Snow and Ash - Chapter Thirteen Part 1
Shige:
Some nameless program is on the screen of the TV - every once in a while I register the loud cheer of the audience or another one of the host’s corny jokes that everyone robotically laughs at.
I’m not really paying attention to it - my head is resting on Ryo’s shoulder, and my eyes are closing a little bit longer every time I blink. Our fingers are loosely joined.
“Mm, good night,” I say sleepily and shut my eyes, feeling like I will surrender to the comfort and fall asleep any second. I expect him to say we should move to my bed to sleep or at least respond, but he doesn’t say anything at all. I pry my eyes open, and the rest of me that isn’t wondering about this is telling me to just forget about it and sleep already. But I don’t listen to that.
“Ryo~”
When I lift my head and look at him, he’s staring blankly at the wall, and now that I focus on him, I can tell that he misses something. Yamapi?
I squeeze his hand, and he turns to me. “What?”
“Holding hands with me and thinking about someone else,” I say jokingly, but I can immediately tell that he doesn’t think of it that way. I realize this almost as quickly as I realize it’s not Yamapi who he’s missing.
“Why do you have to say things like that?”
“I was joking, geez.”
He unlocks his hand from mine. “Whatever.”
“Don’t get annoyed with me over something so stupid.”
“It’s not stupid.”
“It is if it’s not true.”
“If?” He looks at me in disbelief. “Seriously?”
“What am I supposed to think when you get defensive all of a sudden? Whatever. Just go see whomever you’re missing.”
I get off of the couch and head towards my bedroom, flopping onto the bed even though I no longer feel very tired. After a few minutes of tossing and turning and trying to sleep but failing, I step out of the room and see Ryo still sitting on the couch, his face buried in his hands. He doesn’t look up when I reach him so I shake his shoulder gently.
He pulls his hands away. “I’m sorry.”
“You going to tell me what that was about?”
He leans back and sighs a sigh that tells me he knows I won’t like what he’s about to say and therefore he’s stalling.
“You don’t like my power, do you?”
He smiles weakly. “Read my mind again?”
“Lucky guess.”
“Yeah right.”
I crouch down in front of him, placing my hands on his knees, and he looks down at me. “I didn’t pick it, Ryo.”
“I know. But it’s like I’m on edge around you. Afraid of thinking something you won’t like, afraid of feeling something you won’t like.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“But I am.”
“Would you rather have me be human again? Back to counting?”
He shakes his head. “No. I know you’re happy like this. I just wish things were back to the way they used to be.”
“You want me to be cursed?”
He tilts his head, and I can tell that that is what he meant but at the same time he doesn’t want that. “…Not really. You’re not held back at all like this so it’s better this way. I guess I just mean….”
“Yamapi and Koyama?”
He nods. “Everything was just ruined at once. He didn’t have to move out.”
“But he did, Ryo. Things change.”
He sits up and leans closer to me. “No. You saw them. You were around them for an entire month non-stop. How could that have changed?”
“It just did. It’s the way things work. People grow apart - you know that.”
---
Other emotions are becoming less noticeable to me, but the ones Ryo feels for Mika are still so painstakingly obvious. Even if I wasn’t always reminded of them I still wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about them.
Needless to say, it’s been causing us to argue lately.
“What would you like me to do then? Stop feeling? Become emotionless? When I met you I was pretty damn close to that. Should I go back to that?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Stop liking her so much.” I think back to the other day on the couch. “When you talk to her on the phone or think about her it’s like I become invisible to you.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes it is.”
“You said it yourself - people grow apart. Well, people also grow closer.”
“And push away the people they’re already close to.”
“Not everyone’s as stupid as Yamapi and deals with it that way. I don’t talk to her around you because I know you don’t like it. If she was more important to me and you really were invisible to me I would talk to her, not giving a shit about whether you were there or not.”
I know he doesn’t do things like that to protect me, to avoid hurting me, and though it’s not his fault, his desire to do them ends up hurting me anyway.
“After everything we’ve been through together, do you really think I could just move on to someone else? Do you really think I want to?”
“With what’s happened lately the After everything we’ve been through line doesn’t really have as much of an effect anymore.”
“Shige, tell me what you want me to do then.”
I point to the phone in his hands with lights blinking on the top. “Answer it.”
Ryo hesitates for a moment but lifts the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
Something wrong?
“It’s really not a good time.”
