12 / 24 / 2015
Eventually Kana stirs awake from the couch and we both get hungry enough to eat dinner together.
Dinner is just a bowl of soup for me, and a cup of ramen for Kana. I can't even look her in the eyes; she doesn't say a single word. After dinner she immediately goes straight to bed.
I head out of the house the second I determine she's fully fallen asleep. I knew if I spent another minute near her in any way shape or form, I'd just go completely insane. So I put on a grey hoodie and rush out the door and take the longest possible train to literally anywhere else.
Because for as much as I puked and pissed all over myself then, that miserable godforsaken hellhole is where Kana's deepest and darkest demons lie.
That wasn't a dream. And hell, I want to believe it was. If just falling to my knees and smashing my skull into the floor would give me just a chance to forget all of that, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But I'll never forget it, not for as long as I live.
And in all this madness I remember The Little Prince again. I remember the ending, how the Prince returns to his home planet, returns to his Rose in the stars. How the Pilot implores the reader, if they were to ever find themselves in the desert, to stand under the star at the saddest and most beautiful landscape in all the world. And to tell him that, if they ever see a little man who laughs and who has golden hair and who refuses to answer questions, that he has come back.
By the time I realize where I am, I find I'm in Shibuya of all places. In an underground mall. Huddled up in a corner somewhere no one can see, sitting curled into myself like some invalid. There's a empty water bottle I don't even remember purchasing in my right hand. Breath smells like ass and left hand won't stop shaking. Stomach hurts like hell and my teeth are chattering uncontrollably.
It's cold because it's Christmas again, like last year, and everyone in the mall's all padded up in thick winter clothes and smiling and happy and a part of me just wants to grab them all and bite out their faces—
"Are you done?"
And this cat is still following me everywhere.
"Leave me the hell alone."
"You'll probably throw yourself into traffic the second I do."
I chuckle, "Maybe I should. Maybe I deserve it."
"Okay, calm down."
"How do you expect me to do that!?"
"Determination, I guess."
"Go to hell."
"Been there. So've you."
"Shut up!"
"Like it or not, your girlfriend is stuck in a nightmare." It leaps up, jumping upon my knees. "That land you just wandered in? That's what she thinks of this whole planet. And that monster we ran away from is a creature from her own cognition. And I have a feeling that unless we do something, it'll only get worse."
At that I can do nothing but put my hands to my face. I nearly sob and piss and moan but I keep it together well enough to beg, "Tell me everything. Please."
"I need to know what caused the distortion to...go wild like it did. What happened in the past few weeks?"
"Her mom suddenly broke down in the middle o' the day," I recount as I dig the nails of my left hand into my head. "She tried stabbing us. Gutted me like a fish. Beat her daughter's face into pulp and then caused her granddaughter to go everywhere, in the floorboards the carpets the—"
"Okay, okay! I understand—" it lays its paws on my head. "It's okay. Just stop."
I curl up in a ball and weep. I don't even feel like crying, my eyes are just spilling out tears like a waterfall, like something in my body is compelling me to cry. I wrote Kana's name down on a whim, because that thing in my head had told me the Navigator would be useful in some way and I was willing to try anything to help her.
That man in the suit...
"That's horrible...but it explains everything, I suppose," says the cat.
"How?"
"Okay...you said you wandered in that Palace by using an app, right? On your phone?"
I take a deep breath and shudder out a "Yeah."
"Okay. From what you've experienced...what do you know about Palaces and distortions?"
This is beyond ridiculous and a part of me wishes I could just slap myself awake from this nonsense that in literally every other situation would just be a crazy dream. But I can't, no matter how hard I may try, so I might as well go along with it all.
"It said...," I wipe my face, "Distortions. Negative cognitions or beliefs. It said that when your heart's distorted, you see things in ways others can't even imagine. And that reflection of the world forms a Palace."
"Okay, that's pretty good, all things considered. So you know that much."
I groan, "It said something about Treasures and Shadows, too...I don't even remember."
"Oooh, so that app was pretty informative!" it actually smiles a little. "Okay. So—a Treasure is a distillation of her distorted desires."
Can't listen well to big words when I'm scared and sad and angry, "What?"
"She has...desires. Very, very screwed up desires. So much so that they coalesced into a Treasure, which in turn spawned a Palace. To be very clear: the Treasure represents a desire that she has, so strong and all-consuming that it completely recolors her perception of the world around her. Judging from what you told me, I think we can make a guess as to what her Treasure was."
