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solongsun The little calendar on Sato's desk read December 20, and outside the window the hills were completely obscured. Everything was the same colour; trees, hills, sky; everything the same aching and empty white. The days were all the same colour, too, each one blending pointlessly into the next. Time did not seem to be passing so much as stalling, the days backing up in great lumps, and Monday was a void that eventually swallowed up Tuesday, and Wednesday sank fatly over the tops of the walls and oozed down over the people within, and the whole thing was so thick and so stultifying that it seemed nobody could move even an inch.
December 20 was a Thursday, so it had been four days; only four days.
The thought was remarkable.
In front of the desk Ruki jittered in place, biting on his fingernails and waiting for Sato to close the door. As soon as it swung shut he ripped at his nail hard enough to feel it tear – it stung uselessly – and the doctor eyed him.
'Ruki—'
'You've got to help,' Ruki interrupted him quickly.
Standing by the door, Sato suddenly looked very old. There were white hairs in his neatly trimmed moustache and around his temples, and the hair on the very top of his head was thin enough to see through. Wearily, he walked over to his desk and sat himself heavily down behind it.
'It's not me,' Ruki continued, tripping over his words in his haste to get them out, 'I know I'm being punished; I don't care, that's fine. But you have to get Kyo out of that room.'
'This isn't the time to talk about that.'
'You have to get him out.'
'Ruki, these sessions are about you—'
'They're torturing him,' he said, so loudly that he surprised himself. Sato blinked at him.
'He's perfectly safe,' he said after a moment's silence, and Ruki gritted his teeth.
'That isn't true,' he said, 'and you know it. I can hear him in there, and he's suffering, and you have to get him out now.'
There was a pause. The doctor uncapped and recapped his pen.
'Some psychologists,' he said lightly, 'Believe that this kind of treatment can be a useful therapy for patients in Kyo's condition. A sort of forced confrontation with – ah, with various elements of the psychosis, in a controlled environment—'
'I saw him,' Ruki said flatly, 'You know how? Two orderlies were escorting me into the bathroom for my shower whilst two orderlies were escorting him out after his. His hair was still dripping wet, and he only had one arm in his T-shirt, but they were shoving him into the isolation room anyway. As soon as he saw they meant to put him back in there, he went pale, and he started struggling. He was begging them. All he was saying was no, please, over and over but they forced him in and shut the door anyway. He didn't even see me.'
When he blinked the image seemed superimposed on his eyelids again; Kyo pinned like an insect between the two nurses, his eyes wide, almost hypnotised by panic. Something hard seemed to lodge itself in his throat. 'You need to get him out, doctor. Please. I know you don't agree with this; I – I know you can't agree with this, because you're good. And...' he hesitated, looking the doctor in the eye nervously, 'And I trust you.'
Sato gave a soft sigh that ruffled his moustache. Quietly, he steepled his hands beneath his chin.
'I disagree with the punishment,' he said carefully, 'But there's nothing I can do. I'm no longer Kyo's doctor; those kinds of decisions aren't mine to make any more.'
'There's got to be something you can do,' Ruki argued quickly, 'Talk to his doctor; talk to the nurses! Anything. Anything. He's been in there for four days – longer, because he was in there when I was out of it – even if you can just get him a – an hour out, just to see some daylight—'
'It's out of my hands,' Sato said, his voice gentle but firm, and Ruki struggled.
'But there has to be something!' he burst, wringing his hands violently, 'You – you're a doctor! Didn't you take some kind of oath? You're going to just sit there and let this happen?!'
'I am going to continue to reason with my colleagues,' Sato said calmly, and Ruki slammed his clenched fist down on the arm of his chair.
'That's not good enough! This isn't right; you know this isn't right but you won't do—'
'Think,' Sato interrupted him, his voice firm, 'Just think, Ruki. Currently, there's nothing I can do. Do you want me to storm over there and unlock the door? I can promise you that they'll lock him back in straight away, I will lose my job, and then there is one less person in this building looking out for his welfare.'
Unsure what to say, Ruki simply glowered at him, fingernails digging into the arms of the chair. Eventually, he sighed.
'Why is it like this?' he mumbled. 'I've never seen him do anything bad, but some of the staff act like they hate him.'
