shinzoshokusu-blog

[shinzoshokusu-blog]

—Mascarade. . .

                                                                                                                             @satsvjin

                                                                                                                  It is… grandeur.

It isn’t his party, this time. He hasn’t held anything like this in perhaps too long. But all the work, all the effort he needs to put into making these spectacles just isn’t feasible, lately. His practice is picking up, and he’s not left with much time to himself.

This is a special occasion, however. He’s taken the night off just to be here. One of his colleagues is retiring. She’s perhaps his longest-known friend. His own psychologist, even. This party is to send her off in good spirits. Thematically, it’s even whimsical: a masquerade.

He wouldn’t miss it for the world.

So he follows the flow of the crowd into the house, dressed to the nines. His favorite Brioni three-piece; black with a navy shirt, flat front trousers. His mask is a little last minute, but he managed to find a Venetian columbina. Black frames his eyes, overlaid with gold lace.

As he passes a waiter, he snatches a champagne flute. He keeps a light but tight hold on it, rounds the grand staircase of the venue, and settles in against the railing to scope out the room.

It’s packed, but not unbearably so. There are staff everywhere, tending to the partygoers like bees to the hive. Just over the din of the crowd plays an enchanting melody, though he can’t quite place what it is. Gruodis, maybe?

He’s looking for someone. Specifically, he’s looking for the guest of honor, but she doesn’t appear to be around. Or perhaps she is, just hidden behind the feathers and jewels of a mask. He’s resigns to himself and someone approaches, recognizing him from a brief interaction at the theatre. Their greetings are almost entirely superficial - or they are for him, anyhow. He manages a few sips of his drink.

And then suddenly, he has to use the restroom. At least, that’s what he tells his conversation partner. He downs the rest of his glass, gently pushes it into the hands of a passing staff member, and heads up the stairs. Not in the greatest rush - no need to make a spectacle - but at an easy pace. On the way up he even manages to grab another drink.

If he remembers correctly, there’s a quiet corner up here that most folks don’t visit. A small sort of gallery, not very well lit.

But certainly more interesting than the scene down below.

The door isn’t locked - he’s not sure if any of them are. Not many of the guests here would venture into places more than twenty feet from the buffet table. He envies them sometimes; the complacency in just being with other people, food, and drink. It’s a primitive desire, community.

It swings open and he steps in. A weight falls from his shoulders with the solitude.

A breath, a sip, and he starts his self-lead tour.

#(r)ip #( p; mascarade ) #satsvjin

[shinzoshokusu-blog]

You still wake up sometimes, don’t you? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs.

#sukketsu #(r)equiem #(( i wanted to make a moodboard for them and here we are ))

[shinzoshokusu-blog]

—Des Bonbons Ou Un Sort. . .

Halloween is his holiday. Beyond Christmas, where he is required to show feigned affection for his associates in boxes with bows, he thinks that this is perhaps one of the most important holidays that countries around the world celebrate. People wear masks every day, but today, it’s expected.

When he was a teenager, he passed out candy to whatever children decided to grace his doorstep. It was a chore, insisted upon by his parents so they could take his sisters to gather their own treats. He never understood why they would spend so much time wandering the streets and hoping for chocolate when they had plenty at home.

Now he does.

There’s a certain thrill to dressing up, characterizing yourself and pretending to be something other than what you truly are. In his case, however, it allows him to be closer to himself than he would ever dare to be during the day.

So he ventures out at night, after the doors are shut and the windows locked. Steps into a club he’s never entered, orders a drink he’s never partook in. Every year it’s something different, some with absinthe and some without. He always manages to order a drink for someone else, as well.

Maybe add a touch of something special.

And he takes them home - not to his home, but to theirs. There doesn’t need to be any cleanup. He just doesn’t leave any fingerprints. No fibers, no hairs, no fingerprints - he’s safe. For one night a year, he is allowed to be genuine, indulgent. He takes it slow, lets the knife slide in gently, as if he were cutting through butter. He gazes into his meal’s eyes as they slip away, gently fading from the earth.

Some of them scream, and he smothers them. Sometimes with his lips, sometimes with their own pillow.

Most of them give in, silently accepting their fate as he whispers unto them secrets that he’s been keeping for decades. Quiet nothings that they won’t be able to pass along beyond the veil.