I remember so many little minute things; how she looked when she told me of her dream to go to Tokyo U, being the most prominent. "She'd said that she wanted more than a happy life. When we first...got to know each other. She's...blamed herself for everything that's gone wrong. Even if she can't control it at all, she just..."
"What did she want?"
"She said she wanted to go to Tokyo U. But the reason why...was her daughter."
"Was she...your daughter...?"
I shake my head. "Kana had her before I even met her. I...wouldn't have cared if...," I grip my hands. "She wanted to make things better for herself, her family, and her daughter. She went so far as to approach me and ask me to help her study. Help her chances of getting into a good university. And then...how long has this...?"
"I can't tell you how long she's had these desires. Best estimate is since at least last year?"
What the hell? "Last year?"
"Yeah, I—"
"What month?"
"W-well," it clears its throat, "I only got a bead on it since December 2014. It was nowhere near as bad as it is now."
"December."
His head is in my hands, I'm smashing it against the ground and praying for him to stop screaming, I'm smiling widely with gritted teeth as Kana and her mother watch the blood flow and a crunch sinks into my left hand as I punch out his teeth—
"H-hey!" the cat puts its paws on my cheeks, "Snap out of it! I almost lost you again..."
"I think I caused this..."
"What?"
"I-I, last December, I, she was, she was so scared—"
"You didn't cause this. She didn't cause this. A distortion typically doesn't arise from one single event, okay? It's something you gotta feed, over the course of a long time. Most of the time it's unconscious, which is why it manifests as a Palace, and why her Shadow's ruling over it."
Shadow. "The app said that Shadows were the...parts of ourselves we didn't like to see."
It nods its head, "Precisely. It's every single part of herself that she refuses to acknowledge. Her desire is so overwhelming and blinding that she's learned to just...ignore or shell away everything she'd otherwise hate about herself, just so that she could get it. Palaces run entirely on this sort of self-denial."
"And if she kept feeling this way, she may end up killing herself."
"Or killing other people."
I growl, "She wouldn't do that."
"Not right now, anyway. But once your heart's distorted, there's no telling what you might do to attain your desired—"
"That's not Kana."
"To be frank, how well do you know this girl?"
"Better than you." Self-denial. That's the root of this whole thing. "What if she stopped denying herself?"
Cat licks itself in a pondering way. "Well...one of two things could happen."
"Like...?"
"If she attains the self-awareness to overcome her Shadow, she may forsake her distorted desires and the Palace will crumble."
Something hopeful wells up in my chest. "And her heart would be cleared of its distortion?"
"Hopefully, yes. Self-awareness and self-reflection of one's unhealthy desires tends to free up the heart of its thorns. But there's another possibility."
"Which is?"
"She becomes aware of her distorted desires, but rather than forsaking them, internalizes them."
What? "What happens then?"
"Then, that's dangerous. At that point, her Palace will evolve. Her Shadow will evolve. Her distorted desires are no longer an unconscious reflection of her heart, but become a fully-realized obsession made manifest. At that point, a Palace is no longer a Palace—she will become so subsumed by her desires that she won't ever be free of them. By that point she'll do anything and everything to achieve them. Even if it means destroying herself or others."
"God damn it."
"Yeah. Pretty much."
"Oh God— what even are you, anyway."
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean! You're—you're some weirdo cat thing that knows all about Palaces and Shadows and Treasures—"
"First of all, I'm not a cat. I am Morgana."
If it were human it'd be standing on its two legs, puffing out its chest and keeping its hands on its sides.
"That doesn't explain anything."
"I'm a human. An honest-to-god human."
"Right, and I'm Prime Minister."
"It's true! You have to believe me!"
"Well, considering how you look, you've gotta understand my dilemma a little here."
"Understand my dilemma! I dunno how I became stuck in this cat form! And I dunno how I'll get out. But I do know about Palaces and Treasures. I know that if I keep going after them, I'll figure out what happened to me and maybe get my memories back!" Suddenly it scratches its face with its hind leg. "I think..."
I huff, "That's a bit of a stretch, Mr. Whiskers."
"Well it's all I've got! Don't judge me! And my name is Morgana, not Mr. Whiskers, get it right—!"
"That's why you were in Kana's Palace? Looking for a way to become human again?"
