#daiki

Paul took the bus back to Munizza High School so they could take his car instead, and so he wouldn’t be leaving his car in the school parking lot overnight. He had some bottled water in his trunk and he gave one to Daiki. Daiki unscrewed the lid and took a small sip before he tipped the clear plastic bottle back and guzzled the water down. He shoved the bottle into the grocery bag Paul kept as a trash bag hooked over the gear shift. Paul could hear Daiki’s teeth chattering in the freezing car. The air blowing through the vents still took awhile to heat up even after they’d gotten started down the road toward Downtown Xachu.

“I wanna go to this little cinema that shows indie and foreign movies,” mentioned Paul. “I don’t think they’re still showing the Matrix. At the regular theaters, I mean. That one was mind blowing. Did you see it?”

Daiki shook his head. “I don’t go to the movies much.”

“You gotta see it. Rent it or something when it comes out on video.” Paul entered the grid of old streets lined with parked cars.

String lights decorated low brick buildings that had Christmas displays in shop windows. Clusters of people smoked in front of shops or drifted along the steeply inclined sidewalk. Paul drove slowly past compact shop fronts, some in alcoves or under awnings, some boarded up and gone. Tattoo parlor and a smoke shop, restaurants and bars, antiques and boutiques on slow parade as people milled along the sidewalk with buskers and homeless people just trying to exist, until he saw a glowing marquee bordered in neon lights: Bijou Cinema. There wasn’t any parking in the immediate vicinity, so Paul circled around the block and the next block over until he found parking at a meter. Daiki waited while Paul parked by degrees. Cars drove around them.

“Don’t laugh,” muttered Paul. He put his arm behind Daiki’s backrest to peer backwards as he inched toward the car behind them. “Unless you can parallel park.”

“I can’t drive yet,” Daiki replied. “I’m still working on my permit. My mom was kinda concerned about me driving since I went into a coma for no reason.”

“Alright then, don’t laugh.”

“I’m not laughing.”

They got out of the warm car into biting cold and hiked two blocks back to the cinema down the hill. The two kids resisted holding hands and tried to move as if they were just friends. That is, until Daiki noticed an old gay couple emerging from a restaurant, bundled up and casually familiar, wrinkled and gray and beautiful. The two couples met eyes and Paul cautiously allowed Daiki to hold his hand. The older couple smiled warmly at them and whispered together.

A fluttering feeling trembled in Paul’s chest and he got in line for tickets still holding Daiki’s hand. While they stood in line they looked around at the lit up posters on the walls near the doors. The ticket booth stood in the middle with the pavements sloping upward from the street to the two pairs of glass doors. Warm light shone through from inside where more movie posters lined the wall of a cozy lobby with worn red carpet and a small concessions stand. They decided on Run, Lola, Run and moved indoors. Paul eyed concessions and probed through his wallet, remembering that he didn’t get an allowance anymore. He’d just spent the last of his cash and didn’t know when or how he’d acquire more. Daiki pretended not to see the snacks and popcorn machine and pulled Paul over to a podium where an usher waited. The usher tore their tickets, gave them the stubs, and directed them to the theater that would show their movie.

They continued down a ramp into a dimly lit hall until they reached a door with the correct number over it. Inside, small red upholstered seats led in rows down toward the screen with an aisle down the middle. The screen hung over a small stage, indicating that sometimes Bijou Cinema showed live theater productions. Ornate but chipped plaster petals curled up toward cherubs holding lights between curtained intervals along the side walls. Paul found a spot in the middle and pushed the armrest up between his and Daiki’s seat. The butterflies in his stomach flittered and danced about all the worse as he and his boyfriend settled in. The previews played and more people filtered in to settle in around them.

As the lights dimmed and the screen went black, Paul lifted Daiki’s hand and kissed the tips of his fingers. Daiki watched Paul by the light of the white letters appearing on the black screen, Prokino followed by a quote attributed to T. S. Elliot. Paul looked back and smiled warmly, nervous but sweet. Daiki led Paul’s hand to his own mouth and began a demonstration on one of Paul’s fingers. It was too dark to see Paul’s ears turn red. A strange bronze pendulum swung to and fro across the screen as music and a ticking noise rose from the speakers concealed around the edges of the theater. Paul whimpered and sank down further into his seat, reclaiming his hand and turning back to the screen. Daiki grinned and leaned his head on Paul’s shoulder.

The movie threw them into the mouth of a gargoyle holding a clock, and from there Daiki’s attention fixed almost wholly to the screen. Paul’s mind kept straying back to the saliva evaporating off of his finger and the curve of Daiki’s grin. Heat traveled through his arms and face. He looked back and forth between the rough hand-drawn animation in the opening to the flicker of lights over his boyfriend’s glasses. Lola got the call from Manni on the red telephone and Paul, tapping a damp finger against his thigh, let the movie draw him in. An hour and sixteen minutes later, as the credits rolled, he would have ordinarily stayed seated through the credits to listen to the pulse of electronic music. Instead Paul found Daiki’s hand and pulled him along out of the theater.

“How was the money in the bag still a hundred thousand after the guy got himself a suit, a bike, and all those drinks at the sausage place?” Daiki wondered aloud as Paul dragged him into the hall with its thin carpet and illuminated posters.

“It...I don’t know,” breathed Paul. He watched other people filter past them and pulled his boyfriend along a bit farther. “It wouldn’t be, would it? Maybe Manni had some cash on him and made up the difference. I don’t really care.” He found an alcove for the restroom doors where he could push Daiki against a wall and kiss his neck.

