Tokyo Babylon Fan Fiction / X/1999 Fan Fiction ❯ A Perfect Circle ❯ Proper Study of Mankind ( Chapter 6 )

In lazy apathy let Stoics boast

Their virtue fix'd; 'tis fix'd as in a frost;

Contracted all, retiring to the breast;

But strength of mind is Exercise, not Rest:

The rising tempest puts in act the soul,

Parts it may ravage, but preserves the whole.

On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,

Reason the card, but Passion is the gale;

Nor God alone in the still calm we find,

He mounts the storm, and walks upon the wind. (1)

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"Never give up, huh…"

Seishirou blew a thin stream of undulating smoke into the midnight-blue shadows of his apartment and sighed, leaning back in his chair and allowing the ice-white moonlight from the open window to play across his face. His heavy coat was carelessly draped over the back of another chair; his suit jacket was thrown onto the kitchen table with the dark snake of his necktie. He had undone the top button of his shirt and thrown his shoes into the corner. His cigarette pack was still in his breast pocket, crushed with only three rolls remaining in the cellophane-edged package.

/Beautiful, isn't it?/ He smiled, cradled his cigarette between his lips, and examined the channels of blood running down his still-gloved hands, collecting at the hem of the cloth and running under his bare wrist and down his arm. He dangled his hand and watched the blood reverse direction and run toward his fingertips. There was not enough free-flowing blood left to have the dramatic effect he wished; it merely further dried on his gloves. He sighed and pulled his gloves off, still smiling to himself and maintaining a habitual look of tranquility. /Still masking and deluding myself, even in solitude. That I could create illusions that often even shroud my own heart is a tribute to my talent, I guess. To delude myself this far… for this long, and to consider the end of the illusions my defeat… that in truth I cannot live…to acknowledge what I already know, ah! Why is that so difficult to do? My psychology deludes even me, and yet, beyond every analysis, I cannot change the very most basic way that I operate. So, in the final analysis, if I cannot change even myself, where do the boundaries of my power lie? He took a drag of his cigarette. In my heart, in my own well of downfall. 'If thy hand profane thee, cut it off, and maimed enter the kingdom of heaven.' No heaven awaits me-hah, to never taste that, damning myself to never do such a thing with my own reserve and self-deprivation-to cut off heaven to enter heaven; to cut off heaven to enter my "victory"-therein is my paradox. Both cannot be attained. There is no heaven without the shame and defeat; there is no victory without hell. Why?/

/'Why, why', I keep asking myself, and never a clear answer. The answers are not nearly as glamorous as I would wish them to be. Ah, such mundane things as rigid pride, maintenance of image, and programming at upbringing--in such simple truths lays human nature. Nothing so glorious as people maintain. I do not deny a fathomless well of entangled and raving psychotic tendencies to my name; no. That is most definitely there./ He laughed silently to himself. /I can never be what I idealize of myself, that 'god'; I can only understand myself through analysis of what I really am, what I really do. No idealized imagination. I am just a human. Does that make me even deeper? Bloody hell, this is the sort of nonsense I thought about in high school. I guess in some ways I am severely emotionally immature, considering my own self-induced stunting of the development of those faculties./

He stretched his legs out in front of him and relaxed further into the chair. This was Seishirou out-of-view: disheveled, exhausted, tortured, with a rigidly masked face attempting to relax for its own physical sake, and lonely.

Lonely.

/It's your own damn fault; you wouldn't have it any other way. He sighed. How long can you keep deluding yourself of your own strength; how many more tests? How many more days following him around and never responding, watching him sleep and getting ever closer just to see when you will crack. Just to feel yourself hurt. Just to allow yourself to feel in the only way you will allow yourself to feel without guilt. The only 'honorable' feeling, you warped bastard. How much longer allowing this to be the only thing that validates a hollow existence, your pain, your test, all hollow in the end? Well-in this game of life, one might as well play to win./

Subaru-kun.

