Archive of Our Own

I

Genesis 22:7 -  And Issac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

   Genya could not feel the pain. He could see the broken picture frame in Father’s grasp, he could see his blood spattered on the torn picture of Christ within, he could see the flimsy chunk of skin gouged on shattered glass and clinging to it like his unheard scream…but he could not feel the pain. 

   What had he done wrong? Father raved above him, face screwed in fury and words nonsensical, but Genya couldn’t quite say what had made him so angry. He had simply been on the floor, hadn’t he? Drawing, maybe, in that little notebook Ma had given him. And his father—right. He had been told to move. He hadn’t done so fast enough. 

   Stupid Genya. 

   “I’m sor…” Genya coughed, blood dripping from his sinuses into his throat and making him gag. Above him, Father paused in his crusade to listen, so he tried again. “I’m…” he swallowed, “sorry…”

   For a moment, it looked like the appeasement worked. Father froze in place, dark eyes studying Genya and the mutilated picture frame shifting in his relaxing grip. When it slipped free and clattered to the ground, Father fell with it, dropping to his knees over Genya. Actually over him. Straddling his legs. Genya had one second more—one second of terrified realization—before heavy hands landed over his nose and mouth. 

   “You’re sorry?” Father hissed as Genya choked. His own hands—surely too little to be related to Father’s—slapped uselessly against the suffocating grip. Blood and mucus gathered in his spasming throat and the cut on his face flared to life, burning and aching and seeping beneath Father’s vise.

   He made a noise—several noises, a gasp and gag and plea—but everything drowned under Father’s grip. Father began to grin, a wicked, teethy expression. His fingers marked bruises in Genya’s sliced face and he leaned all his weight forward, bearing into Genya as if with the intent to fully crush him beneath: a frighteningly likely thing for him to do. 

   “Maybe,” Father crooned, grinning wider as Genya’s vision began to fade, “maybe I am the new Abraham and you my pitiful Isaac.” He leaned closer and pressed tighter. Genya’s fingers turned fuzzy and his lungs went still. “Maybe you have been a test all along, waiting for this.”

   Didn’t God stop Abraham? Genya thought desperately, his limbs drooping and twitching on their own. Didn’t Abraham love Isaac? The black dots swimming in Genya’s vision began to consume it, swallowing up every inch like a creeping plague. Why won’t God stop you? 

   He met Father’s vicious eyes—almost the only thing he could see anymore—and tried one last pathetic time to breathe. It didn’t work. His chest spasmed and his throat closed and all remaining feeling in his trembling body flushed out, leaving him to limply die in his father’s grasp. As if to celebrate this, Father laughed, loud and crude and proud, but the fist in his hair stopped him short. 

   It appeared like a flash of light and tore Father away, off of Genya, who immediately dragged in a ragged breath and collapsed to the side. His lungs heaved for air as feeling returned in prickling rushes and Genya tried to blink, to see. Father writhed a short distance away, battling Genya’s savior in a blur of colors and a mess of screams. Genya’s eyes burned and heart ached in relief and gratitude as he tried to focus on the altercation, sure he would see Jesus the Christ fighting his father’s violence for him, his savior turned corporeal. He longed to thank him, to thank—

   His brother, Sanemi, kicking and hitting their stumbling father with a wild fervor. He screamed hysterically, his eyes wide and mouth stretched into a howling sneer as he delivered kick after punch after jab. And for a moment, for a genuine breath of relief and joy, Genya thought he would actually win. 

   When Father snatched Sanemi’s ankle and yanked him to the ground, that breath of hope dissipated. Sanemi’s knees hit the tile with an echoing pop, accompanied by his gasp of pain only ended by Father’s hand latching around his throat. Genya pushed himself up, opening his mouth to push a horrified cry past strained vocal cords, but he was too late; Father flung Sanemi like a ragdoll, sending him flying into the kitchen where he lost his footing and crashed into the oven door. 

   The entire world fell silent when his body went limp. Shattered glass settled along his back and arms and legs, momentarily disturbed with a few final twitches but otherwise left to sit. Blood seeped from the broken oven and pooled around his body like a sick halo, discouraging Father from stepping any closer than he already stood, though he still kicked Sanemi’s legs for good measure. Sanemi didn’t move. 

   “Fucking brat,” their father hissed, then spun and left the kitchen. Genya had one second to panic and consider crawling away, but he again acted too late. He didn’t even see the kick coming for his face; he just toppled backwards, vision spinning and pain too much to comprehend anymore. 

   Father left the house afterwards, still swearing about God and missions and tests and foolishness. Genya listened to him leave, counting the footsteps it would take to reach the street before he tried moving. He managed to roll onto his side—one of the few parts of him that didn’t ache—and saw that picture frame: the broken photo of Jesus the Christ that had sliced open Genya’s face. 

   The photo was torn down the middle, ripping Christ’s face and body in half, so only one eye stared at Genya, only half of that serene smile met his bloody face with the promise of redemption. Did it hurt, Genya wondered, being cut apart like that? How long could one live in that position? Was it a quick death? Or agonizingly slow, like the crucifixion? Was that what Father had tried to do to Genya? Had he tried to mutilate him, to cut him in half and leave him mangled on the carpet, bleeding out with his last messages babbling past bloodied lips no longer attached to anything? Would Christ have sat there and watched as he did now, allowing Genya to suffer on his own, failing to save him and instead leaving Sanemi to take up that mantle?

   Sanemi. 

   Biting his tongue to stop himself from crying, Genya rolled further, until he could prop himself up on the arm that hurt less. He pushed and pulled himself across the carpet with prickling limbs, still too dizzy and aching to force himself to stand. It took him several long moments to reach the edge of the kitchen, then several moments longer to convince himself to crawl inside. 

   Sanemi hadn’t moved in the ages that Genya laid helpless in the living room, but the blood puddling around him had turned into a proper pool that smeared across Genya’s tingling skin and stained his clothes as he dragged himself over. Splintered glass cut his palms and arms but he couldn’t mind. He pulled himself to his brother and used the cabinets to lever himself upwards, so he could grab his shoulders and tug. 

   “‘Nemi, get up,” he mumbled around a tongue far too large for his mouth. Sanemi didn’t respond, nor did he move. His arms drooped limply when Genya let go to readjust. Genya’s eyes burned, blurring with fearful tears. “Sanemi, please,” he begged. More bloody mucus dripped into his throat and he gagged, retching and coughing until he could breathe again, until he could plead more. 

