22 – Justice

"At least close the curtains for me," Ruri-chan said, hugging her body after she'd finished unbuttoning her blouse.

Even though I'd closed them, a beam of summer sunlight filtered through a gap and glittered off dust knocked up from the rug. She was still sitting on the floor, holding her knees as she opened her blouse. The light skin on the curve of her collarbone shyly peeked out of her open blouse. Her shoulders jumped when we heard laughter come through the window.

"If you see this… will you stop?"

"If you're able to teach me how to comfort myself without pain, sure."

She'd gotten this far, but now she seemed to be marching in place. Was it something she couldn't show other people, or was she just leading me on because a replacement didn't actually exist?

"Do you have any sheets?"

"Do you need them?"

"I'd like some cover. This is embarrassing."

"I won't understand if I can't see you."

Her face was stained a vermillion color. Biting her lip, she slowly slid a hand under her blouse. Apparently, there was something different from pain under there. It was hard to believe there was an oasis somewhere in a desert the color of skin. If there was, her fingers were hesitating to go towards it, even though it'd be better to plunge right in.

I wondered what she was hesitating over. It was her own body, after all. Five minutes passed as I watched her hand wander this way and that. I started losing patience.

It wouldn't take this long to satisfy myself with pain. Falling from a window wouldn't even take a minute. In contrast, Ruri-chan's facial expression still hadn't changed. Occasionally, she let out what seemed to be a breathy sigh. She might have been missing something, though, because it would immediately turn into a pained-looking face.

I didn't think this was all that efficient, but I put that issue aside for the time being. I didn't place a premium on efficiency. What I valued was a moment of impact that sent an electric shock through my whole body, burning my nerves from end to end. Something that short circuited my brain and flashed dazzling, disorienting lights in my eyes. If there was something that could replace *that*, something that could pierce through the ennui and small anxieties of everyday life, I wanted to see it. And if someone was telling me they wanted me to change, then it should be their job to show me what to do.

"Does... that feel good?"

Ruri-chan's hand wandered around beneath her blouse, and I wondered what the hell she must be feeling. If I had gotten that lost, I'd immediately retrace my steps. But her hand was hidden in the recesses.

"It feels good. Or it should, but..."

"What's wrong?"

"I can't... do it as well..."

Our gazes collided when she looked up. She had goosebumps—was the A/C up too high?

"Are you usually able to do it?"

Ruri-chan nodded and curled her back. "It might take... some time..."

"That's fine. Mom won't be home today, anyway."

The clock still read four. Since I ate dinner at seven, it would be fine if this took another three hours. If even that wasn't enough time for her, it would only prove that this couldn't be a substitute for hurting myself.

Maybe because she had my permission, Ruri-chan's hand started groping around more quickly. The movement didn't seem thoughtless; it moved like it was drawing circles around a single spot.

I liked tensing up from pain and suffering. Did Ruri-chan enjoy it the same way when she touched herself?

"So... how many times a week do you do this?"

"Fwah...?" Came the slurred reply. Her eyes were a bit glazed over.

"I hurt myself just about every day. When I went home back in elementary school, I would throw myself against walls and pretend to pass out. If there was something that gave me even a little taste of agony, I did it. Do you do this every day, too?"

"Not... every day..."

"Oh, really? So how often do you do it?"

"Um... two times a week... or so. Basically on our days off... or when my family's gone..."

"Yeah, it's better to do this kind of thing when there's no one else around. I used the time when my parents were out to secretly dunk my head in the bathtub."

We seemed to have a few points in common here and there. So, she did this twice a week to comfort herself…

"What does it feel like?"

I never thought that pain felt good. It was just that the feeling of submission and hyperventilating in agony were such that I couldn't hold myself back from them. They made me feel hot, bothered… and it felt good once it was all over.

"Like... tickling..."

Ruri-chan's hand changed its movements while she talked. I could see her white bra through her open blouse. The bra was decorated with a ribbon in the middle. It was like a design on a silk curtain hiding a bedroom.