/'Win' by your own rules. We all think of our own rules for life; your set is disgustingly common. Strength by Spartan philosophy. How trite. How boring. How hollow. Living your life drinking of the obsession and pain of one kind boy, in the luxurious position of being allowed to be aloof and still hold his captivation and heart, ah, to get to feel the same in return and blame him for all the weakness. And nobody has to know. Nobody has to know. This is your dirty little secret, Seishirou. An all-consuming love. The one thing that defines you: how you deprive yourself, how strong it grows, all of the pain. The pain that you allow yourself to feel./

/I'm alive. Subaru-kun, you are my reason to live. You are everything. You harbinger everything that I feel. Damn you./

/I hate you./

/And I can't come to terms with myself on this issue, no./ He sat up slightly and dragged on his cigarette. /To delude myself by day, every conscious moment, that I feel nothing, that you are nothing, and to have it work, but now-the lonely night, the hollow night, when I am the most alive-definitely not the only time that I acknowledge my humanity, but the only time I allow it to settle in my chest and reside in the security of my own home. Until I kill off every other stimuli that makes me feel and sees through my façade, I will have something to stave off the boredom, but you… you are the most basic and granted aspect of my being. /

The ragged, bloodstained frog stared at the back of his head from his kitchen counter, beetle-black eyes reflecting a pin-mark of the moon.

/You are being taken from me. And that must be stopped, Subaru-kun. Until you bind yourself not only to me with undivided love, but also with undivided hate. Until I am everything to you as you are everything to me. Until this is equal. Until you no longer threaten me. A rare moment in which I will even admit that to myself. Ah, 'too much weakness for the stoic's pride', indeed, this middle state of man. Curse it. Petty jealousy, if you must, drive me. I don't care anymore./ He dragged on his cigarette. /Remind me that I am alive. Let me play the game a little bit longer. Why not? As soon as I die, nothing will remain. I have nothing to loose. I am a broken man; this is all that I have in my life. Even in admitting that, let me rest. Let me follow my gut for once./

/I have everything to loose. God damn you, Kamui./

/--Do I really threaten you so much?--/

/It gets lonely at night; allow me to delude myself. You know every thought in my heart anyway. Quell the loneliness with the mere presence of flesh and remind me of the carnal pleasures. Hormones are merely physical; I feel no shame for them. So what if I enjoy my work? Is it not a form of strength to make the best of a situation? /

/--Whore.--/

/Touching is only stigmatic so long as one attaches great meaning to it; you only touch my body. It is in no way violation. Everything is hollow by nature and with meaning only as we attach it./

/--Whore.--/

/Shut up. Get the hell out of my head./

/--And is it really no more defeat to admit these simple truths to me, now, in your head where it matters the most - to the self - than it is to fall in the 'outside world' with your actions?--/

/You cannot help what you feel. You can only control your actions./

/--Shocking. I thought you were under the delusion that you could absolutely control your every emotion.--/

/Grow up. No, I can't./

/--If that is the case, why do you even struggle?--/

/That is how I have chosen to live my life./

/--With those hang-ups that govern you being just as pathetic and weak, just as much bound to social expectations-in essence, what defines you as 'cold' by popular society-as anybody else's philosophy? If not more so, since you are so reliant upon illusionary image? You are risking nothing real. You throw illusionary shields out there to break for you. You coward.--/

/Silence. Where the hell are you?/

/--Wishing to submit to mere carnal lust once again?--/

/You know very well the only reason that I touch you./

/--That is what you keep telling yourself, and I do not deny that was your initial motive and still remains cardinal in your mind, but you also love it.--/

/I hate it because of this sort of nonsense./

/--The 'nonsense' meaning the fact that I know that you love it so very much? That, in fact, you are not repelled by any human touching you and you so love it when you have 'no excuse' for the action and can indulge yourself? That you are glad that you have 'no choice' so that you don't have to just watch and die of thirst? Watch and deprive yourself? Watch behind that mask and pretend to be strong? Watch others place themselves on the line because you have manipulated them into the lower hand and be able to watch from a safe distance and never have to reciprocate while you in fact feel the very same way? Isn't that your drug?--/

/Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink./

/--Ah… that water. The wine you cannot taste even if you drown yourself in fresh water?--/

/You are only water to the wine I wish to taste./

/--Coward.--/

/You are just mindless self-indulgence./

/--Slut.--/

/I have already fallen; why can I not just languish in the spoils?/

/--Why not, indeed?--/

/Wouldn't it be nice to be happy for a change?/

/--Could you truly lose all of your pathetic facades and rules for life and just live with the risk of losing the only thing that sustains you?--/

/My pride? My mask? The pride in my self-deprivation and my self-perpetuated illusions of null feeling? I would cease to be Sakurazuka Seishirou, wouldn't I? And I cannot go back from the path that governs from the root of my life. There would be no forgiveness for me./