   “He’s gone, ‘Nemi, you can get up now,” he said, reasoned, sobbed. He shook Sanemi’s body, his panic only growing worse as he swayed along, putting up no resistance, barely even grumbling. Desperate and terrified, Genya laid his head over his back, ignoring the glass that pricked at his ears to listen for a heartbeat. 

   He couldn’t find one. 

   He had to be listening in the wrong place, right? Genya didn’t know much about the heart and where it was supposed to be—he was only ten for heaven’s sake! So surely he just listened in the wrong place. That had to be it. He refused to take anything else as an answer. 

   “I’ll get help,” Genya promised, moving away from his brother’s unmoving body to once again grab the cabinets and haul himself up. His legs shook weakly beneath him and glass cut the soles of his feet, but he could barely feel any of it anyway. As long as he could leave and get help, that was all that mattered. “I’ll be back, okay?”

   Sanemi didn’t reply, so Genya didn’t wait for one. Trembling, bleeding, sore, and barely aware of his life anymore, he left, and he sought help. 

II, III

   Genya didn’t know his father had come home. 

   He was in the shower, he couldn’t have known. He couldn’t hear the door open. He couldn’t hear his footsteps. He must not have shouted, because he hadn’t heard that. Genya did not know his father had come home. He didn’t know he had to mind his tongue or hide his presence. So, when the bottle shard on the kitchen floor pierced into his foot, he didn’t think twice before screaming, “FUCK!”

   He only learned his mistake when he looked up. 

   On the other side of the kitchen, his father loomed over his ma. His thick hands wrapped around her small throat, bending her beneath him and choking the life from her limbs—but she wasn’t looking at him; no, her wide and terrified eyes were latched on Genya, for Genya, all too aware of what fate would befall him now, all too aware of what that narrowing glare on Father meant, of what that growing sneer meant. 

   “What the fuck did you just say?” Father hissed, the inevitable words that locked Genya with terror. He held himself up by his grip on the counter, his injured foot held precariously in the air, but when that voice rolled through the kitchen, his strength nearly left him. He wobbled in place and swallowed dry air and tried to blink clarity into his eyes as they welled and stung with panic. Ma, still wrung in Father’s grip, turned her worry upwards, reaching towards his face with a trembling hand too short to touch. 

   “Kyogo…” she gasped, though he ignored her. “He…didn’t…mean…”

   “Shut up,” Father snapped, and his grip grew tighter. Ma’s eyelids flickered. Genya’s heart stopped. “What the fuck did you just say, boy?” 

   Genya opened his mouth, and managed to say the two feeble words, “I don’t—” before his Father interrupted.

   “Do you think you have the right to speak like that?” He demanded. He still spoke lowly, almost calmly—intonations that spelled Genya’s doom in bold letters. “This is my fucking house. My fucking rules. And you,” his grip tightened damningly further on Ma’s throat; she made an awful choking noise, “you don’t have the right to speak like that in my fucking house.”

   Apologize, Genya’s brain told him, though he couldn’t seem to get his tongue to move. Offer yourself in Ma’s place. Beg for forgiveness. Do literally anything. 

   But Genya couldn’t do literally anything. He just stood there pathetically, wavering in place as his uninjured leg slowly gave way beneath him and his tight-fingered grip on the counter grew weary. He stood there and he swayed and looked helplessly forward, staring at his mom when she turned her head to give him a smile that belonged anywhere but this house. Her mouth opened. She exhaled. That exhale made a word:

   “Run.”

   And Genya’s body obeyed. He tried to run. 

   The glass forced his failure. 

   The shard wedged inside his foot with a crunch, shoving suddenly deeper with a white-hot glare of pain that gouged flames inside his marrow and sliced the meat of his legs. He likely would have screamed another profanity, but the pain made sure he couldn’t; it spun the entire way up his leg, into his gut and chest, then around his throat, where it dug its razor fingers into his trachea and squeezed. Vomit boiled and rose to expel itself, but even its magmatic burn couldn’t sear through the seizure, so it spilled into Genya’s lungs instead, leaving him to gasp and retch and cling desperately to a bruising counter. And through it all, behind the howling haze of Genya’s head, Father laughed. 

   “You seeing this, Shizu?” He cackled. Genya’s mom rattled in his amused grasp, blinking off beat as his strangulation finally began to claim her. He must have tired of her by then, though, because he tossed her aside a moment later, throwing her like a discarded toy into the cabinets. Genya watched her crumple to the ground, desperately measuring the seconds of her long-awaited breaths—and failing to see Father’s approach. 

   He only noticed when Father grabbed his arm and yanked him forward. More weight bore on the glass in his foot at the movement and he nearly screamed again, but then a thick hand grabbed his waist and hauled him up and a different kind of panic overwhelmed the pain. He tried to squirm away when he was thrown atop the counter, but his father grabbed his legs to keep him there, fingers digging into his ankles like shackles. His dark eyes and wicked smile flashed over the forced bend of Genya’s knees, then he ripped the glass from his foot. 

   Genya nearly fainted. Or maybe he did faint. His vision blacked out for at least a second and the vomit finally pushed up into his throat, but he never actually threw it up or collapsed. Rather, when color returned to his eyes and feeling to his body, he found himself still sitting on the counter, Father’s iron grip pinning his foot to the edge and his malicious laughter pounding nails into Genya’s skull. Hot, sticky blood pooled beneath his throbbing foot, likely dripping onto the tile below, but Genya couldn’t really…care. His entire being had turned to a throbbing heat, a piercing ache too profound to have a name, simply existing as it was, and that was all. Genya couldn’t think. He couldn’t feel. 

   Not that Father would want him to feel. 

   “You really are your mother’s son, you know?!” Father laughed, tossing his head back like this were some hilarious conversation being shared with friends and not his concussed wife and bleeding son. “Though, I think you’ve beat her in stupidity, kid! Don’t you know—” he fixed his posture, his tone sobering as he held up his second hand, showing off the bloody bottle shard like some awesome trophy, “—if you wanna run away, you gotta take the glass out first.”

   Then he swung, baring that glass in his fist like a knife. Genya watched as it arced towards him, in perfect position to take his eyes once it met its mark. 

   He didn’t want it to meet its mark. He didn’t want to lose his eyes. He didn’t want another scar from his father. He wanted to make sure his mom was okay. He wanted to writhe out of Father’s grip and run away. He wanted to find someone who he could tell his horrible tales to, someone who would take pity on him and his family and dispose of his father for them. He wanted to do anything. He didn’t want to die. He didn't want to die. He was just a kid, he didn’t want to die! And like an angel of the Lord, his mom ensured he wouldn’t. 

