Knights and Knaves puzzles

Dazai   …The boy’s hand, the one named William Blake, touched mine.   There was no “when,” no “what,” no “where.” Only darkness, gazing at me with a hundred lucid star-eyes — vast, eternal, tranquil, silent, not the least bit terrifying — beautiful. And I was not. I hung in the void. I… Who am I? The answer was near, just within reach, but it slipped away, oozing like water through my fingers, leaving nothing but emptiness, which could neither confirm nor deny anything. I forgot. That happens to people sometimes. Forgetting — when you don’t remember. Remembering — what is that like? So quiet. So empty. Somewhere inside me, a feeling was stirring. Loneliness. Not frightening or sorrowful — a piercingly pure note — but with it came unease: I remembered that the world held things that were frightening and sorrowful. And other things… so many other things. I remembered what not-loneliness was too: it was when someone took your hands and said — come, I’ll show you the sea and the forest, sunsets and sunrises, November and April, the taste of fresh-baked bread, the ticklish prickle of a cat’s whiskers, the sting of bruises and scraped knees, and — flight, and sex; and I remembered the one who taught me that. And the others, the people who grew, changed, suffered, rejoiced, and died because of me. I am Osamu Dazai. That’s who I am. I am darkness and nonexistence, and yet I am something more than emptiness. I have a face and a name. I am someone. I am capable of wanting things. Of changing things. My nature is a double-edged blade, one that can be wielded by both murderer and healer. I can destroy, or I can save. At the very least, I must save Chuuya. Without me, he will die. I remembered: I had a plan… I wanted to win. The memory seemed petty and absurd. The thought of leaving this beautiful place to return felt bitter and heavy. How could that ruined world of noise and filth, of petty grievances, fleeting joys, and boundless human idiocy compare to the purity and stillness of the void? The stars were so beautiful. Immortal silver suns, brooding moons, icy filigree nebulae. Jupiter, the Pleiades, Ursa Major. My place was here, among them, in the quiet darkness. I will return to you soon, stars. I only need to save Chuuya first. Then…   When I opened my eyes, William and I were still touching. Perhaps only an instant had passed, though it had felt like an eternity. And then, everything happened without fear, without hesitation, without error. Like music, played to perfection. There was only one moment that rattled me — when Chuuya struck me in the temple, in that fleeting millisecond when I realized I was losing consciousness. But it was instinctive fear, not rational. I knew he would handle the rest. For all the times we’d been in situations where we were a hair’s breadth from disaster, I had always known that even if I made a mistake, Chuuya would be there. And so it was — I came to almost immediately, mere seconds later; I heard Chuuya telling Billy about his friend, I heard the Brontë sisters refuse to obey Joanne — everything was unfolding exactly as it should. I kept my eyes shut, knowing that Joanne knew about Corruption and that Chuuya wouldn’t use it without me, but if she realized I was awake, she’d stop wasting time arguing and just shoot me. And every second she delayed brought us closer to victory. Then, a metaphorical one-ton slab dropped onto my skull — thankfully, only metaphorical — and I knew we had won. We won! Have I mentioned how much I loathe Chuuya’s ability with every fiber of my being? But after years of enduring this personal hell, I had at least grown somewhat accustomed to it, enough to crawl toward the Hi-Power pistol Joanne had dropped when the gravitational force had pinned her to the floor like a speck of dust caught in a vacuum cleaner’s pipe. I doubted I would need the gun — in fact, I was fairly certain I wouldn’t — but, well… just in case. Chuuya hung half a meter above the ground in the middle of Regent Street, and the entire street — along with everything on it — was collapsing like a house of cards. Getting to him wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, let me tell you. Not with the crumpled walls, the debris, the fissures in the asphalt, the floating rubble swirling like an asteroid belt, the whirlwind of convulsing gravitational pressure. Every step felt like my skull was about to detonate. And if next time he ends up tearing apart half the planet and I land on the other side of the world? Should I start tying him to myself like a leash? (There won’t be a next time, I reminded myself.) I suddenly realized — this was the first time in what felt like an eternity that I was seeing him without his gloves. His fingers were thin, almost boyish, slightly gnawed at the tips — just as I remembered — but now with nails painted black. That was new. Black nail polish, for god’s sake… And that ridiculous shirt — "Bad Boys Go to London" — what a slap in the face. Once again, I had pulled a child into my games and nearly killed him. My poor, unfortunate angel. The angel of the art room. I wrapped my fingers around his, and at last, the earth beneath us stilled. He blinked. His lips moved, then stretched into a grin, baring bloodied teeth. “Fucking amazing,” he enunciated clearly. “…What?” “I said, fucking amazing. Like an orgasm on a rollercoaster, sharp and crisp as hell… And I didn’t even kill anyone! Well, I tried not to.” “…Er. Doesn’t it, you know, hurt?” “Hurts like a motherfucker,” he remembered. “Do I look… awful?” I always thought he looked fine, really. Especially if you wiped the blood off his face. But I reminded myself I was supposed to be a bastard and said indifferently: “I wouldn’t recommend looking in a mirror. You resemble a fever dream. Medically speaking, you should already be dead or at least on your last breath…” “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to just say ‘thank you.’ Who the hell do you think I did all this for?” His blue eyes flashed with genuine indignation. I decided to finish him off with a charming smile. “Did I ask you to?” I said sweetly. “Consider it a lesson, Chuuya: never do anything for someone else. Oh, and here — your gloves. Take them before you accidentally flatten another city block.” I had picked them up back in the hotel when he first started taking down our opponents. When I slipped them into my pocket, I had thought: Mori’s white gloves, Chuuya’s black gloves — there was something almost hypnotic in the symmetry of it. “Congratulations. You’ve officially become a real asshole,” Chuuya spat. Quite literally — he spat blood. He swayed, slumped against a chunk of collapsed wall, and maybe, just maybe, lost consciousness. I stepped away and called an ambulance because "on his last breath" was, if anything, an understatement. Then, I went to check on the others.   