Parasyte -the maxim-
Symbiosis
Chapter 8: Us
It'd been a year since they'd left their old town, since they'd fled from the world.
And it'd had been a year since all the fear of the parasites settled down.
After the government figured out how to identify a parasite, thanks to a strange incident in which a body of one of them was found, most of the remaining parasites went into hiding. Very rarely did they ever come out, and if they did, it was because they couldn't fight their killer instincts forever. The ones who learned to adapt were the ones who survived the eradication of their species. They learned to act the part as humans, just to ensure that they could survive.
But none ever truly learned what it meant to be human.
"The mystery of the mincemeat murders remains unsolved… but a panel of judges are going to try to unravel the mystery?" Hideo scoffed at the ad on the television, glaring at it like it'd offended him. "Some stupid show about a stupid subject. They're just trying to make headlines."
Rolling her eyes, Kayoko dropped onto the couch next to him. "Yeah, well, that's what the news does. It's their job to make headlines," she replied.
He changed the channel back to their television show that they'd been following for the past few weeks. It was a rerun, but it was much better than the stupid news shows that were celebrating the anniversary of something so morbid and so uncomfortably familiar for Hideo.
"Doesn't mean that they have to drag up those memories. The events happened a year ago."
"That's long enough for the vultures to swarm." She glanced at Hideo, who was still glaring at the television with crossed arms. "Are you still beating yourself up over the school?"
He sighed, hanging his head as he slumped, his arms falling to rest at his sides. "How can I not? Every time I remember what happened last year, I remember that in one day, I more than tripled my body count." He rubbed his temples, trying to force the memories away. "I'm not proud of what I did," he mumbled.
Covering his hand with both of hers, she moved to look him right in the eye. "You're acknowledging your mistakes. That's all anyone can ask of you."
"The families… they must want me dead."
She frowned. "But what would that solve? Nothing. That'd just start more senseless violence, because all that stuff about revenge? It's all lies. Revenge helps no one. It doesn't bring back the dead. It wouldn't even make them rest easier. It would just turn more people into murderers, and the last thing this world needs is more murderers," she replied, turning his hand to face upwards, tracing characters into his palm.
They were all characters he was familiar with. They spelled out words that he clung to in order to remember that he was not just a mindless killer. He was someone with a life of his own now. He had reasons to live.
Hope. Happiness. Life. Love.
Us.
The last word was a new word, one she'd never traced against his skin before.
He glanced at her, seeing her staring down at his palm. She slowly traced the characters again, as if to repeat the word to him.
Us.
"Us?" he murmured.
Nodding, Kayoko tucked her hair behind her ear. "Yeah. Because remember what we agreed? There isn't much of a difference between our species." He still looked confused, so she continued, "The differences aren't what put our kinds at odds. It was how similar the two species are. We all have the same composition, the same thoughts, and the same goals. The only differences are in how we achieve those goals."
"I don't understand."
"What I'm saying is that everyone went about it the wrong way." She gently placed her hand in his, curling her fingers around him. "Both species separated themselves from the other. They fought instead of working together. They all had a mentality of 'us' versus 'them.'"
Realization dawned upon Hideo as he began to understand what she was saying. "You're saying that there is no 'them,'" he finally said.
She nodded, looking up to him, her eyes sparkling with maturity and wisdom beyond what a human her age should have had. "There's only 'us.'"
Shinichi was trying to live without Migi.
It was hard, especially after all that they'd gone through with each other. After coming to understand each other, Migi had just decided to disappear one day. Even after a year of his right hand being dormant, he still found himself longing for the company of someone who he could say truly understood him, in ways that no one else could.
Sometimes, he even caught himself talking to his right hand, like it would respond. It never did.
It was no longer "Migi." It was just his right hand.
Loneliness crept up on him sometimes. Only a year ago, he was fighting for his life against otherworldly creatures. He was struggling to accept that he was walking a thin line between human and not. He had a foot in both worlds, and they were both difficult for him to find a balance between.
Once he did, he found that he no longer had to perform that balancing act.
He could be human again.
Somehow, it was like he'd forgotten how to be "human," or, at least, "human" the way that he used to be. Human in the way he saw the world as filled with black and white. Human in the way that he perceived threats and danger. Human in the way that he wanted to fight fate whenever it did something that he didn't quite agree with.
But his entire view of the world had changed, thanks to the time that he'd been stuck between the worlds of parasites and humans.
He understood now that the world was painted in shades of gray, not just black and white. There weren't just two sides, but many different perspectives of the same world. He understood that there were some threats he could face and some he had to run from. He understood that fate did what it wanted without any regard for how he felt.
He understood that there were things that he could not change.
"Shinichi!"
Some of them, he didn't want to change.
He looked up, seeing Satomi wave at him. He waved back with a smile, then stood.
"Did I keep you waiting long?" she asked cheerfully.
He shook his head, feeling something like peace wash over him. "Not at all," he replied, studying her smile, wanting to memorize it, so he never forgot it.
It had taken Satomi a while to truly come to terms with what had happened involving Shimada and Kayoko, and later Shinichi's involvement with the parasites. She'd been thrown into the center of the conflict, as she had later befriended Kana, who had also been killed. She'd been forced to watch as Shinichi – the Shinichi she knew and cherished so dearly – vanished, only to return after one of the creatures showed some form of humanity right before she died.
Ryoko Tamiya had shown Shinichi that both of their species were similar in some ways – more than Shinichi originally expected, having labelled parasites as monsters and humans as nothing but human. Both species were fragile creatures, who had the ability to sacrifice themselves for those that they cared about. She'd shown that she could feel, hurt, and bleed in the same ways that he could.
They were more alike than they were different.
"Thank you."
She'd thanked him right before she died, wilting as her body hit the ground.
