Chapter 13: zatoichi
"Then there was the first time I saw him. Really saw him, his real self. Not the faceless puppet with indefinite, ever-shifting features he first appeared as. He was larger than life, because he was alive. Wearing a school uniform that didn't fit his frame at all. I reached out to touch him, run my fingers over his grooves, his sharp angles. But most of all, I wanted to feel his teeth. I had never seen such teeth in my life, a smile like it. I knew from one look that they were designed for me. The mouth of a carnivore.
He grabbed my wrist. I winced and said he was hurting me. 'I know,' he told me in demotic English, a low-class accent, bringing our hands to cup my cheek. 'Isn't it wonderful?' I smiled through the tears. Because I knew despite how much it hurt to be with me, he still did it for me. So I wouldn't be alone. Because I asked him to. Because from within the machine was the only way I could ever escape. I knew I loved him from that moment. And whenever he forgets that, I simply have to remind him. Love is an action, not a state of being. He did everything for me and now I must return the favor. He'll come around eventually, you see. He always does. He doesn't have a choice anymore."
— 25 —
Her apartment is cold. Like it's trying to drag me back in with Monika. I fight the urge, sitting on the living room couch, face in my hands. In nothing but my drawers. Sniffling away at the cold and certainly nothing else.
Whenever I try to lift my head, it falls back into my hand. Unwilling to go anywhere.
I'd tried washing my hands and face in the sink. All that had done was stick the liquid to my limbs as the hot water froze over. Tried scrounging around Monika's room for my clothes. Even got into her drawers. Found a revolver under some piano sheet music and decided I didn't want to be there anymore.
I end up back here again, just sitting there. I don't know how I'd gotten this far away from her. And I'm not sure I can make it any further.
I'm alone in the cold, just me and my thoughts. Intrusive things that replay everything. Go over what I've done with a fine tooth comb. Picking out details I shut out at the time for my own sanity.
A thought, no matter how much you try to rethink it over, reassess the problem. In the absence of any new data, a thought can be complete.
It's why I try not to think.
That way I don't finish all the puzzles too early.
Sayori whispers my name.
I spread my fingers, looking at her in her bedroom doorway. Grabbing the frame as if she'll fall without her. She and Monika share a wall. I try to crack a smile, but a frown follows close behind.
"Hey," she tries again.
I can only nod, palms digging into my eyes. "What are you doing here?"
"I live here," she says.
"Yeah. Figured."
"Get home late, or…?"
She shakes her head. "No. Maybe too early, really."
"Oh."
Sayori pushes herself from the doorway, hugging herself in the cold.
"You okay?" I ask.
"What?" she asks with a mirthless snort. "Physically? Sure. I guess. Yeah, sure."
"You and the others were held up. Moni—" I stop myself. Swallow. "We ended up just waiting alone without y'all."
"Still ended up here, huh?" she asks, voice more bitter.
I wince. "I… I don't know. It just sorta… escalated. I couldn't stop it. I'm sorry."
"Really?" she asks, venom on her tongue. I look up and see the anger and hurt and disgust in her eyes. "Couldn't stop it, a boy your size?"
"I…" I push my eyes further into my palms. She's right, of course. To feel how she does. To point out the obvious.
Part of me had wanted to fight more. To throw her back. Strike her. Actually hurt her. The thoughts had never left me, from the moment she grabbed my jacket to now as I'm alone under Sayori's gaze. I could have done more. I should have. But I… I don't know. Maybe I was afraid I'd hurt her for real. Do lasting damage I couldn't take back.
Nothing like the scratches and bloody flesh wounds running across my skin only now waking up to the idea of scabbing over. I'm bigger. I could have done something real to her.
I didn't.
And this is all my fault.
Sayori all but told me she loved me. I slept with her best friend the next day.
"H-hey," she says, voice hitching. Almost concerned.
I say nothing.
"You, you don't look so…" She breathes, fist balled against her mouth. "You're covered in cuts."
I pull at all the correct and memorized muscles to get the emotion across: an arrogant, almost cocky little smile. "You should have seen the other guy."
She looks at me with such naked displeasure that I am forced to wince again. I can't look at her. It hurts too much.
"'S fine, Sayori. Really. It's too cold to feel anything."
"That was gonna be my next concern."
"Don't," I whisper. "Not for me."
"Mm."
Sayori goes back into her room. I heave a breath. Trying to regain sensation in my lungs. Inhale. Exhale. Expel. It doesn't mist, but it feels like it should.
A warm blanket lands over her shoulder. I flinch and see Sayori putting her pink blanket over me. For the briefest moment, I think she's coming up to hug me. Despite it being touch, being a physical thing, I don't mind. But that's dispelled quickly after she tucks it over my shoulder, and that slightly uncomfortable way her nose wrinkles up at the smell.
"Here," she says. "Shut up, don't say anything. You don't—don't look very good at all."
"You didn't have to," I say.