Chuuya’s idea with the cages was rather brilliant. “Well, well, at last we meet properly, Billy Blake,” I said affably, drawing my gun. “Shall we discuss your desires? You’ve got some complicated feelings about your mother right now, but you don’t actually want her to die, do you?” The boy considered my question with grave deliberation before nodding. “She’s not bad. She took care of me…” “She probably even loves you a little, doesn’t she?” I asked gently. (And why not? The Snow Queen is capable of love, in her own peculiar way. As one loves an intriguing conversation partner. Watching, waiting — will her ward assemble the word Eternity, or, say, slit his own throat with one of the shards?) Another nod. “And what about yourself? Do you want to live or die?” This time, there was no hesitation. “Die.” “Have you considered,” I mused, “that if your mother lives, she’ll be completely alone without you? Perhaps, just perhaps, you ought to live — for her?” “N-no. I don’t think so. I don’t want to.” “And has it ever occurred to you,” I went on, as though merely pondering aloud, “that you could erase your own memory and become an entirely different person? Someone who doesn’t despise himself? You know, Ginny Woolf has forgiven you. People like her — kind people — have a way of doing that. You could meet her again, befriend her, without remembering what you did.” A glimmer of hope flickered in his eyes. “Yes… That would be nice. I don’t know if I could, but… probably…” “Then let’s make a deal, shall we? You’ll erase the memories of your mother, a few Equalizers… perhaps some of the children from Avalon orphanage…” I still hadn’t quite decided what to do about Theta Sigma, but some of those brats were unquestionably dangerous. A nasty temper and sheer idiocy, coupled with the conviction that one is a chosen genius, merely stifled by the cruel, pedestrian masses — well, let’s just say it’s not a winning combination. “And some others. We’ll work out the details later.” There was quite a bit to be done, admittedly. But I saw certain benefits in it — namely, the Equalizers surely had substantial financial assets. My own needs were monkishly modest, but Chuuya would no doubt be delighted with a new car or some other ridiculous indulgence. No, don’t think about Chuuya… “I don’t know if I can erase the memories of everyone who’s seen the destruction,” Billy warned. “There’s a whole crowd over there. Paramedics, police… I think I see photographers…” “They don’t all need to forget.” I smiled. “In fact, I want you to ensure that the official reports say you and Joanne Ruskin are dead. That your bodies were found here.” “But if I’m already erasing the Equalizers’ memories, why…” His brow furrowed in confusion. “Just trust me — it’ll be better this way.” “…Alright. I’ll do as you say. But you have to promise me something.” His wide, pleading eyes were almost beautiful in that moment. “…Promise that once I’ve erased my own memory, you’ll introduce me to Ginny again. No matter what. Please.” “Of course,” I said, smiling. Oscar Wilde wasn’t here, after all. And I’d always been an excellent liar.   Oscar was next on the list. "Before you kill me…" He ran his tongue over his dry lips, his gaze flickering to the gun. "May I ask just one question?" I inclined my head. "I won’t ask how you managed to deceive us so well. Clearly, truth and falsehood mean nothing to you — you are so utterly devoid of principle that you can be anyone, say anything. But how is it that when you touched me, my ability wasn’t nullified?" "I shall answer both your questions," I said. "First, I am hardly without principle. If anything, this entire affair has been most enlightening — I have discovered that I possess quite a rigorous internal framework of beliefs. Truth and falsehood do exist for me. I can shuffle them with considerable dexterity, certainly, but I never lose track of which is which. Stirred, not shaken, as James Bond so elegantly prescribed — remember?" I smiled. "As for your ability, I couldn’t nullify it because it is not, in fact, paranormal. You track pulse fluctuations, maybe intonations, microscopic shifts in pupil dilation, facial microexpressions — though precisely how, I cannot say. Honestly, I would relish the opportunity to study your gift at work; it presents a veritable playground for experimentation. What is clear thus far is that what you label ‘truth’ and ‘falsehood’ are not objective realities but rather a reflection of the speaker’s own subjective conviction in what they say... In any case, I have encountered others like you before. Crudely put, you possess no supernatural ability — you are simply exceptionally perceptive. Which, incidentally, means that Billy Blake is unlikely to be of any assistance to you in this regard — unless, of course, he were to excise vast portions of your personality and memories. But I rather doubt that is the outcome you seek. You will simply have to learn to exist in this dreary world of marionettes. Though, of course, there’s always the option of a beautifully orchestrated suicide. I’d recommend it." "‘Exist’?" he echoed. "Then you’re not…" "Indeed. I have no intention of killing you." "What is this sham kindness?" he scoffed. "I’ve seen what sort of man you are." "There is nothing sham about kindness, Wilde-san. You are intelligent and possess a singularly useful talent, and I have no doubt that I will wish to avail myself of your services in the future. In fact, it is not a matter of probability but certainty — and sooner rather than later. And perhaps one day, you will wish to avail yourself of mine. Hmm? What do you think?" I tilted my head, appraising him. "My little lecture on ‘an eye for an eye, with forgiveness’ was not idle chatter. I am quite prepared to extend a hand. However, let me remind you — this approach does not dictate forgiveness on every turn... I do hope your leg won’t heal too quickly."   The Brontë sisters, whom Chuuya had locked away under glass domes like aquarium exhibits (how had he managed that, anyway?), were beyond my commentary. Good, brave girls — they would find their way through this mess without my counsel, once the rescue teams pried them from their glass prisons. Joanne Ruskin, however, was another matter. She had evidently forgotten her earlier resolve not to "cast pearls before swine" — for when she saw me, a bitter smile curled her lips. "So here you are at last, showing your true face," she murmured. "You are the embodiment of everything I have fought against. Living proof that people with abilities are a blight. Abominations to be eradicated for the greater good. Burned in furnaces. So long as creatures like you walk the earth, there will never be equality, never justice." "There will never be equality and justice in the world regardless," I replied. "The ‘greater good’ is a poet’s fancy or a politician’s ploy. There are only individuals, and the private welfare of each." "Individuals?" She scoffed. "Please. I saw you at the orphanage. You claim to value individuality, yet you never truly took an interest in any of those children. You care only for yourself." "You’re attempting to guilt me for failing to take an interest in your cripples?" I clarified. "Cripples? They are children to me, not cripples. Do you understand? Ordinary children! But to you, they are defective simply because they are not exceptional. Because they lack gifts. Is that how you see all ungifted people? As lesser?" "Not at all," I said. "I know plenty of people without supernatural abilities whom I would call gifted in other ways — intelligence, talent—" "And if they were not intelligent? If they were simply ordinary? Are all those who fail to stand out by default inferior to you?" "Yes," I said with a shrug. "Yes? Just like that?" "Just like that. One may choose to be merciful to those who are lesser, who are weaker. But one should not deceive oneself with illusions of equality. To insist upon universal parity is to demand the eradication of all who rise above — who surpass others in beauty, strength, talent, or intellect. To seek universal good is to ensure good for no one. Am I permitted to