End of the Innocence: A Child's Requiem

    "You fucked him?" Anderson said in English.

    "Don't say it like that," I said.  "It sounds really foul."

    I had picked up Anderson at Narita Airport in the morning.  After a late breakfast at a restaurant in Miakyo Hotel, we headed back toward Tokyo in a car I had borrowed from the police motor pool.  I also told him about Aoshi while he thumbed through the medical and forensics report.  In sketchy details, I told him I had been with Aoshi the night before. 

   "Even after what he told you about Yutaka?" 

    "As much as he was telling me about himself, there wasn't a connection between us.  I wanted to be able affect him in the way Yutaka had, but I don't have several years to invest."

    "He sounds like a personal project to you, not a patient, Gai."

    "I'm not seeking approval for what I have done.  I know what I did was wrong.  But it felt...necessary.  I had come in contact with a man that I had never met before.  I want to learn more about him.  I want to know where he came from.  I want to know why he decided to come to me after a few days, and not before or  after."

    "I don't think it's a good thing for you to be involved with him or this case on this kind of personal level.  It will eventually taint your professional--"

    "I've already done that when I slept with him," I cut him off.

    "So it's okay to screw up intentionally from this point forward?"

    "It doesn't matter.  I know what I have to do."

    He sighed and didn't say anything for a few minutes.

    "Did one personality acknowledge the presence of the other?"

    "I believe so.  He has full memory of the sex and was quite casual about it.  I had left some bruises on him and he shrugged it off.  He would rather talk about the quality of the coffee at breakfast than what had happened the night before."

   "Perhaps he had come to regard you in the same light as Yutaka."

   "Doubtful," I said.  "I am very much still a stranger to him.  That morning, I kissed him and he responded by wanting to give me oral sex."

    Anderson smiled.

   "Nothing happened.  I do have boundaries, even if I do cross them sometimes."

   "Turning down an unsolicited offer for oral sex," he said.  "Now I wonder who's crazier, you or him?"

   He cleared his throat and removed humor from his voice.  "Are you attracted to him?" 

   "I am drawn to his tragedy.  I am not attracted to him in the traditional sense."

   "Like the way you would be inclined to give comfort to a wounded kitten you found, but you have no intention of keeping?"

   I looked at him and laughed.

   "I hate talking to another shrink," I said.  "What do you make of his alternate personality?"

   "It's hard to say from one encounter because it could be just an isolated incident.  A way for him to vent the anger and frustration he has had for the past few months on the conscious and subconscious level. If you weren't there to relieve him, it could have been anyone else he had access to that night."

    I grimaced when I remembered the middle-aged fat cop at the safe house.

    "I wouldn't take what he had said that night for more than dirty talk.  A whorish role he was playing to will himself to demand sex from you, and the sexy dialog to go with it.  His words were more for himself to turn himself on, than it was for you to turn you on.  Knowing how you are, you probably tried to plug your ears every time he said "fuck"."

    "It sounds especially terrible, coming from him."

    "If you really wanted to connect with that side of him, you might have to resort to talking to him in the same way.  Possibly even giving him the kind of abuse he was asking for."

    "No."

    "When you put your cock inside him, were you doing it for him or for you?"

    I gripped the steering wheel so tight that my knuckles turned white.  Anderson noticed it and softened his tone.

    "I am not reprimanding you.   I'm only telling you what you might have to consider when you opened up another side of someone who, for his own reason responded up to you in this peculiar manner.  To understand him, you will have to speak his language.  Even at the cost of doing something you didn't want to do.  I really think leaving him open like this will hurt him eventually.  For every man that won't "victimize" him, there will be dozens of others who will gladly do it.  He is an attractive young man."

   "Then where does it all lead to?" I said.  I was annoyed, but it was with the fact Anderson was right and I didn't want to admit it.  "I should do him a favor and abuse him so someone else wouldn't have to?"

    "That's not what I'm saying at all.  I'm merely suggesting that if sex had become his outlet, then that might be your only way in to him."

    "Anyway," I said and gestured at the folders on his lap.  I didn't want to talk about the sex anymore. 

    "It is quite standard and what you had profiled so far.  The male aggressor's most likely a resident in Tokyo, age 25 to 30 and quite familiar with the trendy young salarymen's scene in order to blend in comfortably.  The Celtic cross was a curious thing because by the first look, it was not an overt religious symbol, yet the way he had done in his victims had shown quite a bit of fanaticism."

