Chapter 39
Kenji didn't wake up until Rise had finished bowing and composed herself.
The regular beep-beep sound continued to come from the headphones placed on his ears, and it was only when that sound ended that he could open his eyes.
"Ugh!"
Kenji, too, started retching as soon as he woke up. Having been unconscious for so long, he retched even more violently than Rise, to the point of wondering if not just gastric juices but his internal organs were about to come out of his mouth.
After retching for a while, Kenji put the headphones back on and lay down with eyes that had gone mad. At the beeping sounds, he closed his eyes and tried his best as if he wanted to taste that sensation once more, but unfortunately, Kenji's struggles ended in vain.
"Why, why can't I hear the sound!"
The beep-beep sound was coming from the headphones.
That sound was so loud that even Rise, who was composing herself far away, could hear it clearly, but Kenji, who was wearing them, couldn't hear it.
It was a strange thing.
Kenji foamed at the mouth making a racket about needing the sound, and for a while, he tried to imitate the beep-beep sound with his own mouth. But...
"Why! Why! Only this! Only thiiiiis!"
Kenji screamed, tearing at his hair.
His intensity was so fierce that with a ripping sound, the hair he was gripping came out, and blood beaded at the ends, trickling down Kenji's forehead. But Kenji, disregarding the ticklish feeling of the hot blood flowing down his forehead, just screamed, only screamed.
"Again! I need to hear the sound agaaain!"
He screamed.
He screamed at the top of his lungs.
Even as his tongue dried up and white foam formed in his mouth, he only craved the sound, screaming madly again and again as he rolled on the floor.
And after doing this for a while.
He crawled on all fours, grabbed Jinseong's trouser leg, and shouted.
"Again, I want to taste that ecstasy again!"
But Jinseong only smiled calmly, never giving in to Kenji's requests.
Kenji held onto Jinseong for a long time, pleading and trying to persuade him, then tried to listen to the sound by putting the headphones on again, then buried his head in Jinseong's feet to beg again, and finally, grabbing Rise, he said:
"Rise! Please ask that demon, no! That noble person! Tell him to let me hear the sound, ask him to let me hear the sound!"
"...A favor?"
"Yes! Aren't you a beauty! If a beauty like you asks, surely he'll at least pretend to listen!"
Did he even know what he was saying?
Rise's gaze, which had been looking at Kenji with pity, gradually turned cold.
The warm gaze full of sympathy and compassion gradually hardened, becoming as cold and hard as an arctic iceberg.
"...Is that something a father should say to his daughter?"
That if she asked it would work because she was beautiful?
That was like…
Like...
Rise couldn't bear to think further.
She could only look at her father with a cold gaze and an expression that couldn’t be more sad.
Watching this scene, Jinseong opened his mouth.
"Didn't I say I came to give blessings? This is a side that your father would have inevitably shown in the future."
Rise looked up at Jinseong sharply as if she resented his words. But soon, perhaps remembering the vow she had made earlier, she had to bow her head again.
But Jinseong approached her as if to comfort her, grabbed her shoulder, and whispered:
"Do you know what I found in your father's room?"
"...I don't know."
"LSD, methamphetamine, even ayahuasca."
"Methamphetamine... you mean crystal meth?"
"That's right."
"I don't know what the others are..."
Each one was something terribly awful.
The commonality was that they were all hallucinogens.
"Among them, methamphetamine was used the most, so catastrophe would have inevitably come."
Jinseong looked at Kenji, who was begging for sound in a dogeza position.
On Kenji's chest visible through his disheveled collar, there was a wound that seemed to have happened from a scratch, and it looked like a wound caused by severely scratching an insect bite.
"Look, that's called a meth bug."
Meth bug.
It was a typical symptom of methamphetamine and also a wound seen on addicts who had fully caved into using. It was said that when one took methamphetamine, they felt like bugs were crawling under the skin, and they would scratch at it while intoxicated because they couldn’t bear the itchiness, causing such wounds.
Beyond this, their bodies became emaciated, they turned irritable, and the teeth deteriorated terribly. And they became a madman who would do anything for drugs. The brain was completely destroyed, becoming a body that could never return to normal.
"Even drug addicts avoid methamphetamine, I wonder what he was thinking to eat that. Did he try to have the dream he wanted by guzzling hallucinogens like that?"
"The dream he wanted..."
Rise looked at Kenji as if something had struck her.
But even the brief compassion she had felt again quickly disappeared at the sight of Kenji raging and behaving disgustingly.
"...Will father be able to return to normal?"
She asked with a desperate face.
The fear she had experienced in the dream within a dream earlier, the awe and submissiveness towards Jinseong, and the ugly sight her father was showing.
Rise's mind was already close to its limit.
And Jinseong did not ignore Rise's mind that was on the verge of collapse.
"It's possible."
He smiled with a rabbit-like face and pointed at Kenji.
"What do you think he saw with his eyes closed?"
Rise had tasted the state of Samadhi in her unconscious.
There, she had seen the vast universe, seen stars, had a question-and-answer session, and tasted fragments of enlightenment.
This was clearly an improvement of the mind.
