Chapter 36 - Arthur CunninghamWednesday, October 18th ‘The Death of the Author’, if you’ve heard of it, was what was on my mind at that moment – not the dulcet melodies of Tchaikovsky, not Yami-san’s piercing gaze drilling into the back of my skull, not even the broad strokes of bck, red, and gray that were sailing across the canvas in front of me.

  ‘The Death of the Author’ is a literary theory that was first brought to life by French philosopher Rond Barthes in his essay of the same name in 1967. Simply put, the theory argues that the meaning of a piece of art is not determined by the author's intention, but completely by the reader's own interpretation.

  Some would extend this definition to include that the creator practically loses authority over the creation once they’ve finished it; rather, they are to be made completely separate from their machination entirely.

  Between you and I - I’ve never subscribed to this school of thought.

  Indeed, just like the existence of gravity is a universal truth, it has always been second nature for me to believe that an artist of whatever craft simply must be reflected in whatever they create, to as small or as rge an extent as they desire.

  Am I to believe that Van Gogh did not leave a piece of his burdened, mournful soul reaching out for hope, for respite in ‘The Starry Night’ ? Is it a stretch of the imagination to assume that Ben Enwonwu’s ‘Africa Dances’ collection is practically bursting with the painter’s electric vision of a rejoicing Nigeria, healed from the wounds of a tense civil war? Hardly!

  All that said, I found it fascinating, if not wholly unsettling, how I would be viewed if ever my works were used as a gateway into my psyche. If an onlooker were to pick up on the tiredness and the torment and the death that my brush was pouring against the easel, what would that tell them about me?

  “…You’re a psycho,” I heard a voice jeer to my right, as if responding to my thoughts. “Either you’re a complete wackjob or you’re finally catching on to what I keep telling you. Hopefully both.”

  I couldn’t suppress my sigh as Yami-san sauntered around, surveying my artwork with calcuting eyes. A gnce around the quiet clubroom informed me that the others, at some point, had vacated. I drank in the moment of peace, feeling the cool whistles of evening wind sashay through the windows and brush against my skin.

  “Neither,” I eventually replied as Yami-san drew up a stool and sat down next to me. “Though I suppose a psychopath wouldn’t go around announcing it to everybody they met.”

  I felt a soft sensation tap against the tip of my nose.

  “Wrong.” Yami-san sang childishly, withdrawing her index finger and instead using it to curl her white highlights. “If they’re a real psycho, you wouldn’t need to hear it from their mouths. You’d just know.”

  She extended a breezy hand once more at my work.

  “Exhibit A.”

  “Oh, quiet.” I exhaled. “If anything, I thought you’d be happy someone else is crafting pieces in the same style as yours.”

  She held my eye contact for a few moments, before shifting her focus to the windows, at some point or object that I felt only she could see.

  “Portraying death is no fun if you don’t believe in its beauty,” She finally whispered after a while. “If all it’s done is taken from you, what nuance could there be in your interpretation of it?”

  As usual, I wasn’t quite sure of how to respond. Yami-san had a strange, bordering obsessive interest in death. Where for others, simply referring to the phenomenon was seen as a bad omen, Yami-san actively welcomed it, and all the pieces she worked on reflected this fanaticism.

  It meant that, despite her remarkable beauty, she was rather ostracized and abandoned to the fringes of the social sphere, which I suppose expins the bizarre kinship I feel bubble up in my chest when I’m with her.

  “…Anyway, I’m about to finish up here. Why don’t you go and get some fresh air?” She suggested, still not looking away from the evening orange sky setting in. “Then, of course, you can come back to clean up all the supplies for me.”

  I shook my head but couldn’t fight the urge to smirk.

  “Naturally.”

  As I stepped out into the hallway, however, I looked back to find myself entranced by the scene of Yami-san sitting by the window, her hair dancing gracefully with the breeze, slim fingers toying with the bck and white ribbon that stood defiantly against the marmade light shining against her skin.

  The strangest feeling that I’d seen that posture, that grace, somewhere before lingered with me as I ventured through the empty hallways.

  I think a part of me still wanted to believe that nothing had changed between us. That we were all still searching for the same thing, groping and cwing and reaching with all our might for a way to escape the fate that id before us. I can’t see why else I would have ended up climbing the steps to the rooftop, my hands trembling against the doorknob.

  If I turned it now, and pushed open the door, what would I see? Would I, once again, witness a sight of disciplined camaraderie and shared purpose? I didn’t have the strength to take the risk. Unfortunately, it seemed the choice was not mine to make after all.

  Without warning, I felt a pull from the other side of the door, and once it had been swung open, I found her there staring at me. I’d been looking for her – for anyone – all day, and here she was!

  “S-Shirogetsu-san,” I stammered, caught-off-guard. “I-“

  She held up one single palm and closed her eyes, the space around which was puffy and red. In that moment, I could swear I sensed something change in the very magnetic pull that bound us to the earth.

  “P-Please, wait…!”

  No use. Wordlessly, Mizuko had brushed past me and disappeared down the steps. Why couldn’t I chase after her? What was it I cked that relegated me to this position of helpless onlooker?

  As my ineptitude coiled around my throat like a serpent, threatening to choke what little life remained in me, I caught a gnce of another body, sitting with their legs to their chest and gazing at the somber skyline beyond the chain link fence.

