COMFORT IS A DEAD WISH. NON-EXISTENT FOR GHOULS, WORTH nothing to humans, hard to receive from those that truly deserved it. despite this juxtaposition of recent events filling his life however, ev remains friendly. confides in nothing other than himself, that he’s someone who lives life like the rest of the world. not always the devil on a night shift, the city’s man-eater. he’s not someone who shapes suspicion into threats; that was mindless antagonism. rather, he’s like a cat tailing an odd smell, curiosity equivalent to an animal’s. and he knows, knows quite well, that this route is rather futile.
and yet, they sit across from each other.
so alike on opposite ends of a chasm, facing each other but not really seeing, listening but not really hearing, and words did little to bridge the gap between them; as quickly as they were constructed, they fell, until the idea of crossing seemed as foolish as icarus attempting to out fly the sun. discourse quells them, but tonight, if only for a moment do they share reprieve. outside it is as dark as the sky is alive and indiscriminate; thick sheets of rain drape over the tinny roof of his balcony like coins from a pocket. thunder booms outside, breaking what stream of conversation they’ve maintained thus far, which is nothing they haven’t already discussed countless times before. words fall from jiang’s voice while red exhaust bleeds from ev’s, as if to illuminate each statement further, highlighting the practicality of it all. his prolonged staring isn’t at the other, but through him. his eye leers the vague shape of a door behind him.
far behind him. they’re closer to the window than they are the door: two means of entering and escaping. one is smaller, but closer, he thinks. the lack of convenience is intentional, because from here, the light from the kitchen stove shows through a thin slit at the bottom, splaying over creaky wooden planks, between the legs of jiang’s chair. ev rarely turned on this light. one thing out of many things in this apartment that wasn’t used for its manufactured purpose. inconsequential reasons, really– nothing other than a signal to him now; his makeshift alarm serves for what may pass through and obscure that yolky shade of tranquil consistency. he’s pictured it in his mind countless times already throughout the course of this rendezvous: something approaches the door. it has footsteps that are human in design but not quite bearing the same cadence ones would make in stride. irregular silence follows after- movements that are unsure, yet calculating at the same time. something that knows what its doing, but doesn’t want to present itself just yet. an “abandoned step”, they call it. it’s the only way he can explain it to himself. it’ll sound like someone was walking, was planning to walk farther, then suddenly stopped. jiang was right: he’s smarter than he lets on.
ev waits. he reminds himself to count each amount of sentences well before responding, down to the word choice. it doesn’t matter what we talk about. he’ll want to know. he hates being left out of things, one second too long and he’ll know something is going on, without him. which is why the walls have ears. they can’t risk waking him up. he waits and stares, pausing before responding, timing a reply. wanting rain to mask this secret he’s kept stowed away for months. the walls have ears.
“ I’ve seen his sister. “ lightning explodes. the room is fully visible, nightmarishly, for a flash. jiang figure remains fixed on his mind long after the light passes and the thunder rolls, vanishing under the shadows once more. nothing was behind him. the door hasn’t opened. ev glares through the smoke. shapes emerge, then vanish, then emerge again.
outside he hears a harsh snapping sound, then several after. wood crackling. smoke. sparks. hissing, silence. rain comes down harder against the roof and droplets find their way into his lap. it’s darker now–colder, too, and ev surmises by the unforgiving hand of none other than irony itself that it had been something disruptive enough to wipe out an entire block’s worth of electricity: a telephone pole. unfazed, he swipes his thumb along the grooves of a lighter for it to sharply ignite with a click. across loosened shadows, the contours of a flame’s light drowning them both in a haunting glow. only his mouth, eyes, and bits of his face were visible. “ I’ve seen everything. Things he shouldn’t tell people– where he came from, his past, his house. His family pictures, scattered underneath piles of shit; couldn’t tell which was trash and which were just animal carcasses underneath more shit. He doesn’t want anyone to touch it either, got mad at me once for moving bird bones off of a fucking windowsill. Told me about you, about ‘Kageru’– how you’re supposed to be dead,” ev pauses. he seems to ponder.
“ How everyone’s supposed to be dead.”
a hooked edge smile curves around his teeth. there is no joy to it, no pleasure in the knotted rage buried inside of his belly and the grit of his furious teeth. a sad band of ghosts reside here now, hollow like a cored apple. there is a familiarity inside of it all he can’t recognize yet, a cold mirror from years ago with arms lashed tight to his ribs now figuring his structure today. dead, yet not quite, but something remains. he knows this was what he once was, outside the warm steam of organs serving as the womb he birthed from. existence doesn’t need to be explained outside of a choice of living, and if not living, simply coming back for none other than the concept of it being possible at all.
“ When really, it should be him, not you. Any of you. ” ev adds, an absent pitch to his tone as he forces himself up onto his heels, back to standing. what blood had been pulled from the mangled wound of teeth and flesh now lingers on the bottom curve of the boy’s bandages – stitched into nothingness, he’s helped a ghost heal the very wounds that might of killed him the first go-around of mortality. then, it hits him, the glaringly obvious revelation this fact precedes him that, yeah, that’s right– jiang probably did die from something similar to this. he knows what claws digging into eye sockets feel like just as much as he would a broken jaw.
