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solongsun April 8, 1970: the day of the Ten-Roku gas explosion, and the day that 22-year-old Ruki attempts to end his life. Less than two weeks later, he finds himself committed to the Yamauchi Hostel, a psychiatric hospital in the Kyoto hills. Kept on a ward with a number of other ill young men, Ruki is sometimes frightened and sometimes enthralled by his new friends – and none more other than the 'untreatable' Kyo, whose hospitalisation hides a legacy of dark secrets...
By the time the two of them started their difficult descent back to the sanatorium, the ground had become a quagmire of soft mud with thin, meandering rivers flowing through it; the grass was flooded out and rain was cascading musically off the leaves and branches of the trees. Kyo kept his umbrella shut – there was hardly any point to opening it with them both so completely soaked already – and used it as a kind of staff to help him keep footing on the slippery ground; even so, they both lost their footing and fell dozens of times on their way down. The absurdity of the situation – soaked to the skin and mud everywhere, even in his hair, so far away from home and tramping through the mountains as one of a duo of mental patients – gave Ruki the giggles, and every new slip seemed to make the situation funnier, even when they hurt. His thin, strong fingers made a tight fist around Kyo's wrist, clutching on tightly to help stabilise himself, and the other man was too distracted by the difficulty of staying upright to stiffen or flinch.
For some reason, that made Ruki feel a sort of warmth in his chest, as if some earlier patch of sunshine had become lodged there.
It took the white walls and highly polished floor of the sanatorium to make Ruki see them both clearly: not only were they late, they were filthy. Their clothes sagged from them wetly and made them shiver; their hair was plastered to their faces and necks and they were spattered head to toe with dark mud. They dripped over the floors whilst one of the junior nurses fussed around them, herding them into neighbouring shower cubicles and giving them terse warnings to scrub off and change into fresh clothes.
At first, pulling their damp bodies into clean t-shirts, it seemed they might have avoided trouble. When they emerged from the bathroom, though, clean and – in Ruki's case – chastened, he realised that there was nobody else around at all; nobody milling around the corridors or talking on the phones; nobody's bedroom door flung wide open with chatter spilling out of it like sloppily cast-off clothes; no record playing in the music room. Instead, only the hum of the television could be heard, faint through the closed door of the TV room, and that was a first; Ruki had never seen that door closed before.
They were led into the dining room, where two lonely-looking place settings remained; not opposite each other, as might have been expected, but each marooned down at the seats Ruki and Kyo usually sat in to eat. Dinner was curry with rice, gone stone-cold now and congealed, and Ruki picked at it without enthusiasm. He remembered the curry he used to eat in the cheap little dark restaurant around the corner from his university dorm. He felt homesick for that sauce; the sanatorium version was bland by comparison, with chunks of meat and vegetables surfacing like strange shipwrecks.
He remembered eating there with E. O. once or twice, sitting in a scratched-up booth long after the meal was over and smoking and drinking cup after cup of strong black coffee. That had been at the beginning, when Eiji was still lecturing and before their relationship had been moved behind closed doors. Back then it had felt like they'd talked about all kinds of things, but it always came back to the same topic: art, art, art. He had felt bright little firecrackers of new ideas going off in his head every day, and he had thought very sincerely that they could make him happy. It was stupid, because he hadn't realised that he was already happy.
When he'd finally put away a few small mouthfuls of the curry, their plates were taken away, and though normally they would have been given medications next, that didn't happen. Somehow both of them seemed to know that it was forbidden for them to leave the table; the junior nurse who had supervised their meal left and the head nurse replaced her, flanked by two male orderlies. Kyo started to light up a cigarette, but one of them plucked it out of his hands and snapped it in two, scattering the tobacco uselessly across the tabletop.
Kyo's face darkened slightly, but he didn't say anything. Ruki wet his lips nervously.
With a quiet movement, the nurse drew out the chair at the head of the table and sat down, clasping her hands loosely on the tabletop and surveying them both over the tops of her small, rimless spectacles. She was quite a young woman – perhaps not yet forty – but her authority felt steely and absolute. Ruki hadn't found himself feeling scared of her – she had not felt like an unreasonable woman – but now he did. Her lips were set in a line so straight and thin it might have been drawn by a ruler.
'You must know how much trouble you're in,' she said in a level voice. 'After all the walks you two have taken together, I little expected something like this.'
She rubbed her forehead softly and sighed. 'I don't see that I have any choice but to restrict both of you to the ward,' she said. 'This is very, very serious. Ruki, with your history...I hope you understand why your lateness would cause such a panic.' She paused. 'You'll lose your grounds privileges for three months.'