It exhales, "Yeah."
"Alright."
"Why were you in there?"
I sigh and close my eyes. "I had a dream. A man...in a purple suit. Told me that something called a Navigator was already in my phone. Said if I wanted to save Kana, I needed to venture into her heart, whatever that meant. By this time, I was desperate to try anything to help her. So I opened the app, and you know the rest."
"Man in a purple suit...? Did you catch his name?"
"No," I lie. "I don't know his name."
"Well...okay. Guess anything can happen in the Vortex World."
More terms I don't understand. Just what I need. "Vortex World."
"Hm? Yeah?"
"What does that mean."
"Alright, that's too complicated to talk about right now."
"Fine..."
For a few moments we just sit there. Silent, afraid, not knowing what the hell else to do but think about what could happen next.
"There's a way to save her," the cat says suddenly. "From her distorted desires."
Intrigued, I lean in closer, "How?"
Its golden eyes gleam even in the dark, shaded spot I've huddled myself into. "If a Treasure is a manifestation of her desires, then it follows that if that Treasure were taken away...so would those desires. A change of heart will then occur within the Palace Ruler—the change may take days or even weeks, but the change will occur. And then..."
Suddenly something dull settles in my chest. "But there's a catch."
"What?"
"There's always a catch, you don't just steal someone's desires and expect them to be totally okay afterwards—"
"I wouldn't say they'd be okay...they'd be better than they were before. But they'll have to deal with the fallout of their actions anyway."
The implications settle then and immediately I grow disturbed. "So...I should brainwash Kana out of her depression."
It shakes its head, "Look at it like this: she's grown so unhealthily obsessed with something that she's willing to ignore enormous aspects of herself, and has distorted the world around her into something totally unrecognizable. It's a desire that's grown out of control and is forming for her an intensely distorted view of the world. By stealing it, you're basically restoring her to who she was before her desires took over. That's it."
I think about everything she had been. Everything I knew of her. That smile she bore whenever I studied with her and her daughter, and how little all those happy hours mattered in the face of the nightmare she's had to live with. A nightmare I could help put an end to, if I could just...
No. "I...," I wipe my eyes, "I don't think that I have that right..."
"Oh come on..."
"She's my girlfriend!" I shout at it. "I-I don't, what right do I have to even, like—"
"You said it yourself. At this rate she may very well end up killing herself."
"You don't know that, I don't know that—"
"But you can make an educated guess!"
"I won't do that based on a guess!"
Cat turns belligerent, needlessly so, "Don't you wanna help her!? I thought you loved her—!" and in so doing gives itself away.
"You're withholding information."
"What!?"
"Don't try and manipulate me. I'm not in the mood."
"I'm not...," it lowers its head. "I've never done it before."
"Stolen a Treasure?"
"...no."
"Then how do you know it'll work the way you say it does?"
"I just do. I don't remember how, I just do."
I chuckle a little, "That's real comforting. Leaving my girlfriend's mental state in the hands of some cat-thing that doesn't really remember how it knows what it knows."
"And what are you gonna do? Coddle her until she decides she won't be depressed anymore?"
"Could it kill her? Stealing the Treasure?"
Cat's eyes widen. "That's..."
"It could, couldn't it?" I glare at it, piercing through its golden eyes.
"Not necessarily."
"That's not a no."
"Let me explain!" it shouts back. "Look. She doesn't know a thing about what goes on in her Palace. Even though it's her cognition of how the whole world looks—it's fundamentally connected to the state of her heart. If the Palace goes, it'll impact her, emotionally and mentally. Stealing the Treasure causes the collapse of the Palace. Her cognitions of the world will disappear. She won't be stuck in a living hell anymore. She'll be free."
Free. But. "There's still a chance things could go wrong."
"We all need desires to survive, after all," it sighs. "The will to sleep, eat, even fall in love—all those things. If all those yearnings were to just up and vanish, then...they'd be no different from someone who's shut down entirely. And if they lack proper care, then they could possibly..."
"Then to hell with that," I get up off the ground and march away from the cat.
"If we do it right, we can save her!" it pleads, following close behind me.
To which I grab it by the scruff of its neck and lift it up to my face.
