Keeping to himself, unable to move and think for himself, unable to be himself, Dairue kept pacing around the room. Noticing the look of Yuki, he put the waving gun down on the table and sat on the floor. Hands tucked, nothing more to speak about, the road on his end was fogged, and the mist was too much to see through.
"What happened to you? Did- was your family affected by the fire?- Max, help me here?" Yuki could not make out what happened and why his apartment was ransacked
"Sigh… We, we starte-"
"Wait! Aahh... Don't speak, wait, listen, listen.."
Dairue put his hands on Max's mouth, preventing him from finishing the sentence.
"Look, look, Hisae, listen, I started it because I wanted to keep all of us safe.." Dairue kept to himself, deranged and confused about what happened yesterday, his voice was afraid of what she might do. Finding excuses left and right with her eyes, he was visibly panicking.
Yuki grabbed Dairue's gun and aimed at his forehead.
"Oi! Oi! Yuki... No, he's not lying, we had to do it. Justifying it is impossible, we had to do it!.." Max shielded Dairue with all his body, ready to die at a moment's notice. He defended him, pretentious as he was with his reason, he cared, and he never knew what was wrong anymore.
"How exactly? Why?! I don't, I don't think, there just isn't a reason~!" tears were flowing down her face, her eyes said it all, she was not capable of firing the trigger. Her elbow's straight and bruised, never aimed at his head, only over his hair, she was not ready to take a life.
"Yeah, but listen, listen! There's a cult or something out there that's hunting us down." he sounded insane, long lost in the streets he rode in. Yuki was equally mortified, her mouth in a frown, her eyes widened, dropping the gun into the floor
"Lights, there's plenty of unexplainable things here but you gotta trust both of us. " he kept to his truth, she knew Max could not lie about something so significant, even as a joke or a prank. Double-crossing her opinion,
"What's with the change of heart? Huh?." Dairue began to question why he was in front of him, slumped on the dusty window shine, the light particles blinded his eyes as he fell back from being pushed by the boy.
"Because I saw what they can do… " his tone lowered to a whisper, he kneeled beside Dairue and told Hisae to sit down with them and talk this through, giving a hint of sympathy for both of them.
The man scrambles over his words, trembling in what he tried to make out, no explanations were able to give the "Lights" a believable description. Unable to make out its physical shape, its disappearing properties, and its reappearing angles, unable to put an image into Yuki's mind, rambling over and over on one attribute, the disappearing angles.
Sitting pathetically, Dairue finally speaks up. Pointing over at the shut blinds, and the windows, he reveals the "X" mark and the unscrewed hinges out of the outer window frame. Like a snail, he revealed everything slowly, the years spent figuring out as much as the surface of the iceberg, a little worthless clue that might just bring a bigger answer.
How do you truly know yourself, Max? When you question whether what you saw that day was set in stone, a test done by you, drugged by the very people you trust? How must one figure out when they can barely see over the daylight of their house, when they barely leave their comforts behind, when you only speak the truth that hurts, and tell the lie that saves yourself?
Answers begin to breed more and more questions, the list of coincidences and human trafficking cases, the rising suicide rates, the lack of any signal in any spot that's been overrun. They slowly piece together nothing more than a fragmentary picture of events that do not correlate, Each new piece seemingly going farther and farther away from realistic events.
"So, so this is what I've been missing out on…?" her knees and bruised elbows, her tender lips and bell-shaped nose, Dairue looked at her as she spoke with curiosity, stunned by her beauty at such a terrible moment. Sugarcoated eyes, sugarcoated lies, sugarcoated thighs, inside, full of rot and flies.
"No, We've been missing out on it... Why have you never told us this before, Dairue??" he put his hand on his shoulder, comforting him before he ever decided to answer with another immoral statement.
"Go figure! Because it's classified, unbelievable, and unrealistic, add to that, half of these are nothing more than blind guesses.." he shook his head in disbelief, even saying it to himself, felt outlandish to hear of something so disconnected from our own.
"How do we confirm? Maybe you should work on getting answers before getting people killed, next time…" Max was trying to get under his skin, metaphorically fighting his moral standpoint with his gray fists of idiocracy.
"What?!-" Yuki went up to Dairue, her eyes met him, a few inches from each other's faces. His pupils dilated with hers, their tense eye contact cut short by a short blush. A rush of shyness softly killed the moment they shared
"God... They volunteered, they are what we can call heroes, as demented as it sounds.." Max pushed her back to her original position, knowing they should keep focus instead of making double-edged flirty exchanges. She was the troublemaker she's been, one that can't be stopped by a single "no"
"Their families?! Oy, think about this.!" She leaped from her seat, slapping her hands into her knees.
"I- only allowed those who have none, it's wrong, but most of them came there to die.." Dairue looked down at his watch, avoiding her eyes, looking ingenuine and demoralized.
