It was at that tavern where I’d met him, oh, the demon himself. He found me when I’d had less than nothing to my name. I would spare you the faux joy and passion, I would gladly describe everything in the immaculate detail that the people around me have said I can notice, but that would be a great, horrible lie. I have decided recently to no longer be a liar, so I will shamefully recount my current situation: I was half-unconscious on the poorly varnished wood of the Marmeladov Tavern’s* bar counter, trying desperately to distinguish which marks on the ceiling came from water damage, which ones were simply peeled-off bits or cracks in the plaster, which were both, and which weren’t moving; A task that I was quickly learning was impossible in my current whiskey-afflicted state. A truly miserable existence, it is: I am poor, I am smelly, and for the first time in my life, I am not overwhelmingly suicidal, which has made me feel worse. Currently, I sleep on a mattress (foam gym mat) on the floor of an attic closet. Because I am in the closet, I do not have room for clothes, which doesn’t matter anyway because all I have are the clothes currently on my back consisting of:
Suffice to say, I am not in the loveliest nor most comfortable of conditions right now. My current condition is poverty, and perhaps leprosy, though the latter could be misattributed symptoms that were truly caused by the rats whom I can only stay awake and watch for so long. I anticipate that they’re soon going to launch an invasion to take the final wifebeater, so I need as much rest as I can get if I wish to keep what is mine. This is essentially all you need to know about myself and my life, and the downward spiral I am not exactly facing, because that isn’t how spirals work. Due to how the world spiraled around me, I almost missed a strangely familiar face walking into the bustling tavern, holding a very expensive-looking umbrella and clad in an expensive-looking coat which is far, far too out of place here. Every description of him has always served me as enigmatic, far-too-vague, and frankly unfair. I wish I had known more to prepare me for this moment, if I could go back in time I unfortunately don’t think my first instinct would be stopping him from dying. I would just try to let myself know that I am about to be struck by god forever. The countless fantasies in my mind continued to cascade as he sat down next to me. I bet he could hear them, I was thinking so loud. He was beautiful. Not all of the people who I use as excuses to spend a night out of the attic are beautiful; on the contrary, actually. They rarely are, but even the pretty ones are nothing like him. I’d only heard stories and seen blurry print-outs of security camera footage, and none of it could capture his haunting beauty and the true presence that accompanied it, an aura of something not-quite-right. There was a quivering excitement festering in my body, was he going to make good on the price tag on my head? Would he take that head, and mount it on the wall for his enjoyment, having never been a fan of the Port Mafia? Would he kill me just because he could, because he simply felt like it? He’ll sit down next to me, turn his hands into my necklace, and snap me like a rubber band. Nobody in the tavern would be surprised or concerned, they would go back to their food and drink, I was no matter: Fyodor takes my carcass, straps it to the top of his pick-up truck, pays some eccentric to make me into a taxidermy beast that he uses as a coat rack. I would watch over him in his study while he reads books next to a big fireplace, his feet perched atop an ottoman, that ottoman atop a rug made out of another lover. My goodness. I had to stop myself before I became too horny.
His dark hair fell around his pale, bony face, damp from the rain. He was of an indeterminate age, either twenty or forty, it’s anybody’s guess. His skin was smooth and translucent. You could trace the blood vessels in it as one would the faint cracks that appear on the paint in old porcelain teacups. One that was particularly blue made its way from his cheekbone to jaw, almost like a tear. He looked like he was made of porcelain, like those extravagant 18th-century dolls with tiny delicate features and hands and meticulously hand-sewn clothes and real human hair. His nose and lips were dusted maroon—no, dusty maroon. A bit too grey to be healthy, but the only pop of colour save for his eyes, which were dark magenta and tired; Permanently half-lidded, with long eyelashes that you would expect on a woman. His fingertips were bitten and bloody, fingernails chewed down to raw obscenity, but they, too, were beautiful. His lips were bitten raw, little cracks caused by cold and the ourobortional need to chew off any imperfection. Does he eagerly chew anything? Are the pens at his home a mess of ill-fitting caps, having been bent by molars after he’s overcome by anxious tics? My eyes had wandered back to his when I noticed I was now meeting his gaze, still half-lidded, but now curious.
“Why, you were just the person I have been looking for.”
He softly spoke, barely audible compared to the loud conversations in the bar. I could only hear him if intently focused, and that I was. I leaned closer to him to make better, more apt assessments. He was all smiles and graceful movements, all grass and dreams. I replied with a slurred mumble, unsure of what I let escape my mouth as I rested my head on the cold hardwood on the bar counter, closing my eyes and groaning. I heard his glass being set down and then picked up, my left ear pressed to the table so I could still face him. He took a hand and softly brushed it through my hair, catching on tangles as his fingers combed through. “It took far less work than anticipated to find you, I must say.” He quietly chuckled. “The Port Mafia truly sent their best and brightest after you. Though, their “best and brightest” previously included you, so this has been some great struggle.” I opened my eyes to him gently petting me again, looking calmly at me, while taking the occasional sip of wine. “I turned my eyes to other options. I had heard that you went here. Is the attic nice?”
I weakly nodded. I mumbled “rats” when Fyodor’s hand moved to my back, softly rubbing it. His poor circulation jolted me awake. He took another sip of wine, silently thinking as his cold
digits expertly worked through the knots in my shoulders, through the thin and scratchy material of my undershirt. The gentle gesture was so quickly tearing down any sense of anxiety or
apprehension inherent to my being. He did it casually, as if we’d been longtime friends, and not strangers at their first meeting. I think I’m drooling right now, but that’s not my fault. This
silly novelty felt better than when you’re able to pick off a big scab, or when you spend too much money shopping online.