There is no cleanup. He takes what he needs and discards the rest on the bedroom floor, Leaves the rest for forensics.

He journeys home sated and waiting for next year.

#(r)eason #( p; des bonbons ou un sort )

[shinzoshokusu-blog]

There has always been a bubble around this woman.

A five foot radius around her in which no others dared step foot. She’s always appeared beguiling, but had this look in her eye that he’s theorized is what must be the thing that keeps all potential conversation partners at a distance. For a long time, he wasn’t able to place it. He’s seen it before, in specific people.

If you were to look at her from an outside perspective and draw a comparison, it would be to a shark, or a lioness. The smaller wildlife wouldn’t dare intrude.

Seldom does anyone actually take the time to think of an answer to his queries, even if he springs them without warning. She does. She contemplates carefully what she is going to say, and he appreciates that. It’s hard to be loquacious when you’re saying whatever comes to mind first.

“You would be right, yes. I do agree - it was easy to tell that they put their very souls into it.” He offers a sort of half-smile. Recently, he’s gotten a lot better at them. “It was very imaginative without taking away from the original, I think. It was nice to see Giselle as something more than a peasant; there aren’t enough women that are actually strong enough in most of the classics.”

He takes a drink from his own glass.

“Score was a welcome change as well. Adam’s original... worked, but with the choreography changes it would have been disjointed.”

It’s a strange thing, to feel as if you’re being analyzed when you are usually the one doing the analyzing. There’s an intense feeling of being watched, being inspected from head to toe, but he’s not uncomfortable. There’s nothing to hide here. It perhaps would have been different, had they met somewhere else.

As she shifts, he catches a faint scent - so quick he almost believes he’s imagining it. She goes for subtlety, it seems; he wouldn’t have been able to smell it at all if he hadn’t been so close, even with his finely tuned senses.

“Is that Amouage? Memoir, specifically, I believe.”

—Trouvaille. . .

There are places Vita frequents more often than she’d care to admit – places dark and dank, holes-in-the-wall with bathrooms more dangerous than the alleys out back, dive bars so skin-crawlingly crowded she doesn’t feel clean for hours after she’s washed the night’s evidence away. She visits these places for a purpose, one vitally important and utterly secret; but for this, she wouldn’t be caught dead in them. She’s careful never to become familiar in any of them, either – she’s ephemeral, there and gone, never missed.

Places like this, on the other hand, are to be lingered in as long as she’s able. She soaks it up, every strand of fine-tuned violin, every impossible turn and twist and leap that has her heart in her throat and her hands clasped tightly in her lap atop program and jeweled clutch. Ballet stirs something primal in her, it always has, and to her delight she’s learned attending one delivers much the same rush as dancing it. She’s been to dozens in the few short years since an uptick in personal financial success has allowed her such luxuries.

There’s a man she’s spotted at a few of them, and other places besides – a gallery opening here, a benefit there. She wonders if she’s become a familiar face to him, as he has to her. For once, the thought doesn’t bother her. Let him know her. Let him become fascinated with her, and fill in the blanks she presents so coolly to the world with extravagant lies. The thought amuses her.

This amuses her too. That he’s approaching her as people seldom do, joining her on the little settee she’s claimed for her own. That question’s answered, then. Leaving room for new ones – like what this man expects to gain from engaging her in conversation. A date? Someone to brag to? The simple status boost that comes with being seen with a woman like her?

His remarks are a pleasant surprise. She’s inclined to agree. Rarely has a performance moved her the way this one had. An avant-garde retelling of a classic, tonight’s production saw Giselle recast in modern form and sensibility, with all the death and high drama of the original. One might expect that a young woman such as herself would identify with the protagonist, the titular Giselle, beautiful and tragic figure that she was. One would be wrong. As ever, it was the Wiła that captivated her – those dread spirits who lurked in the night, restless, wronged in life and so preying on unfaithful, unworthy men in their undeath. They too were beautiful, at least the form they showed humans; beautiful and treacherous. Like her.

She smiles at the stranger – a brilliant one, to be sure, but careful in the way one must be, so near their area of expertise. It’s all too easy to veer from impressively knowledgeable to overbearing, and first impressions always matter. Doubly so in high society.

