It didn't take a telepath to see that something was bothering Koji. Sadly, it had been evident in his behavior all night long. First he had been late for our date. In the few months we had been seeing each other, he had been punctual to a fault, thanks to his military discipline. If I had been late, he probably would have given me a stern look like my father used to. Perhaps his uncharacteristic tardiness could have been excused; I knew that he had a lot on his mind with the upcoming US joint military exercises.
And maybe if that had been the only thing, I would have given it little thought. But there had been other signs...a closed posture, brusque, perfunctory tone of speech, an aloofness. However the feeling that he was only humoring my attempts at conversation was the worst. It was the same impression I had gotten from him when we'd first met on Birth Island...like he was talking to a child who didn't understand the ways of the world. I thought we had gotten past that, but here it was again, like a bad penny.
In some way, it scared me a little. To think that I had come to know him so well in a few short months that I could detect this sudden change in his demeanor...it scared me. For a lot of reasons, I never had been very close to anyone before Koji Shinjo. I mean, close in the way we were.
"How's the food?" I asked.
Koji was soaking a piece of steak in a pool of sauce. He had been for five minutes. He looked up. "It's good." He put the fork in his mouth and smiled a tight little smile that was difficult to look at. The restaurant he had chosen was the Godzilla Memorial Lounge, the one famous for the bronzed cast of Godzilla's footprint in its lobby. Over Koji's shoulder I could see a family of four getting their picture taken in front of it. The mother and father looked somber, while the young girl and boy were smiling, unaffected and openly. I suddenly wondered if I would ever see Koji smile like that again and my heart constricted.
It would have been simplicity itself to tap him right then and there, to dive into his mind and find out what was wrong, stripped of all the little hesitations that society places on people when they want to speak something close to their heart. It would have been as easy for me as breathing is for other people. But I couldn't do that. There was an unspoken rule I lived by that I would never tap someone against his or her will. I had learned that the hard way.
But even though I wouldn't read his thoughts unless he let me, nothing could stop the waves of feeling that he was emanating. It was like sitting across from a campfire. I could feel his discomfiture like gray heat. I'm sorry. It's extremely difficult for a telepath to put sense impressions into words. But that's what it felt like to me on a telepathic level...a steady smoldering of gray heat from his psyche.
"Miki," Koji began suddenly.
"Yes?"
Koji looked at me across the table. Then his gaze faltered and he looked back down at his half-finished plate of food. "It's nothing."
"I beg to differ. Something has been wrong with you all night," I replied. "I wish you would tell me what's been bothering you. You haven't been yourself."
When he looked up again, I saw that familiar determination in his eyes that I had liked so much from the start. Although not now. "You're right. Something has been bothering me. I just didn't know how to tell you."
Koji wiped his mouth and then put his napkin on his plate, abandoning any pretense that he had been interested in the dinner.
"I happened to catch your interview on NHK yesterday."
"Oh. I see." I had shared a panel with several prominent biologists, physicists, and politicians. The discussion had turned into a rather heated debate, especially when the politicians were expressing their views. Everyone knew their opinions were being shaped by the need to stump for votes. It was not a very substantive dialogue to say the least. "Did I say something that upset you?"
"Yes...and no." Koji looked slightly uncomfortable. "That is, I was surprised at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had no right to be. You still believe that Godzilla should be studied instead of destroyed, don't you?"
I was taken aback by this question. "Of course. I've always believed that. I based my career at G-Force on the assumption that he was more valuable alive than dead. If we could just find a way to contain him..."
Koji broke in. "Then he could be studied without fear to the general populace, I know. I heard what you said yesterday...and in the months we have been seeing each other." "Don't you think that is the best way?"
Koji was too long in replying. "For months, I have tried to. For your sake...for our sake...but...I can't anymore. I only realized it yesterday, watching you on TV."
"Oh." It was all I could think of to say.
"Too many people have been lost, too many have been forced to suffer," Koji continued, his expression one of regret. "If Godzilla could be 'contained' as you suggested, there would always be the potential for something to go wrong."
That feeling of gray heat was slowly dissipating with every word he said. but even as one was disappearing, another was rushing in to fill the emotional vacuum. It was a darker gray, entwined with black...pain, heartsickness. He was moving toward a conclusion that was twisting him inside, although you couldn't tell from the outside. He had remarkable reserve. I wanted to reach out and take his hand, to ease the pain. Maybe a week before I might have, but I was beginning to realize it was no longer my place to be so comforting. I silently wondered what my own emotional aura would have looked like to another telepath sitting beside me and decided I didn't want to know.
