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Goro stares at the entrance, eyes teary and a tired expression on his face.
He stares at the door from the living room, a pair of plates in his hands. He was supposed to finish this very simple task minutes ago, but it’s already been an hour and only the napkins have been properly placed, the rest of the table empty. All this time, he’s found himself desperately staring at that damn piece of wood, wishing for it to open and finally reveal the face of that who he’s known for so long.
‘It’s been days. ’ The cruel voice reminds him, making his hands tremble and hold onto the white porcelain between his fingers to stop himself from dropping them. ‘He’s not coming back. He’s never coming back for you, Goro.’
The brunette feels his body curl, his back bowing ever so slightly as he simultaneously bites his lower lip to hold in the sobs that want to come out. His knuckles turn white from how tightly he’s holding the plates, his throat hurts as if he were being strangled with a wire, salty drops of water falling from his red eyes as he shakes his head in denial. He doesn’t want to accept it, he can’t. Not after all the promises Akira had made to him.
‘So you truly intend on blaming him for your own mistakes?’ The voice is deep, almost like the echo of Akira’s own. ‘You’re unfixable, Goro. He gave up on you because you didn’t try enough.’ The brunette brokenly sobs. He did try, he swears… He really did try, he needs Akira to believe he did so. ‘But it wasn’t enough to make the only person who gave you a chance stay.’
Goro throws the plates onto the floor before falling on his knees. One of them breaks but the other one does not. He covers his face with his hands, the coldness of the gloves making him shiver as he wails in abandon, tears falling one after the other.
He can still hear Akira’s last words before leaving inside his head, but the sound of static gets so loud it prevents him from grasping them, be it for the best or for the worst. He remembers the red suitcase the raven had taken with him before shutting the door closed, not giving Goro enough time to catch him. When he had finally broken out of his stupor, and as he ran out of the door in desperation to beg the raven to stay, to demand him of an answer to such a sudden decision, Akira was nowhere to be found anymore, forever gone from his life.
He curls up on the floor, not caring about the broken pieces of porcelain scattered everywhere, no longer caring about anything anymore. He’s so empty inside, so distraught, not even the pain from the freshly made cuts that bleed onto his sleeves will make him feel a thing, no matter how many times he has slashed the cold blade against his pale skin lately. He whispers his pleas like a prayer and hopes that, somehow, Akira comes back to him one way or the other.
He’s useless without the raven. He’s nothing. He’s no one.
He falls asleep from exhaustion in between broken pieces of himself and hunting memories of grey and red.
(…)
The next day is nothing sort of different from the previous one.
Goro wakes up on the couch, unable to get himself to step foot in Akira's bedroom since the raven left. There’s a sticky trail of tears that follows a path from his eyes to his neck and he stares at the television in front of him, lost. Lost, so lost. He feels at a loss. He stares at himself through the tainted screen and sees nothing but an empty shell. Even through the dark glass he can clearly see how much his body has deteriorated. When was the last time he ate? When was the last time he took a shower? How long has it been since he’s done something else other than continuously mourn? Every time he tries to get himself together, the memory of Akira walking out of the door flashes before his eyes and he cowers, sobs, cries… There’s been nights where he’s fallen asleep right against the entrance, hoping that the familiar sound of jiggling keys would wake him up, but to no avail.
A painful feeling of burn on his neck stops Goro's pitiful rambling as he curls further into himself, hissing. He covers the area where it hurts with a hand and quietly sobs when he touches the bruise. Why is it so painful? It’s been hurting for a few days now, like long nails having scratched his fragile skin… It must have been Akira. Did he do it before leaving perhaps? Oh, how cruel of him, to leave such a mark before running away…
Goro sniffs pathetically and does his best to get up, choosing to ignore the scorching pain, and forces himself to make an effort in cleaning yesterday’s mess, but it’s so difficult. Once he’s seated, he looks at the controller on the little glass table with exhausted eyes. Maybe a little bit of white noise will help him clear away the bad thoughts… Yet, the moment it’s on, the room is filled with the horrible sound of static and Goro can only see the blurry mix of greys taking over the big screen and making him scramble to change channels. He tries a second one, a third one, even a forth one, but all of them are the same, endless static that makes him want to tear his hair out and scream for it to make it stop.
