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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...
Seamlessly, September slid by and blended itself into October, and stuck on the ward, the men stagnated. Outside the weather grew colder and danker, mistier, and often when Ruki woke up in the morning there was condensation beading on the windows. When he did things, it was with the sense of having done exactly the same thing many times before: going to group therapy and listening to the same old discussions, rehashed and rehashed over; seeing Dr Sato and being as evasive as he had to be to avoid mentioning either Eiji or his brother; being given Valium and sometimes taking it, sometimes not, and the cache of pills in the wall growing ever richer; watching TV in the evenings, the same old staticky movies. The sanatorium only had a black and white television, so even the technicolour films took place in a monochrome world. Aoi sat about three feet away from the screen during Now, Voyager, chain-smoking and laughing derisively when the characters mentioned therapy; Brief Encounter was subtitled but the accents of the characters were an attraction, and Aoi and Die spent weeks quoting it to each other – Aoi coming back from the bathroom and Die dead-panning, 'thank you for coming back to me'; Aoi peering very suddenly into the faces of the nurses and orderlies and quoting in a leathery voice, 'whatever your dream was, it wasn't a very happy one, was it?'
It was an uncomfortable film for Ruki because of the scene with the woman contemplating suicide, standing on the edge of a platform. He wondered why he'd never thought of jumping in front of a train. He must have passed a dozen subway stations on his long, long walk back from Eiji's house. Whilst the character was soliloquising about her choice, he pretended to be absorbed in lighting himself a new cigarette, feeling weirdly embarrassed; next to him on the sofa, Kai sat up very straight and stared so hard at the screen he hardly seemed to blink.
Everything just seemed to be happening over and over again.
Ruki sat on armchairs and sofas and floors and beds and looked out of windows and watched the leaves change colour, green to yellow to red to brown, and then start to fall. Die's hair colour faded from red to brown, too, and when it fell a certain way, Ruki could see an irregularly-shaped bald patch behind his left ear.
Even though they couldn't go outside any more, Ruki and Kyo kept spending their days together. It was as if they had fallen into a habit that they couldn't get out of, and their conversations on Kyo's bed or on the floor of the music room or stretched out at opposite ends of the sofa in the TV room were just the same as they had been out in the hills; Ruki mostly talked, Kyo mostly listened. He talked about Eiji more, and let himself become gradually more honest as the days and weeks wore by until it felt like it was pouring out of him and he wasn't able to stop it: how the sex had been, how he'd felt around Eiji's entourage; how one time he'd been left ringing Eiji's buzzer for over an hour in the February wind because Eiji was working on a piece – how the sex that time had felt so uncomfortably hot against his frozen body, making his skin tingle like he had pins and needles.
He told him about Hiroshi and how it had felt to watch him wither down to nothing in an adjustable bed with railings that could be raised and lowered, and how it had been when his brother had finally lost control of his facial muscles and hadn't been able to talk any more, and about how the last thing Ruki had ever said to him was that he had to be going or he was going to miss the bus he took to to school.
He told him all about how he'd decided to kill himself in the end because he felt so completely bone-tired of debating it back and forth in his mind; how it almost hadn't been the sadness at all, but the exhaustion.
It felt weird, like he was taking off some unusually burdensome item of clothing; like dropping a thick winter coat in summer. Kyo rarely commented on what Ruki said but he didn't seem to be judging him, either; it was more like he simply absorbed every new word that came his way, nodding occasionally as if to confirm that whatever Ruki had told him had been successfully added to the archives in his mind.
It was a relief to be able to just talk like that, without having to answer any questions or explain himself. It was nice to be so easily understood.
'You never tell me about yourself.'
It was a flat, grey sort of day in mid October, and Ruki was lying on his stomach in the bedroom Kyo and Shinya shared, a large sheet of paper and some paints spread out in front of him. Instead of the maps he was making a huge psychedelic poster for Kai's birthday, which was in a few days; Aoi had plans for some kind of party, though Ruki couldn't imagine what a party could possibly entail beneath the sanatorium roof. It featured a surreally swirling night sky littered with great stars like chunks of sugary crystal, a portrait of Kai bobbing among them like a Buddha, and the legend said Kai in the sky with diamonds. He generally found portraits boring, but the sky was fun to do.
'I suppose I don't,' Kyo said, flicking the pages of his notebook absently. A cigarette was propped between his lips.
'Why not?' Ruki asked, leaning in to get the reflection right in Kai's eyes, and from the periphery of his vision he saw Kyo shrug.
'It hasn't come up.'
'Well, it's coming up now.'
'What do you want to know?'
'Can't you just tell me, rather than having me interview you? You only say vague things anyway.'
Kyo sighed, tapping his pen against his new blank page. 'It's too difficult to tell,' he said. 'All the details are wrapped up in each other. It's like a big knot. You try to pull one thread but the whole thing just tightens.'
Ruki sighed pointedly. 'Are you rich, like everybody else here?'