   She appeared quicker than Genya could blink, arriving just in time to save him. With one hand, she shoved him down, backwards onto the counter; with the other, she intercepted Father’s swing. Her hand slammed against his arm and disrupted the trajectory of his murder with a pop of his wrist. The swing still finished its arc, catching Genya underneath his chin and slicing him hotly, but it was far better than being blinded. 

   Father stumbled at the interception, his eyes flashing wide as his footing slipped backwards, tripping him away from the counter so Genya’s mom could grab his shoulders and drag him off of it. The muscles of his legs erupted with an exhausted fire and his vomit-coated mouth clamped over a new bout of bile, but it didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. Ma positioned him behind herself, tucking her arms behind to help hold Genya in place, to help hold him up so they could move when needed. Though—Genya panicked to think it—he wasn’t sure he could move any further. 

   “He’s learned his lesson,” Ma said, the strength of her voice cracking against the growing bruises on her throat. “You’ve done enough.”

   Father’s flared eyes narrowed. His fist tightened around that bloody shard, then relaxed. It clattered to the floor, soiling itself further in the pool of Genya’s blood. A large pool, he realized with no small amount of nausea. 

   “It’s never enough,” Father growled. Ma’s hands tightened on Genya. Her footing shifted. Father stepped forward. “It won’t be enough until that fucker learns to shut up.” Then he charged. 

   Father was massive, that was no secret to Genya, but Ma was quicker. In the moment before he crossed the kitchen, she spun and grabbed Genya. Despite her own injuries, despite his stiff terror, she shoved him down, crumpling him into a ball on the tile and throwing herself over him. Her hands interlocked around his shoulders at the exact second Father’s first kick arrived. It slammed into her, assaulting their position and stealing the breath from her lungs in a wheeze that broke Genya’s heart, but she didn’t let go. She wouldn’t let go of him. She once said she never would, and she really never did. Kick after scream after punch, she never let go of Genya. 

   She never let go. 

IV

Genesis 22:8 - And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. 

   “How many times,” Sanemi seethed, “have I told you not to say that!?”

   Genya stood a pace away from him in the stairwell, his fingers laced together to hide their shaking and gaze latched on the concrete floor to avoid Sanemi’s anger. He’d only get angrier if he could see the tears in Genya’s eyes, after all, so it was really for the best. Sanemi didn’t like it, though. He thought Genya was dumb. To be fair, Genya was dumb. 

   “Why is it so hard for you to remember this shit?!” He continued to rant, now pacing back and forth. “I mean, how stupid can you be?! You know Dad hates when you say that shit!”

   “I’m sorry, ‘Nemi,” Genya mumbled. He really could be so stupid, forgetting the littlest things. He should’ve remembered, like Sanemi said: never tell Father he’s frightening you. It was a very important rule in their household, and Genya had just broken it. Again. Because he was just a stupid boy, a useless kid. He couldn’t do anything right. 

   Unfortunately, his apology didn’t placate Sanemi as he’d hoped, instead blundering another rule he must have forgotten. 

   “Don’t call me that!” Sanemi snapped, and quit pacing to round on Genya. He marched forward and grabbed his shoulders and shook him, thrashing him around until he lifted the shame of his face. Sanemi scowled, his own eyes tear-free but blown wide in either fury or terror. Genya wasn’t sure which. Maybe both. “He hates it when you call me that! So don’t call me that!”

   “Okay,” Genya croaked, and nodded to show his understanding. “I’m sorry, Sanemi.”

   Sanemi growled, but released Genya. He crossed his arms over his heaving chest and resumed his previous pacing: back and forth across the walkway, wearing down the concrete in a permanent reminder of their ill fates. Not that Sanemi should bear this fate with Genya; truthfully, it was a mantle he alone should take. 

   His mistake. 

   “You’ll have to find some place to sleep tonight,” Sanemi grumbled. He refused to look at Genya now, but Genya knew the words were meant for him. Who else, really? They were alone in the stairwell, at least for now. “There’s that overpass Ma sometimes walks us through to get water—you remember it?”

   Genya nodded. His heart had taken residence in his throat, thudding painfully against his vocal chords, so he was really quite certain he couldn’t talk at the moment, but he needed Sanemi to know he listened and understood. That was another very important rule: always pay attention, unless you want to get strung up. Genya didn’t want that. His skull still throbbed from where Father had hit him. 

   Luckily, the silent affirmation was enough for Sanemi. He continued. “You can sleep under there tonight. Just stay up in the dirt and off the sidewalk. And if anyone tries to talk to you, run.”

   Genya nodded again but bowed his head. He didn’t like this plan. Prickling tears regathered in his eyes and pooled atop his throat-lodged heart as he imagined what Sanemi proposed: little Genya, without even a coat, curled under that dirty overpass, begging to not be noticed lest he be evicted from that home too. He didn’t like it. He didn’t want to do it. 

   But what else could he do?

   “Come back after ten tomorrow,” Sanemi said, unaware and uncaring of Genya’s panicked tears. “Dad’ll be at work by then, so it won’t be an issue. You can shower and change, then go to school.”

   Genya picked up his head. “But, I—” he started to say, the words ripping past his terrified heart, but Sanemi whipped to glare at him before he could speak any further. 

   “Don’t talk back to me,” he hissed. His eyes narrowed and focused on Genya like a wolf’s, his teeth flashing through a stretching sneer, as if he were preparing to lunge and tear apart Genya’s sorrow. “This is your own damn fault. If you actually listened and used your fucking brain, you wouldn’t be in this mess. But you didn’t, so you are, so don’t fucking talk back to me.”

   That’s not fair, Genya wanted to say, though shame flared painfully in his lungs when he thought it. Sanemi wasn’t wrong, after all. This was Genya’s fault, for being such a stupid, disobedient boy. He would sleep under the highway and arrive at school late, and he couldn’t blame anyone but himself. He swallowed his self pity and nodded. 

   “I’m sorry, ‘Nemi,” he whispered, as he couldn’t force himself to speak any louder than such. Sanemi blinked. The lines of his face creased. His already twisted mouth contorted further. Genya realized his mistake too late. 

   “I said,” Sanemi snarled, advancing suddenly, “don’t fucking call me that!”

   And he shoved Genya. 

   Were Genya smart, he would have been fine. Had Genya used his brain and stood somewhere else, he would have been fine. But he wasn’t, and he didn’t, and so when Sanemi pushed and Genya stumbled, he didn’t just fall onto the walkway; he tumbled backwards, tripped on the landing’s edge, and fell down the stairs. 