He turns it off immediately and pants, cold sweat on his forehead. His hands tremble as he takes them away from the device, as if it were cursed. No more television. It won’t do him any good. He wants to start crying all over again from the commotion but he pushes through, opting to stand instead and make his way towards the kitchen in search of the broom. Weirdly enough, he finds it next to the counter and not inside the small cabinet nearby, where it should be, where it’s always been.
He shakes the thought away with a small sigh. He probably moved it at some point and can’t remember, after all, his memory has been just a mix of colourless splotches since he was left all on his own.
Goro starts cleaning up after himself, carefully making sure to not let a single piece of porcelain out of his reach, until his nose slightly twitches in discomfort.
…?
He stops his movements to look at the front door one more time with a concerned look.
… Has the entrance always smelled so chemically?
(…)
A few hours later, Goro finds himself waiting by the entrance yet again, unable to leave his lonely spot on the floor.
‘How long are you going to do this for?’ The voice snickers, it mocks the little bit of hope he has left. ‘Can’t you understand that he’s never coming back?’ Goro merely mutters an answer to himself, cursing the bodiless voice to death, his eyes hollow.
“He’ll come back… He‘ll come back… He’ll come back…” His mouth barely moves as he speaks, weak, incomprehensible mumbles coming out of his lips as he stares and stares and stares. The door remains closed, however. No matter how many times he hopes for it to open, his wishes never come true.
It’s always been like that for him, hasn’t it? Nothing he’s wished for has ever come true, everything has been just as Akira had wanted, not Goro. Was this something the raven had wanted as well? To see the brunette so miserable? To see Goro broken to this point? What would Akira say if he saw him like this? He tries to envision such an outcome: Goro knows he would laugh at him, probably call him an idiot, look down at him with those unreadable, steely eyes of his…
‘Nothing lasts forever, Goro.’ That’s what the raven had said before leaving, that white suitcase trailing after him and disappearing as the door had closed, the sound making his ears itch uncomfortably. And that awful smell is there as well. It follows him wherever he goes: the kitchen, the corridor, the living room, but especially the entrance. It does not matter. It is stuck onto him. It makes his nose hurt and his eyes tear up. That awful, awful smell of chemicals.
Without noticing when exactly, it has spread all over the cold apartment. He’s tried opening the balcony door to ventilate the place, but the smell will still not disappear. It’s as if it's fused with the floor, unable to ever be removed. It’s unnerving, has it always been there? He can’t remember, he can’t remember a thing. It makes him spiral even further, just how little of his memory he can actually piece together. It smells horribly, he wishes he could stop breathing altogether. The only room he hasn’t checked yet is Akira’s bedroom, and he wonders if it also smells just as bad.
‘Why don’t you go see for yourself?’ Goro shivers, paralyzed on the spot at the mere suggestion.
Just the thought of stepping foot in that room makes him want to throw up. He doesn’t want to find out, he really doesn’t. He really can’t bring himself to do so. Every time he’s come close to it, he has heard a strange noise coming from inside the room, the ominous sound of breathing and every time it’s made him want to sprint as far away as possible, glueing his back to the entrance’s door as a means of comfort. He has seen them too, in the crack of the door, those dangerous eyes staring at him from the shadows. Is he going insane? He’s the only one home, he knows this, but he can’t shake away the thought that something might be lurking in the dark, so he shakes his head and stays rooted in place, endlessly waiting.
When he goes to sleep that night on the couch, he has a dream about the person from the shadows, whispering words from the door as the walls around him start melting, the horrible odour of bleach making him gag to the point of almost throwing up, and his body too, dissolving into a puddle of red.
But dreams are only that, he tells himself when he wakes up in a cold sweat at three in the morning, dreams.
(…)
Today the brunette wakes up missing the oh, so familiar silence of home.
He tries to cover his ears to stop the noises, but they slip through the cracks of his fingers and into his tired brain, forcing him to listen closely. They’re not normal noises either, they’re voices whispering gibberish to him, trying to tell him something that he can’t quite understand, nor does he intend to in the first place. He curls up in a ball and rocks his body back and forth trying to calm himself down, yet it doesn’t help at all. Why is this happening to him? Where are these voices coming from? Why won’t they leave him alone? He’s so exhausted, what is the point of holding onto null hope like this?