“Do you know why I came here?”
“You’re gonna kill me?” I said, something in between a whisper and groan. I tried to hide any excitement that may accidentally slip out.
“Well, no.” He replied, quickly rescinding his hand. I whimpered at the lack of contact, looking into his eyes as he stared down at me. “I have heard much about your skills, your impressive resume, and, of course, how you live in squalor right now. It upsets me that you are being subjected to this currently, so I have taken it upon myself to allow you into my home. I cannot let anybody get their hands on a boon such as yourself, you see. I do not exactly want you to work for me, not in any meaningful way. It is more that I would kick myself if I knew somebody else got their hands on you before I did.”
“Mhm. That was my second guess. I’m very smart, you must know.” I slurred. His hand returned to my back, snaking its way up to the back of my neck. I tensed up at the cold sensation, and he softly chuckled. I chuckled too, out of nervousness, like when someone lies you down and presses on your chest to force a laugh out of you. I couldn’t help it even though it was painfully obvious that he was making fun of me. “Well, I don’t care about much of anything right now. So long as your roof doesn’t leak.”
That got a real laugh out of the bastard, which made me shamefully proud. I don’t like feeling shame, and I don’t feel shame generally, but you would forgive me for my general perversion and out of character behaviour considering exactly how terrible my life has been lately. I don’t need to give you such details as you’ve likely ascertained them to some extent already; though, likely not their extent. It’s not like you could know how I really feel, even if I described every detail of it to you. Even if you read this, you won’t fully understand me, what I have to say, what I did, what I will do, what has been done to me. However, you can understand the idea of respite, and how lovely this sort of respite is for me. Even (especially) if it is sleeping around with the antagonist of a stranger danger PSA. No matter, I am paralyzed by drunk and cannot do anything about it but blithely giggle and squirm back into his cold hands like some sort of pet eel.
“So touchy.” He gleefully mused, running fingers through my hair. “Really, Osamu, are you in the right headspace to be making decisions right now?”
“‘S not a real decision if I don’t have any other options, is it?” I whined.
“Hm, I guess not. You still seem to be clever,” he mused, grip tightening around the crown of my head. “The stories I have heard of the little prince’s impulsivity seem to have not been exaggerated in the slightest, have they? No regard for your own well-being, just looking for a means to an end.”
I responded with a noncommittal grunt.
“Your persistence to stay alive in times like these is nearly admirable.”
“Nearly?”
“I cannot reasonably admire someone who is so far below me right now.”
I tried to scowl at him, but by the time I had completed the arduous task of turning my head, I’d forgotten my original goal and was now making eye contact with him. He was looking down at me, and the warm feeling in his eyes truly wasn’t admiration, but amusement. These are the eyes you can get lost in, these are eyes that have receptionists at department stores making announcements about you. Magenta, that’s the english word for it, right? Ma-ge-n-ta. Ma-ma. Ge-n. Ta-ta. So long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen,
I made a note to avoid eye contact with him.
I ran my fingers against the bumpy expanses of my forearms and huffed, like a comedically-minded friesian stallion on his way to the glue factory. He trailed one hand down to caress my cheek, using other hand to take a sip from his wine glass.
“Would you care to try this? It is a vintage amontillado from Venice.”
“Amontillado? Really?”
“Why so surprised?” He chuckled, handing the glass to me as I made a frankly ridiculous attempt to sit up and grasp it from his hand.
“I dunno. Maybe it’s unlike you.” I responded, trying to fumble for the glass.
“Maybe, maybe. It’s not as if you’d know.” Fyodor hummed. He looked down at my pitiful attempt at functioning motor skills. “Ah, allow me to help.”
He lightly clasped my chin and held the glass to my lips, which I opened with a speed so humiliatingly fast that despite literally everything I have done in my miserable life, this is what I most deserve to be smote by god for (or, in his absence, japanese criminal court.) At least the performance had amused him, and he gently, slowly, poured around a swallow of wine into my mouth, stopping once he noticed it was running down my chin. He took a thumb, surprisingly soft, and wiped the wine off my cheek. I held the wine in my mouth for a moment. There was more tobacco flavour than I’d anticipated. Chuuya collected a lot of wine, and mentioned the more herbal and woody notes to me at some point, but I hadn’t expected how strong they would really be, mostly because when he told me, I wasn't listening because I didn’t care. We were in Italy for a mission and he somehow managed to get us wine tasting reservations at some fancy Italian winery as a nice date since at the time, he thought I was his boyfriend because I told him that he was my boyfriend to get him off my back about a bunch of stuff. Anyway, that day I learned a few things:
“Wine tasting” doesn’t mean you drink a bunch of wine and say pompous stuff as an excuse to drink a bunch of wine. You’re actually supposed to taste it and form opinions on how it tastes.
They don’t give you a bunch of wine, anyway. You get like, half a glass and smack your lips a bunch like an idiot while talking about soil pH like that has any impact on the world.
If you do manage to get super drunk while wine tasting, they will kick you and your boyfriend out, and they do not care if you threaten a discrimination lawsuit since the phrase “I got kicked out of wine tasting in Italy” is already so gay that no court would ever believe allegations of homophobia.
I do not like wine tasting.
I do not like Chuuya.
Chuuya does not like me.
