Chapter Text
What are you willing to sacrifice for normality?
Would you sacrifice your home? The ones you love? Your sense of independent self? Perhaps you would even sacrifice your own life in chase of something so imaginary as normality. Because that's what normality is. Only a figment of your imagination. Normality is something we trick ourselves into believing, that there is a possibility of living a life where you say as those around you expect you to say, and do what they expect you to do.
Normality is only a mere concept. That's what I tricked myself into believing in the first few years of my dreadful life. But now, after all I've been through, after all I've seen... Perhaps the idea of normality isn't imaginary, and is actually real. Maybe normality is the one thing I've been chasing after this entire time. That chance to feel like I'm exactly where I belong, and I don't need to move to any other place ever again.
The smell of smoke filled my nostrils, mixed with the waft of burning gasoline which caused my nose to crinkle in deep disgust while I slipped down onto the wet concrete ground. I let out a loud cough and rubbed an arm over my tired eyes, the rest of my body shaking in a violent manner trying to fight against the cold blanket the air wrapped around me so tightly.
When I moved my arm back down and away from my face, my eyes trailed along the wet, sloppy ground filled with bits of trash and broken beer bottles to the small flicker of light that came from the city streets some place beyond the dark alleyway I sat myself in. The sound of speeding cars and the constant impact of feet on puddles filled my ears in the darkness of the sky.
My gaze broke from the road and up to the sky hanging above the tall building that dominated over my frail body. The two buildings were large, and created a skinny gap between the two which barely even I could slip through to lay down. The vast distance that was the sky was painted in endless colors of dark blue and black, only being illuminated by the small dots of stars to stop the infinite void from becoming invisible. Even though the sky always seemed to be such a peaceful sight to me, one I used to look upon in the tough nights of my childhood, that peace faded away. Nothing around me seemed to carry the promise of peace. Nothing. Ever since he left and allowed me to rot alone until I was evicted from the small apartment the two of us used to share, letting me wander the streets aimlessly looking for even one decent meal. Even if it meant fishing in the garbage for molding scraps.
The feelings of happiness I used to be able to express were stripped from me, only to be replaced with a cold, empty bitterness that tugged at my heart. The man who once cared for me and acted with such affection towards me that no other person expressed before was nothing but a cold, horrible liar. He didn't care about leaving me. Didn't give a shit if I was kicked out of that home or not.
I hoped I never saw him again. Life would be much more satisfying if not. But then again, as I'm lying in this alley with nothing but a growling stomach and only my torn clothes for warmth, I prayed he would suddenly appear. That he would find me within this alley just so I could eat a warm meal again, and have decent clothes to wear. My tongue has grown numb to the taste of warm food, and drool filled inside of my mouth at the thought of chewing down warm instant ramen once again just like I used to.
But, who knew if such things would ever happen. Life was known to be unexpected at times, but even so I was almost certain I wouldn't last another day without something inside my stomach. Everything I found inside the torn trash bag in front of me had barely anything still edible to consume. Except for a dead rat. But I didn't think I would be able to push my luck with dining on a raw rat for dinner. The thought me gag despite the fact that meat inside my mouth was more than appetizing.
I reached into the pocket of my torn jacket. A small hole was beginning to become more noticeable along the loose stitching of the pocket, but I only ignored it and dug my fingers deep into the hole, looking for any lose change that might have been forgotten and put in there. My hand only came out of the pocket with a small piece of lint, a bent cigarette that was barely worth smoking, and a rusted penny.
I threw the penny onto the wet ground along with the lint, keeping only the cigarette within my outstretched palm. My eyes traced down the cigarette's structure, eyeing it closely.
It was bent at an odd angle, most likely my fault for dropping the box it was originally packaged in or something like that. The thin paper was torn along the edges to show the tobacco inside, crushed into only a thin powder.
While looking down at it, my stomach twisted with dying hunger once again, a jolting pain poking me right in the ribs. I felt light headed and threw my failing neck back until the back of my skull touched the brick wall of the building behind me. My eyes were growing heavy, and I knew I would pass out yet again from the emptiness my digestive system felt if I didn’t do something to prevent it.
My weak eyes looked down at the cigarette yet again. I started smoking a couple years back, a bit before my roommate left and introduced my heart to the feeling of loneliness I thought I’d forgotten so long ago. The taste of cigarettes got me high too often, and the smoke that entered my lungs never once fully left, and caused me to have quite a few coughing fits. Even after my roommate suggested I stop, the feeling of a cigarette inside my mouth and smoke in my lungs was too overwhelming. I began to smoke each and every day. But now, I didn’t have the money to buy packs of cigarettes, and my head throbbed from the lack of satisfaction tobacco usually gave me.
