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The tea that hits my lips is sweet.

 

It’s sickening, and my stomach can’t handle it. Though, I can’t say if my constitution can’t actually handle it, or if I was only blaming my distaste on something else. I can’t immediately discern what kind of tea it is. I get notes of something floral, with a slight citrus tang. I could tell that whoever had prepared it poured too much honey in, and it ruined the taste as a result. The sloppiness of the drink irritated me. I opted not to loudly complain, because it’d be useless, to anyway. No point in wasting my breath over a foregone conclusion. I kept mixing the tea, hoping that its taste would change in any meaningful way. It was a thankless effort. Truthfully, I was more than ready to lambast the fool that had mixed this poor excuse for a tea together. But I didn’t, feeling that talking about it would spoil my appetite. My stomach growled lightly. Perhaps a little impatiently, I waited still for the chef to finish preparing his dish.

I say impatiently, because the dish was not that complex. He’d said that his masterpiece would be finished in a flash–a graceful accelerando and my plat de résistance is served, in actuality. I’d been waiting for a fair thirty minutes, I’d say even an hour. The television had already flickered between several programs, from a kitsch reality show, to now, a lethargic news report. Unusually, today’s news was neither overwhelmingly bad nor overwhelmingly good. You could say that right now, the world only felt a bit miffed. Maybe it was merely reflecting my own mood. Plates clattered, cutting through the noise of the television. The sink starts running, and with it, a hearty, annoying laugh.

 

“Truly, none could even come close to my genius! See it! A plat de résistance displaying jagged contrasts–your tongue will be playing in the interim between light and shadow! Ah, the essence of tragicomedy, condensed into the shape of the Roman Coliseum–”

He turned around quick on his heel, nearly dropping the serving plate of food. But he caught it with grace.

 

He smiled, as he put the plate of everything bagels down for me. It seemed like he beamed with pride. The height of his ego didn’t match with what he’d served, at all. Perhaps that was the contrast he’d spoken of, but that was just the usual with him. Promptly, he ran off to pick up several other condiments and servings of food that could be used as fillings. Cream cheese, sliced ham, some small portions of smoked salmon. I didn’t complain, and I quietly took one, carefully spreading the cheese and placing the salmon within. He finally returned with what he’d dubbed his apéritif–a small bottle of red wine, with two glasses. I reminded him I didn’t drink. He smirked, telling me to suit myself.

The moments before this were not exciting. I had gotten a text from T.M. Opera O, asking me if I was free for the day. He tends to show a level of grace in his messages, opting to commit to his habit of grandiose yet controlled speech, but there were days where it seemed like he’d only been using the messaging app to kill time. A sticker, two stickers, and a playful message asking if I missed him dearly. He goes on about how he’s received wine, an exquisite Cabernet Sauvignon, from a dear patron at the theater house. He tells me he’d love to share such a decadent blessing with me. A few minutes after that message, he corrects himself and says it was fine even if I didn’t drink. He could simply prepare something for me, and we’d have a fine chat over some afternoon snacks and maybe some wine. It’s not like I had prior commitments. I humored him, like I always did. I rode the train line going to where his apartment was, and it was the same old sight. His door was unlocked, and there was still a mess by his entrance. He hadn’t cleaned up at all, even though I’d told him he probably should.

 

My life played out the same. Neither horrible, nor too great. I lived quietly in a dead corner, somewhere on a street in Tokyo. I couldn’t say my life was beautiful, but it wasn’t the same ugly one I used to have. I hadn’t been racing at all, these days. I could say that this was both a disappointment and a relief. To most, it was primarily the former. I remembered the day my injury forced me to come to a screeching halt. My contemporaries were left in dismay. Some to degrees I didn’t even think possible, for somebody like me. Admire Vega’s retirement being a large splash in the gigantic sea of Umamusume was, frankly, something I didn’t account for at all. I went to rest with an aching sense of guilt. A pointed sense of dismay, the sense that I’d been forced to part with something I loved doing. Something I loved doing? It was a question I still couldn’t answer well. Consequently, I started living my days solemnly, in avoidance. Attempting to work jobs that weren’t fit for my temperament, then deciding that a more isolating life is, inevitably, the one I should lead. I wasn’t expecting any great changes once our Classic Year had ended. I found companionship, then it ended unceremoniously. My dear sister, I wasn’t allowed to see her, never again. My leg continues to ache. I watch others run the track freely. I bask in the light of others, and still, retreat back to the dark. I wouldn’t say I didn’t have any regrets. Maybe, even, I’d say that the Admire Vega at Tracen Academy carried the most regrets she would ever be carrying in her life. I don’t know if I could really do away with all of them. When I’d walked forward, carrying these regrets, I found that I wanted to somehow find something, anything, between the repeating days. I resigned myself to a tepid life because that was the life that I had deserved. It should’ve been satisfactory, purely satisfactory.

And, yet. I responded to T.M. Opera O’s beckon. His frustrating mannerisms, the sheet of theatricality between him and the rest of the world. It’s like when the world had decided to move, he kept completely firm in place. When I responded to him, it seemed all too familiar, and his presence felt like seeing a page torn crudely out of my memory. We settled on a weekly arrangement, a little string of tea parties between confidantes, as he’d put it. It was then that I found out he’d been living the same tepid life as me. He spent his days alone, in the massive size of his too expensive apartment. He supposed, if we had nothing to do, we should find something to do. I thought for a moment that we’d started seeing each other out of mutual pity. We’d killed boredom together, forgetting the sort of creatures we were then, and we are now. Maybe I did take pity on him, seeing him pounce about his apartment, his winnings of the past in a large display constantly flaunting themselves at him. Thinking about it, I don’t know if he sees me as something to be pitied, too. But if I’m to be honest, that’s something that hasn’t changed at all. T.M. Opera O has always been a sort of pitiful creature. I could say this, having experienced what I’d experienced. This didn’t exist in contradiction to the fact that he was a beast of strength unparalleled. He was still, as it is, The Overlord of Century’s End. The Umamusume everyone had heralded as a bringer of the end-times. In actuality, I’d say that it was symptomatic of this very existence, that he’d ended up becoming as pitiful as he is now. He loved those that would worship his visage. He loved all that could bask in the light of the Overlord, with full acceptance. He also loved that which he could not get. Opera O was so endlessly enthralled by everything that escaped his grasp. In our Classic Year, it was the idea of having a perfect reign. He wanted it for himself. In his Senior Year, now having reigned, it was the idea of going out as a piece of abstract mythos. He wanted to be the living idea of a story. You could say that he’d gotten almost everything he was chasing for, albeit.

 

When I had known him in Tracen, if you’d ever proposed the idea of life outside of the narrative, he’d go quiet. Because I am as much the stage as it is me, that’s why he couldn’t conceive of such a thing. Then, when given honesty, when you’d show him your truest thoughts, he tended to become someone else. Even if just for a bit. You’d understand that he was someone who only wanted to be loved. Maybe, he couldn’t interpret the idea of love through anything but the stage. His existence melded with it so deeply, unable to find footing on its own. I could do nothing but watch him flounder whenever he had to part ways with it. He became a lamentable creature who struggled to understand love itself.

 

It’s been 7 weeks since we started our meetings. My conception of T.M Opera O further abstracted itself, the more we’d been together. Yes, there were old habits of his present, and yet new dimensions all over. His lips would part to speak, and my nerves would fire off, in all directions. Something akin to a memory was being forcefully drawn out through them. Maybe, because I wanted to know what exactly it was, I kept coming back. In the end, this had become a familiarity more than anything. That tended to be a welcome idea, in the midst of my tepid, regretful life.