Oh, Chuuya. You would hate me even more now, if you could see this. Even the tobacco flavour itself was a horrible reminder of him. Smoking in cars and his apartment, how that smell would get into my clothes on winters when the shipping container would be too cold for me and I “couldn’t help” turning up to his doorstep all cold and sad, and he’d roll his eyes, let me into his home, let me into his bed, let me cling to him in my sleep like invasive ivy species take over grape vines and rob them of light forever. We were like kudzu in Tennessee, he and I. The wine tastes like Chuuya, it tastes like guilt, and even worse was how I didn’t care about how guilty I felt or was because all I could think about was how this is probably what the inside of Fyodor’s mouth tastes like. The inside of his mouth probably tastes like Chuuya. It’s unfair that I know what Chuuya tastes like, yet I am here without him, having a handsome stranger pour wine into my mouth. I would have taken Chuuya with me when I left, but he loves his job too much. I wouldn’t have left him over that, though, like I’d be taking him against his will if I did. It’s more that I know if he had to choose between the mafia and me, he’d choose me, but I wouldn’t have the real Chuuya with me. It’s like in those movies where some kid rescues a dolphin or some other random wild animal and he loves the animal but realises the animal needs to be with its kind. Well, not quite. I’d be okay keeping Chuuya at SeaWorld normally. It would be lovely to see him have to do ridiculous tricks and possibly maul a college student with a crappy internship. But I know that he would be completely different from the Chuuya I put all the effort into removing from his natural habitat. I giggled to myself for a moment at the concept of Chuuya doing the Free Willy jump. Clearly a bit too much, because Fyodor looked at me with significant concern. I wondered if explaining the “Free Willy” thing would make my situation better or worse. I decided against it. I needed to free my own Willy tonight, I can’t let my perfect mind spoil this again.
I collapsed into my arms back onto the bar-counter and sighed. I wouldn’t have to look at anything here, I could fall asleep and wake up somewhere else. I could go with Fyodor and let him kill me so everyone who hates me couldn’t reasonably hate me anymore. They’d only remember all those times I was kind, or if I wasn’t kind, because even I can’t remember being kind myself, they’d remember all the times they loved me, because, regrettably, far too many people have loved me against both my will and their own. I don’t know what I’m escaping anymore or who I’m gnawing through to outrun the heat. I’m not a true selfish person because I don’t do things just to serve myself. I think I do them out of convenience at the moment, or so my life isn’t more difficult, but I don’t think I’ve ever made a choice because I thought it would make my life better or make me happier in any meaningful way, selfish or otherwise. That offers an even more upsetting conundrum, because it seems I only hurt people because it’s of my nature.
Fyodor’s hand returns to my neck, my hair, he figures out exactly where on my scalp to press so he may turn my brain off. He knows he’s found it too, because I lean closer to him, not pulling my head up to meet his eye and recognise him as a person or something tangible. It’s not that he doesn’t deserve humanity, but rather that I want plausible deniability when this all goes to shit. I’ll have the excuse of him coming into this tavern and pressing thumb and forefinger right into my nape, the spot where you can hold kittens and puppies and they go limp. If we’re all dogs, I would be a puppy by his standards, considering how much older he is than myself, which isn’t something I need to meaningfully examine right now. Ha-ha. Ha. He’s leaning down and whispering into my ear, but I’m not listening. I can hear his smile, but I’m not listening. I’m moving my arms to meet his eyes, so I can see how his hair falls around his face better, so I can smell how they managed to make grape juice taste like wood and tobacco.
I’m burning up beneath his hands. I want nothing more than to stop caring or stop existing and maybe if I burn enough, if I chant enough about how badly I need to walk with this fire, if I wasn’t me, this could be so much more beautiful. The hands on me aren’t an attempt at seduction, no matter how it looks or what I want it to be, they’re an attempt to coax me into a cage, put me somewhere I don’t want to be. A pill coated in peanut butter. A different pill, this time, inside a slice of american cheese since you found out about the peanut butter thing. A cloth mother, food in a snare trap, the lovely warm arms of someone who says they love you so much, from someone promising they’ll never leave when their heart doesn’t beat as a representation of love because it doesn’t beat anymore. All lies, ones I can expertly spot myself because I, too, am a skilled liar. Fyodor knows this because he likes to lie too.
“What is on your mind now, Osamu? Are you mulling things over?”
With his hands on my throat, could he feel my jugular roaring like an engine? Could he feel my weak breaths? He probably thinks I’m disgusting, but so is he. I want to be self-conscious so badly right now and hide under the greasy and overgrown mop of hair that’s sticking to my sweaty face. But I can’t. It’s too hot in here. His hands don’t sate me anymore.
“I already agreed to your terms.”
Fyodor’s hand traced up my neck, pulling me up by my hair.
“How lovely,” he whispered, before finishing his wine and hoisting me up. One of my arms over his shoulders, cold hand on my waist, on the small bit of skin from my wifebeater riding up. I couldn’t reflexively move out of the way of the shock. I couldn’t even tell if he was stronger than I’d given him credit for, or if I’d simply lost a considerable amount of weight in the past few weeks and hadn’t noticed. I can’t believe how truly unaware I’m being right now. Osamu Dazai from three years ago would laugh in my face and kick gravel into my eyes. He was a remarkable asshole, but I admittedly miss his ability to do anything, which I either lost in that big hallway with Odasaku, or four hours ago, when I ordered my first glass of whiskey. Still, a deep sense of pretend responsibility had overcome me, and I was heeding its call.
“You’re not gu-gunna leave me headless in a ditch after we fuck, right?”
The eloquent sentence and rational thought I meant to say had gotten lost on its way out of my brain, likely around my throat and mouth where alcohol fumes were deep and heady.