‘Can’t you already tell with your own eyes? Are you that dumb? I’m leaving you.’ It’s not fair, he wants him back. He needs him back.
He sees the illusion of Akira and just when he’s about to reach him with a stretched out hand it vanishes like smoke and Goro falls onto the ground. It hurts. It hurts so much. Endlessly, eternally, for the rest of his pitiful existence, Goro is doomed to suffer for his sins.
“I’m sorry…” The sound that is barely above a simple whisper comes out broken, Goro isn’t even sure what he’s holding onto anymore. Is it hope? Is it denial? Or is it the deep rooted feeling of obedience that’s been engraved on him, following the expectations he thinks Akira would have of him?
He whines when he tries to get back up, hurting from the fall. The whispers are still there, like ghosts that float around him, and he watches the ceiling with an empty stare and a dry throat. Water, water, water… His thoughts bounce one after the other, as if his brain couldn’t stay concentrated on one alone, needing to distract itself with multiple needs, chores, anything. He thinks of a good meal yet the same picture that makes his mouth water has his stomach tying itself into a knot, as if ready to vomit anything that goes past his lips.
“Water…” The brunette moves slowly, crawling his way into the kitchen while sometimes wincing in pain. The floor is cold and dusty, it must’ve been days since he last cleaned, right? Oh, but what day is it today? What month? Was it November or December? It’s freezing outside, although he hasn’t seen snow yet.
He stops, heavily panting, and stays for just a few seconds right there, lying in the middle of the living room and next to the dinner table. Is he going to die? It feels like he is… Ah, it really feels like he’s going to die, everything hurts so badly, it’s truly unbearable. With the last of his strength, Goro pulls himself up and stands, holding onto the edge of the table for support, trying his best to stabilise his wobbly legs with little success, almost falling again on his face. He manages to catch himself on time though, and with little puffs of air he walks towards the sink in search of something to drink. He’s killing himself, without realising such a fact, he’s letting his body expire until its last breath.
He doesn’t even bother grabbing a glass, just turns on the faucet and drinks what he can, feeling a rush of relief once the water hits his taste buds and it slides down his throat. It tastes funny, maybe because it’s been so long since he last had some. Two days perhaps? He can’t accurately tell. When he’s done, he pulls away to breathe, grabbing onto the counter and letting a few drops fall from his lips. With a sigh, he looks to the side and out of nowhere, he stays paralyzed.
The knives are missing. The expensive set of knives that Akira used to prepare meals with, all of them, they’re not in their respective holders. He takes an uneasy step towards them and looks around confused, but finds nothing. Did he put them with the normal ones by mistake? He walks to the other side of the counter, now a bit more hurried, and opens the drawers with a quick pull, but doesn’t find them there. In fact, he doesn’t find the normal ones either, all of the knives they had are missing. Did Akira take them with him? He could understand the set, but the others as well? No, it makes no sense. So where are they? Where? Where? Where?
He opens the other drawers, the cabinets, the brunette even checks under the sink, but he can’t find a single knife. He takes a step back and holds his shaky hands together, dread overtaking everything else. He can feel himself starting to hyperventilate and tries to breathe deeply, in and out, but a sudden sound startles him and he turns to look at the source of such noise with a gasp, almost giving himself whiplash. Right there, he sees them, those creepy eyes staring at him from the bedroom door and Goro stares back in horror, a few unshed tears in the corner of his eyes.
'Don’t you want to see?' He’s going insane. He’s going insane. He’s going insane. He’s really seeing things, he’s really having hallucinations and it’s making him lose his mind.
'Aren’t you curious?' It drags its words slowly, with a deep and monotone voice that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. 'I thought you missed me, Goro…'
At the mention of his name, the brunette dares to look closely, holding his breath, hearing the sound of his heart beat right against his ears, and sees, amidst the blurry splotches in his vision, that shade of grey he’s missed for so long. “Akira…?” But, it can’t be…
There’s a laugh at the other end of where he’s standing, distorted and low pitched, like something from inside a dream. 'Go on,' It chuckles. 'Come and find me, Goro.' And just like that, he sees the eyes disappear into the room, as if they were never there to begin with.