Her sighs started to get more nasal. The sound of panting filled my room—was she not getting enough oxygen through her mouth?

A seemingly-practiced finger started undoing the hook of her skirt, but stopped when I locked eyes with Ruri-chan.

"Ah–"

"What's wrong?"

"I-I'm gonna undress."

"Ah, okay."

Maybe this was a necessary step in the process. I wasn't going to stop her. Still, Ruri-chan glanced up at me like she was trying to gauge my response. Her skirt slipped onto the bed, leaving her white panties in full view. They had a ribbon, too. It definitely had to be a matching set with the bra.

Unlike when she was feeling herself under the blouse, I had a full view of how she touched herself down there. I saw her fingers inching along, crawling like grubs. Then, her legs snapped closed when she apparently noticed my watching.

"But I can't see."

Ruri-chan was supposed to be teaching me how to comfort myself. There wasn't any point if she was going to hide it. Slowly, she opened her legs again with a face that looked on the verge of tears. Her back stiffened. Maybe it was different with her legs open?

"Tateha…"

Despite calling my name, she didn't say anything else. I wondered if there was any meaning in that. She seemed to have gotten immersed in her own world and had stopped paying much attention to me.

I thought she had fallen asleep for a moment. On closer inspection, though, I could see light glinting off her eyes through her lashes. Still posed like she was nodding off, her head slowly slumped.

Then, she let out a noise like she'd just remembered something, but then immediately put her hand over her mouth. It was odd that she was trying to block her own breathing, even though she already sounded out of breath.

As far as I could tell, she wasn't hurting herself, but at the same time, Ruri-chan didn't look all that satisfied. I wondered if this kind of thing was even capable of filling the void.

A moan leaked out from between the fingers covering her mouth. Her eyes finally closed all the way, maybe so she could concentrate. Maybe her being conscious or not—no, whether she had clarity or not controlled how the act finished. When it came to pain, it was vivid and intense precisely because it felt like it was being forced into my brain from the outside. However, that feeling of heading somewhere didn't come from me.

Ruri-chan had searched and searched for the place she'd been heading towards from the beginning. Maybe the act itself wasn't about arriving at her destination, but the feelings she had along the way.

Her voice gradually began to mix in with her gasping. I'd never heard this voice before. If I had to describe Ruri-chan's voice, it was on the lower side, and easy to pick out when she was talking to multiple people. But now, her voice was starting to get huskier. Gradually, she let out more and more falsetto squeaks that sounded like she had just failed to stick a landing.

Thirty minutes had already gone by. I didn't have anything else to do, so I just sat there seated formally and stared at her. I switched to sitting cross-legged once my knees started to hurt, then started to alternate between stretching out my legs. After I remembered the massage my attending doctor told me to do, I rubbed my right thigh with both hands while I watched.

As for Ruri-chan, she was already sprawled out, tossing her legs back and forth like a restless baby. She took turns moving her hands, her right hand under her blouse, her left between her thighs. They moved skillfully in their own different ways.

The hand covering her mouth had been transferred to a different department. Without its concierge, Ruri-chan's lips hung half-open, defenseless. Steamy breaths leaked out of the unmanaged doorway.

Was it the same situation as when I hyperventilated from agonizing pain? The activities that Ruri-chan and I engaged in were tied together somehow, and I wanted to understand how that knot had been made. Weren't Ruri-chan and I feeling the same things?

In a moment, the hopefulness that I abhorred seared itself into my eyes.

"Hey, Ruri-chan," I started to say. It felt like the first time in a while that I'd said something.

She looked up, startled. Had she forgotten I was here?

The moment our eyes met, "….hhh, AH-"

Her body shuddered two, three times, shoulders convulsing like a basketball being dribbled. The facial expression she made—eyes and lips clenched tight—looked like she was gritting through something.

She took deep gasping breaths, like she'd just stumbled ashore after a long dive. Occasionally, she flopped like a fish stranded on the beach, still gasping for air. I guess she couldn't stop shaking.