Opera O had been sitting in complete silence. He’d been gawking at the television screen showing this year’s Arima Kinen, pushing his glasses up occasionally. He hadn’t touched his bagel, and the wine glass remained empty. He only noticed I’d been watching him when he finally turned his head back at me, and it was like he snapped out of a daydream. For a moment, something flashed on his expression, but it ended with him wearing a wide grin. His grin was vaguely manic, as always.

 

“What a rabble it is this year, too. The track continues to breathe as a wellspring of life. Ah, what a shame, what a shame…”

He pauses. Almost as if he knew he was about to say something foolishly hopeful. Yet again, he beams that ever-so-arrogant grin to me.

 

“That’s no longer our rabble to participate in, no, Ayabe-san?”

I sip quietly on my overly sweet tea. Even when I remained silent, he was expectant of an answer.

 

“You’re probably imagining yourself in the lead right now.”

He erupts into laughter. Genuine enjoyment seemed to seep out of his every movement, every time I spoke with him. Even though it was nothing but the same old quips, and our same old behaviors.

 

“We could race ‘til the bells of judgement toll, Ayabe-san! Alas, we have been pulled away from our rightful destiny. What a shame for the Overlord to be participating in the throes of life so sedentarily, and Dioscuri herself, savoring the dead chill of her grave. But I suppose this is something you wouldn’t call shameful, would you, Ayabe-san?”

 

“I wouldn’t call it a grave. I think it’s better this way, frankly.”

 

“To say, then–that it’s better for two stars to go out in a supernova, as it’s not within their nature to leave the universe so meekly. Would you call the exit of Tracen’s first magnitude star a supernova?”

 

“Supernova, or not. It doesn’t matter. I reached my goal. Admire Vega simply stopped serving a purpose at that academy, and she thought it best to live quietly.”

The painted gold of his fork glints as he twirls it around his fingers. He pours a light helping of wine, and pauses before taking a sip.

 

Opera O had the grandiose worldview of a Romanticist, to the bitter end. To leave a mark quietly is unacceptable. Having bared one’s soul to the audience, so that they couldn’t ever forget its shape and form–when I told him before that it was an idea I was uninterested in, he held a level of bewilderment, even as he’d slowly picked apart my disinterest. He’d understand thoroughly that it was just how Admire Vega seemed to operate. That to me, it didn’t matter, so as long as I’ve burnt out having carried my dear sister’s legacy. He then told me, that her legacy would reach far and wide if I had possessed absolute reign against the rest. That if I had written my dear sister into a tale, if I had held a theater for the masses about the parting tragedy of Castor and Pollux, her memory would ring true even if I had died, too. I couldn’t tell him anything other than that I found it unnecessary. While I lived, those who watched my run would be the ones that carried her memory. He tended to concede. Not without first saying that, as always,

 

“You really fascinate me in such ways, Ayabe-san.”

 

“Living quietly… How is that faring for you? Have you spoken to your dear bosom friend lately–”

 

“Top Road-san?” “Indeed.”

 

“I have. It’s fine. She’s the same. Still really insistent on supporting me, regardless of everything.”

Opera O seemed to flash a small smile, when he’d heard. He swirls the wine around in its glass. His fingers tapped rapidly on the table, which should’ve signaled impatience. To me, he was just a creature that ran at a different speed to the rest of us.

 

“How about your current employment?” “Fine.”

 

“Does your leg still ache with pain, from time to time?” “Sometimes.”

 

“Would you say parts of your life have significantly changed in any way, at all?” “Not really.”

 

“Neither has yourself, then?” “I’m the same.”

He snickered. I’m not sure if it was out of bemusement, or out of contempt. Though, Opera O wasn’t really the type to be contentious about other people’s lives. I suppose he just found it humorous, I would think his own life hasn’t changed much, either.

“How’s Doto doing, at your theater company.”

He pauses in the middle of another sip on his glass. Opera O responds with nothing but a paltry chuckle, and a swig of his wine.

 

“Ah, the theater company. What a success of successes that was, our show last month. I thank my beautiful patrons for bestowing me with the fruits of my labor!”

He waves the glass, and that was it. He couldn’t say anything else.

 

The year’s Arima Kinen loops back again on the television. He watched intently for a moment, but after a small sigh, remembered to eat his bagel. I bit down on mine, and it was a welcome contrast to the awful tea I’ve been slowly chipping at. He shifted around in his chair, tufts of orange locks bouncing softly, ears flicking in the air. It was like he was still trying to find the correct answer to my question.

On the matter of questioning whether T.M. Opera O had changed at all: I couldn’t say anything with certainty. He’s still the same boastful, and cunning bastard he was then, as now. An Umamusume who values his theatrics above all, where everything is a grand scheme dedicated solely to his purposes. There were the obvious differences, though, like how nowadays he seemed to be more controlled in his mannerisms. They almost seemed meek compared to his youthful self, at Tracen. I’m not sure if he’d actually regretted anything from then, but sometimes, he’d act in ways that made me think he did. He’d be careful when it came to putting on too much splendor around me, though at the same time, he can’t help but prod at his beloved Dioscuri. It tended to feel off-kilter. Like he was forcing himself to hold back. Then, it’d be an unwelcome visit to my dorm room, almost every other day, especially during our Classic Year. Now, maybe he’d be messaging me after a few weeks. Sometimes he’d send me something, but whenever I didn’t reply back, he didn’t do anything. There was an air of resignation, almost. Then, he’d be making a fuss about the Overlord’s existence–that in this team, the Overlord was present, in this race, the Overlord is competing. Now, I remembered he had sent me a preview for the show they’d done in May. I opened it, expecting to be hit with a self-serving display. Maybe, outlandishly, I thought he had actually decided to stage a show with himself as every character, himself as every stage hand, and himself as the playwright. I scanned it and I couldn’t find his name in the credits. He clarified to me that he’d written the stageplay himself. Under a pen name. I couldn’t believe it for a second, but at the same time, it didn’t feel out of place at all. I would suppose, that in the same manner I did, he was now living an ordinary, quiet life. I didn’t see that as something he desired. I could only understand it as a life that he was unwillingly subjected to, and so he lived in such a manner, whether he’d like to or not.

 

At the core of it, I could honestly admit I was drawn to this sense of misfortune. I spend my time with him regularly, because maybe, with time, he will unravel into something more tangible to my eye. I would understand him fully, and I wouldn’t have gained anything out of it. It would all be an attempt to sate my bored curiosity. I’d think this is fair, considering how much he wants to gouge the thoughts out of my brain, too. I was drawn to him, and because of that, I sat here letting him pry me open–and it’s in moments like these I remember. I manage to remember, despite my difficulty trying to do so. I remember the gaps of silence between me and T.M. Opera O. In those gaps, there are things I would think to myself. And then, there are things that he would want to know. His morbid curiosity is almost like a child’s, and I suppose you could say we had that scent of youth, then. He had woven his own theories on the darkness that hung over me. He’d wanted to know what it is that I existed for. He was fascinated by my abstinence from the light, and when he wasn’t questioning me on it, he’d ponder on it for days on end, by himself. He claimed that knowledge of these things is for the sake of the plot. That if he took hammer to skull and took my cranium out, it would be, solely, for the plot. Because T.M. Opera O and Admire Vega are the closest bosom friends of the era, as it were. It would be for the sake of rapport. I remembered then that this fascination of his felt like a curse. I don’t know what to call it now. I’d let myself be morbidly fascinated the same way he did, because it’s only fair. It’s quite fair, this way. If he has the desire for me to tell him what I’m feeling, always, then it would be fine if I wanted to see how he fared as his most bared self.