“It is a small company, yes. Less than half the size of the National Ballet, if I’m recalling correctly, though I’m of the opinion that they make up for it in character. A bold interpretation, wasn’t it?”

She sips at her glass, letting the faint chlorinated aftertaste breathe on her tongue. For such a discriminating venue, she’s almost scandalized they hadn’t provided her with filtered water. She’d sooner substitute the taste of Chandon or Chardonnay, but tonight would call for a clear head. Just a feeling she’d had, walking in the crisp evening chill from the train station. The night felt charged, the way it did before a storm.

#(r)ip #( p; trouvaille ) #vahimali #(( i love it ))

[shinzoshokusu-blog]

—Trouvaille. . .

                                                                                                                           @vahimali

HE SEES HER AT THE BALLET.

He sees her at the opera, and again in the lobby afterward, when he is sipping idly from a champagne glass.

He sees her at the theatre when he goes to see the opening night of Tosca.

There’s hardly a night where he doesn’t manage to spot her in the crowd somewhere. If he’s out enjoying a night of culture, she’s nestled somewhere inside the building. They share the same space for so long that it becomes odd to not find her leaving a red ring on a flute full of water.

It becomes a sort of game, just picking out individual details about her from the sidelines.

Dark hair, glossy and soft regardless of whether it’s up or down, lipstick bold and memorable, silky dresses that hug the right areas - she easily fits in with the rest of the company. Or, rather, she would if anyone were to talk to her. Despite all of her attractive qualities, it’s as if she’s wearing a social repellent.

He finds it very, very interesting.

It’s after the premier of a budding writer’s first major ballet that he decides to make an approach. He crosses the room in easy strides, nodding and smiling politely to everyone that tries to stop him for a chat. It’s all inconsequential background noise.

What makes you different?

He settles next to her and begins to watch those that remain in the room, pulled into small groups save for the occasional straggler and a few waitstaff.

“It’s seems a shame that the production was not larger. The actors were spectacular.”

#(r)ip #( p; trouvaille ) #vahimali

[shinzoshokusu-blog]

Tick                                                                                                                              Tock                                                                                   Tick                            Tock

It’s been quite some time since he’s been this antsy. There’s never really been a reason to be. his whole life has been planned out, choreographed. Each second has been imminent, inescapable, since he was old enough to know right from wrong, and what, exactly, he was.

There is no comfort on his living room couch; no soft reprieve on the white cushions. The music that drifts softly through the air offers no solace either. The only things to keep him busy are his own thoughts, and even they aren’t quite helping.

The vision of his companion should’ve induced something like relief - it should’ve removed some sort of weight from his shoulders. But it didn’t. Seeing his patient, his friend, inebriated out of his mind was only unsettling. Maybe a little disappointing. He’d expected better.

Only when he hears a faint cry from below does he get to his feet. The basement is soundproofed well enough that had he not been listening for it, he probably wouldn’t have heard it - and it helped that he left the door ajar.

So he descends. This time, he hopes to see the man that he’s remembered as an equal - someone he can actually have some sort of intelligent conversation with.

It’s so rare that anyone really sees behind the curtains that hide him from the rest of the world. He wants to make sure that the people looking are able to be trusted.

The voice that meets him is raw, hoarse from screaming, and he smiles. It’s been over a year, and it’s twisted, torn, but he still remembers it.

“I oftentimes cure my own meat, you know. It’s a lengthy process, and there’s not enough room in the kitchen to just set it aside. So I eventually made a space down here for it. It’s a little cold, and I’ve meant to get a plumber out to fix up the pipes, but it works very well.” At least it’s bright. He doesn’t look at Kasai - instead he chooses to inspect a few of the hooks hanging from the ceiling. “For a lot of things.”

It’s hard to keep the mildew at bay, but he does his best to come in and sweep the place with bleach at least once a week. It’s really a matter of fixing the water lines, but it’s difficult to find the time. He turns his eyes to the figure in the center of the room.

Covered in his own sick and blood that may or may not be his own, the man on the floor is definitely a sight.

The stench offends Changmin’s nose but he doesn’t falter.

“It’s been far too long. Tell me, did you spend the entirety of your absence like this, or was it just the last week or so? I’m curious.”

