"The Poet's Tavern of Hitting and Being Hit" ep. 11 "The Masterless Insect Cage"

I wake up with only my left eye, feeling the physical agony of my lungs being crushed.
Instantly, my body began to tremble violently.
My right cheek is damp.
My pillow has flown off to the corner of the room.

Beyond the shadow of my eyelashes sits an empty insect cage, with several carrots shriveled up inside it.
Even though there is no master to eat them.
I must have been swayed by some faint hope again, diligently delivering feasts every day.

My head is splitting with pain.
My throat burns with pain.
The lethargy like that after drowning and an inexplicable sense of impatience persist.
Even so, my stomach growls.
In front of the empty insect cage.

──Tap-tap, ta-tan, ton-ta-tan...

Footsteps are coming up the stairs.
This bouncy rhythm must be Iyo-san.

Even at a time like this, a mischievous impulse took hold, and I pretended to be asleep, facing the ceiling.

There is the sound of the door sliding open.

As expected, Iyo-san, having been fooled, walks with light, careful steps to avoid making noise.
I hear the wooden spoon moving slightly inside the bowl.
The bottom of the tray scrapes against the tatami mat.

Ah...
The warm scent of rice porridge.

With my eyes closed, my senses of hearing and smell are sharpened.

There is the rustling sound of paper being set down.
That is a little further away.
It must be under the window, on the desk.

I can tell through my eyelids that Iyo-san is likely peering at my face.
Surely, she is very close.

Inside the futon, I silence the insect living in my solar plexus with both thumbs.
I cannot swallow the saliva overflowing in my mouth, and I feel like I am about to drown.

The time is ripe.
When I open my eyes vigorously, as expected, Iyo-san is startled and falls over, shouting, "YAAAAAAH!!!!"

Forgetting my headache, I find myself laughing at the fact that Iyo-san has fallen over.

Iyo-san is laughing while angry.
"Don't play dead! Am I a bear?!"
She shouted that and shoved a thermometer under my tongue with incredible force.

Not even a minute had passed before she yanked it out.
"Look at that!" she said, thrusting it in front of my face like an imperial seal, but I couldn't see the silver.

The moment I lowered my elbows to try and sit up, I coughed violently.
Iyo-san helped me sit up and rubbed my back.
It hurt a little as it rubbed against my bones, but I surrendered my body and soul for a moment to the warmth of those round, gentle hands.

"Saku-chan, if you don't eat soon, you'll die. Eat!"
I am intimidated by Iyo-san's intense vehemence and energy.

The lid of the earthenware pot is opened.
I gag at the thick scent of rice.
The warm droplets on the back of the lid sink down calmly.
The slightly heavy sound as it was poured into the bowl felt strangely comforting.
I swim between rejection and craving.

The porridge on the spoon finally approaches my lips.
The thick rice water, glistening and dripping from the spoon, is seductive.
While watching it, my lips open naturally, and my tongue leans forward, craving it ungracefully.

However, my body is still refusing.
My instinct wants it.
I am disgusted with myself, thinking it should be the other way around.

The sense of immorality as my reason is violated by my instinct, and my body is taken away.
The spoon touches my lips, and the shimmering white, slightly hotter than my skin, flows onto my tongue.
As it passes through my throat, it shares its temperature and slides smoothly down.

My heartbeat rings in my brain.

Iyo-san, perhaps wanting to feed me as much as possible, makes each spoonful absurdly large.
As if responding to that, my instinct desperately pries my lips open.
I can no longer recognize the body that is still trying to resist.

Rice water keeps dripping from the corner of my mouth, running down my chin and falling onto my chest.
I even feel ecstasy at that sensation, and I hate it.

When I drank the last drop, those cursed words suddenly attacked me maliciously.

──Your words are so fresh and vibrant...

Suddenly, the maggots that had been lying dormant begin to rampage.
If I cover my ears with trembling hands, my brain is devoured.
Maggots crawl up from my stomach, through my esophagus, and up to my throat at a terrifying speed.

The back of my eyes hurts.
I close my eyes to the writhing of the layered maggots.

The more I try to shut out the movement of this destruction, the sharper it becomes.

Even if the porridge was a gentle poison that had changed its form, I wanted to believe in the gentleness.

That is why I am holding my mouth as if in prayer.

If it is maggots, if it is poison, I want to vomit it all out, along with my guts—no, along with this cursed brain that keeps thinking.
If it is gentleness, please... please...

Even so, I wouldn't mind being killed by a gentle poison.

The sound of the maggots fades for a moment.
In a world without sound, I listen to the irregular beating of my heart.
My lungs tremble with air that I can only inhale in fragments.

It slips through my fingers, tracing my wrists, upper arms, and elbows, dampening the sleeves of my yukata.
No matter how hard, how firmly I press down, I cannot contain it.

I cough violently again.
Iyo-san's soft hand is rubbing my back.
Her eyelashes are wet.
My vision blurs.

It hurts... it hurts...

What I vomited out was gentleness.
It was a pure, white gentleness, without a single stain.

──But, I wanted to hear it...
──In your voice.

How much time has passed since then?

My back, resting on the thin futon, feels light.
My body is no longer floating, but is peacefully merging with gravity.
Outside, I can hear the early cicadas singing.

The empty insect cage is truly empty, catching the breeze of the new season above the stack of papers on the desk by the window.

"Good morning."

The voice that whispered that was still raspy, though.

(To be continued)

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The previous chapter is here.

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Please, let the writer's block go away!

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I pretend to have read Yasunari Kawabata.
There is a golden Buddha statue in the studio with a face like Chuya Nakahara.

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By Yukio-sama
Digging deeper into the characters.
You beautifully draw out the depths of her heart.
If it were a different timeline, if she were the protagonist!
I wish it were like this.