Last time, he asked me about my life in the same manner. Today, I hadn’t said anything truthful yet. In the previous weeks, I tended to fess up. In a way, because it didn’t matter at all if I said those thoughts out loud, after all. Who was going to hear and judge but him? I knew that even if he held a strange fascination with my thoughts, he’d never share it with others, and those mutterings would never leave the empty space of his apartment. To my own chagrin, the rare times I spoke with truth were to him. I told him the truth, of how my limbs always seemed to be aching. When I’d just wanted to go through the motions of a routine day, they seemed to drone with a dull pain. Gone about my pleasantries, the day always ended unceremoniously. I would be back in the same small space of my home. Even then, the pain would continue. It was markedly different from the sharpness that struck my leg from time to time. I couldn’t tell what it was, but I told him I had a small hunch about it. I asked T.M. Opera O if his own body ever started to ache. He couldn’t understand the question at first. I asked if he ever managed to get used to the feeling of being outside the spotlight, of there being no more highs for him to chase, or no more praises for him to get drunkenly stupid over. I remember he only made an expression I couldn’t read. In the end, he said yes. He did understand. When my limbs ached in such a way, I wondered if it was because they were trying to call back to something. I wondered if my skin kept trying to invoke feelings that weren't there. It told me that I couldn’t live the way I wanted to. It told me that I had to remember. I always had to remember. Even when I’m starting to struggle with remembering, it kept me in check. My nervous system informed me, promptly, of how Admire Vega was supposed to live–in a life of abstinence, of pure dedication and devout admiration. It calls me foolish for becoming complacent in the absence of my God. It dredges up memories of sin, that not only am I foolish for thinking to live normally, I am also foolish to think I even deserved it. I wanted to blame myself. Truthfully, everything that happened in that span of time was my fault. But I didn’t tell T.M. Opera O the reasons my limbs ached. I was satisfied to know that he, too, was cursed with the same dull aches I had. In that, I could push the blame onto the both of us.

 

“Honestly, I still feel uneasy.”

Quietly, my thoughts crept up my throat. There wasn’t any reason to hide anything, even if I felt it unnecessary to tell him. For some reason, I felt like I couldn’t control my urge to speak my thoughts at times, even if I desperately wanted them to be hidden.

“It’s like something’s askew. My body still aches. As much as I’ve tried to ignore it.”

He moves his head, and his glasses shine lightly, obscuring the shape of his eyes just a bit.

 

“That seems to have remained unchanged from last time, too.”

Admittedly, I felt like I felt most foreign when I was in here. My nerves fired off the same way, every time. I found that they were entangled with memories of his and my own, and I couldn’t reliably mark which ones. I could guess it was the sight of his old Satsuki Sho trophy, half-covered in a layer of dust. Or it was the state of minor disarray his apartment was in. Or, it was the scrawled out screenplay that seemed to remain on his desk at all times, telling the story of a king, and his round table of knights. Emotions dredged up slowly, and I can’t say it’s a welcome sensation. Always, constantly, it left me thinking of then. If not the ups and downs of our Classic Year run, I’d always remember his visage then. The way T.M. Opera O moved, his boisterous laugh, that mug of his that wore nothing but glee on it. If not him, I’d remember my sins. My mind counted them one, by one. Carefully pausing on each moment. It always reminded me. There were no more eyes, but I felt their gaze piercing my back. I shouldn’t, and there would be no point, but I begged them not to brand me as a heretic.

As much as I would be truly happy if he’d share the blame, I can’t avoid the reality of my desires, then.

 

“Maybe, it’s because your apartment is a time capsule–”

 

“Aha? I’ve very much put intention into its construction. So that we may never forget our beautiful days!”

 

“–and I’ve thought of things that I’d rather not be thinking of.”

An expression I dislike creeps on his face. It’s when I know he’s going to ask me something truly outlandish. Or, when he’s going to ask me something that concerned him, because he was only interested in matters that concerned him, most of the time. Even if I could say he had enough kindness to honor everyone else, in the end, there’s only one person he takes true, ecstatic joy in.

 

“Does she strike upon your mind, then? The Admire Vega that took shape during our Classic Year?”

I kept quiet.

 

“I would suppose your memory is hazy, given the circumstances,” he kicks his legs a bit.

 

“But I truly do wonder if you remember her. After all, it’d make my heart weep forlornly, if you didn’t remember the affections she and I held for each other.”

 

I never enjoyed it when he’d bring this up.

I remember nearly every question he’s asked me. If I remembered kissing him after his run in the Kyoto Daishoten. If I remembered that I asked him to hug me, once, nearly crying. If I remembered when he held my hand, and how cold my fingers were, and a dozen more. I scratched at the skin on the back of my hand, because I think I chose to forget them. I struggled to remember even if I wanted to. If I did remember, the memory would only drive itself into me like a stake. I didn’t want to recount each and every moment again. It’s something that should’ve died, together with the Admire Vega that had lived a sinner.

Guilt swirled around in my carcass. Unfounded guilt, that I needed to pin on someone else, even if momentarily. I closed my eyes, and I quietly staked half the blame on T.M. Opera O.

 

“I don’t remember most things. I told you.”

I saw him hold back a sneer. He thinks it’s kindness. I think it’s cruelty.

 

Maybe it’s my conjecture, but I felt like I saw a flash of regret on his face. I hear a faint well, that’s fine.

Opera O’s plate was empty. There was only a singular bite on what I was eating. The television seemed to repeat on forever. A tension in him seemed to loosen, as I kept completely quiet. I kept scratching at the skin on the back of my hand, and when that lost its novelty, I’d pick at the small hangnails on my index. The ache droned on.

I just kept picking, in order to sate it. The pain started to gnaw on my left leg. I tried to ignore it. It shifted around in place, and my body felt like it was moving on its own again. I could feel his stare gazing over me, and I tried to stare back. I wasn’t sure how I looked right now, at all.

 

“The specter looming over you…”

My dear sister?

 

“… has left you, has it not?”

I squint. My hands pause.

 

“… She has. I haven’t heard her… again.”

He moves, its appearance almost akin to slow motion. Opera O fixes his posture. Arms swinging, calmly. He places his hands in front of his face, covering his mouth. It’s a gesture of contemplation. Careful, controlled contemplation. His eyes dart. They dart downwards and I follow them. I see my leg shifting awkwardly. I realize that I’m probably trying to shake the pain off. It’s never worked. I think it’s become something of a bad habit. Opera O’s gaze refixes itself ahead. Landing on me. I’ve still no idea what kind of expression I’m even making.

 

“My conjecture is–” he moves, again, he pulls himself back,

“–that it would be nigh difficult to live selfishly after giving your completeness solely to her, would it not? Your flesh cries out, that it desires to honor her again. It begs you to understand that your systems live for honor, and that means pain, in exchange for righteousness.”

 

My nails drag on the skin of my fingers, in small motions. “I guess. Calling that painful, is…”

 

“Alas, you offered everything, pain and joy, your very being, just to be forgiven. I would say your endured suffering, having gutted yourself into a pure vessel, is righteous–and truly, truly painful. Albeit! I would not call that a shame. Nor something to shy away from, at all.”

A small shiver runs down my spine. He twirls the fork between his fingers, again.

 

“The joys of a burden. To offer yourself completely and be bestowed upon a righteous reign, in exchange–pain is nothing but minutia compared to it. Perhaps this burden means something different to you and I–but I would wager that nonetheless, we have both felt immense pain, in our glorious attempts to attain overwhelming domination.”

A certain intensity starts to fuel him. I sat still. I can’t do anything but stay still. I felt like I only wanted to watch.

 

“In some manner, I do truly understand, Ayabe-san.”

His body starts to lean over the table. He’s getting somewhat close. I don’t feel the need to run away, nor do I feel fear. There was only a sense of irritation boiling in my skull. I supposed that there were even intermixed, foreign emotions in its mix.

