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FEAR MADE
FOOLS OUT
OF MEN
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Someone once told Miyoshi Shichiro that in his line of work, he shouldn't be squeamish and childish when it came to being hurt and dealing with blood. But that didn't stop him, not at all. Shichiro never liked the colour of blood, the carmine red appeared more sinister to him more so to other people. He was fine with pain, it didn't bother as much, but blood and the vivid red-stained colour would always be something he feared. Especially when it came leaking from his sister's wounded forearms, Shichiro just couldn't stand it.
He hid behind Aki Hayakawa's annoyed figure, with one eye shut and the other eye peaking through his long charcoal eyelashes. Shichiro's lips trembled as he resisted the urge to wail aloud at his sister's suffering, he thought that even for a knucklehead like Aki Hayakawa, the least he could do is pick up shards of glass embedded in his sister's forearms.
Aki Hayakawa works well under pressure, but the prospect of the annoying older man gasping at Manami's stained shirt and bleeding arms every few seconds or so made the task seem even more dreary than it was.
"Please Miyoshi-san, I'm trying to do something here." He spoke grumpily, slowly pulling the last piece of glass out of Manami's aching hands. Aki patted her knee, he was proud of her resistance to the pain. (not that she felt it anyway) "You didn't even flinch. Well done, Manami-chan." Aki praised.
Shichiro peeked over Aki's shoulders, and instantly, the colour drained from his face. "Aki-chan you idiot! You're digging too harshly in there... you're going to hurt my precious sister!" He whined and placed his arms around Aki's broad shoulders, gently shaking some sense into the tired younger man. Shichiro failed to notice the sharp pair of scissors in his hands but Manami was quick to pluck the pair out from Aki's hands.
"Brother, please dont bother Aki anymore. He's trying to finish the job you were too lazy to finish," She teased, leaning back into her seat with a smug grin on her lips. Inside her chest, the pulsating agony of a tsunami rushing through her intestines made a cold shiver run down the ridges of her spine. But she ignored it, focusing on the visual action of Aki's annoyed grumbles and his fingers gripping the pair of tweezers in his hands shakily, pulling the glass carefully.
No one asked how she got the wounds, and she didn't bother telling them anyway. It was normal, pain was a good method to learn new perspectives.
Aki resumes his task, ignoring the whining man. "Oi Aki-chan, don't ignore me!" Shichiro frowned and moved away from behind Aki to crouch next to Manami's seated figure. He waved a hand in front of Aki's indifferent expression, blinking once or twice to digest the younger man's emotionless face. "You're pretty, Aki-chan." Shichiro smiled childishly.
He wasn't wrong. Aki Hayakawa could carve angels from his weeping skin, and they would be moulded by the silk he wore on his face. The curvature of his jaw and the structure of his face was like the perfectly schemed architecture of Rome. Aki Hayakawa is a hauntingly beautiful man with a treacherous mind that reigned his heart in.
Manami bit back a smile, instead, she sat up straighter in the chair. She watched Aki's eyes twitch in annoyance, but the younger man only sighed and continued ignoring the jubilant older man. "Can you pass me that washcloth over there, Manami?" He asked, pointing to the ragged piece of cloth.
"Aki-chan!" Shichiro whined, poking Aki's furrowed brows jokingly. "You're getting old... it's not too late to marry me, y'know?" Aki's cheeks turned red with rage, flushing his bones with a burning flame fit from fury. "Uh oh. You blushing there, darlin'?" He teased even further.
Someone once told Miyoshi Shichiro not to get on people's nerves so quickly, but unfortunate enough for the latter, Shichiro loved finding different ways to push their buttons. Miyoshi Shichiro made jokes when he was uncomfortable, Miyoshi Shichiro is humane.
The younger man's hands trembled, anger seeped through his skin like toxins, he felt the urge to scream his lungs out. But one look at Miyoshi Shichiro's calm smile and relaxed figure, he let the anger roll off his spine and focused on the comforting lavender scent the younger girl adorned. That was something he admired about her, she had the ability to remain calm in the most stressful situations, this one is facing her brother's annoying exterior. Despite all that, Aki Hayakawa loves Miyoshi Shichiro like a brother, but he just didn't know how she does it. How does she brush aside his cheekiness?
