Sashiko: The Darkest Timeline

[specialguestvillains]

Jigen's right arm ached, and that meant the weather was about to go sour.

Granted, it always ached, but it was aching in a very specific way right now, and also it was January in Paris so the weather was going to get fucked eventually. Everyone gave charitably around Christmas, but as soon as it flipped around to January 2 all that goodwill towards men dried up and the weather was even colder than before.

Jigen took up his usual position near the cafe and watched the patrons stroll by, eying them up to see who looked like a big spender. Men with dates sometimes liked to impress their girls, as did bachelorette parties. People on the way back from soccer matches were charitable, but only if their team won, and if they hadn't they had the risk of being mean drunks. Sometimes they'd be mean drunks anyway.

Okay, guy in a blue blazer, looked like a tourist from the back.

"Hey, buddy. Spare some change?" he mumbled, the phrase coming more naturally than most of his French. He said it enough these days for it to be nearly rote. The man turned and Jigen found himself unable to look the man in the face. Something about his pose said horror, maybe even disgust. He didn't have the energy to deal with that bullshit today.

"Don't worry about it," he said before the tourist could even speak, and turned around to trod off again. The battered hat he'd been using as a money bucket went back on his head. Behind him, he heard the man slowly back away. By the time Jigen looked at him again, the man in blue had run off into the crowd.

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[artoflaw]

There's another weary man in the crowd, but he has a full belly and a theromos full of coffee. He watches the man -- the blue jacket had caught his attention, but it was the the stumbling vagrant that held it. He watched from his seat at the cafe, before he flagged down the waitress and put in a second order.

Once he was done eating, he followed the path he'd seen the man wend his way through the crowd. A battered fellow with an unkempt beard? It stood out. He caught a glance of him, finally, taking up a spot near another bar, leaning and looking like he'd been sleeping rough for years. The glimpse of the cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass promised he hadn't had a proper meat in days. The thickness in the middle said most of what he got went to booze, putting on empty calorie carb fat even when times were lean.

"Hey," he he said, before he proffered two things: a new stainless steel thermos full of coffee, and a bag of sandwiches and waterbottles. "Can't give you money, but I can buy you a meal."

Or three.

[specialguestvillains]

Sometimes you got people like that, tourists who thought themselves Good Samaritans for uplifting one bum among many for a few days. Jigen took it with mumbled gratefulness, managing a "thanks, man" in Japanese, but his eyes were still searching the man's form by instinct even when he smiled. Act thankful, but look for a hidden knife.

[artoflaw]

This is not a tourist. His French was flawless but he slips into Japanese as soon as he gets an 'arigato'. "You're very far from home, my friend. And your accent is -- American? You don't look like some Instagram Influence who who ran out of money. Do you need help?"

The man was big. He made no effort to make himself less big, as that would be disingenous and he could already see the other man scanning him like a threat. So he just let it be: yes, I am big and strong. You are not a threat to me, though, so for now I am not a threat to you. Confident and casual.

[specialguestvillains]

"Nah, man. I'm all right." Jigen waved him off, one arm around the bag of sandwiches. The last thing he needed was a visit from concerned government workers who might do things like look up his history and whether he was supposed to even be in the country. The Paris streets weren't great, but the American streets were a lot worse...and had a lot more people who might want him dead.

[artoflaw]

Surprise, this is a concerned civil servant!

"How about I make you a deal," the big man says instead. He gestures behind him to the cafe he'd been at. "If I'm in the office, I usually take lunch over there. Stop by around one. If I'm here, you get a hot meal."

It's a breadcrumb offer, but it's better than starving.

[specialguestvillains]

This seemed too forward. Too much for a tourist or a businessman abroad. Jigen wavers and then finally offers a "I'll see if I can drop by", begrudgingly.

He can always just not, he supposes.

[artoflaw]

"No pressure."

The definitely-not-a-tourist takes his leave, going back to his life. But he's where he promised to be five days out of the next seven. He keeps his word, too.

But he doesn't ask anything back. Jigen can come and go as he pleases. It's fine. Zenigata just takes his afternoon paper, drinks coffee and has a lunch, regardless.

[specialguestvillains]

Jigen feels like a stray cat being fed by a child. The first week he comes, gets the food, grunts a thank you and vanishes into the crowd as fast as possible. He doesn't want to be seen wolfing it down, doesn't want the man's eyes on him, pitying him. (He can take pity from a distance, he's low enough for it, but don't do it to his face.)

But the second week is colder, and he lingers in the cafe so he has an excuse to be out of the wind. A few customers give him a sidelong look for stinking up the place but he just presses his hands to the coffee cup and lets the warmth seep into his fingertips.

[artoflaw]

The third week, the man actually asks something:

"You got a place to stay? Because it's going to get colder. January's a bitch here."