    "Could this have no religious connection to it at all?"

    "Yes, but something in this man's mind made him choose a cross instead of any obscure symbol."

    "He didn't choose the plain, traditional cross."

    "I'm sure he's got his own reasons why, but it could all be down to aesthetics and nothing more.  The man also has a repeated preference for certain kind of man with similar facial features, build and hair.  The killer wasn't in love with them.  He was obviously obsessed with someone who looked like that, and he had developed a hatred for them.  He was reliving and releasing his anger in cycles, when he has one of these men in his custody."

    "Then why did Aoshi live?"

    Anderson shrugged.

    "Many factors could effect the killer.  Aoshi might have reacted differently, as you might have learned first hand, to pain.  That might have confused the killer.  Aoshi was not giving him what he was hoping to exact and that could be just enough to break the spell.  It is not far fetched that the killer had developed a close relationship, resembling fondness during this time.  Aoshi had been the only one the killer has had sex with, which indicated the aggressor had come to be fond of Aoshi on a different level.  From Aoshi's feeling toward sex and the news of his own rape, it might have been consensual, or semi-consensual at best."

    "Do you think I could be right? About Aoshi lying about his lost memory to protect him?"

    "He could be, although I don't know why he would choose this route.  If he wanted to protect this man, he could have given the police false details and led them away from the person they are really looking for.  Being locked up in police custody until this man's caught only meant Aoshi will never see him again, and if Aoshi had formed a loving relationship with his could-have-been killer, he would have tried to put himself into a situation where he could find this man again or for this man to find him."

    "What do you make of his missing childhood memories?"

    "That could have been an unrelated event that happened before all of this happened to him.  It's just a way for him to deal with childhood trauma the only he knew how."

    "I want to unlock it," I said and looked at him, then back at the road.  "I feel that he couldn't be complete unless he remembers something as basic as who his father or his brother was."

    "I think some things should be left alone.  Even by us."

    "I would like to."

    He leaned back and sighed.  "You are the only one who can make that call."

    I dropped off Anderson at the Prince Hotel in Shinjuku and drove to Nikko to check on Aoshi.  I had not planned on seeing him for the next few days.  However, in the deepest corner of my mind, I had a stinging feeling about what had happened the two nights ago.  It felt like an open wound that I should tend to as soon as I could, instead of letting it fester until I could turn my attention back to it.    

    I made good time and got there a little before two in the afternoon.  Instead of a cheerful young nurse who was suppose to be on duty at that time, the elderly woman who worked midnights answered the door.  She took my coat and explained to me that the on-duty policeman had dismissed the other nurses at noon without an explanation.  Since then, the cop had been upstairs with Aoshi.  She hung up my coat in the closet and shuffled back to her room.  

    I went upstairs and it was the sound of scraping that prompted me to go into the dining room first.  I slid open the shoji and I was instantly met with the thick scent of sex.  On the low legged, square table, Aoshi laid splayed open with the cop on top of him.  By the look of the torn tatami where the table legs had scraped the straws loose, they had been fucking on the table top for awhile.           

    It took Aoshi a minute to notice I was there.  The cop, pantless and with his shirt and blazer still on, was oblivious to my presence.  Aoshi rose to his elbows and blew a kiss at me.  The cop grunted, and clutched at the ends of the table harder as he drove his cock deeper and harder into the reddened hole.  It might have been only seconds, or minutes when the cop suddenly stopped.  His body convulsed as he came, and his growl-like scream went with it.  He laid down on top of Aoshi--his softened, wet cock slipped out.  Aoshi kissed the cop on his mouth and said softly, "daddy's home."

    The cop rolled over and he paled instantly when he saw me standing by the door way.  A couple of moments of awkward silence passed.

    "Get out," I said.  I was angry and I felt betrayed, although I wasn't certain why.  Both of them were consenting adults and I did not have any  say in neither of their affairs.    

    Aoshi laughed as the cop scrambled off the table and grabbed his pants off the floor.  Half naked, the cop ran past me and out of the room without so much of a glance back at me.

    "I missed you," Aoshi said.  His legs were still splayed open as the cop had left it.  Gingerly, he pressed two of his fingers into the come-laced and dilated orifice.  He watched me intently as he brought up the moistened fingers up to his mouth and licked the translucent fluid from them.  He waited for me to react, but I didn't. 