"Her mother tried to kill us. She stabbed me in my stomach and cut my guts open, before beating her daughter to near-death and dismembering her own grandchild. Can't you imagine what she must be feeling right now? I'm pretty sure all she wants is her family back—"
"That's why the Palace is as messed up as it is!" the cat cries. "The distortion used to just affect her house! Now it's the whole world! No matter where she goes, she thinks she's stuck in Hell! Don'tcha think you might be able to help even a little if—"
"I'm not going to risk her life."
"You already are. I've seen what happens to people who have Palaces like this. It never ends well."
I drop the cat, and it lands on all fours. "I'll think of something."
"What're you gonna do?"
"I said I'll think, I'll find a solution."
"You can't save her, you know. Not like this, not in this world. She's too far gone to try and—"
"Let me try."
"I've already told you I—"
"Let. Me. Try," I growl at it, turning away and walking off. "I have faith in her."
"No, you have faith in yourself." I stop in my tracks. "You think you can tease out the part of her you thought you knew. But you can't. No one ever can. Not here."
I've no energy left to banter back with anything else than, "Why do you even want my help? I dunno a single thing about how any of this even works—"
Cat's gone entirely.
By the time I get home I crash into the sofa and sleep for eleven hours.
.
.
.
12 / 25 / 2015
Late afternoon. Dad's study.
He came home early today. Christmas and all that. Let me sleep in 'cuz I was exhausted.
"She obviously can't come with you."
I grit my teeth, strands of bedhead lilting over my face. "Why not."
"The psychiatrist was assigned specifically for you. As was your transfer. It'd cause complications if she followed you there."
"You can pull strings. I'm sure."
"Not this time."
"What's wrong with you?" I rise up out of my chair. "Her mother killed her daughter. Nearly killed her and me. She needs me, she—she needs someone who can be there for her when she—"
"Let her find her own psychiatrist."
"She works as a waitress at some Big Bang Burger somewhere in Ginza. She has no money, no place to go, no family to go back to. I'm all she has left. And I owe her! Her testimony didn't help my case, but she put herself up on the stand for me. I have to try something!"
I can't recall the last time I've ever shouted against my father this way. Nor can I ever recall the last time I've looked so insignificant in his eyes.
"She spoke to me earlier, said she's found someone to stay with," Dad says suddenly.
"What?"
"She'll be leaving in a week. Confirm it with her, if ever you catch her awake."
"What...?"
She didn't even tell me.
Dad begins again, "Ever since she's entered your life, everything you've tried to build for yourself has fallen apart. Your class standing. Your reputation. Your permanent record. She's a noose around your neck and you're asking me to let you tighten it."
I seethe, "If anyone's a noose 'round my neck, it's you."
He just raises his brow. "Feeling's mutual. You can't begin to understand how much paperwork I've had to do to ensure your identities remain secret."
"To hell with your paperwork—"
"I know it may not look it, but I'm doing all of this for your sake. Staying with her will ruin what's left of you."
I chuckle at him, unable to hold back a sneer, "I don't get your selectiveness."
"Selectiveness?"
"You and Mom stayed together through thick and thin. Even though you knew word could break out about you having a bastard like me. And yet you still—"
"You don't have relatives you can just pay off to forget about your affairs. I built Cybers myself from the ground up. I was able to keep everything between myself and your mother under wraps. You won't have that luxury anymore, you've been convicted. Anything and everything you do when you reach adulthood will be scrutinized to hell and back. The least you can do is cut off any thorny branches, so that you at least have a chance at a future."
"How can I focus on my future while abandoning her to hers?"
He scoffs, "She has none."
Before I know it my legs carry me closer and I'm grabbing him by the collar over the table, gritting my teeth right up in his face, "How dare you!?"
But then the whole world turns sideways and a thud smashes up to the side of my face. Before I can even tell what's happened, my arm's all bent back and feels like it's on the verge of snapping and I lift my head to see my father, looming over me. Keeping my arm locked with one arm and my face down with the other.
Even the slightest movements I make cause unending agony from the shoulder down.
"Throw yourself to that little whore, and your life is forfeit. I guarantee it. Stay as blind as you like, but you're throwing yourself at someone who does not love you."
"You don't—know a goddamned—"
Kkrk
"—AAGH!"
He unhands me, surprisingly gently, and I can do nothing else but slump away. Defeated I sink back into my chair and eye him, with an arm firm on my throbbing shoulder.
"She clutches onto you now because you're there. You were there. With her, when her mother had gone mad. She clings to you like a lost puppy because she's got no one else. And that is why she'll destroy you."
