Chapter Text
Tenma knew that he would not leave unscathed from the experience which he had undergone. Despite his efforts to distance himself from the scenes of his trauma – and even from his friends – his sleep was frequently disturbed by nightmares of the nameless monster. The doctor acknowledged to himself that to overcome what he was going through he had to confront what was troubling him, forcing himself to believe that his actions were guided by the right motives and that was the essential thing. Time would ebb the horror of the deaths he had witnessed. Reason and determination would help him follow the new path he had chosen once he learned to reign in this anxieties. Johan could no longer hurt others, he could no longer suffer.
First, Tenma decided that he would see Nina. He managed with difficulty to have a reunion with the girl to congratulate her on graduating. It shamed him to recall that throughout their dinner with Dieter, his thoughts were still elsewhere. Looking at her face, he saw Johan.
In a few days he would have to leave, although he did not feel ready to see the monster again, it would be his last chance, his final hope of banishing what he thought remained, having taken root inside of his chest, seeping into his blood, a horrible sense of regret.
Tenma could not pin down the point at which he would begin to turn back time, fate had not cut out a clear path for his reminiscences to tread – a way out of the maze. He wandered, going in circles, waking up in a cold sweat.
These memories, they were beginning to warp in his dreams, making Johan weaker than he was, a child, calling out to him through the darkness; in other instances, he would see the monster, luring him to pull the trigger. Sometimes the bullet would enter the body of his own reflection, the killing of the self and all that he knew. He could never kill Johan.
…
“How can you leave when we shall forever be following in the footsteps of one another’s shadow”
Tenma’s body grew tense at the sound of the soft voice of Johan Liebert, its tone lacking the uncertainty of one who had just awoken from a dream.
Perhaps he had been listening – always listening for his long-awaited guest, watching the doctor as a shadow falling over his obscured vision. Tenma approached the hospital bed, retracing his steps – unable to leave.
He studied the other’s eyes, those of one who is sleeping the sleep of the innocent, but was Johan like a child that was cheating at a game of hide and seek?
“You have become as much an obsession for me as I had been for you,” said Tenma with the bitterness of reproach. “Why have you done this to me?”
“For you,” Johan replied, his peaceful blue eyes gazing back at Tenma, “you had wanted me to live. Now, I can no longer be killed, as long as I live through you”
“What do you mean?”
Tenma thought of the monster in a coma, like a being from a fairytale, perfectly preserved – now that all the blood had been washed away – blond hair falling softly over his brow. It is cruel how beauty begs to be forgiven, how perfect bodies seem to call out for perfect souls, in fairytales. An innocent boy. A kind young man who wants to help you, a being who knows you better than you know yourself.
“I never wanted you to take the lives of others. Everything about you is a deception, layer after layer of masks, illusions and sick twisted games – hiding what?” Tenma asked, sitting down in the chair, trying to maintain his composure. Maybe by finally getting the chance to question Johan he would be able to get the closure he needed.
“These layers are the borrowed memories of other people which I explore unflinchingly in my own mind. I draw up on them when I must play pretend,” Johan explains, raising his arm to rest his hand upon Tenma, who by instinct flinched away, “It is only being afraid that keeps you from finding what is inside – that vulnerable damaged fragment, ever so closely guarded”
“Do you seek for this in me as well? A broken piece to toy with?” Tenma’s fingers dug into the arms of the chair, trying to control his emotions.
“I had already found it, long ago. You could never destroy life Dr. Tenma, I am certain of that now – that is your weakness and your strength,” Johan curled onto his side, looking at the other man with an expression of sympathy. “It confounds a simplistic vision of good and evil to think that saving a life could be an act of cruelty, and that taking life may be a show of mercy. Like a row of dominoes, falling one after the other -- think of all that you have set into motion. The only way to make things right again is to convince yourself that I too am a victim, that I am worthy of forgiveness, perhaps even of reform”
“No Johan, I came here only to look at you and ask myself, where can I go from here, when all the threads which make us who we are shall never be untangled. I can accept that nothing will be as clear as it had been while I was a young doctor at this hospital, before our paths had crossed,” Tenma felt anger rising in his chest at the sight of the other’s smile. It reminded him of ancient idols carved in stone, smiling down from their altar complacently at centuries of bloodshed and suffering. Was it because they possessed knowledge that was hidden from mankind which would make all this pain endurable? Do they smile because this is how the world was meant to be? Or is it in the indifference of something which is no longer of our world?
“I wonder if over time people become what they pretend to be, what do you think doctor?” asked Johan.
“There are certain people who are born with a limited ability to feel empathy,” he answered, recalling
“Do you think that I am one of those people?” Johan waited for the reply which he thought might not come.
“I do not know,” he answered at last, reflecting upon Johan’s actions.
“There is something that I have thought about while laying here alone Dr.Tenma,” said Johan, breaking the silence. “I want you to lay down next to me”
“I’m not tired,” lied Tenma, presuming the other’s words to be mockery or provocation of some kind intended to unsettle him.
“I want to feel that I am not alone, I want you to know that I am afraid of being alive, as others are afraid of dying,” Johan went on. “I had imagined you returning here and that we would both make-believe that you would take me from here”
“Take you where?” asked Tenma.
