Alt Dreams [One-Shots] (49—'Sinistra') (20160610)
Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2016 12:59 pm
Sometimes, the universal bad ending isn't as bad as you think it is.
Sinistra
He came to me one night, and I knew he had not long on this earth. For a moment, I wondered if I could give him enough lust for life to keep living, but he was too far gone. Yet, I kept his story, as I keep them all. Nobody will ever know.
*****
“Hey, Nakai, what the fuck are you doing sneaking around up here?”
He starts guiltily, caught in the girls’ dorm with no excuse. And no reason? I wonder. I turn the Gaze upon him, and he wilts.
“Uh, Miura, I… don’t know.” He looks at my stump. I wonder what he’s thinking. Some people have a fetish for that kind of thing.
“Got sick of festival talk?” I’m trying, you know. The Empress ain’t here, and nobody will chase him out, but a girl can get into trouble if she ain’t well-liked, and let’s just say that some people have a problem with me.
“I, I guess.” He sounds awfully depressed.
“Tried talking to the guys? Who’re your neighbours over there?”
“I’ve got one. I think he’s a bit crazy. Nobody wants to talk to me anyway.”
Wow, getting more words out of him now. I think for a while and realize which room he must be in. Then again, there’s all kinds of crazy.
“Does he comb his hair neatly?”
He looks at me oddly, frowns a bit. “No?”
“Does he wear a scarf all the time?”
“Um, yes?”
Oh, he’s in the empty room opposite Kenji Setou—the one which is normally kept empty for very good reasons. I make a clicking sound with my lips. This is bad.
“Maybe you should move to a different room.”
“I don’t really care,” he says, half turning away from me and looking down. He has brownish hair that is all over the place and might look glossy if washed and dried well. He’s new in my class, a transfer student just a few days old.
I stare at him, tensing my left elbow. Damn. He really doesn’t care. I feel a warmth between my legs.
“Hey, Hisao,” I begin, willing him to look me in the eye. “You can talk to me. I’m your classmate, right? We’re not all bad.”
He looks up. There’s an old streak of energetic rebel in him, but something’s taken most of it away, made him old and tired and dried-out. “There’s not much to talk about, Miura.”
“You can call me Miki, you know. After all, you’re in my home now.”
I’m in my underwear, and not much of it. I was in a robe making supper when sad boy here turned up. I let the robe slip a bit, enough so that he sees Miki ain’t all good either. My right nipple stiffens a little as I move. It’s like it has a will of its own, so I tell it to stop misbehaving.
I hear his breathing change. It’s like turning the key and listening to a car engine start up. But then, it dies. It’s as if his fuel pump ain’t working right. His eyes are doing perfectly normal things though.
“Why don’t you come to my room for a while, so that you don’t get caught wandering around?”
Blindly, wordlessly, he stretches his right hand out. I’m taken by surprise at first. Then I take his hand, and feel his sadness pressing against my palm. He’s lost one life, and there’s hardly any left to make a new one.
“Oh, Hisao,” I whisper. I’m not all hard-hearted, you know. I’m not as evil as some people think.
“Miki?”
I lead him round the corner, knee my unlocked room door open, and mentally abandon my ramen in the pantry to whomever gets hungry enough to eat abandoned ramen. He stumbles, almost, as he crosses my threshold. Why is he in school uniform? Doesn’t he have anything else to wear?
I come to a dead stop, uncertain about what to do next. He bumps into me from behind, his hand still twisting in mine. He’s hard in his trousers. That’s some kind of life, at least. It gives me something to work with.
I turn myself, and turn him. The door clicks shut. Only my study lamp is giving light, and it isn’t very bright. He smells nice, somehow, as if he’d showered before changing back into his uniform. Weird.
My hand’s between us now. I use my stump to nudge his right hip towards me. He’s not very tall, so I’m looking almost directly into his eyes. He looks frightened, and I can feel his breath coming quickly. It’s as if he’s afraid to be passionate about anything; it’s as if the car engine is attempting to catch but his foot is on the brake instead of the accelerator. Fuck!
