Handa
I was sure Chief Kobayashi would change his mind about letting me go, but he drove us back to Sugita’s car without hardly saying anything.
There wasn’t much to say. It sounded like this was an unprecedented accident, and nothing could change that. Best to just move on.
Move on to what?
My partner thought he was going to go down into the black market and discover a remedy, but so far nobody else agreed that was possible.
I’d rather not think about it, so I stayed quiet on the car ride also.
“Both of you be careful,” Chief warned as we were climbing out. “I mean it.”
And then Sugita reassured him that we would both, definitely, take it easy, and the chief left, apparently satisfied with that.
I didn’t believe for a second he’d look the other way while I slowly transformed into a yokai. Chief wasn’t very old, but he had been a cop for most of his life and experienced all the different roles, from boot to boss; his abilities were legendary, his knowledge impressive, and he had an uncanny skill for keeping cool under pressure that I’d always admired. No doubt, he had a plan already for how to keep track of me from a distance and a fail safe in place for when I started to lose my mind.
What else could I expect? There wasn’t anywhere I could go that would help me, and telling someone, like my family, wouldn’t make any difference either. No one was going to believe me, nothing could save me, and all my chief had to do was sit back, maybe put in a minimal effort to act like he was looking for a solution, and then scoop me up when the time came.
If I were the chief, I’d probably do things that same way, so I couldn’t be mad at my boss. He had to think about what was good for everyone, not just me.
As I watched his tail lights vanish around the corner, Sugita leaned over the hood of his car, bracing himself on both hands. Given how he tended to wear his heart on his sleeve, I didn’t need to guess how guilty he felt, but I hated that. Anyone could see this wasn’t his fault. I didn’t want to give him any extra reasons to worry.
A new conflict surfaced in my heart. If I only had a week or two left to be human, I wanted to spend that time with Ken. But nothing would worry him more than watching me turn into a monster.
“You good to drive?” I asked.
Slowly, Sugita straightened up and turned to take a long look at me, and I wondered if maybe now I looked like an enemy he’d been ordered to kill on sight. His bronze eyes, though, glittered with sympathy, and in them I glimpsed everything he’d like to say to me, not just about this, but about his wedding and the bachelor party, the Rainbow Bridge and my porn site—all the touchy subjects I never allowed him to get into.
Not having those conversations while we had the chance might have been a mistake. Or maybe it wouldn’t have made any difference except to relieve the regret I felt now.
An overwhelming urge to reach out to him hit me like a tidal wave, so I punched his arm, lightly. “I’ll drive, if you want.”
Sugita searched my eyes a moment longer, and then opened the passenger’s door. “Thanks.” He gestured for me to get in. “But you’re the one who needs to take it easy.”
Ever since getting bit, I’d felt dizzy and sick to my stomach, my eyelids kept drooping out of pure exhaustion, my neck burned, and now Yamada’s words clattered on and on in my mind, so I couldn’t shake off the tightness in my chest.
I didn’t want to worry Sugita, so I climbed in without arguing.
More cautiously than usual, he peeled back onto the now-quiet street, and I leaned my pounding head against the window to watch the rainy sidewalks roll by, focused on taking one deep breath after another.
Hard to believe just a few hours ago we’d been walking around the park. I’d been so carefree, my uncertainty over the relationship between my partner and I had been the only drama in my life.
Even so, I’d been far too laid-back, going with the flow and letting Sugita investigate the way he wanted, unwilling to really voice my concerns. I’d been trying to back him up, but the path of least resistance had led me into danger.
Everything made sense now. Something had tipped Sugita off to the fact that our missing girl had fallen prey to a yokai, leaving him to agonize over how to handle that without involving me; it was just like him to let his innate sense of duty clash with his annoying habit of trying to protect me.
Mentioning aliens was as close as he could get to giving me the truth, and he’d taken me at my word when I’d told him I trusted him.
I did trust him. None of this was his fault.
Obviously, he hadn’t known we were on the trail of a kyuuketsuki, and I believed he had honestly thought he could keep anything from happening to me. Besides, I wanted Sugita to pursue dangerous predators and help keep Tokyo safe—if we backed down from fights that made us uneasy, what difference did our job make? And I’d never ask him to compromise classified info, not even for my sake. Annoying as it was, I loved him for trying to look after me, but even if he’d given me all the facts, I couldn’t have abandoned him to find the yokai on his own. He wouldn’t have made it back.
My hands started to cramp, and I realized I was clenching my fists extra tight against my knees, tried to relax. Dwelling on the past, no matter how recent, was pointless.
Gingerly, I touched my neck again, finding the wound abnormally hot, and my mind dragged me back to the moment the kyuuketsuki body slammed me, the feel of its cold mouth on my skin, reliving the blends of terror and excitement that had rushed through my blood.
In a twisted way, it reminded me a lot of how I’d felt when I lost my virginity, back when I was twelve. My brother, Kouki, pressured me so relentlessly about getting in bed with one of the girls he went to high school with, I’d caved. I’d known I wasn’t ready to have sex, but I’d been curious, and I’d thought my two older brothers would quit making fun of me if I fucked a woman, but the experience had been awkward, humiliating, and despite its moments of pleasure, even now, the memory turned my stomach.
Because that girl hadn’t cared about me. To her, I’d been little more than a toy.
That encounter had sent me down a path where I’d done a lot of things I probably shouldn’t have in order to locate my sense of self and control. Over the last thirteen years, I’d grown into a person who simply rolled with the punches and went with the flow because real control was intangible and transient. I couldn’t make up my mind, and I let stronger people, like Sugita, decide things for me.
