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solongsun Since early childhood, Kaoru has been using doors to travel backwards and forwards through time: a motion he is sometimes able to control, and sometimes not. At the age of 22, he opens a door to the long-ago autumn of 1996 and finds something he never expected – a man who, decades before Kaoru's birth, seems to know exactly who he is...
It's right there in front of him, and it looks like the door of his closet, but instead of the little wooden handle it's got the brass doorknob.
Kaoru turns blindly into the whiteness, not wanting to. The white is spread out all around him in every direction and the door is the only object maybe for miles and miles; for at least as far as he can see. He wonders how far people can see. Twenty miles? Thirty? Forty?
Forty is the highest number he knows; everything gets a bit vague and muddled after that.
He turns back to the door, his small face creased with uncertainty. He doesn't want to go, but all the time he's standing still the door feels like it's pulling him; it feels like the end of bath time, when the plug comes out and the drain sort of sucks all the water down. It feels like it's getting stronger, and Kaoru hunches down on the floor and puts his head low so it has less of him to get at.
He wonders what would happen if he didn't go through the door. Would he wake up, or would he be stuck in the white place forever? Is he still asleep in his bed right now, or not?
Struck by a sudden curiosity he starts to edge his way around the door, trying to avoid its strange pull and get to the other side of it. He navigates it in a wide circle, but when he gets to the other side he finds it's just the same. It's not like the inside of his closet door, which has a mirror on it and some stickers. It's got two fronts – unless he didn't really go around it. Everything is so white and featureless that it's hard to tell, and he starts to doubt himself.
It feels like the only way to be sure is to stand right by the side of the door and touch both sides at once. Then he can stick his head around and see if they're both the same or not. Carefully he inches closer, feeling the horrible drag of the thing stronger than ever, and when he gets right up near it he reaches around.
His finger just brushes the doorknob and there's a click as, without him really turning it at all, the door unlatches.
Kaoru sucks in a deep breath. The pull is much stronger now, coming right from his middle, and he grips the door frame hard. He can feel his heart beating very hard in his chest, making him feel sick. Very cautiously he pokes his head around and looks.
The door's open just a crack, and inside it's...weird. Small. Squinting his eyes, he edges slightly closer, trying to make it out; it's dark and there's something all moving in there, but tiny, sort of like a mass of insects all crawling over each other. He swallows hard and realises that he can smell it, and the smell is smoke and sweat and something sort of bitter and foggy, savoury. He inches just a little closer and he can hear it, too; like distant music, something being played too far away to make out, and Kaoru reaches—
It's loud.
Kaoru clamps his hands down over his ears hard and whimpers, a five year old body with skinny limbs in a mess of adults, legs all around him like a thick forest. They're bumping him, jostling him; the music is too loud to take and they're all dancing to it, spilling their drinks. The dancing they're doing is violent, and Kaoru feels confused and scared; he ducks down on the floor and starts to crawl, wincing when a cold drink gets sloshed down the back of his neck. Somebody stomps down hard on his hand and there's a cracking sound that makes him cry out, but it's inaudible over the din of the music. The floor is sticky and dirty, and he realises it's getting his pyjamas dirty too; how will he explain that?
Maybe they'll have to believe him, if they see how he got all grubby and knocked around. His hand is starting to get all puffy and it's not moving properly. It hurts a lot when he tries, so carefully he uses his good hand to push himself to his feet. Immediately somebody knocks into him and sends him flying; he's saved from falling completely over by the body of another person, who turns to see what's hit them. Kaoru tries to back away, but a big hand reaches out and grabs his shoulder, and suddenly he's being steered through the crowd. The adult who's taken hold of him is letting him use his body like a sort of shield or bolster so he doesn't get knocked around so much, and it's a relief. Gradually, the two of them make their way out of the crowd, and Kaoru would breathe a sigh of relief but it's still too noisy and his hand is really, really hurting now, sending shooting pains through him that make him feel like he's going to throw up everywhere. Nauseated, he swallows hard, feeling his mouth flooding with thin saliva.
He gets a chance to look around and sees that the music is coming from the front of the room, where there's a stage set up; there are three people playing instruments and one singing, and two of them even have guitars! Although one of the guitars looks funny to Kaoru when he squints; a bit too big and not enough strings; there are supposed to be six, he feels pretty sure about that. Six is one of his favourite numbers, because it's the age he'll be next year. The room's not as big as he thought it was; he might have been going around in circles when he was in the crowd. He feels sort of stupid about that.
That's all he really gets to see, because the hand on his shoulder is urging him onwards, and he gets pushed firmly through some black double doors and into a draughty, dim sort of corridor, where the walls are painted cinder blocks and the lights in the ceiling are blinking a bit. The music isn't as loud out here at all; it's distant and kind of echoey. Kaoru stumbles, trying to look around himself too quickly, and the hand on his shoulder grips him roughly as they approach another door. He wonders if he's in trouble.