Aki sighed and began wrapping Manami's forearms with bandages gently. "Whatever you say, Shichiro." He dismissed. Manami held onto the other side of the bandage with her opposite arm, allowing him to wrap the bruised skin neatly. Aki smiled gently, placing his large palm on the tops of her curly hair, and he ruffled the curls affectionately.
"Thank you," Manami smiled softly. The room was dimly lit, giving her the effect of shadows running around, dancing in in the hollows of the area. She felt a sliver of anticipation crawl up her spine, Manami had yet to face the horror of taking a shower with the two destructive men that were constantly bickering back and forth. Without Manami, Aki was unpredictable when it came to Shichiro and she hated it when they played cat and mouse.
Shichiro got up from the ground and stood in front of Manami with a hand clasping his chin thoughtfully, "Oh dear... Nami-chan, you look like a zombie!" He exclaimed, but a tug at his heart made him stop in his tracks. Something didn't feel right to him, there must be something he forgot. He couldn't fight the ache that reverberated through the walls of his cranium, it held onto his head tightly and somehow, the words refused to come straight to his mind. "I feel like I'm forgetting something..." Shichiro pondered.
Aki got up from the seat in front of the duo and began cleaning up the bloodstains on his table. The room was quiet, it was an awfully strange occurrence seeing as though Shichiro was in the room partaking in their conversation. Aki knew that it would be moments before he starts back up again, and so he took the opportunity to clean the mess that Manami's blood left on his table.
Manami opened her mouth to speak, but was inevitably cut off by a loud exclamation from Miyoshi Shichiro, "Aki-chan, Nami-chan!" He shouted, eyes full of terror and mouth flapping open in shock. "I'm supposed to be with Makima and the others right now! It's about that zombie infestation we were supposed to be working on together!"
Shichiro groaned, dropping to his knees and leaning his head into the crook of his sister's neck, he basked in the attention she gave him; with her hands brushing through his hair gently, and her lavender perfume evidently staining his skin with sleep. Manami smiled lazily at the frowning boy, and she watched Aki emerge from the hallway with a twitch in his right eye.
Aki Hayakawa had the patience of a saint in front of Manami, but that patience was stretched between her spindly fingers. She had him trapped in a spider web, but one he willingly got lost in.
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Miyoshi Manami likes the idea of sitting in the trunk of her brother's old beaten-up truck in the middle of summer, it made her bones feel much lighter than it was now. Summer held the most perfect temperature in its palm, though people might argue that it is too hot, Manami would often respond by saying she can't even feel the warmth of summer on her cold, pale skin. The idea of sitting idle in her brother's truck felt like years of stress being perpetually lifted off her back like a carapace, but it was simply just an idea, a thought, it could never be a reality.
That's because war alters the truancy of life in itself, people could no longer float buoyantly in the water, treading lightly as the waves gently kiss the patches of your skin. It takes away the novelty of having a free state of mind, war builds years of fear onto a man's aching back because of the idea of kissing death on the lips.
The reality of it is, fear makes fools out of men. The urgency to be proven right is the arrogance plighting a man's fractured skin, and the more they see how war alters the mind, fear will infest their hearts and weave years of selfishness into their bones.
She knows it's true because she has seen the eagerness to live a light that was never meant to be theirs die out like a single wicked candle. Manami had yet come to terms with the truth that is being foolish in the arms of war, but she knows that it won't ever come down to that, for her and for her brother, because fear had woven them together so tightly, there was no way for them to escape each other.
"Hello, Makima." She muttered into the phone softly, taking extra precaution to make sure the sleepy man next to her doesn't wake up. "I'm at headquarters with Aki and Shichiro, what am I to do now?" Manami asked.
Aki Hayakawa leaned his head against the headrest, his eyes closed as he ignored the urge to groan at Miyoshi Shichiro's overbearing snoring. Manami did not seem to mind, she sat next to the driver's seat with a freshly pressed collared shirt worn neatly on her chest.
There were usually people bustling in and out of their workspace by mid-day, but the eeriness of seeing not a body insight made her spine tingle. She wondered if today would finally be the day Makima decided to call it quits on her and Shichiro, the idea had lingered around in her head for a while now but she had yet to say anything about it. Insecurity made her weak, she doesn't like being weak.
