“What is this?”
“Empathy training,” Gon said, straight-faced, not even the slightest grin to be seen. So this meant he was serious. He carefully put his hand inside the box and grabbed hold of the butterfly. Its petal-thin wings caught in his hand, struggling helplessly. “How do you think it feels?” Gon asked.
“Like it’ll want to move,” I said.
Gon took out the butterfly and, holding each wing with each hand, started stretching them out little by little. The butterfly’s feelers bent whichever way, its body writhing hard.
“If you’re doing this to make me feel anything, you should stop it,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because the butterfly looks like it’s hurting.”
“How do you know? It doesn’t hurt you.”
“It hurts when someone pulls on your arms. I know it from experience.”
Gon didn’t stop. The butterfly struggled even harder. Gon was grasping its wings, but he looked away.
“The butterfly looks like it’s hurting? That’s not enough.”
“Then?”
“You should feel like you’re also hurting.”
“Why? I’m not the butterfly.”
“Okay. Let’s keep going until you really feel something.”
Gon stretched the wings farther apart, his eyes still looking elsewhere.
“Stop. It’s wrong to mess with living things.”
“Don’t give me some shit you’ve read in a textbook. I said I’ll let go of this if you really feel something.”
Just then, one wing ripped. Gon let out a short, sharp breath. The butterfly fluttered its remaining wing in vain, spinning on the spot.
“You don’t feel sorry for it?” Gon asked, fuming.
“It looks uncomfortable.”
“No, not uncomfortable, I asked if you feel sorry, goddammit.”
“Cut it out.”
“No.” Gon hastily reached for something in his pocket. It was a sewing needle. He held it close to the butterfly, which was still spinning on the floor.
“What are you doing?”
“See for yourself.”
“Stop.”
“Don’t you take your eyes off it. Or I’ll trash this place. You hear me?”
I didn’t want my bookstore to be trashed, and I knew Gon was more than capable of making good on his threats. He stood poised over the butterfly as if he were a high priest before a ritual. In a flash, the needle pierced its body. It struggled in silence, desperately flapping as hard as it could.
Gon glowered at me. Then he gritted his teeth, tearing off the remaining wing. It wasn’t me but Gon whose expression had changed. His eyebrows were visibly twitching, and he was biting down hard on his lip, which moments ago had been curled into a sneer.
“How about now? Feel anything? Still just uncomfortable? Is that all you got?” he said, his voice cracking.
“Now I think it hurts, very much. But you look uncomfortable.”
“Of course, I don’t like this kind of stuff. I’d rather kill it in one go, nice and clean. I fucking hate giving slow torture.”
“Then why do this. I can’t give you what you want anyway.”
“Shut up, asshole.”
Gon’s face was contorted. Just like on the day when he kept stomping me down at the incinerator. He tried to do something more to the butterfly but he couldn’t. A wingless butterfly, spinning around with a needle stuck through its body, was no longer a butterfly. The bug was expressing pain with its entire body. Thrashing back and forth, left and right, fighting for its dear life. Was it pleading with us to stop, or trying its very best to survive? It must be pure instinct. Not emotion, but instinct triggered by the senses.
“Fuck it. I quit!”
Thump, thump, thump. Gon hurled the butterfly to the floor and stomped on it with all his might.
45
A small dot was left on the spot where the butterfly had been. I hoped it’d gone to a safer place. And I wished that I could’ve helped it avoid such discomfort.
I think what happened that day with the butterfly was kind of like a staring contest. A simple game. If you close your eyes first, you lose. I always won in these kinds of games. Other people struggled to keep their eyes open, when I just didn’t know how to close my eyes in the first place.
It had been days since Gon last visited me. Why was he angry at me after doing such a thing to the butterfly? Because I didn’t react? Because I didn’t stop him? Or was he mad at himself for doing what he did? There was only one person I could ask about these questions.