"So what now? You're both done being dramatic, what the fuck do we do now?" Max stood up and took the gun for himself, knowing it was safer with him than with either of the two other people he shared the room with.
All three of them could only look at each other and wonder what was next for their shitty operations, neither of the three were willing to find out, and the silence was all they could muster. No bright ideas were able to spare the remaining questions, no lives were at the table to cut off, and no volunteers were willing to die for their cause anymore.
"I am gonna be the first to say it, but it's gonna be stupid to even attempt trying to find this out ourselves. If you're gonna make someone do this, let the adults handle it this time. You're not good enough as a leader, let your older members handle this, please... " Max couldn't help himself, the idea of feeding more lives to the burner just to keep the fire going was stupid for him.
Dairue pointedly looked at him, knowing there was no opposition, Max was right. He held his list of trusted people, hoping to give Max a choice on who they should bring, yet he could only think of Kenji and Raiden as responsible adults, the rest were nothing more than suicidal children who wanted to gain a purpose in life before they died.
"I take it back, we have to be there.." Max reversed his sentence, keeping himself from being in harm's way.
"You know I can't go right?! My parents aren't just gonna set me free to go wherever.." she was energetic again, she yawned and turned away from them, keeping her eyes between the blinds that separated the light from the room.
"Not you, just me and him. Maybe Yasu and Yuari would be willing?" Max took hold of knowing how their two friends are likely going to act, suggesting that the two together would make for a better team than a bunch of suicidal teenagers that had no other intent than to face death with a smile.
You read the list, yet nobody came to mind. You read the chants of the church you burned to the ground and you still pointed your feet in the direction of leaning closer to the mystery. Were you being called by something? One beyond what you knew, one so blatantly obvious hiding in between the clouds in the sky.
Finding out would not be worth the risk, keeping still would not be worth the tasteful bliss. Being involved was the only way you could speak for yourself, being involved was the only way to keep her, your only parent left with you, safe. Her safety sounded like bells and chimes, she made you a meal, gave you a life you don't enjoy, might as well repay her with a smiling ploy.
They had little time left to plan, afternoon was coming after them, and reaching dawn was not worth the comedic relief of doing something wholesome for the night. Yuki's thoughts were more than disabled, she could not fathom which was real and which was fake anymore. Her stress from staying home, her dwindling patience were taking a toll on her reputation.
Dairue had little left to spend, little left to spare for what was left. The fireworks display was on the horizon, they knew it would be the worst time to travel, yet the viable dates were few and far between. They decided to take the two most crucial days, the day before the fireworks and the day after, carefully laying out what hours they would spend and who to bring.
The table was filled with pieces of cardboard, the dusty legs were rickety, and stored barely any strength left. The walls were charred, and the room was fully soundproofed, almost like he was living in an abandoned apartment.
Max asked if he could go outside, Dairue permitted and gave in to his request, he unlocked the bolts and opened the door. Papers flew out, mail and empty letters, Max was disturbed by their quantity, the number of attempts they tried to make contact with their youngest son, only to fail to get his attention.
The boy was feeling lightheaded and dizzy, he went and checked the doors on the other hallways, seeing if anybody was inhabiting any of the other rooms. They were all empty, he went downstairs to the first floor, the nausea was getting to his nerves, and he couldn't contain himself anymore. He unloaded and got ready to face the sink, taking clothes off of him.
He vomited bile all over the sink, feeling a small sense of relief before looking to see it had traces of brown, small quantities of coagulated blood filling his stomach acids. Max's concern grew further away from him, he no longer cared as much about his own life knowing he was on the verge of facing his demise.
Feeling better, he spat and expected a red substance, yet instead only got bubbly goo. He turned the tap on, gargling the water that came from the rusty tap, the entrance of the apartment faced away from the street, nobody saw what he did and nobody found a trace of his bile.
Yet before he could go out, Hisae and Dairue had gone down, they were adamant that their plans went nowhere without Max. Max took his bag and made sure nobody looked into the bathroom, he chewed on his packed mints and said one final verdict before leaving the door.
"Yasu will come with you, force Yuari to come with us. Kenji should be kind enough to lend some guns... " Max was delighted with their current idea, believing it to be the best course of action.
"What about you?" Dairue questioned him, wondering where he'll be.
"I'll be at work, better yet, I'll come with you if I don't feel bad.." Max was no longer optimistic about seeing another day where he won't feel such pain, expecting the next few weeks of his life to offer a steady decline in his health, he kept to it and bore through nonetheless, clashing with his own mortal body just to make an impact.
"When I get home, I will write, don't expect me to answer for I'll be gone..." his tone was threatening, Max did not want to deal with the daylight anymore, he wanted to make at least a single public impact, a lasting legacy before he'd leave behind the world.
"Goodbye, I hope you two don't do anything dumb while am gone," he said to Dairue and Yuki.