"Manami, please ask Aki to wait there with your brother..." Makima's sweet voice echoed through the phone, she said it so gently; it made Shichiro woke up with a start. "I need you to accompany me somewhere, I'll send you the location. See you then, Nami-chan!" The ravenette could almost see the jubilant smile from the other side of the phone, it made her heart weak with affection.
Manami turned in her seat and stared at Aki Hayakawa intently, her eyes a blazing pool of grey mercury spilling over the edges of her sclera. Aki Hayakawa felt his heartbeat triumphantly in his chest, she studied his face as if he were a priceless painting in a museum.
"Everything okay?" The muse questioned, leaning forwards slightly to catch the passive expression on her face. In all their years of friendship, Aki Hayakawa still does not understand the irrational emotions that she felt sometimes, but that wasn't for him to understand; but for him to comply to. "Beetlejuice?" He asked after a moment of silence.
Beetlejuice, beetlejuice. She wanted to rip her skin apart with her bare fingers, there was a burning sensation that washed over her bones like acid. It was unexplainable, the sudden feeling to tear her hair follicles right from her scalp, she felt messy, disorganised; something she rarely felt whenever she was around Aki Hayakawa and Makima. So why does she feel it now?
The woman shouts louder now, her aching wails made her ribcage shake from the loud reverberating screams; she's toying with Manami now, playing with her like a used up music box, banging it against the table to get it to make a sweet sound. But the disorganisation in her head, this warped sense of hope made Manami feel even more threatened and alienated more than the woman's cackles. She was far beyond Beetlejuice now.
Why does her voice make her heart bleed more than the devil that wailed inside the confines of her ribcage nonstop?
Shichiro flinches forward, tugging his sister's hands out of her hair. "It's okay, kid." He muttered, leaning between the two front seats and pressing his head into her scalp, he dragged his fingers through her hair calmly. "Don't be nervous. Get the job done - okay?"
"Are you serious?" Aki let out a snort, "Who the fuck says that to comfort their crying sister?" He smacked the back of Shichiro's head, the latter letting out a howl of displeasure at the angry sensation. "Are you an absolute idiot?!" He shouted.
Miyoshi Shichiro frowned, tears glistening at the corners of his eyes. "Nami-chan... Aki's being mean to me!" He wailed, pulling his sister even closer to him. Almost like he was trying to merge their bodies together, compressing the skin with a hot iron rod to meld themselves tightly forever.
"Shichiro..." Manami whimpered lightly, pulling his head off her body. She grabbed his face in her palms, and from the corner of her eye, she saw Aki smile knowingly. "You stink."
Miyoshi Shichiro froze. He stared at her mercury with brazen eyes, the truth remained pure in her voice so there wasn't any indication of her telling a lie. But he couldn't believe it, her of all people; Miyoshi Manami, the truthful pure child, the young 17-year-old that acted far beyond her years, the little girl he cradled to his chest when he was 4, took advantage of the situation to make a half-baked joke.
The tears began pooling faster than a spreading forest fire. "If I smell bad then Aki probably does too..." He admitted and frowned at the thought. "I'm wearing his shirt after all! Say... Aki-chan, why does your shirt smell so bad?"
That had done it. The easily contained chaos held tightly solely by Manami's relaxing lavender lotion was contaminated by the foul stench that came with Shichiro's cheeky thoughts. Aki Hayakawa lunged at the alarmed boy with fury written in his eyes like a finely written billet-doux, except there was absolutely no trace of affection in his arms because he squeezed the older boy's head with his biceps like a zesty lemon.
All and all, the heated argument that sparked between the two made Manami's mind feel a lot clearer than before. Her mind felt like a trapped jar of beetles, crawling inside the corners of her brain and infiltrating her course of thoughts with a slimy, vulnerable state of mind.
But now, she sits in the passenger seat with a gentle smile on her lips. There is nothing foolish about making a big spectacle out of fear, it is in the afterthought, and the actions you take to recognise this fear, that is what makes a man a fool.
"I'm going now. Please don't kill each other," She smiles in conviction, spreading her lips far wider than possible. Manami gets out of the passenger seat with her heart in their hands, and she holds the prospect of seeing them soon enough above her head in the axis above her eyebrows.
"I'll see you later."