Kyo snorted. 'No, I'm not rich.'
'So how come you're here?'
'I'm a state patient.'
'I thought the state patients were more in-and-out.'
'Correct. Special circumstances for me,' Kyo said, his tone so precise that Ruki couldn't quite figure out whether he was being sarcastic or not. He looked at him uncertainly, and Kyo gave him the merest flicker of a smile. 'Clever lawyer. Sleazy.'
Ruki sat up on his knees, stretching out his back. 'What'd you need a lawyer for?' he asked. He tried to keep his tone casual, but he was looking at Kyo right in the eyes, and the other man was looking back at him. His fingers flicked at the filter of his cigarette repetitively. He blinked some hair out of his eyes.
The truth hit Ruki like something physical; it was raw and powerful and so strong it sent a thrill of dread up his spine: this was it. Kyo was going to tell him.
'You really want to know,' Kyo said, not bothering to add a question mark. Ruki gave a single, solemn nod, careful not to break the eye contact between them. Kyo sighed, though, and looked away, over at the window. It was a white, flat sort of day, and a burdensome mist was pressed up against the windows; the surrounding hills were no more than hulking shadows, and there wasn't really much to look at. He shook another cigarette out of his pack and held it to the tip of his old one to light it.
'I really want to know,' Ruki prompted warily. He became conscious of a sort of rhythmic flicker in Kyo's face; he was biting at the inside of his own cheek.
'All right,' the older man said at last, barely moving his lips. 'But listen: thank you for being around me these past few months. It's been better with you.'
'I'm not going to stop hanging around with you,' Ruki said cautiously. Kyo just smiled; a strange smile that looked horribly unhappy, like a mask.
'I killed my parents,' he said gently.
There was something loud, like a clock ticking, in Ruki's head. It levelled into the dull rush of his own manic blood in his ears, thrashing through veins that felt too tight and narrow, forcing his pulse up to the surface of his skin so it felt like his whole body was vibrating.
Kyo's eyes seemed to be glued to the window, and his shoulders could have been carved out of stone.
'I don't want to make a bunch of fucking excuses,' he said quietly. 'They weren't good people. They hurt us; my sister and me.' He paused. He stubbed his cigarette out mostly unsmoked, his hands trembling. 'My sister, she was younger than me. I tried so hard to protect her, but I couldn't. They hit her...something cracked. Her skull, I think. Blood came out of her ears.'
He stopped again, and looked down at his lap. 'She was confused,' he said finally. 'She went pale. Her skin was cold. She died. I lost my mind,' he finished simply.
Ruki couldn't stop watching him. His face felt entirely numb and stiff, like his skin had turned to plaster.
'What was her name?' he said at last, using a stranger's voice.
'She didn't have a name. They didn't give either of us names. I chose mine myself. Afterwards.'
'You chose Kyo?'
Kyo sighed. 'I couldn't come from them,' he said tonelessly. 'I had to come from somewhere.'
Painfully, he pulled his gaze away from the window and turned to look at Ruki. His face was tense, a collection of angles clashing; his eyes were terribly raw looking, powerful in their misery. 'I tried to regret it,' he said hoarsely, almost inaudible but perfectly clear. 'But I can't. Regret doesn't mean anything when you don't have a choice. Nobody's going to forgive me.' He shook his head. 'I don't remember doing it. I don't know how I did it. I was...I had my episode. Everything was happening like a dream. By the time I came out of it, they were already dead.'
He blinked, and the focus of his eyes seemed to change, like the clicking along of film within a camera. He was not just looking at Ruki now; he was seeing him, too. Ruki realised that he hadn't been doing so before.
'It's all right to leave,' Kyo said, and unsteadily Ruki got to his feet. 'I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anybody else,' he continued, still in that strange, very quiet and husky voice. 'Nobody is supposed to know.'
'Why not?' Ruki asked, his tongue feeling unfamiliar in his mouth.
'It'd interrupt the therapeutic community. I'm supposed to integrate. Nobody's supposed to be afraid of me.'
Ruki was quiet for a long time. He made a tentative movement towards the door but stopped, his limbs feeling leaden.
'What does it feel like?' he asked quietly. Cautiously, he glanced at Kyo; he felt their eyes clash and looked away.
'It's been my whole life. I don't know any different.' Kyo was still looking at him: Ruki could feel it. 'You really want to know?' he asked finally, and Ruki nodded stiffly.
There was a small silence whilst Kyo chose his words, and then: 'I was born dead,' he said simply. 'That's what it feels like.' He caught the look on Ruki's face and shook his head wearily. 'You asked,' he said. 'You wanted to know. So I told you.'
The two of them waited, Kyo looking at Ruki and Ruki looking at the floor. At last, Kyo turned back towards the window. 'You can go if you want,' he said, and after a second of hesitation, Ruki did.