 

“I’d wager you do remember. During our blistering rivalry, you remember the immense burdens you’d carry, did you not? The Overlord could see their weight cast over you. Truly, I could, and how it moved me so. Dioscuri held a conviction so strong, I anticipated her desire to grant a fitting end to my reign, and how badly I wanted to meet her passion! Dear Pollux, avenge Castor by granting swift death to he, and the veil shall lift itself. It will come to understanding that you have granted her the greatest honor of all, and that is, to have been responsible for the humiliation of the Overlord of Century’s End. Ah, what a beautiful tale, it should’ve been such a riveting tragedy. In truth, even if your passion wasn’t solely motivated by me, I saw your intent to shatter my visage. I accepted it truly, and how I wanted more of it. I was hopelessly engrossed by your existence, and the notions that you held. The desire to honor a self, akin to mine own righteousness. It was foolish of me to assume you as just shy. You were fascinating, Admire Vega, because you seemed to have understood the Overlord’s purpose in just a blink, even if you said you wanted no part of my theater. Alas, you were ensnared in it. To honor her fully, you had no choice but to bring your blade to me–and how you brought it! With malice, and purpose. Your seething emotions projected onto me were truly exhilarating. I’d never so readily considered someone else to be the Overlord’s equal. How it pains me so deeply, then, that we are not able to return. Tracen’s first magnitude star was robbed of the opportunity to finish what she had started, and I cry out in aches!”

I realized I hadn’t drawn a single breath the entire time he spoke. I realized, he nearly hadn’t either, as his breathing was quick. His hand fell limp, off my shoulder. I didn’t realize it’d even gotten there. He wasn’t gripping it tightly at all, surprisingly.

 

I inhaled, exhaled, deep.

“You’re too close.”

 

He staggers away. Opera O coughs lightly, opting to slink away to the kitchen sink, bringing his plate with him as he does. I guess he found it an appropriate time to wrap up the meal. For whatever reason. My food somehow remained untouched, but I’ve already lost my appetite. He washes his hands. I see the water splash onto his forearms, and I see his expression. It’s not one of regret. I read it as one still of contemplation.

 

Truthfully, it drove me mad.

 

Opera O had the vexing ability to rouse emotions, even if by force. His story claims that pain is beautiful, to be respected, revered, as part of all grand machinations–and a part of me, a part of me that I wanted to deny so deeply, knew. It knew what he was talking about. It’s why pain ghosts itself all over me in the first place. My shoes hit the dirt forcefully during the Kikuka Sho of our Classic Year, and by God, did it hurt. I knew I ran with catharsis that day. I ran with the conviction that I was almost ready to meet death. Pain had become something awfully familiar to me, and I was going to greet it lovingly, with open arms, despite how much it bothered me. I knew it did, because when I’d ended up in the hospital, I deluded myself into thinking that fate was true forgiveness. I no longer had to twist my bones to work the way I needed them to. What an irritating ending, then, that my nerves constantly wish for those pains back. What a deeply, truly irritating ending, then, that he pointed himself at me and called us the same.

T.M. Opera O spoke proudly that the pain we suffer is righteous, and should not be something I dismay over. Do I agree? Do I disagree? I don’t want to say. I can’t say, anymore. To hell with righteousness. Let’s say it’s something that I deserved. For living a life so shamefully. For having been pulled into machinations of sin. For having stolen that which is not rightfully mine. For having been born. For my life and the lack of hers being the source of my family’s dismay. For trying to assume right to live and to have ever attempted to become one with someone else, so deeply, affectionately, and disgustingly. This is the only way I could find comfort in pain. It can become dear to me like this. If I say it’s dear to me, then I can finally understand him a bit more. Maddening beast that he is.

Beast that he is, beast that he is. He begged for me to bestow such pains onto him. The narrative is disfigured. You don’t know a lick of consistency, foolish playwright. Admire Vega is not a God, and she can’t bestow anything to you that is holy. All she can do is give to you what she feels, but perhaps that’s what you want. You’re the God of this track after all, aren’t you? To eat the emotions of all others is your truest purpose.

 

How annoying.

 

I closed my eyes and imagined him stained in red. Sinewy, stringy red. He wedges himself deeper into my blade, a cry of ecstatic pain. After everything he’s done, the tyranny he’s enacted, he’s stricken down so pathetically. I don’t find it just. I don’t care for justice at all. I struck him down for the honor of someone else. He wanted it to be me that does it. I only imagined so violently, since he begged me to, and I only wanted him to stop. That’s the truth. If I told myself it was the truth a couple hundred times, it will become the truth.

My hands trembled as I stood from the table. I didn’t have any intentions. I just pulled myself to his proximity. I needed to see. I needed to see his awful mug, framed by tufts of orange that sprung in a haphazard crown. His eyes that tended to be shielded by the glint from his glasses. I don’t think the frame he chose suited him. But, vexing as he is, he managed to look beautiful, as he always did. I’m not one to deny fact when it makes itself so obvious.

He notices my presence. He doesn’t elect to ignore it, at all. By the corner of my eye, I see his head shoot my way. I stared out the window, near the kitchen sink. Nothing to see. Mostly the rest of the concrete jungle outside, and occasional greenery. Opera O places his palms on the counter. He doesn’t look directly at me, but he tilts his head just enough. We’re close. My back pressed against the counter. Our arms brushed against each other. I could feel the heat coming from his body. It made the skin under my layers of clothes itch.

 

His voice sounded like a low hum.

“Forgive me for staying on the topic of memory, but.”

 

And then, it wavered slightly.

 

“Surely you remember one time, in our Classic Year. We came together–given into lust.”

A part of me wished he wouldn’t continue.

 

“In a fit of passion, I bit down on you. Strongly. And perhaps enraged, you dug your nails deep into my flesh.”

I breathed.

 

“It’s quite difficult to forget. I understood even deeper, the allure of pain–”

He caught a breath.

 

“–well, solely thanks to you.”

I knew what he was playing at. He’s only doing this to rouse even more emotion, really. I can’t do anything but dance on his palm, keeping my seething emotions in check. I turned my head to him, and his face was colored a mild pink. It seemed like a bad joke. I could do nothing but laugh in defeat. I muttered a maybe I do under my breath, hoping that it was low enough that he couldn’t catch it.

T.M. Opera O moves his body. It feels like it’s moving in slow motion, again, as I understood the scenario as was given to me. He pulls a knife out from the side rack. It moves in the air. It feels like it takes a thousand seconds for me to understand as it waved around. It only came to be clear when I felt cold metal being given unto my palms. His hands on the knife’s handle are hot. They’re a bit wet from washing, but somehow, I could tell that there were small residuals of sweat. I thought for a moment the blade was pointed towards me. Not that that’s something to fear. My eyes traced the glint of sunlight on its blade, travelling down til’ the tip, and what I saw on the other end was his torso. It pressed barely against the white of his dress shirt. His fingers uncurl from the knife, and he puppeteers each phalange of my finger. He tries to fasten my grip on it, but he’s too gentle. I tried to get another look at his complexion. It still swelled with the same intensity. He held a smile, a controlled one. His small ears pointed to the air, a small blush started to coat his face.

The oddity of the scene wasn’t lost on me. I wanted to say it felt like a cruel joke, but I found myself unsurprised. I quietly accepted the kitchen knife. I couldn’t say why. Maybe I thought it mildly entertaining, that this was his idea of killing boredom.

Guilt started to pool at the bottom of my stomach.

 

“If our nerves ache for pain, then this is a way of getting it, is it not?”

A part of me thought of thrusting the knife the opposite way.

 

“… I… really don’t… understand you.”

The only sentence I manage to cough out is one that barely reflects anything at all. It made him sneer, all the same.

 

My stomach acids started to beg me to look the other way. I didn’t care enough, anymore. My apathy took credence over all, and my unbearable want to crush it reared its ugly head. If this is sin, then I’m suffering. Theoretically, I’d hate to be here. I wouldn’t want to waste the rest of my life on pointless hedonism and playing theater. If something ugly were to happen to me later, then it would be deserved. Every sensation started to scream at me, and I started to feel like I was being burnt alive.