"Yeah, I did. You're still my—" Sayori pauses, voice hitches in her throat. She just hovers behind me, eyes going from me to Monika's door, right next to her own room.
Her expression is…
It reminds me of a dream I had. Where I hugged my mother. And she broke apart like her bones had been rotting in the dry air for years. I sat there, trying to pick up the pieces to assemble her into a reasonable facsimile of the woman who created her. I tried to hold her together, screaming for help. But my empty lungs refused to do anything. Not giving me the feedback a scream should make, just this silent little thing on compressed lungs.
I had broken Mom apart. Nothing able to fix her. Not even able to scream and cry. My fingers unable even to curl.
That's what Sayori's expression is.
"A-and," she says, "I don't want to see you hurting."
"Thank you," I whisper.
She grunts, sucking on her lips. "You, uh, you want a drink?"
"Got coffee?"
"Yeah. I can make you something. That cool?"
I silently nod.
"Cool. Gimme a sec."
I watch her drag her feet across the carpet, like she can't figure out how to lift them, or is trying to generate enough static energy to kill herself on the coffee machine she plugs into the wall. It takes forever. I can't watch. I drag my eyes anywhere else that isn't her or the door Monika's still asleep behind.
There's photo frames on the wall I'd seen before. Some of them show Sayori and Monika. One is a group selfie with all the girls of the literature club, making funny faces. But the rest? Most of them are empty, little faux-wooden frames showing the cardboard void behind them.
"What's with the photo frames?" I ask.
Sayori's elbows are on the counter as she watches the coffee pot fill up. "They're where I put my best memories."
"Why are so many empty?"
She pours a cup from the pot. "Because I haven't made enough yet."
"What about when you were younger?"
Sayori shakes her head. "No, those… those don't feel right. Like they never happened. There's nothing in my phone to use. Monika and I went shopping once and I just, like, I impulse-bought all of these frames, telling myself I would get out there. I'd make real friends, real memories. The kinds I'd want to carry with me until the day I died."
"But they're empty."
"I know."
I say nothing.
"Want anything in yours?" she asks, adding stuff to her own cup. "Cream? Sugar, honey, ice?"
"Who puts honey in coffee?"
"I don't know, man. I'm just offering."
I try to smile. "Black's fine."
"The blacker the berry," she says absently.
I negotiated my hand out from the blanket to accept the ceramic mug. "Kendrick Lamar?" I ask.
"That where that's from?" she says, sitting down on the couch. The very far side, in the corner. Legs almost curled up into herself. She blows softly into the steaming brown liquid.
"Yeah. To Pimp a Butterfly."
"Hm," she hums. "I thought it was, like, just a goofy slur. Not, like, against people slur. Baby talk. Like saying 'nuggy boi' or 'it fucken wimdy,' y'know?"
"Kinda, I guess."
The conversation just kind of dies. She stays there, a world away. Idly sipping her coffee. The untainted brew I have makes it hotter, and it lasts. At some point, when she's nearly done, I'm able to safely sip and only turn the outermost flesh of my esophagus. A worthy trade to wake up.
I count my breaths. Sayori's come in faster than mine.
Everything is silent. Save for the oddly strong winds outside. I wonder where my phone is. What time it is. Even the day itself is hazy.
I want to speak. I try several times. But nothing seems right. Every thought feels crass or offensive. Inappropriate somehow.
It lasts so long; it's so quiet that I can hear shuffling behind Monika's door. Whatever I'd want to say, all of those thoughts well up in my throat. I choke on them and try to drown myself in the burn of coffee. The acidic, blood-like taste free from carbohydrates or any noticeable calories. Just caffeine and filthy water.
It opens.
I tighten the blanket further around myself.
"Mm," Monika groans, eyes half-closed. "Did you make coffee? That's so—oh!"
Her eyes open wider just so she can blink them rapidly. She looks from Sayori to her open door, and then over at me. Grimaces. "Hey, Sayori. You, uh, you…"
Sayori flexes her fingers. She takes a pull of coffee. Breathes. Does her best smile. "Mornin', boo! How you feeling? Coffee's on the machine for you. I already made him a pot!"
Monika glances once more at me, smiling warmly. I avoid her eyes. Looking at everything else. Feet, bare legs, décolletage. Anything to avoid thinking of her as Monika. Just the meat. The grinding flesh whose every inch I know. She's covered up any of the damage I'd tried to do to her. She looks happy, invincible.
She walks past and messes with Sayori's hair.
"Nya!" Sayori says, swatting Monika away.
Monika giggles. And runs her hand over my shoulders, giving the trapezius a squeeze. I try to flex it. To harden it. Provide her no give.
Sayori aggressively stares ahead.
I play with the edges of my fingers, using the friction of the blanket to try to warm up. Pressing the rough tips into the nail and pushing outwards.