Do I dare to do this? My robe wiggles free. I wonder distractedly if he likes dark rose satin. He lets his eyes fall, pretending not to see, but not wanting to pull away. Both my nipples are misbehaving now.
“What are…” I have no idea what he’s going to say. Moving my hand down his belly is enough to stop him from saying it.
*****
He’s lying naked in my bed, lost in thoughts that are the kind you can be lost in. I read desperation, despair. I’ve failed. The only reason he had any life at all was that he’d been storing it in him since the day the girl with the black hair decided to declare her love for him. And now, he’s let go.
He looks relieved, tired, drained. The relief is the kind that man has when he’s discharged his last duty before the end. I feel it sticky on me, sad, fruitless, cooling in the dark room.
We’ve come so far, but not further. I prop myself on my right side and look at him. Wearily, he looks back. That weary look is a shock to me. He’s only that far away from being nothing at all.
“How’re you feeling, dude?” I say, trying to sound cheerful.
“I don’t know. I’ve never felt like this before. At least I won’t die a virgin.”
I grab my pillow and slug him. He smiles, but not convincingly, and doesn't respond in a normal human way. Instead, he shifts his head away from my pillow and asks, “Why do you keep your…” —he gestures at my bandaged left arm.
I sigh. “Do you want to see it, Hisao Nakai?”
“I’ve seen everything else already.”
I glare at him, but the creases around his eyes tell me that this is his last joke. I feel a tiny bit of misery walk across my heart.
“Can you accept what my left arm is?” I ask, making it sound pointlessly romantic, as if I’m a badly written character in some manga.
He nods, more curious than accepting.
“Say it,” I request, my voice too soft for it to be a demand.
“Yeah,” he says, a little sleepily.
Carefully, without breaking eye contact, I begin to unwrap my bandages. First, the elastic cover that keeps everything clean. Then, the gauze which keeps prying eyes away. Then, the leather map that covers the tattoos on what’s left of my left arm.
He looks down, and his eyes open really wide. “Hnnnnnggh,” he says, something in him beginning to twitch.
I don’t want him to die just from looking at some weird tattoos, so I calm him down. I tense my muscles and relax them, let him watch the patterns move in my colourful forearm and across my stump.
His eyes eventually close. I feel him in me, again and again, pulsing, groaning.
*****
I smuggle him out at half past four in the morning, when the security patrols are least likely to be out and about. His body is limp, but I’m strong enough to get him into a more likely location, a quiet spot next to a vending machine outside the boys’ dorm.
As I put him down, he mutters, “Why did they cut off your hand?” He sounds as if he’s dreaming, or as if he’s bewildered by illusions.
He’s asked the right question, but it doesn’t matter. I have to be truthful to him now: we’re bound by blood and fire, by the essence of life, by water and spirit. I bend and whisper into his ear, “Witchcraft.”
*****
Ninety minutes later, I’m at the track early enough to bump into Ibarazaki, that smug little twit with the dangerous lack of consideration. She decides to make it a contest even though all I want is a morning run. This morning, without trying, I get so close to her that she feels threatened, so I relent and ease off.
“Ha!” she says, “Good try, Miura!” and saunters away, pleased to have beaten me again. I smile to myself even as I snarl, “Fuck off, Ibarazaki!” back at her.
I look down at my nicely-rewrapped stump. Inside, the spirit trap is quiet, brimming with freely-given essence. If I’d wanted to, I’d have lapped her. But I don’t waste the stuff of life on petty victories.
The next day it will be the festival. It might be then, or the day after. Poor Hisao, so determined to end it all. It’s probably drinking with his neighbour that will get him. I owe it to him to use his essence well. I walk back to the changing rooms, knowing that part of my stickiness isn’t my own. In the hot shower, I mutter a few words of blessing, and let his memory go free.
