Ciman was silent. His lips were pressed so tightly together that it looked like he never had lips at all. Leaning against the counter, Ciman looked away, anywhere except Zaki’s eyes. It was not that he did not have the courage to admit what he did— he admitted the truth to Zaki himself so courage had little to do with it— but it was just that was what he had been conditioned to do. “Conditioned” was not the right word, more like “trained.” Like a fucking animal. It was not just Zaki, so it was impossible to blame him for everything, especially when Ciman had only realized just how much he had been trained— the word was now starting to make him gag— about a month ago. It might have been to prove something— that he was not just some object— or a culmination of their arguments, but two nights ago, Ciman went home with someone other than Zaki. This morning, Ciman admitted the affair to Zaki.
Her name was Daliah. Ciman was rare to laugh or smile with strangers but he could not help it when Daliah spotted him at Ciman’s work. Her eyes bulged out of her head as she screamed— across a goddamn mall, mind you— quote: “Oh my fuck! It’s that pencil guy!” Somehow, Daliah recognized him from General Education class because Ciman had one bright pink pencil he used for taking notes. Needless to say, Ciman could not help but laugh as Daliah, a classmate he barely knew, was dressed in a shrimp mascot and screaming about him. She lost the job she was trying out for due to her outburst, but she seemed more concerned with apologizing to Ciman after the fact. She didn’t even know why she did it but it made Ciman laugh each time it was brought up. Since then, the two had been friends. Daliah was passionate and energetic, loud and occasionally obnoxious, but she was sweet and gentle. Maybe that was why he went to her and not Zaki when he got extremely wasted, a sobbing mess. Maybe that was why he cheated on Zaki with her. Maybe…
Ciman could never say who it was he slept with, of course.
Zaki would murder her.
The air between them was dense and heavy like a cold, misty fog with his body feeling numb as if to prove this. Ciman’s nervous eyes looked up slowly in Zaki’s direction, as if the mere act of looking at the other would spark him into a burning ball of rage. Ciman flinched as Zaki’s fists clenched and he barked in a loud, harsh tone, preparing himself internally.
“You’re right… we… I should have talked to you,” Ciman admitted quietly, squeezing his eyes shut as he sucked in a sharp breath as Zaki stepped closer. So much for trying to break down what he had learned. His jaw tensed. Dammit, why couldn’t he say something— anything? Zaki had a right to be mad, but this? This shouting should not have been tolerated! “Why do you assume it was with a man? Is it so hard to believe I preferred a woman?” I preferred a woman over you. Ciman’s words were cold and harsh, sharper than he had intended but it was at least something. Ciman needed to have said something or else this one act of rebellion would have been for nothing.
Despite how harsh Ciman had been— Ouch— Zaki’s words hurt far more.
“I wish I never knew you, you aren't....you have decided that free will was more important than just putting up with my bullshit.”
Ciman only hoped his punishment ended with those words, but it only escalated as Zaki grabbed his face.
Jerking at Zaki’s touch, Ciman gripped the counter and pressed as hard into it as possible in a faulty attempt to escape. Zaki’s wild, crazed eyes burned Ciman with passion, anger, jealousy, love, possession, and fury and Ciman froze under his gaze as he stumbled to find his words, his footing, his breathing— was he even breathing?— due to Zaki making his thoughts run in an endless stream of screams that never ended or so much as paused. Ciman’s weak brown eyes were terrified.
“I’m going to kill whoever took you, I'm going to get my Ciman back…”
My Ciman.
Zaki let him go, turned sharply, and left.
My Ciman.
Ciman’s grip seemed to turn his knuckles white as he stared off in the vague direction where Zaki had been.
My Ciman.
After a moment, when Ciman was sure Zaki— no, Isozaki— was gone, he slid to the floor as his eyes welled up and he brought a hand to his mouth.
My. Ciman.