He peers upwards and see that the hand holding onto him is big with a few black hairs on the knuckles, and it belongs to a person who is equally big and has that smoky smell inside their clothes, making Kaoru's nose wrinkle up.
Suddenly, he gets a feeling that's very, very bad. He wriggles, but the hand holds tight. He tries to stop walking, but the man dragging him doesn't stop and so he nearly falls. There's another door coming up and Kaoru's almost relieved to find that he can read the sign on it, because there aren't many words he can read, but this one he sees a lot: it says toilet and there's the little man symbol.
But he doesn't want to go inside, and the man is sort of trying to make him, and he's struggling.
'I don't need to go,' he says, and hears the high, nervous sort of note in his voice. He pushes back against the hand, and the man has the door open, and Kaoru can smell the toilet. His stomach churns, and then the man grabs his bad hand and squeezes it sharply and Kaoru's vision goes funny, like it's all washing over with black, and he can hear his own breathing like it's coming from outside of his head.
The music is still audible, but quite faint now. He concentrates on it hard, squeezing his eyes shut. He supposes the man must have pushed him or moved him somehow, because when he opens them again it's because the man has let him go, and is busy pushing the door shut and locking it behind them.
It smells bad in here. The floor is dirty. There's a sink and a toilet and the man does something Kaoru can't understand; he puts the toilet seat down and then sort of stands over it, so far back that he's leaning on the cistern a bit. He gestures for Kaoru to come closer, and Kaoru shakes his head.
'I don't need to go,' he says again, but the man reaches out and pulls him. His thigh hits against the edge of the toilet hard and he gets that weird feeling again, like everything he can see is foggy. He feels two big hands come up under his armpits, and then he's being lifted right up in the air. The man sort of stands him on the toilet seat and then turns him around so Kaoru's back is against his chest, and he can see his own face in the mirror. It's weird how pale his face is; it's way too white, and his eyes look like dark holes with vivid blue circles underneath. The mirror is too low for him to see the man's face, though; he can only see his hands. One of them is holding onto Kaoru's belly and the other one is busy doing something between their bodies; there's a metallic sort of sound like a buckle, and then Kaoru hears a zipping noise that seems to make all his hairs stand up.
'I want to go home,' he says quietly, and the hand on his belly starts to rub there slowly. Kaoru watches, his eyes wide and round, as it goes under the dirty shirt of his pyjamas, against his bare skin.
He realises that he should struggle or fight or something, but he can't move. All of his bones and muscles seem to have locked together and he's frozen, hypnotised by the sight of his own terrified brown eyes in the mirror. He's like the neighbour's cat that stands stiff when it sees other cats and just stares and stares; he's like a woodlouse rolling itself into a ball; he's like the foxes that get dazzled by the headlights of his mother's car and gaze straight at them, not moving, just sort of waiting to die like they're trapped there.
He makes some small noise in the back of his throat but it's not words; it's just a sound. The man's other hand is moving rhythmically behind him and he can feel it knocking gently against his lower back. He watches his pyjama shirt get shoved up under his armpits, revealing his skinny chest. He can see the way his fast breathing is making his chest go up and down, and he can see the frightened rabbit skip of his heart under his skin. The hand behind his back is moving faster, and the hand that's on him goes to the waist of his pyjama pants, dips underneath them and goes between his legs and squeezes.
Something weird happens then, which is that Kaoru stops being inside his body. He starts to inhabit the air and the faint music floating within it, the yellow of the light, the smell of damp.
Then the wall opens up like a mouth.
The man behind Kaoru freezes, his hands going completely still, and they both stare at the wall. Through the hole it's dark but there's some kind of busyness to it, like looking through a kaleidoscope, and Kaoru's eyes are so wide that he thinks he can see the tiny movements of it, something like gears or cogs turning; something like loads of little particles or atoms rushing together and creating something, inventing a man, who steps through the wall as it closes behind him.
He's not surprised in the way that they are, and Kaoru recognises him as the man from the graveyard; the one who gave him the cool jacket to wear. The graveyard man isn't looking at him though; he's looking at the man behind Kaoru, and the expression on his face is hard to read because it's mostly anger but there's something else, too, like one of those words that means sadness but more so, like sorrow or misery.
Kaoru catches sight of himself in the mirror and he realises that his whole body is shaking. There's a funny clicking noise in his head and it's his teeth banging together. There's a warm wetness down his pyjama legs and on the lid of the toilet, and he sees with a kind of dreamy shame that as he's been standing there he's wet himself without noticing it.
The graveyard man steps forward and touches Kaoru's shoulders; strokes his hair. He looks him seriously in the face and then gently he pulls the shirt of his pyjamas back into place and picks him up, holding him so Kaoru's face is huddled against his shoulder and his legs are either side of the man's waist, even though he's all wet. He can't stop shivering, and he bites at his tongue because it takes his mind off the huge desire to vomit that's blowing up inside him like a balloon. When he looks over the graveyard man's shoulder he can see the mirror, and the reflection is mostly the graveyard man's back and his own dangling legs but he can also see the man standing over the toilet, just bits of him, and Kaoru can see that he's standing like he's been electrocuted and that his pants are open and that his private parts are all out and swollen grotesquely. He hides his face in the graveyard man's shoulder again.
