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Days after running into Tomoru in the park, Tadaomi still ponders the idea of a bird stripped of its wings. Shu approved of the lyrics he wrote after their interaction, but that wasn’t all Tadaomi wanted to do with the subject. Talking to Tomoru made him realize that maybe he does need to look at it from a different angle. He wants to see firsthand a bird with its wings stripped away. To try and see from the bird’s perspective.
Of course, a bird that’s unfamiliar with you wouldn’t allow you to do that to it… and the bird in the park didn’t help him at all… so he looks towards his own birds. Do they have wings?
Reiji was born without them, an unfortunate existence from the very beginning. Shu’s wings are in the process of being torn off, you didn’t have to know him very well to know that his father was trying to keep him from flying. Haruka’s are close to being torn off as well, but due to Kanata’s efforts they’re only hanging on by a feather.
But what about Kanata and himself, Tadaomi wonders. Perhaps the two of them had similar motivations, but he could at least tell Kanata did have wings. He guesses he must’ve been born without working ones, or maybe he lost the ability to move them at some point during his childhood (he was sick all the time), so now he takes joy in ripping the working wings from others and reveling in the pain that the hurt bird feels. Maybe they really weren’t that different and he could use Kanata’s experience for his research.
No, we’re not the same. Kanata did it for his own selfish desires while Tadaomi only wants to learn how the harmed bird feels. In that case it’d be better for him to ask Haruka instead.
Yet again, he decides against it and reminds himself that the goal was to experience it firsthand. It’d just be cheating if he asked someone about it, and they might start to get suspicious. Humans really were strange.
So what about him? There was no rule against Tadaomi being his own research subject. Do his wings work? Does he even have them? Maybe not… He can’t seem to feel anything in the first place, and based on his experiences with others, wings only exist to cause you pain when someone else rips them away.
He then thinks back to what Tomoru said; that if a bird is born without wings he can rely on the birds and friends around him to help him fly…
What bullshit that was.
Who would be selfless enough to help the bird with no wings? If you have no wings or they’re broken you’re ostracised and forgotten about. He didn’t need a bird metaphor to tell him that!
But… what if he did have wings and he just didn’t know?
So that’s why he decides to find out, abruptly, in the middle of practice in their dorms.
“Please excuse me.” Tadaomi murmurs before making his way out of the room, his bag in hand, towards the bathroom.
Shu silently wonders why he left so suddenly and with a bag, but he shrugs it off and goes back to singing. No matter why he left at least it’ll be interesting to ask him about it later.
Tadaomi, now in the bathroom, closes the door behind him and sets his bag down on the counter next to the sink. He thinks about the ramifications of what he’s about to do. What will he do if he really does have wings?
He’d rip them off himself, of course. Maybe that’d help him understand.
So he does what any normal person that wants to see their wings would do and takes off his uniform blazer and shirt. After folding them up nicely and setting them aside to avoid any more incidents with Reiji over blood on his clothes, he turns with his back facing the mirror.
It’s hard for him to look back at himself like this. Similar to a doll, his limbs don’t have very much flexibility to them at all. His dexterity only really lay in his hands, which took months for him to build up. He can see his shoulder blades from this angle and recalls what he did a few days ago.
So, Tomoru’s shoulder blades were rather bony, and he did try to physically snap them off, but Felix stopped him before he could get very far. What kind of effort would it take to break his own, he wonders. He places a hand on his left shoulder blade and attempts to break it similar to the way he tried to before, but it doesn’t budge. It only hurts ever so slightly.
Of course it’s something he can’t do himself. Maybe it’s his brain not letting him willingly cause harm to himself like how humans can supposedly bite through their fingers like carrots but their brains stop them from doing it. It was ironic that his brain would give him the inability to feel nearly nothing but try to stop him from something that wouldn’t really even hurt him anyway.
Oh well. He has time. Tadaomi turns back to the counter and reaches into his bag for the boxcutter he took from Shu’s room. What it was doing in there, he doesn’t know, but surely Shu won’t miss it for the moment. Sighing, he extends the blade and turns his back to the mirror again. He points the blade towards his left “wing” and angles it so that it’s nearly wedged between it and his ribs.
“I don’t need this anyway.” He says to himself before beginning to try and carve it out. It immediately burns as the blade goes into his skin, but he tosses the feeling aside. He no longer wants the constant reminder of his inability to fly being here anymore, so he pushes the blade in further, watching the blood flow down his back. He begins to find it increasingly difficult to move his left arm, but pushes that feeling aside as well. It’s his right arm that’s doing the carving anyway.
Tadaomi continues to dig further into his back with the blade, uncaring for the pain, or the amount of blood staining his uniform pants and dripping onto the counter below. This would be a pain to clean up later, but he could just clean up once this was over.
Is this how Haruka and Shu feel…? At least he could understand this much.
He starts to worry that he may have cut something wrong or messed up because his left arm is losing a majority of its feeling, but his wing still isn’t out…
He continues, a bit frantic now.
Back in the main room, the others split up to find out where Tadaomi went. Shu didn’t care very much about where he was and assumed this was normal for him, but Reiji insisted that they at least find him and be certain he was okay so they could decide to continue their practice with or without him. Reiji went to the common bathroom first, figuring Tadaomi would’ve gone either there or his room, which Kanata was checking.
Reiji knocks on the door gently. “Tadaomi, are you in there?”
There’s a soft mm-hmm from inside in response.
“Are you alright?”
No response.
“Tadaomi?”
“I’m getting rid of my wings.”
“...What?” Reiji starts to worry over Tadaomi’s suspicious response. Tadaomi was never one to say things as they were... “Can I come in?”
There’s no response again, but Reiji hears a loud clatter and grows concerned.
Inside, Tadaomi is heaving at the counter because the pain is starting to get to him. Reiji suddenly speaking to him broke his focus, and his hand slipped. He foolishly dropped the boxcutter after feeling a sudden searing pain in his back. Why does he have to feel this, of all things… The ground begins to sway beneath him and holding himself up becomes a hassle.
Thankfully for Reiji, Tadaomi didn’t lock the door after he came in, and he opens it quietly. It didn’t seem like Tadaomi heard his questions, which only made him more concerned. He peeks into the bathroom slowly, until he sees the sheer amount of blood covering Tadaomi and his own blood runs cold.
“Tadaomi!” He yells before rushing over to stop him from whatever in the hell he’s doing.
Tadaomi glances at him and is completely prepared to collapse when he feels Reiji’s hands on him, holding him up. Was that Reiji? He doesn’t have the energy to look back. The world grows increasingly hazy, but he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and notices how glazed over his eyes look. He can’t make out what’s being yelled at him, but he thinks he can hear the others coming in before he lets his weak body fall back onto Reiji.
What a time to remember what Tomoru said to him.
“But if that bird only has one wing… If it has a group of close friends, it will surely be able to fly.”