The doctor took a cigarette out of his shiny case, propped it between his lips, and lit it. He offered Ruki the pack, but he waved it away impatiently.
Then he did something Ruki had never seen him do before: before speaking, he glanced towards the door, as if making sure it was still shut.
'They don't hate Kyo,' Sato said shortly, 'They fear him. Fear is a very ugly emotion, Ruki, and everybody is scared of something. Of course, you weren't here a few years ago, when the choice was made to move Kyo down to this ward; you can't know what it was like. There was almost a revolt. With his past being what it is...the staff down here considered it unwise to take him off such a controlled ward. Many of the staff left.'
'But the ones who stayed must have been around him for years now,' Ruki argued stubbornly, 'They should be able to see that he's safe.'
Sato hesitated. 'He attacked an orderly, Ruki. Orderly Yamamoto is—'
'He was hurting me,' Ruki said staunchly, 'That's the only reason why. Kyo – I think he was trying to protect me.'
'Yamamoto's behaviour was unacceptable, Ruki; please don't think it's being overlooked. But Kyo's reaction was disproportionate.'
Ruki made a frustrated noise, 'Because he was scared!'
'It's not good enough,' Sato said simply, 'He needs to exercise impulse control. Ruki, we really shouldn't be talking about this; these sessions are supposed to be about you.'
Ruki sat back in his chair, crossing his arms defiantly over his chest. The doctor sighed.
'I should warn you,' he said, 'That after this session I'm supposed to report on the efficacy of your punishment; whether I can sign off on it being safe for you to mingle on the ward as usual. I don't believe it's beneficial to anybody's mental health to be cooped up in one room, but you will have to give me some positive evidence here, Ruki.'
'Like what?' he asked flatly.
'Like some remorse for what you've done; like evidence that you're coping with your negative feelings in a healthy way, rather than lashing out at—'
'I was not attacking her!' Ruki interrupted, gripping the arms of his chair hard, 'I was just trying to get to—'
'It doesn't matter,' Sato said sharply, 'You must understand that. This is not a trial, Ruki; this is not about whether or not you're guilty of anything. Don't you see that decision has already been made? Calm down, and think. You're a much, much stronger person than you were when you first came in here; use that strength. I know you're concerned about your friends, but I need you to focus on yourself. You have a life to live, Ruki, outside of here. Don't forget about that.'
There was a short silence, then, during which time Sato rubbed his temples and Ruki bit his lip, trying to take deep breaths and slow down the thrashing of his heart. He exhaled softly.
'I am sorry for what I did,' he said carefully, 'I'm sorry that it's affected so many people.'
'By which I will generously assume you mean the nurses and orderlies,' Sato said, 'Carry on.'
'I do know that what I did was...wrong. And I have learned some better ways to calm myself down.'
'Such as?'
'Such as...deep breathing, and counting to ten, and trying to view my situation objectively.'
'Very good,' Sato said quietly. He made a few notes, and then set his pen down on his desk. 'Do you want to leave, Ruki?'
'I...of course I do.'
'If I said you could go tomorrow, would you do it?'
'Oh.' Ruki faltered. 'I mean – I would. But...no. Because what about—?'
Once again, Ruki was struck by the strange impression that Sato was really quite an old man. The doctor stared at him for a few moments and then slowly leant back, easing open one of his desk drawers and pulling out a large, padded envelope.
'Your letter,' he said gently, 'From Iwamiya.'
He slid it over the desk and nonplussed, Ruki took it.
'This is a different envelope,' he said doubtfully, 'Did you...?'
'The original letter is inside there. Still sealed,' Sato added a little wryly.
Uncertainly, Ruki looked at him. He held the envelope very carefully with the tips of his fingers.
'There's something else in here.'
'Perhaps.'
'So what am I supposed to—'
'It's up to you what you do with it,' Sato said neatly, 'You might find it useful and you might not; in any case it's not up for discussion. It's your choice and I want you to make it without any outside influence.'
'Right,' Ruki said dubiously. He squeezed the envelope gently: it was thick, as though there was a lot inside it. He frowned up at the doctor.
