Take Me Away

It’s the middle of the night.

One? Two?

You can’t stop replaying earlier events in your head. Over and over and over, they’re on loop behind your eyelids and you can’t escape them, even when you press the heels of your hands against your eyes and try your hardest to will it all away.

It doesn’t work.

You see yourself sneaking out of the apartment you share with the man who is probably the love of your life, foolishly thinking Jakurai would never notice your absence. You see yourself hesitating when you reach the sidewalk, looking up to make sure you don’t see Jakurai at the door or on the balcony, ready to follow you. You see yourself with this stupidly confident grin. I’m the king. You wouldn’t lose. You couldn’t lose.

You have claim of Yokohama’s underground. How could anyone be better than you?

You see yourself standing in front of the bastard that dared to threaten the only people you had left in your life. You see a small gang of pathetic men slowly closing in on you.

“Unfortunately, I’m not as confident as the great Samatoki-sama.” You hear your opponent, his tone light and airy, even as he speaks with venom. It echoes off the walls of the abandoned warehouse. You can’t forget it. “I hope you don’t mind me bringing friends?”

You see yourself smile. You see fists. You see victory.

And it’s not just sight. It’s not just hearing. You feel it, the pain in your knuckles as you punch this one, that one. You feel the pain in your back as someone, a sorry coward strikes you from behind. You feel someone’s heel connect with the back of your knee.

It’s like you’re there again. It’s always like you’re there again.

You feel pain, yes, but you feel pride, too. You’re winning, even though this sad little gang tried to play dirty with pipes and backup members. You, Samatoki, King of Yokohama, King of the World, are tearing apart a group with your fists and fangs.

You are unstoppable.

Whoever hits you from the front gets attacked. Whoever hits you from the back gets attacked. And you’re tired and your face is bleeding a bit (lip or nose or whatever, who cares?) and you look a mess, but that’s okay. Because you’ve shown up to Jakurai looking worse, and somehow, somehow he hasn’t given up on you yet.

You feel excitement. You want to get back home. You want to see Jakurai. A pleasant reward.

“Fuckin’ pathetic,” you spit, sneering down at the leader of this so-called gang you’ve just ruined. He tries to scoot away from you, utterly terrified once he’s in a situation running his mouth won’t save him from. You step on his leg, not hard enough to break anything, just enough to keep him from running, and lean down, taking a fistful of his shirt and wrenching him forward. Your knuckles push just slightly beneath his chin. The words you’d been told that he said still float around your head, too, though it’s sparingly now; the things he and his gang claimed they’d do to your little sister, to Jakurai. All to bring down the “great” Aohitsugi Samatoki.

You remember, very vividly, the thought sprouting up telling you to kill him. You consider it, but refuse the temptation because Jakurai is at the forefront of your mind. Still, you don’t let him go, allowing the collar of his shirt to choke him just a bit.

You feel yourself preparing to ask is that it? anyone else hiding? and you feel your blood spike suddenly because someone has touched your shoulder and you feel yourself drop the bastard you’re holding and you feel yourself whip around and.

You can’t forget it. You can’t erase it. You press the heels of your hands to your eyes harder and all it does is hurt. You still remember.

You remember your fist landing hard, so hard, on their face. You remember feeling the bone against your knuckles, relishing in the fact that your rings will leave marks, grinning, grinning. You remember seeing blood and you remember taking in that first breath before it hits you all at once and you can’t breathe anymore.

You hear that terrifying, shaky, weak, “Sorry...for startling you,” whenever you dare drift off to sleep.

And you see Jakurai pushing himself up onto his knees, one hand firm against his cheek, blood on his lips, blood between his fingers. He’s smiling at you like he’s already prepared to forgive you. “I should’ve been more careful,” you hear him say, though you know it’s killing him to talk. You keep hearing him say it, you keep hearing the excuses he’s giving for being punched. You can’t stop.

How did he know? How did he find you? You hear him say, almost ashamed, that he followed you. You know then that Jakurai is sneakier and smarter than you’ll ever be.

He came to find you. Probably stop you. But why?

You hear yourself say it. You hear Jakurai repeat it. And you hear Jakurai say, “I wanted to stop you from doing something you’d regret.”

You remember your eyes welling and the man you were considering killing not even moments ago running away. You remember being glad that your vision blurred so greatly.

But it doesn’t help now, because you still see Jakurai sitting there with in pain with a bloody face, smiling on his knees. It makes you ill. It scares you.

And now, in the middle of the night, you lay here with the awful loop of earlier events preparing to start once again. You lay here thinking this outcome was inevitable, a no-good yakuza who can’t keep his hands clean even when he’s trying so hard to be good. You really are like your father, aren’t you?

The memory of today tries to overtake other memories, better ones. Ones like Jakurai getting embarrassed from your confession, like showing up at his office in the hospital at midnight, like practicing your hair-braiding skills on him just for your sister to cut her hair short the same day. Ones like telling him, through all your fear, that you love him. Maybe you should forget those.

Jakurai, for some reason, is still beside you tonight. His back is against yours. All of his hair is tied into one incredibly long braid and over his shoulder, so there’s nothing keeping your skin from touching his. And you don’t deserve the warmth he’s giving you, the peace and ease his steady breathing is trying to hand you.

He’s sleeping on his right side this time. Because you fucked up his left. And he can’t put it on the pillow without pain.

So you lay there, repeating the same events, digging your nails into your palms, trying to feel at least a fraction of the hurt he did when you hit him, with your awful thoughts as Jakurai breathes beside you.

And all you can do as you keep remembering is mouth the words I’m sorry until you can’t breathe.

When you wake up in the morning - five? six? -, you don’t take anything aside from what’s on you. Your wallet. Your memories. Jakurai’s cross necklace, which you really feel like you’re stealing, but if you try taking it off, you feel sicker than you did before. So, you keep it.

You still see Jakurai’s injured face when you blink. You see strands of his long, violet hair turn red because they’re hanging over his bloody mouth. You hear him excuse you, again and again.

You never really deserved him, did you?

You wish you could forget something. Whether it’s the incident or Jakurai himself, you’re unsure, but you’re selfish, so you want to forget one or the other. His pain or his voice. His blood or his face. You just want to keep things from hurting so much, despite the fact that you haven’t earned it.

But you can’t. So.

Jakurai is still asleep when you leave.