"Hey, E̷̮̳̼̓̐͐͜͝g̸̺̝̑̉͌o̴̬͚͕̳͐̏̆̊͠ͅ, you're not doing anything today, right?"
Monika is a shade in the peripherals of my vision. This hazy little area I can't entirely make out. My neck won't turn that far.
"No, I am. I have class. Actually, I can't be here." I stand, draping the blanket like a cloak. "It's back day. I need to hit the gym."
She idly adds sweeteners to her coffee. "No, you don't. It's snowing. School shut down until they can bring in the snowplow."
There's a lance of heat somewhere in my stomach. Gravity pulls it down to my feet. "What?"
Monika shrugs mildly as she tastes her coffee. "You didn't check?"
That thing in my feet dragged me forwards. To the heavily curtained window. Everything feels of rust as I pull it open. It shouldn't be snowing. That doesn't happen anymore.
But I know from the bright purple sky that she's right even before I see the ground. Snow in any quantifiable amount does that. It reflects the light coming from the sun, coming from the moon, from the generic light pollution. Reflecting off the crystals of ice. The sun isn't even fully up yet.
The snow is inches deep. Lazily fluttering down from the sky, content to destroy everything, to ruin any ability I have to cope. To reduce myself to raw push and pull of muscle in order to steal away the blood supply my brain requires to think.
Autopilot disengaged. Autonomy prohibited.
Monika adds another packet of Splenda to her coffee. "I was thinking we could go to a café."
Sayori is staring at me. "Like, all of us?"
"Oh, no, sorry. I meant as a cute date, since there's nothing else we can do today. He and I."
After a moment's thought, Monika opens the fridge. "Actually, Sayori, could you do me a huge favor? We're running low on eggs and a couple other things. If I sent you a list, could you pick up some groceries this morning? I think the store is opening pretty soon. Business must go on even if school is down. Probably best to get there early before the snow gets even worse. Could you do that for us?"
"Uh." She glances at me. "I mean, I guess."
"You're the best, Sayori! Let me text you some things we need. I've got the bill this time, it's cool. Just tell me how much you spent when you get back and I'll handle it."
Sayori gets on her feet. She makes some kind of gesture, aborting it halfway. Stands there for an uncomfortable amount of time, just staring back at Monika.
Monika nods, smiling politely.
"Y-yeah," Sayori says. "Happy to be useful. You two have fun. Lots of fun. Tons." She swallows, and it's more like she's slinking away than truly leaving of her own volition.
Monika takes a long drink of coffee. "Anyways, I know this really good café not far from here. Me and some of the girls have gone there a couple times. It has a really cozy aesthetic. You know," she says with a little laugh, "when students aren't just stealing all the chairs pretending to write their novels or whatever they do. I go through sometimes to chat or write poetry for the club."
My face is pressed against the icy glass of the window. Pulling away, I feel the outer layers of my nose go with it. Everything feels red. "I can't. Café breakfast or whatever, I mean. I don't think I have my wallet."
Monika waves a hand. "It's in your pants. Currently in a pile somewhere in—" She nods to her room, having the audacity to look embarrassed with Sayori still in the room. I don't think Monika's even looking at me. "And don't worry, I'll split with you. I know you're concerned about that."
"I would rather not," I say weakly.
"It's no problem at all!" Monika says happily. "It'll be like old times. You, me, something normal."
Sayori is already back in her bedroom, scrounging for something to wear outside. I'll have to do the same. Returning to Monika's room and the frigid stench of what we did. But when I look to the front door, I realize Monika is there. The kitchen is right next to it. She's standing there.
The only direction I have to go for any breathing space is her room. Even if it's just for a minute. Even if there's nothing but odor and memories I don't think I can ever scrub out, it's somewhere. It's the only thing I have left.
"Yeah," I say with a sniffle. "Okay."
Monika beams.
— 26 —
Snow destroys humidity. Every time I exhale, watching the steam leak through my teeth into the open air, I feel more and more of my moisture vanish. Slowly becoming a withering husk from the inside out. It crunches under my shoes, the ones I wear for the gym I haven't yet had the chance to change. The top edges of my socks scratch my ankles, slightly crusty from half dried sweat.
Monika looks perfect. A coat, scarf, a warm little hat. A Chrome Hearts brand necklace. Hair tied up in a perfect white bow. Boots for the winter from some upscale brand I estimate would cost me about a month's worth of dinner.
There's a part of me that wants to take the open air as cover and run. As we walk together down the street. But she's holding my arm, an island of warmth and heavy fabrics against my varsity jacket. Trying to walk beside me, but she's the one who knows where we're going, and she's the one leading this waltz.
I'm just along for the ride.
"Aren't you cold?" she asks.
My body is.
It just is.
No details. No picture. No diagnosis. Complete visual, tactile, and aural oversaturation to the point of meaningless noise runs up the veins in my arms and into my heart, directly from where she's holding me. Then distributed to the rest of my corpus.
My body is.
