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solongsun Quick note: the next chapter is written, but I'm going away for a few days. If you are following this, I haven't abandoned it. Chapter six will be up on Thursday evening!
5
'Why do they call it a code grey, anyway?'
'Because when they stick you with the pento, it makes your vision go all grey and cloudy.'
Theatrical sigh. 'You're a swell guy, Kai, but sadly, you are as dumb as you look.'
'Can you two keep it down? I've read the same sentence about sixteen times because of you.'
'Oh, shut up, Uruha. You do everything a billion times in a row anyway; what difference does it make?'
Ruki's left cheek was aching. It was pressed against something very firm and flat.
'For your information, they call it a code grey because they have to call it code something, and code red is already fire and code blue is already—'
'The sexual frustration code? Code blue balls? Got it, got it. I mean, sadly, I do have it. Code blue over here.'
'You're disgusting, Aoi.'
Ruki frowned, and felt his brow contort against the hard surface. He thought it must be the floor, but why would he be lying on the floor? He blinked, and his eyelids felt gritty. He thought he had been asleep for a long time, and that he might have woken up a few times previously but he couldn't quite remember. It seemed that he should be able to remember, but when he tried, the knowledge slipped through his fingers and left him holding empty air.
'Look, he's waking up. Hello, new boy.'
Ruki blinked again, stubbornly. His vision swam and swayed. A dark shape in front of him gradually solidified; it was Aoi, and he was the right way up, peering down into Ruki's face.
It dawned on Ruki slowly that he was not lying down at all but sitting slumped in a corner of a small, dim room, and that the hard thing against his cheek wasn't the floor but was instead a padded wall. He tried to panic at that, at the padding, but found he couldn't. Groggily, he tried to push himself more upright.
'Take it easy, sleeping beauty. You're coming off your first blast of pentobarbital. We're your welcoming committee. Me – remember me? – and Kai, and Uruha. Kai's super glad you didn't choke on your own sick or anything, or do any major damage to yourself when you decided to go all psycho.'
'Shut up', Ruki said, but his tongue was moving slower than his brain was, and the words came out all slurred. Aoi's voice was sarcastic and loud and almost horribly clear, like a pickaxe driving into his ear.
'Hi, Ruki! Hi!' Kai bounded into Ruki's tunnel of view, almost toppling Aoi over in his clumsy eagerness, 'You haven't missed very much. You missed group therapy, of course, and you missed a movie, too, it was The Day the Earth Stood Still, it was on TV, and we got to stay up late to see the ending! And we listened to Die's new record, but I don't like The Doors as much as The Beatles. Hey, what's your favourite Beatles song?'
There was a long pause whilst Ruki tried to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. 'My favourite is With a Little Help from my Friends', Kai added helpfully.
Ruki's head felt heavy enough to keep nodding forward. He let it go. The floor was murky, his lap was murky; everything was murky. He felt sleep come and wipe him out cleanly, like chalk from a blackboard.
A few hours later, everything was a little clearer, and Ruki was able to stand up. He tested the feeling of his arms, hanging in space next to him, and tried to stretch out his aching back. He discovered that he'd been placed in an isolated room to sleep off the sedatives; he discovered that wasn't anything to worry about, just procedure.
It felt late in the day. The April sun was low in the sky and everything outside was gold-coloured. The wet smells of boiling vegetables, of institutional cooking, pervaded the corridor. A nurse came to help Ruki to the bathroom, where he used the toilet and brushed his teeth, and then she watched whilst he drank two whole glasses of cold tap water.
'Thirsty?' she asked. Ruki didn't dignify that with a response, but she didn't seem to mind. Her attitude was cheerful but impersonal. He was simply a card that had been dealt to her, he could see that; just one or another boring card in an identical pack, neither more distinguishable than the last.
'Dinner will be in twenty minutes. Would you like to relax in your room in the meantime, or head on down to the TV room?'
Ruki swallowed experimentally. His throat still felt dry.
'My room, I think. If that's okay.' He didn't really feel like talking to anybody. His mind felt woolly and thick, like it had been overstuffed with something. He couldn't see what was keeping it from simply flying apart.
'Of course that's okay. I'll take you there.'
'I don't need taking.'
'You'd be surprised. It can be very disorienting to—'
'I can find it.'
The nurse gave him a flat sort of look.
'I have to take you. It's procedure.'
'Right,' Ruki sighed, and allowed himself to be led.
'For the moment,' the nurse told him forthrightly, 'You're going to be monitored slightly more than usual, I'm afraid. We'll try not to make it too uncomfortable. But you'll need to have a nurse or an orderly with you all the time – that's what we call one-to-ones. You're not the only one; Shinya's on them for the time being, too. It's not a punishment,' she added quickly, seeing Ruki's scowl, 'But you understand that we need to make sure that you're safe.'