remain indifferent to the welfare of strangers? I am no Christ, that I should love all. There are a handful of people who interest me. Not many. Myself, first and foremost. That is individualism. But you — you have been lying to yourself all along. ‘The greater good’ — what a grand phrase for someone who never even loved her own students. Because, tell me — what was there to love in those dull, witless organisms, hmm?" She shook her head. "You are precisely what you so artfully confessed to being — a criminal, a danger to society, a degenerate. And your lover, Nakahara, is no better. A walking testament to debauchery, to the vice of self-indulgence, to the obscene arrogance of placing himself above others — and his ability, nothing less than distilled malice, pure and unadulterated darkness." "Ah, yes," I mused. "And to think, I hadn’t even meant to discuss society with you again — it bores me. No, there was something else I wished to say. Do you recall our conversation about the supposed contradiction between individualism and love? When we spoke of that tired old fairy tale — the Snow Queen? But you see, there is no contradiction. We choose as friends and lovers those who are better than the rest, no matter how distasteful you may find the notion. Those we admire, those we seek to emulate. If all were as you dream them — perfectly equal — then love and friendship would be nothing more than evolutionary mechanisms to facilitate survival and reproduction. Choosing a gray shadow among gray shadows, a clone among clones, an indistinct speck amid indistinct specks. How bleak." "Oh." Her lips curled into a sneer, equal parts disgust and contempt. "And I suppose you imagine that your filthy, depraved little lust is something greater than a faulty, malfunctioning mechanism? I don’t even want to picture what you two do together — it’s revolting." "Then don’t," I smiled. "No one is asking you to. And you know what? Yes. I do believe it is something greater." And with that, I had the pleasure of echoing her own words back to her: "A pity, Madame Ruskin, that such a brilliant, unique, extraordinary mind has wasted itself on someone truly empty — the person who made you forget that you, too, are an individual with desires of your own." That was the last thing we ever said to one another. A lesser observer might assume that I had spoken those words to wound her. But no — she had already lost. And despite everything, there was something in her that demanded — if not affection, then at least admiration. I could only hope that this conversation would not entirely vanish from her memory — unlike so many, many other things.   The next two days were spent tying up the loose ends of Joanne and the Equalizers, with Billy Blake at my side. I had no desire to return to Avalon and instead took up residence in a hotel on Charing Cross Road — a rather pleasant street in Chuuya’s beloved Soho, though, unlike its more garish corners, it offered more than an excess of gay bars and pseudo-art galleries. Here, one could still find bookshops, a modest compensation for my current state of affairs. I checked in under my real name; after all, Mr. Joushi Ikita — who had reduced the grand Excelsior Hotel and its surroundings to little more than rubble — was now the subject of an enthusiastic manhunt by the entirety of London’s law enforcement. I simply emptied what remained of my funds from the account, and on that dignified note, our shared fabricated identity was laid to rest. Chuuya, to his credit, had shown similar foresight. At the hospital, he had the good sense not to register himself as Joushi Ikita but under his real name. It wasn’t difficult to find out where he had been taken — one ambulance ride among many, carrying him alongside a generous crowd of the injured. The hospital staff, of course, flatly refused to disclose any information about his condition over the phone. After some hesitation, I decided to see for myself. Just to see. Not to speak. I had hoped — prayed, even — that this time, at last, he would no longer have anything to say to me. I found his room. The door was slightly ajar. I lingered just outside, unwilling to cross the threshold. Chuuya sat by the window, an IV drip standing primly at his side. He looked astonishingly well for a man who, two days prior, had been knocking at death’s door. In truth, he looked in better shape than I did — my face still bore the bruises left by Wilde-san’s fists, my neck the purpling remnants of Chuuya’s fingers when he had tried to strangle me. He was dressed in something wholly uncharacteristic of his usual rakish elegance — an oversized hoodie, ill-fitting jeans. Clothes borrowed, no doubt, from some well-meaning nurse. A devilishly cozy image — if one were to forget that this cherubic young man had, not so long ago, obliterated an entire city block. And beside his bed sat Anne Brontë. Anne, his jailer. Anne, who had fought against him. Anne, who had seen firsthand the carnage he had wrought upon Regent Street, who had every reason to despise him, especially in light of my role in restoring her ability. And yet, here she was. Visiting him. They were drawing together in a sketchbook, talking in hushed voices. A sickening clarity washed over me — Anne liked him. In that way. Not as some strange, ethereal acquaintance she had stumbled upon in an art room. Not even as a beautiful unicorn. No, she was quite aware of what she felt. He was aware. A blind idiot would have been aware. The bouquet of blue dried flowers on the table — perfectly matched to the shade of his eyes — left little room for doubt. A fresh reminder, as if I needed one, that Chuuya’s string of nameless bar and club encounters was not born of necessity. It was not because no one wanted him. There had always been people willing — eager, even — to offer him something more. But he had a way of wearing his disinterest with such brutal sincerity that they vanished as quickly as they had appeared. Still, it would be foolish to assume that he never liked anyone at all, wouldn’t it? Not even as a friend? Or— Was he even attracted to women? I couldn’t be sure. I knew only that his tastes were… complicated. And how old was she, anyway? A child, practically. Not much older than Atsushi… Why was I thinking about this? Was this — jealousy? Well, there you have it. You’ve seen what you came to see. Time to leave. This was exactly what you wanted, wasn’t it? He would be fine. That girl would bear him a brood of pale, red-haired, delicately built children. And you, you goddamn wannabe grandmaster, would return to your empty hotel room and hang yourself from the chandelier. For some reason, I couldn’t move. I stood there, listening, watching, like the world’s most tragic fool. His hair had been braided into a small plait. Perhaps Anne had done it. Somehow, that single detail struck me harder than the flowers, with a cruel and intimate precision — an image so distant from my world, so irreconcilable with anything I could ever offer him. “…I’ve decided,” Anne was saying, “that God doesn’t see our flaws as something bad. He made us this way, didn’t He? So they can’t really be flaws. There are no sins, because He forgives everything…” “Well… can’t speak for God,” Chuuya mused, “but yeah, no doubt. The universe doesn’t give a rat’s ass what you do — you could be arranging Caravaggio masterpieces out of corpses for all it cares. But that’s no excuse to turn into an animal. What matters is being able to look at yourself without wanting