Daiki kissed Paul’s cheek and guided him into the men’s room. “Yeah, why ruin a happy ending with too many questions?”

“Exactly,” agreed Paul. “I know the whole reason for the date was, like, to comfort you because you worried about...um. Well. About pressuring me. So this, I just -”

“Am I pressuring you?” Daiki asked and hooked his fingers over Paul’s belt.

Paul shook his head and smiled. “No. Not at all.”

“Alright then.”

---

Winter looked up from the photos Josh had gotten back stacked up in their paper envelope. Her brother walked through the door smiling and flushed, tucked under Paul’s arm. They’d lingered in the car awhile before crossing the front walk to the house. Winter had peeked out the front window at the two of them making out in the car, and now that they stepped through the door she stared at them judgmentally.

“Everyone can see you basically fucking in the car,” Winter told them.

“Oh,” said Paul. He looked away and put a hand to the side of his face, ears burning.

“That wasn’t in the car,” Daiki replied.

“What? Yes it was, I saw you. Everyone can see you.”

Daiki exercised enough will to not explain his joke. “So stop watching.”

“ ‘So stop watching,’ he says. Stop mating every time you get within smooching distance to your boyfriend,” complained Winter. She held up a photo to the light. Most had turned out blurry or focused on the kennel bars instead of the creature inside it, but Winter had found one of the clearer photos.

“What’s that?” asked Daiki.

Paul cleared his throat and drifted further on into the house.

“A demon thing spawned from that doll, the one with Duria in it.” She handed her brother the picture.

He held it carefully by the edges and squinted at large wet eyes and the fleshy barbs above its dark mouth. It had long bristled legs like an insect, mostly blurred from motion, sprawled out from a grayish curled body.

“What the fuck?” said Daiki. He frowned and sat next to his sister to look at the other pictures. “This came out of the doll?”

“Yeah. We tried to trap it in a cage, but the legs were skinny enough to reach right between the bars and open the latch. You should see the video Adam’s editing together from the footage. The doll got seriously gross and messed up and that’s before the head even popped off.”

“The doll was haunted by Duria? You didn’t tell me that was Duria!” He flipped through the photos. “The face is almost sort of human. Sort of. What the fuck.”

“Yeah there was no way I was gonna tell you that. What if you found a way to get her ghost back? I don’t like when you’re possessed and weird; just your regular weird is fine.”

“So now she’s just out in the woods somewhere?” Daiki handed the pictures back but still stared at the topmost photo with a look of concern.

“This thing is. You think that thing is Duria? We tried asking it, but it can’t even talk. It just hisses and crawls around looking freaky as hell.” Winter looked over to see Paul had changed into his pajamas. “Does Sid still bother you sometimes?”

“No, I haven’t seen him.” Daiki pouted. He missed Duria but knew his sister wouldn’t sympathize with that. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing. I’m glad you got rid of him, whatever you did.”

Daiki looked quietly down at his hands. “Sure.” A kind of dread churned in his gut and he tried to summon back the weightless euphoria from his date. He thought about a weird creature that might be some weird reincarnation of his friend. Thoughts also crowded in to wonder if Sidney was going to call on him out of the blue and whether he could deter Sid and stay faithful to Paul, or if he’d feel as powerless as he always did and fuck everything up. “Where did you have her caged up?”

“In the woods near Adam’s place. We could show you if you want to come over tomorrow and see the video,” Winter offered.

“Yes. Please.”

---

Trees caught the rain in their leaves and dropped larger dribbles and drops down in scattered showers. Puddles formed between roots and reddish reeds. A rivulet flowed through a pebbly ditch near a thatcher ant mound. From the shadows of the trees, blinking eyes reflected the cool blue of the clouds overhead. A creature the size the raccoon scrabbled in the frigid damp undergrowth, tearing into dandelion leaves and digging the roots out with her claws. She’d done nothing but eat since she’d let herself out of the kennel, eat and grow. Beetles, half-frozen frogs, dandelions, nettles, a hibernating squirrel, whatever she could get her claws on that seemed halfway edible. Snails tasted foul, ants were a bit tangy but not worth the effort, and there just wasn’t very much out here in the winter. At least it hadn’t snowed and she could root around a bit easier. At some point she’d gone back and deigned to eat the dog food Winter had put out for her.

Digging up the dandelion roots brought up grubs and crunchy little rolly pollies. Dirt clung to her teeth and throat. She drank from a puddle then used it to wash her face. A car splashed through another puddle somewhere to her left. Duria followed the direction of the sound and found a bend in a highway. A raccoon had strayed onto the asphalt sometime recently and now its intestines smeared the oily pavement. She scuttled out to the roadkill, sank her teeth into the stiffened furry flesh, and dragged the poor thing off the road. The grub didn’t want to remember the girl she used to be when she tore furry hide aside and ripped off ribbons of meat. Duria scarfed down the meat and did her best to keep her thoughts empty. This wasn’t who she wanted to be, this wasn’t what she’d ever wanted to be. A flashlight lit her up and Duria froze.

“Oh god, is that really her?” Daiki asked.

“That’s the thing,” confirmed his little sister.

No. Not somebody who knew her. Duria hated for him to see her like this. She backed into the ferns, dragging the raccoon with her. She could see him now, in a black raincoat and holding a large flashlight. The boy they’d met as souls together stood a bit behind Daiki under an umbrella, and there was Winter in her green trench coat and a bucket hat.