After a while, her breath settled. The first thing she did was fix the blouse hanging from her shoulders and button it at her breasts, then pulled up the skirt she was half-wearing.

"Already finished?"

"…Yeah…" The way she spoke suggested she still felt it reverberating.

"So that sort of thing fills the void for you, huh?"

Honestly, I was disappointed. Given that she'd feasted on nothing but drug-laced leaves, even her bones should be stained in black. And yet, having had a full view of what she did to comfort herself, it was simple enough for anyone to do at least once. Back in middle school, it seemed like almost overnight, everyone started bragging about doing it in the corners of the classroom. I'd tried it too but didn't feel a thing.

I thought Ruri-chan was like me.

Well, this was only a backup plan. Repainting my desires with this deed was too normal. Sure, it did some of the things I liked when I got hurt, but this was just a compromise for wanting to hurt myself.

"That might make you feel good, but I don't think it will give me the feeling I'm after."

I opened the bedroom door to get her to leave. She'd already finished fixing up her messy clothes.

"…It's not just… about feeling good!"

"Ohhhh?"

"I imagine… all sorts of things while I'm… doing it… and when I do, it feels like my heart is slowly being warmed. It makes me feel like I'm falling even deeper in love and leaves me wanting to be affectionate with someone… it gives me that sort of feeling."

...What the hell? It didn't just fill a void, but made you want to be affectionate with someone?

Pain is just pain. There's happiness to be found in the sensation, but it doesn't change your lifestyle and personality just like that.

"Tateha…"

"What?"

"I… I want to save you."

Ugh, this again. She selfishly wanted to change my life using 'justice' to bolster her own ego. Rescuing someone just to rescue them. Doing that doesn't prove anything, and when it doesn't, you'll just end up going down the same path you were on in the first place.

"You can't help that you like pain! Different strokes for different folks. But you know, you have to be sensible. You have to stop doing things to hurt yourself!"

"I can't stop it, that's why I–"

"You can!"

As I got to my feet, ignoring her stubborn insistence, she threw her arms around me. Although Ruri-chan's body was soft, her grip on me was firm. I could even feel her determination to not let me go.

"You can stop. You'll be okay."

"How do you know?"

"Do you feel anything when someone hugs you like this?"

I wondered how long it had been since I'd been hugged so tight it made me feel warm. I wasn't able to think of the last time it happened. This might have been the first time… in my life?

I didn't know where to put my hands, so I put them on the hands Ruri-chan had wrapped around me.

"When… I was in elementary school, I was awful. When I abused you, when I robbed you of your right eye… I don't know how many times I thought that I was better off dead because I had done things like that. My father beat me every day and robbed me of my confidence, and when I understood the weight of what I'd done to you. I was horrified by how sadistic I was, and every day I shook with fear at the thought I'd always be like that."

Although Ruri-chan's monologue was stained with guilt and violence, the voice in my ear was gentle from start to finish.

"But Mother tried to take care of me when I felt that way. She came and hugged me like this every day and told me that I would be okay. She always encouraged me. And when she did that, I felt like I could keep living… I could even keep looking forward, knowing I needed to change."

That was nothing more than a temporary solution. The human will was as fickle as smoke in the wind.

"So I get it. You can't change yourself by yourself. It's like you say, it's an essential part of yourself you can't change, right?"

"That's just it, Ruri-chan. This thing sleeping inside me can't ever be changed."

Ruri-chan shook her head next to my own. "I thought Mother was being a little overdramatic every time she gave me a hug, but… now I finally feel like I understand how she felt."

Ruri-chan hugged me like she was trying to fill the void. I buried my head at the nape of Ruri-chan's neck. The warmth radiating from her skin really was different from summer concrete.

"You'll be okay, Tateha. You'll be okay." She stroked my head with the gentleness of handling a damaged item.

—Mom, I want this!

Was it how she touched me? How she smelled? It connected to a memory, whatever it was.

The unearthed memory was from a long time ago, when I went to the botanical gardens with Mom.