I exchange a prayer with the masses in my brain. I tell them that this is for the glory of those passed. And nothing else. Nothing else.

 

I’ve never handled a kitchen knife in this manner. I don’t enjoy thinking about blades. I take it and I lethargically slide it across the length of his forearm. It obviously doesn’t cut, but Opera O’s breath hitches, in a way I can’t describe. I think of the frustration of losing to him, and how I could’ve honored my dear sister with a sweep of the Triple Crown. I think of the shame, the guilt, of having been with him. It all made me feel like a unique kind of monster that wanted to bite its maw down on something, anything. Blame towards myself, blame towards him, it intermixed, completely muddied. For a moment, I swore I could even feel a tiny, faint happiness, and it wasn’t that I’d let myself feel it. It’s that my synapses slowly came back to life and I’d given up on stopping them. Everything I didn’t want to feel, I had felt at once. Not knowing what to do, I breathed. One breath, two, three. I lose count. Deeply, heavily. My breath manages to catch on my throat. It’s ragged. My arm slings on his back. I wanted to drag him closer. His chest bumped against mine. My nails, unconsciously, dug into his back. I hear a mildly ecstatic, stilted noise. Knife in hand, it trembled slightly. I wasn’t scared. I don’t think I was. I was merely unable to comprehend the weight of my emotions. I felt his breath on my neck and it stung. It stung, so bad. My nerves responded with sharpness, and in my clumsiness, I’d pressed the tip of the knife deeper into his skin. A quick breath slips from him, in anticipation. Carefully pulling away, I flipped my grip on the knife. I wanted to feel at the skin of his flank area, with the tips of my fingers. There was a wall of cloth in the way, but I could tell that there was a fair amount of fat on it. He notices, and he quietly unbuttons the length of his dress shirt. I see his chest in full view, then his abdomen. I’ve no comments to make. I only noticed that his flesh was impossibly perfect, and I thought of the damage knifing it would do. I lifted the blade to his side. I pictured the cold of the metal brushing against his skin, and it sent a small shiver down my spine.

I nearly bite down on my tongue as I do it. I barely catch my own breath. With a swift drag of the knife, he gasps. I press on the cut with the tips of my fingers. I wanted to see if anything would come out. Somehow, I thought something else would ooze out of him. Alas, deep, striking red. I felt the guilt in my stomach brew even harder, and my heart responded to it. Its rhythm was getting faster. Maybe I hadn’t truly realized this was real, until I saw it. The frustration and blame poured into the knife, again. I swipe twice. Three times. The third time, I placed too much pressure, and his flesh parted in a mildly unpleasant way. He coughs and bites the air over it. I felt like he was smiling. He could’ve also been crying. I couldn’t see it. I didn’t care to see it. I was fixated on how much red started to stain him and the white of his shirt. It was nearly brilliant, contrasted against.

 

I felt my own body scratching at me, the guilt screaming at me to stop, and I started to feel my forearms aching. It didn’t matter. I’ve already sold myself to his endless madness, in which Admire Vega let herself be hedonistic. She let herself be ecstatic. She’s able to do bastard things to somebody she theoretically loves, because he beseeches her of it. No, because she does find twisted joy in it. She feels a murky satisfaction from plunging sharpness into T.M. Opera O. At the same time, she couldn’t say it was informed by something like true hatred, or true love. It was just that. A maddening torrent of every emotion, all at once. Her nerves seared with pain, and she let it sear her, in a twisted kind of sweetness.

 

It’s selfish. It’s selfish. She can’t stop.

I can’t stop.

 

I wedge my fingers deeper into gaping flesh. It makes him cry out a noise, mixed with stilted moans. I felt wetness on my shoulder. He cried from the pain, but he couldn’t stop squirming himself into my touch. I let out a breath when I realized I’d been holding it in, again. I kept digging into his wounds, and I felt the stickiness of blood coat my fingers. He tries to lift his head away from my shoulder. Probably to get a good look at me. As much as I prayed that he wouldn’t. He stumbles when he pulls his head up to look at me. I can feel his palms trembling. An air of dizziness seemed to strike him, and he drunkenly smiled.

 

“Y… You truly grant me satisfaction… like no other…” he airs out, wincing in between.

 

I inspected the cuts on his waist. They were deep enough to bleed, but not so deep that he’d be losing plenty of blood. He probably had lower pain tolerance than I thought. This was enough to make him lightheaded.

 

Opera O stumbles onto me, my back presses harder against the edge of the countertop, and it starts to hurt. His coordination was poor. He trembled, but he was attempting to gain strength. His face hovers towards mine as he grabs onto the side of my neck. His palms are hot. I wince. He managed to be forceful enough to attempt to kiss me, and I did nothing but gape my mouth open. I let it gape open like a fool and the mass of his tongue slid in. The temperature was enough to make me feel absolutely sick. Saliva trickles down my throat and I almost gag in response. I grab at his face and I heard a clang. I couldn’t care enough to check if I’d dropped the knife. I just wanted to get his mug away from mine. I tried, but felt it was useless. I crushed the sides of his face with my two hands, and red smeared all over his then spotless cheek. Iron mixed into the saliva pooling inside my maw. His tongue slobbered all over the inside like a dog’s. I pathetically licked back. I didn’t know what else to do. He made a noise of delight when the iron kept smearing into my lips. His limbs started to dig into places they shouldn’t. Foreign mass pressed against my lower body. I realized it was the bone of his leg, his knee. It kept digging against somewhere sensitive and I tried, I tried to bite back a sound. My head started to ache. Numbness droned all over my limbs. Moving each joint of my finger felt like slow, painful creaking. I realized the searing sensation on my skin was my own temperature reaching fever pitch. I felt like its heat was going to kill me. I felt like viscera was about to burst out of my skin. It’s hot. It’s too hot. The temperature changed way too quickly. I couldn’t get used to it. The dog’s tongue eventually stopped. I think, irritation was swirling. I don’t know. I didn’t have the chance to ruminate on it, as he staggered downwards, trying pathetically to claw for the knife on the floor.

 

Breaths. One, two. One deep, one drawn out.

 

It’s getting harder to ignore the nausea. Parts of my body came to life in ways I hated. Each sensation was clearer. Each memory was clearer. His ragged breathing became noisier. Slowly, Opera O rose from the floor. He was staring into me. The sweat and blood on his face mixed. His ears flicked once, twice, and they sprung up. He held the blade up. He held it against me. Tip pressed to my chest. He smiled beautifully. With pure genuinity.

“You’ve probably spun visions of my death in your mind…” he mutters softly. He couldn’t stop smiling. I couldn’t tell why. It made him look like a lovestruck maiden.

 

“How about it, then,” he pressed the tip slowly, too slowly, and it was getting through my sweater, “aren’t you curious? Wouldn’t you love to know the taste of sharp pain, yourself… Ayabe-san? If not my death, then what of the moment… I strike… you down?”