'Leave,' the graveyard man says, and his voice sounds calm but his whole body is shaking just like Kaoru's is. Kaoru doesn't look, but he hears the sound of stumbling footsteps over the damp floor, and then the lock going back and the sound of the door as it slams open then swings closed again.
The graveyard man breathes out a long sigh that ruffles Kaoru's hair. They wait in silence for a while; Kaoru can't tell how long. His thoughts feel all funny, slow and vague and milky in colour; they drift through him and he can't grab at them.
Finally the graveyard man says, 'Let's go.' Kaoru doesn't answer. The man starts walking, opening the door with a kick, and Kaoru blinks when they're back out in the cinder block corridor. The graveyard man keeps walking, going a different way, and there's another door and then they're outside, in the soot-smelling, rainy city night. It's cold, but Kaoru can't really feel it very clearly. None of him seems to be working too well. Even his hurt hand doesn't seem to be aching any more; it just hangs at the end of his arm like a stupid dead glove.
Out on the streets, the graveyard man seems to know where they're going. He carries Kaoru down a little alleyway where it's quiet and lit up by a street lamp and then finally sets him down. Kaoru notices, in the routine kind of way that you notice the colour of somebody's eyes, that the brass doorknob is jutting out of the wall on one side. He doesn't make any attempt to go for it, however.
The graveyard man takes off his cool jacket and puts it around Kaoru's shoulders again. His hands are shaking badly; he can pull it closed but he can't manage to fasten it. His breath is coming out of him weirdly, all staggered and halting and sharp, and Kaoru sees that his eyes are red.
'I'm really sorry, kid,' he says in a low, broken-up kind of voice. Kaoru doesn't answer. Instead he does a stupid baby thing that he's not supposed to do any more; he puts the thumb of his good hand into his mouth and starts to suck on it. The graveyard man kneels down in front of him, puts his hands on Kaoru's shoulders and says very clearly, 'That wasn't your fault.'
Kaoru looks straight ahead, at his neck.
'That man was wrong,' the graveyard man says, 'He was bad.' He touches just above Kaoru's wrist on the arm that's still dangling by his side. 'You've broken a few bones,' he says. 'It'll hurt, but there's nothing to be scared of. Your mum will take you to the hospital, and they can make it better.'
His thumb jammed securely in his mouth, Kaoru gives his head a slow shake. The graveyard man falters.
'Kaoru,' he says, his voice hoarse but gentle, 'Kaoru, it's okay. It's over now. You can go back and wake up your mum and—'
'Won't believe me,' Kaoru mumbles around his thumb. The graveyard man hesitates.
'No,' he says gently, 'She won't.'
Kaoru feels himself start to cry. His shoulders go all bent in and something feels like a big hand has grabbed his lungs and is squeezing them so hard he can't breathe properly.
'Don't want to travel,' he says.
'Kaoru—'
'No.'
'Kaoru, it's okay.'
'No,' he says, trying to make his voice firmer. There's snot running down over his upper lip; disgusting. His wet pyjamas feel cold and clammy now, clinging damply to his legs.
'Don't want to travel,' Kaoru says again, and the graveyard man carefully wipes his face.
'I know,' he says softly, 'I know. It's okay.'
'I do it in my sleep.'
The man hesitates. 'Yeah. It'll happen less as you get older. You grow out of it, mostly.'
'It'll still happen.'
Pause. 'Yeah.'
There's a long silence, and the graveyard man sighs. 'Kaoru, I know you're really scared right now. I know you're wishing that you could find some way to stop travelling completely, but you can't. It's just the way you are.'
'Don't want to.'
'I know.' His voice sort of cracks a bit. 'I know, but it'll get better, I promise. There'll come a time when you'll feel like you can't wait to travel, and you'll be looking out for the door all over the place, I promise.' He swipes his hand quickly under his own eyes. 'Kaoru, I know you have questions. Sometimes there are so many questions, you feel like you can't fit them all into your head. Right now you're not thinking about them; right now it feels like you can't think about anything much. But they'll come back.' He pulls in a breath. 'In a few weeks, you're going to see me again, and I can answer some of the questions for you. It's all going to be all right.'
Kaoru bites down on his thumb.
'Home,' he mumbles, and the graveyard man nods.
'The doorknob is right there,' he says gently.
Like a robot, Kaoru takes off the jacket that the graveyard man put around him. He reaches out for the doorknob with his swollen hand and turns it even though it makes a horrible sick, grinding pain go all down his arm.
He vanishes, and the wall is just a wall again.
Alone in the alleyway, Kaoru picks up his jacket and gets woodenly to his feet. He puts it on, feels where it's still warm from his own childhood body, and reaches out for the wall to support himself.
He cries almost silently, gasping softly for breath.
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