“Duria?” Daiki called out in a concerned voice.

She remembered having warm skin and soft hair. That alone brought tears to Duria’s eyes. Hearing his voice from the outside felt wrong. It felt like watching a video of herself. She used spidery paws to wipe blood from her face and barbs and sighed from spiracles along her abdomen. Tears flowed freer and faster and she curled up, hiding her face behind her legs.

“Is it crying?” asked Paul. He craned forward to see. “It was eating roadkill.”

Staggered hisses created by the scrape of leg bristles came from the thatch of ferns and reeds. She didn’t have a voice but she could make whispery noises with friction. Duria gnashed her teeth and shuddered where she hid.

“She’s crying,” confirmed Daiki.

“Oh jeez,” said Paul.

Daiki started toward the pathetic, ugly creature. “It’s okay, Duria. How’d you get like this? Is that really you?”

“It got bigger,” remarked Winter.

Her brother found a stick on the ground and reached it toward the shivering larva. Duria caught the stick, bit it, and yanked it away. She held it in her forelegs and scooted forward, then used the end of it to reach toward Daiki’s face. He flinched away, so she held the stick still and waited until he allowed her to put the stick to his face. She traced a line first near Daiki’s ear, then over his cheekbone. He stared at her and she stared back, then she repeated the motion, drawing two short lines on the left side of his face near his temple.

“At the playground,” Daiki remembered. “With the knife.”

Duria tapped the ground with the stick and bobbed up and down.

“What?” asked Paul.

“The day before, no, the same day as when Sid killed her. She cut my face with a knife,” recalled Daiki. “This is her.”

“That’s completely normal and not creepy at all,” remarked Paul.

“She cut you? With a knife?” Winter asked incredulously.

“In a good way!” Daiki replied defensively.

“What’s ‘a good way’ to cut your face with a knife?” asked Paul.

Daiki scoffed and looked back at the weird grub. “It was sexy and cool when she did it. I don’t know how to get you to understand.”

“No, I think I get it. You’re just kinda fucked up like that,” Winter commented.

“Well, not, I mean. Okay, yeah,” admitted Paul reluctantly. “Yeah. Okay.”

Daiki got back to his feet. He watched the creature gnaw on the stick and crouch in a puddle. A moment stretched on with just the pattering rain. A car splashed them as it followed the curve of the bend at fifty miles per hour, headlights illuminating orange triangles set up to warn cars in the night that the highway changed direction.

“I’m going to make her something real to eat and bring it back out here. She shouldn’t be eating roadkill. I don’t know what else I can do for her, but I can cook. And I hate to see her like this,” concluded Daiki. “You got that, Duria? I’ll meet you back here in an hour.”

Duria waved a claw to show she understood. She knew him well enough to know he meant what he said, that he didn’t offer empty promises as comfort. The familiarity made her present situation feel all the more shitty and hope didn’t come easily. She hid under fronds and chewed on the stick until they went away.

---

Paul had a peculiar expression as he sat behind the wheel. Winter sat in the back, Daiki in the front passenger seat. The closest trunks of trees blurred past while the farther trees shifted just a mite slower, creating endlessly changing bar codes out of the light that fell between them.

“What do you do with that? When you know there are ghosts?” Paul asked. He drove a bit faster than he really needed to. “But then, not just that there are ghosts. That children can take the spirit of a dead person, a real person who once lived, and just put them in an object. Then that object, I’m not done, no, that object just ‘spawns’ a monster. A little creepy monster that doesn’t look like any one animal or even faintly human, but like some Heironymus Bosch demon that you might see playing a trumpet with its ass. You sister and her friends did that, somehow. People can just do that. But we don’t see little Boschian demons everywhere, so either they lucked out and happened upon the exact spell that turns a dead person’s soul into a haunted doll then into a catfish spider grub, or I don’t even fucking know. How did this happen? How is this just happening in my life, right now?” Paul demanded. “That used to be a person! Some years and a few incantations ago, but we knew a girl, and now she’s a thing eating roadkill and poking your face with a stick. I didn’t really know her, like I met her, went to school with her, but like, I barely remember her.”

“Stop sign,” said Daiki.

“Shit, yes, stop sign.” Paul slammed on the brakes and everybody in the car flew forward against their seatbelts. “Stop. Sign. Yes.” He took a breath.

“You’re also allowed to go after you stop,” reminded Daiki. “When it’s safe. Which it is.”

“I know! I have my license!” Paul replied.

“We broke him,” commented Winter.

“I’m fine!” Paul argued, unconvincingly. “If monsters and ghosts are real, why not mermaids? Dragons?” He looked around the intersection then cautiously pulled forward. “Do you think elves are little and dorky or tall and pretty? Or maybe they look like freaky demons, too. That’s a possibility. Apparently.”

“When you die I could put you in a Barbie,” offered Winter. She grinned.

Paul looked at her in the rear view mirror then looked at the road. He heaved a sigh heavy with stress and fury. “Why a Barbie?”

“Because it’s funny,” she replied.

“Why did you make a haunted doll in the first place? Was that supposed to lead to good things? What if she ended up getting a kitchen knife and killing people?” Paul asked.

Winter shrugged. “I didn’t think it would really work. Besides, better that she’s in a doll than in my brother. Do you know how creepy it is when somebody you love turns into somebody else?”

Daiki looked over his shoulder at her then looked out his window at the trees.

“My grandparents didn’t turn out to be who I thought they were,” muttered Paul.