/--I guess you are just that pathetic. That is your choice.--/

/I hate you./

/--You know I am right.--/

/And as always, I cannot handle the truth. Allow me to resurrect my illusions for a moment. I need my security blanket./

/--Your sense of humor, at least, remains intact.--/

/If you can't laugh at yourself, you have very little./

/--You already have no sense of true self. You doll.--/

/At least I died of my own hand. Of my own free will./

"You did." Fuuma slipped behind Seishirou's chair and crouched with his arms draped around the latter's shoulders, spreading his coat tails on the floor behind him. The effect in the moonlight was ethereal. "And you wanted me to see so very pointedly into your soul and argue with accuracy because it is comforting for there to be one, at least one, person in this world who understands you." He snorted and buried his face in the crook of Seishirou's neck. "Better even if he is your lover."

The shadow-flicker of distaste across Seishirou's features disappeared with renewed energy as it had come, fluttering into the night. He smiled and slid behind the mental walls that he wished to maintain though he knew that Fuuma had full access to whatever he wished to see. It at least made him feel himself, reminded him of his identity and kept him self-possessed. It made him feel as though he was still detached and fighting. /If I can delude myself, perhaps it will come true, someday. Self-fulfilled prophesies are rather powerful. A form of illusion. My forte./

"Truly such a luxury for me to be able to do this and invade your desolate, begging soul and yet allow you to delude yourself into security and detachment. If I were you, I would lock me in a closet and never allow me to leave."

"You wish to think such a thing."

"I thought we had moved beyond this." Fuuma bit Seishirou on the nape of the neck-hard. Seishirou closed his eyes and silently exhaled. A wave of molten fire flowed through his gut and settled at its core. "Bad, bad. We need not wade through this useless dominance struggle once again. You know that I know exactly what you are thinking, so there is no need to even try. Do not prove your own stupidity by clinging to such petty games to preserve your image and assure others of your mindless rebellion despite your awareness of the futility and arbitrary state of such actions."

"And I do know that deep down you know that I care nothing for you."

"Not for me, anyway." Fuuma tilted Seishirou's face toward his and smiled. "That just means that given the 'must be done' excuse to do this, you would take anybody and weave illusions with the carnal act that would make you feel as though you were not alone. Slut. You are alone, and you are the one who made that decision."

"It is the side of human nature I must stave." He smiled back, one living, smoldering eye examining Fuuma's garnet-red pair and searching for laces of malice and genuine depth. The fluctuations were becoming just audible enough to trace a change; progress was being made. He closed his eyes in satisfaction and ruffled Fuuma's hair. "Since this must be done, I see no sin in enjoying my work to the fullest. That is, per say, a form of strength, to make the best of things."

"I am well aware of that." Fuuma caught the hand mussing his hair and lapped the dried blood off of the inside of its wrist, pausing to first allow his saliva to quench the tracks into liquid. "I am just waiting for you to absorb your own inherent knowledge to heart, for once."

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Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,

The proper study of mankind is Man. (2)

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"…'placed on this isthmus in a middle state; a being rudely…' I do hope it was 'rudely'… wise and 'rudely'… great…"

"What?"

"…'with too much knowledge for the skeptic's side, with too much weakness for the stoic's pride…' sorry; that part might be reversed…"

"Alexander Pope, isn't it?"

"Utterly amazing writer. "Essay on Man" has to be one of the most well-written pieces to ever grace paper. I read the entire thing in high school. Truly, it must be a timeless piece to captivate both my foolish adolescent self and my old, washed-up self. That is the hallmark of wisdom."

"Isn't it?" Satsuki craned her neck to watch the spread of video feed across the flat screen supported by a thick mass of BEAST's video wires and took a long sip of tea. Yuuto was standing over her shoulder expectantly with the teapot cradled in his hands.

"You look almost out. Would you care for some more?"

"Hm? Oh, yes."

/Brownie points, score four tonight./ "Good!" Yuuto smiled and leaned over her shoulder none too professionally to pour and watched the video feed with vestiges of amusement fueled more by the situation than the transmission. "He's been sitting there for a long time. Do you think he's thinking about something?"

"Hush. You know he is. He's an intelligent man."

"Really? He strikes me as a capital idiot."

"Silence. I am trying to see what he will do."