Although it was something unbearable for the young and untrained Rise, it was clearly a significant experience.
Then what did Kenji see?
What did Kenji, who had listened to cyber drugs instead of the sound directly recorded by Jinseong, see and experience?
That was unknown.
It was impossible to peek into someone else's unconscious when exploring one's own unconscious was already uncharted territory. But in the mix of dimethyltryptamine and endorphins secreted by cyber drugs, Kenji must have felt happiness like no other.
Who knows.
He might have seen what he desperately wanted to see enough to resort to hallucinogens.
But that momentary happiness was now gone.
Because it had turned into a stepping stone for treatment and a leash in Jinseong's hand.
"I don't know what he saw. But without my permission, he will never be able to recreate it again."
Jinseong smiled, thinking of the spirometra plerocercoid larva implanted in Kenji's body.
For a while, Rise stared at Jinseong who was smiling confidently, then bowed her head deeply.
It was a different form of submission from Kenji kneeling on the floor.
* * *
The day of nightmares.
After that day, the shrine began to change.
First, the shrine's gate was locked.
A no-entry sign was erected at the torii that had once welcomed visitors, preventing anyone from entering, and the bright red color of the torii changed to a darker, crimson color. Instead, large candles were placed on both sides of the torii, shining as if illuminating the gate.
And inside, the spotless shrine grounds could be seen.
As if the dust was erased rather than being swept away with a broom, not a speck of it could be found anywhere on the grounds. And likewise, not a single fallen leaf or piece of trash could be found.
And entering the main hall, the once cherished sacred object was soaking in blood, bubbling and frothing, and in the place where the sacred object should have been enshrined, there was a sphere made of brightly shining light.
The light of this sphere was basically white but if one looked at it carefully, the white light felt black and seemed to suck in one's mind. And if one concentrated further, one could see it constantly changing–the point contracting and expanding, alternating between becoming a point and a sphere, and soaring in the form of lines to draw the shape of a sphere.
But at the end, it always took the form of a star, which was an exact replication of the star Rise had seen at the last moment.
Below the sphere of light was a well-polished bronze mirror, which, instead of reflecting light, was connected to Rise's mind and projecting the outside appearance.
In other words, what was in the place of the sacred object was an image Rise projected into reality.
It was a memory drawn out into reality through spiritual vision.
And around the sphere of light, two strange beings were lurking as if they were guards.
A ghost of a child with a twisted and haggard appearance was constantly patrolling within a certain distance, continuously monitoring the surroundings for any approaching presence as if trying to closely guard the sphere of light. Its appearance reminded one of a child playing a role-playing game, making it look cute at first glance.
The slime-shaped being was constantly changing its form while lurking around the boundary of the sacred rope hanging around the sacred object. It thoroughly protected the sphere of light, moving fluffily, sometimes creating a wall like a waterfall, sometimes enveloping it in a dome shape, and sometimes pulling out spines to set up like bars.
And Jinseong, who had been quietly watching this scene, turned to Kenji and asked.
"Are you ready?"
The area under Kenji's eyes had turned dark. Dark circles were deeply set as if he had been through years of mental anguish, and his hollow eyes showed no sign of vitality at all.
His appearance was reminiscent of a zombie created by a voodoo sorcerer.
"O-of course!"
The only time a spark returned to Kenji's eyes, which had become like those of a walking corpse, was when he thought of the cyber drug. But Jinseong had no intention of giving Kenji pleasure, and he had impressed this upon Kenji many times.
Naturally, Kenji went berserk.
To show him heaven once and then take it away?
That was nothing short of destruction for him.
He begged.
He banged his head until his forehead cracked.
He begged until the skin of his palms peeled off.
He knelt until his knees could barely straighten, and he shouted and shouted until he coughed up blood.
But no matter how much he begged, reality didn't change, and Jinseong had no intention of breaking his will.
He might have rebelled or tried to threaten, but even that was impossible for Kenji.
The fear he had experienced earlier and the spirometra in his brain firmly bound his body and mind, and he could only lower his body like a dog with its tail tucked and beg and beg.
He only begged repeatedly, and finally chose to turn his craving into resentment.
And that resentment was directed not at Jinseong, a being he couldn't resist, but at those who were in a horizontal relationship with him.
"Those bastards, those bastards too! They should become just like me!"
People who might be tasting the pleasure he couldn't taste at this very moment.
His old drug companions.
Kenji wanted everyone who had sold him drugs, who had enjoyed drugs with him, to be in the same situation as him. Because he couldn't taste it, he wanted others to be dragged down to where he was, and he wanted them to experience this terrible reality of tasting paradise and then falling into hell.
This was resentment created by a mixture of various emotions, but the largest proportion was jealousy.
Jealousy.
Only that despicable emotion was dominating him.
"Only I..."
In a way, Kenji might be a truly excellent drug addiction therapist.
How could he be called anything but a therapist when he was trying so passionately to help others break free from drugs!
"The others should be just like me! Just like me!"
Kenji shouted with gleaming eyes.
Longing and madness for the pleasure that would never be within his reach swirled around him.