   Sanemi screamed his name when he fell, of that he was sure, but he couldn’t be sure of anything else. One moment, the floor had disappeared beneath him, his stomach seizing and heart stopping, and the next moment…he was still. His head throbbed, hot and wet, and the yellow lights of the stairwell swirled above him, but he didn’t really know how he ended up there. How far had he fallen? Only a few steps? The whole flight? He didn’t know. He exhaled and tried to push himself upwards—but he couldn’t feel his arms. He couldn’t feel his legs. He couldn’t feel anything outside of that aching beat in his skull and that stickiness in his hair. Had he landed on someone’s old, discarded gum? Maybe some spilled soda? He didn’t know. 

   Obscuring the swimming lights, a white-haired head appeared in Genya’s vision. It had wide, purple eyes that poured tears onto Genya’s cheeks and a pair of shaking hands that lifted his drumming head. Its mouth moved, maybe asking Genya what had happened, what he had done, but Genya didn’t know. He tried opening his mouth and speaking, to tell this to the white-haired head, and he was fairly certain he did manage to say something, but whatever noise he uttered only worried the head further. 

   “…coming,” the head said—and was that—yes, right. Sanemi’s voice. Genya’s older brother, his beloved brother—he was the head, cradling Genya’s face in his hands, worrying over him. Genya wanted to sigh and relax in his hold. He wanted to smile, and thank his brother. 

   But he still couldn’t move. 

   That wasn’t good, was it? 

   What had happened when Genya fell?

   Sanemi’s head turned, looking sharply off to the side. A grin broke across his face and the tears began to ebb, obviously eased. Was someone coming their way? Genya wished he could look and see too. 

   A new head emerged above Genya a moment later anyway, topped with black and grey hair and bearing a worried face. This one too looked familiar…a neighbor, maybe? Genya didn’t know. 

   They began talking with Sanemi, exchanging hurried sets of words Genya couldn’t yet decipher, spoken too quickly to decode. Sanemi shook his head furiously and said something with a furrowed brow, to which the neighbor placed a soothing hand on his shoulder, replying in a slower tone that Genya could understand. 

   “Ain’t nobody that means to trip, honey,” she said—Genya’s neighbor friend, Miss Lujanne, he realized. “You got nothin’ to be sorry for.” 

   She smiled gently at Sanemi and rubbed her thumb across his shoulder, but Sanemi had turned from her to look down at Genya again. His eyes, once wide and teary and terrified, began to soften—then sharpen. He regarded Genya carefully through those eyes, studying him for several long moments, and for the first time in all his life, Genya felt an ice cold spike lodge into his throat while returning it. Fear…of Sanemi.

   Sanemi looked back up to Miss Lujanne again, but that spike did not leave Genya’s throat. It trickled down into his heart like rot, rooting itself in Genya’s organs with the intent to never leave, growing tighter and harsher as Sanemi spoke again. 

   “Your doctor friend,” he said slowly, “they won’t make us pay, will they?”

   Miss Lujanne shook her head. “No charge, no questions. But Genya here needs help fast now. He’s lost a lotta blood.”

   Had he? Was that the stickiness he laid in? Not soda? Not gum?

   What had happened to him? 

   How long had he laid here? 

   “Okay,” Sanemi said. “Okay. Thank you.”

   “‘Course, honey. Now, can ya carry him?”

   “Yes, ma’am.”

   Miss Lujanne stood and stepped aside, giving Sanemi the space to adjust his position. He scooped one arm under Genya’s shoulders, then the other under his legs, pulling him tight against his chest before slowly standing himself. Genya stared at him the whole time, searching for that odd glint, the proof for his fear, for that unusual chill that Sanemi had never given him before—but Sanemi refused to look back, at all. Not until he stood and balanced Genya carefully. Not until he smiled at Miss Lujanne and asked her to lead the way. Not until they walked down the stairs to the parking lot. 

   Even then, when he spared a brief downwards glance at Genya, silhouetted under a rain-laden sky, Genya couldn’t find that look. It was absent in his eyes, his concerned eyes, like it had never been there to begin with. Which surely meant it hadn’t ever been there. Surely Genya had made it up, yes? A mistake in his haze of pain. Pain that was probably his fault…right?

   Genya didn’t need to fear his brother. 

   …Right?

V, VI, VII

   The heaviness of the knock should’ve been a sign. 

   It sent a jolt through Genya’s spine, yes, it rang in his head, yes, but he didn’t think much of it outside of that. Maybe Hiroshi just really needed to use the bathroom. Maybe Teiko had a hair emergency. 

   Stupid. 

   “Just a second!” Genya called, quickly pulling on his underwear and setting aside his now-damp towel. The humidity clung oddly to the dry fabric of his clothes, tickling that spot in his brain forever upset at the feeling of touch, but other than that, he had no worries. He didn’t think he had to hurry. He definitely didn’t expect the door to slam open. 

   Father’s hand gripped Genya’s shoulder like a clamp, icy against the heat of the bathroom, there before he could see it. He hauled Genya out, dragging him behind him before he could process what had happened, before the panic could arrive, before the dread could freeze his bones like that ironclad touch. He stormed into the living room—half-dressed Genya his stowaway—and chucked him forward, tossing him hard enough that he couldn’t find his footing. Genya stumbled forward, then crashed into a wall. Father marched towards him. The terror set in. 

   “Do you know how much I pay to give you brats running water? Hot water?” Father seethed, speaking over Genya’s pitiful noise, his paralyzed attempt at an ignorant apology. “I slave my ass off for you fucks, and you just throw it all fucking away.”

   Genya shook his head, his mouth gaping open and closed, uselessly gasping for some placating words like a fish out of water; like that suffocating fish, though, he couldn’t find any. Not that Father would want to hear him speak, but the way he grabbed his belt buckle and began to unlace the leather made Genya really wish he could say something, anything to get out of this. 

   “How dirty are you getting that you need to waste all that shit?” Father continued. He unthreaded his belt slowly, as if without a care in the world, without the need to hurry. And he didn’t need to—Genya couldn’t run even if he tried. “What, are you rolling around in the mud like a pig? Is that what you are? A filthy fucking pig?”

   No, sir, Genya wanted to say, tried to say, but he still couldn’t get the words to work. His throat spasmed and his tongue twitched and his mouth began to move, but he couldn’t make them work. He couldn’t speak. He felt sick. Father’s belt slipped free. 

   “Turn around,” he ordered. 

   Genya didn’t move. He couldn’t. 

   And Father didn’t have the patience to wait. 