 

His hot breath struck my face again. With each pause in between a word. I flinched away. I felt small amounts of drool pooling down the side of my mouth. It made my skin feel awfully sticky. Opera O steps forward. It was an imperfect step, the only reminder I had that he could only physically manifest half his hubris. It could be much worse. At his behest, I unwillingly fluttered to a vision of my own death. My lungs choked for a second. I felt it. I felt it! I was feeling something. It was the absolute worst. The worst, unmatched, it was absolutely vile. I couldn’t retch. I felt like I was going into a state of rigor mortis. My temperature spiked hellishly hot and my arms, my legs, everything stiffened. It felt so hot that I honestly wanted to cry. I stayed on the thought of my death, and the idea of Admire Vega’s unceremonious end, and. Metal grated in my head. I couldn’t find any other way to describe it. It was just grinding iron in there. Like blade clashing against blade. The temperature of my entire body started to focus in certain areas. Like the atrocious feeling of my head. My entire face felt hot. I realized that I might’ve been feeling actual happiness. I realized that my dead body sprawled out on the floor was comforting. The shape of its insides after it shared a kiss with the rough asphalt was roses in a bouquet. It’s truly serendipitous. It’s truly disgusting. I wanted to crawl, scream, bite, crawl, anything. Anything that was tangible. Instead I clenched the entire shaft of the knife tight, with my two hands. I imagined it would be like just holding T.M. Opera O’s hand. Sweet, and depressing. The blade and his fingers held no tangible similarities. He saw this, and he tried to pull the blade out of my hands, stopping when he noticed me wince hard. I felt a horrible sting on my palm when he tried. Really, all I wanted to do was push my abdomen onto the sharp end. It would bring an end to this idiocy. He can conduct whatever happy fairytale plays he wants with my rotting carcass after. All I know is that I might have understood his desire for righteous satisfaction and a catastrophic, glorious death.

 

I might’ve. And I hated it.

 

“That’d be–” I bit down on my tongue hard. I groaned. I didn’t bite hard enough that it bled, but pain sparked. Though, it was nothing compared to the other stings forming on my body. My right hand dripped red. Droplets made small circles on the floor, one by one.

 

“I… Do you…” His eyes stared down at me.

 

“ … think my death would be a beautiful thing?”

A weak chuckle fluttered out of my lips. The smile faded from his face, just a bit.

 

“I couldn’t stand to run without you. I awaited your return ‘til the last act. So, perhaps I can’t find it something to be delighted by…”

 

“But for you to share the same feelings as me,” he shivered slightly, I didn’t know why, “would be what is truly beautiful.”

His fingers gently touch the skin of my hand. They smear with sticky red. I see him smile a bit when they do.

 

I realized my hand was starting to hurt like true hell. It jumped away from the blade and there was a long gash across the width of its palm. I saw inside and it was deeper than I’d like it to be. It couldn’t help but tremble. I couldn’t do anything but stare at it. I still have blood flowing through my veins. What a surprise. The way my skin parted seemed to indicate humanity, small bumps present in the walls of the wound. I could see small nubs of yellow, too. When blood pooled together inside, it tended to look like deep, black tar. When I’d try to close my hand, I’d hear mild squelching, and I could see red running along the creases of my palm lines. The temperature in my head was starting to feel like a bad fever. He was starting to look like something that was barely alive. T.M. Opera O was a blend of shapes. Mostly orange triangles, white rectangles, rosy, pale peach rounds, some blacks. Contrasting them were sharp, red lines. I reconstructed the meaning of his words. Slowly. Were we sharing the same feelings right now? Everywhere felt hot. Topmost region. Lower middle region. Lower left region. Rightmost region, a small area. The pale peach shapes I could feel were also deathly hot. I thought that our temperatures would meld the skin on our phalanges together. I understood that he could bring me into mutual death. It felt like a lull. He guides my gashed hand towards his face. Slowly. It brushed past the fringes that framed his awful complexion.

 

I felt his lips press against the split openness. It stings, bad. I remembered that I probably would want to pull my hand away. It doesn’t budge. I looked for the strength to, but it was slipping me by. His tongue glides over it. It makes me want to catch a sharp breath. It’s been difficult to breathe. My nerves kept throwing signals into my head and there was no space for anything else other than pain, pain, pain, pain. It hurts. I’m going to throw up. I still knew how to cry. It’s a surprise.

I still have a free hand. It reached towards the knife in his. He was cooperative. He meekly handed it over. The other one slid out of his grasp. I didn’t ask it to do that. Nonetheless, he didn’t complain. I think he was awaiting his divine star’s next action. I swallowed the lump in my throat.

 

Opera O’s expression told me he was happy to be in love. This was his greatest ecstasy. It made me think about how I wanted to dissect my emotions one by one. But they appeared to me as an amorphous mass. I picked a piece from it that told me I truly felt reciprocity. I smiled. I could feel divine judgement passeth upon me but I didn’t mind. I could pluck out joy from the underbelly of my emotional cortex when I thought it impossible. I was truly, deeply ecstatic. I flicker between ideas of Admire Vega’s death and my heart starts to race. Brutalized, crushed, burnt in fire for sins she has committed. My dear sister used to chastise me. She would ask why I had given up her love for that of others. I looked away like a scolded child. I cried. I didn’t want to be hated by my only God. I thought that if she wanted to steal the totality of my mass for herself then it would be justified. Then I’d remember how I damaged her vessel so thoroughly that even if she used it, it would be moot. It would only taint her purity. I prostrated myself to her and I begged. I begged. I begged. I will direct everything towards you. All my wins, for you. Every action, for you. Keep the vessel empty and pure, as much as is possible still. Truthfully, I knew, that if I died brutally then, I wouldn’t have to be chastised anymore. If I could watch my guts spill onto the floor and feel my bones bend in unnatural ways then it would be, really, truly, the greatest thing to occur. And then, my dear sister can take as much as she likes.

 

A happy ending, for us both.

 

It was Opera O that invited such a beautiful vision into my mind. He tended to invite all sorts of them. Maybe I could say I truly wanted to thank him, from the bottom of my heart. For every infraction we’d committed, together. Yes, let’s say, he was beautiful. Then, and now. The truth wedged between the pages of our yellowed-out fairytale was that I enjoyed every single minute that I had destroyed my life. I ran tainted completely by my own despair. I kissed him pushed solely by my desperation and pain. I let him pull on my strings because my limbs had given up. Opera O built a stage where his greatest elation is death by my hands, where the main actors, supporting actors, and the crew, were all compulsive lotus-eaters. He prayed every day for my return. He waited for an upset in the days of his Senior Year, equal parts so manic, and so lethargic. I couldn’t come back. But I fantasized of several methods where his wish for pristine death could be granted. An honorless stabbing off the stage, not a soul privy to the sight, and he would fade into non-existence. A revolution against the great tyrant of Tracen, multiple swords come together to skewer him from all sides, declaring their hatred for him in the same breath. A heated thrust of the sword, his greatest rival being the sole grantor of satisfaction, then constructing his perfect tragedy. I fell on the last thought, where it was a purely ordinary death. He laid under me and I traced the knife along the length of his torso, wanting to know what hid under his skin, thinking that maybe he was a fictional beast with truly nothing making him function. I tore his skin open and it was viscera. Ribs. Lungs, encased. Heart in the middle. Stomach. Liver. Intestines. Small, and large. He would weakly smile while I was discerning his humanity, and be drunken with lovesick joy. He’d hold my hand as he died.

 

He’d tell me he was happy to have bared his soul finally to another.

 

He’d tell me that he was glad that it was me that understood, and no one else. It would’ve been an ordinary, and very boring sort of love.

 

The jagged angles of mutual pain bestowed pure ecstasy upon me. There’s nothing to question now. Resolution had finally graced me. My purpose now, was to tear him apart, and have him reeling. Then, the only thing left would be to beg for my own end.

 

Please, don’t speak anymore, Opera O. Whatever happens to us after, let’s just laugh the consequences off.

