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The thing about life is no one ever knows what’s going to happen next. But for Shin, this was never the case.
Why, because he knew. He always knew.
(*)
“I don’t know!”
Kick.
It stings. Shin can feel the rage simmering right under his veins, the almost drunken haze of it gets too high in his brain but he shakes his head and tries to pull himself together. The voices are a huge blur of jumbled noises and no matter how much he attempts, he cannot focus on any one of them. Worse, they seem to be on the move in the back of what he assumes to be some kind of a box truck and Shin just hopes they have not gotten too far from the store, he doesn’t want anyone, especially Sakamoto, to miss out on seeing Hana run for the relay race and other sports day events today. They have all helped a lot in training her and he can’t believe he got his ass kidnapped on a rare weekday off for the Sakamoto employees.
He was supposed to take the pictures, dammit! Lu and Heisuke were hopeless at it! Hana especially requested him and look, what shit he has gotten himself involved into!
Kick.
Shin feels a vessel pop in his head and he half wonders if it’s from the anger or the lack of functioning of his ESP as no matter how much he tries, he just cannot get a read on anyone’s thoughts here or even push his own onto them. The rope they have tied his limbs with is made from a high quality fibre, it refuses to budge despite his constant tugging and pathetic attempt to cut off the binds with the blade he keeps in his back pocket, in case of happenings like these. Shin really, really curses the moment he decided to step foot outside at the worst of times.
“Tell us already, kid, we have other jobs to attend to too,” the man drawls out in a lazy click of teeth and tongue. He is big, burly and there’s a scar running over his right eye down to his shoulder but otherwise, he appears normal and doesn’t seem to have any special power.
Kick.
Except for maybe herculean strength because wow, that hurts. Shin coughs, his face hitting the ground with a hard thud. He grits his teeth, wills himself to calm down and take a deep breath. Okay, he can’t read minds, can’t give out commands, can’t do anything clairvoyant so what else is left except for waiting for Sakamoto to rescue him once again like always? What can he actually do right now on his own, since he refuses to take any more kicks to his face than he already had, he is sure something in his skull will dismantle if this keeps going on and he can’t help but curse himself once more for being so careless and stupid.
Before a kick can land itself onto Shin again, someone from this man’s group stops him. “We don’t want to break him before he can utter the words, Hiro-chan. Calm down.”
Shin only gets to heave a sigh of relief for maybe half a second before he is yanked up by a fist in his hair and is forced to intake a substance, almost choking on it even as this new guy caresses his face, the feel of his touch slimy on Shin’s skin, making him shudder and flinch away from it. “You’re surprisingly tough for someone so soft.”
Yikes. It is just within Shin’s luck to be caught by the most awful of the bunch. He would barf, if he actually had something in his stomach besides the tensed nerves and a pain so ridiculous, he would prefer going through the X ordeal again than this.
“Be a good boy and answer us, hm?”
“I said, I don’t know, you asshole!” With this, Shin hits this fucker’s forehead with his own and takes immense pleasure in hearing his pained groan. Deserved! He just won’t stop touching Shin.
Though, it doesn’t take long for Shin to suffer too for in the very next blink of his eyes, he is out coughing blood and the air reaching his lungs feels palpably restricted.
The guy starts laughing. “Asai,” the kicking man from earlier, Hiro, calls in warning.
“Sorry, sorry, it’s just,” Asai says in between, continuing snickering, “he is so funny. Funny and cute. Such a lovely boy! He doesn’t even know!” More laughing. “He doesn’t know! Look at that guileless face, oh, I adore him! Can we take him home, Hiro-chan? Please? I will look after him, I promise!”
Hiro sighs, looking far more tired by hearing this Asai talk shit than he was at Shin’s persistent refusal to spit out what they have been wanting him to. “Kid. You just swallowed the truth poison.”
He has what, now?
(*)
Through thoughts and emotions and feelings, movements and actions and senses, heart and mind and soul — one way or the other, Shin was forever used to being a step ahead of life. There had been falters, obviously, he was no god but predictability of the unpredictable was a weapon he had forged with the utmost care that proved to be useful even in the most precarious or mundane of situations. He found comfort in knowing, habitual of the constant hum of murmurs and whispers running in the back of his head like a static of an old television set that needs to be thumped thrice before it runs smoothly. It did get a bit annoying when the crowd was huge or the emotions felt were too intense but you can only yell so much to your neighbour to keep the volume down, after a point, you just have to get used to it. Shin had, by then.
His ability might have been unique but in a world of rarities, what he got was nothing more special than the next person who possibly possessed a wonder far greater than him. Before, this very line of thought would have made him anxious and doubt his worth but Shin, with this too, had made his peace. He will do what he’s able to do with what he has rather than beat himself up for what he can’t. That’s just how life has been like for him so far, a constant myriad of getting used to knowing and being alright with the lack of surprise. That’s how he has survived until now.
(*)
“What the hell is that?” Shin croaks out, somehow, his breath getting laboured with every further second.
“A kind of poison that gets intensified at every lie spoken. Refusal to speak is fatal too. You have ten minutes at most, kid. The poison will stop affecting you the moment you give the right answer to what is being asked of you.”
No. No. No. This can’t be happening, no way. Shin has never heard of such a poison before, much less even trained to be immune to it. His ears start ringing and he lets out more blood before he can even process what the hell is going on and no, he can’t die like this. After everything, dying like this is so uncool and not to forget, he has so much shit left to do. The stock for the new branch of Sakamoto store will arrive tomorrow, he has to go out with Lu and Heisuke to overlook and arrange it and then have a nice dinner with them, all paid off by Sakamato himself, he has to buy new plants for the shop and the house with Aoi, Hana is sure to win some medals today and Shin ought to get her a present as a reward, he has been planning to catch up with the JCC kids soon too and Shishiba is yet to fulfill the favour he owes Shin which immediately reminds him of Osaragi because these two can never be separate even in other people’s dying thoughts and he then can’t help but think of—no. No, he refuses to let his last breath be named after that frivolous bastard.
His eyes begin to shut off, the only words he longs to speak the most lose themselves somewhere in between his next exhale and the loud bang of someone dropping from the very top of the skies to the utter core of the earth.
Sorry, I will be leaving first, Sakamoto-san.
(*)
Until, he met Sakamoto again after years and what he knew became so much smaller than what he was still yet to.
His world grew. He found people to care about who extended the same care to him, without conditions, without expectations, without needing Shin to be anyone he is not just so he could better fit in. Shin was accepted and sought after for who he is, was allowed to take more than what he thought he could, simply, because he wanted to.
Love can take the form of a rice bowl filled to the brim, was something Shin only learned after meeting the Sakamotos.
It was unfamiliar. For once, Shin did not know anything about what was supposed to happen next.
It was also strange, the feeling of finally being able to belong somewhere and not be ridiculed for wanting to.
Life was no more what Shin once thought it would be for someone like him.
(*)
“Shin!”
Hm?
“Shin!”
Who?
“Shin!”
—!
Shin gasps. A fish out of water thrown back into the sea. Gazing up at a moonless night, dark, dark, so dark, the light of the stars can never reach through this vast obsidian blanket and colour him warm.
“What kind of person do you think I am, Shin?”
“Liar,” Shin answers with breath steadying ever so slowly. “A liar who never got punished for his lies.”
(*)
And little by little, day after day, Shin started looking forward to the unknown.