“Dazai, I’m not having sex with you.” Clarity of word feeling like mockery.
“Oh, okay.” My attempt at basic responsibility was a failure, but once this collapses, I can at least say I tried. Some forensic detective will pick up my skull which was picked clean by compost bacteria (because Fyodor is so smart) and that detective will be like: ‘Hey, Dazai! Did’ja ask him if he was gonna cut your head off after sex?’ and my ghost will be like: ‘yessss I diddddd’ and then they’ll be like: ‘but did you actually say no when he started cutting off your head?’ and I’ll be like: ‘fuckkk noooo. I was busy having my head cut offfff.’
He led me out of the bar, into a private car that I now realize he’d hired for just this occasion- he knew I would leave with him. The car was dark and cold, akin to the ones Mori would send on occasion, and I couldn’t tell if it was the memory or the motion mixing with my intoxication but I was growing so, so very nauseous. I rolled over onto the khaki-coloured leather seats, but into Fyodor’s lap. He made a vague command to the driver, but I didn’t give a shit. I was preoccupied with not falling off the face of the earth and not getting too much of my sweat onto Fyodor’s trousers, which was a legitimately remarkable feat for one such as myself who is used to getting all manner of bodily fluids on all manner of things.
Anywho, I puked all over my shirt, pants, and socks the moment I left the car. He groaned slightly, but gently eased his hand up and down my back as I finished emptying my stomach next to the stairs outside of his home. From the reflection of rain and puke in the puddle I was staring into, it seemed to be a fairly large apartment complex, one of the generic one-bedrooms that screams “budget”—a far cry from Dostoyevsky’s tastes, as far as I knew them.
“Now, now, Little Prince. It’s just a few stairs” He says, hand still perched on my back.
Oh my god, he was a sex pervert. He was a sex pervert and I was just gonna waltz into his house where he suddenly slices my achilles tendon and leaves me in a cold basement next to the rotting bones of the last twink he found at some dive bar. And he’s gonna make me eat high-quality corn and probably semen and other stuff through a funnel like they do to geese until he decides I’m ready for him to turn into like, jerky or ham or prosciutto or salami or any manner of cured meats. I’m gonna go from the greatest threat this city has ever seen to an item on a charcuterie board. He’s gonna eat me with fava beans and a nice chianti.* I need to escape. Fast.
“Little Prince?” I croak.
“Well, you were the prince of the Port Mafia, no? Would you rather I call you something else?”
Crisis averted, for now. He could totally be lying. I need to keep this man far away from my feet. I don’t appreciate him talking about my time in the Port Mafia like this. Surely he could gather that I had good reasons for leaving and mayhap even a significant emotional connection and tragic backstory. I mean, you don’t get “fired” from the mafia, or like, laid off or anything. Maybe laid to rest, but we aren’t organising pensions for people. I’m grumbling to myself as Dostoyevsky looks at me, worried that I’m about to puke again. I do, in fact, puke again.
“I guess you’re right.” I croak, standing up like a baby giraffe while also attempting to take my shirt off, which proves irrationally difficult and incredibly shocking for Dostoyevsky who was likely under the impression that he could just throw me into a car and drive me to his home and throw me into a crawl-space where he could throw dried beans at me if he got bored while wagering my existence against other organisations, or whatever he has planned. These scenarios may seem like convoluted fetishes to you all, but they are actually very scary and definitely real torture methods that I suggest you do not look up if you have a weak stomach. The world is a terrifying and dangerous place if you’re not careful and do things like say, get into the car of a strange man while intoxicated to live at his home rent free with no strings attached. Anyway, Dostoyevsky was now staring at me shirtless as I was also trying to take my pants off as well. I knew I looked ridiculous but think about it this way, which is more humiliating: wearing pants covered in watery puke or wearing no pants at all? This was my train of thought as I finally untied the drawstring and shimmied them down my legs.
“You can wait until we enter the house, you know that, yes?” He asks, a twinge of fear in his voice.
“Yeah, yeah, I just- god it’s hot out here.”
You know when you’re drunk and essentially trapped in your mind? Like, you fully understand what’s going on but you can’t verbalise what’s going on because you’re stupid? That’s how it feels right now. I myself am stupid all the time, so being drunk isn’t very different, but even while sober, I doubt I could ever vocalise how I feel. I would love to have told Fyodor that I was incredibly drunk and I didn’t care because my best friend is dead. But you can’t really explain how or why that leads to you living drunk and penniless in a bar for a month, and how that leaves you somewhat apathetic to taking your pants off in public. Or how Odasaku was someone I loved more than anything and that his death hurt so much because I shouldn’t have ever existed and all Odasaku did was make the world better by existing. And if he’s gone now, what in god’s name is going to happen to the world? Odasaku made me good and he told me that I was going to get to be good if I just chose to be, but that’s easy to say when you’re good. He’s gone forever and I’ve just been mad about it. I hate Odasaku. I hate him so much and I wish I’d never met him so he wouldn’t have had to die. It was my fault and that’s why I can’t be good. So I don’t give a shit if I’m caught here with my pants down. I won’t kill myself right now because Odasaku doesn’t want me to, and I won’t do bad things because Odasaku doesn’t want me to. But I’m really pissed about that because I don’t want to listen to Odasaku because I hate him. I want to die and I want to hurt people and I want to get the taste of baijiu and stomach acid out of my mouth. Fyodor is still looking at me like I’m an angel. It would be so awesome if I really was.
