6 - Caress

Another two days was just enough time to finish memorizing most of my classmates' names.

"Tateha!" Ruri-chan was the only one with a tense expression in the otherwise groggy and lethargic classroom before homeroom.

"Oh, good morning, Ruri-chaaan."

"You told Kururu about me?!" She responded, crossing the classroom with long strides to loom over me, her hand on my desk. She never exactly talked about her past, because everything she'd accomplished up to this point would come crashing down if she did.

"Uhhh, I'm really sorry. Kururu-chan wanted to know what you were like in elementary school and wouldn't take no for an answer."

"But—but still…" Her lips twisted in distress, and her voice was as forceful as a wave crashing over an embankment. "I didn't even tell her about you… that was cruel."

"I didn't mean to catch you out like that. I thought that Kururu-chan learning about who you were in the past might strengthen your friendship with her. It was thoughtless of meee. I'm really sorry…"

I was aware of everything. I knew about the life she lived until then and kept concealed. That she wanted to keep it secret because it was the total opposite of how she was trying to live now.

"Someone might hear, so let's take this outside."

I led Ruri-chan to the bathroom. We weren't alone at first, but it cleared out after the chime for class sounded.

"Homeroom will keep anyone from walking in on us."

I pulled us into a stall and locked the door, just to be safe. The two of us were cramped in the suffocatingly narrow space, boxed in by white walls with nowhere to hide. Having isolated ourselves from the outside world, we could abandon our attachment to common sense.

"Why did you tell her I was abused?" Her hand reached for my collar, but she stopped herself and let it fall. The resentment in her eyes stabbed at me, but they were also drowning in guilt, practically impotent.

"It looked like you had it rough back then, Ruri-chaaan. I did go visit you at the shrine once and you were out in the woods."

She took a step back, but there was only wall behind her. Neither of us had anywhere to flee.

"I'm sorry that I couldn't do anything back then to help youuu. You and Kururu-chan seemed like good friends, so I thought she might be supportive. Please believe me, I wasn't trying to make trouble for youuu."

The chime rang again, this time signaling the end of homeroom. Faint voices could be heard coming from the corridor, but there weren't as many as earlier in the morning. We tensed up every time someone walked by the bathroom, but fortunately, no one came in.

"But that's also partly your fault, isn't it?"

"My fault?"

"You did turn down my request yesterday after saying you'd do anything for me. Were you lying, Ruri-chan?"

"I wasn't lying, but what you asked me to do… Tateha, I can't hurt you again…"

"Hmm, well... You sure about that?" The voice that came out and resonated in the stall was so low and expressionless that it surprised even me. Flustered, I changed pitch. "I've been thinking a bit about what to do if you couldn't keep your promise."

"Thinking?" Ruri-chan grimaced, her expression less one of whether she could solve the problem, and more one of finding a way to put off dealing with it.

"There are some things you don't want anyone to find out about. The abuse was one, but there's something else you're even more afraid of, isn't there?" As I pointed at my right eye, sweat beaded on her brow. "I wonder what would happen if everyone in class heard about how you blinded this eye."

The bone-grinding gasp that left Ruri-chan's mouth made might have been audible from the corridors, dead silent after first period began.

"I can tell just by looking that you've really tried your best up to now. You became a good girl who is kind, cheerful, and is relied on by everyone. You're even popular and trusted enough to be class president. What an incredible young woman you've turned out to be. It makes me happy to think of how much you must have reflected on yourself. I'm sooo proud of you."

It seemed like it all came about because my very existence was clinging to her life like a black mold she couldn't get rid of. That I could have such an effect on someone was unthinkable to me.

"But... That's not really the kind of girl you are, is it? You try to violently rid yourself of anyone you don't really like, and if something makes you happy, you think it's okay to do it no matter how much it makes your partner suffer. That's the kind of human you are. You're able to do things like stab someone with a mechanical pencil, shove their face in a bucket to try drowning them, and burn their injuries with a lighter, without a shred of remorse."

There was a noise off in the distance. Apparently we weren't the only ones skipping class.

"Hmm, was someone else here, you think?"

Ruri-chan whipped her head around to look, trailing a tangle of beautiful hair that was now a disheveled mess.

"Haha, it's terrifying, isn't it? If anyone hears, it's over, right?"

"Tateha…"

"Don't worry, ok? I won't say a thing. Like I keep telling you, I'm not nursing a grudge towards you or anything. It's okay, I've forgiven you for everything that happened back then. But..."

She coiled back when I added the ‘but’.