Can I call back later then? Or maybe we could hang out? When it’s good for you, of course.
He wants to.
“I-“
“Go if you want to,” I cut in.
Ryo glares at me. “I’ll call you back,” he says quickly before hanging up. “I don’t understand you. First you want me to stop liking her and now you’re pushing me to hang out with her.”
He finally said it. He likes her.
“No. I want you to stop pushing away things you want to do so I won’t get hurt. When you’re with me I know you think about what you could be doing with her. So go if you want to, talk to her when you want to. Be with me when you want to, not to make me feel better.”
My muscles become tense and my throat tightens, like my body is trying to keep the emotions inside.
“Make me, then,” he says with a tone of anger I’ve only heard once before. “You can control my mind, can’t you? Make it so I never think of her again. Make it so I only see you, only think of you, only want you. Make me do everything you want that I can’t seem to understand.”
“Ryo.”
He steps closer to me and extends his arms. “Do it. I can’t seem to do it myself so force me to.”
The pain inside of him only makes me feel worse than my own makes me feel. “You don’t want me to-“
“What the fuck does it matter what I want? The truth is clear. If I do what I want, I lose you. So make me a puppet, make me do what you want when you want. It’ll be fun to have the perfect boyfriend, won’t it? One who doesn’t make you angry or upset or jealous. You can brag about it to all of your friends.”
Tears blur my eyes. “Stop.”
“Make me! You don’t have to ask, just do it. Go ahead, try it.”
“I’m not going to do that. You know-”
“Yeah, I know what you want. You want me gone. Don’t say I never did anything for you.” The door slams and I fall back against the wall, his words repeating in my head and pushing me down the wall to the floor. My heart throbs in my chest as I wish I never said anything, never let feelings of jealousy be the slight pull of the thread that causes us to begin tearing apart.
I hear footsteps down the stairs and a moment later, long arms are around me. Koyama - even though he has problems of his own, he still bottles that all up inside to lend a smile and a warm embrace to any of us who is ever upset.
“Why is he acting like this?”
He pats my hair. “I know why you said it…but telling someone you don’t like the way he feels wouldn’t be easy to deal with.”
“I shouldn’t have said that but I don’t want to lose him to someone I’ve never even met.”
“He’s the same way with you…but in his case he’s losing you to something he can’t control. Sounds like it’s making him crazy.”
---
Koyama:
A few days later as we sit at the table for dinner, no one says anything about it when Ryo-chan barely touches his food. The chair next to his is empty, and no words are needed because we all already know. It’s happening again.
I wonder if things like this can be considered a domino effect. Four close people, two couples. When one breaks up, is it inevitable that the other will too? Shige told me that when Yamapi and I broke up, he was afraid of the same thing happening to him.
If you suddenly become afraid of something you had never thought of before, is it set in stone that it will actually happen not too long afterwards?
Our fears are becoming reality, it seems. Will Massu and Aoi-chan be next?
“Ne, Kei-chan,” Aoi says and breaks me out of my thoughts. “When are you going to invite that hot doctor over?”
Massu shoots her a look but I shake my head, smiling. “I don’t know. Do I really describe him that way?”
“You do. And besides, aren’t all doctors automatically handsome? They save lives, know how to make people feel better…”
Massu frowns.
“I heal people too. Does that make me handsome?”
She laughs and nods. “Of course!”
“Kei-chan,” Massu cuts in. “Let me know when he’s coming over. I’ll take Aoi out for dinner.”
She shoves his shoulder. “Hey.”
“Thanks for the meal,” Ryo says in a dull tone as he stands up to excuse himself.
“But you didn’t eat anything.”
“Not hungry.”
“Then can you get that?” I ask him when the doorbell rings, figuring it is Shige. He didn’t say he was coming over tonight but he knows when we eat so maybe he is hungry.
We hear a girl’s voice and instantly we all look up at each other and head towards the kitchen to see who it is. It doesn’t sound like Reiko-chan or Katori.
“What are you doing here? How did you even know where I live?” Ryo asks the girl rudely.
“I walked you home one night, idiot.”
Standing in the doorway is a woman with long black hair and a simple black sweater with jeans.
“It’s like a girl version of Ryo-chan,” Aoi comments, and once she says it I realize how true it is.
“That must be Mika then,” Massu concludes with the same enthusiasm he uses when talking about Reiko. None of us really like either of them, though I know it isn’t good to judge people I don’t even know.
