thought experiment (Saiyuki, Homura/Nii, PG)
Title: thought experiment
Author/Artist: incandescens
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Prompt: May 29 - Saiyuki, Homura/Nii Jianji: sympathy and empathy, the appeal of nihilism, connections made through despair and desperation. “I didn’t think that creatures like you existed.”
Word count: 1248
Homura threw himself down on the couch and lay there, looking up at the ceiling. “Today I thought about destroying the world,” he said.
“It’s been done before,” the man in black answered. His head was bowed over the papers strewn over his desk. He smelt of old sweat and rotten spices; the room had no windows and no ventilation, and the odours hung in the air, to the point that Homura associated all three things together; this man, talking to him, and the couch that he was supposed to lie on. It was, apparently, custom.
“Destroying the world?” The ceiling was tiled marble. Every piece was exactly the same size and shape, however much Homura tried to find one that was out of proportion or imperfect.
“Thinking about it.” The man put the tip of his pen to his lips, and sucked on it thoughtfully for a moment. “I believe we would have noticed if it had actually been destroyed. The world, that is. Not the thought.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me that I should have more proper aspirations?” Homura asked.
“Annh.” The man’s sigh was very bored. “Why do you bother asking me that sort of question? If I haven’t told you that already, why should you think that I would tell you it now?”
“All the other Sanzou did,” Homura said. He folded his hands behind his head and studied the ceiling.
“And their success rate was so blazingly impressive that they all got sent away again,” the man said. “Clearly their approach isn’t quite the sort of thing for you, mm?”
Homura yawned. “This wasn’t my idea. I didn’t ask for this.”
“Then be grateful,” the man said. “At least this way you can’t be blamed for whatever happens, can you?”
“Nothing’s going to happen.” Homura yawned again. “This is Heaven. Nothing ever happens.”
“Well now, that’s a very interesting way of looking at it,” the man in black said. “After all, there was Son Goku, and one could say that happened, couldn’t one? Or the business with Konzen and the General and the Marshal, and -“
Homura froze. “How do you know about that?”
“Oh, anyone who really wants to know can find these things out, can’t they? Dirty little secrets are only kept that way by the people who don’t want to know about them.” His voice was light and unconcerned. “I would say there’s no excuse for a lack of effort, wouldn’t you?”
“What are you telling me?”
“Me? I’m not telling you anything. They brought in a Sanzou to counsel you, and then another one, and then another one - so many Sanzou, you’d think there was a pile outside Heaven’s back door to drop them on - and now I’m here, but the whole point of this is that I’m supposed to listen while you talk. But you’re very bad at talking, Toushin Taishi. So for the moment I’m just pretending that I’m talking to my little bunny rabbit here. You’re welcome to listen.”
Homura snorted. He wasn’t sure how to answer that. An expression of arrogant unconcern usually worked when dealing with the dignitaries of Heaven, but the twisting feeling in the pit of his stomach told him that the man in black could see right through it.
“So what would I say? I’d say that sometimes we need to listen to ourselves a bit more clearly. Why do you think you’re thinking about destroying the world?”
“Because I’m angry,” Homura suggested. It was a tempting thing to suggest.
“Oh no no no. If it were just you being angry, you’d have thought about it a long time ago.”
“Mm.” That was true enough. “Because I wanted to shock you.”
“Of course you did,” the man in black said. His tone was almost patronising now. “Such a childish thing, don’t you think? Toushin Taishi?”
“You keep on calling me that,” Homura snarled. “If you are going to address me by my title, then you will kindly do so properly and with due respect -“
“Titles, address, respect, yes, yes,” the man interrupted him. “And it all goes together with the thinking about destroying the world, doesn’t it?”
Homura sat up and swung his legs round to rest his feet on the ground, turning to face the man and leaning forward. The heavy chains swung between his wrists. “Explain,” he invited the man coldly.
“This.” The man in black put his thumbs and index fingers together to make an O. “Toushin Taishi, you’re in a little bubble here, all alone with your thoughts and your titles and your respect. That’s because nothing’s real to you outside that. Outside here. Outside the tiny little circle of your thoughts. I’m right, aren’t I?”
