Knowing Love

Chapter 2

"Useless bunch!"

Pain.

"So noisy! Why won't you stop crying?!"

Pain.

"You should've been grateful you get to eat at all!"

There is pain.

"Everything is your fault! I wish you were never born!"

There is pain in his legs. There is pain in his arms. There is pain in his head, everywhere on his body.

Is it broken? Is it bruised? Is it bleeding? Someone is crying, sobbing, weeping, and the sound is very close to him.

Whose cry is it?

His?

Hers?

Both of them?

It's painful to move his arms. It's painful to move his legs.

When one wound heals, a new one appears. When one bruise disappears, a cut slices open his skin. The injuries never stop coming. Fresh and old, they are spread all over his body, separately and atop each other.

He tries to open his mouth but closes it again. After all, what can he say? What is he supposed to say?

"No!" — He said this once, but the pain hit him harder instead.

"Go away!" — But can he, when he holds neither power nor ability to stand on his own?

Why is everything blamed on them? Why is everything a mistake on their part? Did they ever ask to be here? Was it their choice to be here?

"Stop it!" — Yet the words always fall on deaf ears because what comes every time he says this is nothing but more pain. A slap, a punch, a kick, blunt objects hitting his body, things being hurled at him, boiling water burning him alive — What is there he has yet to experience?

No matter what he does, it is never right. No matter what he says, it is never heard. No matter what, it is always his fault and hers, and they must quietly accept any kind of punishment handed to them without seemingly any chance at salvation in sight.

Or maybe there is, only that they need to create that chance with their own hands. Because nobody will come to help them. Because the pain will never stop hurting them. Because even if what awaits them outside is an expanse of the unknown, there is no longer anything for them here but eternal suffering.

And so, he decides to take the first step ahead in order to open the way for the two of them. He will walk up until a certain point, and then once assurance is already in his hands, he will come back to take her with him, and they'll finally be free.

But who would've thought that the pain works faster than neither of them could imagine? In the end, he loses his chance to find salvation, and he loses her forever.

All that is left for him is immense regret and bottomless despair, haunting him day and night, along with the voice of that pain ringing in his ears again and again.

"You're so useless!"

"Everything is your fault!"

"I wish you had never been born!"

And the sound of crying that always accompanies him gradually fades to nothingness.

***

Fujieda opens his eyes. For a long time, he stares into the darkness, feeling as though the darkness has eyes that are looking back at him. There is the sound of crying next to him but his body is petrified on the bed, unable to make even the slightest move.