   He bent with a snarl, grabbing Genya by the nape and lifting him like a ragdoll. Genya gasped, and for a split second found the autonomy to move his arms. He smacked at Father’s hand, maybe thinking to dislodge his grip or even to just steady himself, but then Father dropped him to his knees again, and with a whistling swish, the belt cracked over his spine. 

   The pain was thin at first, just an isolated, searing line between his shoulder blades, lacing its heat through his skin and muscles like a quick swipe of paint. For that moment, Genya almost thought to exhale, relieved, for surely this wouldn’t be so bad after all. Then, Father hit him again. 

   This time, the pain boiled, an overflowing torrent. As the belt clipped against him a second time, that first strike welled to ten times its size, exploding across Genya’s back like a bucket of hot tar poured over him. He couldn’t stop the wretched gasp that ripped apart his throat, nor the way he buckled into himself, his stomach curling and heaving to expel something that was worse than this, something that could overshadow this. The tears that blurred his eyes stung and stuck like the blood trickling over his inflamed skin and dumped magma down his cheeks, accompanying the waves of agony washing through his nerves; centralizing at his assaulted spine and arcing outwards; ebbing in a new tide just in time for the third whip to land. 

   Unlike its preceding gasp, Genya practically screamed when Father hit him. It was an embarrassing and inhuman sound that mutilated his lungs, tearing and burning and retching, coiling alongside the flow of pain radiating through his nerves. He couldn’t give it any other name anymore, it was just that: pain. An unending cycle of torment that rocked back and forth through his entire body, grilling his flesh like fire and brimstone, like holy punishment. Pain. Pain. 

   Maybe Father noticed this. Maybe he deemed it boring. Maybe he grew tired of the abuse. Whatever the reason, the belt stopped swinging; instead, Father seized a fist full of Genya’s hair and yanked his head back, just enough to bend his face into his neck. He huffed sickeningly hot air against Genya’s neck. Genya wanted to puke. 

    “Filthy fucking pig,” Father hissed, breath still hot, voice lethal like the leather belt in his hand—but that was it. He dropped Genya, then stormed off. 

   Genya didn’t move. He still couldn’t. He sat there, kneeling and keeled over himself, arms wrapped around a stomach that wanted nothing more than to vomit and his bare, bleeding back borne to the white living room lights and slow breeze of the fan. Eventually—maybe hours later, maybe minutes—the pain turned to background noise, fading to an inconsistent buzz, like the hum of a bee swarm. It took the rest of Genya’s feeling with it, but he didn’t care. He’d give it all to never feel any part of Father again, be it his hands or breath or belt. Anything to never let him touch him again. Anything. 

   The front door opened after a thousand years of Genya’s stagnancy, but he still couldn’t turn to see who entered. As he sat there, frozen and waiting, he hoped it was his mother. He hoped she would appear at his side. She would say his name in that loving way she always did and pull him close. She could let him bury his face in her lap and sob it all out. She would pet his hair and kiss his head and gently clean those new wounds on his back, dressing them with soft gauze then covering them in Genya’s favorite shirt, and she would lie with him through the whole evening, never letting him go. He longed for it. He longed for her. 

   He didn’t long for the stiff clothes dumped at his side. He didn’t long for that narrow look Sanemi gave him when he managed to crane his neck upwards. He didn’t long for the sickening, empty ache his following words left. 

   “Get dressed,” said Sanemi, bland and harsh, stiff and uncaring, then he left again, leaving Genya alone. 

   Genya didn’t move. 

VIII

Genesis 22:9 - And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Issac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. 

   Crying was pathetic. It was dangerous. It had gotten Genya in trouble many times before, and may spell his doom now. If some random person heard him sobbing up there…worse, if a police officer heard? He would be done for. Father would never forgive him for attracting the attention of the authorities, and Sanemi probably wouldn’t either. He had warned Genya of that after all, of what would happen if the state learned what Father was like, what he did. Genya couldn’t disappoint him. He had to prove he had some intelligence, he had to prove he could use his brain. He had to listen to Sanemi. 

   He had to stop fucking crying. 

   But Genya sucked at getting himself to stop crying. He always had. Whenever he’d try, it just made the tears so much worse, turning a steady flow into a tsunami or a few sniffles into body-shaking sobs. Father often hit him for that fault, beating him more and more the longer the cries came, and in response, Genya failed more and more to cease them. He couldn’t risk it now though, he had to find a way; Father’s fists were one thing, child authorities an entirely other. 

   And so, desperate and long-since out of ideas, Genya resorted to a method Father himself had used before: he shoved his hand in his mouth. 

   Though it didn’t stop the tears, it did muffle the sound, which was probably the most important part. Genya curled into himself and pushed his hand further, fitting his teeth around his flesh and meat and pinching it there. He screwed his eyes shut, hot tears still leaking out, and tried to breathe through his nose. The sting of his teeth began to meld with the ache of stone beneath him, batting a dull pain through his body, throbbing into the center of his chest so it tainted his every breath, coating his tongue in the thick taste of smothered agony. And it was good. 

   The pain was good. The taste was good. The way Genya whimpered to himself was good. The terror in his heart that twisted into ecstasy was good. He had never felt so out of control and yet so completely in control, and that was good. It hid the noise of his cries. Good. It staunched his tears. Good. But it wasn’t enough. It needed more. It needed to be great. And so, he bit harder. 

   He didn’t expect to break. 

   Teeth split spit-covered skin with a pop that echoed in Genya’s skull, giving him enough of a warning to open his eyes before blood pooled on his tongue. It slunk between his teeth and into his cheeks and down his throat, forcing him to pull his hand away lest he choke. He swallowed the blood without really thinking and inspected his hand, figuring he’d see a pair of wounds where his incisors cut through, just embarrassing points of too-sharp teeth—and remaining unprepared to see the whole row of thin punctures, perfectly mapping out his jaws. Fourteen lines for fourteen teeth. 

   How was that even possible? Surely this wasn’t normal, surely normal people couldn’t just chew through their flesh by biting too hard. Could they? Genya really didn’t know, he didn’t talk to enough normal people. And Father certainly never told him if that was possible, let alone Sanemi. Would Ma know? Too late now, he supposed, to find out; it was done, and she was a mile away. 

   Besides, he had bigger issues, namely the fact that he was now bleeding. He needed to stop it, that he knew, to plug up the wounds before they became obvious and drew attention on their own. He glanced around himself, mentally gauging how effective the different pieces of trash and debris would be in clotting his blood…before realizing he had a much better method already at hand. Literally. 