“Okay, cool. What does that have to do with ghosts?” Winter asked.

Paul glared ahead at a road sign warning drivers not to “drug and drive,” with a presumably dead person’s name listed beneath. A cross decked with a wreath a short distance from the sign also marked the site of that person’s death. “Nothing,” said Paul.

“We weren’t hurting anybody,” said Daiki angrily. “We were happy. I love her, and I loved being her.”

“Yeah well I love you!” snapped Winter, rising against her seatbelt and grabbing the corner of Daiki’s seat. “Not her! Not you mixed with her!” She sat back down and hugged one of her knees to her chest. “I’m sorry she’s a Bosch thing, though. I didn’t think that would happen. I didn’t even think the spells would work. I’m sorry.”

Daiki sighed. After a few seconds he said, “Thank you.”

---

Back at the house, while Daiki darted about the kitchen with a kind of tunnel vision honed in on his task, Paul stayed out from underfoot. Winter grabbed the phone and went to her room to call a friend. Rei had been reading a book in the warm light of a lamp, but put a receipt between the pages and set it down when Daiki, Winter, and Paul came home.

“I see you’re all back,” said Rei. She got up and came over to sit next to Paul on the couch. “Where did you go?”

Paul hesitated.

She patted his arm. “While you fabricate a mom-friendly story about where you’ve been with my son, how about you put that on hold, actually. I was making small talk. There’s something we do need to talk about.”

“Oh, um, okay.”

She leaned her elbows on her knees and wove her fingers together. “So I can’t help but notice lately that you’ve moved in. Do you have any plans for independence? Where you’ll go from here and how you’ll get there?” Rei asked gently. She looked into his freckled face and tilted her head.

“I, um. Well…” Paul took a deep breath. “I’ve been working on college applications at school. So, I’m thinking maybe I’ll get into a dorm and I’ll move out when I go to college?”

Rei nodded. “I see. So, we’re just now getting into December. You moved in on November eleventh, out of necessity. The new school year at college will be in September of next year. So that’s…” She counted out months under her breath. “Or I could do it by numbers. September is the ninth month so ten months from now. Right. So your plan is to live in my house, in my son’s room, for most of a year. Do you have a Plan B?”

Paul shrank in on himself and toyed his fingers together in his lap. “Right. I guess I better get a job and, uh, find...an apartment?”

“Right, so when you sign a lease that is usually for a year. So you would need to break the lease to – Paul, honey? I’m not scolding you. I like you. I just want you to grow up, and I want to help you do that. I am trying to help you.” She put a hand on his shoulder and leaned forward to try to catch eye contact. “You’re trembling, Honey. Stop holding your breath.”

“Sorry,” managed Paul. He sat up with effort and tried to still his hands on his knees. “I’m sorry. I don’t really know anything about, um, I mean I’m not stupid -”

“Just a bit spoiled. I know.”

He frowned and looked a bit offended. “Oh.”

“There’s a laundry list of things I could go over about that, but let’s stay focused.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I heard you, I know. Thank you. I appreciate that you’re sorry, but I need you to work with me here and find a solution, not just apologize. You’ve apologized, I’ve accepted your apology, so let’s move on now. Breathe, Honey. Paul.”

“Yes.”

“Let’s get you started on a resume. Come on, let’s go to my office and you can use my computer.” Rei got up and waited while Paul slowly got to his feet.

“I don’t know what I’ll put on it. I haven’t had a job and I haven’t even graduated yet so, um. I don’t know.” He followed her through the living room and into a small bedroom Rei had converted into a home library and office. It had bookshelves, some old art supplies, a paper cutter, and a heavy steel desk with a desktop computer upon it between stacks of paper, binders, and envelopes.

“What’s your job?” asked Paul.

“I’m an orthodontist,” replied Rei. She woke her computer up from its screensaver of branching pipes by moving the mouse.

The office chair squeaked when Paul sat in it. There was a smooth plastic mat underneath the wheels so it could roll around easier than on the carpet. Paul took the mouse and opened a new, blank document.

“Is Cooper your maiden name?” Paul asked.

“No. I remarried after the divorce from Daiki’s dad, and then didn’t want to go through the whole hassle of a name change again after I divorced again,” explained Rei. “Name changes are a royal pain in the ass. I mean it’s a bit easier with marriage or divorce paperwork, but there’s still getting a new social security card, a new driver’s license, getting it changed at the bank, and so on and so forth.”

“You -”

“So after my first husband took the kids after having a baby with Sarah, I was having a hard time of it and just sort of fell into another marriage. Things can kind of just happen when you’re depressed and vulnerable, y’know? It was stupid. But I came to my senses eventually and divorced again (much, much easier without custody battles), and now I am wholly done with that bullshit. And now I have my kids, and Sarah’s kid, and then now you as well, bless your heart.” Rei smiled a crooked smile and tossed her long hair behind her shoulder with a flick of her hand.

“Oh, wow.” Paul looked up at her, stunned.

“Let me get another chair so I’m not just hovering over you.” She left the room and came back with one of the chairs from the dining room set: a narrow wooden chair with a green cushion. Rei set it perpendicular to the office chair and landed heavily into the seat, setting an elbow on the desk. “Alright!”

“Alright,” echoed Paul.

Rei leaned in and got Paul started on a resume, talking over possible part time jobs, expanding his resume with volunteer work, and so on. Daiki walked in with a confused expression awhile later.

“I made cornbread and chili,” mentioned Daiki.