Biting into his palm as he began to silently scream, his head thumped into the cabinet of the counter behind him as his fists slammed repeatedly into the floor. The words “my Ciman” played continuously in his head, a broken record finely crafted from hell that he tried to silence with each pound of his fist. He was unsuccessful in every attempt. Vision blurry with tears, chest brimming with adrenaline, and fist plagued by numbness, Ciman only stopped when his phone began to buzz. His red eyes could barely make out the name that appeared but he already knew who it was.
Her husky voice answered the phone as soon as he hit the green button.
“Ciman, I need you to go pick up something for your sister. She needs lunches for this week and has not stopped asking for more and more and— Christ. Ciman, I miss you so much. I— I remember how you never used to complain like this. I don’t know where I went wrong with her. She just never stops complaining. You need to visit me more often… Please, it can be just like old times with just you… and me…” Ciman rubbed his eyes, his expression now back to being as blank and empty as it was back when Isozaki first yelled at him. “Ciman?” There was a pause. “Are you there?”
“Yes…”
Ciman did not remember how long she talked for, but he remembered how it ended, his head repeatedly banging back against the cabinet as he hadn’t moved from the floor. He had opened an orange container at some point and popped enough pills in his mouth to numb his pain. Clearly not enough to get him through this whole conversation without any hiccups.
“I love you.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Say ‘I love you’ back.”
“I love you back.”
“Ha. You’re very funny these days…”
“Tell Chesil I said hi.”
“You can’t give me a proper goodbye yet you want me to say hello to that brat?”
“Yes.”
A sigh came through from the other end as he could distantly hear her fingernails drumming against a table. “… Alright, I will say ‘hi’ but only for you, my—”
Ciman hung up.
Moving from the floor to the store seemed to take no time at all and every movement felt like some distant fever dream. Soon enough, he was opening the freezer door of the small market but he had no clue what to grab. Pizza bites? Fish sticks? Fuck, he had no clue what Chesil would even want. His little sister was always so resilient and resourceful, but she was a picky eater. Middle schoolers, am I right?
Ciman continued to stand with the door open, the cold slowly spilling out when a little girl rushed next to him and reached past him to grab the dinosaur nuggets. She looked up at him for a second and he looked down at her. Her hair was as orange as the bag with freckles like Ciman all over her dirty-covered face. After a moment, he smiled and stuck his tongue out at her. She repeated his action with a growing smile. Suddenly, Ciman stuck his pointer fingers in his mouth and pulled his lips into a big smile, crossing his eyes and sticking his tongue out further. The little girl squealed, the bag in her hands crinkling as she held it closer to her chest with a repressed giggle. She had a gap between her teeth, which was only seen when she gave a large, childish grin.
“Zoe? Zoe?” a concerned voice called. Ciman instantly stopped the goofy face as a burly woman with bright red hair rounded the corner, the wrinkles under her eyes contorted with worry before spotting the little girl. “Oh, Zoe! Where— Never run off on me again, you silly goose!” She seemed to be trying to sound mad, but the girl never seemed to buy the act as she only giggled, leaving Ciman to cling to her mother’s leg. Ciman looked up to the woman who held Zoe close with a warm smile as she shook her head.
Looking at Ciman, the mother silently mouthed “thank you” and Ciman just chuckled, taking a page out of Zoe’s book and grabbing chicken nuggets for Chesil.
Only one of the resisters was open at the time and the cashier was seeing one customer already. Ciman’s eyes glanced around the store and down to the bag of nuggets in his hand. Maybe he should go grab more? Maybe some gummy bears— Chesil’s absolute favorite— to make her lunches better or… Ciman’s eyes wandered and landed on the man by the cashier and on the… on the… Holy shit.
The customer had a gun.
His skin was deathly pale like fresh snow and his leg bounced anxiously, hissing “come on” and “hurry up” at every second like a snake held by its tail. His face was mostly covered by his hoodie and ball cap, but his bloodshot eyes would dart back and forth between the near-sobbing cashier and—
“What the fuck are you looking at?!” the man barked at Ciman.
Ciman blinked, staring at the man absentmindedly before looking away coldly. “Nothing. Sorry.”
