Black Jack and Doctor Kiriko take opposite sides of a case: a patient who wants to die, and the lover who wants only for him to live. It ends badly, and Black Jack cannot let go of what he does not understand. Drunk in a bar, hounding the man he blames for it, he is offered a way to find out — two months of going out with Kiriko, agreed to in a single word.
What follows is not a romance. It is a course of instruction, taken by a genius surgeon who records affection in a notebook inside his head, taught by a man who is very good at killing and reasonably good at waiting. Two months is not long. Neither of them expected it to be enough.
This is a translation of an original work.
Original Title: プラトニックの約束
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor_yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
Naturally, in a matter of this sort, it was Kiriko and not Black Jack who raised it. "Want to go out?" answered with "Yes." — a cheap enough exchange, though what lay behind it was rather more tangled.
The root of it went back, as these things often do, to a patient the two of them had both been called in on.
"The point is, the patient doesn't want to go on putting the lover who nurses him through it."
"That is a lie! The lover — my client — called me in because it is enough for him that the patient is alive."
On the one hand a patient consumed by illness and wishing to die; on the other a lover worn down in the heart by the daily nursing.
It was hard for the patient to look at that stricken face. Harder than the illness itself, he thought. Again and again he had said it: let us break it off, let us call it a clean parting before I die, and then forget me.
The lover, for his part, kept on encouraging him — it is enough that you are alive. To break the deadlock, each of them called in a doctor.
"I will cure him. Once I have, that diseased thinking of yours will vanish along with it. Kiriko, I am taking the case. There is no part in this for you."
"Seventy-two hours. Black Jack, I don't go round killing people at random either. Seventy-two hours from now, I'll decide whether I take the request you brought me."
Such was the exchange, and it took place with both of them present.
Afterwards they went to the attending physician, heard where things stood and went through the records.
"These images are recent. Flat for the past few months, then. Unless the condition is deteriorating sharply, it should present no real problem. What was there to despair of, that they should call in a Grim Reaper? This is nothing but suicide."
"Who knows. Maybe this one wants to die."
"You cannot mean to take it. This is curable. I will talk that child round, whatever it takes."
"You'll find out when the time's up. You'd do better to leave a patient who wants to die well alone, instead of getting involved."
The operation was set for two days later, and the hospital began putting things in order for it. That was when it happened.
"The patient has died."
Both unlicensed doctors were dismissed. There was no one left to offer condolences to, either; Black Jack's client was gone as well.
"It was a double suicide."
The client — the one who had wished only that the patient live — had killed the patient and then taken his own life.
Black Jack was stunned. What a stupid thing to do, he said, anger and bitterness bleeding through, and left the hospital. Kiriko sighed a little, thinking he could see how it happened, and followed.
Leaving a thing he did not understand to sit there and itch was one of Black Jack's bad habits. He was in a bar in town, throwing back something strong, muttering to himself, weeping a little, going round and round in circles, and running into him there was the end of Kiriko's luck. Latched onto by a drunk in full flow, subjected to every variety of sniping — it was even put to him that the deaths this time were the fault of an ill-omened Grim Reaper — and not let go of long enough to leave.
"A thing like that — but he said it himself, that it was enough if the man was alive! You put him up to it in the first place, did you not."
Pure slander.
"I told you not to get involved. You get involved, and this is the kind of tangled thinking you end up with."
"What was that? Where is the doctor who does not get involved with his patient? And I cannot stand by and watch someone be killed."
"I didn't kill anyone."
"Damn it. Why would he do that."
Bang — the glass came down on the table with a great noise. It might break; he might throw the next one. The other customers and the staff watched on edge, afraid of being caught up in it. And at last a young member of staff dropped the glass he was polishing and broke it.
The high sound of breaking glass. Black Jack turned towards it; Kiriko caught him by the collar and cut it off. Reason said to leave him to it. Whatever Black Jack did, whatever trouble he made, it was nothing to Kiriko. He owed the bar nothing either. He did have some feeling about the way the patient had ended — not with Black Jack's heat, but he had it — and he told himself it was mercy for a pitiful drunk, and that was all he had done: stopped the aggression from turning outwards.