'This is something I shouldn't open in front of any of the staff,' he said slowly, 'Isn't it?'
Sato just shrugged. 'There's nothing forbidden in there, but both you and I will certainly invite less questions that way.'
'Right,' Ruki said again, though his voice sounded just as unsure. He hugged the envelope to his chest uncomfortably.
'Before you open the letter from Iwamiya,' Sato said gently, 'Please remember that I feel you're ready to leave; that's my professional opinion. But you have to want it.'
Dumbly, Ruki just nodded, and Sato sighed and got to his feet.
'Come along, then. It's time for me to take you back.'
With nobody around, the corridors felt wrong. Every door was closed, giving the place a claustrophobic feel; from the isolation room, all was quiet.
It was so silent that Ruki's own pulse felt loud, following him down the corridor like footsteps. When he pushed open the door to his dorm the quiet seemed to get thicker; he saw that Toshiya was asleep, sprawled out over his bed. He was spending a lot of time sleeping, these days.
The room was cold, and Ruki climbed onto his bed and pulled the covers up around his shoulders. He thought of Aoi, and the way his bed sheet had been used to tie him down, stuck up there in a place where there was no darkness.
And Kyo, stuffed into a room where there was no light.
Wouldn't anybody go out of their mind? Didn't everybody, when they looked for long enough, start to see things in the dark?
As quietly as possible, he began easing the flap of the envelope open. He was about halfway done when Toshiya stirred, his brow knitting, and as he brought up one of his big hands to rub at his eyes Ruki shoved the envelope hastily under his bed.
'Hey, cellmate,' Toshiya yawned, blinking at him sleepily, 'Too bad you're back. I was hoping I'd get to jerk off again.'
'Tough luck.'
'Tough luck for you,' Toshiya countered, stretching, 'I don't know that I'm gonna be able to restrain myself.'
'Nice,' Ruki said sourly, and Toshiya snorted.
'As if you're not going at yourself as soon as the door closes behind me. I mean, it's not like there's anything else to do.'
Ruki chose to ignore that. He pulled the blanket tighter around himself and watched as Toshiya switched on the radio, never far out of reach. It hissed into life, and Toshiya pulled a face.
'Why can't it ever remember what station it was last tuned to?'
'It's all right,' Ruki said defensively, and Toshiya gave him a curious look. Ruki shrugged inside his blanket. 'It was Kai's,' he muttered, trying not to meet his roommate's eye. Toshiya didn't seem to have anything to say to that, so he busied himself with twisting the dial this way and that, sometimes getting a quick snatch of song and sometimes an advert, sometimes a burst of chatter, now a sedate voice reading a news bulletin, now an excitable voice saying The Condors with their 1962 Motown hit—
'Shit!' Toshiya frantically dialled it back, the radio fuzzing with static; there was a jittery pause that turned into I'm back to show you I can really shake 'em down and he grinned, dropping the radio happily onto his bed and getting to his feet. 'C'mon, depressive,' he said lightly, holding out his hand. 'You can smile. I promise I won't tell anybody.'
'There's nothing to smile about,' Ruki said flatly, and Toshiya rolled his eyes. He stood in the middle of the room for the moment, the radio blaring, and then a slow smile spread across his face. Keeping his gaze fixed on Ruki in his little igloo of blankets, he set one foot carefully in front of the other and started to do the twist.
For a second the two of them simply stared at each other.
'I can mash potato,' he sang softly, 'I can do the twist...' he wobbled and almost overbalanced; the space between their two beds was almost too narrow to contain his long legs, and his spiky figure seemed to be everywhere at once.
'What are you doing,' Ruki said uneasily, and Toshiya leant forward and took hold of both of his wrists.
'Tell me baby, do you like it like this?'
Up close, Ruki thought, he looked ill. Sweat shone on his forehead and in the hollow of his throat and his skin was pale and waxy; his grip on Ruki's wrists was surprisingly strong, though, and reluctantly Ruki allowed himself to be dragged to his feet.
'C'mon,' Toshiya said a little breathlessly, holding up Ruki's arms and twirling dizzily beneath them, 'You're not helping anybody this way. You freaked out when I said Kyo was in the isolation room, so he must have been in there before, right?'