She'd left him with her baby and her parting smile. Two things of hers that were more human than he ever thought that parasites could be.
Even after all of the things that happened, Shinichi never told Satomi what he was, what he had been. He never told her that he'd had one of those things in his right arm, which was why he changed, why he became so bitter and angry and vengeful. Why he was filled with so much hatred. He never told her, and she had never pushed him to tell her.
He'd told her about his mother, but she'd just held him, and told him that he didn't have to talk about it, if he didn't want to.
He didn't talk about it.
He'd only melted into her arms, holding her the same way that she was holding him. He'd thought back to the way that Shimada held Kayoko when they stood on the rooftop, protecting each other from the dangers that surrounded them.
It was the same way that Satomi held him.
A hug filled with delicate, fragile care. It was soothing and warm, overflowing with all of the love and affection that could be forced into the hug.
It was so human.
"Living is something that humans do. Surviving is what every other species does. I want to live. I want to be alive."
Thinking back on Shimada's words, some of the last words he'd ever heard the parasite speak, Shinichi understood. In that moment he had sympathized with the parasite, who had decided that he was going to live in a different way. He was going to be as human as he could, in the ways he knew how. He was going to walk the line between parasite and human, the way Shinichi had.
Somehow, Shinichi knew that Shimada had been successful in finding a new life and living it as a human. After all, he was lucky to have Kayoko to lead him in the right direction. He knew that she would pull Shimada back if he ever strayed from the path that led to humanity.
Just like Shinichi had Satomi.
"Shinichi?" He snapped back to his reality, seeing Satomi gazing at him, half worried, half teasing. "Where did you go this time?" she asked.
Smiling sheepishly, he stuck his hands in his pockets. He turned his gaze towards the unchanging blue skies, the ones that had been the same shade, even a year ago. "I was thinking about Kayoko and Shimada," he admitted. "I figured that they must be happy, wherever they ended up." He looked back to Satomi, who was watching him.
She smiled as well, her entire face softening. She reached out to take his right hand. She'd avoided holding it only a year ago, but now, she was unafraid. There was nothing left for her to be scared of.
He was Shinichi Izumi again.
"They probably are," she said softly. "I wonder where they went, though. I can't help but think about her sometimes, and wonder if she's still out there."
Satomi knew that Kayoko hadn't died that day, like many had assumed.
When the police had gotten to the roof, they had only found blood splatters from both parties. The blood from Shimada's bullet wounds and the blood from Kayoko's gash. But they didn't find either of the teenagers.
They never found Kayoko's body, but after three months of searching for both her and Shimada, they'd written her off as dead. She had no next of kin, but the school mourned her, just like they had the rest of the students who had died in the massacre.
Shinichi was the only one who'd seen Kayoko after she vanished off the rooftop. When he'd gone to see her on the day they'd left, she'd welcomed him with open arms, even after all he'd done. She'd greeted him with that same smile that she always did.
"I know why you're here. Don't apologize, Shinichi. Just promise me that you'll live well. Make Satomi happy, and make yourself happy. Okay?"
She'd made him swear that he'd put his own happiness first.
At the time, he wasn't sure what she'd meant by "live well." He didn't see how he could have, not with all the death and destruction that was surrounding him.
But now, he knew.
She wasn't just telling him to "live well." She was telling him "be happy" and "forgive yourself." She was always good at reading him like that. She knew exactly what he needed to hear, even before he needed to hear it. She'd offered him a smile, before explaining that he'd caught them right before they were leaving. They'd chatted for an hour, but then, Shinichi was alone in the apartment.
The suitcases had disappeared after he'd gone to the bathroom. And with them, Kayoko and Shimada had vanished, leaving no trace that they'd ever been there, except for a photograph sitting on the dining table.
He had to smile, remembering the photo she'd left behind.
It was one that Shinichi and Kayoko had taken as children. They were on the playground, with Shinichi holding Kayoko on his back. He was beaming up at her, proud of how he'd managed to lift her up, even though his knees shook, while Kayoko was smiling right back, congratulating him on a job well done.
There was a note on the back, hastily scribbled in marker. You are a good man, she'd written. Those were the only words she left him with, but they meant a lot to him.
He was doing the right thing. He had done the right thing. He'd let them go, let Shimada live. He didn't become a killer, and he'd given the two a chance to start anew.
"She's out there. I'm sure. She and Shimada are probably together right now." He squeezed Satomi's hand. "Just like us."
Hideo Shimada couldn't tell the future.
For all his intelligence, the one thing he would never know was what would happen next.
He didn't know if there was a "happily ever after" written in his future. He didn't know if he would live as long as he thought he would. He didn't know if he'd be able to keep living as a human being or if his true self would be exposed.
He didn't even know if it would rain the next day.
All he knew was that he was living, at that moment. He was alive in every sense of the word. He was living the way that a human would.
At that moment, he was human.
In that single frame, a single second, a snapshot of happiness in a painfully long life, he was human.
He was lying on the couch of his apartment, the one he'd helped pay for with a job he'd gotten the human way. The television was on, playing that movie that she loved so much. He finally understood why those humans did such strange things for each other. His arm was wrapped around the girl who was lying over him, her own arm draped over his stomach. Her head was on his chest, listening to the heart with a beat stronger than it had been a year ago.
Looking down at her, he wondered if she knew the answer to some of the harder questions. He wanted to know more, he wanted to be more.
"Kayoko. What are we?" he finally asked, his voice carrying throughout the small room.
Silence answered him for a moment as she stared up at him, her eyes showing only confusion.
But that confusion quickly disappeared as she beamed.
She broke their gaze, moving to rest her head on his chest again. She breathed in and out, her breaths matching the rhythm of his heartbeat.
"We're 'us,' Hide."
Us.
That had a nice sound to it.
fin.