His legs felt curiously boneless as he walked down the familiar corridor. He didn't know where he was going, so he steered himself limply into one of the phone booths without making eye contact with the nurse at the station and listlessly stuck his finger in the rotary dial, pulling it slowly into place and letting it click back patiently. There were tears in his eyes so thick that he could hardly see what he was doing, but it was all right; he knew the feeling of dialling the number by heart.
There was a pause while the nurse connected him, and a fat tear slid down his cheek, clearing his vision momentarily before it obscured again. Finally he heard a muffled click in his ear, and the phone began ringing. He didn't count rings this time. He rocked forward in his seat and rested his forehead in his palm.
'Yes?'
'Hi,' Ruki whispered. He heard a pause on the other end of the phone.
'Who is it, please?'
'It's...me. It's Ruki.'
'Ruki.' There was another long pause. 'Do you really think you should be calling?'
'No.' Ruki swallowed hard, attempting a smile that turned out more like a grimace, 'It's okay. I promise I don't want anything, Eiji. I just...I just needed to hear a familiar voice.'
From miles away, he heard the click of Eiji's lighter and a gust of exhaled breath.
'Okay,' the older man said finally. 'Well, it's really good to hear from you.'
'Is it?'
'Sure. I was thinking about you recently. I actually wondered if you wanted to get together at some point. Maybe come by the studio, see what I've been working on.'
Ruki rubbed his forehead. 'What?'
'No, really. Just casual, you know. I can get some wine, we can reminisce...you haven't seen the place since I did the renovations, have you? I live there now, on the top floor. I can give you a tour. Show you the bedroom.'
'You want to fuck me again.'
'Ruki—'
'I don't want to talk about that,' Ruki said, his voice sounding strained in his own ears. 'Just...talk about something else,' he managed to say. 'Please. Tell me about your exhibition.'
There was an angry sort of sigh. 'Pretty funny, kid.'
'What?'
'Don't play dumb. I never figured you would be the petty type.'
'Eiji, I really don't know what you mean. I'm honestly asking. I...' Ruki hesitated, 'I've been in a mental asylum since April. I don't know what's going on.'
There was a long silence. Ruki's eyes filled with tears and cleared, filled and cleared. He tasted salt.
'A mental asylum.'
He swallowed. 'Yeah. It's called Yamauchi Hostel. I'm in Kyoto.'
'Kyoto. Why? You're not mad. Are you?'
'I don't know.' Ruki blotted his eyes with the back of his hand. 'Tell me about your exhibition. Please. I...I don't want to talk.' He heard his voice crack and waver pathetically on the last syllable, and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, trying to take deep breaths.
'The exhibition is...great. Really. I mean, I don't think the city is quite ready for it, that's all. I don't know why I bother exhibiting anywhere but Tokyo. Osaka pretends to be forward and new and exciting and artistic, but they're a bunch of close-minded, repressed...' he sighed, and Ruki heard him take a drag from his cigarette. It was such a familiar sound that it made his heart hurt.
'So are you going to put it on in Tokyo instead?' he asked dully, and there was a pause.
'I'm looking into it,' Eiji said in a cagey sort of voice. 'It's a busy season...artistically. In the city. So finding a gallery to support hasn't been as easy as it has been historically, and the reviews from Osaka certainly aren't helping, but...look. Did it really fuck you up when we stopped hanging out, or something? Because you never seemed mad whilst we were screwing around.'
'Thanks,' Ruki said tonelessly. There was a sigh from down the other end of the phone.
'You know what I think?'
'What.'
'I don't think you're mad. I think you're bored. I think you got burned out because your work wasn't going how you wanted it to and you weren't making anything of value, and you got bored of it all. And I think actually, you were bored for a pretty long time, and that's why you were...well, you know, you were pretty clingy at the end. Do you feel like you were maybe looking for another outlet? Because honestly, kid...we should get you back on your feet. Collaborate on some projects – I'm sure I can help steer your work in a bit more of a polished, thoughtful direction – and yeah, all right, maybe sleep together again. Casually. Just...it was always an artistic expression with us, wasn't it? All these thoughts flying around, all this creativity...fucking was the natural conclusion. That's what happens when creative people get excited; when there's energy like that in the air—'
Ruki took the phone away from his ear and looked at it for a moment. Then he hung up.
He didn't really remember getting there, but he found himself back in his bedroom, lying on his side on his bed. The sky was beginning to get gloomier; evening was coming. He watched it lower, inch by inch, out of the window.
'You look sad,' Kai said, sitting cross-legged on the bed opposite him.
'Sorry.'
'You should wash the paint off your hands before dinner.'
'Yeah.'
Kai's radio was playing She Said She Said and he was nodding along in a focussed sort of way. He blinked up at Ruki, though, and carefully set his radio to one side before unfolding his legs and getting to his feet. He sat down on the edge of Ruki's bed and, like it was nothing, curled up next to him. There was a space of perhaps two inches between their foreheads, and Kai stared hard into Ruki's eyes before reaching out to carefully pat his hair.
'Don't be sad,' he said.