Irreversible Sadism (GL) - Chapter 32
On holidays, that man still came around.
The lunch boxes and drinks in the refrigerator had long since been taken over by him, and even now, he was gulping down the tea I had been drinking.
Rather than admonishing him, my mother seemed to welcome him. I wondered what their relationship was and what would happen to our home, but whenever I asked, my mother wouldn’t answer. I didn’t press her too hard because I was afraid of the answers.
A vague question can inflict shallower wounds than a clear anxiety.
Still, I was able to keep living because Ruri-chan and Ruri-chan’s mother brought me lunch every day. My mother seemed to be aware of this.
I planned to stay over at Ruri-chan’s house again today.
I packed a change of clothes into my bag. Since I had left my toothbrush at Ruri-chan’s, my load had become much lighter compared to the beginning.
“I’m off.”
As I left the house, I mimicked a human.
This was a garbage dump smeared with oil, where packs of stray dogs gathered. Nothing was born here; it was merely a space where things were lost and worn away, and my voice echoed faintly.
The sound of droplets falling was drowned out by the heavy rain.
From the living room, I could hear laughter that struck the ground.
From outside the house, the light of my home looked like the hideout of a villain from a fairy tale. Wolves, thieves… wicked fairies, witches. The shadows formed shapes of that kind.
Yet, my heart didn’t turn to ash because I had a place to go and people to meet.
I swayed on the train and got off at the station two stops away.
Beyond the ticket gate, Ruri-chan was there.
Noticing me, Ruri-chan waved her hand.
“Today you have less stuff. Are you okay? The news said it’s going to get cold tonight.”
The autumn sky, just before October, was busy alternating between clear and cloudy. Fortunately, today seemed to be a bright sunny day.
“I’ll be fine since I’ll be sleeping in Ruri-chan’s futon.”
“Really? Last time I kicked Tateha, you know? Is that okay? I’m really a terrible sleeper.”
“It’s fine. I want to sleep with Ruri-chan.”
“If Tateha is okay with it, then it’s fine, I guess.”
Ruri-chan’s pointed lips turned upwards.
The fountain right outside the station was sparkling with lights. This fountain was designed to light up at noon.
Being a local, Ruri-chan seemed to take little interest in it. I watched each droplet of water that the fountain sent flying, contemplating their demise.
“I want to hold hands.”
The black stains on the ground were proof that something had lived and evidence that it had flown. Something that had been high above had burst forth and spread out.
“Okay, okay.”
Ruri-chan, now accustomed to it, took my hand.
Something that had been elevated suddenly dropped.
“I’ll link arms too.”
“That makes it hard to walk.”
“Then let’s stop.”
“Only after we get home.”
I became aware that my eyebrows naturally furrowed at Ruri-chan’s admonishing tone.
“You said it’s okay to depend on you, Ruri-chan.”
“I did say that, but…”
“Then let’s stop.”
“Is this dependence?”
With a troubled expression, Ruri-chan stopped.
Clinging to Ruri-chan’s swaying arm, I hung there like a Tarzan caught in vines.
“Linking arms means… it’s not like this, right?”
“Then how do you do it?”
“Like this, crossing our arms.”
Ruri-chan demonstrated. I wondered where she had learned such a smooth procedure. My brow furrowed at the thought.
“If you swing around too much, your hairpin will come loose.”
Ruri-chan touched the hairpin that was holding my bangs back.
Since becoming friends with Ruri-chan, I had worn this hairpin every day. While it didn’t have any effect on me, when I wore it, Ruri-chan’s expression softened when she looked at me. She probably liked seeing me with this Ruri butterfly on my head.
“By the way, I heard there’s a crepe stand at that park on Saturdays. My friend said it’s really delicious. Want to go?”
“I’ve never had a crepe…”
“Really? Then we have to go! They have banana and strawberry, but what should I choose?”
My head resting on Ruri-chan’s upper arm bobbed up and down.
When we arrived at the park, the stand was unexpectedly crowded, and after waiting for about ten minutes, we finally managed to buy some.
“What are you getting, Ruri-chan?”
“Hmm, I’m torn, but… I’ll go with banana. Chocolate banana.”
“Then I’ll have that too.”
What mattered wasn’t the taste but the sharing. Ruri-chan and I would eat the same thing and feel the same emotions. That moment was proof that we stood on the same line, fulfilling the role of a host harboring a parasite.
As Ruri-chan brought the crepe to her mouth, chocolate smeared her lips, and she smiled, saying, “It’s delicious!” When Ruri-chan smiled, the parasite that had taken residence in the back of my mind began to feast.