The next thing I could remember was sitting in warm bath water while he gently washed my hair. I think I should have been scared that he was seeing me without my bandages, but I couldn’t focus on that just then. I don’t think I’ve ever experienced another person cleaning me happily. I have been washed off and cleaned out and scrubbed. I have not been this. Yet, here he was, his sleeves rolled up, kneeling on the floor, saying kind and gentle words that I couldn’t fully process for the life of me. A hand softly traced down the bumpy, scarred skin on my arms as he went to grab the showerhead, carefully tilting my neck so the soapy water wouldn’t get in my eyes. It smelled like osmanthus. I was in a weird limbo- aware of exactly how prepared I should be for a knife in my back or something similar, but I simply couldn’t, not when I was feeling the gentle touch of a person for the first time in my life. It was something so shocking and rare that I would have to commit it to memory, like a meteor shower. A rarity I could proudly tell younger generations I was able to experience. But then, at the back of my mind, was the knowledge that there was absolutely nothing impressive about what I was experiencing and that Fyodor had to have known this, that he was manipulating me. But still, it was so, so easy to ignore and lean into his arms and the warm water flowing down my back. He was raking his fingers through my hair again, and I preemptively winced at him catching on one of the many knots in my hair with the confident force he’d been using, but I quickly realized that he was working the conditioner into it instead. He noticed my reaction and said something I did end up remembering:
“No, no, Osamu. I am not going to hurt you here, nobody is going to hurt you here.”
He comforted me like one would a dog rescued from a horrible household. One that’s all ratty and weak, having likely endured so much, one who any person would instinctively help. A dog who can’t bark anymore, just whimper. That kind of dog clings to anyone kind to it. It can’t judge. There’s only room for love and fear in its heart. I don’t think I deserve the same kindness and gentle treatment as that dog. I think that’s why I’m so greedily accepting it right now instead of pretending to resent it. I have absolutely nothing to lose here. I was so scared of vulnerability for so long, particularly it being forced on me, but now I’m naked, drunk, and eagerly pushing my head back into his hands as I smile like an idiot. I’m the poster child for idiots. I know I should be scared or preparing for some kind of trap or for the rug to be pulled out from under me, and then rolled around me, but I don’t care. Though, Fyodor has nothing to gain from pretending to be kind to me right now. He’s still chosen to wash the vomit off my hair and face with the kind of gentle treatment of a mother.
“You’re too high and mighty out there.” I grumbled as coherently as possible with a knee pressed into my cheek.
“What-ever do you mean?”
“I’m naked in the bath, and you’re fully clothed!”
Fyodor nervously laughs. “I cannot wash you while you are clothed. Aside from that, you are the one who was taking off your pants before you even got inside, no?”
“If you knew—but you don’t—it’s polite to take off your clothes as well if there’s a lady taking off her clothes for you.”
“But you are not a lady.”
I groan.
“Humour me, please.”
“You want me to strip down for you? Are you serious?”
“It’s patronizing for you to be the only one clothed here, I feel like an animal!”
“You say that, but you want me to wash you while I myself am naked like some roman slave to his emperor.”
“Greek, probably. You know how they were homosexual.”
Fyodor pauses to think, perhaps even reminisce. I think about beating him to death with a brick. We’re all having a good time here.
“Oh, of course,” he responds, with a strange sarcastic bravado. “How could I have ever forgotten. Please, forgive me o sire.” He’s so light-hearted because he thinks that I won’t remember this.
“Now, now, this isn’t in a homosexual manner! It’s simply fairness. You can climb into the bath as well, it’s spacious enough for both of us and I’m very flexible”
“Ah. Lovely to know.” He laughs.
Fyodor takes off his clothes while I avert my eyes out of simple politeness and not shame, and then climbs in behind me. I would feel bad about how dirty the water is but he’s already drained and refilled it twice before, which was humiliating. I can feel his shins on my back and I know deep down that it would probably be more comfortable for both of us if I turned around but to be honest I hadn’t really anticipated getting this far. I don’t know what I’m saying and the right to speak should have probably been taken from me long ago. Suffice to say, I cannot bear to actually look him in the face while he’s literally naked against me. Sorry! I know I just said that I didn’t avert my eyes due to shame and that’s somewhat true. I think whatever I’m dealing with is weirder and greater and worse than shame. I don’t have any idea what’s going on.
“Your ears are pink.” I nearly puke into the bath water. I really should see a doctor, this cannot be normal. “Come, turn around, it is more comfortable that way.” He’s smiling. Despite having known him for around an hour I’ve already fine-tuned my ears to pick up on when he’s smiling. I am a pathetic worm envied by the most pathetic classes of worm, and I should be executed by firing squad for existing. We cannot continue to let people like me live for the good of humanity. This isn’t in a fascistic way, I think people who are as pathetic and shameful as me should not live for the good of the world and other people. I’m already regretting inviting him into the tub. I need to stop letting the Osamu Dazai who controls what I say just go AWOL because he’s secretly horny, and then he makes people think I’m secretly horny by turning innocuous thoughts into horny words. Thanks to him, I now have one mission I must complete right now: I cannot look at Fyodor’s penis. It’s not as if I want to in a horny way, but rather like a car crash. I’m being honest with you in hopes you’re honest with yourself as well: if you’re given the opportunity to see a penis but you know that you shouldn’t! Even though we’re all humans who have genitals, we’re expected to pretend they don’t exist! Again, it’s not like I actually want to see his penis, but the fact that I’m not supposed to makes me think that he’s absolutely hiding something. Maybe he has the Ark of the Covenant down there or something. We can’t be sure. I sheepishly turn around, which I must say, is very difficult. My hands keep slipping on the wet porcelain due to how I am still very drunk and he’s laughing because he thinks it’s endearing, but he doesn’t know that it’s because I am putting more effort into not looking down than I have ever done for anything. He’s staring at me like I’m some kind of Madonna or Venus, and I just feel weird. I wish he didn’t make me feel weird because he’s been incredibly nice and courteous of my whims so far, but I feel like I’m gonna have to pay back for this and I’m flat broke. I know he’s gonna want something soon, but I don’t think I’m able to give him a person instead of a body.