I glare at him, teeth bared and seething, "You're wrong about her."
"I won't deny that she cares about you. But I doubt she loves you. I've a feeling she had more ulterior motives for getting you to help her study."
"Stop saying things you've got no basis for—"
"Of all the people this beautiful young girl had to ask for help with her studies, while struggling financially and having to tend to a child...it just so happened to be you she picked."
"I got all the top grades in class, that's why she asked for my help."
"Wouldn't she have picked someone more approachable? I know you're not exactly the most open fellow when it comes to social interaction."
"She's an outcast. Had a bad reputation."
"I assume for being easy."
I find it in me to get out the chair again, "You don't have the right to judge her!"
"And you lack the clarity to see any of this for what it is."
I open my mouth to try and say something. Anything. All that comes out is dead air. So all I can do is maintain this furious look I have in my eyes for a few seconds more. Before long I can't stomach being in the same room as him, so I pick myself up and head to the door.
My dad's aloof, brusque nature doesn't surprise me. Hasn't surprised me since I was six. But he's never laid a hand on me before today. He's never looked down on me more than he has today. Never condescended. But even after everything that I'd said, everything I'd nearly done to him, his expression still didn't change even once.
Not even as he manhandled me over his own table.
But she...
She didn't even tell me that she had arranged to meet with anyone else. Didn't even wake me up to let me know.
And Dad, for everything he is, isn't a liar.
.
.
.
When I make it back to my room, I find Kana is in my bed and she is sleeping.
When I took her to my house after the fact, she didn't cry the whole way home. She didn't cry when she curled up in my bedsheets and take hours to fully fall asleep. Didn't even say anything to me. Not one word. But now, when I sit in my bed, I look at her sleeping and I see something cracking if not having already shattered.
And I remember a dream I once had. Somewhere in the few days before Shido.
In the dream, I was with Kana and we were both in our early thirties. We were in a kitchen and we were eating breakfast. Both of us were exhausted, because the night before Masako had asked help with a school project and needed it done by the evening. Masako and her mother had argued and fought because Masako had been given the project weeks in advance and had done nothing at all. But I had been the one to mediate between the two of them and get to working on the project.
The project was to make a little universe inside a box, one that described you and everything about you. So of course Kana and I had tried putting in all the things Masako hated like pony pictures or sparkles or stars. Masako had gotten real annoyed but in the end it had been worth it. Kana and I smiled at each other at the table, smiled at how frizzy our hair had become and how baggy our eyes had gotten and how we were going to be so late for our jobs but how it didn't matter at all.
So when Masako came down the stairs and kissed myself and her mother and bowed like she often had done and bowed while asking for our sincere forgiveness even though we all knew she'd end up being so forgetful again, we loved her and forgave her and told her to take care of herself at school. She saluted and she hugged me and she hugged her mom and she grabbed her bag and ran out the door.
But Kana and I then realized that she had forgotten her little universe and so we ran up to her room to get it and we got it to her just as she reached the station we drove all the way there just to get the box to her and she laughed and we got mad and we just acted like some big stupid family that everyone else for some reason was able to have.
Kana will move out of my house in a week. She will stay, likely with that friend she'd mentioned yesterday. She will be without me for a whole year, likely even more. She may respond to my texts, may respond to my calls, may actually call up every now and again but it will not be the same. It will never be the same.
So she and I will be apart, and what we have right now—despite our promises—will most likely not last long-term. So I think about her, this one single night. I think about what I can say to her by the time she has to leave, what kind of goodbyes we will share. Trying to visualize it, practice it silently. I'll call you, I'll say. I know, she'll say. And then...
Curses, palaces, distortions.
None of it makes any sense anymore. Nothing ever did, not since the day I saw Shido attacking her and her mother. And in my terror and shame, I think of the cat and the man in my dreams, and how perhaps taking a gamble might do me more good than harm.
Kana Kohaku was a mother, she is my girlfriend, and she is one of the most wonderful people I have ever met in my entire life and I wouldn't give her up for anyone else in this lifetime.
And I can't help her. Because she doesn't think I can.
"I know you're there. I know you can hear me." A shape pops up in the window. One with pointed ears and a long tail and blazing golden eyes. "I'm willing to give it a try."
Widely the cat smiles, almost so wide the smile exceeds beyond its face. "Excellent."