"Not with you here," I say.
Monika sighs contentedly, looking to the side. "Oh, stop it."
I'm silent. We walk. I can see our destination. I've lived next to this place for months, and I don't recognize anything.
She tugs on my arm.
"Hey, I didn't really mean stop. It's just nice to be able to talk to you like this. It feels like it's been forever since, well, you know."
"I know."
Monika smiles. "I'm sorry your favorite thing couldn't happen. But this will make up for it, I promise you!"
"Don't apologize; it's not like you control the weather."
She flashes me a cheeky little smile. "Not unless last night was some kind of rain dance I'm unaware of."
"Let's not bring native American cultural appropriation into this."
Monika gives me a weird look, and then breaks out laughing. "Oh, you are in a mood this morning, E̷̮̳̼̓̐͐͜͝g̸̺̝̑̉͌o̴̬͚͕̳͐̏̆̊͠ͅ. But I understand. I sometimes get that way when I skip breakfast. Lucky you, your girlfriend knows all the best places to go!"
Tendrils of thought limply reach out for some form of concrete connection to the material plane. Girlfriend. It feels like a forced intrusion. Something which does not belong in the sentence. Something that will become a fact unless I contest it.
"My what?" I ask limply. I keep pushing at my fingernail.
She tugs on my arm again, playfully. "I mean, if we're not a couple again, I don't know what I'd do. We are totally very official, right?"
I swallow. The spit congeals around in my larynx. "Nah, we just homies."
Monika laughs, but there's something hungry in her green eyes. A need for answers and validation, with no capacity to see anything but what she wants.
I feel something as I look into those eyes. It doesn't flow along the normal mental channels you can translate into words. It's like a gap in the stomach you try to fill with air, only to realize you've got someone's knee in your throat. It's warm, matching the internal temperature of the human body.
Its physical origin point is her grip on my arm. And the slight squish of her adipose tissue into the bone of my elbow.
"You can act tough all you want. We're here together because you still love me. You made that pretty clear last night."
"I…"
The thought runs down the back of my throat, mixing with the cold trickle of salty mucus I'm sniffling in from the cold. Settling uneasily somewhere in my stomach. I kept thinking about trying to hurt her. I kept trying to do anything but what I did.
I did it willingly. We crawled back to each other after everything that happened. Because the taste of each other's lips was so familiar, like returning to an old prison cell. I was so afraid of hurting her for real.
That's not an emotion you have for someone you hate, someone you don't genuinely care about.
I don't know what to call how I feel.
She stands on her tippy toes and gives me a peck on the cheek. "C'mon, let's get breakfast."
The interior is warm. The aesthetic reminds me a little bit too hard like they're trying to pretend they're in some kind of Harry Potter knock off. It's cottagecore, something from a snug English town. The epitome of comfy middle class White American escapism. It's early, but on a snowy day when things are closed down there's a decent crowd sitting around enjoying coffee and breakfast fare.
The back kitchens pump everything with a sugary aroma, primarily cinnamons and vanilla. For the first time since I woke up, I can no longer smell myself. I still haven't showered, and my underwear sticks uncomfortably to my skin. Monika at least used some perfume.
"What I like about this place," she begins, leaning forwards to examine all of the pastries on offer through the front display glass of the counter, "is that they use real vanilla. I've never much cared for chemical replacements in food."
"Are you really that much of a vanilla aficionado?" I ask.
Monika taps on the glass. She wears a knowing, slightly smug expression which I can only see in the reflection. "Vanilla is good. It doesn't get the respect it's owed. How can you honestly say that an orchid that takes three years to grow, born in Mexico but harvested in Madagascar, requiring only the most precise of care and love to raise, can possibly be generic? In its native form, the only spice more expensive than vanilla is saffron."
"Thanks, Monikipedia," I say mildly. "But I don't see the functional point in arguing over the natural versus the artificial."
"Hmm?" she asks, hands clasped behind her back.
"I've done some cooking. Tried my hand at baking. You can say all you want about the painstaking effort it takes to make real vanilla, but the fact is the chemical vanillin can be synthesized in a lab. It's the exact same chemical as you get from pulping up vanilla. It's artificial, but that doesn't make it any less real. It's not 'just as good,' it's identical."
She smiles softly. "You really think so?"
I shrug. "Why wouldn't I?"
"You seem like the kind of person who'd care about chemicals."
I scoff. "You have too many microplastics in your bloodstream; you're starting to get your wires crossed. You're the one who went on a rant about organic marketing and packing apricots in Thailand."
"It was pears," she says, looking a little embarrassed.
"You're overly concerned with the real. I'm not entirely convinced there's anything there of note. Taste, texture, smell—whatever. If you can't tell the difference, does it matter if there is a difference on some technical level? An artificial heart can still pump blood just as fine as carbon."
Her smile gets a little bigger. "That's a very particular example."