'Three months!' Ruki blurted, almost starting out of his seat, but she shut him up with a look.
'Yes, three months! This is serious, Ruki. Anything could have happened.'
Three whole months on the ward, in the stupefying heat of the ward. Three whole months and summer would be gone, and the leaves would be turning brown, and the weather would get cold, and it would rain more. The days would get shorter, and the nights would crush him under their weight.
He rocked back in his seat sulkily, arms folded over his chest.
Three months without his walks with Kyo.
The thought scared him because, he realised, the walks were something he had depended on. When everything was terrible they did, in some small way, make things better.
'Kyo...' the nurse steepled her fingers under her chin, regarding him almost nervously, 'I hardly know what to do with you. You've been here for twelve years; you know the rules. With your history – your background – having you pull a stunt like this with such a new, impressionable patient is...'
Ruki's head snapped up before she could finish her sentence: 'Kyo didn't pull any stunt.'
'Excuse me?'
'He didn't do anything. It was all my idea. I dragged him out; I was the one who didn't want to go back.' He paused. 'And I'm not impressionable,' he added haughtily.
'Ruki...' she sighed, 'Please try to calm yourself down. We've covered you and your punishment, and you're in enough trouble as it is. You might not understand why what Kyo did was worse, but you are not the professional here; I am.'
'But he didn't do—'
'Leave it,' Kyo said in a tired sort of voice. He was gazing flatly at the nurse. 'What's it going to be,' he said, without bothering to add a question mark.
'You'll also be restricted to the ward for three months. And...' she hesitated just slightly, 'I'm sorry, Kyo, but I want you to have some time in the isolation room to think about this.'
A sort of crackle seemed to go around the room, like an electrical current. Ruki noticed that Kyo's shoulders had gone stiff, and that his hands were gripping the edge of the table tightly.
'Please don't put me in there,' he said calmly.
'Kyo. I've talked it over with your doctor—'
'You know how it'll be if you put me in there.'
'Don't think of it as a punishment. As I say, I've discussed it with your doctor, and he agrees that as a therapeutic measure—'
'No,' Kyo said, still in the same calm voice, 'Not in the dark. Not like that.'
The memory of a voice echoed vaguely around Ruki's head: it was always some dark, enclosed place, something like a basement or a stomach or the bottom of a well. And there was something waiting...
'This is bullshit,' Ruki said, his voice tight and sharp, 'Kyo didn't do anything wrong. Should he have come back alone and left me there by myself? Would everyone have been panicking about me then?'
'Ruki—'
'You can't do this! You know it's not fair, you – you're just punishing him for something else! You're punishing him for why he's here.'
As soon as the words were at his lips, he realised they were true, and he glared at the nurse defiantly, 'Aren't you?'
She gave him a mild look. 'Do you know why Kyo is here?' she asked delicately.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kyo's hand perform an involuntary spasm against on the tabletop. Ruki grabbed a lock of his own hair and yanked on it anxiously, frustrated, 'No – not exactly. But I know that it's nothing to do with this.'
'I'm afraid that if you don't know, Ruki, you can't possibly be in a position to say so.'
'But—' he started, and the nurse slammed her hand down suddenly on the table, shocking him into silence.
'One more word out of you and I will have you sedated. Is that quite clear?'
'Don't worry,' Kyo said in a quiet voice. Ruki opened his mouth to argue but he felt something that surprised him; very lightly, Kyo had touched him on the wrist.
He didn't think the other man had ever touched him before; not without being asked.
Impossible to say why such a small thing felt so huge to him. He stared at the hand on his wrist uncomprehendingly. Kyo sighed.
'How long for?' he asked the nurse, who seemed to be struggling to regain the flash of temper that she had lost; her face was perfect, calm again if not warm, but her breaths were fast and shallow.
'Until the lesson sinks in,' she said.
She sat back and gave a slight nod, and the orderlies gently started to pull Kyo out of his chair.
It wasn't like when Ruki was put in there; with Kyo, they didn't have to drag him, and he didn't fight against them. It would have felt better if he had: although he walked for himself, he moved as if he was climbing the gallows; there was a desperate hang to his head that sent something like a knife through Ruki's throat; it was as if they had shot him full of something to make him weak.
Tailing behind Kyo and the orderlies, unsure of what to say, Ruki felt he was retracing his own steps; he remembered the kicking, how his throat had hurt from the screaming. He remembered the look in Kyo's eyes that had calmed him: the look that had seemed to say it just is this way sometimes.