“Ooh, lovely! I didn’t realize you were making dinner,” said Rei.

“No, it’s for my friend in the woods. I mean, it doesn’t all have to be. There’s enough for everybody I guess, but she’s waiting and I said I’d be back in an hour,” Daiki explained.

Rei’s face fell slightly. “Did you make a homeless friend?”

“Uh...yes. Yeah, that’s technically true,” Daiki confirmed. “But, uh, can I have my boyfriend back so he can drive me back out there?”

TW's nos headcanons: menção à morte, luto. Headcanons:

The language class Daiki had decided on way back when he was getting ready for his freshman year was Japanese, because he didn’t know Japanese well enough to converse in it and figured it might be nice to know. He’d stuck with it all the way to his current junior year despite the fact that the class was absolutely packed with weeaboos. Calvin had fallen in among their ranks two years ago, and he hadn’t even heard of anime before he started high school. For one, at least half of the weeb friends Calvin had met in this class used his correct pronouns when speaking to him and more or less accepted him as an honorary boy in a “let’s humor him since we’re all pretty weird” sort of way.

Daiki’s memory was slipping with the phonetic alphabets and he was getting nowhere with the kanji. He was thinking maybe for his senior year he’d just stop taking Japanese altogether, since he only needed two years of language credits. As he struggled his way through a worksheet, something small and wet bounced off the side of his face. Daiki shuddered from the spitball and looked up to see who’d decided to pester him. Calvin made eye contact then flicked a folded paper football from his desk to Daiki’s. Daiki gave Calvin an annoyed look and set the paper triangle aside. Within a minute of looking back down at the worksheet, a spitball bounced off his ear. Daiki’s shoulders scrunched up and he heard a cackle.

“Your face, dude,” Calvin whispered.

“Fuck off,” Daiki hissed.

“Jeez, chill out. Read the note.”

“It’s a note?”

“Yeah, duh!”

Daiki unfolded the football into a creased sheet of college rule paper.

I heard your gay YES or NO

Daiki didn’t circle either and instead wrote bisexual. He didn’t know how to fold a paper football but he did his best to recreate it from the pattern of creases. It didn’t work. He flicked back what he’d made anyway. It came back folded correctly with a new message. Daiki caught the paper football under his finger.

That means yes. So whos your boyfriend?

He’d watched Calvin refold it so he could figure out how to do that, and noticed the absence of a worksheet on Calvin’s desk. After twitching his pencil to and fro balanced between two fingers and his thumb, Daiki unfolded the piece of lined paper and changed the subject.

My boyfriend is in the closet. Are you already done with your worksheet?

Yes duh it was easy.

Could you help me?

Calvin looked at the note and grinned. He leaned across the aisle and whispered in Japanese, “What, can’t you write?”

Replying in kind, Daiki said, “Not well. I speak okay.”

“I don’t have my worksheet. The teacher has it,” Calvin whispered. He didn’t know how to say he’d turned it in. “I can do your worksheet.”

“Write the answers on that paper. I’ll write it on my worksheet.”

“What…” Calvin struggled for a few seconds then switched to English. “What’s in it for me?”

Returning the conversation to Japanese, Daiki asked, “What do you want?”

“Can I talk to my...big sister, no, um, Duria?” Calvin asked. He knew the words for big sister or little sister but not the word for twin sister. He had been born a few hours after Duria but didn’t want to call her older than him.

Daiki seemed to shrink in on himself a little. “Duria left. What else do you want?”

At that point their teacher caught them whispering and made them stand outside in the hall. Daiki sighed and leaned his back against the panel of the wall between the door and the yellow lockers. Calvin squeezed in next to him.

Speaking in English but keeping his voice low so they wouldn’t get caught, Calvin asked, “So she’s not possessing you anymore? When did that happen?”

“Like a week ago. No wait, it was on my birthday. Almost two weeks ago I went to get some work done on my tattoo -”

“Your tattoo?”

Daiki lifted his t-shirt and twisted away from the wall so Calvin could look.

“No way! Wait, how old are you?” Calvin asked.

“Seventeen. It’s not legal, and since I don’t think I’m in the Vipers anymore I don’t know how to get in touch with the tattoo artist. So I think I have to wait a year to get it colored in. I’m not going back there, anyway, because Scott is a pedophile and he beat the shit out of me because we let...you let...Bevie out.”

“I remember,” Calvin replied. “She was kinda mean when I met her but she’s nicer to me now that you broke up with her and, like, I think we’re going out?”

“She was using me (which, to be clear, I’m completely cool with) back when we were sort of a thing, so you should ask if you’re on the same page about if she’s your girlfriend or not,” warned Daiki. He warmed at the memory of what she’d used him for.

“Oh…” Calvin saw a tangent he could spiral on, then remembered what he’d asked about before that. “But I still don’t know how you got exorcised.”

“I don’t really know. When I went to the warehouse where Scott lived (because my tattoo appointment was there) Duria just disappeared. It wasn’t from getting the shit beat out of me because – don’t laugh, please, I’m -”

“You’re a twink,” supplied Calvin. “A bishounen. A sissy. A skinny little emo nerd. A toothpick. A -”

“Thanks. Anyway it was before Scott -”

“Handed you your ass.”

“Yes.” Daiki rolled his eyes. “It was before I got my ass handed to me because I’m ‘a twink.’ Thanks, Calvin. I’m sure you’d go toe to toe with a grown man just fine.” He remembered what brought them to talking about Duria. “But I’m sorry your sister is gone. I miss her too.”