to puke.” “I mean,” she pressed on, “that your ability isn’t something terrible. Even if… it must be difficult to live with it.” “Huh?” He gave a little shrug. “Nah, I’m pretty happy with myself, actually. And besides, I’ve got someone who pulls me back when I start skidding off the rails.” With those words, he lifted his gaze. Looked straight at the door. He sees me. Not literally, of course. But… whatever it was he did — his peculiar way of sensing the world around him — it had never gone away. I had simply forgotten about it, because I no longer had any use for it in my plans. But the ability itself had remained. “Yeah…” Anne sighed. “I suppose everyone needs someone like that…” “Annie,” Chuuya said suddenly, “maybe we can draw some more next time? I’m tired.” A violent impulse seized me — to run, to disappear before he could confirm what he already knew. But that would be suspicious. As Anne stepped out of the room, I took a few paces away and turned my back, feigning interest in another patient’s room. She didn’t seem to notice me. “S’cuse me,” Chuuya’s voice drawled lazily from within. “Come here a sec. We need to talk.” I hesitated. Then stepped inside. “Glad to find you in a hospital ward and not a morgue,” I said, stretching my lips into a grin. “I just wanted to tell you — I’m leaving for Japan.” A lie. I hadn’t even looked at flights. “Yeah, whatever. Move your ass.” I obeyed his request — if one could even call it that. He pulled his knees up to his chest and patted the empty space beside him, wordlessly inviting me to sit. I did. “And what, pray tell, do you wish to discuss?” “This… logic thing.” I raised an eyebrow. “Chuuya Nakahara wanting to talk instead of throwing a punch is already a rare enough spectacle. But Chuuya Nakahara wanting to talk about logic…” “Shut up. Acting like an asshole doesn’t work on me anymore. Anyway, it started with a bawling Atsushi, and after our little chat, I had this very strong urge to beat the ever-loving shit out of you…” “Ah, yes, that does ring a bell…” “So I started wondering why you’re so fucking sweet and full of pretty words with strangers, but with people close to you, it’s like you’re competing for a gold medal in the World Championship of Being a Dick. And you know it’s dumb to push away people who are actually useful to you. Then I realized — the asshole act is Dazai. The real one. The one who isn’t faking being a good person but actually trying to be one. That’s the only reason I’m still talking to you after the stunt you pulled with me. I get it now. A bad Dazai is a good Dazai.” “Well, well… Quite the intricate logic,” I smirked (perhaps a bit too artificially). “Complicated, is it?” Chuuya said with obvious relish. “You don’t say. Try living with it, dumbass. Fine, let’s switch tracks. Your whole pitch to Joanne and the kids was about how a person’s own desires are their greatest value. And you actually believe that, don’t you? I got that right?” I suddenly had the distinct feeling of a cornered animal — trapped by a mind far more methodical than it liked to let on. “I’m following your train of thought. Get to the point.” “Fine. The point. When you left the Mafia and ditched me, I didn’t run after you like some mutt, ‘cause ‘go fuck yourself’ isn’t exactly the kind of message that requires years of deep reflection. But now, I want some clarity. You brought me here to cover your ass. Not someone else — me.” “I needed someone whose abilities — and limits — I knew as well as my own. I had to.” I exhaled slowly. “But I never wanted to bring you along, Chuuya.” “Oh, bullshit, you didn’t,” he snapped, voice rising just a fraction. “You did. And back at the hotel, too. You did want everything. If you’ve been lying to yourself so long that you don’t even know what you feel anymore, then at least trust your body — it doesn’t lie.” “Oh, spare me the melodrama. What are you even trying to prove? That I’m not a machine? Shockingly enough, that is indeed the case. Imagine this — I even masturbate on occasion. But all those urges are just the biochemical puppet show of phenylethylamine.” Chuuya inhaled sharply through gritted teeth, visibly wrestling down his temper. “I warned you. Pissing me off is pointless — I’ll just tune you out. Scrap the rust off your dick first, then you can start lecturing me about ethyl-something and how sex is overrated. You want things to go back to how they were. You wanna sleep with me, talk to me, work together, fuck around. Look me in the eye and tell me that’s not true. Lie to me.” I was already looking him in the eye. And I wasn’t entirely certain I could lie well enough to be convincing. So I sidestepped. “Wanting something is irrelevant, Chuuya. I shouldn’t have brought you here.” “And how exactly does that fit with your ‘philosophy of desire’?” he said triumphantly. The trap snapped shut. “It fits perfectly,” I said coolly. “Because there are things I want more than being friends with you or sleeping with you. And that means making choices.” Chuuya rested his chin in his palm, exhaling in a slow, unsteady way — like someone weighing the pros and cons of pushing further. We both knew where this was headed. “You think I’m not safe with you,” he finally stated, not as a question. “You think you’re some kind of rotten, dangerous bastard. Like that kid with the greasy hair.” “That’s your grand logical conclusion? You could’ve just asked,” I said, carefully indifferent. “Even this past week in London, you yourself reminded me multiple times that I destroy everything I touch. And right now, Chuuya, you’re the one in a hospital bed.” I leaned back slightly. “Did you think I left the Mafia because of Mori? I ran away from you. I want you to live a normal life — as normal as it can be for you — and that means staying as far from me as possible. I don’t want you to ever use Corruption again, not after what I heard last time. People usually talk about heroin like that. Corruption is, well… a bit deadlier.” Chuuya blinked, looking strangely off-balance. “You… do you even hear yourself? Do you realize how this sounds?” He scoffed. “And after all that, I’m just supposed to accept your ‘no’?” “Yes,” I said flatly. “Because, as you put it, acting like an asshole with you doesn’t work anymore. I know you might not agree with my decision, but ‘no’ is still ‘no.’ Want to play Truth or Lie? Here’s the truth — I don’t think I’m rotten. But I am dangerous. And you’re better off without me. You know it, too.” “I… I don’t know that. And it’s not your choice to make. It’s mine, not yours! Who even said I wanted a normal life?! Let me decide what’s best for me!” “Lower your voice, please. My head hurts.” “That’s my ability,” he muttered, but his tone softened. I reached out, fingers brushing his wrist to cancel his ability — just in case my head really was hurting from the pressure dance. His grip tightened on my hands. “That’s not all of my logic,” he pressed on. “I remember what you told that smug bastard about Anne. How it’s hard to let stupid people make their own choices, because that means they have every right to make bad ones. This is the same thing. You decided — and you didn’t ask me. That makes you a fucking abuser. There. That’s the word.” “Oh, now that’s just absurd! I care about your well-being! Besides, you've picked the most dubious comparison of all. I told Wilde, that's not how—” I started. “What, you think you’re my mother? My teacher?” I cursed his frustratingly good memory. “So here’s the thing,” Chuuya went