Yuuto felt Satsuki take a silent, calming breath as he brushed against her shoulder while straightening and fought to prevent a huge, stupid grin from spreading across his face. He coughed and forced his smile to relax. /Hook, line, and sinker; she's mine. Mine mine mine mine mine-/

"He's not been acting like himself at all lately," said Satsuki.

"Really?" Yuuto resumed his seat across the table and took a sip of his own cup. /Mandarin orange; this is her favorite flavor. Subtle and simply-sweet charm. Yuuto, you smooth criminal. She looks so relaxed./ "And how exactly to you expect him to act? Never drop the mask?"

"I was expecting him to delude himself to the point of identity loss."

"Nah, he's probably grown out of that. I mean, not acknowledging what he's doing, not the identity loss. Can't grow out of that, sadly. But as you said, he is an intelligent man. He's probably come to terms by now. Probably knows the inevitability of his own humanity. Or he's just stone blind, one or the other."

"I know that. I still find it curious that he so easily agreed to such intimate physical contact. I thought he had a neurotic self-deprivating aversion to that."

"You can just say 'sex', you know."

"Thank you, Yuuto."

"Well… 'the proper study of mankind is man'." Yuuto leaned over the table to spin the confection dolly and search for something to his taste. "I'm going to get fat on all of this stuff. Hm. But, yes, the only way to understand humans is to see what they do in everyday life. You can't rely on legends, or fiction, or movies, anime, manga, your own original characters, whatever-those are scripted, idealized 'people'-'gods'. The proper study of mankind, Satsuki, is man. What you see every day. And if you consider that the miracle of imagination is 'god'… makes perfect sense, does it not?"

"And you think that some imagination cannot emulate that observation?"

"Of course it can. Most definitely. And I'm not trying to degrade escapism; no, not at all. I think the imagination's people are beautiful people. They represent a side of us in themselves. But, what is your basis for comparison? What people say about themselves, or what people actually do? Hm… people can try to make themselves seem more deep or cool through their words and agendas, what they claim to do and feel, but when it gets right down to it, human nature is much more bland and predictable. What do you think is a reason that fiction is such an escape?" He placed a pastry on his plate and unfolded a napkin over his lap. "And yet humans have the endless capacity to surprise: a middle state, indeed. Humans are the ultimate riddle and paradox."

"Shh."

The sprawled figure on the screen--a man wearing a glowing white shirt amid a midnight wash of deep blue and shadow, pale skin moonlit and cigarette glowing ember orange and clouding the moonbeams with milk-shifted as a second, white-pale figure cloaked in black slipped in through the back window. Satsuki blinked.

"Is he catatonic? How does he not notice Kamui?"

"He's probably just having a bad night, same as anybody else can have."

"I think his training has taught him never to let down his guard regardless of mood swings, Yuuto."

"Doesn't look like the sort of chap to listen to protocol. Besides, Kamui's no threat to him, so we have no way of knowing whether or not he is aware of him and just doesn't care. Give him some credit. He might be a fool, but he's not a blind moron-a-ah…"

So, Kamui did find himself a boyfriend. Yuuto sat back and smirked as Fuuma crouched languidly behind Seishirou's chair and draped his arms over his shoulders from behind. /A very touching embrace. Don't give me any ideas-so, Kamui, what exactly is your agenda with this little farce? Whose wish are you fulfilling?/

"Do you think this is what Sakurazuka wishes?"

"Can't be that simple. But, who knows, as I said, human nature…"

"He has a rather archival past involving a member of the Dragons of Heaven."

"Probably involves that. Things have a tendency to get needlessly complicated around here. It would be much easier for our Kamui to just set them up on a nice honeymoon and help them make amends, but no. Has to be done the hard way to save pride and all of that nonsense."

"Sakurazuka has been researching tantra as of late."

"He'll make his boyfriend very happy."

"The magical side of tantra. The manipulative side." Satsuki gave Yuuto a flat look. "You… do know what that is, don't you?"

"Karma Sutra." Yuuto gave a devilish grin. /And you have no need to know how much I know and how little I have used it. I really am a hopeless pervert./ "At least he wants to get it right."

"Not exactly." Satsuki quickly looked away and pushed her glasses up her nose. She looked almost angry. /Just relax, darling. If you want it, only ask, I will think no less of you, as you fear. It is not as though I am going to try anything without your permission./ "He's researching the black and white magic involved in the act. Some of the spells have amazingly strong manipulative properties. Some spells can even lower the partner's resistance to the other in terms of battle. Some spells can transfer magical powers. Some spells can allow access to the mind, especially during the most vulnerable point of orgasm. The latter point is the one he has been researching the most ruthlessly according to his internet logs. He seems to be very focused on the theory that orgasm frees the mind from the body, to an extent."