"If you don't get it that badly, Doc, want to go out with me? Like those two did."
"Yes. If that will make it clear, then let us go out."
No good. He was drunk. Kiriko was certain of it. There was nothing in go out and you'll understand that Black Jack would have found convincing. He would not have agreed to such a thing so lightly without knowing what it meant — and even knowing, he would not have agreed.
He had been listening with half an ear at best. At Kiriko's exasperated look, Black Jack's face turned sour.
"Fine by me if you're drunk, Doc, but save it for when you're drinking quietly on your own."
"Do be quiet. You are the one who just now asked me to go out."
"When I said go out, I meant date. As in a relationship. You haven't understood a thing, have you."
"What was that? And why should going out with you make anything clear?"
There it was, Kiriko thought, sick of it — he hadn't understood. Still, seeing that Black Jack had settled on directing the whole itching mess of what he did not understand at Kiriko, the room relaxed and went back to its conversations and its work.
It was not the first time he had wanted to grant Black Jack a death with the mercy left out. If he had not always been good at letting the urge to kill pass, Black Jack would be floating somewhere in the Atlantic by now. He had his pride, too, in being first-rate at the act of killing.
"Enough. If you don't get it, Doc, just be quiet."
He put a glass of water in his hand, made him drink most of it by force, and silence finally came down. It did not last long.
"Two months."
"What?"
"Let us try it for two months. If that makes it clear, good; if it does not, we are no worse off than before."
Drunk bastard. Drunk, and still — that was Black Jack for you, Kiriko thought, impressed. Nothing wrong with his reckoning of profit and loss.
He had assumed the man would have forgotten by the next day, or would sober up and file it away as something to laugh about over drinks. But Black Jack turned up in front of him, dutiful as anything, said I look forward to it — a greeting one would almost never hear from him — and went home.
It was a few weeks after the relationship had started. Kiriko put his arms round him, and Black Jack jumped nearly out of his skin. His body gave a jolt, and his pulse gave one along with it.
"What is it, Kiriko."
"We met, so I hugged you. That's all."
"Why."
"Expression of affection."
"I see. …Ah — but for that sort of thing I should like to brace myself first."
Black Jack shut his eyes as though thinking. This was emphatically not waiting to be kissed. It was the result of Kiriko having stopped him from reaching for his notebook every time he said I see. Learn it by feel, not by argument, get it into your body — and despite that, this genius had switched to the invisible foul of keeping the record in a notebook inside his head.
Once he had braced himself it would be nothing at all, apparently; but how many tens of thousands of methods of expressing affection was he intending to clear? Faster, surely, to clear the phenomenon of expressing affection itself — and ordinarily, repetition does the job, one gets used to it and that is that.
Watching Black Jack go on keeping his notes, Kiriko went limp. I see. So this is what he's hopeless at.
Even so, watching him learn one new thing after another had something of the pleasure of a stray coming to trust you. So although they were going out, there was nothing at all in the way of excitement; work was quiet too, and he simply went on steadily keeping company with Black Jack.
Then one day.
After a bath they always drank together — it was the daily routine. Or rather, there was nothing else to do. It was the same at Kiriko's place and the same when they were away; in the hotel room the drinks were laid out as usual.
"Out already? You were quick tonight."
Carry over a plate of things to pick at and the setting was complete.
Black Jack was scrubbing at his hair with a towel, and of course Kiriko expected nothing in the way of allure from it. Not if he was slouching about in nothing but his underwear, not in a fetching bathrobe, not with a gown falling open at the chest.
Tonight, though, was slightly different. He came wandering over halfway, and then, as if he had remembered something, the air about him changed. He was affecting nonchalance, but his eyes alone — not sharp, exactly, but steady — showed plainly that he had resolved on something. What is he about to pull, Kiriko thought, bracing himself inwardly. No knowing what would happen, so first he set down the plate and sat on the sofa.