“ What holds me back from killing him could be the same exact reason that held you back from leaving, I guess. Easier said than done. ”
𝙰 𝙱𝙾𝙻𝚃 𝙵𝚁𝙾𝙼 𝙶𝙾𝙳 𝙸𝙽 𝙰 𝙵𝙾𝚁𝙼 𝙾𝙵 𝙸𝚁𝙾𝙽𝚈, 𝙾𝚁 𝙰 𝙵𝙾𝚁𝙼 𝙾𝙵 𝙾𝙼𝙴𝙽? all his life it has come crashing down, not once, not twice, not thrice, but forevermore as a reminder, a threat; the everlasting haunt of their existence. of hers, most of all. it leaves no surprise on his face. when the flash of light illuminates the entirety of ev’s domesticated apartment, he makes no flinch as he raises his head to face him and take in his features through the bright seconds. irony, indeed. a woman once named god, a shot from the heavens--in life and in death, she remained, in suffering and anger, nestled agonizingly in the clutches of the spider, spinning on and on and on. jiāng was only a byproduct of this, his own morbid eternity lying just on the outskirts. he doesn’t question it, he doesn’t ponder it, he simply leans back and turns his head to the ceiling, his eyes a soft glow in the night as a finger slips under fresh bandages with an itch of paranoia to scratch.
“..i watched him do it." he need not explain nor does he dare invoke it aloud. the truth cuts through like a knife through butter, always fresh like the first time. adam would feel it, smell it, taste it. as would she. their hearts would shatter in unison. he's afraid to admit his would, too. that his did too on that same day, before he could ever know. if only i…
the scene plays out perfectly as he stares into nothing. through gunshot and fire and incessant insanity, freedom was just beyond reach, people running every which way with shouts and cries echoing, yet the siblings stood together in the center, all the world slow and silent around them. he hears their heartbeats boom against his eardrums, watches her hands on his face, then it happens. in the blink of an eye. an all encompassing blackness atop her, making her frail and malleable. all that's left was him. looming, weeping, loud in his sorrow for his ragdoll. the memory slows as it settles in on adam’s face, twisted in an unimaginable rage and heart rending agony. all screams dissolve into the air, all chaos slipping away into the wind. suddenly the atmosphere is so thick it pushes down on you harder than gravity. the earth feels like it’s shaking, the sky feels like it’s closing in. don’t look him in the eyes. don’t let him see you. adam turns his head. don’t look--
jiāng closes his eyes and shuts it away with a following sigh. the shuffling not far from them starts and stops in random intervals, his body trained to know it by fear and preservation, yet part of him settles on the familiarity of the sound. the lack of absence. that was his downfall. he scowls in the dark. "always wanted to tell her what she's done. but she knows."
you know, don't you? of course you do.
you carry that burden more than anyone. trapped in it for the rest of time.
he wants to laugh, but it comes out dry and cold. ev recounts a cautionary tale so easily, yet it ripples through him menacingly, each piece and each second of history a blot on his skin. anyone willing to stick their hands into adam's life was the farthest thing from smart, this he learned in the most ironically harsh way, and as he watches another man walk down the flight of stairs so readily, with a mind to not simply end it, it squeezes his lungs in a specific sadness. he watches them like a picture book of dusty memories, tumbling down the same hill, hurting each other in the same spaces. the nastiest routine of adam tearing his heart out, placing it on the table, and someone daring enough to watch it beat and bleed, feeding on the sweet sludge it produces. jiāng turns to look at ev as he stands and puffs his fanciful smoke, their eyes glancing at each other's marks from fighting. he doesn’t admit, but he’s sorry for him. truly. deeply.
"we were always dead," mumbles jiāng while he slouches forward, head in hands, "somebody won't let us go."
'easier said than done.'
where's the lightning when he needs it, where's the ridiculousness of the world come to spite him? instead it's quiet, and his chest seizes at a certain memory, a hand scratching at his shirt with a phantom itch of something missing. something lost.
"..." where to begin? what pivotal moment was the one that sent them into their uncontrollable spiral? on that day, in the middle of nowhere under the sweltering sun, he should have never thought twice. for pity or for revenge, he should have ended the story and set it all free. and why not? why didn't he? out of the same pity? the same vengeance? or was it out of loneliness, out of some misplaced superiority? nothing mattered in the end. his life moved and played like a preordained script the second they collided. just like it did hers, as she appears again in this man’s life, as she haunts the world she tried to leave behind in better hands. like her, he tried, but---
"...couldn't stop anything. i was..afraid of him. not because of what he is, but because i---"
the shuffling returns as thunder rumbles angrily right outside the window. warnings. he takes a deep breath and swallows the confession like he has a million times, tearing it apart before it becomes real. what lurks underneath his skin crawls and peers at him even through thick bandages, making his stomach turn. it's all mocking. even being where he was now, sitting pitifully in another man's home as a tormented specter. he can't even grace ev with another glance and instead stares at the floor, the tension in the room gluing him to his chair.
"no one should have ever found out about any of us. we were never meant to leave that place." jiāng's voice is low and careful as he silently counts the quiet footsteps just beyond. "don't try to fill in our cracks.”
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