia the same way Mitsuru cared—it has always been an exhibition of discipline and strength, but not the mark of a successful and worthy person like Mitsuru craves. Needless to say, both still rank pretty well, but how can they not? The teachers use Mitsuru's test papers as the answer sheet, not because her answers are consistently flawless, but because half the school is named after her. And Akihiko has the privilege of studying Mitsuru's notes instead of the textbook, and that's an unfair advantage that neither thinks much about. (Whatever, it's not like you're winning without an edge.)
Fuuka makes another bad bento-box. A pigeon on the roof falls victim.
Yukari gets invited to a group date, and comes back fuming that a guy tried to hold her hand. Yukari expects gentleman in the daylight and playboys at night, but she is able to compartmentalize it so effectively that she doesn't realize that she's had much more than her hands held. She still gave the guy her number though, but you don't know what happens next—what would happen next.
Ken walks Koromaru until Koromaru drags him home, utterly exhausted with babysitting.
When you visit Shinjiro, he is still breathing steadily with fifty different tubes and machines linked up to him. You run your fingers through his hair and wonder why Koromaru's fur isn't as silky.
The world is ending, but nothing ever happens during finals.
-.-.-
The day before Christmas, Akihiko picks you up from your classroom. You are surprised by two things: that he assumes you will spend the holiday with him without asking with adorable-yet-frustrating self-doubt, and that he didn't go out of his way to hide your relationship. He has always texted you a discrete location for meeting-up, because, he says, if you become public, then you will get in trouble with lots of girls. Which is true, but also a bunch of bullshit, because as if you can't handle a bunch of raging teenage girls after saving the world and defeating monsters over and over again.
Akihiko isn't stupid. He just verges on being stupid when dealing with you.
Well, maybe not so stupid, because he follows you around without a single complaint as you shop the mall until every store closes, carrying three bags of shoes and two bags of clothes. There will be a huge sale after Christmas day, but c'mon, the red-soles sell out so quickly and might not have your size later. Also you like seeing Akihiko buried in your shopping conquests—nothing labels a guy as yours so much as your shoe boxes.
"Here," he guides you to the fountain, pretending to be tired. You allow him to pull you down to sit next to him. He's wearing gloves, but he still feels warmer than your frozen fingers, since you lost your gloves in one of the shops.
"Aren't presents supposed to wait until Santa comes?" you joke.
He shrugs, "I wasn't well acquainted with the concept of Santa until I went to school."
If it is anybody else, you would think they're manipulating your sympathy, but this is Akihiko, who says heart wrenching things like this so matter-of-factly, because he doesn't understand that they're heart wrenching. "So you are starting the new tradition of exchanging gifts by a fountain that too many people think to be a wishing fountain?"
He starts to blush and turns away his head. "It's not really an exchange—I just want to give you something."
"Wait," you stop him from digging inside his bag, "I want to get over you being disappointed by my gift first."
He chuckles, thinking you're being sarcastic, but in reality you know it's an awful gift. You grope inside on the shoe bags and pulls out a wrapped rectangle.
"What is it?" he asks, not expecting an answer.
It's a book. You got him a book. A collection of Sartre, to be exact, which ends with 'l'enfer, c'est les autres'. You laugh because you know that when he asks Mitsuru, she will read it with airs and then pause, because it's so sad and she suddenly can't tell him what his girlfriend just gave him.
You don't mean it though, not really. Hell is a lot of things beside just people.
In any case, you give him this and not potato chips or the scarf that you knit with Bebe, or even that cutesy rabbit doll that you used to like. You give him this, knowing he doesn't like reading and that he won't get the symbolism in Sartre, but you want him to. You want him to be literary, to have thoughts and opinions that frustrate you because his are deeper than yours. You want him to read by the fireside instead of beating up a boxing dummy, you want him to listen to you while you read him not for your voice but what you are saying. You want him to able to debate with you and Shinjiro and Mitsuru, and then when Shinjiro scoffs at how childish and surface all your ideas are, he can prove Shinjiro wrong. You want to go to him with a new poem that you found and not the comatose body who is the best listener, even when he isn't silent.
You want him to be more like Shinjiro, but yet you don't love Shinjiro.
You don't understand what you want.
"Thanks," he interrupts your thoughts when he finally unfolds the wrapping carefully, still ripping it despite trying not to. "I'll read it this weekend."
You are sad. You don't understand why you're sad.
"Here, though," he shoves another rectangular box your way, "it's nowhere nearly as profound, but," he stutters a little, "but I hope you like it."
You tear away the papers and smooth your fingers over the cold, glossy wood.
He is promising to give you something to put in it every single year from now on—and you cry. The complexity of your emotions isn't limited to Akihiko. It's that he won't ever give you anything else, and that you won't ever have the chance to get anything else, and that he never sweet-talks like this, and that the promise itself is as beautiful as a necklace, and that there is so much to live for that you won't be able to live through, and that you love him, and that the timing is always so off, and that you really, really want to live out the rest of your life with him, even if it means being heartbroken by him (or breaking his heart—it'll be one way or the other).
He takes your hand tentatively, a shy blush dusting his cheeks. Although he has taken your hand frequently before, you know what he is leaving unsaid now, and you nod and squeeze his hand. His cheeks deepen even further, but he still steadily leads you back to the dorm.
His room is clean (cleaner than yours), and there is almost nothing personal about the space except a ribbon of yours that you had used to tie his bandages back in the day, the old post-it notes that you stick to the fridge every once so often to remind people of their chores of dishwashing or buying eggs or whatnot, and the empty bottles of liquor that you hid in his room when Bebe visited your room and you afterwards forgot totally. Even his boxing trophies are at school, on display somewhere. You look around, and then at him, whose cheeks are now blooming like poppies.
"I," he began, faltered, then cleared his throat and began again, "What do you want to do?"
You throw your arms around him and begin kissing him like you are drunk and this is the last day on earth.
You spend a long time with him—so you would like to say. In reality, it is perhaps shorter than you would have liked, but it's the first time, so you forgive him.
-.-.-
Ryoji comes back, and he runs to you like a spoilt dog, sniffing and rubbing his head on your shoulders.
Akihiko pulls him away and only a stern look from Mitsuru and a stern hand on his wrist from you prevents him from his default violence.
"I assume," Ryoji says, not minding being jerked away and scooting back fearlessly, "You're going to do the same thing?"
You nod.
"It's a pretty big and important decision," he says, straightening up and voice sombre all of a sudden.
"You have no idea how to make it better," you rebut, "any more than I do."
"Well then," he shrugs, "it's the same old routine then. You get one month, blah blah blergh."
This time, it's not your auto-fill of his speech, but actually what he says.
Everybody is here today, including Aigis, and you stare at each other until the day—the month—ends.