His conscience is whispering to him: You shouldn't do this again. The last time, it didn't end so well. You didn't see the danger before it was already too late. This man, he's not like Oscar. He's a man with a history, not a boy who might've had a future.

"Because I got a couch, and I'm out of my apartment, most days. May as well have someone occupy it."

[specialguestvillains]

Jigen pauses halfway through his sandwich, staring up from beneath his hat with bloodshot eyes. "You don't gotta do that," he says, wariness clear in his voice. He knew how unwanted he was. He wasn't useful anymore. "I got a setup. And you don't even live here, yeah?"

They hadn't talked much, and most of the talking was Zenigata talking while Jigen quietly munched, but he gathered the guy wasn't a citizen.

[artoflaw]

"I do, actually," Zenigata says, laying down his paper. "I've been here almost a decade now. You know-- I never asked, what's your prefered language? Your French is fine, your Japanese is very good, but -- the accent to both is definitely American."

He switches to English. It's definitely more thickly accented than his French. "I could use the practice, anyway."

[specialguestvillains]

"You couldn't find someone besides a stray cat to practice on?" Jigen grumbled into his coffee. Come on. What was the real motive here.

[artoflaw]

"They only speak French, I'm afraid," Zenigata mused, smirking slightly. But then he shrugs. "Offer stands. You know where to find me, if you want it."

He reaches into his pocket, and then brings out a very traditional Japanese card -- name, phone number. No employment, just his name and phone number, in both kanji, romanji, and the English translation of his name.

[specialguestvillains]

Jigen went to bed and woke up with his face wet. So much for dreamless sleep. He didn't mind nightmares, you at least felt grateful to be awake once you came out of those. The dreams were so much worse because he woke up feeling unbearably, painfully, empty. The feeling that something was missing - lost, stolen, cut out with a knife - lingered after rousing, sometimes for hours. He didn't always remember what the dreams were but sometimes they felt more real than the world around him. Certainly they were always more beautiful.

This one...he'd been in a car, driving over a bridge somewhere in San Francisco, and the man had leaned over to light his cigarette

He lay still for a while, wondering if he'd woken his host up, until the sun rose enough to illuminate a note left on the coffee table.

Sorry. Work called me in early.

There were arrows directing him to the location of food, as if the fridge and coffeemaker were hard to find, and a spare room key taped to the paper. Jigen, again, considered whether he should just rob the place and get out, and what kind of idiot left a complete stranger alone in his hotel room. Idiot, or lunatic, or malevolant entity.

Still, robbing the guy just felt mean. And it was below freezing outside. Jigen lay on the couch for a while, idly watching tv and sipping coffee.

The dreams weren't too bad for the next few days. Barely a dull ache, sometimes not even there at all. Zenigata was always chatty when he came home but never about anything relevant. He seemed to want to just fill the air with chatter, any kind at all, to drown out...silence, maybe.

For his part, Jigen said nothing about his past beyond when he started living on the streets of Paris. No reason to ruin a good thing before its time, and eventually Zenigata would have to wise up and kick him out.

Eventually.

[artoflaw]

Most days Zenigata come home pretty normal. Sometimes between 5pm and 8pm, usually, though he finally got Jigen a pay as you go cellphone so he could reach him. It was no big deal. Not like it was fancy or expensive. Just one thing after another-- he earned little things like that by being... well, not a fucking asshole, honestly.

Zenigata seemed to really like Jigen over time. He was a good natured and gregarious man by nature, spoke easily and could tell all sorts of stories. Lots of them were work related, some of them weren't, and you know, some of them were probably 90% fiction but it was entertaining, right? It went on for a while like that.

Then one day, the key rattles in the lock-- scratching, missing, scratching again, and Zenigata staggered through. There's no 'hello', there's no 'how are you', there's just a guttural growl before he heads into the bathroom and loses what remains of his lunch.

Then he slaps a $50 on the table. He can't loook up -- one eye is unfocused, fixed.

"Go. Somewhere. Come back in four hours. No earlier. Don't text, don't call. Just go, and then come back."

Then he staggers into his room, half-shedding his coat as he goes, and shuts the door behind him. There was a few more rattled things, before the futon clanked as it folded outward, and creaked as Zenigata's body was dropped on it.

Probably not the best day at the office, right?

[specialguestvillains]

Usually when people said that they had a hooker on the other arm, but Zenigata looked about ready to die. He takes the money silently, and is already moving for the door before he looks at it again.

Fifty dollars. Dollars. No surprise that a man who worked internationally would have American money in his wallet, but damn. Too early in the day to be hung over, too. Jigen quietly sidled out of the house and went to smoke a cigarette by the waterfront.

