Page 56 of Love of the Egoist
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LETTERS JUMPED IN FRONT OF HIS EYES, morphing into bizarre bugs, darting off the pages, messing with Kuon’s exhausted mind. Time stretched into the torturing eternity. He tried to read but couldn’t focus on the book he held. His head felt hot and heavy with all the thoughts buzzing around it. Mio’s appearance had woken new ugly feelings inside his soul, ones he never knew he was capable of. Ones he instantly hated.
He couldn’t concentrate on anything. His mind, living on its own, kept bringing flashbacks of the weird encounter. Distressing details swirled around his head, his memory zoomed in on Yugo’s lit up eyes, then moved down to his hands, holding the frail body.
Electric pain shot through his chest, leaving a numbing, tingling sensation in his fingertips. Kuon stood up, then sat again, wiping his sticky palms on his jeans trying to control his elevated heartbeat.
He took him to the bedroom.
The image of Yugo holding the frail body against the same bed sheets he had held him against only a few hours ago twisted his stomach. He felt sick. His fingers stuck in his hair as he sat, drowning in his sullen thoughts, remembering the last look Mio had given him. The boy seemed to sense a rival in him and showed, in his own way, where Kuon’s place was. It looked as if he had every right to do so.
“Of course not. You are always my number one priority.”Again and again, Kuon heard Yugo’s voice in his head, circling around as if the needle was stuck in a groove.
The hours he spent in the library stretched into agonizing eternity. Tons of books he had been dying to read merely a day ago no longer interested him. They piled against the walls, bringing to the spacious room the dusty smell of the old libraries—paper and printing ink.
His chest felt too tight. He scrapped it with his nails in an attempt to make it better, leaving red marks on his skin, but the painful pressure didn’t lessen.
Nephew… yeah, right… no one looks at their nephew that way.
The vision of Yugo kissing Mio’s angular shoulders and bony hips seared his soul. He leaped up and for the tenth time in the last hour started to pace the room; the anxiety of a caged tiger in his every move.
Greg watched him with wide eyes, and his head tilted to the side, but Kuon couldn’t care less at that moment. He paced up and down the library between high stacks. Sometimes he managed to calm himself to the point he could stay still for a second. At those moments he looked out through the unbarred window at the illusion of freedom, painted in blue, gray and white all over the landscape. But his thumping heart urged him forward, and he resumed pacing again.
Many times, he had tried to get back to the book that lay opened on the first page; in vain. He thought he was going crazy. The lines he stared at didn’t want to stay put. His leg jerked on its own until the ringing of a telephone put him out of his misery, proclaiming that the obligation had been paid, and it was time for him to get back to his prison.
Greg picked up the phone and listened to short orders. Not showing any signs of emotions he hung up the antique receiver, made of the material that could easily be natural ivory, before switching his attention to Kuon.
“Let’s go back.” Sympathy bled through Greg’s voice, crushing the remains of Kuon’s pride.
Kuon closed his eyes for a second, then got up.
??E??
THE PRESSURE IN HIS EARSmuffled all sounds except the roaring of his blood and the drumming of his heart. Each heartbeat shuddered his vision, painting the corners of his sight black. The colors of the wallpaper and carpet dulled as if on an old photo. The only bright thing that remained was the door handle. Electric light, glinting off the polished bronze, hypnotized Kuon, never letting his focus slip.
Time, liquid and palpable, stretched as he got closer. He became aware of the vibration of his own steps, the feel of the springy carpet under his bare feet. He tried to swallow the pressure in his ears, but it didn’t go anywhere. His shaky hand covered the handle and pressed it down.
He closed his eyes, breathed in, and pushed the door open.
The citrus smell of household antiseptic hit his face. The curtains were wide open as well as the barred window. Briskly wind, breaking in, tried to throw the curtains off the rings, bringing snow and disturbance.
Kuon’s chest contracted, his lungs too constricted to take in any air. His gaze shifted to the bed, and he instantly averted his eyes, suppressing nausea.
Fresh sheets covered the bed. They weren’t the same as this morning. Being deprived of all kinds of entertainment, Kuon paid extra attention to every little change made in his surroundings. This morning the sheets had been black. Now they were violet.
Scorching clamps around his heart started to choke the blood pulsing through his veins.
That’s how it is… thought so.
His head felt heavy as if it was filled with boiling lead; Kuon struggled to keep it up. His muscles weakened, energy left his body, and all his limbs gradually went limp.
Thick, crushing weariness, with the pressure of hundreds of atmospheres, fell upon his shoulders, pressing him down. He glanced at the bed again, and his heart bled with hate. In this instance he knew he could never touch this bed again.
Not giving the bed another look, he moved to the opposite side of the room.
He didn’t find the energy to close the window, not that he wanted to. A small thought that the scent of sex would reappear if he shut the window brought excruciating agony into his chest.
His knee sunk into the chair’s cushion, and in a second, he rolled into a ball on the pimply ostrich leather. The thin knife scar marred its surface. Shivering, he hugged his middle in an attempt to save the fading warmth. His eyelids glued together as darkness washed over him.