  Misery loves company, as the proverb goes. Before long, I had found myself plopping down onto the space next to her. For the longest time, we spoke no words. We simply sat and existed, like horses at grass, savouring the few precious moments we had left.

  “H-Hey,” She eventually spoke in her usual cheep, albeit something about her tone was already setting my hairs on end. “…Where’s Soce?”

  “…S-Soce?” I echoed. It was then that Kozuki turned her full head to face me, and I never forgot the distant look in her eyes, as though I was only speaking to the body that her soul had vacated long ago. “Y-You don’t mean Furusawa? Kozuki, Furusawa is - ”

  “Soce!” She shrieked suddenly. “I’m asking you where Soce is! He was with Resolution and The Twisted and I st night!”

  At my stunned silence, she continued.

  “He – he would heal us when we got hurt. He would always ask after us and worry about us and make jokes at his own expense and break up our arguments and talk about his friends and look so long at Resolution and wipe at his eyes when he was sure nobody was looking but I always was and he defended me on that first night when…when…”

  Eventually, her voice had broken down into strangled, despaired sobs that shook her body violently, as though she was never made to endure such sorrow. Simply being near her in that moment, I noticed drops of tears also raining onto my own p.

  “What do I do?” She whispered between suffering breaths. “Who should I be? Tell me, Fenrir. I’ll be whoever I need to be. Just please…make it stop. It hurts so much I could die.”

  “I don’t know!” It would have felt so liberating, so enthralling to say. “I don’t know what to do! I don’t know who to be! I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know – “

  But someone else was there first. I don’t know when he had arrived, but he was kneeling in front of Miharu. He reached out a gentle hand and grabbed Kozuki’s own, before wiping her cheek with a brush of his finger.

  “I will tell you who to be, Kozu-chan.” Rusuban decred softly.

  Groups of leaves were now beginning to sway with the te afternoon gust, red, yellow and golden patterns cascading in perfect unison. There was something beautiful about their formation, a perfect three-link wholly joint in purpose. It was a quality I very much envied at that moment in time.

  “C-Cordyceps…?”

  Rusuban continued to look at Miharu, then gnced at me, before standing up.

  “Soce is dead.” He stated with fists clenched. Out of the corner of my eye, I detected Kozuki beginning to tremble even further.

  “No!” She cried. “No, he…he can’t be…”

  Kinoko shook his head in anguish and rebutted, “Denying the truth won’t get us anywhere. The fact of the matter is that he was taken from us, and we couldn’t do anything to stop it.”

  The absolute boorishness of his words in the midst of Kozuki’s tormented soul sparked a fire underneath me, and before I knew it I had leapt to my feet, his colr scrunched up in my fists as I pulled him in.

  “DON’T YOU THINK WE KNOW THAT?!” I heard a monster within me growl. Despite the adrenaline of the entire act, I noticed a distinct paleness in Rusuban’s complexion that was not present before.

  “Y-yes!” He struggled. “I know you know that – and I’m counting on you being strong enough to push on ahead regardless!”

  I released my grip on him and he stumbled backwards into the tall chain fence, clutching his fingers within the grooves and grabbing at his neck as he took in deep breaths.

  “I... I have an idea.” He muttered. “If this is how we’re being rewarded for going through with this ‘game’ then to hell with it completely! We’re not here to py anymore; we’re going to break the game.”

  “Break the game?” The incredulousness in my tone was difficult to hold back, and quite understandably so. “Through what means? If Juno is as powerful as we think they are, what hope do we have of rebelling?”

  A few moments of tense silence passed before Kinoko, now having regained his composure, stood to full height and smirked.

  “Isn’t that it, Cunningham?” He began. “It’s because they’re so powerful that we have a chance. Juno pys by rules. It’s the only way to make things entertaining at their level. I know of a way we can exploit these rules to destroy this sick game once and for all. But I’ll need your help.”

  Once again, he walked back toward the pair of us, and stretched out a hand – not toward me, but to Kozuki.

  "Red," he procimed, his voice echoing with solemnity. "...I shall be thy guide, thy Director. Follow in my shadow, and I shall navigate thee to the beacon of thy longing, even if it demands my very soul."

  …Just what on earth was going on? Was he trying to take advantage of her imbanced state of mind? This couldn’t go on. I had to –

  "Very well.”

  Kozuki relinquished her hand into Rusuban’s, and spoke in a tone that was a complete switch from the vulnerability that ran rampant just moments prior. In fact, it was as though she'd never truly woken up from that first night of our captivity.

  "Speak thy desires, and they shall be fulfilled." She continued, her eyes still and resolute. "But, should thou fail thy vow, or entertain thoughts of treachery..."

  She pulled him in until their faces were inches apart, using her eyes to pry open Rusuban's soul.

  "...I shall be thy executioner."

  If Rusuban was surprised at all by the exchange, he did his upmost not to show it. He cleared his throat.

  “I won’t fail you.” He encouraged. “Come, you and I have much to discuss. Cunningham, we’ll let you know what the pn is tonight with others…if you still wish to cooperate with us, that is.”

  As they vanished into the darkness of the stairwell, I was stood out there for what felt like hours, trying to make sense of the scene I’d just witnessed.

  Gradually, it dawned on me that our fixation on the perils of the Hollow Night had blinded us to the true menace lurking in our midst.

  While we scanned the shadows for external threats, the greatest danger had been silently gathering strength, concealed in pin sight, right under our very noses.