Now and Forever...Itsumademo... - Chapter 17B
Title: Now and Forever…いつまでも…
Author: Mayonaka no Taiyou/Unare Haineko
Pairing: [Juntoshi] Matsumoto Jun x Ohno Satoshi
Rating: R-ish
Summary: This story follows Ayumu, a more or less normal child born in 2012, three years after the ending of ‘Kodoku kara Umareta Ai’ (which you can read here). His parents, Jun and Ohno, are everything but ( Read more... )
“I don’t know!”
“Because she thinks she deserves the best. So, when a woman goes through any length to get what she wants, carries a designer handbag even though she’s just a poor PhD student, and drinks a cocktail named after an expensive car, what does that tell you about her character?”
“I don’t know!” Sho wheezed when her ladyship released her hold on the cane around his neck and draped an arm around his shoulder. “I can’t recall very much of what happened with Iris.”
“Oh my, the narcotic effects of your narcissus taking effect already?” came the unpleasant sneer. “You can’t recall the conversation, you can’t recall paying for the drinks, you can’t even recall what you were doing the previous night. My, my the narcotic effects of the narcissus have hit hallucinogenic proportions, n’est-ce pas. Doesn’t that worry you - don’t you fear for the state of your mind?”
“I’m not narcissistic!” protested Sho as soon as he regained his breath.
“Vraiment? Could have fooled me,” she bit back, swiftly placing the blade she had drawn from her cane at his throat. “You’re so self-absorbed that you can’t even recall what happened between yourself and Mlle Iris. You’re so self-absorbed with keeping everyone happy that you can’t even be sure Mr Aiba didn’t jump down from a window and die. You don’t even know what’s real and what’s an illusion anymore; all of which is a clear sign that the narcissus has taken over you, Mr Cherry Blossom of Insincerity. What a piece of work you are.”
“No, that’s no true. I am genuinely worried about Masaki.”
“Ha!” she sneered and dragged the point of her rapier down from Sho’s throat to his chest. As she started to carve a hole there amidst the man’s whimpers and cries, she went on with false pleasantness, “This coming from a man who orders Euro dark lager. Lager is German for storage, did you know? You ordered a beer so dark because you wanted to store away your true self and hide it away from everyone else, n’est-ce pas. Well, that’s an exercise in futility where I’m concerned. I can see you for what you are, Mr Sakurai. Your heart is so shrivelled that there’s just a black cavity where that organ should be. No heart and no brain. How do you survive?”
Completely oblivious and missing the point, Sho frowned in pain and asked, “What about Masaki? Did I really see him fall from a window? How did he survive? A sparrow flew up startled by the fall, you know.”
“Only one sparrow? In the dead of the night when all birds are asleep? Birds sleep from 7.30pm to 4am, did you know?” Lady Strange continued amiably as she carved a whole in the man’s chest. “If one sparrow was startled, why not the whole flock of them?”
“I don’t know,” the man cried out in agonising pain as her ladyship stabbed once and twisted the blade in his chest.
“Ah ha, quelle surprise - no heart,” she declared with feigned surprise, holding up a mirror so that Sho could look at his empty chest cavity. “That’s what happens when you subvert yourself. I wonder if you have any stomach. Shall we find out?”
“No! I won’t live if you do that!” squeaked Sho in fear.
Reply
“Eh? Isn’t Apollo the God of the Sun?”
“Everyone thinks that but they forget that Apollo is God of the Sun AND of truth. It’s just like everyone forgets that Athena is the Goddess of Wisdom AND War. So, Apollo is both God of the Sun and of truth. Why? Because he illuminates the truth. How does he illuminate the truth? Through prophecies because when you consult the oracle at Delphi, the pythia falls into a trance and contacts Apollo. In my day, snakes were sacred to Apollo because you were bitten by a snake, you would fall writhing to the ground and it was believed you were in a trance and getting visions from the Gods, specifically Apollo.”
“What has that to do with the crow?” Sho asked, horrified yet fascinated that he hadn’t a heart.