“Hmm,” Tegoshi begins. “Isn’t it said that people are attracted to those who are like themselves?”
“I’ve never heard that before,” I say.
He shrugs. “It makes sense.”
I nod and go back to listening to the two of them.
“Can I come in?” she asks politely.
“We’re in the middle of dinner, actually.”
“Oh,” she responds, disappointed.
Before I even know why I’m doing it, I head towards them. “There’s enough for another person if you haven’t eaten yet,” I offer and Ryo gives me a what-are-you-doing look.
She smiles and bows her head. “Thank you very much.”
“Mika, right?”
“Mm. And you’re really sweet so you must be Koyama?”
I turn to Ryo-chan, happy that he described me like that to her, forgetting for a moment that she is the reason Shige and Ryo-chan fought a few nights ago.
“The food’s probably cold.”
She shakes her head. “Even if it is, it’s okay.”
Ryo sits back at his seat and seems uncomfortable when she takes Shige’s seat. There’s no other option, but the symbolism of it causes my heart to break a little.
He starts eating normally and frowns. “It really is cold.”
“That’s what happens when you leave it there,” Aoi points out obviously.
Mika turns to her with a shy smile. “I don’t think I caught your name.”
“Aoi.”
“Nice to meet you,” Mika responds with an even brighter smile. She seems to genuinely want to get to know everyone even though we’re all on edge around her. Not only does she not know about us being mutants nor does she know (at least I don’t think he told her) about the curse, but none of us can stop thinking about Shige when we see her.
She turns to Ryo. “Why did you never mention her?”
“Gee thanks, Ryo-chan,” Aoi says jokingly and Ryo smiles apologetically.
“Sorry.”
“But it really is okay,” Mika says as she looks at the food. “When I was younger all I ate was cold food.”
Tegoshi tilts his head in attempt to understand why a child would eat cold food. “Like, leftovers?”
“Nah, for some reason I always ate later than everyone else. By the time I got around to eating dinner it was already cold.”
“Couldn’t you just microwave it?”
“We didn’t have one. But I didn’t mind it. I liked to eat later on anyway.” She giggles. “I was a strange child.”
“That didn’t change,” Ryo adds.
“I guess not.”
Part 2
Some nameless program is on the screen of the TV - every once in a while I register the loud cheer of the audience or another one of the host’s corny jokes that everyone robotically laughs at.
I’m not really paying attention to it - my head is resting on Ryo’s shoulder, and my eyes are closing a little bit longer every time I blink. Our fingers are loosely joined.
“Mm, good night,” I say sleepily and shut my eyes, feeling like I will surrender to the comfort and fall asleep any second. I expect him to say we should move to my bed to sleep or at least respond, but he doesn’t say anything at all. I pry my eyes open, and the rest of me that isn’t wondering about this is telling me to just forget about it and sleep already. But I don’t listen to that.
“Ryo~”
When I lift my head and look at him, he’s staring blankly at the wall, and now that I focus on him, I can tell that he misses something. Yamapi?
I squeeze his hand, and he turns to me. “What?”
“Holding hands with me and thinking about someone else,” I say jokingly, but I can immediately tell that he doesn’t think of it that way. I realize this almost as quickly as I realize it’s not Yamapi who he’s missing.
“Why do you have to say things like that?”
“I was joking, geez.”
He unlocks his hand from mine. “Whatever.”
“Don’t get annoyed with me over something so stupid.”
“It’s not stupid.”
“It is if it’s not true.”
“If?” He looks at me in disbelief. “Seriously?”
“What am I supposed to think when you get defensive all of a sudden? Whatever. Just go see whomever you’re missing.”
I get off of the couch and head towards my bedroom, flopping onto the bed even though I no longer feel very tired. After a few minutes of tossing and turning and trying to sleep but failing, I step out of the room and see Ryo still sitting on the couch, his face buried in his hands. He doesn’t look up when I reach him so I shake his shoulder gently.
He pulls his hands away. “I’m sorry.”
“You going to tell me what that was about?”
He leans back and sighs a sigh that tells me he knows I won’t like what he’s about to say and therefore he’s stalling.
“You don’t like my power, do you?”
He smiles weakly. “Read my mind again?”
“Lucky guess.”
“Yeah right.”
I crouch down in front of him, placing my hands on his knees, and he looks down at me. “I didn’t pick it, Ryo.”