He takes the showerhead and begins washing out my hair again, taking a bony hand to make sure the soapy water doesn’t get in my face. Maybe if he pressed the side of his palm into my head too hard it would dent. Maybe if the water were too hot it would hard-boil me, or if it got into my eyes it would seep into the cotton that he used to replace my brain and I’d get mouldy because it’s so warm in there. I hope I don’t properly dry my hair so I catch a cold so he has to take care of me. I want to break my bones so he has to take care of me.
I actually did that once, and it made Mori really mad. I was thirteen, maybe. I’d just joined the mafia and he had just become boss and was trying to get me to watch Elise like she was a real kid or something. And I didn’t want to, because it’s a dumb thing to entertain and he only likes her because you can’t break her like you do real kids. I told him as much, and he called me ridiculous and said he didn’t break children, so I slammed my arm into his desk over and over while he yelled. We both yelled. A lot. The entire time it was happening, he still didn’t get up. He could have reached over his shitty metal desk to stop me, but he didn’t. He was completely frozen in place because he didn’t know how to stop problems without screaming or killing something.
(One time, he held a funeral for a bird that flew into his window. He got a small box that held a bunch of those disposable scalpel blades, dumped them out on his desk, and he put the tiny bird inside of the box. He dug a hole in the lot next to his clinic and cried and prayed for the bird, and after that, he always kept that window open in case another hototogisu came by.)
When we went to the ER—he knew that he couldn’t fix it on his own—he signed my last name at triage as “Mori” and told the nurses that I’d fallen out of a tree. The break was worse than I thought but better than Mori had been afraid of. It fucked up my ulna and wrist so now there’s more scars on my arm from where the external fixator was. (imagine a metal frame that’s drilled into your bones instead of a cast, but it also literally sticks out of your arm! It’s disgusting and gave Mori even more reasons to constantly fuss over me.) But, I won that argument. Sometimes I think about it as I sleep, and I chuckle to myself out of joy.
“Why are you laughing? Do I look funny?”
“Ah, no, I was just thinking about the time I broke my arm.”
“I see,” he mused, immediately returning to the task at hand. “We’re done.”
“Can we stay here for a minute? I can’t move.” I half-lied, in the sense that it was true but I was also using it as an excuse which technically makes it a lie. Fyodor didn’t say anything, just took my head and held it against his chest before lowering his head onto mine in a way that must be uncomfortable, but from the way his cheeks flexed against my skull, it was clear he didn’t care. In this awkward position, I wrapped my arms around his waist. Fyodor was rubbing his thumb in circles across my back, and I was quietly very thankful that I considered it too much work to get a razor or box cutter over there.
“It is so nice to be clean, no? You smell so lovely,” Fyodor mumbled into my hair. “Osmanthus wine is meant to be a reunion wine in Chinese culture. It is also believed that there is a man on the moon named Wu Gang who has to cut down an osmanthus tree on the moon for all eternity. Every time it’s chopped down, it regrows. They call him ‘The Chinese Sisyphus’ because of that. It is Wu Gang’s punishment after he tried to learn the secrets to immortality, but he became lazy halfway through.”
“Why would he want to be immortal to begin with? That’s ridiculous.”
“You are something of an immortal yourself,” he hummed, running a finger across the main scar, the one above my carotid artery that didn’t go deep enough fast enough.
“Yeah, so I know that it’s bullshit. Now he’s immortal, and has to cut down trees.”
“One must think Wu Gang to be happy, though.” Fyodor sat up, taking in a deep breath. “For throughout his punishment, he gets to enjoy the scent of osmanthus flower. Sisyphus only had his sweat and dust.”
I don’t know how long we spent like this, Fyodor musing to me about his beliefs, ideas, and all the myths he seemed so obsessed with. I realised halfway through his talks about Achilles and Patroclus that I was technically in his lap. He was petting me, and I’d been so engrossed in him talking that I wasn’t absorbing anything, but still so focused that I hadn’t realised I’d somehow regressed to this state of being. One that I didn’t even know had ever been a part of me, let alone that it hung at the base of my soul and could be so easily grasped and pulled out. I don’t understand anything and I don’t care. I sigh into his chest which feels more like lying atop a rainwater grate than a person when you have your eyes closed, save for the gentle rhythmic beating of a heart which hasn’t changed once since I’d rested my head there. Show-off.
“Achilles requested that when he dies, his ashes would be mixed with Patroclus’ to form a vase. There would be nothing that could tear them apart anymore. Not a battlefield, not even the vase shattering. Is that not beautiful to you, Osamu?”
I mumbled into his chest, I haven’t a clue what, but he smiled and laughed.
After draining the bath he softly toweled my hair so I wouldn’t catch cold, and dressed me. I hadn’t been dressed by another person save for Chuuya trying to get me out of wet clothes after I’d wash up on a riverbank, which was always frantic and screamy, and needlessly rude, if I’m being honest. Here, I got to be completely limp while he delicately buttoned my pyjama shirt. It felt so nice not to be there, in my head, but also not “there” in the room, where I’d have to admit to my existence in front of another person, which may be the most terrifying and disgusting thing in the entire world. Again, I didn’t wonder how he was able to tailor them, or why they had my name embroidered. Why should I be concerned, having been sought after and then found by someone who cares about me, even superficially? Of course this has happened before. It’s happened so many times that it would make your head spin. But imagine, if you will: this time, it will be very, very different.