For a moment, Homura thought of her. “There was someone else, once,” he said. It wasn’t disagreement. It was a kind of protest against the man’s words, but it wasn’t disagreement.
“Oh, I’m sure there was. We make our own rods for our backs that way.” He chuckled, his face split with a smile that had absolutely nothing of humour to it. “There was someone else, once. But now they’re gone, and there isn’t anyone else. Even if you take a temporary little interest in someone amusing, there’s still nothing but the vast emptiness, and you alone in it. Of course you think about destroying the world. When you’re the only real thing in it, destroying it is the only option.”
“But if one could find something else real -“ Homura started.
“Of course, of course,” the man in black said, and his tone was so bright and brittle and casual that it was obviously a lie, a huge joke that he was sharing with Homura in open acknowledgement of its worthlessness. “That’s what we all say, just to keep ourselves going. Just to keep ourselves busy. We might as well just slit our wrists here and now otherwise, mightn’t we? Is that why you wear those bracelets, Toushin Taishi? To keep your veins from the knife?”
Homura looked down at the heavy shackles on his wrists. “I think that you should go now,” he said, paying out the words with difficulty, because Shut up would have been far easier to say, and You don’t know what you’re talking about would have sounded too light and too false.
But he had to say something. Otherwise it was only him and the silence. Nothing else real in Heaven, nobody else real, and though his prison had expanded from one dark cellar to a thousand marble-walled celestial halls, still it was only a prison, and if he pushed hard enough on the walls, he was afraid that they would all come tumbling down to leave a vast and empty space, and him alone in it for all eternity.
“Not a problem,” the man in black said, getting to his feet. He tucked his rabbit doll under one arm. “One thing you might like to think about, mm? Thinking’s all we do. Thought experiment. If you did destroy the world, for real, instead of just thinking about it, would it matter?”
The door shut behind him. His smell was still in the room. The memory of his voice echoed against the marble walls.
Homura looked down at his hands, putting his fingers together as the man in black had done, and then parting them.
He could take his own boundaries away, and nothing would be left but empty air.
Nothing at all.
Author/Artist: incandescens
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Prompt: May 29 - Saiyuki, Homura/Nii Jianji: sympathy and empathy, the appeal of nihilism, connections made through despair and desperation. “I didn’t think that creatures like you existed.”
Word count: 1248
Homura threw himself down on the couch and lay there, looking up at the ceiling. “Today I thought about destroying the world,” he said.
“It’s been done before,” the man in black answered. His head was bowed over the papers strewn over his desk. He smelt of old sweat and rotten spices; the room had no windows and no ventilation, and the odours hung in the air, to the point that Homura associated all three things together; this man, talking to him, and the couch that he was supposed to lie on. It was, apparently, custom.
“Destroying the world?” The ceiling was tiled marble. Every piece was exactly the same size and shape, however much Homura tried to find one that was out of proportion or imperfect.
“Thinking about it.” The man put the tip of his pen to his lips, and sucked on it thoughtfully for a moment. “I believe we would have noticed if it had actually been destroyed. The world, that is. Not the thought.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me that I should have more proper aspirations?” Homura asked.
“Annh.” The man’s sigh was very bored. “Why do you bother asking me that sort of question? If I haven’t told you that already, why should you think that I would tell you it now?”
“All the other Sanzou did,” Homura said. He folded his hands behind his head and studied the ceiling.
“And their success rate was so blazingly impressive that they all got sent away again,” the man said. “Clearly their approach isn’t quite the sort of thing for you, mm?”
Homura yawned. “This wasn’t my idea. I didn’t ask for this.”
“Then be grateful,” the man said. “At least this way you can’t be blamed for whatever happens, can you?”
“Nothing’s going to happen.” Homura yawned again. “This is Heaven. Nothing ever happens.”
“Well now, that’s a very interesting way of looking at it,” the man in black said. “After all, there was Son Goku, and one could say that happened, couldn’t one? Or the business with Konzen and the General and the Marshal, and -“
Homura froze. “How do you know about that?”