The man stared at Ciman, his eyes melting Ciman before turning and landing back on the cashier. Young, dark haired, and shaking, the girl, who must have been in highschool, did her best to slip money out of the register and probably into some bag Ciman couldn’t see from where he was standing.
“Hurry the fuck up! Do you want to get me caught??” the man whispered to her, clicking the hammer back, causing her to flinch and make the sound of a mouse being stepped on.
Ciman grit his teeth. He could not just stand back and watch this. As much as he wanted to not get involved, that girl deserved better. Fuck, of course, he had to be the hero. Ciman took a deep breath.
“Hey dipshit!”
The gunman looked up in time to have the nuggets thrown directly at his face, both splitting open to distract him and giving an opening for Ciman to punch him square in the jaw, knocking the man to the floor. The gun clattered against the floor and Ciman’s fist met his left cheek, then his right, then his left again. The man raise one hand to try and deflect or stop the punches with little success as the other flailed on the floor, leading to yet another blow to his right cheek before—
Bang!
At first, Ciman did not feel it. It felt numb, if anything. Then, an overwhelming burning sensation dug into his flesh as the man pushed Ciman off of him.
“J-Jesus… Jesus fuck! I shot him! I fucking—”
Though a loud ringing filled his ears, he could faintly hear the cashier shouting, the gunman leaving without another sound. Ciman flopped over on to the cold tile floor, gasping painfully for air. He began to grasp and claw at his chest, praying for the pain to fade. He wanted to scream to sob to speak but a mix of blood and coffee from this morning rose from his throat as he choked on the taste of bitter copper. He stared up at the luminous bulbs, their lifeless light illuminating his final moments as he died on the cold tiles of a off-brand supermarket in a small fucked-up town.
What a pathetic way to die.
I’m sorry Daliah. Sorry Isozaki. And fuck Chesil! I am so… so…
The pain subsided, dulled, numbed, and Ciman closed his eyes.
“Ugh…Another boring vessel full of regrets…”
Ciman’s eyes burst open as pain burned in every vein of his body, like icicles injected into him and piercing him from the inside out. He was surrounded by empty nothingness and he looked around desperately to see something, anything. His head, his lungs, his chest, all ached from the cold. Every inch of him shook and shivered and he never felt so alone.
“Is-s-s anyone th-th-there?” Ciman’s words were nearly incomprehensible with how much his teeth banged together. “Please…! I need… I need…”
“The name Jökla is my own,” a booming voice from behind him called. In all this nothingness, there sat a sphere that radiated a cool glow, illuminating the void. “Am I seen by you, tiny fool?”
“Yes-s-s…” Tears welled up in Ciman’s eyes but they froze to his skin the moment they touched his skin. He reached a shaky hand towards the orb and suddenly the pain in his hand faded. His nails scraped against the ground in a poor attempt to pull himself closer. “Pl-Please…! It all hurts-s-s!”
“Do you have the will to take control?” The haunting voice was devoid of emotion and only grew more powerful the more Ciman managed to crawl towards it. “The capacity to resign yourself to either pain or the strangling cold?”
Ciman’s lungs ached as he struggled for air. That orb, the closer he got, dulled the pain. Ciman needed to get closer. Pushing himself onto one knee then his feet, Ciman stumbled back a step at first before steading himself, gasping for air.
“I’ll do—” he shuffled closer one shaky step— “whatever—” he lurched forward a stronger step— “it takes…!” Ciman lunged for the ball, managing to grab it in his twitching hands before he fell to his knees. Supporting himself on one hand, Ciman’s locs hung in view as he looked at the sphere in the other.
With Jökla finally in his grasp, he pulled the orb to his chest, holding her close and bringing her into his wound. He was not sure why he did this but it just felt like the right thing to do. Ciman closed his eyes as he finally felt some semblance of relief. When he opened them, he was no longer in the void.
“What the shit…?”
Suddenly he was standing in front of a court of people and lo and behold there was—
“Isozaki??”
Winter 
Day 