With this bust-up cigarette, there were no hopes of lighting it. But… there was something else I could do with the drug… something far more dangerous and life-threatening, but my mind seemed to ignore those warnings while moving my hand slowly to my mouth. My stomach continued to cramp-up, and I didn’t know if my idea would solve the problem, but it would do something nonetheless. If my actions were going to kill me, then I wouldn’t necessarily be against the idea of that. If anything, it motivated me more to move my extended hand right to my open, drooling mouth… That was before a tight jolt on my arm forced my hand back down along with the cigarette. I fell forward a small bit before being able to regain my posture and look to where the foreign pale knuckles were tightly wrapped around the skin of my jacket.
From there, I looked up at a face that looked directly at me. A face of a pale young man with dark hazel eyes that reflected off the passing cars a bit away from here, and thin lips that were open, that added more to his thin furrowed eyebrows. I couldn’t make out much– or I decided not to make out much– of him and the brown messy bangs that flopped down onto his forehead and back down to the nape of his neck. His eyebrows were knitted tightly together, his chest heaving out pumps of air sp close to my face I could feel the warmth of his mouth against my own ice cold cheek.
The man looked deep into my eyes for a moment. Those dark brown irises looked into my own like they were going to eat me alive, the ends of his eyes were sharp and his thin lips pressed together into a long frown.
His grip on my arm was tight, with his long fingers curled tightly around my sleeve with nails digging into my skin. The way his fingers pressed tightly against my skin made me feel like he would be able to cut off my blood circulation within the next few seconds if he didn’t let go of me suddenly.
When his fingers moved off my body, I felt my common sense enter my body once again. The man let out a long sigh and laid back and away from my face thankfully. His eyes traced my body once before he looked up at the peking sky above the buildings. His chest was still heaving once he began to speak. “Man… so you weren’t a corpse after all…”
I moved my arm back to the sides of my chest, moving the fingers from my opposing hand slowly towards the area now throbbing from this strange man’s touch and rubbed it softly.
When I spoke, my own voice came out in a soft crack that barely sounded like my own. “Excuse me…?”
The man retreated his gaze from the sky and back to me. “Well, you’re pale as a ghost, man! And I just thought you were a corpse in a peculiar position with a busted cigarette towards your open mou– Wait, were you trying to eat that cigarette?” He pointed down at the cigarette now soaking in a puddle on the ground.
I sighed. “What of it…?”
“Man, I was interrupting a suicide attempt, wasn’t I?” The man groaned.
“I was hungry.”
“Yeah, because that’s a clever excuse. No normal person would eat a cigarette for food.”
It’s different when you’re on the verge of death. Just speaking to this man was using up most of my energy, and caused my throat to start throbbing painfully from the lack of water inside of it. My body felt too weak to argue. Yes, I was going to eat a cigarette, but in my defense, I thought it would at least stop my body from cramping up with dying hunger, and if it killed me, then it did. I wasn’t opposed to the thought.
I had nothing else worth living for anyways.
But, this stranger– No, this asshole had to come along and interrupt my meal/death. Though he seemed to be regretting it from the large pout that was displayed across his lips, I still didn’t feel like saying sorry for trying to kill myself. It was a personal issue that no other person had to get involved in.
Anyways, he thought I was dead. If anything he should apologize for saying such a rude comment.
However, my attempt to show the amount of sudden hostility I held towards this strange man I barely even met a minute ago was interrupted by the sound of distant chatter, the stomping of feet coming closer and closer to the alley both me and the man sat in. I looked towards the light of the city, expecting to see drunken men or flirting women walking past like every other day, but the sound of a squeak from the man across from me seemed to prove me wrong.
“Dammit! When I thought I lost them!”
I looked at the man across from me with a furrowed brow. “Excuse me?”
“Look, as much as I would love to leave you in peace to continue your so-called dinner, I need some help!”
Before I could even get my next words of protest and confusion out of my mouth, the man already stood up. The heaving of his chest was going back to normal, but it didn’t seem to affect the long frown across his lips and the sharp pierce of his eyes. He looked quickly towards the streaming light from the city, listening to the distant voice of chatter getting closer and closer to the alley I sat myself in, before he turned back around and begun to walk into the deep darkness that was beyond the alley.