   "Get up," I said softly and picked up the kimono he had tossed by the doorway. 

   He hiked his hips up even higher and presented even more of himself to me.

   "I want you to fuck me," he said.

   I walked to him and stared down at him.  His face was oddly innocent in spite of what his body was doing.

   "No," I said quietly and threw the kimono over him. "Get up and get yourself cleaned up."

   Instead, he sat up and tossed his kimono back on the floor.  He reached for my belt and unbuckled it before I had the presence of mind to catch his hands and stopped him.

   "Don't--"

   "Don't what doctor? You've been fucking with my mind, what's a little bit of that returned in my ass?"

   I released his hands, and pushed him back as I did so.  I was livid, but I had no reason to be.  I had dealt with more difficult and enigmatic patients than him.  Somehow, Aoshi had managed to press the right buttons to infuriate me.

   "Do you think you want to save me, doctor? Or all of your selflessness that's being spent on me a way for you to feel better about yourself?" He said and sat up.  "You're no different from any of the sons of the bitches who tells me they give a shit about me as they are putting their dicks in my mouth."

   "When have I said I gave a shit about you?" I said.  I didn't like to curse, and I especially despised the statement I had made.  It wasn't true and it was hurtful, even to me as I said it.  But it had to be said.

   "I want you to hit me then," he said as tapped my belt with his fingertips.

   "What?"

   "I want you to hit me," he said.  "I want you to show me that you don't give a shit about me."

   "Why should I?" I said.  I had forgotten the anger that had been brewing inside, and suddenly became intrigued by Aoshi's strange request.

   "You're the shrink.  Figure it out."

   He turned over and lied on his belly.  His scarred back was the only thing I saw.  The overlapping lines of scars, some pale and some crimson, that held the ugly secrets of his past.  I slid out the belt from my belt loop and folded it in half.  I did not contemplate for long before I whipped him.  It was a mindless act, literally.  No thoughts and no feelings as I brought down the leather belt on him again and again.  The belt had cut into his back, his ass, and at the back of his thighs.  In its wake, raised crimson marks were left on top of his scars.  I didn't hear him scream.  I didn't think he would.  Like a good little boy when he was being beaten by his grandmother, he didn't protest as he took his punishment.

   At some point, I stopped hitting him. I couldn't remember when or why I did.  He was quivering and he might have been crying.  Then I fucked him.  Rather, I raped him.  Even if he didn't struggle or cry out, I knew he didn't want me to fuck him.  He laid still, not a single word or sound came from him as I drove as hard as I could into him.  I wanted to hurt him in the worst way.  Before I came, I turned him over so I could look at him as I spilled my come on his chest.  He had been crying, and his eyes were not focused.  They were looking at something or someone else in his mind. 

   I picked him up in my arms and walked to the bathroom.  I held him in my arms and we sat under the steady shower of hot water. 

   "Who do you see?" I whispered into his ear.  "Tell me where you are."

   "Daddy...." he said after awhile.  He was shaking as he spoke in a child-like voice.  "Everyone left me..."

   "How did daddy leave you?"

   "Daddy cut open his neck..." he said and touched my throat.  "There was so much blood... nii-san and I tried to put our hands over the hole but it kept on bleeding and bleeding.  Daddy won't wake up..."

   "Why did he cut open his neck?"

   Even through the stream of water coming down over us, I could see his tears flowing from corners of his eyes.

   "Because we are bad children."

   "No," I said and kissed him on his forehead.  "You were not bad children.  Where was your mother when this happened?"

   "I don't know.  She had gone away and didn't come back."

   "Do you know why she went away?"

   "Because we are bad children."

   I cupped his face and shook my head.

   "Don't say that again.  You were not bad children.  Your grandmother had put that thought into your head and it was not true. Understand?"

   He didn't.

   "Do you remember your brother?"

   He nodded lightly.

    "How did he leave you?"

   "Grandmother hit him and hit him until there was no sound..." he whispered.  "Then I pounded on the door until my hands bled but no one would let me out or answer me."

   "Do you remember his name?"

   He was quiet for awhile.

   "Yuki..." he said finally.  "I called out his name all night, but he didn't answer me."