“I’m glad.”
The waste expelled by the satisfied parasite burst forth as words from my mouth.
“Not ‘I’m glad,’ but Tateha should eat too. It’s delicious.”
“Okay.”
Even when I put it in my mouth, I couldn’t digest it. Delicious, sweet, happy. I couldn’t convert what I felt deep in my stomach into sustenance. The act of eating a crepe itself held no meaning.
“How is it? What do you think of your first crepe?”
I didn’t want to interrupt the light that sparkled in Ruri-chan’s eyes. I was the subject floating in that starry sky, a small dot connecting Ruri-chan and me. If that was what we called a constellation, I wanted to connect the dots and lines until we could name it.
“I want to eat Ruri-chan’s too.”
“No, the taste is the same, right?”
“I want to eat Ruri-chan’s too.”
When I stared intently, Ruri-chan resignedly offered me her crepe. I pressed my lips to where Ruri-chan had bitten. A faint scent of Ruri-chan wafted up. Was it her lip balm? Or perfume? I chewed as if to confirm.
“It’s delicious.”
When I said that, Ruri-chan laughed.
With her eyes narrowed and the corners of her mouth lifted, if I connected the lines, another constellation was formed.
“Wait, huh!? Hey, Tateha!”
It was just after we finished eating the crepes and were taking a breather on an empty bench.
Ruri-chan crumpled the crepe wrapper and pointed at the bench across from us.
Someone had been sitting there just a moment ago, but they seemed to have gone somewhere. What could be on an unoccupied bench? I squinted to take a closer look.
Then, I noticed something that looked like a handkerchief resting on the bench. Was it something left behind by the person who had just sat there?
“What’s wrong with that handkerchief?”
“I thought it was a handkerchief too, but that’s not it.”
I followed Ruri-chan as she dashed toward the bench. When we got close, Ruri-chan put her index finger to her lips and tiptoed forward.
“Tateha, Tateha.”
With a childlike smile, Ruri-chan beckoned me over. I approached her, unable to contain my excitement.
“Look, that.”
Following Ruri-chan’s gaze, I saw a blue handkerchief.
…No, it wasn’t a handkerchief. That was.
“It’s a Ruri butterfly.”
Its forewings had a blue band pattern, and its body was a deep indigo, almost black. The butterfly, with its mesmerizing colors, gracefully spread its wings and perched on the bench.
That was the Ruri butterfly…
It was such a beautiful color. If it had been painted by human hands, I could understand, but the thought that it had been born in nature was hard to believe.
How could such a deep blue come to be?
The Ruri butterfly, adorned with the color of lapis lazuli, was indeed like a jewel.
“It’s here in such a place.”
“It seems to be found all over Japan, but it’s quite rare! I’ve only seen it once when I was a child…”
Ruri-chan approached cautiously, as if she wanted to touch it but was afraid it would fly away.
The wings of the Ruri butterfly swayed gently in the wind. Its antennae perked up, seemingly wary of us.
Unconsciously, I touched my own head.
—Do you want to buy something?
On the day I chose this butterfly hairpin, did my mother realize?
That this butterfly was a Ruri butterfly.
That it bore the name of her daughter.
“Oh.”
Ruri-chan exclaimed.
At the same time, I felt a ticklish sensation on my fingertip.
Looking down, I saw the Ruri butterfly resting on my index finger, its wings folded.
I was astonished to see that the wings, which had been lapis lazuli just a moment ago, had now turned a brown like that of a dried leaf.
“Oh, the color of its wings.”
“The Ruri butterfly has brown on the underside of its wings. So when it flaps, it alternates between brown and lapis lazuli.”
When the Ruri butterfly had its wings closed, it truly looked like a thin dried leaf.
Had it survived by mimicking like this?
What a strange creature, to coexist as both a jewel and a dried leaf.
I wanted to ask which came first.
Were you born a jewel? Or did you start as a dried leaf and strive to become a jewel?
I leaned in as if to inquire.
I’m like a dried leaf.
I can’t bloom in an orderly fashion; I’m an impure entity from the bud stage. Surely, if seen as a whole, I would be a specimen that should be eliminated.
But I can become a jewel. Rather, it’s okay to possess both.
I surely cannot become an ordinary human. I must emerge into society in a state of some deformity after undergoing a flawed metamorphosis. That impossible flight may eventually create a tear, leading me to sever my own life.
I’ll hide my peculiar love for pain and live on. While mimicking a human, I’m drowning.
