Visual Kei

Samael’s attack glanced off my hip and what would have caused me considerable pain before no longer fazed me. I leapt into a barrage of attacks that each connected with his chest, throwing him backward violently. He crashed into the far wall, staggering to the left as I lunged toward him again. Before he could counter, I was on him again, using my newfound strength to keep him on the defensive. His forearms, meaty and thick, were lined with ugly, yellowing bruises. A fat drop of sweat trickled down my neck.

Just as he started to counter, I vaulted behind him and shoved from behind, throwing him off balance for a moment. That moment was all I needed to strike the backs of his knees, knocking his legs out from under him. Although he tried to right himself with his hands, I swept them out with my bare feet. He crumpled like a child, landing on his front loudly. Holding him down with a knee between his shoulder blades, I breathed heavily and let myself relax a bit. He admitted defeat. Again.

“Alice,” he said, his voice muffled by the floor. “Let up, now.” I immediately jumped off him, backing away a little. He stood stiffly, stretching backwards. “Damn girl, you hit hard.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I said, stepping forward to look at the marks I’d left on his arms. They looked ugly. “I’m sorry, Samael.”

“That’s what happens in training,” he replied with a smile. Despite his being gifted with fighting and tactics, he was quite a gentle person. He sat down with his legs crossed. “We should meditate for a bit. Come, Alice.”

I followed his lead. As I had gained my divine strength, I had realized why I never reached the stage of peace that Samael had told me about. I had never fully banished my thoughts and become truly open and devoid of those poisonous memories. But now, I could reach that peace. My heart slowed and my lungs expanded slowly, softly, savoring the air. I felt true contentment for a moment, but I could not stay in that state forever. I drifted back toward reality—hearing Samael’s throaty laugh.

“That’s the first time I’ve seen you actually do it correctly,” he said with a smile. “You really turned yourself around, you know that?”

“I have to.”

He nodded. “Yes, but you’ve been especially dedicated. Has something happened to cause that?”

“Several things have happened lately,” I replied vaguely. “I guess I’m just more focused on the missions and myself now, not . . . my life before.”

“The dedication I see is of someone who knows no other passion, Alice. It’s not the common type of commitment. What’s wrong?”

“You won’t drop it, will you?”

“No,” he said with an encouraging smile. “That’s what friends do.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Samael, but needless to say I doubt myself.”

“It’s understandable, but you need to be confident in yourself and your decisions. You are not in a position to doubt, although you already know this.”

“I do.” I sighed. “I’m going now. Thank you Samael.”

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On my way to the spa, I bumped into Ray, who was also on his way there. We stared each other down for a long, uncomfortable moment. I had been distant since we’d slept together. I just didn’t want to think about what we’d done and what I’d been thinking the whole time… or rather, what I hadn’t been thinking. So I just stared silently, thinking of turning around and going the opposite way, saving a shower for some other time. Before I could, however, his eyes softened and he spoke up. “Training?”

“First time I handed Sammy his ass.”

Where he would have smiled before, he didn’t now. “I want to thank you again for your help.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Would you join me in the spa?” he asked, although his cool blue eyes said that he wouldn’t accept a ‘no’. He knew that I had been avoiding him. “After you shower, of course.”

Although I didn’t want to, I knew that I should. “Yes.”

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“Why don’t you trust Seheon?” I asked coolly, dipping my feet in the hot tub. The two of us hadn’t spoken for nearly ten minutes straight, and had simply sat side-by-side by the edge of the water.

The surface frothed like a foamy bubble bath. It looked ready to scorch some shit, so I tested the water first. It wasn’t as hot as it looked. Still, there was a steamy haze in the room, like an ubiquitous fog. It made it kind of hard to breathe.

“I haven’t always lived here, like he has,” he said with his quiet voice. I lowered myself into the warm water, relaxing only slightly, although I had to admit that the hot water and massaging jets made it hard to be tense even in this unpleasant situation. “I moved here from Sweden.”

“Is that why you don’t know Japanese?”

He nodded. “I rarely leave the complex, so I felt no necessity to learn it.”

“You don’t leave?”

“Not often.” He leaned back comfortably, sliding down so that the water lapped up at his collarbone.

“So you haven’t grown up with him. That doesn’t explain why you don’t trust him,” I said simply, untying my hair from its bun at the top of my head. My long hair swept down from its place, dancing on the surface of the water. My neck was already sweating from the heat.

“Time isn’t the issue.”

“Then, what is?”

He paused for a moment, listening, before turning his bright blue eyes on me. “I can’t read his mind when we make eye contact.”

“He could be trained to block out telepathy.”

“I have considered that, myself,” he said, turning back to look at his hands in the water. “Only another telepathic can block me that successfully. What’s more, I could read his thoughts before, but now… it’s unclear.”

“And?”

“It means either he is not thinking for himself, or there he now has something that shields his mind.”

“Like what?”

“There are people who can imbue objects with properties that may bend telepathy, making it impossible to use.”

“What made you realize this?”

“I’m used to making eye contact with people and hearing their thoughts when I don’t want to, but I stared him down time and again, but I heard nothing. At first, I thought it was me.”

“I’ve never heard of anything like that before.”

“I can’t think of anyone who would be controlling him. I don’t know what to do.”

“You could talk to The Oni about it.”

Ray looked at me from the corner of his eyes. “That’s the same as accusing him of being a spy. The Oni would assume the worst.”

“And? What if the worst has happened?”

“I don’t know,” he said, looking at his hands. “Seheon and I have never been ‘friends’, but he meant well when I knew him before. Now, he seems the same, but he isn’t. I am not stupid enough to believe this sudden immunity to telepathy is benign.”

“But on the off chance that you’re wrong and it is, you don’t want to have condemned someone innocent,” I finished, rising from the water. It skimmed down my body, droplets of water mixing with sweat. “You need to do what needs to be done, regardless of if it’s heroic or not. You aren’t a hero, Ray. None of us are.” I stepped out of the hot tub, wrapping myself in a towel.

“I do not want to be a hero, but I do not want to be wrong, either,” he said softly. I knew that he wasn’t looking at me, and I didn’t want to look at him either. I was wrong about him before—he wasn’t like Kiiro. He carried himself in the same way. Perhaps he really wanted to be like him, but he wasn’t. And he couldn’t be. He didn’t quite believe it, but he was lying to himself when he claimed not to care about people. He cared. And he couldn’t make hard decisions.

No one wanted to be wrong, but if he were right, we couldn’t afford to wait around.