“Oh, anyone who really wants to know can find these things out, can’t they? Dirty little secrets are only kept that way by the people who don’t want to know about them.” His voice was light and unconcerned. “I would say there’s no excuse for a lack of effort, wouldn’t you?”
“What are you telling me?”
“Me? I’m not telling you anything. They brought in a Sanzou to counsel you, and then another one, and then another one - so many Sanzou, you’d think there was a pile outside Heaven’s back door to drop them on - and now I’m here, but the whole point of this is that I’m supposed to listen while you talk. But you’re very bad at talking, Toushin Taishi. So for the moment I’m just pretending that I’m talking to my little bunny rabbit here. You’re welcome to listen.”
Homura snorted. He wasn’t sure how to answer that. An expression of arrogant unconcern usually worked when dealing with the dignitaries of Heaven, but the twisting feeling in the pit of his stomach told him that the man in black could see right through it.
“So what would I say? I’d say that sometimes we need to listen to ourselves a bit more clearly. Why do you think you’re thinking about destroying the world?”
“Because I’m angry,” Homura suggested. It was a tempting thing to suggest.
“Oh no no no. If it were just you being angry, you’d have thought about it a long time ago.”
“Mm.” That was true enough. “Because I wanted to shock you.”
“Of course you did,” the man in black said. His tone was almost patronising now. “Such a childish thing, don’t you think? Toushin Taishi?”
“You keep on calling me that,” Homura snarled. “If you are going to address me by my title, then you will kindly do so properly and with due respect -“
“Titles, address, respect, yes, yes,” the man interrupted him. “And it all goes together with the thinking about destroying the world, doesn’t it?”
Homura sat up and swung his legs round to rest his feet on the ground, turning to face the man and leaning forward. The heavy chains swung between his wrists. “Explain,” he invited the man coldly.
“This.” The man in black put his thumbs and index fingers together to make an O. “Toushin Taishi, you’re in a little bubble here, all alone with your thoughts and your titles and your respect. That’s because nothing’s real to you outside that. Outside here. Outside the tiny little circle of your thoughts. I’m right, aren’t I?”
For a moment, Homura thought of her. “There was someone else, once,” he said. It wasn’t disagreement. It was a kind of protest against the man’s words, but it wasn’t disagreement.
“Oh, I’m sure there was. We make our own rods for our backs that way.” He chuckled, his face split with a smile that had absolutely nothing of humour to it. “There was someone else, once. But now they’re gone, and there isn’t anyone else. Even if you take a temporary little interest in someone amusing, there’s still nothing but the vast emptiness, and you alone in it. Of course you think about destroying the world. When you’re the only real thing in it, destroying it is the only option.”
“But if one could find something else real -“ Homura started.
“Of course, of course,” the man in black said, and his tone was so bright and brittle and casual that it was obviously a lie, a huge joke that he was sharing with Homura in open acknowledgement of its worthlessness. “That’s what we all say, just to keep ourselves going. Just to keep ourselves busy. We might as well just slit our wrists here and now otherwise, mightn’t we? Is that why you wear those bracelets, Toushin Taishi? To keep your veins from the knife?”
Homura looked down at the heavy shackles on his wrists. “I think that you should go now,” he said, paying out the words with difficulty, because Shut up would have been far easier to say, and You don’t know what you’re talking about would have sounded too light and too false.
But he had to say something. Otherwise it was only him and the silence. Nothing else real in Heaven, nobody else real, and though his prison had expanded from one dark cellar to a thousand marble-walled celestial halls, still it was only a prison, and if he pushed hard enough on the walls, he was afraid that they would all come tumbling down to leave a vast and empty space, and him alone in it for all eternity.
“Not a problem,” the man in black said, getting to his feet. He tucked his rabbit doll under one arm. “One thing you might like to think about, mm? Thinking’s all we do. Thought experiment. If you did destroy the world, for real, instead of just thinking about it, would it matter?”
The door shut behind him. His smell was still in the room. The memory of his voice echoed against the marble walls.
Homura looked down at his hands, putting his fingers together as the man in black had done, and then parting them.
He could take his own boundaries away, and nothing would be left but empty air.
Nothing at all.