The assigned seat for the duration of the relationship: beside Kiriko. Not opposite. And as they sat there side by side on the sofa, Black Jack was the one who put his arms round him. It was only that, but Kiriko, whose imagination had run to nothing but bad outcomes, flinched at the action. He would probably have reacted the same way whatever it had been.
"I say, how rude. To brush off an expression of affection from me like that."
It may indeed have been rude. He ought at least to have committed to no reaction at all, but no one could have held it against him.
"Bad timing right now. This is one of the ones you need to brace yourself for, Doc."
"What do you mean."
"You're too close. It's dangerous, Doc."
"It is quite all right. Take my pulse. Perhaps because I acted of my own accord tonight, it is normal."
Never mind that the pulse was normal and the act his own; there was no knowing what would come back at him. He was so taken up with the action itself that he had not thought that far.
This is what comes of ignoring how the other person feels and how he'll react. Laughing to himself, Kiriko kissed Black Jack on the cheek.
"See? That's the kind of thing I do. Dangerous, Doc."
Black Jack froze for a moment, then cried that cannot be and genuinely jumped. He blinked and blinked, long lashes going, flushed red, trying to say something and then losing hold of what to say.
That cannot be — you're the one who can't be, idiot. Watching in the usual exasperation, he heard him ask what would ordinarily happen. So he wanted to know. It was far too early for Black Jack, and Kiriko had assumed that the two months would pass without the opportunity so much as crossing the man's mind for an instant, and that quite possibly he would go his whole life without knowing anything of the kind.
I see. There is no telling when the turning point will come. And if he did not teach him now, the itch looked set to go on forever.
"In a situation like this, by now you'd be in my arms making a lot of noise about it."
The answer was evidently well beyond the required level, and he did not know where in the notebook to write it. Like factorising when one has not yet mastered the times table. There was a silence, as though he had gone blank.
"I see."
His eyes were wandering. He was doubtless still patiently turning the pages of the notebook — not here, not this either — but unfortunately no such page existed in Black Jack's mental notes.
Little by little his body was making its escape. Something had finally got through to him about the danger, and a good thing too. But indulge him here, Kiriko had thought, and even the smallest fragment of emotional sensitivity might be picked up in two months — instead he would finish the term having learnt nothing at all. Time, then, to take the pen or the notebook off him, a little forcibly.
"You're such a good doctor, and the moment I make you a pupil you're a bad one. That's your fault, that is."
He caught Black Jack as he made to escape, and because resistance and everything else was a nuisance, pushed him down and kissed his ear. Breathing against it, licking it, biting it, with every intention of being sexual about it, and Black Jack went rigid. And there — tears in his eyes, as one might have expected. He had been warned it was dangerous, and had not listened.
Released, he wobbled into bed like a robot that had shorted out, pulled the sheet over himself, left the bedside lamp and killed the lights with the remote.
"G-goodnight. This is not your house, and if you do not sleep soon, checkout is early tomorrow, is it not."
You really are an idiot. It was true that they had bedded down together on the floor before now, or sunk into sleep leaning against the sofa.
They had got into the same bed and slept, too, but that was only because Black Jack had held forth passionately on how people who were going out or married slept side by side, and Kiriko had never once laid a hand on him. In hindsight that might have been what encouraged the misunderstanding, but wrong is wrong.
Staying the night with a man, eating and drinking, breaking off the after-bath drinks to put his arms round him — there was only one answer to it. He got into bed and had a fumbling feel of him, and Black Jack thrashed into motion in a panic.
"W-wait. Why? My preparations — you did not say a moment ago that you would do such a thing! Wait, will you!"
That's all your own doing.
Just as when he let fly with words, he had wound him up and wound him up and gone on winding, and all of it originated in Black Jack's own behaviour. Show him no mercy — if he does not understand, make him understand — a somewhat cruel thought did flicker through his mind, but Kiriko let him go.