“Because the crow betrayed Apollo’s trust using the excuse as the snake (a creature even more sacred to Apollo than the crow), Apollo threw the vessel of water, the snake and raven into the air and destroyed them. They became constellations in the end. But the moral of the story is - do not be a sycophant,” her ladyship explained.
Sho looked at his therapist with complete befuddlement. “Eh?”
“Blast! It doesn’t seem like you have a stomach either,” the devil complained, removing her hand from the body cavity and extracting half a fig. “Sycophant comes from the ancient Greek words σῦκον, transliterated as sýkon meaning ‘fig’, and φαίνω transliterated as phaínō for ‘to show’. Therefore, Sykon + phaino=Sycophant, which literally means ‘to show the figs’. The term Sykophainos (the forerunner for the modern English word ‘Sycophant’) was used in my day in Athens to refer to informers who told the government about people who illegally exported figs. In ancient Athens, it was illegal for private businesses and individual to export figs because figs were a nutritious last resort food in times of famine. Moreover, the export of figs was managed under a tight government monopoly. All fig growers MUST sell ALL their produce to the state. In my time, we had very famous Sykophainos who were like ancient day Quislings and falsely accusing others of clandestine transactions with figs. In so doing, the Sykophainos (a) gained favour with the state, and (b) got rid of their enemies through slander. Because the moment you were caught smuggling out figs for export, you will be brought to court, tried and executed. People who told on fig smugglers and private fig exporters for reasons (a) and (b) mentioned above were deemed sycophants because they wanted to be in the apple of the state’s eye as it were.”
At the mention of apple, Sho’s ears pricked up. “Milady, there was an apple and a head of lettuce in addition to the three figs.”
Reply
“Eh? Am I going to be an argument with someone?” gasped an incredulous Sho, shuddering at the sight of his therapist licking blood from her fingers with all the grace and delight of a cat preening herself.
“Avec M. Aiba, peut-etre? That’s for me to know and you to find out,” smiled her ladyship enigmatically as she continued licking the blood from her hands. “Alors, don’t you wonder about the single apple? Putting aside the scientific Latin name of apple, let us speak in high Latin of the Roman empire, d’accord. Apple in Roman Latin is ‘malus’, sharing the same root for the word ‘evil’ which is ‘malum’ in Latin. Plural for apples in Latin is ‘mala’, plural of evils in Latin is also ‘mala’. Telling, hien? The evil apple, that’s a good joke, n’est-ce pas?”
“Because of the bible story?” Sho asked, averting his gaze from his therapist to the gaping hole in his chest and stomach region.
“Partially only, Mr Sakurai. In the bible, the apple is the forbidden fruit because it stands for knowledge of good and evil and knowledge of things far beyond the ken of ordinary men. Are you willing to take that knowledge, Mr Sakurai? Or will you let it corrupt you like it corrupted Adam and Eve?” asked she with a knowing wink.
“They were banished, not corrupted,” Sho reasoned.
“Apples are also a symbol of sexual seduction. How else was Eve able to tempt Adam to bite into apple? How else was the serpent able to tempt Eve into taking the apple? Makes you wonder, hein,” she laughed a high, tinkling laughter of one who knew far more than she was letting on.
“And that’s how they became evil?”
“Non, apples are evil because they started the Trojan War,” remarked her ladyship casually. “Eris, an acquaintance of mine from way back wasn’t invited to a wedding. She was upset by this and threw a golden apple that had the word ‘Kalliste’ on it into the wedding feast to stir up trouble. ‘Kalliste’ in ancient Greek means ‘for the most beautiful one’. Hera, Athena and Aphrodite who were at this wedding feast claimed that they were the most beautiful and deserved the apple, and they would have fought over it and ruined the wedding party had they not been mindful that it was awfully rude to ruin someone’s wedding. So, the three goddesses asked Paris of Troy to judge who was the most beautiful goddess between the three of them in a warped ‘Miss Universe’ pageant. The winner would get the apple. Instead of being a good diplomat and cutting the apple into three and sharing it between the goddesses thereby declaring them to be all beautiful, Paris swayed by the throbbing of his lustful cock gave the apple to Aphrodite who appeared before him naked and promised him the most beautiful mortal woman on earth if he voted her (Aphrodite) as the most beautiful goddess. As his reward, Paris received Helen of Sparta. This sparked off the Trojan War.”