'Sure,' Ruki agreed tonelessly. The corridors looked very dull. Most of the bedroom doors were standing open; inside the rooms were empty. The perfectly made up beds had the look of mortuary slabs, flat and featureless with their identical grey blankets. Ruki felt a kind of shiver in his bones, and he dropped his gaze to the floor. He was concentrating so hard on his feet that he almost walked into somebody, and when he jerked backwards, he was surprised to discover that he didn't have to raise his head very much; the person was almost exactly on his eye level. It was Kyo, and the look he gave Ruki was an uncomfortable one; it was a look that told Ruki Kyo knew exactly how close he had been to crying.
At the same time, a strange sort of buzzing sensation ran over his skin. It wasn't unpleasant; it was light, almost cool-feeling, as if a breeze had passed over him; it was the feeling of being more present than usual – his skin more sensitive, his feet more solid on the ground. It was the feeling of being seen, different from being watched. Kyo's hands were down by his sides, and Ruki felt the most peculiar urge to grab one of them, to forge some sort of connection just to pass the feeling on; just to get somebody else to acknowledge it, so he'd know he wasn't mad.
Kyo looked away from him, pushed past to get into his own bedroom, and Ruki balled his hands into fists to stop them from shaking. He hoped Kai wouldn't be in his room. He wanted to close the door against everybody – except, of course, he couldn't.
One-to-ones, of course.
Dear E. O.—
Something happened today. The context is that I suppose I was coming around from being sedated, but I don't want to get into that. Even though I'm never going to send you these letters, I still don't want to bore you with loads of detail. You always said that was the problem with my work, that I was too focussed on the details and technicalities, and that I still needed to step back and take in the whole picture. 'We're still trying to make a beautiful image, Ruki.' Of course, you're a famous artist, so I didn't question it. But I like details. Maybe you should include more detail in YOUR work. You're welcome for the constructive criticism.
Everyone here is fucking crazy.
The strange thing that happened was that I had this weird encounter with another one of the patients here. I don't exactly know what was weird about it; just that it made me feel strange. I suppose everyone in places like this ends up talking about their feelings far too much, but it wasn't a feeling I've ever had before in my life.
Anyway, it made me think of you, because I think I must have looked at you about a hundred times and thought that I was really seeing you, the real you, the one that nobody else got to see. It's not anything to do with seeing a person naked. It's more like their spirit is naked. For me it felt like being super exposed, like I couldn't close my eyes. Can you imagine how vulnerable that would make you feel, and how raw and painful, not being able to close your eyes? I don't know if
He was interrupted by the nurse announcing it was five thirty; time for dinner. He shut his notebook with a snap, feeling surprisingly hungry; he supposed he hadn't eaten in a long while. His stomach had a strange feeling though, sickish from the sedatives, and the world shifted queasily around him as he got to his feet.
He cast a longing look back at his notebook and felt a surge of unhappiness like a punch in the stomach: he missed E. O. It shouldn't have been a surprise – their relationship had been turbulent, yes, but also wildly happy in its moments, and it had spanned two whole years – but the physicality of the sensation was a shock; Ruki hadn't known it would feel so much like a wave crashing into him. Longing, fierce and pure, burned in the pit of his stomach, and strangely enough, he didn't so much wish that he was with E. O., but that E. O. could be here with him.
As if he could have been the slightest bit of use.
Ruki dragged his feet down the corridor to dinner, dogged by the nurse, who peeled off at the doorway to the dining hall; there were already staff to cover dinner time. Inside it was as noisy as ever around the table, and most of the seats were taken: the only free ones were next to Shinya and between Uruha and Die. Ruki felt more like sitting with Shinya – the other man was quiet, at least, and wouldn't be likely to interrupt the buzzing in Ruki's head with bursts of his own wild static – but Shinya was placed opposite Kyo, and Ruki wasn't sure if he felt quite comfortable with that. He wasn't ready for his whole body to feel that hyper-sensitive again; he would much prefer to disappear. Quietly, he dropped into the seat between Die and Uruha.
'Newbie,' the redhead hailed him. Uruha ignored him entirely, his attention completely hooked into a book – The Local's Guide to England, today – and the fingers of his free hand flexing gently on the tabletop, over and over. The food wasn't here yet, but the smell of it was heavy in the air. Ruki turned to Die, and was momentarily surprised to see the redhead wearing some other expression than his ever-present, sunlit grin; his eyes were looking into empty space, and his face was a mask of pure apprehension. There was tension in his body, as well, pushing the veins and tendons to the surface of his poor, thin arms. The change was alarming, as if along with his smile Die had also taken off some kind of disguise, and as Ruki looked at his body – the jut of bones beneath his papery skin; the dark circles beneath his eyes; the way his cheekbones seemed to cut his face into quarters – he realised that he was looking at somebody who was different to him: Die was sick. He might even be dying, and if he was dying, it was because he was starving to death, and the only difference between him and those huge-eyed West African kids you saw on the news was that Die ostensibly had some choice about it.