"But if you don't do what I say, there's a chance that maybe, just maybe, I might let something slip to Kururu-chan like this again."

Before I knew it, the color had faded from her flower-pink lips and taken on a more poisonous hue. Her lips cracked, and maybe because her mouth was wide open, it looked like blood was running out of it.

"…In that case, what do you want?"

"I told you before. I like being in pain." I put my hand around the back of her neck and pulled her closer. Close to her ear, I whispered, "So will you do what I say?"

She was biting her lip when I backed away.

"Here's the deal. If you go along with my requests, I won't tell anyone about you and me again, got it?"

"…Got it. Don't tell anyone, okay?"

Ruri-chan’s body shivered like a lost puppy which had been suddenly abandoned in the rain by its owner. I held out a pinky that she timidly touched with her own. They hugged one another to seal the promise.

"So, it's settled, isn't it."

"What should I do, then?"

"Hmm. First, I want you to fill a bucket with water and bring it here. There's one in the supply closet. Ah, make sure it's full, okay?"

For an instant, her brows furrowed, but she quickly left the stall and to get bucket.

"I filled it, but…"

"Thanks, Ruri-chan. Well, are you going to pour it?"

"What?"

"Like I said, pour it. On me."

She should have understood what I meant. There's a limit to feigning ignorance; after all, she's the one who came up with the idea in the first place. As she held the bucket over my head, it seemed she wasn't able to escape the memories flooding back.

"Tateha… Like I thought… I… this kind of thing…"

"Do I need to say it?"

That ended up being her cue to pour the bucket over me. A wave of water crashed over my head, and I suddenly felt my bangs plastered against my face. Oh, how I missed this. My thoughts couldn't help but race over everything we were about to do. I felt impatient with Ruri-chan; my body was craving this. I suddenly felt hot in spite of the chill.

"Look, Ruri-chan." I unfastened the buttons of my soaked blouse one-by-one. "I wore my swimsuit here."

Its deep blue could be seen through my uniform. She looked startled, but her eyes devoured the sight.

"It's because I've wanted you to do this for a long time."

From the moment I realized we'd been reunited at the school entrance ceremony, I always came to school with my swimsuit on underneath just so I'd be ready for this moment. Finally, it was here.

"There's a mechanical pencil too. Use… you know how you can use it… Right, Ruri-chan?"

To everyone else, a mechanical pencil might only be stationery, used for nothing more than drawing lines in a notebook. But to me, it was an instrument for cutting up my skin. I had always been chasing the particular sight of the gleaming silver tip rearing its head and turning my way. I couldn’t experience that sight on my own, even if I stabbed myself. It was a miracle that could only be performed through someone directing their hostility towards me.

In consideration of Ruri-chan's trembling hands, I started kneading the one holding the mechanical pencil. "It's okay, Ruri-chan. You can do it, it's you. You already did it to me, right? You never stopped stabbing, no matter how much I shrieked in pain or begged you to stop."

Back then, she watched the pencil lead slip under my skin with a radiant smile. It seemed like that was even enough to make her blush. She must have been about to burst with joy.

"Come on, stab me. Stab me, Ruri-chan." I lifted my skirt to expose my thigh. "I think you even left a small mark where you stabbed me, you know. Can you try taking a closer look?"

I grabbed Ruri-chan's head and pulled her to my thigh. My spine shivered from the brush of her breath against the spot she once stabbed. The wound wailed like a newborn on that day, and now that it was healed, it was trying to regain the ability. Flashbacks of fresh blood running down to my socks repeatedly played in my mind's eye.

"Look. It's there, isn't it? Can you stab it?"

I felt an icy sensation on my thigh, followed by a sharp, piercing pain sinking into my body. That was as far as I got when I stabbed myself. The skin keeps foreign matter out, and that was the biggest barrier.

"Please, Ruri-chan…"

If you can get beyond this, then please…

"Ruri-chan…"

Harsh light flashed through my head the moment I called her name.

"AH!" I cried out. My eye rolled towards the bathroom ceiling while I breathed in choking gasps. "Ow! That hurts, that hurts! Stop, sto…! Ruri-chan!"

She kept pounding away, carving an inscription in my body with each push in spite of my shouting to stop. Far from it, she increased the pain by the second. My inner ears squeezed shut as the blows rained down in an unending tempest, as if the torture was packing them full.

It was what I was always searching for. It had been like a farcical expedition to find a flower in a desert with no plants. It was harrowing. It was miserable. I even thought about giving up.