“I know. But it’s like I’m on edge around you. Afraid of thinking something you won’t like, afraid of feeling something you won’t like.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“But I am.”
“Would you rather have me be human again? Back to counting?”
He shakes his head. “No. I know you’re happy like this. I just wish things were back to the way they used to be.”
“You want me to be cursed?”
He tilts his head, and I can tell that that is what he meant but at the same time he doesn’t want that. “…Not really. You’re not held back at all like this so it’s better this way. I guess I just mean….”
“Yamapi and Koyama?”
He nods. “Everything was just ruined at once. He didn’t have to move out.”
“But he did, Ryo. Things change.”
He sits up and leans closer to me. “No. You saw them. You were around them for an entire month non-stop. How could that have changed?”
“It just did. It’s the way things work. People grow apart - you know that.”
---
Other emotions are becoming less noticeable to me, but the ones Ryo feels for Mika are still so painstakingly obvious. Even if I wasn’t always reminded of them I still wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about them.
Needless to say, it’s been causing us to argue lately.
“What would you like me to do then? Stop feeling? Become emotionless? When I met you I was pretty damn close to that. Should I go back to that?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Stop liking her so much.” I think back to the other day on the couch. “When you talk to her on the phone or think about her it’s like I become invisible to you.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes it is.”
“You said it yourself - people grow apart. Well, people also grow closer.”
“And push away the people they’re already close to.”
“Not everyone’s as stupid as Yamapi and deals with it that way. I don’t talk to her around you because I know you don’t like it. If she was more important to me and you really were invisible to me I would talk to her, not giving a shit about whether you were there or not.”
I know he doesn’t do things like that to protect me, to avoid hurting me, and though it’s not his fault, his desire to do them ends up hurting me anyway.
“After everything we’ve been through together, do you really think I could just move on to someone else? Do you really think I want to?”
“With what’s happened lately the After everything we’ve been through line doesn’t really have as much of an effect anymore.”
“Shige, tell me what you want me to do then.”
I point to the phone in his hands with lights blinking on the top. “Answer it.”
Ryo hesitates for a moment but lifts the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
Something wrong?
“It’s really not a good time.”
Can I call back later then? Or maybe we could hang out? When it’s good for you, of course.
He wants to.
“I-“
“Go if you want to,” I cut in.
Ryo glares at me. “I’ll call you back,” he says quickly before hanging up. “I don’t understand you. First you want me to stop liking her and now you’re pushing me to hang out with her.”
He finally said it. He likes her.
“No. I want you to stop pushing away things you want to do so I won’t get hurt. When you’re with me I know you think about what you could be doing with her. So go if you want to, talk to her when you want to. Be with me when you want to, not to make me feel better.”
My muscles become tense and my throat tightens, like my body is trying to keep the emotions inside.
“Make me, then,” he says with a tone of anger I’ve only heard once before. “You can control my mind, can’t you? Make it so I never think of her again. Make it so I only see you, only think of you, only want you. Make me do everything you want that I can’t seem to understand.”
“Ryo.”
He steps closer to me and extends his arms. “Do it. I can’t seem to do it myself so force me to.”
The pain inside of him only makes me feel worse than my own makes me feel. “You don’t want me to-“
“What the fuck does it matter what I want? The truth is clear. If I do what I want, I lose you. So make me a puppet, make me do what you want when you want. It’ll be fun to have the perfect boyfriend, won’t it? One who doesn’t make you angry or upset or jealous. You can brag about it to all of your friends.”
Tears blur my eyes. “Stop.”
“Make me! You don’t have to ask, just do it. Go ahead, try it.”
“I’m not going to do that. You know-”
“Yeah, I know what you want. You want me gone. Don’t say I never did anything for you.” The door slams and I fall back against the wall, his words repeating in my head and pushing me down the wall to the floor. My heart throbs in my chest as I wish I never said anything, never let feelings of jealousy be the slight pull of the thread that causes us to begin tearing apart.
I hear footsteps down the stairs and a moment later, long arms are around me. Koyama - even though he has problems of his own, he still bottles that all up inside to lend a smile and a warm embrace to any of us who is ever upset.
“Why is he acting like this?”
He pats my hair. “I know why you said it…but telling someone you don’t like the way he feels wouldn’t be easy to deal with.”
“I shouldn’t have said that but I don’t want to lose him to someone I’ve never even met.”
