The home of Yesufu pez Eden, Laus Oma, Mere Tauthua
When it came it was raw and quiet and unsmiling. Aremu listened, and he couldn’t look away.
A year ago, Aremu thought. A year ago - a year - of course. You died a year ago, and a little more. It was a struggle to keep his breathing smooth. There was the tiniest hint of a grin as familiar as it was disturbing, there and then gone, wiped away.
It’s a reminder, he said. For a moment, Aremu could imagine it - the constant, burdensome buzzing of it - like the carriage ride, he thought, but forever. Forever? He couldn’t have said what he felt; there was too much, and it was all choking him from the inside out.
He was watching Aremu now, carefully. Why? Why? What did he want? Aremu felt a pulse of fear, sharp and sour; it steadied him, enough that he could hold still, with a careful deep breath for company.
It would have been easy to push it a little further. A reminder of what, sir? How did it happen, sir? Are you dangerous, sir? He knew enough of the answers to each. Perhaps he had found ways to say it, by now; perhaps there was enough truth that could be shared to fill those answers.
Aremu didn’t want to. He hadn’t wanted the hunching of his shoulders, the anxious flicker of his gaze up and down. He hadn’t wanted that hesitant, uncertain grin. He hadn’t wanted to know what it meant to him, not really. He had asked and he had been answered, and he had long since seen too much.
Anything else?
“No, sir,” Aremu said, quietly. Nothing else; there were no other answers he wanted. He didn’t want the truth and he didn’t want a lie. He felt tired; so tired. He knew what he had to do to keep himself safe. He didn’t know what it would cost him; he didn’t know if it would be enough.
“I know something about scars, sir,” Aremu said, and he lifted his gaze again to meet his gray eyes. He hadn’t rolled his sleeve down, Aremu realized with a jolt; he reached for it with careful fingers, and uncurled the cuff without taking his wrist from his pocket. One, two, three, and the pocket beneath lay almost flat against his thigh.
He smoothed the shirtsleeve, gently, and looked back at him. He looked tired, Aremu thought, leaning against the door. He looked as tired as Aremu felt. To feel it around you, constantly - to feel it looking at the stars, to feel it diving into the wave, to feel it when a lover - Aremu couldn’t face the thought.
Aremu stepped forward into it, carefully. One step, and he could feel it buzzing at it, scraping him away. No; there could be no forgetting. Not like this.
A second step, a third, and there was no escaping it, no relief. He stood at the door, close to the heart of it, close; he didn’t let the slightest fraction of himself brush him.
“We should both rest,” Aremu said, softly. He didn’t know what was in his voice; he didn’t know what was spilling over. He couldn’t count the thoughts in his head, couldn’t begin to try and separate the tangle of them into separate strings. “Good night, sir.” He settled his hand on the door handle, and waited.
When he was ready, Aremu opened the door and watched him go. He didn’t back away; he didn’t hurry out of range. He waited, still and patient, and held on. He let it sweep over him, let it rub and scrape and hurt. He forced himself to look at it; he pressed his fingers in the wound, and it hurt.
Aremu closed the door slowly behind him.
He had thought he might be sick again. He stood there a moment, utterly still, but he didn’t have anything left to give. Slowly, Aremu reached down; it was torture to undo his buttons with one shaking hand. No matter how many times his fingers slipped off he tried again, and again, and in time he was folding his shirt over the chest, and then his pants.
The cool wind whisked through the tsug trees and dried the cold sweat against his skin. His teeth were chattering. He could barely grasp the blankets, but somehow then he was sliding beneath then.
Aremu cried.
He hadn’t wanted to. He hadn’t thought he would. He had done all that he could not to, and it wasn’t enough, and he had nothing else to give. He wept, like he never had as a boy. He buried his shaking face in the pillow, and hot, silent tears spilled from him. He cried, and he dug his hand into the bed and squeezed tight.
In time his eyes closed. Kofi leaves, leaves with gold - but he was too tired to see. He drifted through it, drained, an empty shell, and in time he slept.