=====
alt index
Sinistra
He came to me one night, and I knew he had not long on this earth. For a moment, I wondered if I could give him enough lust for life to keep living, but he was too far gone. Yet, I kept his story, as I keep them all. Nobody will ever know.
*****
“Hey, Nakai, what the fuck are you doing sneaking around up here?”
He starts guiltily, caught in the girls’ dorm with no excuse. And no reason? I wonder. I turn the Gaze upon him, and he wilts.
“Uh, Miura, I… don’t know.” He looks at my stump. I wonder what he’s thinking. Some people have a fetish for that kind of thing.
“Got sick of festival talk?” I’m trying, you know. The Empress ain’t here, and nobody will chase him out, but a girl can get into trouble if she ain’t well-liked, and let’s just say that some people have a problem with me.
“I, I guess.” He sounds awfully depressed.
“Tried talking to the guys? Who’re your neighbours over there?”
“I’ve got one. I think he’s a bit crazy. Nobody wants to talk to me anyway.”
Wow, getting more words out of him now. I think for a while and realize which room he must be in. Then again, there’s all kinds of crazy.
“Does he comb his hair neatly?”
He looks at me oddly, frowns a bit. “No?”
“Does he wear a scarf all the time?”
“Um, yes?”
Oh, he’s in the empty room opposite Kenji Setou—the one which is normally kept empty for very good reasons. I make a clicking sound with my lips. This is bad.
“Maybe you should move to a different room.”
“I don’t really care,” he says, half turning away from me and looking down. He has brownish hair that is all over the place and might look glossy if washed and dried well. He’s new in my class, a transfer student just a few days old.
I stare at him, tensing my left elbow. Damn. He really doesn’t care. I feel a warmth between my legs.
“Hey, Hisao,” I begin, willing him to look me in the eye. “You can talk to me. I’m your classmate, right? We’re not all bad.”
He looks up. There’s an old streak of energetic rebel in him, but something’s taken most of it away, made him old and tired and dried-out. “There’s not much to talk about, Miura.”
“You can call me Miki, you know. After all, you’re in my home now.”
I’m in my underwear, and not much of it. I was in a robe making supper when sad boy here turned up. I let the robe slip a bit, enough so that he sees Miki ain’t all good either. My right nipple stiffens a little as I move. It’s like it has a will of its own, so I tell it to stop misbehaving.
I hear his breathing change. It’s like turning the key and listening to a car engine start up. But then, it dies. It’s as if his fuel pump ain’t working right. His eyes are doing perfectly normal things though.
“Why don’t you come to my room for a while, so that you don’t get caught wandering around?”
Blindly, wordlessly, he stretches his right hand out. I’m taken by surprise at first. Then I take his hand, and feel his sadness pressing against my palm. He’s lost one life, and there’s hardly any left to make a new one.
“Oh, Hisao,” I whisper. I’m not all hard-hearted, you know. I’m not as evil as some people think.
“Miki?”
I lead him round the corner, knee my unlocked room door open, and mentally abandon my ramen in the pantry to whomever gets hungry enough to eat abandoned ramen. He stumbles, almost, as he crosses my threshold. Why is he in school uniform? Doesn’t he have anything else to wear?
I come to a dead stop, uncertain about what to do next. He bumps into me from behind, his hand still twisting in mine. He’s hard in his trousers. That’s some kind of life, at least. It gives me something to work with.
I turn myself, and turn him. The door clicks shut. Only my study lamp is giving light, and it isn’t very bright. He smells nice, somehow, as if he’d showered before changing back into his uniform. Weird.
My hand’s between us now. I use my stump to nudge his right hip towards me. He’s not very tall, so I’m looking almost directly into his eyes. He looks frightened, and I can feel his breath coming quickly. It’s as if he’s afraid to be passionate about anything; it’s as if the car engine is attempting to catch but his foot is on the brake instead of the accelerator. Fuck!