“Akira, wait!” Overcome by desperation, as if possessed, Goro sprints forward, chasing after the ominous voice and finally opening the bedroom door to its fullest, facing its insides. After so long, he gets a view of the room he used to frequent so much and finds it just as he remembers it. Except that’s not entirely true.
“Akira, where are you?” He calls out into the empty space.
Once inside, Goro is hit with the strong stench of bleach, making him double over and gag. It makes his eyes water, his legs giving out and forcing him to kneel while he scrambles to cover his mouth with a hand, the other one on the floor, supporting most of his weight. It leaves him feeling dizzy, but the worst part is that, underneath the potent smell of chemicals, there's something else he can't quite describe. It's faint, yet it's powerful enough to still be noticeable among the bleach seemingly covering the whole room, but he can't put a name to it.
With a bit of hesitation, Goro finds the courage to raise his head, covering half of his face with a hand to try and block the smell as best as he can while he inspects the room with uncertainty. The place is at a disarray: the bed is not done, most of the sheets are on the floor, hidden under it; the many picture frames that the raven had hung up on the wall years ago are broken, some of them have even fallen down onto the ground, scattering tiny pieces of glass everywhere; and no sight of Akira. None at all. He swears he saw him staring from the crack of the door. Was it just his mind playing tricks on him? Maybe he’s really losing it…
He’s about to leave, the cold sweat on his back like a warning of something he should be wary of, but something stops him. In fact, it stops everything, even time. From where he is left kneeling, with a frozen expression of silence, he catches a glimpse of the big closet across the room, and right behind it, just barely poking out as an invitation, lays the suitcase he saw Akira leave with.
…
For so long, he says nothing. He doesn’t dare to. Who would? Who? He clearly remembers that suitcase right against the door, its handle tightly gripped by the raven, and the contrast that striking white had compared to the brown wood. Because the suitcase was originally white, not red, right? But he… No, it must’ve been red, and this one, the one in front of his eyes, must be another one Akira had stored somewhere else. Right…? The raven must’ve left with that red suitcase and this one is just- This one is- Please-
Goro feels the hot tears burn his skin like scorching fire, slowly crawling his way toward the closet. Every movement is terribly painful, his brain full of nothing but sorrow, confusion, maybe even denial of what he sees and what he doesn’t. One, two, one, two. Hands as frail as glass, knees weak and malnourished, Goro, who looks closer to a corpse than an actual human being, makes his way through the agony and despair that surrounds him until he reaches his destination, the object of his suffering. Until he reaches the truth, perhaps.
With shaky hands, he grasps the suitcase and slowly pulls it out. It falls onto the floor with a sound that makes his head spin. An irritable, insufferable, awful sound it is, it almost makes him want to vomit, like the smell that hits his nose, putrid and disgusting. He feels like time has no meaning anymore, like it doesn’t even exist, as he stares at the object that is, indeed, of a white coat. Yet, the sides are red. A dark, rusted red. It stains his sweaty hands, like the paint is coming off of it for some reason, as soon as he turns the suitcase over and watches in horror when he finds the white stained by red. So much red. Too much red. Rusted, filthy, gross-looking red colour. It comes in big and small splatters alike, some of them having left a trail down the smooth surface, just like a blank canvas that’s been painted on for the first time by amateur hands.
'Goro,' A voice speaks out to him, just like Akira would. The brunette takes a look into the darkness behind the façade that the raven has put up for years, and stares back at those grey eyes. He stares in silence. 'What did you do?' Will that darkness also swallow him someday?
“…” Goro doesn’t utter a single peep. He doesn’t understand. Akira was supposed to be gone. He saw him leave through the door, his figure disappearing like smoke, away from his reach. But what’s all this?
'Do you still not see?' The smell of death invites him from inside. 'You can’t evade it forever.' Unforgettable.
‘I’m leaving you.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Goro-!’
…
……
………
…………
How cruel, to force him to remember something so painful…
The first instance of confusion, watching the raven take his luggage before leaving.
The denial of his words, not wanting to blindly believe them anymore, not like he used to.
And then came the anger, so hot and out of control, like a forest fire inside of him, built upon the emotion of betrayal.
Even if he had wanted to, he couldn’t have stopped himself from doing what he did.
