#ryuuzen

Russell never meant to make the medicine shop in the back alley his hideout after succumbing to one of his urges, but somehow he ended up finding his way there anyway. There was something soothing about the various scents of herbs and the calm way the owner spoke to him.

The medicine shop had just been ready to close. Russell had known that, but Kantera had told him before that his loitering didn’t bother him.

It was one of those nights and despite the late hour; Kantera had long since learned it pointless to ask about Russell’s family and instead merely led the way for him to sit at the table while he finished closing shop. Even with the cloying scent of the shop’s herbs the scent of smoke from the fire he’d started permeated the air. The box of matches sat heavy in his back pocket, but the smells around him helped calm his left over adrenaline.

The shop blurred around him as he waited, but no sense of guilt ever came. Instead, Russell simply felt nothing.

Mere minutes or maybe even hours could have passed, but it didn’t matter to Russell. Kantera returned to the table with a kettle of tea and poured him a cup, and it was only out of numb habit that Russell took it. As to what it tasted like, he couldn’t tell.

While Kantera was familiar with Russell, his presence becoming another aspect of his shop, he wasn’t quite sure what drew the other here. At first, he thought he’d been a runaway as the bruises and winces he tried to hide could tell many kinds of stories. That theory had been debunked when Russell thanked him for the tea and sweets before explaining he needed to head home before his parents got angry.

The sentence stood out namely because it gave one potential for the bruises, and it was one in particular Kantera didn’t like.

There was an urge to ask more about it, but his patience convinced him to simply wait until Russell himself wanted to explain. It was better to send the boy off with ointment for his injuries and a telling smile that would hopefully put the other at ease about returning. The same sort of patience flooded in now as there was no telling what exactly was bothering Russell, but he’d seen him like this before.

They fell into an easy pattern where Kantera would provide what he could until Russell decided to either say something or take off. If he didn’t speak soon, the medicine shop owner simply planned to detail another story from his childhood in Japan. Those seemed to always be enough to distract him from whatever issue was plaguing him.

It was surprising that this time Russell chose to speak on his own though.

“Have you ever killed something before?” He asked, voice soft, but blunt and to the point. The question takes Kantera by surprise and admittedly there are aspects to it that make him queasy to dwell on based on what it could mean for Russell—yet, he also can’t stop the thoughts about his grandfather flooding in.

“Why, yes I have,” he carefully goes around what he knows Russell is actually asking to see if he’ll clarify on his own, “it was quite common in the village back home to catch fish for grilling and the like. I believe one of my aunts also had a poultry farm, but I’m afraid I can’t quite remember.”

Russell’s lips pursed, but he simply took another sip of tea. A few moments later, he piped up once more.

“I meant… have you ever killed another human being?” Russell asked again, voice dropping to a whisper, but still empty of any sort of hesitancy.

Kantera paused himself mid sip when the question came, but also because he could tell that somehow Russell may have already known the answer and that was what drove him to ask it in the first place. Would being honest grant the boy solace? Or did he just want to feel less alone? Either way, Kantera took the question and used it if only to let his own guilt air.

“I’m afraid I have.”

There’s a beat of silence after he admitted it that Kantera worried meant he had read Russell and the situation completely wrong. Another spike of guilt entered him upon hearing his answer.

“Me too.”

They drink their tea and Kantera isn’t sure if that’s the end of the conversation. Like before he gave Russell a few more minutes, but when he gave no more details, he took it upon himself to give more information in the hopes it’d serve some kind of use or reassurance. He didn’t know enough to be sure what Russell felt about his deeds, but Kantera knew what it felt like to kill someone and knew that even if it wasn’t immediate, the guilt would come and it would be merciless.

Even now, he can’t help but feel the shiver of his grandfather’s portrait despite it being two rooms adjacent this one.

“My grandfather was very ill towards the end of his life. We did all we could to ease the pain and the… particular issues brain deterioration left him with, but there are some things even medicine cannot cure or fix.”

“It reached a point where he didn’t even want to take any medication so we began disguising it in the manjuu he so loved.”

Kantera told himself he paused to take a sip of tea and see how Russell was doing, but really he knew it was for himself. All the words that came out of his mouth since the beginning had been for himself only under the guise of it being helpful to Russell in one way or another. It wasn’t necessarily accurate to say that was the only reason he was telling him this. He did want to help the boy feel better, but his guilty conscious couldn’t exactly ignore the fact that he’d always wanted to tell someone the truth about what he’d done too.

“I thought… rather, it reached a point where he seemed to be suffering more than enjoying life like this. The idea of putting poison in the manjuu instead of his usual medicine seemed… poetic. Doesn’t that sound like a more pleasant way to go compared to some other methods?” Kantera held an empty smile as he extended the conversation over to Russell. A thinly veiled attempt to bring the other into the conversation so he too could air his dirty laundry.

“It does,” Russell offered as he thought back on all the ways he’d killed people thus far. None of them in comparison sound that nice. He can’t be sure what it feels like to be burnt alive, but he hadn’t stayed long enough to hear their screams either.

“I do hope this doesn’t change the way you view me. Sometimes, I regret my actions if only because it’s haunted me all this time, but other times… I wonder if he’s at peace now.”

Russell wasn’t sure what to say because he couldn’t really relate to such things. He lived a life solely motivated by envy with no room for things like regret or guilt. The dead were dead and even if he was the one who killed them, there’s nothing he can do about that or his current position in life.

No matter what he does or who he kills, nothing changes.