                                                                                 Tick                                                                                  Tock

….drip….drip…..drip

It was echoing from deep inside his mind, seemingly getting louder every time it rang out until it was nearly bursting behind his eyes. Maybe if he finally opened them it would relieve some of the foreign pressure. Nope. Definitely not.

Where the hell was he anyways? Without a source of light his best guess would be a basement - the severe undertone of damp mildew covered concrete was the biggest give away.

But wait- there was another scent that covered his own clothes. Metallic…..blood?

What the fuck

Driiiiiiiiipp drip drip drip drip

It still hasn’t stopped. Focus on something else.  What was even his name? The man’s mind started to race through all the possibilities and objects that might trigger a memory, thankfully he could tell right off the bat he was more intelligent than most just by how quickly his thoughts finally landed on Kasai.

Dripdripdripdripdripdripdrip

There had to be some sort of light switch somewhere in this hell hole. Newly named Kasai pulled up his lanky figure, muscles drowsy like they were sedated for days, and stumbled over the walls trying to find one and prayed his hand didn’t land on something sharp. Last thing he needed were some stitches.

The shock of the sudden fluorescents killed whatever was making that noise in his mind but what he sees when his eyes adjusted makes the memories all come flooding back a little too quickly.

Vomit mixes with the blood pooled on the floor as Kasai nearly doubled over letting out a piercing scream as if that would make the flashes of images stop.

It was only when a  door screeched open from a staircase up above and when he sees the man at the top of the stairs a small smirk spreads into a devilish grin. The memories stopped and focused on him.

“Long time no see, Doc.”

#(r)ip #( p; untitled) #sukketsu

[shinzoshokusu-blog]

lithified started following you

this seems to be the wrong way round.

#(r)ewrite

[shinzoshokusu-blog]

(memory)

There aren’t any messages after that.

There is only the emptiness of his own office and the blank pages left in his wake. It’s a hollow feeling in the pit of your stomach that you can’t seem to shake. Nothing to fill it with.

He doesn’t know when he got so attached, really. It was a brief friendship, followed by a little over a year without contact. By rights, he should feel absolutely nothing. This is how he looks at the rest of his patients, the rest of the population. They are all animals.

Perhaps it was because they both brought something to the table that he hadn’t had in quite some time - honesty. He hadn’t been truthful with anyone in years, hiding himself away in a twisted fabric of falsities that kept him neatly tucked away just out of everyone’s attention. This man knew his secret and accepted it without batting an eye. Accepted his true self despite the gruesome details.

Because he had a similarly ugly side.

It wouldn’t be accurate to call what they had significant, not really. For one evil to meet another is inevitable. He was fated to meet someone with similar ideals; thoughts of sending the animals to slaughter are actually fairly common. It just happened to be that they met in this very office, and discovered each other in his very kitchen. He wasn’t expecting it to happen so close to home.

But it left an impression.

For months, his mind was empty of all thoughts that had to do with him. There was nothing - no pondering, no wistful musing. Everything that was in any way related to him was scrubbed away, washed from recollection. And as soon as there was evidence of his return, it all came back. He was plagued with the desire to speak. For what could have happened to his companion that would have made it necessary for him to vanish so completely?

After all this time, he was still a puzzle.

It’s not until a week after the first incident that he decides to leave another note. He has no choice but to leave it on his own door and hope that curiosity gets the better of his elusive shadow.

                                                                                    You have an appointment.

Bɪʟʟᴇᴛ-Dᴏᴜx

#(r)ip #sukketsu #natsukashii

[shinzoshokusu-blog]

(memory)

(natsukashii)

It was 3 A.M. and Kasai had not slept in days. Lost and confused, he wandered around the streets of the dreary city during the first rain storm of the year -letting his feet lead him to an all too familiar brick building. Deep down he knew the reason his path led him here but he would never dare to admit it to anyone, especially himself but still it would never hurt to look around. 

It only took him a few seconds to break in. His hand paused over the doorknob to his old psychiatrist’s office suddenly made him nauseous thinking the other man would be inside sitting in that ugly chair as usual. Albeit this symptom was definitely not caused by nerves but instead…exhilaration. So with a short breath he pushed open the door.