He grabbed the largest knife they had, knew it was one of Akira’s favourites, and charged. The raven had no time to react, probably didn’t expect him to retaliate in any form. Neither had Goro.
The first stab was the easiest one, right in the stomach, smooth as butter, but the scream of pain had been the worst one, right against his ear while Akira scrambled to hold onto something, the both of them falling to the floor, Goro on top. He pulled the knife out, just to put it in again, repeatedly, endlessly, his arm never growing tired. He had so much adrenaline, so much anger, so much sadness inside of him.
Hands tried to push him off, nails scratched his neck as a means of defence, but nothing worked. A leg kicked his hip, yet Goro persevered, too broken to stop, unable to stop, maybe even, in the darkest depths within his mind, he hadn’t really wanted to stop at all.
At some point, the blade of the knife got stuck inside the flesh, Akira mumbling his last words, bloodshot eyes darting everywhere for help, but none came. Goro let his body move by itself as it dragged him back into the kitchen and picked up another knife, smaller and sharper. For how long was he there? On the floor? Purposely ignoring Akira’s screams?
The wet sound of flesh being stabbed echoing against the walls, he did scream too, at the raven. Why? Just why did he have to leave him? Why did he not want him anymore? What did he do wrong? But by the time he came back to his senses, Akira had been dead for a long time, his blood staining everything near him: the floor, the walls, the suitcase and Goro as well.
He watched, his adrenaline high subsiding, as the raven laid there, now nothing more than a fresh corpse, who knows how many knives inside his torso, bloodied limbs full of wounds, and his soulless eyes staring at the brunette without blinking. The kitchen was without a single knife left, Goro stared at his own hands in horror, completely covered in blood.
What had he done?
What had he done!?
WHAT HAD HE DONE!?
Realisation did not come without a price for such a broken mind like his.
The smell of blood tainted his senses until he knew of nothing more. Fatigued after such brutal murder, Goro couldn’t do anything else but cry in despair, knowing that the sin he had committed could not be undone, ever. And just like no one had come to Akira’s aid, no one would come to his, his existence seemingly forgotten by the rest of the world.
The rest was but a blur, too fast and yet so slow.
The corpse was dragged away and hidden inside the small punishment room, a trail of blood following him wherever he went. The smell of bleach almost made him black out, he knows he spent hours cleaning any sort of proof of what he’d done, washing off the red with the horrible smell of chemicals. And there had been so much blood as well… He took a shower to rinse it off, but it only seemed to get worse, making him scratch his skin until it almost came off.
The suitcase was abandoned somewhere, the door was closed, the closet was moved back into place, what remained of the broken knives were discarded inside the trash and after hours of misery, he fell asleep into a world of nightmares.
When he awoke, he remembered none of it.
But now he stands here again, the only source of light coming from the room outside, watching with empty eyes the fruits of his own doings, the guilt and remorse unbearable as he faces the truth.
There is no fight left in him. He is nothing more than a shell of who he used to be. An empty vessel. A broken doll.
There is nothing left waiting for him.
No family.
No friends.
No acquaintances.
Not even a simple stranger would take pity on him.
He has nothing left. Until the very end, he remains the one who destroyed what he cherished.
He killed the only one who truly loved him, the evidence right before his eyes.
Now that he finally knows, there is nothing else to hold on to. Of that burden at least, he is free.
This world is meaningless, Goro thinks. He sees no light at the end of the tunnel, there is no point in living a life full of nothing but suffering and regret. He doesn’t want that life, not if Akira isn’t there to ground him, no matter the cruel means used to do so.
With silent steps, and with no one who would stop him, Goro pulls a knife out of the raven’s cold corpse and closes the door behind him, giving himself to the inviting darkness, his tears hitting the floor like the soft sound of afternoon rain. He sits next to Akira and holds his hand one last time, ready to finally let go.
Finally, ready to be free.
“Hey, Goro. Do you believe in God?” It's a memory from a long time ago, but it still pulls a sad smile out of him.
“No, Akira.” What a silly thing to remember now.
He can’t see the raven’s face anymore.
He struggles for only a bit after slicing his throat, gripping the hand he holds close until his very last moments alive, before the light completely leaves his eyes and his lifeless body falls on top of Akira’s.
‘But I believed in you.’