Calvin’s eye twitched and he looked sour for a second before he looked away and nodded. “Yeah. It’s...it’s a lot.”

There was a pause. Calvin plucked at his eyebrows and closed off for a minute while he figured out if he actually wanted to talk about this or not. Daiki had his own thing grinding his gears and didn’t seem to mind the silence. It took a lot to pry the words out, but Calvin hadn’t talked about his loss to anybody in awhile and didn’t know when he’d get the chance to again. His mom never wanted to talk about it, and it would have been to much of a bummer to bring up at Anime Club.

“My mom changed after my sister died. I don’t feel like I know her anymore and it’s like…” He didn’t really have the words and shrugged. “It’s awful. Even if it’s been a few years it doesn’t feel like it. My friends really like slasher movies and I can’t watch them. I try to, but then I feel sick when the killing starts.” Drawing breath became difficult. “There was...there was this one time when I saw her in the mirror. Not like just seeing things, but for real. It was her ghost; she was visiting me. And I drove her away.” He covered his face, took in a deep breath, and held it. Tears welled up in his eyes and his throat closed off.

Daiki nodded. He thought it probably inappropriate to mention he remembered it too as if he’d been the one in the mirror. Instead he put a hand on Calvin’s back.

After a few minutes Calvin wiped his tears away and gave Daiki a hug. “Thanks for listening. If you want me to help you with your homework we could hang out, or something.”

“Oh, thanks! Yeah, I need the help. I don't even want to take this class anymore since I’m forgetting everything I learned and it makes me feel stupid,” Daiki admitted.

“Yeah, if anybody should know Japanese, you should,” teased Calvin. He socked Daiki’s shoulder. “Basically all the other Asian kids are in these cliques and go about talking to each other in, like, Vietnamese or whatever.”

Daiki gave Calvin a sideways look. “Uh huh. Well, I guess being Japanese American didn’t magically make this easier to -”

“No no I mean like, don’t you speak it at home?”

“Not really.”

Calvin looked embarrassed. “Oh. Uh, sorry.”

“Anyway. Yeah, let’s hang out and you can help me with my homework.”

---

They arranged to meet by the bell tower after school. Daiki stopped by the pay phones to call his mom and let her know so she wouldn’t freak out. After that, he found Calvin sitting with Bevie on the bench surrounding the dry fountain under the tower. Bevie used Calvin as a backrest and read a tween magazine.

“Miss me already? Too late. I don’t even like you anymore, so don’t even try to get back together,” Bevie greeted, barely lifting her eyes from her reading material.

Daiki sat next to Calvin. “Okay, I won’t.”

“I said I’d help him with his homework,” Calvin told her.

“Why, are you a nerd?” Bevie asked.

Daiki looked up while they bickered and brightened when he noticed Paul standing a few yards away. It looked like Paul had stopped in his tracks on the verge of joining Daiki. Paul hung back, assessing his boyfriend’s company, then made his way over. He pushed his hair behind his ear and perched his ass primly on the edge of the bench.

“You told me you hated him,” Bevie told Calvin.

“I got over it,” replied Calvin.

“Pff, boring. Where’s the drama in that?” Bevie shut her magazine and sat up. “Oh look, it’s Paul. Hi.”

Paul waved. “Hi, Bevie.”

Bevie looked him over then draped her arms over Calvin. “Hey Callie, you remember when I was at your house and you wanted to watch that boring ass old war movie in your room?”

“Uh, sorry you were bored,” mumbled Calvin.

“Who cares, not my point. I found Jawbreaker,” she informed him.

Calvin looked at the two potential candidates for this moniker. “How can you tell?”

“His jeans are just a bit too small,” hinted Bevie.

Which meant she couldn’t mean Daiki, because Daiki was wearing a long black skirt of cotton drill fastened with chunky plastic clips up one side, not jeans.

“The school lets you wear skirts?” Calvin asked him.

Daiki pinched at the skirt material and smiled. “The dress code only has rules for what girls can wear,” he replied. “What’s the ‘Jawbreaker’ shit you’re on about?”

“The dentist guy in a comedy from I think the seventies set in Korea,” Calvin began.

“A Korean dentist called Jawbreaker?”

“No, military hospital stationed in Korea. And there’s this show called MASH with the same name,” explained Calvin. “Anyway, there’s a peep hole in the shower tent, and people line up to take a peek whenever this dude takes a shower, ‘cause like the whole gag with this dude is just that he’s hung. Not really the most interesting guy in the movie.”

“Nothing is interesting in that movie,” declared Bevie.

“I like MASH. The show, anyway,” mentioned Paul. “I never watched the movie.”

Calvin and Bevie both looked at Paul with an impish delight. Daiki chewed on the sleeve of his coat and blushed, looking down at his boots.

“What did I say?” asked Paul.

“Nothing,” Bevie said cagily. “Nothing at all.” She sprang up off the bench and stretched. “Let’s all go somewhere. Hanging out at the school sucks anyway.”

As a group the four of them walked to the city bus stop on the street. Those seventeen and under could ride for seventy-five cents, so Paul just said he was seventeen too and saved a quarter.

“So where are we going?” asked Daiki.

“Were you really going to ‘study’?” asked Bevie, leaning on Calvin’s shoulder from the seat next to him. She reached back to the seat behind them and cupped Daiki’s chin in her hand. “I’m sure I could teach you both a few things.” She scratched the stubble on the underside of his jawline and grinned at his flustered squirming.