on, relentless. “You can go ahead and play mind games with your Atsushi, if you’re so scared for the kid and want him far away from you. But I’m not a child. I’m not any weaker or more vulnerable than you. Or are you about to argue with that?” I thought about Chuuya floating above Regent Street, an angel of destruction, the very air trembling with the sheer force of his will. Shattered glass. Collapsed buildings. Craters torn into the ground. And how, even without Corruption, he had pressed me with gravity to the roof of Avalon so hard that my eyes bled. And then I thought about those bitten-down nails, coated in black polish — the same fingers, now gloved, gripping my wrists. And the fact that he was the one lying in this hospital bed, not me. And that I wasn’t even the first person to come visit him. I closed my eyes. “I don’t know,” I admitted. "And what do you do when you don’t know?" "What?" "You fuck off," Chuuya said crisply. "You fuck off with all your holier-than-thou notions of right and wrong and let the person decide for themselves. I know what I want, and I like getting what I want. And what I want is you. Any fucking problems with that?" Good lord. And he claims he’s not a child. "No problems at all." I exhaled with something resembling amusement. "I wouldn’t say I’m much of a prize, but if you insist — go on, take me. Ravish me right here, on this very hospital bed." I gestured vaguely around the room. "Doggy style, perhaps?" I had expected him to flinch. Foolish of me. He simply yanked my wrists with enough force to shake my very soul and narrowed his eyes with barely contained ire. "Oh, sure. Fuck you on a cot where god knows how many poor bastards kicked it before you? Great fucking idea. No wonder you decided you belong in the gutter, but I wasn’t scraped off the bottom of someone’s boot, so we’ll be fucking where and how I fucking decide, got it? Not next to some cancer-ridden grandpa wheezing out his last breath, not through a paper-thin wall from some kid tied to a radiator with a knife wound in his leg. And I wasn’t even talking about sex, you absolute moron. For all I know, I should only kiss you through plastic wrap, so you don't touch me with your shitty body." "But you're touching me right n—" I started, then thought better of it, rubbing my temple instead. "Fine. Let’s be serious, then. What is it that you want, if not just sex? Flowers? A wedding? Shall we adopt Ginny Woolf, perhaps?" The irony was clear in my voice, yet there was no denying the truth underneath. The fortress had fallen. The gates lay shattered. "A wedding’s fine," he replied without blinking, "but only when I see your brain roaches stop twerking — so, what, when you’re ninety? And before we start collecting orphans, sort your shit out with your little tiger boy. And with the other dumbass, too. But for now, here’s what I want. I want you to stop being afraid to use me in your plans if you decide you need me. Because I don’t do this for you — I do it for myself. I’ve never done anything for someone else’s sake. I play your fucked-up little games because they’re fun. I haven’t felt this alive in years. Dangerous? Who gives a shit? We all die eventually. I’d rather go out like this than rot away in my dingy Yokohama apartment, drowning in booze. What we pulled off here? That was fucking art. It’s not the kind of trash I have to do for Mori. And it’s not like you’ve got people with my abilities lining up at your doorstep — people you know as well as yourself, huh?" He took a breath, and I barely had a moment to consider how deeply he’d thought this through before he continued, relentless: "...I also want you to stop trying to act like a bigger asshole than you actually are. That means not lying to me when you don’t have to. And not lying to yourself, either. Because this bullshit? It’s screwing you over more than anyone else." Truth be told — he was right. In everything. He’d just laid out a perfectly coherent ethical framework, far more rational than the self-destructive nonsense I’d been telling myself: leaving someone because you love them, sleeping with them just to never sleep with them again… I exhaled. "Oh, Chuuya, Chuuya, my penance…" I murmured, running my fingers over the leather of his gloves, black as wayang shadow puppets. "Well?" he prompted, expectant. "Admit it — I outplayed you in logic." "You’ve always been rather good at that, with or without logic." A smirk curled my lips. "But you do realize you’ll never fully trust me again. Not completely. I don’t even trust myself. We’ll be hedgehogs, constantly pricking each other with our spines." "So what?" He shrugged. "Life’s boring without a little blood. And either way, we’re stuck with each other now." "Yes, I suppose we are." I sighed, and strangely enough, I felt light. "Alright. I promise I won’t even try to get rid of you. I promise I’ll keep using you in my—" "—your fucked-up chess matches," he supplied. "—my interests." I shot him a pointed look. "And I’ll make sure you benefit from it too, because that’s how a friend ‘uses’ someone. I won’t promise I’ll never lie to you" — I let my voice drop — "but I will make sure it never harms you. Directly or indirectly." The last part was the hardest to say. "...And… I won’t promise you won’t get hurt. But I’ll do my best to minimize the damage. And I’ll understand if you return the favor however you see fit." "Right. That ‘eye for an eye’ strategy of yours," he said with an almost solemn nod. Impressive memory. If only Akutagawa ever paid this much attention to my words… "With room for forgiveness, I hope?" "Yeah. Sometimes." I pulled off his glove, pressing a kiss to his bare palm as if sealing our contract. My tongue traced the center of his hand, then the dip between his fingers. I licked up his index, let my teeth graze the tip. Chuuya watched, eyes dark with anticipation. "Y’know…" he muttered, voice thick with something heated, "I’m starting to rethink my stance on fucking in hospital beds. I could really go for—" "Tut-tut. That would be unsanitary and unethical. Spare a thought for the cancer patients." I clicked my tongue. "Besides, didn’t you just say sex wasn’t the point?" "Oh, fuck off," he groaned, "like you don’t know damn well I wanna fuck you five times a day—" "More like fight with me five times a day." "That too." He let out a frustrated sigh. "But this really isn’t the best plac— what the fuck are you doing, you absolute maniac? Are you seriously—" Why not? No one would die if I sucked him off. And that hospital had heard far worse sounds than that. I even brought flowers the next day. Lycoris.   