He led me to the bedroom, which was also very quaint. An antique bed frame held up a small mattress dressed in a crochet blanket atop a quilt atop a duvet. It faced a mahogany dresser with a print of “Saturn Devouring His Son” framed above it. Beyond the bed was the window and balcony, with soft translucent curtains hiding us inside. Next to the window was a bookshelf. It was plain. I can look back on it now and say as much. But I also lived in a literal shipping container in a junkyard for the latter half of my teenage life, so this was essentially a five-star hotel in my eyes. He’d been holding me by the waist casually as I looked around, finding something to stare at and use as a tool to ignore.
I fixated on the crochet blanket. Did Fyodor make it? Does Fyodor enjoy sitting down after a long day to make simple intricate knots to calm his mind? Does he crochet people gifts, does he enjoy spending tens of hours working with yarn to give things to people he cares about? No, that last part was a stupid question. He doesn’t care about anyone enough to do that. However, does he instead perhaps crochet things for himself? Or is it a different question entirely? Did he get this as a family heirloom maybe? From a mother or grandmother? Does he treasure it so because it’s a reminder of when he was loved by people? I kept rolling down this hill until I realised I was already in bed with him. His frail body was half-curled into mine. I rolled over and clung to him. I noticed that he smelled like osmanthus like I did. From how I so gently held him and how he in turn held me, to the untrained eye, we may have been lovers. I would so easily accept a life like this, I could selfishly abandon all my promises so I could spend the rest of my days safely in bed with someone I believed cared about me. We wouldn’t speak, I wouldn’t think anymore, but we would stay in bed together, driving into sleep, out of sleep, half awake, sending the mental transmission to each other that we were safe. If I was able to be in bed with him like this, it meant everything was okay, we weren’t in mortal danger. His face was in the crook of my shoulder, his right leg in between mine, and his arms held me softly. Not as if he worried I would flee, but on the off chance this room turned into a vast ocean, I wouldn’t drift away. His breath was so steady, and he was still, save for the occasional tremor of hand or leg.
This glorious pantomime of intimacy, the imaginary audience we performed this to, they must love it so. This magic trick: you can’t find where the rabbit went, but he is here, he is alive, and he has appeared from the hat whether you like it or not. You don’t need to question or believe when he exists right in front of your eyes. It doesn’t matter if it’s fake if it really happens. They fuck in porn for real, even when they’re just actors. They fuck for you to watch. Animation is the illusion of movement, even if the drawings aren’t real, you watch them because they look like they’re moving, they look like they’re alive. We're animated, we’re alive, and in this moment we are an illusion of people and an illusion of love. We are liars, through and through, and that is why we are so seemingly made for each other like this.
“Ah, little prince, you don’t understand how happy I am right now.” He chimes, running his fingers through my hair and taking a piece which he keeps weaving through his middle and forefinger. “I have been searching longer than you could have ever anticipated. You do not know that.”
“Huh?” I mumble through half-sleep.
“You are so pure, they have done so much to corrupt you but they could not succeed. It’s etched into your soul. My beautiful boy. I have no clue what I did to deserve this. How could I possibly be so lucky?”
“I don’t get it.” I groan, rustling slightly to get a better look at what was going on.
“No, no, stay still, you do not need to do such a thing.” Fyodor says, taking sudden great care to keep me from moving. “It is no matter. I am simply talking to myself. It is just that, you don’t understand how you are beautiful. And because you do not understand that, you are beautiful.”
“They say that about girls all the time, Fyodor. I think I’ve said that to a woman before.”
I can’t bear knowing that he’s excited and hopeful. He’s not like the perpetrator I took him for and it doesn’t upset me so much as it scares me. Now I have a role I must fit into that isn’t an unwilling victim. He wants me for who I supposedly am, but I haven’t a clue who that is. I don’t want to disappoint him. Not living up to people’s expectations for you, the things they want that they don’t tell you about because you’re just expected to know--that’s the kind of thing that kills you. But now I’m being confronted by this unquestioned understanding we have, but I’m not aware of what’s actually being understood and it scares the shit out of me. There’s something going on right under my nose and I can’t see it because I’m too drunk to move.
“I suppose I am just drowsy.”
It’s been six weeks since I’ve started living with him. I sleep in his bed like his wife. I’m his wife because he bought the bed. He’s made me breakfast in bed at least a dozen times and adores watching me eat, which I try not to pay attention to. He’s best at making syrniki. He bought lemon curd for me after I mentioned enjoying it. He clings to me a lot around the house, which we rarely leave both due to the price on my head and because there’s nothing either of us really want to do outside. He does, however, take me to mass on Sundays. I’m not baptized as anything, which he only seems slightly upset about, I have expertly noticed this through his many, many, many, many comments about how I should get confirmed. I’ve been considering it because Catholic services are very long and I could absolutely go for a cracker and sip of wine halfway through. I do enjoy going to mass with Fyodor, because it’s a legitimately relaxing experience. There’s a big organ, incense, and because we go to the 7am service during the middle of winter, the sun rises close to the end and I get to see it peek through all the pretty glass windows of saints. I’m slowly getting the hang of when to sit and stand and what songs we’re supposed to sing. The kneelers at Fyodor’s church aren’t padded, and when I complained to him about it he went on a long rant about suffering that basically amounted to “suck it up, pussy.” To which I have not done. Not yet, at least.
