Chapter 89: 89 And Afterwards You Wake Up, Part Two

Elsewhere in Zapville, Tsuyoshi stopped at the doorway and threw his bag into the small shed. It bounced off the bed and hit the floor. Yet another one of the weird, small sheds with bunk beds and folding chairs, this one abandoned by any other human being – which was why Tsuyoshi decided to take a chance on it.

"Are you sure?" Ibrahim asked from behind Tsuyoshi. "Everyone who slept in this room in the past has died. Yong Jie believes it may be cursed."

"I don't believe in curses," Tsuyoshi said. That was a lie. He just didn't care if it was cursed.

Ibrahim put a too-warm hand to the bare skin of Tsuyoshi's lower arm. In the cold Tsuyoshi's fingers had gone numb, but the heat of Ibrahim's body standing too close behind him was waking Tsuyoshi's skin up to pain.

"Are you sure you won't reconsider my offer to take a spare bed in my room?" Ibrahim asked.

"If I'm going to take a dead guy's bed," Tsuyoshi said, "it's going to be in here where I can get some peace and quiet."

"It doesn't have to be Gael's bed you take. Yong Jie has decided to move elsewhere in this camp to be closer to his mother."

Tsuyoshi shook off Ibrahim's hand and turned around. Ibrahim's eyes, warm brown and vibrant red, pierced too deep as he stared, but the thin line of his mouth was as cold as everything else in their little universe.

"All the more reason not to be near whatever weird shit you and Milo do."

Ibrahim stepped back and plastered a smile on his face. "Well, if you're sure."

*

But it was cold and dark alone in there at night, and the sound of nothing but his own breath was almost too loud to bear.

*

People watched Tsuyoshi when he walked between his little shed and the hospital. They were always watching him. Watching and whispering, turning their faces away as soon as he walked near.

His world narrowed to a handful of people, most of them very intense.

But it was quiet. More quiet than things had ever been in his life. The noise inside his head felt like it was slowly slipping away until there was almost no part of his personality left. Just a lot of sitting in the dark, feeling like he'd scooped out his own insides.

When he ate, it was early in the mornings before most people in the camp were awake, or very late at night. Or, on occasion, in the afternoon, when Ibrahim would drag him to the kitchenette in the gymnasium and force him to swallow a dry biscuit and a lukewarm cup of tea.

"I won't let you starve yourself," Ibrahim said.

Tsuyoshi didn't think he was in any danger of letting himself. He still hungered. He could not stop himself being a creature of useless desires.

Still, he reported to Dr Yeoh and did what she told him to. And when Neo passed him anywhere in Zapville and said something snide, he said something equally vicious back.

The scrolling sign on the outside of the hospital read, 'Declutter your life. Throw out the elements that are no longer useful.'

It didn't make Tsuyoshi feel very optimistic.

*

The kitchenette of the gymnasium was very quiet early in the morning. It was small and badly lit, and the cabinets that ugly pale yellow that always looked like they should have been white once upon a time.

The quiet made sense, of course. Everyone else was super depressed and slept really late. Except for Ibrahim who woke up early and went to bed early, so he could have a morning cup of tea when nobody was around, just like Tsuyoshi's grandmother. Decaf teabags still existed in Zapville, even if full strength teabags had disappeared when the coffee did. Not that Tsuyoshi could tell the difference. It all tasted the same to him.

Ibrahim could loom so large when he wanted that it felt like surely he shouldn't fit into such a small space, and yet he blended in completely.

"I do wonder why you're trying to avoid Angharad when she is so determined to talk to you," Ibrahim said, as he passed over a cup of tea. Even his kindness came with conditions; the conditions were lecturing. Tsuyoshi couldn't understand why he put up with it.

"Because I don't want to talk to her," Tsuyoshi said.

"I sincerely doubt that."

"What's it to you?"

Ibrahim stirred his spoon through his cup of tea, with a slow, almost hypnotic notion. "I just don't like to see young people sad for no reason."

"I'm twenty years old."

"I was talking about her. Please stop acting like this. She's disappointed enough in you already."