The weather was starting to turn a little warmer by now, and the coat Zenigata had bought him was warm enough for him to tug the zipper down a bit as he paced. Occasionally he glanced at his phone, just in case Zenigata actually needed his help, but nothing.

He waited out the four hours without spending a dime (though the money would still be cached away for later, for that certain time when he'd be out on his own again) and quietly slipped back into the apartment.

[artoflaw]

Zenigata has emerged from the bedroom by the time he gets back, though the place is still dark. He's sitting on the futon by the window, with it cracked open enough to let the smoke trickle free in pale gray wisps. When the door opens, he squints, but then nods.

"Sorry," he says, and he does manage to sound repentant through the thickness of his gummy mouth. "I -- I should have maybe warned you, but my old friend Migraine-san dropped by."

Well, that's what he calls the hallucination that wobbles into his auras, anyway. It's sort of man shaped. And blue. Mostly blue.

[specialguestvillains]

"Sounds like a shitty friend. He come by often?" Jigen offered a sympathetic smile and wondered if it was because of that odd scar on the man's forehead. Something about it seemed...off. Like it shouldn't be there, like a smudge on a photograph.

Which was weird, because Jigen saw far uglier scars just by waking up in the morning. It was a pretty cute scar, really.

[artoflaw]

"Every couple of weeks, usually. Sometimes once a week, when things are shit," Zenigata said, voice still low. "I've heard people get auras-- but mine kind of looks person shaped. It's weird. Like somebody put a monkey in a blue coat and then stuck him at the corner of my eye."

He rubs his eyebrow over his left eye, as if to indicate on which side the man stood; sinister, not dexter.

"Sorry I threw you out. I was just-- right down the rabbit hole by the time I made it home." He grimaced; smoking and dry mouth were a terrible combo, but he needed the fix. "Best I did not to puke in the cabbie's car."

[specialguestvillains]

"Nah, nah, it's fine. If you're sick, you're sick. The monkey hallucination is new, though." He was picturing Curious George in a tiny jacket, and it was making him smirk despite his attempts to be sympathetic. "You ever see any other animals?"

[artoflaw]

"No, it's-- I've never heard of a migraine that causes persistent hallucination?" Zenigata stubbed out the last of his cigarette and got up and got to get a glass of water to ease his cottony mouth. "Doctors have never figured it out, but it's like... I was in a car chase when I got wrecked. Had migraines ever since. And when I do, I see this... he's a man in a blue coat. And he looks kind of like a monkey."

He shrugs once, before he drains his water, then presses the cool glass against his temple. "He's right right here, right over my shoulder, when I get a migraine. I hate the son of a bitch. But it's also -- like he's just supposed to be there? Like there's something that would be wrong if he wasn't there being an aggravating asshole making my head hurt."

He shrugged, this time more aggressively and definitely more frustrated. "Brain damage, I guess!"

[specialguestvillains]

Admittedly, Jigen didn't know shit about how migraines worked, or most any kind of medicine that didn't directly involve wound treatment (or wound creation). Maybe hallucinations were normal?

"I mean, that's not completely insane?" he offered, lighting up his own cigarette. "Brains can fuck with you. Sometimes I get weird dreams about a man who kinda looks like you're describing, so it can't be that uncommon, right? Never met the guy in my life, but I'll feel like I know him."

And sometimes wake up crying. Crying after a dream because of how beautiful it was and how deeply you've lost something you never actually had is normal, right?

[artoflaw]

Yes, completely and utterly normal. The Most Normal. How more normal can you get?

"I suppose not," Zenigata offered wryly, looking down at his hands for a moment. Migraine-san has been a boon companion when he was deep in; sometimes he talked to him. Who else was he going to talk to, in his life? "I mean, I hallucinate having an asshole friend, and apparently you dream about -- somebody like him, I guess."

Well, alright. Maybe he can talk to Jigen now?

[specialguestvillains]

"Yeah. Maybe it's...I dunno, one of those Jungian things." He didn't know a hell of a lot about psychology, but he knew a few mob goons who were hardcore into spiritualism and the occult. Criminals tended to grasp for any kind of luck that they could. "Like your teeth falling out. Lots of people dream about that. Maybe lots of people dream about guys who look like monkeys."

[artoflaw]

"Maybe. Is yours annoying? Mine is. Smirking bastard. Or maybe I'm personifying pain and that's a bad idea. I don't know." Zenigata was not about psychology, really, but he was a devout buddhist and his great-odd-grandfather had been elevated to kamihood. He believed in things beyond the explainable.

"Maybe he's someone from a past life. Red thread, and all that." He shrugged once. "Either way, if I meet him, I hope he makes a better husband than a friend."

He doesn't know why, but he feels abandoned after seeing him. Unimportant. Aggravating and unnecessary. Or maybe that's just the chronic depression and untreated PTSD talking.