 

I bring the blade into swift motion two more times, on the opposite side of his waist. He moans strongly, and one gets caught in his throat, turning into a mild choke. Opera O was completely entranced, lost in a daydream of lust. He wanted to slobber his tongue into my hoarse throat, again, but he could only manage to bury his head into my shoulder. His arms fumbled around my back, eventually squeezing me tighter and tighter. The edge of the countertop was still burrowing into my lower back. When he stumbles into me, my back stumbles against it, and we almost fall to our knees. When I grabbed his waist to catch him, the widened gash on my right hand rubbed against the lines on his waist. Blood poured into the small slits on his skin. I can’t discern the way our fluids intermixed. He cries out, again, and his movements return to being dazed. I could feel his legs interlocking with mine. The only thing separating our skin was barriers of cloth, but I could tell how much he’d sweat already. Heat enveloped my entire body. I don’t know which parts of it were his temperature or mine. My core felt like it wanted to go up in flames, and in it, shot through several shivers. More signals from all across my body towards my neurons. The uncomfortable, numbing heat between my legs was getting really hard to ignore. I didn’t acknowledge it, but my thighs started tensing up as a result. He hazily grabbed at me, trying to gain any amount of stimulation to blend into his pain. I could tell what he was trying to do. He didn’t seem to be conscious of it, but he rubbed himself desperately, on the length of my thigh. A small helping of bile shot up my throat. I had to swallow it down. I swallowed it down and coughed. With a sudden shot of emotion into my head, my grip tightened on the side of his waist. My fingers unintentionally snagged into his wounds. He yelped. The center of my palm stung. It stung. It only stung. Pain was starting to overtake everything else again. I wanted to share more of it with him, but I could only pity him. In a fit of pity, I set the knife down on the counter. I gestured his face to mine with my unwounded hand. He jolted in surprise.

 

I think it was the first time I tried to look him in the eye. I could only find things to pity when I’d discerned his face. The tears that gathered at the corners of his eyes. The stain they made when they met the blood on his face. He stared at me, eyes half-lidded. Ears pointed downwards, and it made him look so small. I think he was trembling. He tried to mutter something at me, but it barely comes out as half-formed words. His whole body did, as I felt it wedge itself against mine. The warmth of blood, heat trapped in between layers of cloth, sweat pooling on top of my skin, and probably his. I felt like I was running a terrible fever. Suddenly, I could feel the hottest parts of our bodies uncomfortably grind against each other. I don’t know if he was doing it on purpose. It made bile start to shoot up in my throat again. I tried to cough it out. so I could swallow it down with even greater force. It didn’t work. I’m bad at throwing up, so I kept most of it down. Most of it. I didn’t know what else to do, so I’d kiss him. Since he wanted to feel everything that I was feeling. I wanted to curse at him, just briefly.

I forced my tongue into the space of his maw. He almost sputters from how sudden it is, and the fact that he could probably taste something foreign, but I think he’s starting to get dazed off the highs forming in his head. He laps it all up completely ungracefully. I hear him try to gag. He groans loudly as I feel a smattering of acid mix into our saliva. It’s disgusting, but I thought that he was even more disgusting. There’s something about him in this state that drives me to bite at him. In a brief moment, I gnaw on his lip. He whimpers. The bite force wasn’t enough to draw even more blood. My nails scratched at the wounds down on his waist, and I felt him moaning into my mouth. Opera O’s road to domination was nowhere to be seen. He had gotten hopelessly drunk on his own poison. Yet again, I couldn’t do anything but pity him. What a disgusting, miserable creature. In that sense, he wasn’t that different from me. I could only feel myself becoming tainted, further. Pathetically, he doesn’t speak, but whimpers out a noise of pleading when we separate. He digs at my arm. I think he’s trying to pull it downwards. He wants me to do it. An outlandish split of fascination and disgust creeps in. But I feel my arm follow his pull. After all this time, this bastard only wants one thing. It seemed to be the only form of affection he could comprehend the most, sometimes, aside from unbridled worship. Then, he’d nearly beg for my touch, or my attention, anything. I think it even surprised him when he’d gotten to that state, because at times he’d concede that the only thing he wanted was to feel my warmth, and my touch. Sometimes he’d catch himself and say that it was only second to his desire to be completely worshipped and dominate as the Overlord. I never knew what to make of it. I always humored him, sometimes out of pity. Sometimes, because I wanted to run away from something. Sometimes there wasn’t any conceivable reason at all. Like now. Guilt would hold me in its embrace every single time.

 

I thought he could be adorable when he begged for my love. I thought I was grotesque when I granted his desires.

 

The touch of my hand that he wanted so badly was disfigured. Blood was still pouring out of it, and I thought that its gash wasn’t going to heal correctly at all. It wouldn’t be surprising. My body would spit out tar and infected pus in response to the wound, and that’d be only natural. He unzipped his fly, on his own. The belt buckle came apart in a second. I guess he didn’t care to wait for me to do it. I thought about telling him to stop, but my jaw hung lazily. Nothing came out of my throat. Before I knew it, the length of my hand was jammed down his pants. Red smeared across his abdomen, downwards. The bleeding, though lessened, hasn’t stopped. He was wearing black underwear. I guess it’s unremarkable, aside from the fact that it’s lace. It hurt like living hell every time I had to bend my palm, and truthfully, I felt like I would’ve passed out from the pain before he could even feel satisfied, if I opted to keep going like this. His breath hitches hard when he feels something brushing against his entrance, though, and he lets out a long breath. I can barely feel the inside of my head. A thick fog came over it, and my senses started to dim. My fingertips pressed against the opening. It was moist, burning hot. His fluids probably started to mix from the red that kept gushing out of my palm. I can’t do it. I almost wanted to scream, and grant him death there, but there was a more cohesive way to bestow myself onto him. That’s what he wanted, after all.

It pulls away from him. He almost seems disappointed. A gashed hand plants itself firmly on his shoulder. It grips him, hard. They drag him forcibly away from the counter, and he’s perplexed. Unceremoniously, he’s pushed down onto the floor. I could see that it hurt him. He coughs out an ack from the pain of collision. Another hand hovers towards that shining, stained knife. Knees scrape against the floor, as I slowly come down, straddling his waist. He’s visibly even more excited. It’s the face he makes when he says he loves me, truly.

 

“The contents of your body are still that of a human’s, aren’t they?”

I couldn’t help but speak.

He doesn’t say anything. His ears only point down.

 

“I need to see.”

 

Lines draw themselves. It was dotted, and it ran down his chest, on the gap between his breasts, across his stomach, ‘til it stops just at its end. I thought it painfully ordinary, yet again. I didn’t think I’d see his insides, but I guessed that he wanted me to cut into him so brutally. I pressed the knife at the beginning of the line. Opera O’s face is nearly entirely red. Sweat drips all over him. His gaze feverishly falls on the knife, then towards me. He wraps his hands on my own.

 

“Your contempt,” he breathes, “I could drink it all up… really, I could…”

I see the quick rise and fall of his chest on every pause. He’s panting. Akin to a dog’s.

 

I've been nauseous since a while ago. I was starting to forget it. I felt the muscles on my face meld themselves into a kind of expression. I could only call it relief, something like a smile. He probably noticed. It didn’t matter. I put pressure on the knife. His breath is shaky, so shaky. He’s grinning. Maniacally, I’d say. I would say that it was an expression of bastard love.

 

“Grant me swift death!” He coughs when his voice swells. “Take credence in your ugly desires!” He wheezes. “I know you want it, Admire Vega. You want to see my insides splayed out because of what transpired between us–I am the same species of creature that you are! And if that is something you find vexing, then thrust your blade upon he who rouses you!”

 

Opera O catches his breath and the rhythmic fall of his chest speeds up. His eyes, opened wide, relaxed back into a half-lidded state. He used up whatever strength he had left in trying to push me further. I didn’t need it. I suppose he just was the type who couldn’t go more than a few moments without hearing his own voice.

I pull the knife downwards, with controlled pressure. His hands push along with mine, even though I didn’t need his help. As his pale skin split apart, he grits his teeth, and out his throat come sounds of mixed pain and pleasure. It glides along the gap between his breasts. Down his abdomen. It paused exactly at his navel. When I thought his breathing couldn’t get any more ragged, it did. If I had to guess, he was probably close to passing out. His grip on the knife loosened, and his fingers tried to grab onto the sleeve of my sweater. It was dyed a dark, damp red. I spread the wound apart to see inside. It didn’t cut so deep that I could see the same yellow on my hand, but I found it satisfactory. It bled faster when I pushed the weight of my fingers onto his skin. He gasps for air when I do, throwing his head back, and that was the only indication I had that he was still alive. I tried to split the gap even more. I wanted to see deeper. To my surprise, he digs his nails into my forearm, trying to drag it away. The pain doesn’t surprise me anymore. Somehow, I felt like I should grant him the small kindness of relief, so I stopped. I already confirmed that he was still made of flesh and blood, much to my dismay. I put my gashed palm squarely on his chest. It smeared the sticky mix of fluid and blood.