   He lifted it back to his mouth. 

   This time, he took care to line his skin up to his teeth. If he were to do this, he needed to be smart about it, not obvious, which meant abusing the same spots, not new ones. His muscles trembled and shook as he prepared, which seemed ridiculous to Genya. It wasn’t as if this was a bad thing. It was good, he benefited from it. It could save him. And if nothing else, he liked the taste. He bit again. 

   It ached more than it stung this time, his nerves upset at the reapplied pressure and forcing him to know it—which he did, he just didn’t care. It was good. He didn’t cry any longer; it tasted nice; punishment was divine. More blood seeped out from under his clamping teeth, spilling once more atop his tongue and pouring down his throat, though he did not pull away to swallow it this time; he did so with a tighter pinch, milking that blood from himself with the same reverence that he’d drink the sacrament. It was good. It was divine. And best of all, it was secret. 

   But he did have to stop eventually. Eventually, his head began to spin and his blood began to sour, so he ceased the punishment. He pushed wearily to his feet and found some old, discarded shirt and wrapped it around his hand. It was by no means a good bandage, and would very likely cause Genya problems later on, but he didn’t care about that. It worked for now, and whatever ill fate it bestowed was surely deserved. 

   Somehow, that thought comforted him. As the blood and the pain had been, it felt soothing. It was good. It eased him into a corner under that dirty overpass and cradled him into oblivion. It quenched any tears that thought to restart and kissed his brow like his mother would, telling him it would all be alright, because it was deserved, and that made it divine, and that made it good. 

   Genya fell asleep to that thought, that twisted yet comforting thought. He fell asleep under an overpass he never should have slept beneath in the first place, with a wounded hand cupped against his chest inside a dirt stained shirt that had surely rotted there for months already. He fell asleep, discarded and alone, and he dreamed of God. 

IX, X, XI, XII

   Starvation, dehydration, all-nighters, ripping flesh…none of it was enough anymore. None of Genya’s punishments punished anymore, and he desperately needed one. At least, that’s what Sanemi said. 

   Or maybe he hadn’t meant it like that. Genya wasn’t sure anymore. He wasn’t sure if Sanemi even knew of his punishments in the first place. That glint in his eye certainly suggested the need for one, the need for a begging prayer and the taste of blood, but that wasn’t proof. His words weren’t proof. 

   “You need to learn a fucking lesson,” had been his words, the words Genya possibly misconstrued, “about fucking obedience.”

   What had he been so upset about in the first place? Genya couldn’t remember. He barely remembered anything anymore. Ever since starting middle school, his head had gone fuzzy. He couldn’t keep Father’s beatings straight, or Sanemi’s words, or even the bruises on his skin. Had Father put those there, or Sanemi? Had it been Genya himself? Or someone random? Maybe he had fallen down on the way home, or maybe somebody at school had started a fight again—

   Oh, right. That’s what Sanemi had been so angry about. Genya had gotten into a fight. He’d even earned a little cut on his shoulder when the other kid knocked him into the fence. Genya stared at that little cut now, meeting its reflection in the bathroom mirror—that of the cut, and then that of the knife in his hand. 

   Where had he gotten the knife? Genya couldn’t remember that either. Really, he ought to work on that. It wasn’t like it mattered anyway: the knife had a purpose, and as long as it could fulfill that purpose, that was all that mattered. Purpose was the only thing that mattered, ever. Maybe Genya would learn to have one some day. Or maybe this was his purpose, maybe he’d been put on the earth to suffer. 

   He didn’t remember lifting the knife to his shoulder, but he had planned to do it anyway, so it also didn’t matter. This was its purpose: to mirror that little slice the fence had given him, to recreate that sudden electric sensation, to press into his skin like his teeth so often did, to draw a thin line of blood across his bruised flesh like the first stroke of paint across a magnificent canvas, to sever his flesh apart and cleanse his soul. Genya sighed, his muscles relaxing and heart soothing at the heat of the cut, but it wasn’t enough. Too thin, too careful. He needed deeper, something fuller. So, he repositioned the knife, parallel above the first cut, and did it again. 

   It stung more with the added pressure, a brimming burn, a heavier relief. Genya shuddered and his spine twitched, but he didn’t stop until he’d dragged the knife to its complete length. Like the cut below it, blood bubbled in its wake; unlike the cut below it, this blood did not hold still: it leaked like the tears Genya never let fall anymore and soiled the two smaller cuts, tracking thin, red lines down his arm and collecting at his elbow. He had enough awareness to snatch a handful of toilet paper and wipe it away before it spilled onto the blue bath mat below, but he otherwise let the drops fall, weeping as he could no longer. The sensation was odd, and not entirely enjoyed by Genya, but it was good. Holy. Punishment. 

   He switched to his other arm and painted two more cuts. 

   These ones he gave the same heaviness as the second. They deserved to be full like that one. They deserved to ooze and trickle, they deserved to make Genya’s head wobble and ankles roll. They deserved to engender those white-hot flashes that obscured his vision and baked his lungs, the searing light that reminded him of their divinity. For they surely were divine. As Jesus the Christ had bled from every pore to atone for the sins of humankind, so would Genya Shinazugawa bleed to repent for his sins, for his crimes: the crimes of existing and feeling and knowing. Crimes he should have repented for long ago. Crimes he begged to repent of now. 

   And repent he did. He offered a prayer to God, begging forgiveness for whatever he had done and allowing the blood to continue seeping. Only when he heard the front door open and the little kids pile inside did he deem his penance ‘enough’. He blotted his blood and wiped his arms clean and applied the gauze and tape as his mother had long ago taught him, flexing and twisting his arm afterward to ensure they would stay. They did, though the movement and strain made those four cuts burn—burn divinely, Genya decided the moment he flinched, unwilling to let them be anything else. Punishment was holy, atonement was holy, and that was all Genya had done. Atonement through punishment. Repentance through penance. He had no business swallowing a sudden bout of nausea. He had no business clutching the sink as his whole world began to sway, nor had he any pressing a cold hand to his hot forehead to stave away the rest of that dizziness. It was silly and selfish of him to act like he didn’t deserve this, like he didn’t want it. 

   Because he did. He wanted it. He’d dreamed of it for ages, he even remembered those dreams. He had longed for the heat of the cut, for the terrified euphoria that seized his soul when he drew blood, for the taste of it all, for the ache. For the divinity. For God. And that was good. It had to be good. Genya couldn’t live with himself if it wasn’t, so he refused to let it not be. It was good, he promised his reflection, as he did every day. It was good. 

