Miho the Killer
Chapter 58: The Two Of Us

Chapter 58: The Two Of Us

That night, I decided to sleep in Miho’s Room - Room 401 now, the furthest one away from the elevator, perhaps because of the incident she caused and they wanted her to be as far away and isolated as possible from other patients too.

The ward provided a small bed so I could have it set up next to Miho’s. It was slightly lower than her bed so all I could see were the edges of her mattress when I looked up.

I lay in my bed looking up at the ceiling as Miho used to do, my mind filled with everything that happened today. Miho’s near death, her breakdown, Shin’s outburst, the big job that he was talking about - and my place in all this?

I really didn’t know.

After about an hour of unsuccessfully emptying my mind and drifting into la-la land, I thought of lines from a poem I read a long time ago - A Martian Sends A Postcard Home by William Craig. It was from a book I had back in my flat - "Collection of Contemporary Poetry", which was quite a thick book but small in height so Miho had it placed further away from the big, scary, and towering books that had food recipes, wonderful nature, and creative arts. These four lines always stuck with me though.

At night, when all the colours die,

they hide in pairs

and read about themselves –

in colour, with their eyelids shut.

It felt especially apt now that I was lying in the same room with Miho - we were ’hiding in pairs’ in our not-so-cozy little room, and the night rendered everything colorless. When I closed my eyes, my imagination ran wild in vivid colors with my eyelids shut, and perhaps if I could drift to sleep I would have read about my old life in my dream too.

Having given up trying to fall asleep though, I got up and stood next to Miho. She, too, was colorless in this darkness with only a faint hint of light through the window. The iron bars drew unsightly shadows over her, making me frown.

I then remembered what my grandmother used to do to me when I was young and I couldn’t sleep at night. It was a little unfitting since I was the one who couldn’t sleep while Miho was soundly resting, but I reached out and stroked her forehead, and ran my fingers gently over her face.

I first traced the curve of her eyebrows.

"You have beautiful brows."

Then I circled around her closed eyes.

"You have beautiful eyes."

With my middle finger, I stroked her nose from its base to the tip.

"And beautiful nose."

I slowly rubbed her dry lips with my thumb.

"You have beautiful lips."

After that, I grabbed her hand softly.

"You have beautiful hands."

And I moved toward the foot of the bed to clasp her bare feet with both my hands.

"And you have beautiful feet."

From her head to her toe, she was a sleeping beauty, a pretty doll - like how my grandmother used to call me. At the same time, she was also an enigmatic embodiment of the beauty and the beast.

I climbed onto her bed and lay next to her, lying on her side, resting my head on the edge of her pillow.

I hugged her lightly with my arm, but not quite daring to wrap her with my legs.

Despite the paleness of her skin, her body felt very warm.

Then I remembered the slow, rolling arpeggios of the left-hand and mournful right-hand melody of Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven, the first movement. It was a seemingly easy piece on the piano that I learned as a child, but as I matured, I realized it was actually an incredibly difficult piece to play convincingly - the song required conviction and boldness to play and articulate each note of the melody, yet there had to be a sense of doubt, longing, and unfulfilled dreams in the arpeggios. But laying next to sleeping Miho, I felt like I could play them perfectly now.

I saw Miho as a child that I once was, and myself as the one sitting on the edge of a fence. If I fell back like Miho did earlier on the windowsill, it would be a free drop into the dark world that I may never emerge out of. On the other hand, this child-like Miho played in the Lily Garden with an innocent smile. I was on the verge of becoming who she was while she has regressed to who I was.

Had our paths not crossed, would we have just gone on to live our lives without any changes?

When did I get bored of life to the extend that I held a muted resentment and hatred for it?

When did Miho give up her kindness to bear the burden of taking others’ lives for the sake of her brother?

We were two constellations constantly pivoting around a black hole, trying not to get sucked in. But it seemed the only way we could meet and join was if we both gave up and fell into the void.

I pressed myself against Miho a little tighter, trying to shake off the bad, bad thoughts and only think of good things. The warmth of her body transpired through the thin bed sheet, and the texture of white cotton against my skin purified me.

I wanted to escape.

I wanted to escape with Miho to somewhere where nobody would recognize us, find us, and bother us.

But it seemed to be an impossible dream, a book of our lives that could only be written and read behind closed eyelids.

I wondered if I’d share my dream with Miho if we slept on the same pillow.

I wanted to share her pain and happiness, protect her, and be protected.

This love that seemed so real,

This love that felt so real,

And the happiness that I longed,

Were so far away.