 

I felt his heart beating fast. It reminded me of the sound of his run. Proud, strong, clacking steps. With this, I could conceivably say that he was human. Alive. Just as much as I was. I counted his pulse, and it was faster than mine, but they were in sync. I closed my eyes, and for a moment, felt a sense of disturbed peace. A similar memory rose to mind. I placed my head on his chest, once, and I felt the same, mysterious surprise at the prospect of his humanity, too. Something seemed to wake up in the throes of my chest. With it, my palm ached with pain, and it all led my mind into nothing but haze.

 

I didn’t have any use for the knife anymore, so I put it aside.

“Can you still keep going?”

For once, I asked him. Out of kindness.

 

“Will you…?” He gives a question back.

 

I didn’t feel the need to say anything. I gently raised him up, as I leaned down. My hand made its way back to where it was going to touch him. He shivered. I felt his head pressing against my shoulder. I remembered to breathe, again, and I felt him shake. For a moment, I didn’t know what to do. A sense of fatigue and mild weariness had started to set in. There was a stringent sense of despair, too, even if it did grant me relief to know that he was the same kind of disgusting creature that I was. I had only one thing left to do. I didn’t particularly know if I wanted to do it, but I felt like I should close it out. See him at his most pathetic. I know I’d have true, genuine fun. At the same time, I would feel an ache throbbing deep in my chest.

I heard the squelch of his torso wound against my chest. My sweater was almost completely dyed in red. I think the sting of sharp, sharp pain gets to him, as his head rolls back some. I try to inspect him, squirming under my weight. Every small movement made the long gash stretch and relax. Red wouldn’t stop leaking out of him. A palm glides clumsily down his form. It’s the unwounded hand that presses against the dampness under him. The split skin on my right hand catches on the grooves of his side wounds. The more they rubbed together, the more they hurt, and I’d get hit with moments of lightheadedness. Every gash seemed like they wouldn’t stop weeping. Opera O was trying his damnedest to stay awake, but he didn’t need to try. Every slight movement of my hand sent stimulation right into his core. It jolted him to life. I supposed that it was him swinging wildly between states. He seemed to go into moments of daze that couldn’t be sustained for long. I suppose he was building up anticipation, for a while, and I was only keeping him on the edge. It was kind of amusing. Especially, because his grip had come back to life and started digging into me, as if telling me to just commit. I felt him trying to push himself onto my digits.

 

He was always desperate. That was something that never changed.

 

He breathes out, it’s shaky. Almost out of relief, as I dig my fingers deeper into his slit. I thought that I just wanted to see him end. He was so, so low beneath me, already. I was falling to the same depth of sub-human that he was. I knew what usually drives him. The memory made itself clearer to me. Many of them did. Sensations of warm, strange dampness that encased my fingers. It’s bizarre. Each thought I had was real, but they felt so far off. Despite how far off it all felt, I rubbed at his insides with a sense of precision. Of course. I’d done this before. I’d done it too many times for comfort. His stilted whimpers and abrupt moans were all the same. What wasn’t were his occasional bites at the air, when the friction between my body and his had caused his wound to throb and flex with pain. He lost blood some more, with each squirm of the torso. The gash on my palm was almost nothing compared to his. It hurt intensely, all the same. In that, I felt like our feelings did become one. It hurt when I gripped the side of his waist with my hand. My arm had already gone numb from the pain. My other ached mildly as I fingered him with as much strength I could muster. He could do nothing but blissfully ride though it, the pain and the pleasure having gotten completely to his head. I’d say he’s already gone mad. I guess, so have I.

 

Instinctually, I arced my hand, placing my thumb on the small bud above his slit. I’d wedge my fingers deeper, bringing them upwards, while my thumb massaged his small member. He seemed to drown further in his pleasures. His voice had already become so sultry. When I remembered what drove him the most to pleasure, and what I’d done to rouse him then, I felt like I was peering into the life of someone else. It sent me a little further into despair. I don’t know why. Nevertheless, he squirms helplessly under my touch. I think he tries to whimper something out, anything, but it comes out as a broken mix of syllables. I could feel his tension loosen. He squeezes his body onto mine. I felt his heat. It made me want to cry, somehow.

 

I carefully let him ride out the rest of his high on my digits. I already lost Opera O to the clouds of his mind, so I supposed that whatever I ask, or whatever I’d do, he wouldn’t notice anymore. I could almost say it was cute. I wanted to touch my disfigured hand against his own. He lets me. His hand is slightly battered, from the texture. Another memory came to mind. I’d sometimes think about how impossibly gentle the touch of his hand was on mine whenever he held it. It’s like he didn’t want to break it even further. A rare sort of restraint. When I remembered it, I thought that maybe, I could embrace everything. Without any complications, whatsoever. I can accept the pain of guilt, loving, stabbing, running, winning, losing, coming together, affection, blasphemy, living. I can love the pain of it all. I remembered when he’d asked me to picture myself stabbing him with the length of a longsword. Whenever I did, I’d reel in the discomfort afterwards. I thought of it now, almost tepidly. His grip on my right hand tightens. It hurts my wound, but that’s okay. I felt his scraping against my chest. He moans in response to the pain. I would bring the sword to his chest. He tries to mutter something to me, I didn’t catch it. I’d line it up well. I feel him tensing up again.

 

Then, finally, I’d stab it through his heart.

 

He bellows out in his last moment of loud pleasure, I feel him come on my fingers, his ears bending downwards with him. The sword would stand wedged into his chest, and he would be smiling. I think, even now, he was smiling. I pulled my fingers away from him, and they were coated in his viscosity. Opera O, grabbing at me, hugged me, with whatever he had left. Even as he was about to drift away into unconsciousness. His blood had already seeped through the layers of all I was wearing, and I felt its dampness grazing my skin. When he hugged me, I felt damp warmth press down further. I didn’t know what else to do. I let him stay limp on my body.

There was wetness mixing with the blood dried on my cheeks. I think I couldn’t conceive of any other way to respond to my emotions, anymore. My tears ran free.

 

“Beautiful… You were…” I heard him mumble into my shoulder. He was still awake. It’s a surprise.

His breathing slows. His grip loosens on my hand. I see his tail flick occasionally, but it’d also gradually slow down.

 

I hugged him back. Fluids smeared on the white of his shirt. I ran my unscathed hand through his hair. It was comfortingly soft. Orange twirled between my fingers. His ears relaxed, and I held them between my fingers, too. They had the same softness.

Once, then, he came to my dorm room. He didn’t do anything but catch a catnap on my bed. I don’t think my dear sister was there, at all. I wanted to sleep, but I found it hard to. I was never used to having someone else on my bed. I guess I was trying to stave off my vague nervousness, because I remember I ran my hand through his hair too. Its softness comforted me, all the same. I’d watch him sleep quietly, and it was uncanny.

 

Opera O seemed so docile, for once. Despite everything, I thought that he was adorable.

Tomorrow, I’ll wake up alone. Just like then. The only proof that anything ever happened would be the misshapen gash on my hand. Tomorrow, I’ll forget to pray. I’ll stare at my palm, and only remember him.

 

Even then, I felt like I’d still think he was adorable.

I’d feel guilty still, but strangely, I’d start to miss him.

 

In the end, I could only call it an unremarkable, tepid love.

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