   He pulled on his sweatshirt and left the bathroom. 

XIII, XIV

Genesis 22:10 - And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

   Genya learned of arteries at school that day. 

   He’d been somewhat aware of the concept before, but now he knew in great detail how they worked. They tracked through a human’s entire body, from his head to his feet, and down both his arms. He could feel his pulse if he pressed over one, as they were responsible for pumping the majority of blood through the body. If one were cut open, that could spell death for whoever bore the wound. When Genya learned this, he took great care to map their locations. 

   He studied that map, now at home, hidden on his bed and listening to his little siblings joke and laugh. Ma was about to take them to the park, Sanemi tagging along for a nice day out of the house, but Genya had declined. He had more important business, business that trailed a shaking finger up his forearm, mentally drawing a line over and over that subtle pulse point, that line of life. The line of death.

   “Genya?” Came Ma’s voice, followed by a knocking on his doorframe and her head peeking through. Genya leaned from his bed curtain to see her. She smiled softly. “We’re going to be leaving now. Are you sure you don’t want to come?”  

   Genya nodded and tried to match her smile. “I’m sure. Thank you, mama.” 

   Ma hesitated, wavering in Genya’s doorframe for several seconds longer than he thought necessary—but she didn’t push him. She just hummed and nodded and backed out. “Okay, sweetheart,” she whispered, “we’ll see you later.”

   “Mhmm,” was all Genya answered before she turned and left. He sat there and listened to her leave, waiting until he heard the kids gather and the door close behind them, then counting the steps to the parking lot before he took a new breath and leaned back again. His hands shook and his heart hammered, but he refused to acknowledge them, to give them the cognizance of fear. It was time. 

   Genya left his paper map on his bed but gathered his hidden knife and black towel. The trek to the bathroom was a small one, but Genya’s legs trembled the entire time and made it a difficult one too. He found that ridiculous: why did his body act so afraid? This was a good thing, a natural thing. A needed thing. He remembered those words Sanemi had screamed at him, those words that pushed his interest to pique in class, those words that had haunted him for weeks: we all would be better off if you weren’t here. Genya agreed, but he couldn’t do anything about it before. Now, though, now…

   He draped his towel in the bathtub first, positioning it perfectly before he remembered to turn and lock the door. Anyone could open that lock from the other side with a pin, but it would at least buy him a few extra moments if necessary—moments that could accomplish his goal. 

   Once locked in, Genya took his knife and himself to the bathtub. He stepped carefully inside and sat atop the towel, taking his time so as to not disturb its placement. It needed to stay exactly where he’d laid it. It had a purpose: to soak up most of the blood and (hopefully) prevent severe staining on the tub. That purpose must remain. He couldn’t ruin his family’s lives again with a stupid bloodstain. He’d hurt them enough. 

   He had dressed himself in a black t-shirt and matching sweatpants under a similar ideal to his towel, figuring that, if the blood were hidden in his clothes, it may be a less upsetting sight to find. He’d tuck his arms downwards too, he decided, to prevent anyone from seeing the wounds head on. He didn’t want to scare anyone, or make them worry. He just wanted to make their lives easier. He just wanted to apologize. 

   That conviction didn’t stop his hands from shaking, though, which he still thought was so stupid. He was doing this for his family, and he had the gall to act afraid? It was pathetic and selfish, and yet he couldn’t stop it. They shook as he gripped his knife and turned his opposite wrist upwards, exposing the soft flesh of his forearm and that invisible line he’d traced many times over. They shook as he pressed the tip of the blade over that pulse point. They shook as it punctured. 

   Once upon a time, Genya may have gasped as he shoved that knife into his arm. Maybe he would have even cried. But he did neither now. He was too acclimated, too accustomed to the inherent burn of punishment, and too adoring of the sting of divinity. As such, he stayed silent and simply watched his flesh open. He watched the blood pour, immediately drenching the knee that propped it up and the cautionary towel beneath. He watched even as his head began to sway, even as the pain flooded his body with its dull throb, even as a hind thought of panic flared to life in his chest. 

   Surely you're not doing this, that panic said, also watching the knife slice up to his elbow with a keen terror. Surely you don’t think this wise. Surely you aren’t about to kill yourself. That wouldn’t really fix anything…would it?

   But no other part of Genya’s body or mind listened to that panic; he finished the line on his first arm, then picked up the knife and switched hands to transfer to the second, paying the words no heed. His head throbbed and his vision swarmed with black dots, but his movements did not hesitate. They barely even shook anymore. They were weak but sure and set firmly in motion, unable to be deterred—not when that panic tried to push tears into his buzzing eyes, nor when his sliced arm twitched and faltered at the attempted pressure. He grit his teeth and shoved past the failure, pressing and pressing until that knife once again pierced skin, until it cut open his second wrist and gave him the okay to draw. 

   Only, this time, he had already lost blood. He had already turned dizzy and clammy and cold, and he couldn’t go as far as he had the first time. He’d barely made it a quarter of the way before his fingers released the knife on their own accord. It tumbled to the floor of the bathtub, skidding towards the drain, and Genya slumped in place, no longer able to keep his head up. His arms fell into his lap and he only barely remembered to roll them inwards, tucking those thick cuts to hide them from view, sighing when they twinged against the dryness of his shirt. His strength seeped from him like the streams of hot blood; his vision flickered; his breaths fell short; and once again, that panic spoke to him. 

   What have you done? It demanded, loud and shivering and horrified. How will this help? What will they think?

   But Genya knew each of those questions already had answers. 

   I’m helping the family, he would say if he could. They don’t need to worry about me anymore, they don’t need to get mad at me, or feed me, or house me. They will be grateful. 

   They had to be grateful. If anything else were the outcome…well, quite frankly, it would still be fine, wouldn’t it? Because Genya wouldn’t be there anymore. He wouldn’t be a burden. He wouldn’t be a stupid obstacle, a useless pig. He wouldn’t waste money, he wouldn’t anger Sanemi, he wouldn’t worry his mom. This was his final atonement, his final repentance. The last sacrament that would cleanse him of his sins. 

   Genya closed his eyes, and he died. 

;

   Genya woke with the worst headache he’d ever had, which said something. He’d had migraines before, he’d had concussions, but he’d never felt anything like this: a deep, boneset throbbing that carved obscenities into his cells and set fire to his molecules. He groaned, if just to offer some protest to the pain, and tried to open his eyes. 

   New problem: he could barely see. He blinked, and pale light flooded his vision, but he couldn’t see much outside of that, so he kept blinking, trying to clear it away. It worsened the headache, but he didn’t stop; instead, he tried lifting his head too, figuring that, if he could at least decipher his surroundings, he could conjure a plan to fix whatever ailment had taken hold of him. 

