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The others were sitting in a circle to eat, but he was left out, staring at the slop he was supposed to eat but couldn’t gather the courage to. Alone.
A fallen drop of ink ruining a calligraphy.
Some days loneliness was crushing. It couldn’t hurt him though, he had to remind himself. Not in the way the kicks and punches he’d run away from could. It seemed like a lifetime ago, no, many, as many as all the jobs he’d had since he’d left his family.
He’d lived so many lives already. He was tired.
A part of him preferred to be left out. As long as the others didn’t accept him, he could still pretend that he wasn’t really one of them, that he was somehow superior because, unlike that bunch of lowlives, he hated what he had become.
As if that wasn’t his life now. He could tolerate the derelict shack, the sweltering heat, the insects crawling everywhere, the horrible food… they weren’t worse than what he’d had for years. But the crushing guilt of surviving on stolen things and stolen time, that he couldn’t stand.
Would he ever get used to it? He hoped he wouldn’t. He hoped he would.
The soup was a very pale shade of green, and he feared the flavor would be as bland as its color. There was no way of telling what was inside, or if there was anything other than dirty water at all. He tried to imagine he was about to eat something else, even a simple bowl of rice, but it had been too long since he’d last had a decent meal.
His mother’s face, his childhood friends’ voices, the landscapes he’d seen when travelling with his tribe… a thick fog covered those memories, and his head hurt every time he tried to go through it. And now the taste of food too. How many more memories could he lose before he lost himself completely?
Maybe it would be better that way. If he could just become a ruthless bandit and forget about Hideyoshi, the mountain boy who would have rather starved to death than hurt someone. Maybe then guilt would finally stop stealing the air from his lungs.
Did they hate it too? Did they lose sleep thinking about a time when they’d been more similar to people than to wild animals? Did they wish they had the strength to stop surviving out of savage instinct and just… let go? Did they—
Laughing. They were laughing. A horrible sound.
A horrible taste in his mouth, even if he hadn’t tasted that slop yet.
Maybe one day he’d get used to this. Maybe one day he’d laugh at his fate too.
If only he could get into the circle…
No. Not yet.
He didn’t need friends as desperately as he needed to feel different. Even if that made him worse than them.
He held his nose, and took a sip.
It was disgusting.
He coughed it out.