And now at last, I had finally found it, an alluring blossom in the barren sand. That flower fervently took root even as it swayed in the wind, and it was like a present God had given me, who had persevered in living.

"Don't stop… Don't stop, Ruri-chan…" I hadn't failed to notice her hand was slackening. "Ruri-chan, you can keep going, right? You can, can't you? Back then, there was mo–"

The mechanical pencil made a clacking noise as it touched a crucial, protected nerve ending. Enthralled by the electric lights flickering in my brain, I couldn't make a single sound and carelessly let the drool trickle from my mouth.

The pain was utterly intolerable. My face was already soaked; tears leaked out every time I shouted in pain and snot was essentially being squeezed out of my nose every time I clenched my teeth to grit through it.

"Ruri-chan, right there, more…ah?!"

Without warning, we suddenly hit the limit. When the lead snapped from the pressure, the rigid silver tip of the mechanical pencil and Ruri's damp fingertips slammed into the open wound.

From chest to fingertip, everything was hot; every blood vessel felt like it was on fire. My consciousness felt desaturated and murky, and my limbs locked so suddenly that I wondered if it was rigor mortis. In the haze of unreality, I felt shivers running down my spine while my breaths turned shallow and rapid.

It was the same as when my abdomen slammed into the vaulting horse that day. Every frayed wire connected in an instant, and an overload transcending my brain's ability to process brought me to the absolute brink of having the thoughts seared from my mind.

I suppose the moment of abandoning consciousness and howling like a beast, the sense of accomplishment and euphoria and the fulfillment that follows, might be the closest a human can come to taking in the scenery at the moment of death.

I finally calmed down again and caught my breath. Sweat stuck to the nape of my neck. Ruri-chan sobbed, mechanical pencil clamped in her hand.

"I... I changed so I wouldn't do things like this! I want to become a decent human. I want to become a human who doesn't hurt people anymore! That's why—"

"It's not possible, Ruri-chan. You're mistaken. You see, people can't change like that." I gently embraced that hand of hers. "See, I tried to change, too. Until today, I lived thinking I needed to fix this love of pain, since it's strange. But, you see, it was impossible to fix. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find anything that brought me happiness, except pain."

I want to experience romance like a normal person, to have another person's warmth, to come by happiness naturally. I have to have those things. I wondered how many times I'd ruminated on those thoughts. I couldn't change, though. Before I knew it, I was injuring myself when no one was looking. It was how I spent every day.

"Humans don't change. You're somebody who can casually injure others, Ruri-chan. You won't ever become a gentle girl, but that's okay. It is, really. Those wicked hands of yours, those hands that stabbed an eye, will never be loved by anyone, I'm certain of it. I'm the only one who will grant them forgiveness. We had no choice but to turn out this way, that's why. We've been doing it all wrong from the beginning, since we were in elementary school."

My blood, still fresh, was coagulating on the pencil's pointed end. I gently brushed Ruri-chan's trembling fingertips to sweep away the years of dust which had accumulated.

"I'm sorry I told Kururu-chan that you were abused, it won't happen again. I won't tell anyone about what kind of person you really are." I brought her finger back to my thigh. "So, will you do it? I still haven't gotten enough."

"Tateha, are you really okay with this?"

"Yeah. It has to be you, only you can do it."

She was able to put a lot of power into it, and the pencil had an easier time breaking the skin than it did a few moments earlier. Through my labored breaths, I watched her face as she stabbed me. She looked like she wanted to cry.

"Haha, that... that's the good stu—Ruri-cha.... AA—Ow, it hurts... It hurts! Help! I'm gonna die... this... is gonna kill meee."

Someone's laughs could be heard from one of the classes still in session. It definitely had to be someone getting carried away and giving a weird answer when the teacher called on them, I'd bet. I suppose that class had a harmonious atmosphere, and depending on who you asked, it might even be a happy experience.

I wouldn't say it was that way for us.

"Ah. Hey, heeey... Ruri-cha–" I imagine the tinnitus ringing must be the result of thick blood pooling in the ears and pushing out all the extra waste products in them. My head grew heavy, my thoughts restless. "Do you know what it's called… when you can't go back to the way... you were before...?"

I gave a mockery of a lecture since we'd skipped the real one.

In the depths of Miyama Ruri's pretend-act eyes resided the pointed hostility and irrational exterminator's ideology that appeared to compose her structure, and I accepted a spring breeze that could be regarded as superficial against my cheek, as if it was caressing me.

"That's the sort of thing... they call irreversible..."

From my cavernous windhole, the sound of a breeze could be heard once again.