“Still as clean as ever. Fucking psycho” 

It was on Valentine’s Day that he had last seen his friend, even though calling him a friend still was too plain of a word to label someone as opulent of a cutthroat as Changmin was. He was never a friend, enemy, or a lover - he was just Kasai’s person. The first one who understood his morbid addiction and at this point he had no where else to turn to. The past year has been hell on earth as much as it is a bad joke for Kasai to think this and it was time to admit he needed someone with a like mind to give a touch of advice. 

There was no way he could resist the temptation. He needed someone to share his darkness with and he needed to reinstate the symbiotic relationship they once had or else he would never make it. 

Long, elegant fingers trace over the always spotless bookshelves surrounding the office. He takes out a few choices to read a passage or two making sure to write a little note in the margins of how the author was wrong or an improvement to the writing, placing it back perfectly once he was done. Kasai repeats this until he finds himself sitting in that same horrendous chair Changmin always sat in during his sessions when he spots one of his notebooks he used to scribble down thoughts about the patients. It was very unlike his old friend to be so careless but still, Kasai kicked back his feet onto the coffee table making sure to get mud all over the top since he knew it would drive the other mad and started to write comments on this as well. Mostly insults about the patients and remarks how easy it would be to kill some, but on the last page he left a note just for Changmin in his usual neat and precise handwriting.

“Death is the only god who comes when you call.” 

He honestly smirked at the quote, even though Changmin does not know the whole truth about him just yet. But his person  was smart enough to solve this riddle since he was always the smarter one afterall. Yet another thing Kasai would never outright admit. He’d rather be caught dead.

Nine in the morning leaves him feeling as if he’s a half-rotten corpse, just wandering through the city until he eventually wastes away completely.

The thermos of coffee in his hand does nothing to disperse the sleep that lingers in his mind and clings to his body like a shroud. He is barely aware enough to know that he’s come to the door of his practice, and his hands are on autopilot when his planner gets tucked under one arm and his keys are produced from a pocket within his coat. The door swings open before him, he enters.

He is instantly alert.

Something is amiss here. His space has been violated - he can’t figure out what it is, exactly, until he steps into his office.

The mess draws his eyes immediately; there’s dried up mud on his table, next to the pad that he’d forgotten to put away before he left last night. Upon further inspection, there’s an abundance of it on the floor, tracked from one bookshelf to the next. A trail, leading straight to his chair.

It’s as if his hackles have risen, but he’s controlled, calculating. There’s no one else in the building, and he is alone. There’s no reason to freak out now; he doesn’t keep any important documents here aside from patient files - and he has duplicates of most of them at home. There’s nothing that anyone sane would want here.

So he sits. He contemplates the motive someone might have behind breaking in. There isn’t one.

There are a few moments of silence as he just looks at the crusted up wood of his table, and then he notices the scrawl of someone else’s handwriting on his paper.

A quiet hum of intrigue and he picks up the pad, sets down his coffee, almost forgotten. His eyes flicker back and forth as he flips through the different pages, reading the little words scribbled in the margins of his own notes. They’re perturbing, dark and cynical. But it’s the last one that brings a smile to his face. A memory rises to the surface and he recalls the owner of this handwriting. It’s been so long - almost a year - since he’s laid eyes on the brooding terror that he used to call a friend.

Now he’s back.

                                            “And I thought you hadn’t been getting mine.”

- double shot

#(r)ip #( p; double shot ) #sukketsu #natsukashii

[shinzoshokusu-blog]

(memory)

    Kintsukuroi - the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum.

To create beauty out of something that has been shattered is an art form that very few have managed to master, even metaphorically. It’s something that cannot be learned, that must come naturally to an individual in order for it to truly be breathtaking. Broken down into a method - into steps - it is merely extraordinary.

He likes to think that it comes naturally to him, solving people like puzzles. He is the one that can put what’s missing back into place. He’ll seal it all up in gold and silver, and he’ll make it beautiful again.

But it doesn’t.

He can read people just fine, like a book fresh off the press. But it’s taken years of practice to be able to figure out which words placed where will make them whole. It takes him time and no small amount of effort. He does it earnestly. He strives to help others, to build them up to where they can function again.

Still, it’s so easy to break them.

Pᴏᴇᴛ

#(r)ecoil