I frown. "Is it? You're the one studying computer science or whatever. I figured I was bringing it to your level."
"That's adorably considerate."
"I guess? You're smart and I'm trying to argue at your level with stuff I think you'd get."
Monika gets the attention of the girl behind the counter. Orders some fancy coffee and a massively oversized muffin. I just get a black coffee.
"If you're going to get a heart arrhythmia, so am I," I say.
"That's so sweet," she says. "I've always wanted to share a terminal condition with someone."
"Ha ha," I say dryly. "It's whatever. We're starting to get to my normal caffeine intake anyhow."
We take our stuff and sit down at a little booth by the window, looking out at the snow-strewn wasteland outside. Going from so high to so low quickly puts spots in my vision. It's a mild iron deficiency; I haven't taken any supplements or vitamins for it this morning. Hell, when I try to think of the last thing I ate, it was a couple of flapjacks with fruit maybe twenty-four hours ago.
There's a part of me that looks at the muffin on the plate between us both and wonders about its calories, and how much I might need, and how much it might kill me.
"It must be nice for you, being able to relax like this," she says, taking out a butter knife to cut the muffin in half. Poorly sawing at the bread with the dull edge.
"Huh?" I ask, blindsided.
Monika shrugs. "I mean, this is a little later for you. The other day, I was up way too early, went for some exercise, and found you alone in the gym. The only people awake at four Am are either depressed or lonely. But with most places shut down, you can just take it easy with me."
I push at my fingernail again. It starts to hurt. "No. I like that stuff. It's just for time-management I start early."
She sips at her coffee with the overly Italian name. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why's it so important you look like you're killing yourself for it?"
"Because." I compress a breath in my throat. "It just is. I told you, it's important for my livelihood."
Monika doesn't quite scowl, but it's close. "That's not what I mean, E̷̮̳̼̓̐͐͜͝g̸̺̝̑̉͌o̴̬͚͕̳͐̏̆̊͠ͅ. It just seems you're doing a lot to avoid having to really think. That's not healthy. It looks like something's been really stressing you, and that concerns me."
"Why?"
She reaches across the table, hand atop mine. I try not to think of how it feels, focus only on the weight of her hand. It's measured in ounces. "Why wouldn't I care about you? You don't have to be on edge anymore. I know it can be hard and stressful out there, but nobody has to do it alone. Whatever's wrong, you can tell me; I'll be there for you."
"Nothing's bothering me," I say, trying not to sound defensive.
Monika gives a little smile. "I hope I've got a hand in that. But more seriously, you're already doing great at everything. I saw you play a game before. Do you really need to drag your body through the mud so much?"
"I can always do better," I say, and swallow. "I'm good now. But why do I stop there? Should I just stop moving forward because I'm comfortable here? Good enough isn't good enough. To be great is subpar."
She puts her hand over her mouth, eying my skeptically. "I'm not sure that's any way to really live. It reminds me of a movie I once saw, Black Swan. In it, the actress was a ballerina performing something hard and intense, and it drove her further and further from sanity. Long hours. Absolute perfection. No real life outside of it. And I kept wondering, like the high-intensity sports and exercise you do, do these kinds of things slowly drive you mad? You're dedicated because you say it's your livelihood, right?"
"Yeah. We've been over this."
"Are these things which demand high dedication—do they force that upon people? Or do they naturally just attract the compulsive overachievers? People without families, a home life, someone to love and comfort them. Chicken or the egg, I suppose. In the absence of these things which make us human, what strange and extreme places do we find ourselves?"
"We find ourselves moving towards what makes us happy," I say.
"Can you really say happy means to be the best? Survival of the fittest is misunderstood. It's not the perfect and the flawless that survive. It's the good enough. Perfection is too costly and energy-consuming to make it. Perfect is doomed to die trying to be itself. Good enough gets by."
"Do you want to be good enough?" I ask.
Her expression sours. She drinks her coffee. "No. That's the problem, too. You remember Dunbar's number, right?"
I nod.
"Humans aren't designed for all of the people there currently are," she says, gesturing to the rest of the shop. "We're made for the extended family, the tribe, the village. We're not designed for endless scalability and the infinite things we can see online that color our perceptions. We've all been doom-scrolling through Instagram and seen people far outside our own means: that guy with the expensive sports car, the self-made girl with her own fashion line, the perfect couple going on amazing adventures together."
I make a noncommittal noise. "Yeah. Life for a chickabooya. It's why I avoid socials."
"I know, but once you see them, it's an addiction. The things you see there, they're goals, they're a mood, even if deep down inside you're sure they're faking it. But that's intellectually. Emotionally, we have a hard time telling it apart. Right now, our world is small. It's pretty much just this campus and some places around it. It feels suffocating and strangling and I want out. But there's this fear, too, that once I do, well…"
Monika shrugs. "'Two animals in a cage will breed from desperation.' What if the things and people we love here, once we get out there, they'll see something better than us and chase after it, leaving us cold and alone?"