There was a nurse sat on Die's other side, a balding man with a round sort of face. The food started to arrive on brown plastic trays delivered over their shoulders – a bowl of what looked like mixed meat and greens, a medium-sized bowl of steamed rice with a poached egg on top, the smallest bowl full of miso – and Ruki's stomach flipped over, both hungry and nauseated. Across the table, Kai met his eye.
'Eat slowly,' he advised brightly. 'And make sure you chew everything up. Otherwise you'll puke everywhere.'
'Yeah,' Aoi interjected, 'And puking after a meal is Die's job.'
The nurse shot him an angry look, but the grin had returned to Die's face.
'Asshole,' he said cheerfully, making no move to touch his food. There was just a slight mania in his eyes; just a slight grimness to the set of his smile. Ruki supposed the others could see it too, because their faces seemed to soften.
'Just don't think about it, okay?' Aoi said more quietly. 'Just think of it as moving something from one place to another. It doesn't get any bigger; the spaces don't change. Boxes don't get smaller because they're empty. Cupboards don't get any bigger because they're full.'
Die snorted.
'Work real hard in your exams and talk bullshit like that, and you could get to be...a therapist.'
'First mouthful, please, Die,' the nurse said, his voice low and steady: a warning to Aoi. 'Come on. Let's get going.'
On Ruki's other side, Uruha nudged him.
'This is Die's last chance,' he said into Ruki's ear. 'They already took away his own clothes and took away his grounds privileges. If he doesn't eat, they get to force feed him.'
A brief spasm of irritation crossed Uruha's face, and with a flinchlike little movement he nudged Ruki again, and again, and again – twelve times, whilst his face remained fixed and focussed. 'Sorry', he said rudely.
Ruki gave a shrug that he hoped would appear neutral.
'Don't mind him,' Aoi said. 'He's the craziest one in here, aren't you, Uru? See, Uruha has to nudge you a million times in a row because if he doesn't, then his house will burn down. Right?'
Busy now arranging his food into symmetrical patterns, Uruha contented himself with shooting Aoi a filthy look.
'You're so mean,' Kai said absently, lifting a long sliver of meat from his bowl and allowing the broth to drip from it.
'I'm not mean,' Aoi said. 'Hey, all you need is love, all right? Peace? Peace?'
Kai's face brightened immeasurably. 'There's nothing you can do that can't be done,' he carolled happily, his voice rising above the sound of chatter and cutlery scraping bowls, and the nurse next to Die reached over and touched Kai's wrist lightly. 'Little too loud,' he said, but kindly.
'There's nothing you can sing that can't be sung—'
'Kai!'
'There's nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game...' More people were singing now. Kai was still carrying on, joyfully, but Aoi had joined him with a glint in his eye, and as Ruki listened Die gratefully put down his chopsticks and added his voice to the choir: 'It's ea-syyy!'
'Boys – guys! Voices down!'
Ruki had the impression of reaching down inside himself for a larger voice than he'd taken to owning these days. He took a deep breath, and: 'Nothing you can make that can't be made.'
Aoi's face split into a wide grin.
'No one you can save that can't be saved—'
'Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time—'
'IT'S EA-SYYY!'
'All you need is love!' Kai trumpeted, 'All you need is love! All you need is love—'
Kai got pulled out of his chair, and most of the singing tore off in straggles. The room fell silent, and most of the eyes in the room swivelled back down to look at their trays. Kai had quieted, but was standing with a mostly expressionless face and a demeanour that suggested the hand on his upper arm was the only thing keeping him aloft.
It belonged to somebody that Ruki could immediately tell was more senior than the other nurses – this man seemed to radiate a great deal of authority, though at least it was a calm authority.
'All you need is love!' Kai said again suddenly, 'All you need is love!'
'Now, Kai. All right, Kai.''
'All you need is – love – all you need—'
'Come on, now, Kai. Let's sit down and eat our dinner quietly, all right? It's not time to sing right now, but when dinner time is over, if you're good for the nurses and take your medicine, we can put your song on the record player. How would that be?'
Kai's singing broke off raggedly, and he looked uncertainly around the table.
'That's right. How about sitting down?'
Still looking confused, Kai dropped like a stone into his chair. Carefully, the nurse or doctor or whatever he was removed his hand from Kai's shoulder, and stepped back: after a still moment, Kai picked up his chopsticks and began to eat, and the man gave an abbreviated smile to the round-faced nurse and left the room.
