EYES OPEN

IN THE END, the story begins. the moment he struck / the moment he became the truth of human nature, 𝚞𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚐𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐. moving to the law of his own understanding. the broadness of universe is a stacked tower of individual worlds filled with individual rules. 𝐘𝐎𝐔, 𝐀 𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐏𝐔𝐙𝐙𝐋𝐄 𝐏𝐈𝐄𝐂𝐄. hiromi cannot do more than rest in the bed of his own choices ( & keep moving forward ). ❛❛ how many are familiar with killing humans, not just curses ? ❜❜ & what does that make us ?

𝐀 𝐓𝐔𝐁 / filled to the brim, overflowing at the disturbance of entry. soaked clothes, strange & heavy & clinging. when he’d lain in the stagnant, chilling water, he hadn’t done so with much expectation. the oddities of his behavior were only passably explained away by the need to merely ‘ DO ’. now, 𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚜 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚢 𝚘𝚏 𝚊 𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚟𝚢 𝚍𝚘𝚠𝚗𝚙𝚘𝚞𝚛; umbrella closed & dangling from his loosened fingertips. ❛❛ i assumed this would feel a little more like a shower. ❜❜

❛❛ this is my third coffee of the day, ❜❜ he says, a palm pressed to the furrow of his brow. there’s a 𝐓𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐑 to his fingers, a thrumming felt under the cage of rib bone. the caffeine, he thinks, does him few favors these days. ❛❛ it hasn’t killed me yet …. ❜❜

❛❛ the brother, right ? ❜❜ hiromi is an only child, to his knowledge. he did not know the merits or pitfalls of family — for not only did he have no siblings, but he wasn’t close to his parents. perhaps, now that the world has revealed itself to be teeth & gaping maw, that is a good thing. ❛❛ you feel … strange. ❜❜

no amount of gel can contain the thicket of wild strands that grow mussed under the stress of worrying fingers. he’s learned to live with the inevitability of the look; stood trial with hair brushing his forehead, 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚙𝚞𝚜𝚑𝚎𝚍 𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔. now, he has little reason to be concerned with the finer intricacies of style. if, that is, he notices to begin with. ❛❛ what? is there something on my face? ❜❜