But I would never have let that vampire bite me if I’d had the chance to say no.
Suppressing a shudder, I broke the silence. “Did you ever read The Metamorphosis?”
Sugita’s body jerked. “Wh-what?” Knowing him, he was mulling the situation over and over in his mind, trying to think of an answer as quickly as he could. “No. I don’t think so. What is that?”
“Come on, man. The Metamorphosis. By Kafka.”
“Kafuka…” he echoed, clumsily. “That maybe sounds familiar.”
“You’re such a jock.” But at least explaining it might save me from discussing what had brought the story to mind in the first place. “It’s about a guy who transforms into a giant insect.”
“Insect?” His brow creased.
“A big cockroach. Or maybe a beetle.”
His nose wrinkled, but he stared straight ahead. Many of Sugita’s strengths doubled as flaws, and his reluctance to consider anything outside his current objective was one of them, but, this time, at least, that inability to let go might actually help me. As long as he didn’t get it stuck in his head that he had to take sole responsibility as a way to atone for his mistake. “Sounds weird,” he mumbled, finally.
“I read it in high school for a world literature course. The story is really famous. You’ve never heard of it?”
“I played baseball,” he grunted, like he often did when I started rambling about subjects I’d studied in my more advanced high school courses. He was smart, but he was too practical to put stock in the arts and humanities. “What’s the deal with this cockroach-man? How does he wind up like that?”
“There’s no explanation. His sister tries to take care of him, and so he accepts what happened. I think, in a while, he even starts to enjoy being an insect. Until his family starts getting rid of his furniture and stuff.”
Sugita grunted. “So how does he change back?”
“I don’t know.” I shifted my fingers through my damp hair. “I didn’t finish it—but I think he stays stuck like that. Maybe he dies. I was never a very good student.”
There was a period of silence before he took his eyes off the road long enough to give me the same mildly frustrated expression he always got when he thought I was being inscrutable. “And? What about it?”
“It’s something that always stuck with me. Even though I don’t remember the details and didn’t finish reading the story, and probably failed the quiz on it, I think about it from time to time. I’ve always thought it was horrific. Imagine being trapped in the body of a monster. Forever.”
At last, his eyes flickered with understanding as he began to put together why I’d mentioned it, and he even met my gaze, expression charged with intensity, soft mouth frowning in discontent. The potency of his guilt and compassion ended up being too much for me, and I watched the street again.
“I remember his dad really hates him after he transforms. Even though the guy was the only one supporting his family…the father has no sympathy for him.” Back in high school, that part had resonated the most with me. I’d been working to help support my mother and little brother at the time; I’d been doing everything I could think of to please Dad, joining clubs because he told me to, making friends with people he insisted would have a positive influence on me, and avoiding those I really liked just so he wouldn’t sneer. No matter how hard I’d tried, though, I was still, in his eyes, disgraceful.
My throat clenched, and I made myself go on. “In time, I think even the people who have sympathy for him give up on him. That’s normal, though, right? No one has any use for him. He becomes a burden. People are only human.”
“Hey,” Sugita interrupted, a little loudly. “That’s not what’s going to happen here. Okay? “This is science, not literature. There’s an anti-venom, and we’re going to find it.”
Strange guy. Despite his pessimism, he carried an unwavering flame of hope, a determination that, if he couldn’t find an answer, he’d make one, and an utter refusal to fail.
Again, though, where the strength became weakness, Sugita couldn’t handle failure in any form. Unlike me, he’d come from the perfect home life where he’d been raised as the perfect, only son, and struggle was supposed to be its own reward.
Still, on the rare occasion struggle ended in disappointment, he punished himself.
I’d been watching him beat himself up since the day he’d returned from his honeymoon, and I knew he thought he should have picked up on my feelings a long time ago and done something to make it easier on me. He had no idea how hard I’d tried to hide the truth from him in order to preserve what I had, he just blamed himself for causing me pain in the first place.
All of that was stupid, irrational, and slightly selfish, but it was touching to know my problems meant that much to him. I couldn’t let him shoulder the responsibility for this too.
“I’m not questioning that,” I lied. “I’m just saying…”
“That you’re freaked out,” he supplied.
“Do I seem freaked out to you?”
“You never seem freaked out,” he said, gently. “I just know you, Hideki.”
He did know me, much better than most people. He knew the things I liked but had hidden from others in a pathetic attempt to preserve my social standing. He even knew my little weaknesses, like my fear of heights and my insecurities about whether or not people liked me. Without trying, he’d gotten through my walls and reached the real me, and even if that was only because I’d allowed it out of my desire to know him, I didn’t dare trivialize the comfort and relief it brought me to feel this close to someone.
The downside to our closeness, though, was that, even when he knew I wasn’t okay, I still didn’t know how to be honest with him.
“Even if I don’t,” he added, when I didn’t answer, “any sane person would be freaked out by the news you just got.”
Just to hear him say it was okay for me to be scared loosened the tight feeling in my chest, a little, and I drew another weighty breath.
“You’re welcome to be honest with me,” he said, exactly like he had earlier.
He was always saying things like that, and despite the fact that I never took him up on it, the offer never got rescinded. Maybe, someday, I’d find the guts.
Tonight, I couldn’t exacerbate his guilt with my fear. I couldn’t do anything to make him worry.
“Duly noted.”
He heaved a slight sigh, and we returned to the silence.
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