There was an uncomfortable silence in his wake, which Ruki hated. 'Who was that?' he asked lamely, trying to fill it.
'Him?' Die said. 'One of the therapists. Dr Sato. He's all right.'
'Less talking and more eating, please, Die.'
The redhead closed his eyes briefly, and Ruki suddenly noticed something: Die's pocket, the one on Ruki's side, had been empty before they'd sat down to the meal. Now, it was stuffed full with rice from Die's bowl.
The young men finished their meal with no more episodes or eruptions, and after they'd taken their evening medication – nothing for Ruki yet – they had gone into the music room, where The Beatles had been put on the record player as promised. Ruki walked past the open door and saw that Kai and Aoi were dancing wildly in there, that Die's one-to-one nurse was sitting on a chair whilst the redhead himself lay flopped on the floor, an easy smile on his face but an exhausted sort of look in his eyes. He had one leg crossed over the other, and he was jiggling it agitatedly. On another chair, Uruha was watching the dancers and tugging on his earlobe, and Aoi kept trying to entice him to his feet, and the nurse kept telling Aoi to leave him alone...
The whole scene made Ruki feel very small and tired. He didn't want to go and just sit in his room with his nurse – a different one from earlier, this one a very slight young woman with permed hair – and so he made his way to the TV room instead, which had the benefit of being almost empty at this hour. Shinya sat in a broken-down looking winged armchair, reading a thick book at what seemed to be an unfeasible speed – he was marking his sentence with his finger and his finger glided smoothly, uninterrupted, down the page – and nodding along absently to the faint music coming from down the hallway. Nobody else seemed to be around, but a thin column of cigarette smoke was rising from the sofa, and when Ruki walked a little further into the room he saw that Kyo was there, stretched out full on his back on the cushions and frowning slightly at the ceiling.
A strange fluttery feeling went through Ruki's body, a sort of dizzy jolting feeling, as if he'd been walking downstairs and had missed a step. Awkwardly, he raised a hand in greeting.
'Hello.'
The TV was on, but neither man seemed to be watching it. Kyo sat up, a weary expression on his face, and shifted back so his spine was pressed against the arm of the sofa and Ruki had room to sit down. Down the corridor, there was a very distant click and hiss as the record was changed. A few moments later, after a lot of murmury-sounding back-and-forth discussion, there was another click and the hissing stopped and The Beach Boys started in with Wouldn't It Be Nice.
'I heard you tried to kill yourself,' Kyo said finally.
'I heard you've been here longer than anybody,' Ruki countered, sounding braver than he felt; a slight flicker of a smile crossed Kyo's face.
'Correct. Yours?'
'I don't know. I...I don't know. I didn't want to kill myself.'
'No?'
'No.' Ruki swallowed. 'I just – wanted everything to stop. I'm not crazy.'
Kyo raised an eyebrow. 'Nor are we.'
Involuntarily, Ruki's eyes flicked towards Shinya, and Kyo gave a strange dry bark of a laugh. When he spoke, though, his voice was humourless: 'Shinya isn't crazy.'
Carefully, Shinya marked his place and looked up from his book. 'It's true,' he agreed in his quiet, level voice. 'I'm not, at least not all the time. I suppose you saw me for the first time on a bad day, but the bad days aren't all that regular. The new drugs are better. If it wasn't for the bad days, I wouldn't have to live here.'
He gave Ruki a small smile. 'Maybe that's hard to believe, but it's really true. I've never tried to hurt myself, or anybody else. But once I had a dream that inside I was full of wires and receptors and microphones, you see. And it didn't stop.' He gave his pretty head a slight shake.
Unsure what to say to this strange pronouncement, Ruki contented himself with nodding his head. The strangeness of the two people in front of him made him miss E. O. so much it seemed to ache. He couldn't imagine how wonderful it would be to be with somebody who was predictable, even if he sulked predictably and kissed predictably and initiated sex predictably; always the same rote moves; the same lapses into moody silence – even the artistic tantrums predictable, the tipping over of an easel predictable; never done with quite enough force to actually damage the frame or, god forbid, the canvas.
And, yes, after they slept together he would lie in bed predictably, with the sheets shoved down to his waist because he was proud of how his chest and stomach looked and wanted Ruki to appreciate them. And he would light a cigarette, and he would watch himself in the mirror as he smoked it, and his eyes would meet Ruki's that way – both of them looking at his smoky, foggy reflection.
Hi again, E. O. I can't remember what I was writing earlier. I put 'I don't know if' and then I stopped.
I don't know anything. I miss you.
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Great chapter, great series. I'm already addicted. I'm loving seeing Ruki learn more about those around him, everything so subtle and yet so obvious too.
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