"She can tell me herself. She doesn't need you to act like an in between."

"Oh, can she?" Ibrahim said with a smile. "So good to have that all sorted out."

Tsuyoshi felt the sting of manipulation. He planned to keep avoiding her, though.

*

There was no real wind, and yet somehow Tsuyoshi's door blew open in the night. He woke up shivering, his whole back sore. He knew that meant he'd have to find more blankets or steal some of his sweaters back from Angharad, and yet he didn't want to move. Only the electrical crackling and sharp whistling sounds of the world outside, their frustrating constant building in tone that wouldn't let him fall back sleep, finally got him out of bed, blankets pulled around himself like clothes, to push the door closed again. It didn't want to slam shut again. He dragged over the stack of folding chairs and used it to keep the door in place, as close to closed as he could get.

Hours later, after he finally got dressed, he opened the door to find Zelko standing there, quiet for once.

Tsuyoshi stepped back. He considered slamming the door and then remembered there was no point. It would only spring open again and waste his effort.

Instead he crossed his arms over himself and said, "What do you want?"

"You can't spend this much time alone," Zelko said.

"Watch me."

"I think we could be friends. Let me be your friend." Zelko looked sincere while he said it, but he always looked sincere no matter what garbage was coming out of his mouth. At that moment Tsuyoshi couldn't stand to look at him.

"Get out of my way," Tsuyoshi said, eyes dropping to Zelko's feet.

"No, come on..."

Tsuyoshi didn't listen any longer. He slammed an elbow straight into the softest part of Zelko's side and shoved past.

Zelko kept talking even as Tsuyoshi walked away, so Tsuyoshi ran instead, even though there was nowhere to run to.

The hospital seemed to loom larger than ever as he ran to it, as if it had grown in the night. He shot through the front doors and then stopped before he could hit the wall. He couldn't remember why Dr Yeoh had asked him to go there that morning, but she wasn't there waiting for him, and like a fool he'd arrived like it really was his job and not just something he did to waste his time. He didn't really want to walk around the halls and have to talk to people who hated him.

Still, he looked around the corner, just in case she was there.

Angharad stood down the end of the hallway, talking to Niall, who leaned further toward her with every word and smiled at her like she was an amusing diversion. She stepped back and Niall stepped closer. The sounds of their voices refused to carry far enough down the hall for Tsuyoshi to hear.

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He wanted to leave more than he wanted to interfere, but he didn't move either way. That was why he was lousy. She had to realise she needed better soon enough.

Niall reached out a hand and leaned down. Angharad pushed him away. And at the exact moment that she swerved around Niall's hand and looked up the hall, her face brightened with a smile stronger than the sterile hospital lighting and she called out Tsuyoshi's name. Niall's expression turned dark when he looked down the hall.

Tsuyoshi wasn't interested in dealing with that. He turned to finally force himself back out of the building but Angharad's joyful jog was too fast for him to evade. She skid forward and cut off his path.

"It is, like, so good that you gave me an excuse to avoid Niall. He's even more annoying than James," she said.

"Yeah, exactly," Tsuyoshi said.

"Exactly!" And then she blinked at him, as her smile fell away into a look of confusion. "What do you mean exactly?"

Tsuyoshi raised an eyebrow. "Really? You need it spelled out for you?"

"Um, yes."

"You keep looking for a sexy older brother figure—"

"I do not!"

"—that you flirt with and test your wits against and pretend is safe to be around, and then you act surprised when they're not safe at all."

"That is not... I do not... Niall is more like a little brat and y-you..."

She folded her face up in anger and he thought of Tabitha, of her voice when she was angry, how much scarier she was than Angharad could ever be; Tabitha, sleeping down the hallway, dangerous and tragic and completely the winner of all the head games she played. He'd already ruined his relationship with Tabitha. He contemplated how easy it would be to ruin everything he had left.

He put a hand to the soft skin of Angharad's face and she looked up at him with that hopeful expression he couldn't escape. He leaned in close to her ear so he wouldn't have to see it.

"And me," he said. "You thought you got lucky with me because I will never try to fuck you, but Angharad, I don't want to be your brother, either."