November the first was a rainy day. As had been every single one before it, since we arrived in London. Chuuya, who had stormed out of the hospital on the fourth day, and I were standing under a single umbrella on Regent Street, gazing upon the remnants of the Excelsior Hotel and the ruins of everything that had once surrounded it. The entire block had been cordoned off as a danger zone, but the extent of the destruction was evident even from afar. “Well, fuck me sideways, what a goddamn mess,” Chuuya summed up our shared impression. “Looking at this, I almost feel like Joanne had a point. Maybe we really are criminals… I mean, I’ve seen worse, but still. The buildings were nice. And now…” He exhaled sharply. “Of all the ability users I know, almost none of them use their powers to make anything beautiful. They only know how to break, wreck, and shit all over things…” He looked genuinely dejected, so I pulled him close, tucking his smaller frame under my chin. Our height difference made it absurdly convenient — like a cup and its saucer, perfectly matched. I could’ve stood like that for a century. “Most ordinary people sin in the same way. It’s far harder to create something worthwhile than to stage a massacre.” “Yeah. Harder.” He paused. “Which makes it… kind of cooler.” “Now do you see why Akutagawa wanted to be a writer?” I asked. Though, truth be told, I wasn’t thinking about Akutagawa at all. I was thinking about Odasaku. God knows I hadn’t meant to, but I was. “That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard,” Chuuya declared. “Oh, and why is it dumb?” I started to argue. “I could have been a writer. I like constructing scenarios, orchestrating possibilities. And you could’ve been one too, Chuuya! Your specialty would be glorifying the grueling, bloodstained glamour of gangland life—” “You mean, like, writing scripts for Guy Ritchie flicks?” he mused. “I dunno, maybe. Lots of fights, lots of explosions, plenty of booze, stacks of cash, guns everywhere, everyone’s all bro-y as hell, and by the end, everything’s just fucking peachy…” He shrugged. “But real life’s way more fun than the movies. And you? You’d be shitting out some tragic, dramatic crap, no doubt.” “Not necessarily. For instance, I’d like to write something about two people who are fundamentally alike, yet their opposing worldviews force them onto opposite sides of a battlefield.” “Like us?” Chuuya asked, blinking in complete and guileless sincerity. “What? No. We have nothing in common.” I scoffed. “I mean something like — one’s a criminal, the other’s the cop hunting him down. They could’ve been friends, but an irreconcilable ideological chasm tears them apart, until one is forced to kill the other. He raises his gun, his hands shaking, but with unwavering resolve—” “—shoves it into the other guy’s mouth and pulls the trigger—” “Chuuya, every single word you utter is making Freud roll in his grave. No, absolutely not. No guns. Save those for your… ahem, ‘bro-movies.’” “Swords, then?” He waggled his eyebrows. “One guy takes his long, hard katana and just… you know…” Oh, dear God. I must have committed some particularly egregious sin in a past life to be saddled with this man. Firmly, I said, “—he cuts the other’s head clean off.” “Nice,” Chuuya approved. “And the final scene? A big ol’ puddle of blood, the severed head lying smack in the middle, cherry blossom petals drifting down, all poetic-like. And some brooding-ass music playing — dun dun dunnnn. I fucking knew it — you’d just end up killing everyone off, even in your made-up story.” “You’ve single-handedly desecrated my script,” I grumbled. “And I was actually sharing something earnest for once.” I sighed. “Fine. I suppose you mean to say I’d make a terrible writer?” “Oh, we'd both be shit writers. That’s why we do what we do. A fight, a con, or solving a crime — those are an art form too. And let’s be real, you fucking love your convoluted, backstabby little schemes, even if you bitch about them like a miserable bastard.” “And you? Are you satisfied?” I asked. “You’re the one who started this conversation, after all.” “I am,” he said simply. “It’s just… when I watch Annie paint, I — I love my For The Tainted Sorrow, but sometimes, I wish I could use it to make something better.” Annie. Always Annie. I pulled him in a little tighter, and murmured, “You could.” “Me?” “You are, after all, gradually refining your ability. If you learn to wield it with enough precision to manipulate atomic structures without invoking Corruption, you wouldn’t just be able to build a house — you could, in theory, create an entire universe.” “Atoms? You mean those teeny-weeny thingies everything’s made of?” Dear Lord. That wasn’t sarcasm. He was genuinely asking. He was going to be the death of me. I had spent an inordinate amount of time pondering the mechanics of his ability — how, for instance, he had fashioned those glass domes around the Brontë girls — only to discover that he himself had never even wondered… “Chuuya, tell me — did you sleep through physics class?” I exhaled. “Take three quarks, bind them together in a happy little ménage à trois using gravity, and voila — you have a proton or a neutron. Group those into atoms. Then keep assembling upward in accordance with the same fundamental principles.” “Of course I skipped physics, dumbass. We were too busy fucking in the locker room, remember?” he shot back. “Where the hell did you pick up all this nerd crap? I always figured you just bribed the teachers to get good grades, while your actual interests were limited to chess, knives, and brain-frying bullshit. You were the one always going on about how knowledge was either obvious or useless.” “You might’ve noticed by now that I don’t always say what I actually think. And what seems obvious and useless to me might prove immensely practical to you.” I shook my head in exasperation. “No, but seriously — how is it possible that someone who manipulates gravity has precisely zero knowledge of elementary particles? If I were in your shoes, I’d have buried myself in textbooks as a child. You could conjure anything — a chemical element, a star, a galaxy… perhaps even something alive.” (All those times I had witnessed Corruption, and in other instances too, his body had regenerated from injuries with truly absurd efficiency. It led me to certain conclusions — namely, that his organism might, in fact, be smarter than its owner.) “…But as it stands,” I added, with some acerbity, recalling the agony of my splitting headaches and the rupture of my eye vessels whenever Chuuya decided to crank For The Tainted Sorrow up to the max, “your finesse leaves much to be desired. At this rate, you’ll get to quarks when you’re ninety. And in order to understand how anything works, you’ll need to read an ungodly number of books — not just on physics.” “I could create things…” Chuuya repeated in a near-reverent murmur, utterly unbothered by my jab. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure I should have told him this. What if, now that I had finally resolved never again to abandon Chuuya Nakahara as long as I still wished to live, he lost interest in my ‘convoluted little schemes’? But I couldn’t have kept it from him, either. The time for lies had passed. Perhaps my only course of action was to try, in earnest, to be better — so that he would still find something worth holding on to in me, even after he learned to toy with quarks. Perhaps, by ninety, I’d finally be a good writer — one who no longer killed off his characters. Chuuya looked like a child discovering a present under the Christmas tree, and in that moment, he was utterly, incandescently beautiful.   ***   The following day, we visited an even more joyless place: Avalon Orphanage, on the other side of London. We wanted to see, with our own eyes, the fruit of our so-called victory. Chuuya took to the air and hovered outside the second-floor classroom, where Madame Joanne Ruskin — by no means the leader of the Equalists, merely a humble mathematics teacher — was explaining quadratic equations to a group of older children. Among them sat her son, Bill, an utterly ordinary boy who was no longer fading from the memories of those around him, though he didn’t seem to leave much of an impression either way. Perhaps recalling his chance encounter with Anne in the art room, Chuuya chose not to position himself directly before the window but rather hung slightly above it, upside-down, peering in from the ceiling like some oversized bat. Naturally, I was floating right there with him — his arms securely wrapped around my waist. We rarely did this. Even fully clothed, even with his gloves and my bandages, there was always the risk of an inadvertent brush of skin against skin, or hair against hair — a mistake that would send us both plummeting. The sensation of suspended weightlessness was eerie, ridiculous. And yet, as it had been the first time, back when we were children — it was also glorious. “To determine how many roots a quadratic equation has,” Joanne was saying, “we use a remarkable tool: the discriminant. It is calculated using the following formula…” She wrote on the board: D = b² − 4ac. “But why that formula?” asked a blonde girl with a single braid — one of the former Theta Sigma club members, if I recalled correctly, who had once possessed the power of cryokinesis. “Because…” Joanne rubbed her temple and, with a flicker of irritation, replied, “Because that is how the discriminant is calculated. That’s all there is to it. Be grateful there’s a formula at all — someone had to go through the trouble of deriving it so that you could simply use it.” “Not that I get a single fucking word of what she’s saying,” Chuuya muttered, perplexed, “but… she’s kinda off, huh?” I understood what he meant. Not that I hadn’t foreseen this outcome when I had asked Billy to erase his mother’s memories… But I needed to see it with my own eyes. I tugged Chuuya’s sleeve. “Let’s go in through the door. Like… normal people.” He flipped upright and descended to the ground. The last thing I heard from the classroom, before the door shut behind us, was the ice girl’s voice, impeccably polite as she said: “I’ll try to find the explanation myself. Then I’ll decide whether this formula is suitable for me.” We approached the entrance and rang the bell. My newly minted friend (?) Oscar Wilde opened the door. He was still busy handling various administrative matters at Avalon — only now, no longer as Joanne’s lackey, but as his own master. His face betrayed not the slightest trace of joy at seeing us, yet he ushered us upstairs to Joanne without protest when I asked. “Good day to ya,” Chuuya drawled. “We’re from, uh… the local education board. Conductin’ a bit of an inspection. Mind answerin’ a few questions, ma’am?” Billy Blake, seated alone at the front desk, swept his empty, unseeing gaze over us with complete indifference before burying himself back in a book. The rest of the class showed only marginally more interest. “I’m listening,” Joanne responded warily. “What’s the Dirac delta function?” Chuuya enunciated carefully, his voice laced with what sounded like genuine curiosity. “I… I don’t know.” She rubbed her temple again. “It sounds familiar, but the meaning slips away… Something from advanced mathematics, too complex. I’m sorry, my head aches. Is this some sort of evaluation of my qualifications?” “Nah, no one’s takin’ your job away.” He paused. “Alright then, lemme ask you this — can you divide by zero or not?” “Of course not, what kind of question is that?” she answered without hesitation. As we made our way back down to the hall, Wilde, who had been an unwilling witness to this dreary little scene, muttered with a peculiar expression — something resembling disapproval, though I couldn’t be sure— “Revolting.” I remarked, “Why not take comfort in the fact that it didn’t happen to you?” “Gloat all you like…” “Oh, but I am quite serious, Wilde-san. She held ordinary people in such high esteem — saw herself as one of them — and now she truly is. Is that not fair? Would you call me cruel?” “No, I wouldn’t call you cruel,” he admitted. “And yet, you remain the most terrifying man I know.”   “And what do you think?” I asked Chuuya once Avalon’s gates were far behind us. We had walked in silence until now, and I had the distinct impression he was keeping a slight distance from me. “Maybe some folks are better off never learnin’ how to divide by zero. Eighth-grade algebra’s plenty — no need to go any further,” he said. I wasn’t entirely sure he was only talking about Joanne. After a pause, he added, confirming my suspicions— “What’d you promise Billy in exchange for this grand-scale brain rinse?” I hesitated. “You won’t like the answer.” “Oh, I already know the answer,” he snapped, irritated. “Just wanted to see if you’d lie or not. And yeah, I don’t like it. But hey, I knew who I was gettin’ involved with…” “Chuuya, don’t be so dull,” I grinned, perhaps a little too cheerfully. “This is our first case together where everyone made it out alive!” He narrowed his eyes in a way that was decidedly unfriendly. “Speakin’ of which. I been thinkin’, and here’s what I don’t get. Why the hell did we need that whole strategy with walkin’ into Joanne’s trap — the sad hugs, the theatrics, the fight — when we could’ve just used Corruption from the start and wiped everyone out?” I put on my most innocent, angelic expression. “I wanted to avoid casualties. Isn’t it wonderful when you can save everyone? Sometimes, mercy is—” Chuuya gave me a look of unmasked skepticism. No, not even skepticism — more like he was staring at a particularly slow-witted idiot. “Dazai, don’t feed me that bullshit,” he said flatly. “I told you, I thought about it real hard. You didn’t kill the kid ‘cause you wanna have a weapon up your sleeve that nobody knows about — just in case shit really hits the fan. And it ain't a coincidence the papers are only talkin’ about the bodies of a woman and a teenager.” I removed my hat — the one I had initially bought for disguise purposes and, for whatever reason, still wore — and plopped it onto his head. “There. You’ve been thinking way too much.” “You absolute bastard.” That said, he was immediately distracted by his reflection in a shop window. “Gotta admit… Looks way better with the hat,” he murmured, tilting his head this way and that. I won’t lie — I was rather captivated myself. A new ensemble today: a red-and-black jacket that could not possibly be mistaken for business attire, heavy boots, a collection of trinkets, and, of course, those utterly obscene leather pants. Undeniably, this was precisely the sort of outfit one would expect from a civil servant of the local education board. A smug smirk, eyes like every wildflower in the world. Mine. My Chuuya.   We booked our flight for the sixth of November — because the fifth was Guy Fawkes Night. Not that this held any significance for my nonexistent political leanings; Chuuya just wanted to watch the fireworks. In the days leading up to our departure, we managed to quarrel and reconcile four separate times, visit several obligatory tourist sites — St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London (about which I knew a great deal and was more than happy to share until Chuuya, with remarkable crudeness, ordered me to shut up and physically dragged me out into the daylight and fresh air), crisscross the city aboard its iconic red double-deckers, feed geese and squirrels in Kensington Gardens, and discover that kissing on Westminster Bridge was a splendid idea, while attempting the same on the London Eye was decidedly not — we retained no memory of anything beyond the kiss itself. We attended Wicked for the second time, and Defying Gravity promptly replaced Bowie as the inescapable anthem of Chuuya’s morning shower routine. And yes, I finally visited the Greenwich Observatory. And 221B Baker Street, which, in truth, is not 221. A rather pleasant city, as it turns out. Perhaps I’ll move here one day — should my ongoing attempts at suicide prove unsuccessful. Say, around ninety years old.   