“Home,” Johan sat up in the bed and rose to stand by the window, looking down at the garden below where he could see an elderly woman in a wheelchair gazing emptily at the fence which separated the hospital ground from the busy road ahead.
“Neither one of us has a home,” answered Tenma.
“Yes, that is good. We would therefore have nothing to prevent us from creating one, two nameless homeless beings,” Johan turned to look at him. “I had hoped that you would abandon your name, when I forced you to go on the run”
“Did I disappoint you then?” Tenma did not know how to react, guarding himself against the other’s psychological games. How convincing his face looked, near the brim of tears, yet his voice was unaffected. An imperfect illusion, and yet, how he wanted it to be true – it disturbed him how at odds the body and the soul were when Johan was brought into being, something so precocious that it was hardly human. But maybe this too was a lie – a protection against harm, thought Tenma, wavering between two extremes: one of the sacrificed child shielding itself from the world, the other, a devil ready to make men his playthings.
In either case, Tenma was being invited to take a step closer.
“No, I am glad that my experiment taught me that I yet have much to learn about human nature,” Johan admitted.
“How humble you are,” said Tenma sardonically, tension and exhaustion making him irritable, feeling a natural disgust at the idea of Johan’s experience with manipulation.
“It is easy to lead those who want to be led,” Johan explained, “Many would gladly suspend disbelief to prolong the idea that they will get what they want. That is why I must choose wisely, selecting the most desperate, helpless and depraved”
“I am sorry that you keep such bad company,” Tenma remarked, it left an unpleasant feeling to remember the people who the monster had used for his pawns.
“How easy it is to stir your emotions Dr.Tenma,” he laughed lightly, “they are written so clearly upon your face. That is a comfort to me. As a child, I knew few men such as yourself. In the world that I knew, there were only two roles – the master or the servant”
“They are not always bad company, those who I enlist to help me. Nor do they come to me against their will,” Johan went on, “I imagine what it is like – to know that you can become what someone needs, someone whose faith in you is strong enough”
“Yes, there are people who would believe that you are a vampire, or an alien,” Tenma smirked grimly, recalling a conversation he once had with a certain psychologist about his research interviews with criminals.
“Others would be too proud to take on this role for the sake of satisfying a madman’s need for belonging – but not you Dr. Tenma, you have come to my bedside, ignoring many well-meaning words of warning. I am glad to know that Nina is doing well,” this time Johan’s smile was different, so that he could hardly tell whether it was gratitude or derision.
“Were you waiting for me to come?” asked Tenma, troubled by this sign of Johan’s continued preoccupation with him.
“Yes,” Johan approached Tenma, standing behind his chair and placing his hands upon the older man’s shoulders, “I was worried that you would not come”
He looked up, seeing Johan’s blue eyes looking back at him. Holding his gaze was unnerving, it made him feel like an animal behind a glass wall, a stranger in a strange land.
“I was curious to know what effect this reunion would have upon both of us,” Johan continued, leaning close to his ear as he spoke in almost a whisper, “in the end, we had no choice. This is what we both wanted, most of all”
Tenma felt a shiver run down his spine. Johan had made it impossible to let go, intertwining himself in traumatic images which had lacerated his mind with a thousand scars.
“I had tried to erase myself, but instead I have created a man who could never forget me, could never let me go – it does not matter whether he loves or hates, only that he remembers,” Johan declared.
“I am not the only one upon whom you left your mark,” said Tenma, thinking of the many lives which were taken upon the path of self-destruction.
“But you are the only one who insisted that I must be saved, having seen me for what I am,” Johan looked at him as if he expected an answer, but Tenma could not bring himself to speak, lest something in his voice should reveal the depth of his doubts about saving a devil dressed in human skin.
“What if I was wrong?” Tenma ventured at last.
“Then we will both live with ourselves, until you decide otherwise. I owe my life to you Dr. Tenma, you may do what you please with it – I promise that if you change your mind, I will be obliging,” Tenma watched him as he moved, his slender figure and pale skin were of a sickly pallor, nevertheless there was little sign in him to draw compassion. It was because Johan felt no compassion towards himself, willing to sacrifice his body to reach what he wanted, willing to sacrifice anyone and anything. It unnerved Tenma to think this – he could never really know for certain what lay behind the mannerisms of warmth and openness.
“I did not want to go back, no, I had come to say goodbye,” Tenma got up from his chair, trying to suppress the feelings that were stirring inside of him.
“You know that I cannot let you do that,” said Johan.
Tenma looked away, startled by the sound of approaching footsteps.
…
“Dr. Tenma, I’m glad you’re here!” Tenma recognized the nurse who entered, her eyes wandering between him and Johan. “We were trying to reach you, it is so wonderful that you were able to see Johan on the first day of his recovery. Are you going to take him home this evening? I have the forms here if that’s the case”
“Forms?”
“You had indicated that you would like to be the first contact when Johan regains consciousness and that you would be willing to look after him as he completes his recovery as an outpatient,” the nurse replied, slightly troubled by the other’s expression.
There was a heavy silence which was lifted when Johan began to speak.
“Unfortunately Dr. Tenma will be unable to—“
“Thank you. Yes, you may leave the forms with me,” Tenma interrupted, looking at Johan for some sign, but the young man had averted his gaze.