I used to spitefully avoid praying when we’d go there. I didn’t really know what to pray for, and even if I did, it wouldn’t work. If prayer worked I wouldn’t be in this mess. Being inside churches, though, is a unique experience I can’t properly—or bear to—explain. You’re in a new place, to put it simply, but the extent and meaning of “new” doesn’t make much sense. I initially attributed it to how much Fyodor insisted on hyping up the church-going experience. Not praying when you should be praying feels weird. There’s all these people around me, asking god to cure illnesses, end tragedies, fix their fag son, make everything better, and these people really believe god will do that, despite knowing it probably won’t happen. Personally, I think god exists, but he’s indifferent to us. We’re his little ant-farm on his desk that’s blended into the background to be wholly forgotten about. I think he hears my prayers, maybe. He hears what I think which is why he’s decided I’m a wretch who deserves no help whatsoever. So, when I’m kneeling with my hands clasped, knuckles ghosting over my lips, my brain runs wild. It’s a lot of “I miss this, I miss that,” and I came to realise that a significant amount of prayer is just whining. I didn’t know how to pray for people. So, I prayed for Chuuya because it felt like something I should do, and I prayed for Odasaku because he used to pray for me, and I prayed for Ango to get hit by a truck at the nearest possible date. I know you’re not to pray for people to suffer, but I did it anyway. Smite me. I tried to pray for Fyodor, but I didn’t want to, it didn’t feel right. I can’t pray for someone right next to me. I don’t want to hope about something certain because the moment I hope for something I lose it. I could feel that he was praying for me, and it made me feel bad, but I didn’t do anything about that bad feeling aside from wait for him to be done. Every time service ends, I ask Fyodor for 200 yen so I can light a candle for Odasaku beneath the pretty Mary statue they had next to the pews. She looked down at me with so much care and love. I felt happy for the sculptor, who’d seen a face like that in their life enough times that they could replicate it perfectly for an inanimate object. Fyodor makes that expression towards me a lot, but he looks so greedy when he does it that I don’t feel comforted to see it.
I don’t question how his faith pertains to him holding me at night, him sticking his head in-between that spot between your neck and shoulder which really does seem to be made for another person, at least, it’s shaped that way. How he looks at me, how he’s insisted on us showering together to save water. I know that part isn’t sexual, at least. He looks at me naked the same way you look at naked Greek statues and anatomical models. You forget that they’re naked because you’re too busy being awe-struck by craftsmanship, or the gentle concept of ‘woah, the small intestine sure is poorly named.’ He likes touching and holding me because it grounds him in reality. I don’t really ask questions anymore, which I should probably be outraged about, but I’m not. It’s nice to have him tell me what I’m supposed to do. It’s all a large departure from my usual life. For example: there isn’t any alcohol in the house, save for a few bottles of riesling, because Fyodor worries for my health. It’s a fine drink, just far too sweet for me. Fyodor also began to teach me how to cook for myself because back when I lived in my little shipping container, I would just get all my meals from the convenience store. I learned a few recipes so far, however I’ve grown the most fond of boxty because it’s easy to make, and Fyodor was delighted to tell me about Imbloc, which is a feast day for Saint Brigid of Killardy. I shoveled roughly a kilo of potato into my mouth while attentively listening to him go on about how it started out as a pagan holiday that was adapted for Irish-Catholics.
Everything about the house is steeped in his existence. It’s plain and a clear hide-out, a vacation home for a man who never rests. You can tell from the lack of furniture aside from a fancy rug*, book-cases, crucifixes above every door, a small, modern dresser next to an antique one, a new towel next to a more worn one, a 100-yen store mug next to five or six teacups. I don’t know why we have two dressers when we don’t have our “own” clothes. “D” for “Dazai” and “D” for “Dostoyevsky” are both embroidered on the pajamas and towels, even if one is intended for me. I might have my own mug, but sometimes it’s dirty in the sink, so I secretly use his. I think he’s only making the distinction for my sake, because I get nervous using his cups. It's too intimate. My life keeps infecting his, and he’s overjoyed by it; He loves how my existence has no choice but to be tied to his, and he must be tied to mine in turn. He wants to rub two open wounds together, because neither of us can stop hurting, but it’s better than being in pain alone. He’s willing for both of us to hurt more to reach that goal.
I’ve been getting generally sleepy, since his apartment is always warm and I’m too relaxed around him. It’s disgusting to be tired against your will. Sometimes I’ll turn on the TV and doze off on the couch, halfway through a program and wake up to him asleep atop of me. He loves sleeping in bed with me on account of the intimacy it implies. We haven’t had sex. Not quite, at least. But the fact that I’m in bed with him to begin with is something he deems a victory. He’s so excited to sleep next to someone who won’t kill him. I like his bed, the only issue being that there’s too many blankets to aid his constant coldness. (Though I will note that he’s taken a few off now that he clings to me in his sleep.) I still like the crochet blanket. As it turns out, he does crochet. I intently watch absolutely terrible public access Russian television dramas while I lie in his lap. He makes his little squares right above my head and translates all these torrid affairs these god-awful actors are having for me. I didn’t take him for someone who laughs frequently but he acts like everything I say is the most hilarious thing in the world. I pretend to ignore it when he laughs harder at any mention of my old life. Really any mention of a world without him. I think it’s out of care.
Still, I’m waiting for the rug to be pulled out from underneath me.