'Yes,' Ruki agreed grudgingly.
'So what'd you do last time?'
'We locked ourselves in the music room and turned the record player up full.'
'So can't you just...?'
'We're stuck in here,' Ruki said irritably, 'And there's no record player, so unless you're planning to pull one out of somewhere very special—'
'We've got the radio,' Toshiya said, 'And after that performance a few days ago, you seriously want me to believe that you can't yell loud enough to be heard? He's only across the hall.' Clearing his throat, he dragged Ruki closer to the door.
'Do you love me?' he jabbed Ruki enthusiastically in the ribs.
'Do you love me?' Ruki mumbled, embarrassed, and Toshiya nodded wildly.
'Do you love me?' he urged, his own volume rising; louder, he mouthed, and Ruki frowned.
'Do you love me?'
'Nowww,' Toshiya warbled, 'That I can daaa-aaaa-aaance—'
'Watch me now!' Die's voice yelled suddenly from across the hall, and Ruki and Toshiya shot each other quick glances, Toshiya clearly delighted and Ruki with a strange sort of hopefulness rising in his chest, because if Die could join in then he could hear them, and if Die could hear them then...
'Ah, work it out baby!' the three of them bawled all together, 'Oh, you're driving me crazy! With a little bit of soul now—'
Toshiya grinned and spun Ruki around; raised his arms above his head and started to swing his hips, 'I can mash potato—'
'I CAN MASH POTATO!'
'I can do the twist—'
'I CAN DO THE TWIST!'
'Now tell me baby—'
'TELL ME BABY!'
'Do you like it like this?'
'DO YOU LIKE IT LIKE THIS?'
'Tell me!' Die yelled.
'Tell me!'
'Tell me!'
The door opened with a snap, sending the two of them stumbling back. In the doorway, the nurse on duty regarded them sternly, and held her hand out for the radio.
Flopping down on his bed, Toshiya pushed his sweaty hair out of his face, lividly blue circles showing up under his eyes. He gave a loose shrug.
'It was worth it,' he said, sounding out of breath, and even as he handed over the radio he gave the nurse a beatific smile.
The rest of the day passed in a slow, heavy sort of daze. In the middle of the afternoon the sun came out and then barely moved, its light shimmering innocently on the snow as, inside the hospital, Ruki and Toshiya watched it from the window and silently begged it to start its slow descent below the horizon. Birds seemed to hang in mid air, and the clouds looked painted on. There wasn't a breath of wind.
To Ruki, even his own heartbeat sounded slow and ponderous in his ears, and outside of his own head the silence was huge. Toshiya seemed to have lost his energy; he flopped down onto his bed with a book and turned the pages in slow motion, a muscle working away constantly in his jaw and his shoulders unusually tense. Even with the window open, the air smelled stale.
At half past five, their dinner was brought in on two trays; rice with fish and mixed greens. After a day of sitting around, neither of them had much appetite, and Ruki watched as Toshiya stirred through his food in much the same way as he had stirred through the pages of his book, his chopsticks dangling limply from his fingers.
'I suppose we're lucky,' he said dully when the food had been taken away, watching as darkness began to gather in the edges of the windowpane.
'How d'you figure?' Ruki asked. He wanted a cigarette, but he'd run out, and he he shifted on the bed uncomfortably. This room was so small.
'We're together,' Toshiya said. 'We have each other, at least. Somebody to talk to.'
The two of them smiled at each other a little weakly, and Toshiya sat back against his pillow. 'What'd you do before this?'
'Before...coming here? I was in art school.'
Toshiya whistled lowly. 'Cool.'
'Not really. I got kicked out. Did you ever go anywhere like that?'
'Art school?'
'Or regular college, or...'
Smiling a little wryly, Toshiya shook his head. 'I'm far too dumb,' he said lightly. 'Didn't even finish high school.'
'Why not?'
He shrugged. 'I don't know. One day I woke up and I felt like I'd just had enough. So I went to school, and then halfway through the day I walked out. Never went back.'
'Wow. What'd your parents say?'
Toshiya shrugged. 'I don't know. I never went back to them, either.'
Ruki frowned at him. 'So you just...left?'