“I didn’t have euphemisms in mind when I asked for help with my homework,” Daiki replied.

“A femme-ism?” she asked.

“Euphemism.” He couldn’t tell if she was honestly asking or not.

“Feminism? Femememism?”

Okay she was probably teasing. Paul swatted Bevie’s hand off Daiki’s face.

Bevie looked at Paul. “Hey Jawbreaker. Too bad you’re so stuck up.”

“Too bad you’re a bitch,” Paul replied. Realizing the implications of the nickname she’d just given him, he moved his backpack to his lap.

She giggled. “So, are you more of a tits or ass man?”

“I must be a late bloomer, because after all these years I just don’t have any boobs,” lamented Paul in jest. “But, neither do you so I guess that’s normal.”

“Ouch,” Bevie said, unhurt, and grinned. “Cute.”

Daiki almost leaned on Paul but thought better of it. Bevie had a buttering-up tune to her questions as she asked Paul about Audrey and about what he was into. Paul actually took out his sketchbook and showed her the gryphons, dragons, and mermaids he liked to draw, and his character who shapeshifted between a girl and boy form. He tried to emulate the style from The Last Unicorn and fairy tale illustrations in books he’d brought with him when his grandparents kicked him out. Oh, why did they kick him out? Um, he didn’t want to talk about that right now. Or ever. Daiki ended up tuning out their conversation and withdrawing into the hungry longing he felt between distractions. A hollow need had opened up inside in the days of relative chastity since he broke up with Bevie. Before Bevie there had been Sid, who had first opened the wound that turned into a needy maw. Daiki chewed on his lip and wove his fingers together, exploring scenarios in his mind’s eye and letting the need ferment. Sid hadn’t pestered him in ages, seemed like. Not that he wanted that. Or, didn’t want to want. Paul caught his eye and smiled at him warmly.

“What are you smiling about?” demanded Bevie.

Paul looked away and shrugged. “Can’t I smile?”

Bevie gasped. “You’re the secret boyfriend! Smiling like that at this dumbass. You fruity stuck-up asshole! Ha! See his face? I’m right. I knew it and I’m right.” She sighed. “What a waste. Jawbreaker is fucking gay.”

Calvin turned around in his seat and grinned. “Paul? You’re Daiki’s boyfriend?”

“No!” Paul blushed. “All it took was a fucking smile? Are you serious? Fuck!”

“Yeah, man, nobody just smiles all lovey-dovey for no reason,” Calvin replied.

Daiki snapped out of his horny reverie and looked around. “Oh, did you tell them?”

“No, I didn’t tell anybody,” replied Paul. “Of course I didn’t. But apparently they could just tell. I wasn’t even doing anything. Now they’re going to tell everybody and...ugh. I am so sick of high school.”

“Drop out. I did,” suggested Bevie. “I never even went to high school. Like, don’t get kidnapped or someshit but, you know what I mean.”

“I’m halfway...wait…” Paul counted off months and did a quick calculation in his head. “I’m a third of the way through my senior year. It would be stupid to just drop out now.” He sighed. “It’s fine. But if you could just not tell everybody, that would be great.”

“I won’t tell anybody,” promised Calvin.

“I don’t give a fuck, but I don’t even go to school. I literally just told you that,” said Bevie.

“So have you done it yet?” asked Calvin.

“No!” Paul replied.

“Does that ‘no’ mean ‘yes’ like a second ago when you were denying going out with Daiki or does this ‘no’ just mean -” Calvin started.

“Just means no, we haven’t ‘done it,’” replied Daiki.

“So can I, or what?” Bevie asked. “Because I promise you, it means nothing and it’s just scratching an itch.”

“Hey!” objected Calvin.

“I make no apologies for my damage. And you never said we were exclusive,” Bevie told him. “You’re just like, ‘I’m for real a boy so please respect that okay?’ and sure. Whatever.”

“It was implied!” Calvin told her.

“I told you to make sure,” said Daiki.

Paul pulled the cord to request a stop. He tucked his sketchbook back into his backpack.

“Where are we going?” asked Daiki. “I think I asked that already.”

“I just decided we’re going to the gully by Hyun’s house. We can do whatever we want there,” replied Paul.

“So are you going to suck each other’s dicks before or after Calvin does Daiki’s homework?” Bevie asked. “Just want to get the schedule down pat.”

“Shut up,” snapped Paul.

The bus slowed to a stop. They got up as one, walked down the grooved steps through the folding door, and out onto the sidewalk. Even though they’d only just gotten out of school, in early December the sun had already started to set. Frost crusted the grass and leaves and frigid air nipped at any exposed skin. Daiki zipped up his coat and followed Paul and Calvin to a deer path leading from the sidewalk, between some fir trees, and down a wooded hill overgrown with morning glory and ferns. In the crease of the small valley a stream of storm run off flowed into a pipe blocked off with rusted bars. A monster truck tire lay half buried so that the top two thirds bridged the stream, where bottle caps and broken glass glittered reflections of the fading milky blue sky. Paul fished a stashed six pack of beer and a battery powered lantern from inside the tire, then sat on the worn rubber tread and popped open one of the cans.

“Go ahead and do your homework, Daiki,” encouraged Paul. “Don't listen to Bev. She’s just a jealous bitch who doesn’t know how to just chill out with other people without making it weird.”

“Whatever, virgin,” Bevie said and held her hand out for a beer. Paul handed one over despite his apparent animosity.