When I flap my wings, it’s lapis lazuli. But when I close my wings, it’s brown.
If that way of living is acceptable…
I want to fly like you.
“This little one must have thought that hairpin was a friend.”
Looking at the Ruri butterfly perched on my fingertip, Ruri-chan smiled.
“I’ll give it to you, Ruri-chan.”
It was Ruri-chan who had admired the Ruri butterfly.
Because Ruri-chan chased after this lapis lazuli, a hole was opened in my vision.
So, Ruri-chan should have that right too, not just me.
I placed the Ruri butterfly on Ruri-chan’s head. The butterfly settled quietly in her hair, laying its wings flat.
“Wow.”
Ruri-chan reached for her head but stopped midway.
Her hands wandered in the air, unsure of what to do, and it looked rather amusing.
“We match now.”
“Tateha…”
“You look better with it than I do.”
The Ruri butterfly perched exactly where my hairpin was secured. Ruri-chan smiled shyly, bringing her wandering hands to her mouth.
“I’m going to cry.”
“You’re such a crybaby, Ruri-chan.”
I added that I had thought so for a while, and Ruri-chan blushed, weakly retorting, “That’s not true.” The half-hearted throw landed in front of me with a soft thud.
“I can’t help it… I’ve always wanted to be lapis lazuli.”
Ruri-chan stared intently at the shadow that fell at her feet.
“You’ve always shone, Ruri-chan.”
When Ruri-chan says she wanted to be something, it’s different from a fish aiming for the sky. Ruri-chan’s wishes and prayers are within reach. And Ruri-chan has always radiated like a jewel.
When I jumped down, many people came to visit me.
But among them, Ruri-chan stood out in my vision. I had been unknowingly searching for Ruri-chan. She was always by my side, and when I couldn’t see the path ahead, I always aimed for the light that was there.
Ruri-chan was always there, and when I got close to her, my feet became clear.
I still sometimes imagine a sharp knife stabbing into my stomach. But if that were to become reality. If I had been stabbed by that random attacker that day.
I would have surely been happy. I would have been electrified by a vivid pain I had never experienced before, cradling my burned skin as I burned to death.
I used to think that was how it should be.
But now, for some reason, imagining where I would end up frightens me.
If I were to die, I wouldn’t be able to meet Ruri-chan anymore. The warmth I receive from Ruri-chan shows me a path different from pain.
They say that a pupa begins to prepare for metamorphosis when it basks in the morning sun, and I understood that feeling.
It brings comfort.
If the morning sun is there, if that dazzling light is by my side, I think I can spread my wings without reservation. I feel emboldened to face the harsh trial of metamorphosis, which has a survival rate of less than ten percent.
“Thank you for protecting me back then, Ruri-chan.”
I held Ruri-chan’s hand, conveying my body warmth.
Just like Ruri-chan always does for me.
“Tateha… you’re smiling.”
I hadn’t intended to.
I placed my hand on my cheek, but I couldn’t find any contours.
However, if Ruri-chan says so, then I must be smiling.
Surely, Ruri-chan knows me better than I know myself. To understand who I am, I can only continue to watch Ruri-chan.
The pain I seek. Something warm to replace it.
I still don’t know its true nature.
The hairpin my mother bought for me that day, and the gentle warmth Ruri-chan always gives me, are very much alike.
Someday, when I grasp its true nature, I want to muster my courage once more.
For Ruri-chan, and for my mother too.
It’s probably a bit different from gratitude. There must be words I should say, and surely there are things I wish for.
“Ah.”
From Ruri-chan’s head, a Blue Butterfly took flight.
Ruri-chan, looking wistfully as it departed, whispered a small goodbye.
“Shall we go too?”
“Yeah.”
Yes, we must go.
We need to prepare to spread our wings for the metamorphosis that awaits us. Even if the outcome of our metamorphosis is predetermined to be incomplete, we must eventually break through this shell and enter the outside world. That is the unavoidable trial imposed upon us.
In truth, I am still anxious.
I don’t feel capable of becoming a proper adult, and the time I would live beyond that will surely be akin to hell. As long as my digestive system craves nectar without a straw, my way of living will continue to be contradictory until death.
But if Ruri-chan is with me…
She might feed me nectar even as I become an adult with my fangs bared.
Then I could live.
If I’m with Ruri-chan.
“Don’t let go of my hand.”
“I won’t let go.”
“I’m depending on you, Ruri-chan.”
“I know.”
Ruri-chan placed her hand on my head and gently stroked it.
That friction created a sun above me. As I squinted against the dazzling light, warmth spread through my skin.