“He’s the same way with you…but in his case he’s losing you to something he can’t control. Sounds like it’s making him crazy.”
---
Koyama:
A few days later as we sit at the table for dinner, no one says anything about it when Ryo-chan barely touches his food. The chair next to his is empty, and no words are needed because we all already know. It’s happening again.
I wonder if things like this can be considered a domino effect. Four close people, two couples. When one breaks up, is it inevitable that the other will too? Shige told me that when Yamapi and I broke up, he was afraid of the same thing happening to him.
If you suddenly become afraid of something you had never thought of before, is it set in stone that it will actually happen not too long afterwards?
Our fears are becoming reality, it seems. Will Massu and Aoi-chan be next?
“Ne, Kei-chan,” Aoi says and breaks me out of my thoughts. “When are you going to invite that hot doctor over?”
Massu shoots her a look but I shake my head, smiling. “I don’t know. Do I really describe him that way?”
“You do. And besides, aren’t all doctors automatically handsome? They save lives, know how to make people feel better…”
Massu frowns.
“I heal people too. Does that make me handsome?”
She laughs and nods. “Of course!”
“Kei-chan,” Massu cuts in. “Let me know when he’s coming over. I’ll take Aoi out for dinner.”
She shoves his shoulder. “Hey.”
“Thanks for the meal,” Ryo says in a dull tone as he stands up to excuse himself.
“But you didn’t eat anything.”
“Not hungry.”
“Then can you get that?” I ask him when the doorbell rings, figuring it is Shige. He didn’t say he was coming over tonight but he knows when we eat so maybe he is hungry.
We hear a girl’s voice and instantly we all look up at each other and head towards the kitchen to see who it is. It doesn’t sound like Reiko-chan or Katori.
“What are you doing here? How did you even know where I live?” Ryo asks the girl rudely.
“I walked you home one night, idiot.”
Standing in the doorway is a woman with long black hair and a simple black sweater with jeans.
“It’s like a girl version of Ryo-chan,” Aoi comments, and once she says it I realize how true it is.
“That must be Mika then,” Massu concludes with the same enthusiasm he uses when talking about Reiko. None of us really like either of them, though I know it isn’t good to judge people I don’t even know.
“Hmm,” Tegoshi begins. “Isn’t it said that people are attracted to those who are like themselves?”
“I’ve never heard that before,” I say.
He shrugs. “It makes sense.”
I nod and go back to listening to the two of them.
“Can I come in?” she asks politely.
“We’re in the middle of dinner, actually.”
“Oh,” she responds, disappointed.
Before I even know why I’m doing it, I head towards them. “There’s enough for another person if you haven’t eaten yet,” I offer and Ryo gives me a what-are-you-doing look.
She smiles and bows her head. “Thank you very much.”
“Mika, right?”
“Mm. And you’re really sweet so you must be Koyama?”
I turn to Ryo-chan, happy that he described me like that to her, forgetting for a moment that she is the reason Shige and Ryo-chan fought a few nights ago.
“The food’s probably cold.”
She shakes her head. “Even if it is, it’s okay.”
Ryo sits back at his seat and seems uncomfortable when she takes Shige’s seat. There’s no other option, but the symbolism of it causes my heart to break a little.
He starts eating normally and frowns. “It really is cold.”
“That’s what happens when you leave it there,” Aoi points out obviously.
Mika turns to her with a shy smile. “I don’t think I caught your name.”
“Aoi.”
“Nice to meet you,” Mika responds with an even brighter smile. She seems to genuinely want to get to know everyone even though we’re all on edge around her. Not only does she not know about us being mutants nor does she know (at least I don’t think he told her) about the curse, but none of us can stop thinking about Shige when we see her.
She turns to Ryo. “Why did you never mention her?”
“Gee thanks, Ryo-chan,” Aoi says jokingly and Ryo smiles apologetically.
“Sorry.”
“But it really is okay,” Mika says as she looks at the food. “When I was younger all I ate was cold food.”
Tegoshi tilts his head in attempt to understand why a child would eat cold food. “Like, leftovers?”
“Nah, for some reason I always ate later than everyone else. By the time I got around to eating dinner it was already cold.”
“Couldn’t you just microwave it?”
“We didn’t have one. But I didn’t mind it. I liked to eat later on anyway.” She giggles. “I was a strange child.”
“That didn’t change,” Ryo adds.
“I guess not.”
Part 2