“Eh? A naked goddess and an apple caused the Trojan War?”
Reply
Sho shook his head, evidently dying from information overload rather than blood loss. “The lettuce?”
“In the language of flowers, the lettuce means cold-heartedness. Tres apropos, n’est-ce pas, considering that is what you must seem to M. Aiba,” sniggered her ladyship. “The question would be whose foolishness would spark off the argument indicated by the figs.”
“Eh?” The newscaster-rapper looked up with the blankest of stares on his face.
“Ah tiens!” Her ladyship promptly pulled her rapier from Sho’s chest cavity, making him sputter in further agony. “Pomegranate (the fruit) means ‘foolishness’ in the language of flowers. But in religion, Christian and Jewish, the pomegranate means ‘righteousness’. The message is clear - overcome the foolishness and you will attain righteousness. This message becomes even clearer when you consider the significance of the ONE sparrow you thought you saw flying from the bushes in the dead of the night.”
“A sparrow? What about it?”
“Where Athena transformed Perdix (nephew of Daedalus) into a partridge, she transformed Mr Aiba into a sparrow this time. ‘There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow,’ Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet. How biblical!” tittered her ladyship in amusement as examined her rapier with specious care. Privately however, she lamented the fact that Mr Aiba had not signed up for her therapy session that week. “In Luke 12:6 and Matthew 10:29, Jesus informs his disciples that not even a sparrow can fall without God’s notice because their suffering is seen and forestalled by God. Alors, from this then we may gather that someone up there likes Monsieur Aiba a great deal. Or perhaps the Almighty left Mr Aiba alive because he wanted to convey a more sinister meaning. Who knows, hein?”
“What do you mean?”
Wiping the blood from her rapier, she shrugged delicately and curled her lips scornfully, “Alors, tell me, Mr Sakurai, what is the point of telling you everything when you do not think. What can you do, hmm? You have no brain, no heart, no balls - you’re worse than the scarecrow in the ‘Wizard of Oz’ story.”
“What do you mean I haven’t a brain?”
“Au diable!” cussed the devil as she slashed her blade through the air and held it at his throat. “I could cut off your head, but this rapier wouldn’t do it. Should I decapitate you with my rusty guillotine? There would be nothing in your skull worth cutting your miserable head for. I can throw you in the Black Hole of Calcutta in Hell where we keep our best zombies and none of them would attack you because you have no brains worth eating.”
“Hey, you can’t say that about me! I’m your patient,” argued Sho feebly, eyeing the rapier and its perilously close proximity to his Adam’s apple.
Reply
“No, it isn’t like that, I was worried.”
“Bah, you’re only worried about your standing with your family, especially your dear maman. That’s why you allowed the narcotic qualities of your current narcissism to overtake you.”
“No!”
“We can argue till the cows come home and you will still come out the loser, Mr Sakurai.”
“Why is that?” the man demanded, his temper flaring somewhat and causing his bloody wounds to ooze afresh.
“Because you are a sanctimonious shit with neither grey matter nor heart nor bollocks, and you think you’re so righteous. Putain de merde! As you obviously lack the intellect and the guts at this point in time, I suggest we not waste each other’s time. This session is over. Think about matters and grow a brain cell,” sneered Lady Strange with unreserved contempt as she threw something at him. “Alors, here is a Petri dish with blood agar. Let’s see what grows on it when next we meet.”
Staring at the Petri dish, he asked in a frightened whisper, “Whose blood did you use?”
“Monsieur Aiba’s, of course,” she announced flatly before snapping her fingers and disappearing into the safety of her carriage where she could return to the sanctity of the Winter Palace and the apartments of her departed husband.
[NB: Commentary to come. It will spread over a few days as I have other commitments, and there is a lot to cover in the commentary of CH 17.]
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