She shoved him back, said, "Why are you doing this? Stop trying to push me away just because you're sad about stuff. It's stupid."

"Come on, then. Give me a..."

A shove from the side before he could finish the sentence had him hitting the wall hard enough that he felt it everywhere. His knees folded under him at the shock and he hit the floor next. For the first time in months he felt warm all over. He tried to blink away the world swimming around him.

Angharad shrieked, "Leave him alone, Jin!" and then Jin yelled something that Tsuyoshi couldn't hear over the ringing in his ears.

He tried to push himself up right but the world spun too fast and he fell back down. It took way too long for Tsuyoshi to lever himself upright and limp out, not looking back.

Somehow he made his way through the blurring world back to his lonely shed.

*

He only realised he'd fallen asleep when he woke up.

Ibrahim was sitting by the bed on one of the folding chairs. Tsuyoshi slowly pushed himself to see that the other chair was still holding the door gently closed.

"What do you want?" Tsuyoshi asked, though it lacked his usual force.

Ibrahim put a hand to Tsuyoshi's jaw and turned his head this way and that. Tsuyoshi allowed it.

"You don't seem to be injured," Ibrahim said.

"It wasn't my face that hit the wall."

Tsuyoshi wasn't entirely sure that was true. Already the memory of it was vague and unreliable. Probable concussion.

Ibrahim pulled his hands back and folded them in his lap. "Well, I won't check under your clothes."

Tsuyoshi sat up straighter then leaned back, looked at Ibrahim from under his lowered eyelashes as Ibrahim became conspicuously still. "You better not."

"I don't understand why you would try to fight with that girl like that. Yes, I heard about it. Everyone has heard about it, of course. She loves you and just wants you to be happy."

"I'm practising non-attachment."

"Are you? You're certainly very attached to your misery."

"Like you're not attached to yours!"

"I have not professed a life philosophy of detachment," Ibrahim said, voice wry.

"Maybe you should." So Tsuyoshi pushed down his loose shirt until the collar stretched past his shoulder, and out further over the part of his arm and upper back that still throbbed with the warmth of the hospital wall. "Stay detached while you look at this."

Ibrahim leaned in to look. "You're beginning to bruise."

"Of course I am."

Ibrahim's fingers were not as gentle as they should have been as they pressed against the injured spot. Tsuyoshi bit his own lip and refused to give Ibrahim the satisfaction of an obvious reaction.

"Milo would know how to do this better than you do," Tsuyoshi said. "You're kind of useless at it. You should ask him how it's meant to be done."

Ibrahim let out the slightest hint of a laugh. "I have learned a lot from Milo."

Ibrahim's fingers pressed too hard against Tsuyoshi's skin again. Tsuyoshi grabbed Ibrahim by the wrist to pull him away and Ibrahim's warm hand slipped through Tsuyoshi's grip when he pulled himself away from Tsuyoshi's touch.

"Please don't do that," Ibrahim said.

Tsuyoshi pulled the shirt back up over his shoulder. "You need to learn what gentle means."

"I don't imagine I'm the only one of whom that is true."

Tsuyoshi pulled the covers up around himself. "Is that all? Are you going to go tell Milo or the doctor or whoever sent you that I'm fine now?"

Ibrahim drew his bony fingers back to his own lap. "Nobody sent me. But I do think Milo should have a look at you to make sure you don't have a serious injury." Tsuyoshi groaned in annoyance, but Ibrahim reached for him again. "Wait, please hear me out. I also... I also have done things that make me uncomfortable with myself. I have had to treat the body of one young friend in a way that is disrespectful in order to protect the life of another young friend. I have no regrets, but..." Ibrahim put a hand on Tsuyoshi's shoulder again, but already the heaviness of it in this dark room felt different than it had a minute before. "Please, Milo is too gentle with me. I want the comfort of a friend who can be more caustic with me. I have no one else to ask."

Tsuyoshi swallowed. "I mean, if you..." He looked away from Ibrahim's steady gaze. "Sure, okay. Just tonight."

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