"…ah… ah!" Yuuto set his cup on his saucer. "And with all of those other advantages-the weakening, the worming, the gaining of power-ah…" He sat back in his chair and cradled his chin in the crook of his finger. /Perfect. Perfect sense./ "This is getting rather interesting."

"Kanoe is not going to like this."

"No, not at all, considering that it is a given that our already unstable Kamui is going to go stark raving mad." Yuuto smiled and poured more tea. /The fun never ends around here. I'm glad I joined up. Something is always going on./ "And if the orgasms were Sakurazuka's only goal, he could very kindly ask Kamui to masturbate until he went blind. He's a smart boy; he would see that as an option. There has to be the other angles of energy transfer or something involved. Ooh. I love puzzles."

"…right." Satsuki sighed as Fuuma bit the back of Seishirou's neck; Yuuto watched her reaction carefully. A wave of arousal washed through his stomach at the look on her face; her lips were slightly parted, eyes glassed. /She wants somebody to touch her like that, admit it though she won't. BEAST can't do that to her. BEAST can't love her like that. BEAST can't hold her the entire night and kiss her until she melts-/

"Are you lonely?"

Satsuki blinked at the sudden question and calmly looked at Yuuto, readjusting her glasses. Yuuto was giving an impish smile and struggling to cool his hormones back into submission. The last thing he needed was to look like a horny dog; it was the sort of thing to completely turn her away. /Look intelligent or something. Come on, you can think of something./

"…what sort of a question is that?"

"A simple one. Are you lonely?"

"…of course not." She coughed and turned back to the screen. "I-"

Fuuma looked directly into the dormant television in Seishirou's living room over his partner's shoulder, winked, and crept his fingers repetitively in a wave; he had found the second port Satsuki had indirectly wired for video feed. She narrowed her eyes delicately and smiled.

"Clever boy."

The television exploded; the screen was shot with static. Yuuto shrugged and added another lemon to his tea.

"Clever because Sakurazuka wishes for a clever partner. Ah, that didn't end so well. No man-smut for you this evening." Satsuki furrowed her eyes in momentary confusion before glaring at Yuuto. Yuuto smiled and nodded. "Don't tell me that it's just research; it's smut. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Sexuality is a very beautiful and natural-"

"I don't need this talk right now. I know very well."

"Ah, good. Let's move on." Yuuto sat back and crossed his ankle over his leg, settling his weight and resting the saucer on his thigh. "What else is on TV?"

"Well, given that both of my hardware setups in Sakurazuka's apartment have been shot, I need to find appropriate hardware to view… means we can only browse established video cameras."

"You can't just miraculously rearrange the protocols and physical composition of any electronic device to make it transmit video feed? I thought you were the Cyber Girl, Satsuki."

"It's more complicated than that." Satsuki looked toward the static-strung snowstorm on screen and mentally ordered the BEAST to browse video cameras for feed of interest. The BEAST did not comply with its usual speed. Satsuki furrowed her eyebrows and seemed to hold a mental contest of wills with it. Yuuto watched her in mild confusion, blinked, and looked up at the mammoth, cybernetic hull of the BEAST mainframe.

/I'm going insane. It's glaring at me./

He thought for a moment, then grinned, settling back and taking a delicate sip of his tea. So, the BEAST did feel, after all, and it had reason to feel jealous. Satsuki was liking him, after all. /Oh lucky day. Oh, lucky day, so long as I live to tell the tale. I need to rid my room of electronics from here on out, or at least never sleep in a room with electrical wiring. I'll even take Satsuki candle shopping so I can see in there. She'll probably have to be by my side whenever I so much as use a cell phone, but… Oh, it's worth it. Joy. Joy beyond joy. JOY./

"Is something funny, Yuuto?"

"Nothing." Yuuto parted his grin enough to sip his tea and calmed his expression. /Oh, lucky day. Thank you, BEAST./ "Ah." He set the cup on its saucer and looked at the video monitor. "Your friend is on TV."

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(1) Alexander Pope, "Essay on Man", Epistle II . III

(2) Alexander Pope, "Essay on Man", Epistle II . I