Chapter 8- Part 1
Her name was roughly chalked on the rotten wood panels of her door frame in crude thick lettering. The rain had long smudged out the last blurred character, but as Goyjo squinted he found he could just about make it out.
"Aunt JuJu" he mouthed.
"JuJin" Jien corrected, his tone sharper and more exasperated than he had intended it to be. "Everyone calls her Aunt, honoured Aunt."
A flicker of bemusement crossed Goyjo's face as he looked back up at the door; the characters doubled and swayed and wouldn't stay still. A thick, heavy pain had long since rested behind his eyes and it ached to try and focus on anything for too long. He dropped his gaze.
"She won't answer to anything else." Jien continued, now more to himself than to his half-brother. His foot tapped upon the beaten earth impatiently.
"She's our last resort." He suddenly frowned and felt compelled to add, "Don't say anything to her yourself, alright? Remember?"
Goyjo didn't't respond, with a quick nudge Jien repeated himself, louder this time but to the same effect. His eyes glazed and his expression oddly vacant, Goyjo stood warily, gently rocking back on his heels. The walk up the foothills had destroyed the remainder of his left sneaker, a naked foot peaked from underneath the jagged rubber toe, blacked by the damp muddy earth and now, quite numb to the harsh weather. It was a cool evening, it felt as if winter had never truly left them and Jien's light jacket, swamping Goyjo's meagre frame hadn't been nearly enough to stave of the cold. The hem only hung to his upper thigh and underneath a pair of Jien's old jeans had been tied around his waist with a makeshift belt, narrowly keeping his pants from falling down alltogether.
Jien had heaved Goyjo up the mountain path in an awkward piggy-back ride stopping and starting for the best part of an hour, he stumbled up a seldom trod track that seemed to consist of only steep rock or thick, stodgy mud. Jien had felt the laboured breathing of his half brother on the back of his neck in irregular little gasps, he hardly weighed anything at all. As they had started to ascend Goyjo had a constant and trembling shiver and a heavy fever. Now he was still, he didn't seem to notice the cold at all.
He seemed to be getting worse.
Underneath his breath Jien offered up a silent and empty prayer to whoever in hell was listening, but the evening air was cool and silent and resounding as ever. An owl gave a solitary hoot somewhere amongst the trees marking the arrival of dusk and Jien gave a small shiver of his own. No response came from within the cottage before him; he stared down at his half-brother, his jaw tense with grating teeth.
"If you fuck this up I don't know what the hell we're gonna do." Jien hastily knocked again, harder this time. Tiny flecks of moss clung to his rapping knuckles.
Goyjo nodded weakly, a delayed reaction to a question he thought he might have heard. He stared down at his discoloured fingers, even his nicotine stained fingernails stood out shocking white against the yellow pigmentation that dyed his skin. A fresh wash of fear ran over the 11 year old and he pulled a strand of hair out of his pony-tail and played with it nervously. This caught Jien's eye. "What the hell?.." was all Goyjo got to hear before Jien cuffed the younger boy sharply round the ear. He yelped.
"What did I tell you? You gotta keep your hair hidden! Alright?" Goyjo's eyes swam and he gave out a whimper that could be "yes", "no" or more likely, "Fuck off." Jien ran a clammy hand through his own hair and inwardly hoped it had been the latter, a sign of improvement? Still, he held in his temper.
"This is a long enough shot already. You know that, right" His voice softened a little and smiled a strained smile. "We gotta make sure you keep under-cover in this one bro. Its important okay?"
Jien knelt down to his brothers level and intricately replaced the rogue strand under the blue woollen monstrosity of a hat he had stuffed Goyjo's hair into earlier that morning. The crimson eyes he stared into were bloodshot and unblinking, the yellow rings that lined them seeped effortlessly into the flushed palette of his cheeks. Again Goyjo nodded but Jien could only wonder whether he had even heard him.
Jien was unshaven, unwashed, he had neither slept or bathed in days. Quite frankly, he stank. The same clothes had rested on his back for the past week and he had no time nor inclination to change them. His hair had grown somewhat longer; it was greasy and he had roughly tamed it by shoving it behind his sharp youkai ears. In the semi-light dark shadows scored the young man's face and the bags of shadow that lined his features hung low and heavy under darting amber eyes. He looked crazed, demonic in the fading day.
Jien licked his lips nervously and drew a long drag off his dwindling cigarette, before fiercely flicking the butt into the tall wet grass. He was too nervous to smoke, too nervous to speak, he stood and waited.
Though as bad as Jien looked, Goyjo was infinitely worse. He was ill and seriously so. A relentless thirst played upon his lips and they had cracked and bled in the evening chill, a slow stream of blood played on the edge of his jaw line, the flow wouldn't stop. He held arms fiercly clung to his torso, his hands lay flattened over his stomach as if holding in his very insides. He was nauseous and his stomach was either fluttering or throbbing or suffering with equel measures of both. He hadn't been sick for the past 20 minutes though, Jien noted with a twinge of relief. Hauling Goyjo up the mountain had become increasingly difficult as the urge to stop and throw up into the long grass had become a regular and excruciating event.
The nausea had started 3 weeks ago, as the last of the snow had melted off the tiles of their poor, ailing house. Goyjo had tip-toed around his mother, slumped and drowsy over the dining table and cautiously approached the bubbling pot on the stove with a crafty anticipation. The thick smell of ramen turning fat and thick over the heat was usually enough to bring him running, yet that day the odour had made his stomach turn and his head swim and, quite unexpectedly, he had spontaneously threw up the contents of his stomach onto the kitchen table.
His mother had woken, but the beating that following was called to a rapid halt as through tearful, swollen eyes he watched her fearfully backing away, expression struck in fear and revulsion. He had looked down onto the hardwood floor and there had been a terrifying spread of blood and vomit.
Some time had passed and the house became empty and, fit to burst with shame, Goyjo had begun to slowly and methodically clean up the mess. The familiar stench of bleach had filled his nostrils with it's pungent clinical aroma and he had given it a liberal squeeze onto a wet rag. His zeal began to wane and the forward-back motion, as he ran the cloth over the floorboards, made his stomach protest with a loud churning groan. With a soft hicup Goyjo had learnt back onto the cabinet, wrapping his arms around himself in a loose hug. The floor went untouched as a fierce wrap-around ache throbbed in his lower back.
He had stayed there, unmoving until Jien had finally returned, when he had been half cajoled and half dragged into his bed. He had barely left it for 2 weeks. He had hardly eaten in that time but had clung onto his hi-lights with fierce regularity until those too left him sick.
It was at this point that Jien had realised, with a great reluctance, that Goyjo would have to see a doctor.