   He pushed himself away from me and gathered his knees to his chest, and embraced them with his arms.  He laid his head against his knees and started to hum a song.  It was a children's song about little boys who wanted to play in the snow with their friends, but they couldn't go because their shoes were wet. I called his name a couple of times, but he didn't appear to hear me.  He closed his eyes and hummed the song repeatedly with a slight smile on his face.

   I bathed him the best I could, when he finally allowed me to touch him.  He was still humming the song when I carried him out of the bath and into his bedroom.  He slowly drifted off into sleep when I dressed him in his robe and tucked him in.  I looked at my watch.  It was only 7 PM but it felt a week had gone by.

   I went into the next room and made a call to Anderson.  I cancelled our dinner plan and promised him I would meet with him for lunch tomorrow.  I had planned on returning to my office that night to send off requests for some files from Kyoto.  I wanted to match Aoshi's brother's name and possibly look into his father's suicide. 

   When I hung up the phone, Aoshi was standing by the door way looking at me.

   "Are you leaving?"

   I went to him and embraced him.  He buried his face into my chest and wound his arms around my waist.

   "Don't leave."

   "Aoshi..."

   "Please don't leave," he said again, but this time, his voice was weaker. 

   I ran my fingers through his damp hair and gave him a kiss on his forehead.

   "I am not going anywhere," I said and gave him an assuring smile.  I led him back to his room where I laid down with him.  He nestled up as close as he could, and fell asleep again with one of my arms tucked under his head.  I didn't fall asleep until early morning, when the morning light broke through the dark horizon. 

   I woke at a little before noon by the sound of my cell phone that I had left in the living room.  I didn't answer it but I knew it was Anderson.  I lingered in bed for a few more minutes before I shook off the last traces of sleepiness and crawl out from the warm comforter.  I didn't think to look for Aoshi until I saw him sitting by the window in the living room.  He didn't turn to look at me when I came into the room. Full breakfast dishes and filled teacups were left on the table untouched.

   "Aoshi...?" I said and walked to him.  I looked at what he had been watching.  It was a small gray Husky puppy that was tied to the side gate of the house next door.  The dog ran in small circles.  It continued to do so even when its collar choked it whenever it ran a little beyond the reach of the leash.  Each time the dog choked itself, it whined.  Then, it would recover and continue its happy dash in the little space it was confined in. 

   "How are you feeling?" I asked him and ran my fingers through his hair. 

   He had a sad smile on his face when he glanced up at me.

   "I'm sorry," I said. 

   He shook his head.

   "I shouldn't have -- " I began but he pressed his finger over my mouth.

   "Don't apologize," he said. 

   "I need to know what's going on inside you," I said and held his hands in mine.  "I want to -- "

   "Help me?" He said.  "You already have, doctor.  You've given me every answer I ever wanted or needed to know."

   I frowned and crouched down.  "Do you remember?"

   He bent down and gave me a kiss on my mouth.  His sad smile returned as he turned his attention back to the puppy in the yard.  He said nothing more.  Instead, he pulled his knees up to his chest, and wrapped his arms around them.  Then, he hummed the children's song again.  This time, his eyes were affixed on the Husky that was still running in circles outside. 

   I met Anderson for an early dinner and told him everything.  He was distressed to hear what I had done, but he held back what he wanted to say.  It took him great effort to do so, and I quietly appreciated him for it.   

   "I'd like for you to do me a favor," I said.  "I would like for you to stay with Aoshi while I go to Kyoto.  Just be in the same room with him, and make sure he won't hurt himself.  I can't trust the cops or the medic to know what to do with him with his present condition."

   "My Japanese's not advanced enough to help him."

   "You don't have to provide counsel," I said.  "I just need to have you there."

   "What could you find in Kyoto that Utsuki has not already given you?"

   "It's exactly that, Utsuki has not given me everything."

   "If the police could not find a brother that didn't exist, how would you find him?"

   "I am quite sure I can find him buried in Aoshi's family's old money."

    I didn't give Utsuki much time to soak in the news about an American agent I had brought into the case and now, had left in charge of Aoshi.  Or the fact that I had left to interview Aoshi's family myself.  I told him this while I was on the bullet train on my way to Kyoto.  I threatened to leave the case if he would even think to try to remove Anderson from the safe house.  If I leave the case, all of the secrets of the case and what I had learned from Aoshi would also go with me.  

    "You're fucking crazy for a shrink, you know that?" He told me.  I agreed and hung up.  