He braced himself in case a punch came, but Black Jack sprang upright, secured his own safety and then stopped moving for a while. Circuit shorted, or notebook mislaid.
"Oi. I'll let you off for today. I'm not saying the strange habit has to go, but until it does I'm not telling you what's behind any of this."
"I — that is, I am, for what it is worth, a man."
"Is that right. What a coincidence — for once I was thinking the same thing."
"Kiriko, do not make light of it. I am serious."
The red eyes were attractive at any time, but just now the pupils were blown with tension or excitement or something of the sort, and it was rather charming.
"It is not that the thought never occurred to me. Only, I said two months that time, so it cannot be helped. Even if I brace myself, at this stage the body cannot be made ready. So I had decided that between us no such thing existed."
He started to ask what he was talking about, and stopped, because he had worked it out. This genius was a cold-blooded sort who would not scruple over means where an end was concerned. But he was, at the same time, an enormous idiot.
A genius surgeon — a genius surgeon who had once opened his own abdomen himself — going out with a man, and if it were not the case that he had never considered the physical side, then anyone could arrive at what he would do about it. There was only one answer.
"Shall we make it two years? Then I'll operate on you myself."
"No thank you! I am quite provided for. I can do it myself."
The problem isn't whether you can do it yourself.
"Setting the surgery aside — Black Jack, do you not know how two men have sex?"
"I know of it."
He said it chilled him, and he looked chilled saying it, so he had presumably learnt of it very recently. Possibly he had seen some fairly lurid pictures or footage.
"But what intercourse requires is an erect penis and a vagina that lubricates. Emphatically not an anus. That is where the discussion has to begin. In my case it can be done. There may be opinions from the noisier quarters that it is an ethical problem, but that is a matter for the parties concerned, and mankind will hardly perish because one pair cannot conceive."
He felt the conversation had gone off course again, but Kiriko gave up on stopping it. When the man was heated, leaving him alone to discharge it was much the easiest method. He had had occasion to deflect Black Jack any number of times before now and was inordinately good at it. That it would come in useful in a scene like this one, Kiriko himself had never imagined.
"My penis was reconstructed at the time of the accident, but as an adult's it is incomplete. Although I am the one who has left it that way until now. Rather than repair it and then feminise your body as well, the more realistic solution is simply for me to be made capable of receiving."
I am a realist, he says — where is the realism in that. Wanting sex to be beautiful in the ideal makes you a romantic. And a matter that heavy is not something to be recounted at this particular moment with such lively enjoyment. And since arriving at solutions that appalling is a function of his genius, one may as well add idealist to the list.
Faced with Black Jack going happily on with his plans, Kiriko was confirmed in his view that the development of the man's emotional faculties was abnormal.
Having talked through every method of treatment, he seemed satisfied and at last went quiet. Through all of it Kiriko had succeeded in packing away behind a blank face the expression that wanted to twist, the feeling that wanted to detonate, and every word he wanted to spit out and pour over him. No trouble. Suppressing himself was something he was good at.
He let out the last of a thin, long, strangled sigh, drew a deep breath and looked for words.
"You're right. Two months was never long enough for that in the first place, so trying to sort it realistically in the three weeks that are left is far too unrealistic. And it isn't your body I'm after anyway, so don't worry about it. I won't either."
"I see."
He had evidently located the notebook at last: back came the thoughtful expression that could not be read as anything but waiting to be kissed.
"You're a romantic yourself, as it turns out."
"Not compared to you, Doc."
The lips were half open in a puzzled expression that seemed about to say something, and when he touched them lightly Black Jack closed his eyes. Thoroughly reassured by the mild atmosphere after the storm.
He let them touch a few times and drew back, and got a look of complaint — I have at least kissed someone before. So he cupped the face to hold it in place, caught the back of the head with a steadying hand, and set about a kiss that was deep, that was made as obscene as he could make it, that violated the mouth. His best effort at revenge. He looked unable to breathe, so Kiriko drew off for a second and let him. Then his eyes started to say something about bracing himself, so he bit into him again.
