Work Text:
The red sea had erupted everywhere, and now the world bled that single colour he’d been seeing since she’d clawed his eyes from their sockets.
Some stupid fuck of a whale was singing in the sweeping darkness, but Old guessed he shouldn’t have been so bitter about it because in the end, he’d walked right towards it. Going nowhere in particular, just following the sound of something living, intent on ripping it to shreds.
But in the darkness, fumbling through the tides, he didn’t find anything worth killing. Not yet, anyway. But he found something a little more interesting in a town where folks were running and yelping and screaming their heads off. He’d found a door ajar and a room that permitted silence, fingers skating over piano keys that protested to his touch with a shrill cacophony.
He knew this sound, knew the feel of that dull, worn ivory. Remembered how white the keys were, remembered dark mahogany, how trees didn’t grow in the ocean. Pianos weren’t exactly a common sight, down here. And now he couldn’t see it at all.
But he could remember.
This was Meikai’s piano.
And as his fingers caressed the keys again, he slowly began to play. What a squeaky, shitty sound. He was just going to attract all the night terrors. Bed bugs to nip at his heels. And yet he sat down, fingers hobbling along the keys.
He showed him how to play.
Yes. He could remember the light filtering through the window, the surface always so uncomfortably near. And Meikai’s face didn’t suit the sunlight because it made all the pimples on his face blaze up red. Old often thought they were going to swell up and take over the rest of his ugly face, and when he told Meikai that, he had laughed with humility and said ‘perhaps it would be an improvement.’
And then he showed him how to play. Old’s fingers stopped. No. No, he couldn’t play like he used to. This wasn’t right.
He stood and threw the piano lid open, grabbing at the strings.
The ocean was spilling out rot, the dead sea finally taking down everyone else with it. Who knew his ugly runt would have managed it? Who knew that little baby-faced freak with skin as white as a narwhal horn would actually amount to anything worth talking about at all?
Old plucked the first string, pulling it right out and it stuttered and screamed in his hand.
Yes, who knew it was gonna be Sal who meant a thing? Little, weirdo Sal who showed up with his crying momma one day out of the fucking blue. Samekichi had been there, too, but he couldn’t remember much about him. But he remembered, he remembered as he plucked the next string - he remembered telling that stupid witch he’d fucked on impulse one empty night and who had taken years to hunt him down again just to dump these stupid brats in his arms. Yes, he remembered telling her, ”you better quit your whining or I’m going to wring your neck.”
He remembered cuz that made Samekichi cry, but had just made Sal laugh like a fucking banshee.
He plucked another string.
Yeah, Meikai had talked to him about Sal’s weirdness. Another string. And another. Yes. Meikai had looked at him funny, with just a kind of disappointment, he was sure, when he came bundling in with two whelps. Actually, no. Another string. It wasn’t disappointment at all. That was the thing that pissed him off the most. He couldn’t even get his anger, anymore.
But, anyway. Sal, he’d asked him what was “wrong with him”, and Meikai said that under stress, kid’s all act different. That Sal didn’t yet know what to do with himself, ‘cause crying was an extreme emotion, but so was laughing, so he just picked the wrong one - you see? Didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of great emotions. That’s what Meikai, thought, anyway. And he was wrong. Haha. Yes. Another string. Meikai was fucking wrong.
You know, the worst thing about Sal wasn’t his constant, obnoxious giggling. No. It was the way he clung to Meikai’s coattails. Hugged onto him. Like he knew, like he somehow knew that - another string - he was stealing away the only attention he ever wanted. And then he’d look at him right in the eyes and giggle like the evil little fucker he was and he pulled out another string.
No. Actually, That wasn’t the worst thing about Sal. The worst thing was his roundy, baby, whitey face that looked like the moon. Looked like the moon that Meikai loved soooooooo much. Another string, and another, and another. Yes. The moon, he had a moon-face, just like her. Three strings.
Her. Yes, yes, her. He remembered her. Remembered her big globs of eyes, remembered the way he looked at her, worshiped her. Pluck, pluck, pluck. The way she covered her dumb, delicate little face and blushed and giggled and could barely keep her legs shut around him. How he tickled her chin. Riiiiip. How he touched her. Riipripppppp. But not before he’d touched her. Haha. Yes. Meikai didn’t know about that, did he?
How he’d bent her over, how he’d felt his fingers dry and slippery in her gross seaweedy hair. How he’d -a pull- fucked her because she’d begged him for it and how he desperately, desperately hoped he’d hollow her out like she’d hollowed him. But then she whispered out some delicate, throbbing little noise that he caught hold of and wanted to throttle out of her, but instead he just tossed her uselessly on the couch and stormed the fuck out. Another string. Another. She’d mumbled Meikai’s name.
She didn’t know him, not at all, not like he’d known him. She didn’t know anything. She was just a stupid little girl. So stupid, and awful, and brilliant, and had swallowed up and eaten Meikai’s heart with her horrible moony face.
He smashed a fist into the piano. Smashed into it like she’d smashed into him, like how she’d driven cold nails right into his seething eyes, sixteen and on fire and screaming in a tongue he understood but no one else ever would. Fuck, fuck, fuck this stupid fucking piano. He kicked at it, felt it tumble to bits, imagined Meikai’s sad, sad worn face when he saw his lovely piano all ripped to bits.
FUCK Sal.
Fuck Meikai.
But most of all, fuck, fuck fuck, fuckher. He kicked into the piano again, kicked and tore into it and gave it one last thumping smash before finding himself outside the room, on his knees and spitting rage.
Yes. Meikai was probably dead already.
Yes, yes. But the moon was sinking now. Gone forever. The sun blazed up above, sinking into red mist. Red, just like the colour of her dress. The colour of her hair. Her lips. The colour she made him see forever.
It wan’t too late.
He threw himself into the ocean, and looked for the last, tinkering glitter of the moon.