He didn’t look back at me as he kept on walking, and I didn’t feel like moving. I just stared at the moving man in silence, wondering what was to come before he spoke. “Just… if they ask where Reiji is, tell them he moved on to the next alley.”
“Wait…”
My words trailed off, watching the man disappear into the darkness and into the silence before I could say anything else. My eyebrows stayed knitted together in confusion as I looked away from the disappearing man towards the brightness of the city. There was no strength left in my bones and my head felt light-headed, so there was no way for me to run away from the situation I put myself in, or of the approaching shadows that blocked the light of the city with their large silhouettes.
I could barely see straight with my drowsy eyes, but I could count at least five different guys standing at the entrance of the alley. All of them speaking loudly to one another, with their voices bouncing off the narrow walls and straight back at them.
“He ran into here!”
“Ha, the bastard cornered himself.”
“He couldn’t have gotten that far.”
That’s when the men walked into the alley one after the other. They kicked over broken beer bottles that got in their way, or any sort of rotting garbage that came leaking out of the black plastic bags along all the walls. They advanced into the alley and though naturally I was meant to be intimidated by their abnormally gangly faces and messy choice of clothing like every normal citizen would, the feeling of fear seemed to leave my body so long ago. After living on the streets for more than two weeks, you learn to abandon fear and instead focus on the idea of survival, even though the thought of surviving even an hour longer made me scoff.
I looked at these men as they approached my frail body. I craned my neck up to look at their tall stature and demeanor. Two of the guys eyed me whilst the rest just passed by, probably just thinking of me as a part of the garbage or a dead man. I much rather the two men that noticed me to ignore my presence completely, but that didn’t seem to completely work when one of the men glared down at me, his eyes filled with the thirst of violence.
“Hey, Shit-Face, you see a man pass through here that has weird-ass brown hair?”
“Oh yeah, he ran deeper into the alley.”
I didn’t feel the slightest bit of regret when I watched the glaring man and the others walk past me and deeper into the depths of the alley. It was that weird man’s fault for coming to me with his problems about stuff I had no business being a part of. He couldn’t let me die in peace, so therefore I wasn’t going to let him live in peace. Simple as that.
The men continued on until the back of their heads were submerged in the darkness to the point I didn’t care about looking at them. I only looked away and back straight ahead at the brick wall across from me. The aching pain of my stomach continued to grow along with the larging growling and groaning of one empty stomach. I placed a trembling hand to this stomach and let out a sigh. My head felt heavy, and it was too much trouble to keep my eyes open a moment longer so I drifted off into the depths of my mind.
That was, until, a sound of an impact against my head suddenly disrupted the blankness of my mind. My eyes opened slowly and I moved a hand up to the spot of which some unknown object hit against the side of my head with a strong amount of force.
My eyes traveled down and I could see a rolling plastic bottle hit against the side of my hips, which caused me to huff. The sound of a low whistle brought my attention upwards, and my eyes traced along a long black metal ladder some bit away on the wall of the opposite building. The wet metal traveled upwards to lead to a small platform where a glass window sat, and the ladder’s journey traveled up to another black platform a few feet above that, so on and so forth like the structure of any normal apartment building in a busy city. What caught my attention about the small apartment platforms was the man that leaned against the railing of the first floor that stopped him from falling face first into a lump of garbage below.
The smirk across the man’s face grew as I recognized the brunette bangs of the man, and I scrunch my eyebrows together. “How’d you get up there?”
He pointed down at the ladder. “With that contraption, of course. Quite handy to get up when you’re ratted out by a total stranger.”
I frowned and the man only smirked more. “Well, I shouldn’t have expected any less.” The man walked towards the ladder, climbing down and planting his feet safely onto the ground before walking towards me. “Though you intended to rat me out, I’m grateful for all the trouble you went through to point those guys towards the back of the alley which leads to a dead end. They’ll realize I’m not there soon enough and come to you next to bring out all their anger, so unless you wanna be beaten to a bloody pulp, I suggest beginning to move.”
I shook my head. “Not happening.”
The man’s eyebrows rose up. “Hm? What do you mean?”
“I’m not going with a complete stranger to–” The low rumbling of my stomach interrupted my next words.
I watched the man above me laugh. “Oh, you’re just hungry, huh?” Despite how cold it was, I could feel my ears begin to get warm. “Well, alright… I know a place nearby that’s willing to serve even corpses.”
