𝐡𝐞'𝐬 𝐚 𝐛𝐚𝐝 𝐛𝐨𝐲 | 𝐤𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐨

47

Yoshinori's POV

"Do you remember the last time you cried?" Junkyu asked, sitting on a rock looking over at the wide sea. It was way past midnight. It was silent,  just the soft sound of the dancing waves and the howling of the air can be heard. We just finished yet another operation. It was less gruesome than the last time.  

"I don't." I replied. When was the last time I cried? I combed through my memories but I cannot seem to remember. Is it because I could not remember or is it because I have always pretended not to remember? Maybe it's the latter. I remember them all – the moments when I cried. They are tattooed on my brain. No matter how hard I try to erase them, I just could not do it. They are just there. Those tattoos are reminders that I once had the ability to cry, something that has long been gone after I started doing this. They are remnants of what I used to be, emotional and vulnerable. But life just comes to you hard, it did force me to change. Maybe, it didn't. Maybe, it's me. I just changed. 

"I do," Junkyu said, still looking afar. His gaze now at the spread of stars in the sky. "And I almost cried again a while ago."

"When we did our operation? Why? Did you feel guilty?" I asked him.

"Of course not." He replied with a chuckle. "I did not feel guilty. Instead, I felt sad."

"Sad?" I was puzzled. A thought came into my mind. When was the last time he honestly told me he was sad? 

"Right. I feel sad because it feels like we took their one chance from them. I know that it is a silly thought. There are times when I really want to believe that they can still change even if they are already evil to the bone. You know that second before we pull the trigger? I cannot help but feel sad when I see their eyes. The mixture of fear, anxiety, acceptance, even void. It is stupid, really, but I still have that little part in me." He replied, which made me even more confused.

"Isn't that guilt?" I asked. "The constant feeling of having done something which we know we shouldn't have? Like the thing you mentioned, taking the chance from them even though we know that we actually don't have the right to do so."

"I don't feel guilty every time we do this because I know if it isn't us who is going to do this, someone else will. And that is why I feel sad. There are times when we are left with no choice but to kill people when someone else could've done it. In that moment, we are left with no choice but to take those chances from them even though someone else could've spared us from getting our hands bloodied." 

"So you mean to say, you do not feel sad because you're killing someone but you feel sad because you're killing someone when somebody else could've done it?" I was amused. "Maybe you're actually a lot crazier than me." 

He laughed. "I mean having someone else do the job for us lessens the chances of us having to meet in hell."

"I don't think anything will spare us from going there." I joked. "I think there's already a special place for us there."

"I cried last night." He said. Suddenly, there was a long and uncomfortable silence. The cold breeze makes it more unbearable. The moonlight suddenly became brighter almost to the point that I wanted to close my eyes. It felt like a spotlight was directed towards me and there was an expectation for me to speak. Though, I do not know what to say. What should I say? Should I ask him why? Should I joke around it? Why do I suck with conversations like this?

"I know that you are itching to ask why." He turned to me. "To be honest, there is no actual reason. I just wanted to cry. I just want to feel human again. You understand me, right? I have become so desensitized to everything that we have done that I have accepted that this is what we are really for. But you know sometimes, I just want to feel something."