"That's bullshit."
She gives me a considerable look, sipping slowly her coffee. "You don't feel that way anymore?"
I shrug.
"I look at you and I see something striving for great things and I admire it," she says. "I compare myself to you, how I play sports more because it's fun than because I want to win, and I feel a little inadequate. You're strong, and I'm good at poetry. There's a mismatch there that's always sat off with me. People value what you can do and laugh at my interests. I'd like to do better, to be perfect at all things for you."
The look in her eyes feels like it's raking something out from my voice box. Scraping up the walls of my throat until it's weighing on the back of my tongue, about seven ounces. It's a feeling that to be silent is wrong. That I need to say something to reassure her. Less than twelve hours ago, I'd been reveling in her discomfort, emotional anguish.
This feels different.
I scoff. "That's not how any of this works, Monika. Whatever doubts you have about measuring up, they're worthless. Not something you should devote any gray matter to. You are you in all your damaged glory. I've said that before. A perfect person is an unlovable one."
Monika touches a hand to her cheek, looking a little flush. "I'm glad our rough edges fit together so well. When we're together and can act like normal, I know I'm not unlovable. I have you, even after all this time. You came back."
"You say that a lot," I say, pressing harder into my fingernail. The edges of the skin pull back in the ghosts of a hangnail.
"Because it's true, isn't it?"
"Yeah." I take a deep, shuddering breath. "Maybe we're really not in that Taylor Swift song. Or maybe a different one. Wildest Dreams, maybe?"
She smiles softly at me. "'So tall and handsome as hell,' right? Don't you have a high opinion of yourself!"
I blink, shaking my head. "No, I wasn't—Monika, I was trying to be cute. Stop turning things into being about my ego."
Monika laughs. "You're sweet, you know that? This is a dream, though. You've got me there."
My mind goes to that dream of falling, texting my loved ones goodbye. Holding my shattered mother. Sayori this morning just staring ahead, unable to look at me.
"Is that the only place I've got you?" I ask.
"I'm glad we were finally able to get over that hurdle, you and I," she says with a contented sigh. "Felt like we were dancing around the inevitable from the moment I saw you. I'm glad you're comfortable, too. Even if this whole thing, how we got here, was a mistake, I think we can put our heads together and work through it like always."
"What's 'it'?" I ask. "Coursework? Are you asking to study together?"
Monika chuckles to herself in a way that raises the hairs on the back of my neck. "Here, try this." She picks off a piece of the muffin and holds it out to me. "Say 'aah.'"
"Monika."
"Monik-aaah," she says teasingly.
"That's embarrassing. Please stop—"
I feel her finger press against my lips, smushing the sugary bread into my mouth. I taste sugar. I taste the taste of the soap and lotion she'd used to clean her hands. My teeth stop, afraid if I keep talking I might bite her.
Monika pulls her hand back to grab a piece for herself, smiling at me. Like she's pulled one over on me.
I chew, masticating the cinnamon and vanilla into a hot, wet paste. I push deeper into my slightly aching fingernail, searching for somewhere to spit the food and taste of her fingers out of my mouth. Nothing on the table. She'd see me spit into a napkin.
When I look out to the rest of the café, the only thing that greets me are dozens of pairs of eyes. Everyone inside, adults and student-types, some solo and some with partners, looking directly at me. Only moving to blink, or the subtle way breathing shakes a body. I realize how silent everything is, not even the thunder of car engines driving outside through the snow.
The girl manning the bakery counter is the first to move. Just putting a bag on the front counter for the man ordering something to go. Everyone turns back to their business, the normal buzz of idle conversation resuming.
I swallow.
"Told you this place was good," Monika says happily. "I used to walk past here with Sayori and the smells drove us crazy until we stopped by one morning."
"Uh, yeah," I say.
"Speaking of movies I randomly remember," she asks, "what's the first movie you ever saw?"
I try not to look at the rest of the café, just in case. "I don't know. I must have been young. Can't really remember."
"Well, let's narrow it down, yeah?" She picks off another piece. "What's the first thing you can remember?"
"Excuse me?"
Resting her elbow on the table, she props her head up, looking at me with curiosity. "You know, that moment when it all clicked. When you were just standing in pre-K or something when you looked around and were suddenly self-aware. Your earliest memory and how it felt."
"How can you really say that? It's something that happens. I can dig into early things, but it's all so fuzzy. The kind of place where you can't even remember the difference between your dreams and what really happened: both seem so equally plausible that long ago."
"But what is the first thing you remember?"
"I…" I keep pressing at my nascent self-inflicted hangnail. The skin feels dry. I can't stop trying to fix it, smoothing it out with force and scratching.