He caught the upper lip, slid his tongue in and traced the roof of the mouth softly. He caressed the line where teeth met gum with care and stroked the cheeks from inside. Tired of the backs of the teeth, he touched lightly at the fronts this time, then followed deep to the root of the tongue and slowly wound around it. At the edge where the saliva, with the mouth held open, was about to spill from the corner, he drew it in, released him and swallowed audibly.
Black Jack sat stunned, went red and then went pale, and muttering things like what was that and what is a kiss he pressed a hand over his mouth.
"What was that? What on earth was that just now? Kiriko, what was it? A kiss? It was a kiss. Was it a kiss? Kiriko!"
"It was a kiss."
He moved the hand from his mouth to his eyes, covered his face, said Megumi, I'm sorry, and fell silent. Whether the shock had put him to sleep or something else, there was no telling — but bringing up the name of a former partner was not on.
The two months, the limit, ran out.
A dreaming virgin who could not accept the muddied things that come with love and sex, the things one could hardly call beautiful. And stubborn with it, and contrary. Short of force, he would refuse to do or be done to even orally.
Because he believes desire is never beautiful, actually sleeping with a woman could only disillusion him. Nothing for it, then; teach him one thing before the end.
"The look on your face when a kiss melted you — I liked that."
"There was nothing to like about it. You were merely soppy about it yourself."
"I'm not teasing you. I mean it, from the heart. You looked like it felt good, and that puts me at ease. That's how it works."
"It was not that I liked it, but once one is used to it, it becomes tolerable to look at."
Not used to it, in fact — but with this man it was probably best to start from getting used to things. He would grow accustomed to the actions and be thrown about by the feelings; that much was easy to picture.
He held him, came close enough to touch, looked into the charming eyes he was fond of.
"One last thing. I want a kiss from you. Will you, Black Jack?"
A single blink, and then a kiss that only touched, for an instant.
A kiss like a small bird pecking at him. For an act in which no growth or anything else could be discerned, Kiriko lowered his arms and released him readily enough. Expecting to be set some rather more difficult task, by way of a final examination, Black Jack was caught off guard and fell to thinking.
"See you, then. I hope you get something out of the experience."
Contact of that order would hardly let him imagine what had been in the hearts of that swamp of a yandere couple and their double suicide; but that Black Jack's heart had beaten a little quicker was growth, and Kiriko would grant him that honestly.
"Yes."
He turned his back on the slack reply and started walking. Today they parted. Just now, they had parted. He would run into him somewhere again and be picked into a fight, no doubt, but the stoic stretch in which he neither played around with anyone else nor even saw anyone else was over.
He had been put through a great deal, but if there were ever an again, he was prepared to try it a second time. Only, he would not finish it in a short span like two months. If surgery was wanted, he would do it. He would finish the body to his own taste.
"Kiriko."
"What?"
He was called back, but did not turn round. If the man wanted to hold him there he would come after him, and not doing so meant he did not want to hold him.
"Where do you intend to go now?"
"Thinking I might go to Southeast Asia. And before you ask, it isn't for work. You, Doc?"
"Home. And then to work."
It would not be that he felt lonely; there might be some slight emptiness, but that is what anyone has in loss. It was only that a thing he did not understand remained not understood, and that it had come a little way undone, and that the itch wanted Kiriko, who held the answer.
"Not work and not going out — if we run into each other somewhere, let's drink again. You're welcome company for a drink."
Provided he had not become an excited drunk.
"Yes."
The same word, but the reply he heard this time was firm, and with a see you he started walking again. Experience told him it would not be long until the next occasion. Black Jack always looked astonished, as though he thought it an accident or something of the sort, but being called in for work and meeting Black Jack was inevitable, was simply how it went. Nothing to be astonished about. Whether he wanted to meet him or not, they would meet.
By now Black Jack, who had understood nothing, would be wearing that look of waiting to be kissed — or, the relationship being over, would have taken out the notebook and started writing something in it.