In minutes the gully became dark, shielded from the street lights by the dense copse of fir trees. Calvin and Daiki sat on a boulder and used the lantern. When Calvin read out the questions, Daiki was able to answer them, and then Calvin just showed him how to write it by transcribing Daiki’s answers onto a separate piece of paper.

“See, you know this stuff. You’re just illiterate,” Calvin commented.

“Thanks,” mumbled Daiki. He finished the homework and slipped it into a folder of his binder, then put the binder in his backpack. He refused the beer and perched on the rock with a stony expression.

“You’re so quiet. Are you, like, deep in thought or something?” Calvin asked.

“I guess?”

“What are you thinking about?”

“Fucking.”

Calvin snorted and slapped Daiki’s back. “Alright, dude. You’ve got a boyfriend though so I dunno why you don’t just hit it.”

“I...um. That’s.” Daiki fell silent and turned away. His face turned red and he buried his fingers in his hair, hiding his face behind his arm. Calvin hung out for half a minute before he got bored of the silence and wandered over to hug Bevie from behind and kiss her shoulder.

Daiki got up and drifted over to Paul. He pulled Paul down by his shirt to whisper one of the ideas that had been gnawing at him into Paul’s ear.

Paul’s eyes widened and he smiled nervously. “Oh. Hah. Huh. Hm. Wow.” He straightened up and sipped his beer.

Daiki buried his face in Paul’s chest and made a childish whining noise. His boyfriend patted his head. This patronizing gesture turned Daiki’s aching hunger into anger. He pulled back, slapped Paul’s hand away, and stomped off into the trees to sulk and chew on his hands.

“What did you want me to do?” Paul called after him.

“I spelled it out!” Daiki called back.

Bevie giggled. “What did he say? Tell me. Please? Oh come on. Please?” She cackled and stomped her emptied beer can flat with her boot. “If it was about fisting, I gave him that idea. There’s a lot more ideas where that came from, baby!”

Daiki flipped her off from behind a tree and she just cackled again.

Calvin got up off the boulder. “I’m gonna just go home. We used to hang out down here and it was pretty cool, but now it’s just really awkward. So...bye.” He got out his bus transfer and hiked back up the deer path to the sidewalk.

“Wait!” Bevie called out. “Don’t leave me with these losers. I’m coming too.” She jogged after him. In less than a minute, Paul and Daiki were alone.

The lantern on the boulder lit the gully in a pale, hazy wash of artificial light. Eyes in the dark reflected that light, and the withered vines cast strange shadows. Paul sat on the tire for a little while, looking down at his hands and shivering. At last he climbed down from the monster truck tire and made his way up the steep side of the gully to the tree where Daiki had concealed himself. Daiki sat hugging his knees, rocking and weeping, gnawing on his arm.

“Oh jeez, I’m sorry,” Paul said and sat in the cold dirt, reaching out to offer comfort.

“I won’t be a rapist. I won’t. Please don’t listen to me,” pleaded Daiki. “I have...a whole body itch to be handled, shoved down, and destroyed. I feel like I’ll die without it and it’s burning me up and none of that is on you.” He sniffled and wiped his eyes. “I’m just broken and have to keep getting broken. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” The weeping crumbled into sobs.

“Have you been going back to Bevie because I wanted to take it slow?” Paul asked. He wanted to comfort Daiki but he also feared this was a confession.

“No,” sobbed Daiki. He shook his head. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I broke up with her and she hates me because she has the same itch I do. I haven’t...no. No. No.”

“Okay, okay,” Paul accepted. He rubbed Daiki’s back. “What can I do?”

“Don’t! Don’t think you have to do anything you don’t want to! Please no. If you fuck me now because I ‘need’ it, I’m a monster.” Noticing Paul flinch back, Daiki added, “Rubbing my back is okay. That’s okay. But don’t give me what I want just because I’m crying like a goddamn little baby. I don’t want to become a monster.”

“Alright. Thank you, because I would. I’d do whatever you want me to,” admitted Paul. “I love you.”

Daiki sobbed harder and buried his face. “Jesus fucking Christ, don’t say that shit! Have limits for me to listen to or there’s nothing, no, no way to tell if I’m going to fuck up. Even though Sid didn’t listen to my limits, I still have them!”

“What did he do to you?” Paul asked.

A coarse laugh broke out from Daiki and he laid back into the ferns. “Oh my god. Do you really want to know?”

Paul hesitated. “Is it something you want to talk about?”

“No!”

“Then no.” Paul laid down beside Daiki and rolled closer to stroke his face.

“I love you too,” whispered Daiki. “I get so mad that you don’t get right down to it and that’s not fair. And I never went very long without, um…” He entwined his fingers and took a deep breath. “So I didn’t know it would drive me crazy like this. But I don’t want to make you do anything. I don’t want to turn into Sid.” He turned away to hide how his face crumpled up as he started to cry again.

“Shhhh. You’re okay. I got you. You aren’t hurting anyone. We’re here, we’re just here together right now. Thank you for telling me all of this. You’re really quiet and I worry about you. Shhhhh.” Paul wrapped the weeping mess in his arms and held him. The sobbing quieted back down and by degrees Daiki could breathe again, broken pieces held back into the right shape. Daiki wiped his face on his coat sleeve, all the snot and tears, and took one breath after another.

“Let’s get you something to drink that isn’t this old gross beer and we’ll go to a movie,” invited Paul. “My treat.” He kissed Daiki’s damp forehead.

“Okay,” whispered Daiki. “Okay.”