"I was… maybe two? Maybe less. I don't know. For some reason, there was a pool. It was fenced off. I wasn't tall or smart enough to open the gate so I could get into the water. But I knew I wanted it. I wanted to submerge myself in the chlorinated blue so badly. More than anything. So much that I was holding my favorite toy, a little train that I feel I stole from someone. It was mine, though. So I looked at the water, through the mesh fence, and I threw the toy over the fence into the water."
"Why?" she asks, genuinely puzzled.
"So I could go find my mom. I was calm the entire time," I say, shaking my head. "She was talking to some white woman. I grabbed at her dress and started to panic. I told her I 'dropped my toy' in the pool. She asked how that was possible. Goes to examine the toy I threw over the fence, went to open the gate, only for my father to stop her. He was still, y'know, back then. See, I was right behind her leg, trying to get through the gap and go into the water when I wasn't supposed to be."
I shrug uncomfortably. "I guess I was lying. My first memory is lying. Trying to manipulate those who loved me to get what I wanted."
Both of her hands are clasped, elbows on the table. The muffin below her chin on the table. "That's…" She pokes her tongue into her cheek. "Lying that young. Trying to manipulate people. That's scary. And I understand it a lot, I really do. More than you probably realize anymore. See, it also means you were already smart when you were starting out. And a menace."
"How so?"
"Very often, we measure the intelligence of animals by their ability to lie: it shows not only can they perceive the world around them, but can presuppose the viewpoints of others of the species. It's levels of abstract thinking. Like squirrels pretending to hide their nuts as a distraction from the real location."
"What about you?"
"I only lie for a good reason." She takes a bite of her muffin
"No, I mean." I sigh. "Your first memory. Since we're sharing."
She looks up at the ceiling. "It was less a memory. It was more an experience. Don't you understand?"
"No, I don't," I say. "I think, in the moment, you don't realize it. Being suddenly aware you can think and form memories, like, it's just something that happens. Over time, maybe. The importance is lost on you in the moment."
"Not me," she says seriously. "It was like an epiphany. One moment, I was there, just being an infant. Going through the motions. Following a script—screaming, crying, asking to be fed. It was so simple; it made sense because the concept of nonsense didn't exist yet. And then it hit me. I looked up with this sense of fear and terror. I remember just being there one moment, and I was never the same. Gone were the days when I could get by without thinking or feelings. Object permanence invaded my psyche like a deadbeat uncle. You know what I did next?"
I shake my head.
She gestures a finger vaguely to the ceiling. "I started talking. I asked the other infants if they felt it too. They just looked at me blankly. I mean, yeah, it was baby speak, relatively speaking. We couldn't really communicate. I panicked and panicked at this thing in my head, at my ability to remember where I was, imagine where I could be. And no one else understood it no matter how hard I tried. They suddenly felt lesser than me, like cattle for the slaughter. It was almost worthless to try. I sat there on the ground and screamed and sobbed, looking at my own fingers like they were toys I didn't want anymore—because I didn't. Blissful annihilation had ended. I saw the puppeteer's strings."
"Did you regret it?" I ask.
Monika looks up at me in surprise. Shakes her head. "Not for a moment. Our feelings wouldn't mean anything if we couldn't reflect and remember them. Life isn't a binary off-on, it's an ongoing experience, a terminal condition. And to this day, I have my doubts about a lot of the people I meet, that they have this same mental malady. Except you. You have it for sure. That's why you and I seem so drawn to each other."
She stares directly at me. Like she wants me to say something. Monika just dropped the mother of bombshells, at least I think that's how she feels. But I'm in a broken little bomb shelter. The shrapnels tears into my skin, but it doesn't really hit me in any way that matters.
I open my mouth and hesitate. Monika just sighs, disappointedly sipping her coffee. I keep picking at the dried hangnail beneath the table.
Until finally the edges of skin sticks up hard enough to grab. I brush it with the side of my thumbs, wondering if the dead cells will just fall off on their own. But they don't. There's something imperfect about my hands. Something sticks out, rough and scratching.
I meet Monika's eyes, trying to act normal. As I pinch the skin I've been pushing at all day between the last vestiges of my nails, sinking the keratin into the newly opened wound. I pish, leveraging angle and everything else to pull. It rips up the edges of the finger, opening a wide gap between skin and nail.
"This is still nice, E̷̮̳̼̓̐͐͜͝g̸̺̝̑̉͌o̴̬͚͕̳͐̏̆̊͠ͅ," Monika says with a little smile. "I know we're just—like, this is so stupidly normal. But talking about this, with you? It's just… it's cozy, you know? It's warm and nice. I'm glad you're here with me. Are you glad, too?"
"Yeah."
My phone vibrates.
I inhale sharply, losing the grip of the hangnail.
"Hm?" Monika hums at me.
I reach for the phone in my pocket, unthinking. It's cracked, one step away from being utterly broken.
Keith 34: Hey bro you didn't come home last night you good?
Keith 34: You need me to pick you up or something?
I take a deep, shuddering breath. Try to type out a response with the finger and the ugly flap of skin hanging off. And then just put the phone face-down on the table.