“Tateha will be okay. I’ll protect you.”
A gust of wind swept between us.
I didn’t know where that wind had come from.
But certainly, right now, there was a hole in my world.
Without any accompanying pain, I am alive now.
“—Ah.”
…Yes, I am alive.
To be alive means that one day, I will die.
“What’s wrong, Tateha?”
“…That.”
Ruri-chan followed my fingertips.
In the depths of the park, where the trees grew thick, there was a Blue Butterfly.
It must be the same Blue Butterfly from earlier.
The butterfly that had flown away so energetically was now suspended in the air, unmoving.
“A spider’s web…”
Upon closer inspection, threads were tangled around the Blue Butterfly’s wings.
The more it struggled, the more entangled it became.
“It’s bad… Ruri-chan, I want to help that Blue Butterfly.”
If it stays like that, it will eventually be eaten.
Imagining that such a beautiful gem could become a gruesome corpse made my chest tighten painfully.
“…No.”
However, Ruri-chan firmly grasped my hand.
“Why not? It’s pitiful.”
“But the spider needs something to eat too, right? This is a natural exchange of life, so we shouldn’t interfere.”
Ruri-chan’s hand, placed on mine as if to admonish me, conveyed an overwhelming depth through our gentle touch. It felt as if the depths were unfathomable. Only the cold wind and an unnaturally loud sound reverberated against the back of my hand.
It shouldn’t be an insurmountable force, yet I couldn’t take even a single step forward.
While I hesitated, the master of the web approached the Blue Butterfly ensnared in the threads.
“Ruri-chan, the Blue Butterfly is going to be eaten.”
The spider climbed onto the Blue Butterfly’s body and began to wrap it up skillfully. The wings that had been so beautiful were torn, fluttering down before my eyes.
“It can’t be helped.”
Ruri-chan stroked my back.
The gem that had once been beautiful was being dismantled by the spider’s jaws.
Yet the Blue Butterfly, refusing to give up, summoned its remaining strength to resist.
Hang in there, hang in there…!
I clasped my hands together as if in prayer.
“And…”
I felt Ruri-chan’s body tremble.
It was as if it were the motion of a pupa just before metamorphosis.
“The sight of a small life struggling desperately is really… cute, isn’t it?”
To begin with, a pupa is the state before a larva becomes an adult. This is not a growth process that all existing insects undergo.
Only certain species, like butterflies and beetles, become pupae.
From egg to larva, from larva to pupa, from pupa to adult.
This transformation as they grow is called “complete metamorphosis.”
“I love caterpillars, and fuzzy caterpillars, and also snails. Just moving forward with all their might. Those small lives that desperately do even the simplest things feel so precious and make me want to protect them… I feel like there’s something cute about that.”
Ruri-chan, her cheeks flushed, watched the exhausted Blue Butterfly.
A two-headed snake, a one-eyed shark… No, that would be a deformity, not something gained through the process of evolution.
Caterpillars become pupae, and pupae become butterflies. Complete metamorphosis as they change their form and grow.
I surely think I belong to that kind of creature.
But what about Ruri-chan?
I had always thought Ruri-chan and I were the same.
However, if Ruri-chan doesn’t require complete metamorphosis…
Then Ruri-chan has no larval stage, no pupal stage.
That is, perhaps… like a spider.
If she becomes an adult in the same form she was born, it would be “incomplete metamorphosis.”
“Ruri-chan—ah!”
I reached out toward the devoured Blue Butterfly.
But my right leg, still numb, wouldn’t move properly.
I knelt down on the spot.
“Are you okay? Tateha?”
What fell from above was Ruri-chan’s palm.
“Yeah. I just have to be careful, or I might suddenly collapse.”
“I see. You’re not hurt?”
“I’m not.”
“Thank goodness.”
I grasped Ruri-chan’s hand.
Her fingers intertwined with mine like threads.
“Don’t let go, Tateha.”
“…Yeah.”
With Ruri-chan’s shoulder to lean on, I stood up.
The Blue Butterfly, completely wrapped in threads, was lifeless.
For some reason, the spider had left the Blue Butterfly it had been eating and moved to the edge of the web.
Without doing anything, the spider quietly observed the dead Blue Butterfly.
Seeing me try to walk while holding my thigh, Ruri-chan laughed.
“Tateha is… cute.”
Turning our backs on the Blue Butterfly, we left the park.
What did that spider want with the Blue Butterfly, I wonder?
Spreading threads in such a place.
Holding its breath in silence.
Hiding away.
…What on earth is it waiting for?