I sighed. “Shut up.”
Still, the man kneeled down to me and reached for my arm, forcing me off the ground. Though I tried to protest, trying to squirm out of his grip to fall back down onto the ground just to die, the man’s grip was too strong. He carried my arm around his shoulder and supported the rest of my failing body with the other. I could hear the low groan that left his lips as he began to walk away from the alley and onto the streets.
“The name’s Reiji Yamada, but just Reiji is fine,” The man introduced himself once we made it out onto the concrete street. Once the light of a nearby streetlamp was able to reflect off the man’s face, I could see the large smile that was across his thin lips more clearly, and the way that his brown eyes reflected off the light that shone on him and me from all different directions. The city lights were too much for my eyes to handle, but when looking at Reiji’s face, it made it a bit easier to readjust.
Reiji looked down at me with a curious smile. “What about you?”
For a moment I hesitated. To tell a man I barely knew what my name was was a foolish thought. Something only idiots who were too trustworthy would do. I trusted someone a long time ago and I knew where that took me, so I wasn’t about to be so kind and easy to give this man my name as well. But, as he helped my body move forward and walk past the small amount of people that were still up and about in the city, the way he was able to help a man he barely even met a few minutes ago, my mind began to sway with a different feeling.
“Not gonna tell? That’s fine, I’ll just call you Hobo Man for now,” Reiji sneered.
“That’s rude,” I mumbled.
“But you are homeless, right? I mean, you were sitting in the back of an alley looking half dead. Not to mention I can see how skinny those arms of yours are,” Reiji explained, a look of pure innocence across his face that didn’t seem to fit his features at all.
“I just got evicted from my home, alright?” I grumbled.
“Hmph, alright Hobo Man.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Then tell me your name!”
“Fine… It’s Shin. Shin Tsukimi…”
“Well, nice to meet you Shin Tsukimi.”
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Drink some water or you’ll choke.”
“You act like I don’t know that.”
“Well at the pace you’re chewing that ramen down, I’m afraid you don’t…”
I watched the man before me chew down the ramen put in front of him. From the other side of the bar counter, I could see our server give the smallest look of concern towards my new friend Shin, but I didn’t acknowledge it. Not by the fool Shin was making himself look to be.
I carried the man to a small ramen shop, a place on the corner of the street and a bit away from where I lived by myself. I drank from my glass while continuing to watch the strange man chew down the rest of his ramen, completely abandoning the chopsticks put beside him and drinking down the bowl whole. Broth, egg, noodles, seasoning, vegetables, everything. It was a miracle he didn’t choke once the bowl was set down and he wiped off a bit of dripping broth from off the corner of his lip.
“My, you must’ve been on those streets for a long time to be this hungry,” I said with a small laugh while I watched Shin drown down his cup of water in a matter of only ten seconds. Must’ve been a record.
“I’ve been living off the leftovers restaurants throw out or anything editable I can really find in a garbage bin,” Shin responded, a pout making way across his face.
“I… I see…” I laughed nervously before looking down at the ramen in front of me. I pushed it towards Shin. “Here, have mine. I’m sure your own wasn’t enough to fill you up.”
Though Shin showed hesitance while looking at the bowl, he looked me in the eye for a moment before taking the offered ramen and scarfing it down like he did the last, a bit slower at the very least. While he ate, it gave me enough time to finish my own cup of liquor and ask for another while observing the homeless man next to me.
I’m not the kind of man that would go off picking up any homeless man I find in an alley and treat them to ramen. No. Usually, I just plainly ignore them altogether since there are so many in big cities like these. But this young man. When I first saw him, I didn’t think much of him besides another dude I could swindle into helping a poor guy out, but then he had this attitude, this way with his emotions that was something I rarely saw in anyone, something that didn’t strike me until the moment my second glass of liquor was brought to me.
Potential.
That’s right, Shin had potential. I could see it. He already looked irregular with his teal hair and torn clothing, but beneath that his emotions were irregular. There was something to this man he held deep within him, he just needed to let it out. It may just be the liquor getting to me, but I’ve met plenty of people of different race, gender, and sexual preference to know how the different groups behave. The stereotypes. The millions of different categories I can put people in just from observing them for barely ten seconds. But, when a rare occurrence happens, when I meet a person that has no such stereotype added to them through observation, they hold potential. Just like Shin does.
That’s why I treated him to a ramen dinner. It was my only way of getting close to the boy, and my goal was to have him to trust me, which he definitely didn’t with the way he was behaving.