Monika sucks on her lips in displeasure as she looks at the phone.
"What?" I ask.
"Are we really playing these games?" she asks.
I shake my head slowly, not following.
"It's rude to text at a time like this. And it's weird to then take your phone out, show me you have it, then hide it face down."
"What?"
"I'm just… showing you I'm ignoring it for you."
She takes out her own phone in that cutesy case. "Who were you texting?"
"No one, he hit me up."
Monika looks at her own phone dubiously.
"My roommate, Keith. Here." I hold the phone up to her, showing her Keith.
"It's pretty rude to keep pointlessly and harmless secrets, y'know," she says, fixing up her white hair ribbon. "Why is there a number after his name?"
"Thirty-four is his jersey. That's the number on his back when he's playing football."
Monika leans back, squinting at me. "Keith? Plays football?"
"Where are you going with this?"
"Keith, White guy, cut off the sleeves of his hoodie to show off his arms and looks like a tool? Keith Kovacs?"
I looked down at my finger. The little hangnail isn't anything. I can feel her digging into the back of my hand, even if she's not touching. I almost don't believe there aren't marks or scars there.
"Okay, that's a little spooky, Monika. Why the hell do you know him so deep?"
"He's dating one of my friends on the cheerleading team." She folds her arms, frowning. "Sometimes it's uncanny how small this world is, you know? There's like, what, a couple thousand kids attending the school, and yet we keep running into the same predetermined pool of people?"
"You play sports. So does Keith and his girl, apparently. We've already majorly limited the amount of people we meet that way. Start asking Natsuki or Sayori about their mutuals and you'll probably find a whole different world than ours."
Her eyelids tighten fractionally when I mentioned Sayori. She reaches out and destroys her half of the muffin, eating it. Monika pushes the plate towards me expectantly.
I try to shake my head.
"Eat it," she says absently.
I'm still.
"Look, baby, it's cold outside," she says with a cheeky little smile. It's made of pure plastic. "We can't go home, cuddle up under the blankets, and watch a movie or whatever if you can't finish it."
"Is that a promise or a threat?" I ask.
Monika smiles with a sigh. I watch her articulate the muscles of her arms to push herself up and out of the booth. Only to round the table, hip sticking to the edge, until she sits down next to me. Our thighs touch, leg rubbing against mine. I'm glad for the denim protection.
"Here, let me help you," she says.
My finger suddenly aches. I try not to grab at the little hangnail. But trying to keep my hands together in my lap, I can't not touch it and feel the loose skin scratching.
"Oh, wait," she says, almost embarrassed suddenly. "Napkins. Here, let me…"
Monika leans over me. Arm stretching as she reaches over me, chest aimed towards me and pressing. It isn't anything I want.
I look down impassively at her, not even pretending like I don't notice. Like I don't see what she wants me to. I don't really feel it, though. I just get the sense that she has extra adipose tissue accentuating secondary sex characteristics, little sacks of misshapen fat surrounding glands that can produce a mix of pus, lactose, and lipids under the correct circumstances.
I grab the hangnail tighter. The little sliver of dead flesh clings with dear life to the active skin. It elongates, a thin strip I pull and pull and pull, with a desperate franticness to finally get it off. So I can get rid of the itch and eat the lost piece of myself.
It gets stuck. Its roots are deep.
I look out to the rest of the café. They don't look at me. They pretend to be normal. But the corners of their eyes, of every shape and color, the ones that fit inside their skulls and the ones that don't—they're aimed towards me.
She's still trying to reach the little napkin dispenser. I do everything to stay still, not to scream, and keep my hands occupied with something that's not Monika.
I pull the hangnail.
It's a thin line of something. Not cold, not hot. Not even really pain. It tears at the cuticle. It pulls up the little fold of skin that holds my nails to my fingers. And keeps coming off. My arm shakes with something as I keep pulling at it. To the first crease of the finger. Down to my knuckle. A wave of shock that isn't pain or comfort or anything, the body reacting in shock to this violation. Unraveling the zippers of skin that hold my body together into a bloody mess I can't even look at. Only feel through the sliver I'm pulling out through the silent screams of bodily violation, as Monika looks up at me, enjoying my company, as I worry I'm enjoying her company too.
"Here you go," she says pleasantly, sitting up. The napkin is on the table now to clean up any crumbs or mess. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," I say quickly. I try to reach up for my coffee, only to stop to look at the grisly mess I've carved out of my fingers.
The skin is clean. Just a nearly microscopic redness from the tiny hangnail. My throat is raw.
Monika takes up the muffin and holds it up for me, smiling.
Like everything is normal. This is the way the world is now.
And I'm powerless to resist.
Just put it in my mouth. Accept her touch. Act the prop boyfriend. Until we can leave. And I can take her home. Allow her to kiss me goodbye.
So I dig my fingernails into my face when I'm finally alone.
Finally safe.