"As your boyfriend, I tried to understand your position. But as a military man, I knew that on some level I would always wind up rejecting it. I just...I can't believe as you do, Miki. I can't afford to be an optimist when the public's safety is at issue. And I can't be so forgiving when so many of my friends have passed away."
The heartpain of what he was saying and what he was implying had finally reached his eyes. I so wanted to comfort him, but it was too late for that. We would have to comfort ourselves each in our own way.
"Then I guess their isn't much more to say, is there?" I put my napkin down.
"Miki, I'm sorry. I can't be what I'm not. As much as I might want to be, I have to be what I am."
"We all do," I replied, and smiled a bit wistfully. "Koji, don't feel bad. It's better to just cut things cleanly and have it over with, don't you agree?" He nodded, but it didn't really make things easier, it didn't blunt the pain. I guess it was better than stringing things along and watching it all tatter and fray, without knowing how to stop it or what caused it in the first place. Perhaps if I said it long enough I might actually come to believe it. "Well, I should be getting back to the institute. I have a long night ahead." Koji waved for the check. After he had paid, and we were leaving, I paused for a moment in front of the immense bronze footprint of Godzilla, where the family had their picture taken before. It was surrounded by a red velvet rope, but it was close enough to touch if you leaned in. I ran my hand along the metal ridges that defined one of the massive claws.
Out loud to myself, I said: "Will we ever step out from beneath it and feel the sun upon our faces ever again?"
"Step out from beneath what?" Koji asked.
Still touching the cast, I replied: "His shadow."
"There's something I never understood about you, Miki."
"Hmm? What's that?"
"Why you cared so much." He nodded toward the cast. "For him."
I turned away from the cast and looked at him. Standing there in his uniform, I suddenly wanted to hold him.
"It's more than just your interest as a researcher, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"So could you explain it to me. I want to understand that at least."
"It would be easier to show you," I replied. "May I?"
He took a deep breath. Telepathy is an thing of such intimacy, most people have difficulty accepting it. Sharing memories is not something that can be entered into lightly. "All right."
I stepped over to him and took his hand. There was a minute sensation where our flesh touched, like pins and needles. Then I showed him the young girl coming home to her mother, her school uniform muddied and torn, her knees and elbows skinned and bleeding, her face puffy and bruised. I showed him the young girl dissolving into tears in her mother's arms.
The mother soothed the young girl as best she could. Then she leaned down and said: "Miki-chan, you shouldn't use your power. Others won't understand."
I let Koji experience the little girl's pain and anguish and incomprehension, and then I let go of his hand, feeling keenly that it would be the last time I ever touched him.
"I was tormented all through school, because of the way I was born. Because of something over which I had no control," I said. "Why do I care so much? The answer is simple...because there is no difference between us."
Koji didn't reply. Instead we walked outside. It was a warm summer night and the streets in this section of the city were alive with nightlife and neon signs. We walked for a time together in silence. Then at a canal, we stopped.
"Well, this is where I have to set off," Koji said. "I'll keep in touch." He turned and crossed the bridge and turned left. The parking garage where I had parked was in the same direction on my side of the canal, so for a time we walked on either side, not looking at each other, but feeling the other's presence, nonetheless. We passed several pedestrian bridges but as much as I wanted to cross, I couldn't. Sometimes bridges could separate people as much as bring them together, and the bridge we had crossed was a long one.
Then out of the corner of my eye I saw Koji turn down a sidestreet and disappear in a throng of shoppers. Not long after that his mental presence merged with the sense impressions and incoherent din of a thousand others and he was well and truly gone. An older man walking beside me asked if I was all right. I could feel his concern and compassion, but I just shook my head, brushed back the tears, and smiled at him. I turned to the canal and rested my arms on the metal rails. Then I closed my eyes and stretched my mind as far as I could go, hoping to catch one last fleeting image of Koji. But there were too many people and too much distance. I did catch something, but it was just a word.
"Victim."
Whether it was indeed Koji or not, I couldn't tell. But the word was the right one. Godzilla had claimed another victim.
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