   Second problem: he couldn’t lift his head, which made him panic, just a little. Genya had been unable to move in times past, but it had never been for good reasons. What had happened? He tried to remember, still blinking, and in so doing, he managed to start hearing again. 

   Sobbing. That’s what he heard first. Someone sobbing, occasionally making noises that sounded like the start of sentences before they dissolved into more sobs. Did Genya know that voice? He swore he did. He shifted his blurry eyes towards the noise and found a person-shaped blob of colors, but that was it. Luckily, or maybe unluckily, there too returned his sense of touch. 

   The pain arrived first—swaths of an ache too deep to be labeled as anything else washing through him every second like an unending downpour. Genya groaned again, the throbbing of his head forgotten as that pain radiated through his bones, severing all sensations in his arms to pour everywhere else. Again he wondered, what had happened?, but another feeling cut through the question. It grabbed and twisted at his neglected arms, gentle despite its obvious desperation, winding around him with a familiar softness. It must belong to the person next to him, the person slowly coming into clarity as he continued to blink, the person who sobbed over him…oh. 

   Oh, no. 

   “Ma?” Genya croaked, though his tongue felt entirely too large for his numb mouth and all the pain in his body somehow worsened when he spoke, but it earned her attention. Her fuzzy head snapped up to look at his and her gentle hands shot to cradle his face, wiping heat over his cheeks as her sobs caught and stalled. 

   “Oh, my god,” she choked, then pulled Genya’s head towards her, letting him lay on her shoulder and moving one hot hand to pet wetness over his hair. “Oh, my baby,” she kept crying, “oh, my god, my baby…”

   “Mama, what…” Genya swallowed, his throat suddenly too dry to speak. Ma let him lean back again, resuming her sweet caresses on his face, her own pinched expression steadily coming into view. He saw tears pouring from her eyes, tracking lines through…was that blood? A cold shock speared Genya’s spine as his eyes trailed downwards, finding more and more of that blood on her shirt and shoulders and arms and hands. Had Father come home? Had he hurt her? Had he cut her? He swallowed again. “You’re bleeding…” he mumbled past the scratch, but Ma just shook her head. 

   “It’s not my blood,” she whispered, though it did little to quell Genya’s worry. Had one of the kids been hurt instead? Had it been Father himself? Had it…it had…it…oh…fuck…

   Oh, Genya. Oh, stupid, stupid, stupid Genya. He glanced further downwards, finally spotting his arms—arms now wrapped in hurriedly-applied bandages, bandages Ma had wrapped on him. Because she had found him. She had broken into the bathroom. Stupid fucking Genya! 

   “Ma,” Genya gasped, forcing himself to sit up despite Ma’s protest, trying to ignore the dredges of blood around the bathtub drain the towel

had clearly failed to absorb. “Mom, I didn’t mean—I didn’t—”

   “Where did you even get the knife?” Ma sobbed. 

   Genya shook his head, his vision blurring with new tears. “I don’t—you weren’t—”

   “You didn’t leave me a note—that paper—”

   “No, mama, I didn’t mean to—”

   “Why couldn’t you leave me a note?” 

   “I didn’t mean—” Genya hiccuped, cutting his own sentence short in that spasm of pain as the tears broke free. “I really—I’m so sorry—” he tried to crawl from the bathtub, pushing up on arms that should most definitely not bear his weight, but ones that he forced to do so anyway. Ma helped him clamber out, but she seemed more confused about the act than agreeing. “You weren’t supposed to—”

   “We need to get you to a doctor,” she said. 

   Definitely not, Genya thought, and shook his head again. “No, we can’t pay—”

   “This isn’t a maybe, Genya.”

   “But—”

   “No, baby,” Ma interrupted again, then grabbed his shoulders and pulled him into her arms. He collapsed against her, too weak to decline. Her chest shuddered under his head, heart pounding at a dizzy pace and sobs evident in the wracking of her lungs. “Why didn’t you leave me a note?” 

   Genya wished he could answer her, but he just began to cry. Like, properly cry. If he had the ability to move, he would have stopped it before it could start, shoving his hand into his weeping mouth—but he couldn’t move, and so he did not. He just sobbed into his mom’s lap, his head growing all light and fuzzy again, arms hot and throbbing and definitely in need of medical attention. 

   Maybe she noticed this, because she didn’t press for an answer. Instead, with more strength than Genya knew she possessed, she grabbed him under his arms and helped him stand on legs turned numb. He hadn’t quite grown so big that she dwarfed beneath him, but the difference was still obvious, forcing Genya to teeter over her, as if one of his legs were shorter than the other. A distant part of his mind wondered if she’d actually be able to get him out of the bathroom, let alone down the stairs, but his head had turned too dizzy again to really ponder. 

   “Come on,” Ma said, beginning to move them out, slow but steady. “We’re going to see Doctor Fujishindai—you remember her?”

   “Mhmm,” Genya mumbled, because he did actually remember her, from a time that felt like eons before. No charge, no questions. She had been kind, bandaging Genya’s head with soft assurances, not too unlike his mom. His mom that he had terrified, that he had made cry. 

   Why had he done that? Long before, Genya truly felt justified, he truly thought that he was saving her by pressing that knife into his skin, but now? She didn’t want that saving. She didn’t want Genya to hurt, of course she didn’t. She was his Ma, and she loved him, and she would never want him dead. Not his mama. He couldn’t do that to her, he couldn’t make her grieve over him, he couldn’t leave her with that unanswered question: why didn’t you leave me a note? 

   No. Never again. He would never do that to her again. He would never do this to her again—make her cry, make her bandage him, make her hoist him onto his feet and drag him to their car, make her drive to a small doctor’s shop that never asked prying questions, that wouldn’t take Genya away from her. 

   “I’m sorry, mama,” Genya breathed when she buckled him into the front seat. He blinked away the black dots in his eyes and the ringing in his ears and tried to reach for her hand; she met him halfway and squeezed his prickling fingers. “I’m…so sorry.”

   But Ma wouldn’t have an apology. She shook her head and kissed his brow and squeezed his hands again. 

   “I love you, baby,” she whispered back to him, then quickly closed his door and raced to the driver’s seat. Genya watched her throw herself inside and speed out of the parking lot, then he dropped his head against the car window, allowing himself a moment of closed-eyed bliss, repeating her voice in his head like a mantra. 

   I love you. 

Matthew 26:38 - Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with me.