Do I dare to do this? My robe wiggles free. I wonder distractedly if he likes dark rose satin. He lets his eyes fall, pretending not to see, but not wanting to pull away. Both my nipples are misbehaving now.
“What are…” I have no idea what he’s going to say. Moving my hand down his belly is enough to stop him from saying it.
*****
He’s lying naked in my bed, lost in thoughts that are the kind you can be lost in. I read desperation, despair. I’ve failed. The only reason he had any life at all was that he’d been storing it in him since the day the girl with the black hair decided to declare her love for him. And now, he’s let go.
He looks relieved, tired, drained. The relief is the kind that man has when he’s discharged his last duty before the end. I feel it sticky on me, sad, fruitless, cooling in the dark room.
We’ve come so far, but not further. I prop myself on my right side and look at him. Wearily, he looks back. That weary look is a shock to me. He’s only that far away from being nothing at all.
“How’re you feeling, dude?” I say, trying to sound cheerful.
“I don’t know. I’ve never felt like this before. At least I won’t die a virgin.”
I grab my pillow and slug him. He smiles, but not convincingly, and doesn't respond in a normal human way. Instead, he shifts his head away from my pillow and asks, “Why do you keep your…” —he gestures at my bandaged left arm.
I sigh. “Do you want to see it, Hisao Nakai?”
“I’ve seen everything else already.”
I glare at him, but the creases around his eyes tell me that this is his last joke. I feel a tiny bit of misery walk across my heart.
“Can you accept what my left arm is?” I ask, making it sound pointlessly romantic, as if I’m a badly written character in some manga.
He nods, more curious than accepting.
“Say it,” I request, my voice too soft for it to be a demand.
“Yeah,” he says, a little sleepily.
Carefully, without breaking eye contact, I begin to unwrap my bandages. First, the elastic cover that keeps everything clean. Then, the gauze which keeps prying eyes away. Then, the leather map that covers the tattoos on what’s left of my left arm.
He looks down, and his eyes open really wide. “Hnnnnnggh,” he says, something in him beginning to twitch.
I don’t want him to die just from looking at some weird tattoos, so I calm him down. I tense my muscles and relax them, let him watch the patterns move in my colourful forearm and across my stump.
His eyes eventually close. I feel him in me, again and again, pulsing, groaning.
*****
I smuggle him out at half past four in the morning, when the security patrols are least likely to be out and about. His body is limp, but I’m strong enough to get him into a more likely location, a quiet spot next to a vending machine outside the boys’ dorm.
As I put him down, he mutters, “Why did they cut off your hand?” He sounds as if he’s dreaming, or as if he’s bewildered by illusions.
He’s asked the right question, but it doesn’t matter. I have to be truthful to him now: we’re bound by blood and fire, by the essence of life, by water and spirit. I bend and whisper into his ear, “Witchcraft.”
*****
Ninety minutes later, I’m at the track early enough to bump into Ibarazaki, that smug little twit with the dangerous lack of consideration. She decides to make it a contest even though all I want is a morning run. This morning, without trying, I get so close to her that she feels threatened, so I relent and ease off.
“Ha!” she says, “Good try, Miura!” and saunters away, pleased to have beaten me again. I smile to myself even as I snarl, “Fuck off, Ibarazaki!” back at her.
I look down at my nicely-rewrapped stump. Inside, the spirit trap is quiet, brimming with freely-given essence. If I’d wanted to, I’d have lapped her. But I don’t waste the stuff of life on petty victories.
The next day it will be the festival. It might be then, or the day after. Poor Hisao, so determined to end it all. It’s probably drinking with his neighbour that will get him. I owe it to him to use his essence well. I walk back to the changing rooms, knowing that part of my stickiness isn’t my own. In the hot shower, I mutter a few words of blessing, and let his memory go free.
=====
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