But when Kyo's eyes flickered up to regard him, Ruki couldn't seem to make his own face say that. Kyo smiled, or tried to smile.
'It'll be all right,' he said.
'It's all my fault,' Ruki said immediately, and Kyo held his arms out for the straitjacket.
'I could've dragged you back if I'd wanted to.'
'But it's not fair,' Ruki said desperately, and even as Kyo's arms were wrapped tightly around his middle and the sleeves of the jacket were laced up behind his back, he found it in him to smile properly at that.
'Listen,' he said, 'Promise me something.'
'What?'
One of the orderlies released his hold on Kyo to unlock the door of the isolation room, and Kyo's voice quickened slightly when he spoke next: 'Promise me you won't wait around outside the door.'
'But—'
But Ruki had been planning to do just that; he hesitated, and Kyo widened his eyes urgently; the door had swung wide, and the orderly was reaching for his arm again.
'Promise,' he said breathlessly, 'Promise me.'
'But Kyo—'
'Ruki, promise me!'
There was no time to think; Kyo teetered on the edge of the darkness, a moment away from being swallowed up by it completely, and Ruki had to do it: he nodded quickly.
He thought he saw something like relief flood Kyo's face.
Then the door slammed shut.
In the dim TV room, Ruki didn't know what to do. His hands were shaking, and there was a tightness in his throat like he was about to cry, but his eyes felt hot and dry and angry.
Everybody had their heads turned raptly towards the television set, but they didn't fool him for a second; he could tell simply by the tension in their shoulders and necks that they had been waiting for him to come in and give his report.
The thought exhausted him, and he lingered in the doorway, a silver-lit silhouette in the light of the TV. His eyes searched the room over and over.
With the whitish glow of the TV on their foreheads they all looked like nothing more than a bunch of stupid moon-brains, like dummy astronauts. Of all the various bodies sitting on chairs and on the floor, only one looked different, and it took Ruki a while to figure out why in the gloom; one of them wasn't facing the television. In fact, as Ruki's vision adjusted to the contrast between the bright television and dark room, he found Shinya's eyes regarding him distantly, like two huge moons in his face. Feeling it would be awkward otherwise, Ruki slowly sat himself down on the floor next to him, almost upsetting the chess set that he hadn't noticed was laid out on the floor.
'Play chess?' Shinya offered quietly, and Ruki gave a jagged shrug. He hadn't exactly played much before, and though he thought he knew how all the different pieces moved and what the object of the game was, it was almost laughable how little he cared; how could he be expected to give a shit about a game of chess when Kyo had been locked up, alone in the dark?
Shinya began to arrange the chessmen for a game, his movements fluid and well practised. Ruki wondered how many games of chess he'd played in his lifetime.
'I usually play by myself,' Shinya said, as if he'd been reading Ruki's thoughts. His voice was funny; deeper than Ruki had expected but also slightly hoarse, as though from lack of use.
'How do you play by yourself?'
Shinya moved a white piece, spun the board around, moved a black piece, spun the board around, and moved another white piece.
'Like that.'
'What's the point?'
'Composing.' Shinya put the pieces he'd moved back into their correct places and spun the board back around a final time. 'There. You start. White always goes first.'
'“Composing”?'
'You know. Making problems.'
'Like we haven't got enough problems around here,' Ruki muttered, and Shinya gave him a gawky sort of grin which he hid almost immediately behind his hand.
'Like this,' Shinya said. With a flurry he suddenly had all the chessmen in flux; it was like watching two people play a game in ultra sped up motion. He arranged them deftly on the board, taking away some and advancing others, frowned as he appraised his handiwork, and then sat back, apparently satisfied.
'White to go first and checkmate black in two moves.'
Ruki gave him a look so blank that he smiled again; like he was being controlled by a puppeteer, the hand came up automatically to hide it.
'Composing chess problems,' he explained. 'I make a problem with only one possible solution, and then somebody else has to figure it out. Sometimes I send them in to the newspaper.'
'Right.' Ruki paused. 'You must have to be...pretty smart.'
'I've had a lot of time to practice,' Shinya said lightly. He had moved the pieces back into their proper positions now; he dipped his head in a little nod, and Ruki absently moved a pawn forward. 'How long?' he asked.
'Nine years or so. My problems started when I was seventeen.' He skipped a knight deftly forward in an L shape.
