COTE : Parasite in Love.

Chapter 12 : Bed Bug's Bite

Ayanokouji spent the first two days as usual. “As usual” meaning the usual before he met Hiyori. He lied in bed and read books, and when he tired of that, he messed around on the computer, eating a bare-bones meal when he felt hungry. Rather than thinking and thinking, his priority was to regain a mental state where he could calmly think. He supposed clearing his head and taking things slow was the best way to do that.

Reasonably speaking, there was no way he could refuse the treatment. He certainly didn’t want the yet-incomprehensible worm manipulating him and making him kill himself. And most importantly, exterminating the worm could cure the germaphobia that had plagued him for many years.

However, there was resistance. It was a primal fear that everyone experiences before a major change. His life thus far had been centered around his germaphobia and loneliness. For better or worse, he had gotten used to that kind of life. Taking away those two pillars would mean having to rebuild his life from scratch. That might be fine for a teenager, but in his late twenties, was rebuilding from scratch realistically possible?

Other than that concern, he was generally in favor of treating the worm. Logically, he was 90 percent of the way there, and emotionally, he was 60 percent.

On the third day, he was contacted by Tsukishiro. His email said “There’s someone I want you to meet.” Ayanokouji went out to the specified coffee shop, and met with a young man. The man’s face still looked childish in places, and it didn’t seem he could have been long out of college. But he was the first patient infected by the worm mentioned occasionally in Shiba’s emails, Sho Shibata, AKA “S.”

Ayanokouji heard from him how the Shibatas met each other. How the couple over twenty years apart met, how they were drawn to each other, how they were wedded. And how that passion faded.

The way they met sounded exactly like how Ayanokouji and Hiyori met. The more Ayanokouji listened, the more shocked he was by the sheer number of commonalities.

An unexpected meeting between two people with opposing personalities, gradually being drawn to each other after learning of each other’s mental illness. The two misanthropic people learned of the one person in the world they could make an exception for and trust. The two overcame the difference in age and were wedded…

“But it was nothing more than lovesickness,” Shi Shibata said, looking into the distance.

“Once I started taking the deworming medicine Urizane provided, my feelings for my wife cooled in a blink. I can’t remember what captivated me about her and convinced me to marry her. It seems she’s the same way. Divorce is only a matter of time.”

Ayanokouji saw his own future there. With the worm gone, their relationship would cool, and maybe it was most suitable for things to return to their normal state. Because those feelings were only temporarily heated by the worm.

Our love is probably also just a “lovesickness,” Ayanokouji thought. Then he recalled the day he first met Hiyori.

Specifically, the street performer he saw outside the train station. He put on a show with his two marionettes. A farcical play.

Were the puppets aware they weren’t really in love, it was just the puppeteer making them fall in love? I can’t know that. But at any rate, our love is no different from those marionettes’ love. It’s just the minor difference of whether or not you can see the strings.

By the time Sho Shibata was done talking, Ayanokouji’s mind was made up. I’ll take the treatment, he vowed. Even if it ends my love with Hiyori, I won’t care. Continuing this relationship with her, knowing the truth that the worm is using me, surely I wouldn’t be able to treat her with feelings as pure as before. In a sense, their relationship was over the moment he heard Urizane’s story.