    I pulled out Aoshi's personal files from my briefcase and read through them again.  When I got to Kyoto, I felt as if I had known Aoshi for a long time.  I knew too much about him.

    The cab dropped me off at a small bridge that led to a set of wooden gates with carvings of a hunting scene.  The red bridge, the color dulled by the weather, passed over a small noisy stream.   

    "The address' is in there.  One of the houses anyway."

    "One of the houses?" I asked as I opened my wallet to pay him.

    "The entire Shinomori clan that didn't leave Kyoto lives behind that gate. It's almost like a small town inside there, I heard.  Nice to have money like that."

    "I suppose," I said and gave him two 5000 Yen bills.  "You heard much about what the family's like?"

    "Nothing more than usual," he said as he fished through a small canister full of coins to find change for me.  "Not many people even seen them around, except for maybe shows in Gion or publicity dinners with politicians.  Their hired help made their appearances for them around the city.  People like them simply do not exist among people like us."

    When the cab driver said "us", he pointed at himself.

    "Have you heard anything about one of them by the name of Aoshi?"

    He tilted his head and thought for a moment.

    "Can't say I do," he said.  "As I've said, not many people saw them outside those gates."

    He offered me change, and I shook my head.

    "Keep it as tip," I said and let myself out.  "Thank you."

    He suggested he could wait for me.  I told him I might be in there for hours.  I finally settled for his cell phone number so I can call him directly for a ride, if he's available.

    "Be careful in there," he said.  "People like them tend to be really...."

    "Yes, I know," I said and walked over the bridge.  

    The cab driver didn't leave until I pressed the button to an electronic bell that was to the side of the wooden gates.  I studied the intricate carvings on the doors as I waited.  The carved samurai on the horseback wore 14th century armors.  The figures chased after a tiger which was sized three times of its chasers.  Most of the details were worn off through age and weather, but it was still quite an impressive piece of art that should have been in a museum instead of being a decorative doorway.  

    My silent disapproval was interrupted by the sound of someone shuffling up to the gates on the other side.  I heard someone undo the latch and pulled one of the one gates back.  A small, elderly man looked at me through the opening he had managed to pull open.

    "I am sorry to bother you," I said as I opened my wallet to show him my government identification. 

    "You--" he said.  His eyes became impossibly large.  He never looked at my identification.

    "Is something wrong?"

    "You...can't be..." he said.  The bottom rim of his eyes reddened.  Tears welled up in them, but he wiped them away with his sleeve before they rolled out.

    "Do you know me?"

    He nodded wildly, then tugged at my sleeve and pulled me inside.  For a moment, I was spellbound by what I saw.  The Shinomori complex was impressive, almost intimidating.  Obscured by tall pines stood a gray and white mansion fashioned like an 18th century palace.  Smaller houses with the Meiji era designs lined neatly to its sides.  Behind the palace, I made out a vague outline of a church.  The tall white crucifix was the only thing I could see clearly through the trees.

    "You came back..." the old man said as he secured the door latch.  "You came back..."

    I turned and looked at the happy old man.  

    "Where did you think I was?" 

    He patted my chest affectionately.  This time, he was crying and he didn't hold back.

    "I didn't believe them when they said you died," he said in a weak voice.  "I prayed and prayed that you will come back someday.  The baby that I raised is not dead and will come back someday."

    "I think you have me mistaken for someone else," I said gently.  "My name's Kanoe.  Dr. Kanoe Gai.  I'm a psychiatrist for the Government."

    He stared at me, his eyes glossy and shimmering with tears.  He was in his own world, inside his mind.  I don't think he heard anything I said.

    "My baby is not dead," he said and touched my face.  I flinched when he did -- his bony fingers were cold and leathered with age.

    "Who was the baby?"

    The old man didn't answer.  Then, another servant called him father as he quickly ran up to us.

    "I'm terribly sorry," the servant said as he pulled the old man's hand away from me.  "He's not-- "

    Then he paused.  His face paled, but he quickly collected himself and continued his sentence.

    "He's not entirely well.  Please forgive this old man, honored sir."

    "What did he mean by the baby he raised is not dead?"

    The servant coughed and tried to buy time to think of his answer.

    "Please forgive my father," he finally said.  "You looked like someone he had taken care of since the baby was born.  He died long time ago.  It devastated him when he learned about his death."

    "Who was he?"

    "One of our young masters," he said.  "Aoshi-sama."