'Yep.'
'But...why?'
Toshiya paused. 'I don't know,' he said, and Ruki could tell from his tone of voice that it was the truth, 'It was like I just got sick of everything, just then.'
Ruki snorted. 'You sound like such a cool guy,' he said before he could stop himself, 'Like somebody from a movie. “I just got sick of everything, just then”.'
'Well, I am a very cool guy,' Toshiya said, straight-faced. 'I wouldn't have expected a loser like you to notice.'
'Yeah, you can do the mashed potato dance and everything, right?'
'And I can do the twist,' Toshiya added.
Tiredly, they grinned at each other, but there didn't seem to be anything more to say. Toshiya stared off into space, and Ruki lowered his eyes reluctantly to the pencil in his hand, and about ten minutes of silence passed before one of the nurses unlocked the door and told them it was time for their showers.
Every second outside of the room felt precious. Ruki was conscious of brushing his teeth extra thoroughly, to eke out his time; when he got in the shower he washed himself all over twice, and spent almost ten minutes using his fingers to detangle his hair under the spray. In the cubicle next to him, Toshiya didn't seem to be moving at all; the water splattered over the tiled floor with a telltale regularity, and the hint of his shadow that was visible under the partition was completely still.
The bathroom felt like a luxury; the way it echoed, the coolness and freshness of the tile. Ruki scrubbed himself until he felt his skin was glowing, and it was only when the water started to turn lukewarm that he reluctantly cranked it off and began to towel himself dry. He chased every stray droplet of water over his skin; by the time he put his clothes back on, his body was entirely dry.
He drew back the lock and met Toshiya's curious eyes.
'What?' he asked stupidly, and Toshiya shrugged.
'The nurse has gone,' he said slowly.
Ruki looked at him. Carefully, as though they might be stepping into some sort of a trap, they made their way to the bathroom door, and Ruki opened it whilst Toshiya peered down the hallway.
Die was standing outside of his bedroom door, looking uncertain. The nurse was seated behind her desk at the nurses' station, paying them no mind.
'Knew they couldn't do it forever,' Die said hoarsely. He stepped forward to tap on Uruha's door, and when he didn't get a response he gingerly turned the handle. 'Uru?'
Stepping down the hallway, Ruki had the impression of a pair of dark eyes shining at them from the gloom. Slowly, Uruha got to his feet and walked out towards them, his footsteps shuffling like an old man's. In the music room, somebody was playing the piano.
'That'll be Shinya,' Ruki said pointlessly.
The four of them didn't seem to know what to do; they stood around as if dazed. Uruha leant his body against the wall, watching Die a little pensively. He was standing still, Ruki realised belatedly, not twitching or tapping or even visibly counting. His breathing and blinking seemed to be normal.
It was startling, the way it seemed to change him; the transformation from twitching, shuttering mental patient to this calm, tall, self-assured looking young man. He could have been a college student, somebody with his own tiny studio apartment and a leather satchel to carry his books around campus; somebody who was on their way up, their path straight and clear; somebody who knew what their place was in the world.
It was like he was a different person, and Ruki realised he wasn't the only one who had noticed: Die didn't seem to be able to take his eyes off him, either. Uruha smiled at him shyly.
'Hey,' he said, and that was another change – his voice soft and deep, not strung tight and tense and clipped – 'Will you come with me?'
Wordless, apparently stupefied, Die nodded. He allowed Uruha to draw him into his bedroom, just inside the doorway, where the nurse wouldn't be able to see them. Standing close together like that, Ruki realised, they were just about the same height: strange how he'd never noticed that before.
Gently Uruha set his hands on Die's chest and smiled up into his face. When he kissed him it looked like an optical illusion, like a trick; it looked like a mirror folding in on itself.
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That scene at the beginning with Sato was rather sobering. Of course, he's only one doctor at an entire facility, but the fact that he doesn't have the authority to step in and stop abuse is... pathetically sad. And the question about Ruki leaving soon really has me wondering.
Uruha seems to have done well with four days alone. Between him finding some peace for himself and Die no longer starving himself, I have super high hopes for that triad. Assuming Aoi will be rejoining them soon. *fingers crossed*
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