Our final day in London was unexpectedly fair, devoid of rain. We took a stroll through Hyde Park, which turned out to be a profoundly dull place, and at some point, I realized that I was very, very tired. Not just of Hyde Park. Of everything. So I said as much to Chuuya. He halted, then unceremoniously dropped onto the withered, close-cropped grass beneath some sprawling tree, spreading his coat beneath him. He yanked me down with him. I tried to smile. “My fair lady, may I rest my head upon your lap?” I could practically see the gears turning in his head as he sifted through possible responses: Fuck off. Get the fuck out of here. Shut your goddamn mouth, you scum. “…Sure,” he muttered at last, which meant my smile must have been particularly pitiful if he was willing to indulge me. I lay down, my head coming to rest upon those… slutty, forgive my linguistic poverty, leather trousers, and closed my eyes. It felt good. Profoundly so. My mind was a perfect void, unburdened by plans, desires, anxieties. A tranquil, fathomless darkness. I might have drifted there indefinitely had Chuuya’s voice not pulled me back. “What’re you thinking about?” he asked, and there was something oddly wary in his tone. Without opening my eyes, I answered: “I’m wondering if we did the right thing.” If I did the right thing. With Joanne. With Billy. With Chuuya. With myself. “You mean, was she right?” he clarified. “Maybe, in her own way… But we were right, too.” “Yes,” I agreed. “It’s difficult, when there is no good and no evil. I had hoped you’d give me a definite answer — yes or no.” “Why the hell me?” he scoffed. “What, I’m the smartest guy around now?” “Well, in a sense… In this particular story, you’ve been my answer.” “There ain’t no answers, Dazai.” His voice was quiet, but sure. “Life’s just a never-ending pile of bullshit questions. If you think you’ve got it all figured out, if you think you’re finally doin’ everything right — you’re either senile or dead.” Chuuya Nakahara, as always, speaking the unvarnished truth. I wanted to slip back into that peaceful void, into that weightless nothingness, but his hand came to rest on my head, warm, steady, present, and I found myself saying, almost involuntarily— “Chuuya, you wanted honesty, so I have a confession to make.” “Go on…” he said warily. “When that boy touched me, I realized—” I exhaled slowly. “I truly never should have existed.” His hand stiffened. A beat of silence. Then, in a voice that was almost — cheerful: “Oh. I was wonderin’ when you’d get sick of pretendin’ to be normal.” “I wasn’t pretending. These past few days, I was entirely honest with you. And… perhaps even happy. That’s the truth. But it’s only one truth.” “I remember,” he said, his tone unreadable. “I listened to you real good. You said — loving yourself, all that crap about wantin’ things — that’s my thing, not yours. You said you could be anyone.” “Not anyone,” I corrected. “You, better than anyone, know who I really am. I love knowledge and games of all kinds, and I sincerely hope to one day become a good writer. Or a teacher. I… like you. And much of what you like. That’s all true. But the person who likes nothing, who wants nothing except for it all to end — that’s me too. And sometimes, you see, I grow tired, and…” I hesitated. “I don’t mean to say that the second self is real and the first is not. It’s not a lie, but… I doubt. Though I doubt you’d understand what I mean.” “…Maybe I do,” Chuuya said after a moment, his voice cautious. “I read a little about physics, y’know. ‘Cause you said I might be able to control tiny particles. Got to the bit about that cat in the box. The one that’s supposed to be dead and not dead at the same time.” I was so startled I actually opened my eyes — to see, with my own two eyes, Chuuya Nakahara, who had apparently read about quantum uncertainty. He looked much the same as always. Though, to be fair, he looked magnificent against the backdrop of autumn’s russet foliage and the sky above, so brilliantly clear it resembled an overturned bowl of blue. “Yes,” I murmured. “The cat in the box… A rather apt metaphor.” He stroked my hair with unexpected gentleness. “Listen, Dazai. I get it. Living for someone else is the most fucked-up, miserable bullshit imaginable. So, just in case, let me say this too — if you really do decide to off yourself, yeah, I’ll feel like absolute shit. But I won’t drop dead from grief. I promise. So… don’t sweat it. It’s fine.” “Thank you,” I said, and, for once, actually felt relieved. “Thank you, and… forgive me.” It was good that he didn’t ask what for — because I didn’t want to say it out loud. Forgive me, please. I really do love you. It’s just that none of this means anything. Nothing means anything, anywhere. And, in the end, there is nothing at all. Only dust and ashes, smoke and mirrors. A deafening, black emptiness. And all I can do — all I have ever been able to do — is shape that emptiness into something that suits this extraordinary man. To make it something that lets him laugh, rage, grow, burn, live. But I don’t know how long I can keep it up. He kept stroking my hair in silence, and after a moment, I said, a little sheepishly, “It’ll be evening soon.” “Nah, not for a while yet…” He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and took a slow drag. “Do you like that kretek of yours because of the smell?” I asked, desperately grasping for something — anything — small enough to hold onto. He seemed mildly surprised. “The smell? Well, yeah. And the way it clears my head, y’know, like any good smoke. And they look cool — slim, black, real classy. The filter’s got a cherry taste, too,” he listed matter-of-factly. “But the best part’s the crackling. That little sound when the tobacco burns. It’s kinda special.” Crackling? I had never even noticed. How does one even register such a thing? I thought, with a quiet kind of hopelessness, that I would never truly understand how his mind worked. All these tiny, vibrant, insignificant details — how does one feel so much, so vividly, so effortlessly? No matter how hard I try, I’ll never be like him. But I can try, can’t I? “Don’t overthink it,” Chuuya advised. “…Give me one too,” I said. He lit a second cigarette and held it to my lips. As I took it, my lips brushed against his fingers — no more than a whisper of a touch, not quite a kiss, just the ghost of one. His expression shifted into something puzzled, as though he wasn’t sure if he’d imagined it. I took a slow drag. The cigarette did crackle, softly, as I inhaled. Sooner or later, the sun would slip past the horizon, and I would see my stars. Jupiter, the Pleiades, Ursa Major. But there was no need to rush. Before that, there would be a time to kill and a time to heal. A time for war and a time for peace. A time to build and a time to break. A time to teach and a time to learn. A time for asking questions and a time for finding answers. A time to weave webs and a time to fuck. And suddenly, I realized I was smiling. And I thought that perhaps — just perhaps — I was happy, in my own way, although I didn’t feel it as clearly as others do. “Alright then,” Chuuya said, exhaling smoke. “Suicide’s postponed for now? We got time to take a stroll by this shitty Thames and knock back a couple glasses of brandy before dark.”