After Shin finished the second bowl of ramen and sat it down next to the first, I turned to him with a smile. “So… why were you evicted from your apartment?”
“Why were those men chasing you in the alleyway?”
“I asked first.”
“I asked second.”
My patience may go down before I even get the chance to speak with him…
“Well, they were debt collectors in a sense,” I answered.
Shin furrowed a brow. “Debt collectors?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m a bit of a gambler of sorts. When I get too drunk I usually end up betting more than I own through club games and the such, and when I lose and the guys ask for their money… I run away. Simple as that.”
“So you’re an idiot?” Shin questioned.
“You’re getting rather snarky for a man who got evicted from their apartment…” I scoffed.
“Listen, I got kicked out because my apartment couldn’t pay the rent, alright? I didn’t have much money from my job at the grocery store so once he left I was unable to live a stable life,” Shin explained to me.
“What was your roommate like?” I asked, reaching forward to reach for my glass.
The silence that filled between the two of us was beginning to swell before he replied. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
Ah, I see how it is… It was a relationship issue then that caused Shin to end up in the situation he’s in now. It happens a lot, more commonly than people realize. And the silence that followed before his answer just proved me correct. He must feel a hatred towards whoever this man, probably one so deep he wants to kill him. I mean, after all it was that man’s fault that Shin was all bones and no fat. The feeling Shin must feel is bitter, because I know that feeling all too well…
I moved my hand to Shin’s shoulder, smiling wider once the man looked at me in the eye. “So you need a place to stay?”
I watched as Shin narrowed his eyes. “If you’re offering me a place to stay…”
“Yes, I was actually.”
“I don’t know how I feel about staying in a place with a guy who carelessly throws his money away when gambling…”
Cautious… That’s good…
“Trust me, I’m more wealthy than I may appear to be,” I explained with a short laugh. “And it won’t be my place you stay at. It’ll be a friend’s.”
“That’s even more suspicious,” Shin breathed out.
All I could do was laugh. It was all I could actually do in this situation seeing as I now faced a dilemma against a homeless man. I know he would have no choice but to accept my offer seeing as the only place he’ll be able to stay the night at is the dumpster behind the restaurant. Someone like Shin would be nice to have around in the atmosphere that filled the work me and my companions did, and I would have him come along whether he liked it or not because this man… he’s exactly…
Suddenly, the sound of a ringing phone cut through my thoughts and brought me back to reality. I blinked a bit and looked around the small restaurant for a moment, but with no other people besides both me and Shin in sight, I moved my hand down to the phone in my pocket and brought it up to my face. The annoying ringtone I set becoming louder once I saw the screen that faced me. I sighed once I saw the contact and looked at Shin.
I held up a finger, signaling him to wait a moment while I answered the call.
“It’s a bit late, don’t you think?”
“I don’t care how late it is, where’s my damn money?!” The voice on the other side of the phone yelled at me.
“I told you I’d send it to you and the others soon, didn’t I?” I sighed and took a sip of my liquor.
“Well, we want it now!” The voice demanded loudly. If the man raised his voice any louder, I was sure Shin would even be able to hear it. “Jimmy’s got some animal’s shit on his shoe we can’t even name and now Rod smells like rotten eggs mixed with sewage. After we ran through that alley all so you could perform some stunt with that homeless guy, I think we deserve our pay now.”
I glanced at Shin through the corner of my eye before continuing with the caller. “Alright. I’ll deal with your end of the deal tomorrow morning.”
“You also better give the other guys their fair share too!”
I sighed. “Yes… I’ll make sure it’s tended to. Bye and say hi to the Mrs for me!”
I hung up before any more alarming yelling could be done at me. I did my best to display a smile despite how exhausted I felt once I slipped my phone back into my pocket.
“Who was that?” Shin questioned.
I looked back at Shin in the eye, and I saw the look of confusion that was written across his face. I smiled again. “A guy from work. Don’t worry about it.”
“What do you even do for work?” Shin asked.
I shrugged once. “I don’t stick to one place. I’m a job hopper. Do you want a drink? I’m sure you want some alcohol in your body to relieve the stress of being homeless, right?”
“No, not no–”
“One drink for my friend here please!” I said to the bartender, who nodded and got right away to making a drink for Shin, while I had to deal with the backlash of Shin glaring at me in annoyance. “Don’t worry, one drink won’t hurt you.”
Breaking news: The one drink hurt him.