'Problems?' Ruki asked vaguely, and it happened again: the smile, the hand.
'I have schizophrenia,' Shinya explained neutrally. 'I couldn't live at home any more.'
'Can it be cured?' Ruki asked, moving his bishop out.
'No.' Shinya manoeuvred his other knight out easily. 'But you can treat it, sometimes.'
'How?'
'There are drugs. But mostly it's like having a bomb in your head. You just stay still and sit around quietly hoping it won't go off.'
'You're friends with Kyo,' Ruki said lowly, leaning forward under the pretence of guiding out another pawn.
'Yes.'
'They put him in the isolation room.'
Something like a dark shadow crossed behind Shinya's eyes, and he gave a restrained sigh.
'Kyo doesn't like it in there.'
'Does anybody?'
'I do.' Shinya skated forward a pawn of his own.
'You like it?'
'Yes.' He looked at Ruki with his luminous eyes. 'Your move.'
It didn't take long for Shinya to win the game; even if Ruki had been good at chess, his could hardly have said that his head was in it. He turned down a rematch, and Shinya went back to his composing, spinning the board around rapidly and muttering. It was a relief to have his actions explained; it made him look much less mad.
Ruki felt strange, sort of splintery inside. Restless on the floor, he made to get up and leave the room but a strong hand shot out, grabbed him a handful of t-shirt and swung him onto the sofa, where he found himself between Aoi and Die.
'Everything okay?' one or the other of them muttered; his mind was too fuzzy to tell. He shook his head.
He had a great tense headache and he had the peculiar feeling that it was from the strain of keeping Kyo in his thoughts; of trying to hold him there carefully, so he couldn't get hurt.
It was always some dark, enclosed place, something like a basement or a stomach or the bottom of a well. And there was something waiting...
His mouth firmed itself into a straight line.
'You mind getting into some trouble?' he murmured, and out of the corners of his eyes, he saw both Die and Aoi's matching grins light up silver in the light from the television.
'What's the plan?' Aoi breathed. Ruki licked his lips nervously, screwing his hands up into determined fists.
'I need one of us to grab a good record. One of us to distract the nurses. And one of us to steal the music room keys from behind their desk.'
'Insane,' said Die in an admiring voice, 'What then?'
'We're going to lock the door behind us so they can't get in and play it as loud as we can.'
'Outstanding,' said Aoi, sounding satisfied.
'It's got to be – I want Kyo to be able to hear it.'
'Where is he?'
'Isolation room.'
Either Die or Aoi hissed through his teeth.
'I know the right record,' Die said in a low voice. 'I'll get it.'
'I'll be the distraction,' said Aoi. 'It's the role I was born to play. Ruki, you're small, you can grab the keys. There's a little set of three on a hook behind the desk, with a white tag. Those are the ones you need. I mean, it says music on the tag.'
Smoothly, the three of them stood up from the sofa and marched towards the door. Kai and Uruha's wide eyes turned to watch them go, and Ruki caught it just in the periphery of his vision as Uruha shot a small, sweet smile at the other man.
Ruki's heart felt like it was beating high and loud in his chest. The three of them paused at the door of the TV room, and nervously, the three of them grinned at each other.
'All for one,' Aoi said grimly, 'and one for all. We are going to be in so much trouble.'
'Well,' Die said fairly, 'at least the isolation room's taken.'
'You don't have to help me,' Ruki said nervously, 'Just – if I can borrow the record, I can try and do it alone.'
Aoi snorted extravagantly.
'Like we'd let you get away with that.'
'Yeah, share the fun. I could do with a dance.'
'But—'
'Besides,' Die said, grinning wickedly, 'This is for Kyo, and I'd do anything for love.'
'I don't love—'
'Yeah, maybe we can help turn 'harder, faster' into 'forever after',' Aoi quipped, and slapped him hard on the back. 'All right. Game time.'
As Die slipped off down the corridor, and as Aoi strode towards his centre stage, Ruki was left with half a second to smile at them: his stupid, kind, infuriating friends.
He turned to face the nurse's station desk.
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With the behaviour of the staff, it's tricky to strike a balance between what's gratuitous and what could actually have happened in a facility at the time. Not to excuse any patient abuse, but mental health care must be so heckin stressful, and personal grudges are obviously a thing that exists...that's what I'm trying to keep in mind when writing the staff. That there are good people and bad people and that there are both those types of people making good and bad choices. Blah!
Thanks so much for reading and commenting! :)
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And thank you very much! That's great to hear. You're so nice!