Roe on Raw Meat
Written by Yu Xi
Translated by Ng Zheng Wei
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Graphic content, sexual violence, self-harm
Herbert Lacsina, Host and Inhabitant Remix: Heart, 2025.
Image description: Intricate black line drawing of a monstrous root entangling a human heart.
This was my virgin experience of pleasure from ocean trout migration. I was sixteen. In a public toilet near my school, I was sucking the cock of a middle-aged man who just left work. When I loosened his pants, heat and fishiness spewed out. Separated by the cheap textile of his striped underwear, I obediently fiddled with it. His blackened penis erected with a surge, veins pulsating with a certain ripeness. I was still an unripened green apple. I opened wide. There was no room for slow-and-gentle. Shove after shove, I was butted in my mouth. The blue tiles in the cramped cubicle reminded me of the ocean. I held back my tears—a biological reaction unbelonging to the corners of my eyes. The ritual of liberation was completed. Picture a half-alive ocean trout stranded by a creek. That was me—my well-rounded body lay limp in the cubicle for a long time before leaving.
Before I finished my leisurely recount, he fell asleep. A gentle snore escapes his sternum, softly grazing the hollow of his jugular notch. The suite is a mess. Clothes are strewn on the floor. A desk lamp and a melted candle remains. I lay my hands on his flaccid cock. Initially, I wanted a second round of games, but settled for this flippant ending.
Looking at his face, I guess permutations of his name, age, and occupation. I thirst to know them all, including his past lovers. I burrow into his embrace, and burrow, and burrow. Am I loveless? My jitteriness is keeping me awake. I don't have much of a choice. I have to leave before dawn. The reason being, I am afraid to be dismembered once more. I know this is not my resting place. I also know to be wary of the sharpened blades of a Japanese sushi chef during such sexual play.
In the lift, I empty my pockets, out of habit. I realise I have left a new pack of cigarettes in the room. It is not deliberate this time as I have no intention of using this excuse to see him again. I walk to the FamilyMart by the street and purchase a packet of breath mints off the shelf. Upon payment, I casually say, "A box of Blue Spirit too." The cutie on the late-night shift has not left work. I know his nickname—Rabbit—but have never scrutinised the name on his nametag.
Totally a market vendor name. Chun-hong.
In my heart, I scoff. What lame name is this? Next, I examine his body. Underneath the uniform, I spot a black, long-sleeved inner wear. Blackish lines are exposed on his wrist, evident of a hidden sleeve tattoo. I want to know more about his tattoo. As ink pierced his skin, how painful was it? Is it something his community worshipped, or is it an intricate transit map? The scanner lets out a high-pitched "doot doot" as he accounts for my purchase on the counter.
Ever since we first met, I have invented innumerable topics to start a conversation. During the nights of meat-beating and finger-licking, I would even fantasise about how his Leviathan wriggled like a fish, squirting in the final moments—a mutual sacrifice for us both.
"169 dollars. E-invoice?" He stoops his head low, not looking at me at all. There is an obvious fatigue in his voice, words carrying a slight raspiness. His Adam's apple shifts upwards, then falls back to where it rested.
"Yes, e-invoice to Apply Pay. Thanks, Chun-hong baby." I deepen the tone of my voice, doing a newscaster impression.
"Fucking idiot." As he raises his head, our eyes meet. He cracks a smile, faint but lewd.
I take a blue plastic lighter from the countertop. "Lighter" is pronounced "lài-tah" in Taiwanese. I often re-interpret its Taiwanese characters in the context of sex—to be beaten shamelessly; to be beaten supportively. I swipe left on my phone to reveal the e-invoice barcode "/PRWM8NS". The alternating broad and thin black lines remind me of a girl friend whom I was consoling two days ago. Every time she entered a depressive slump, she would take a penknife and slash her skin. In Hong Kong, it is called "slit one's veins"; in Taiwan, it is called "slit one's wrists". Nowadays, people on dating apps, indie band fanatics, and members of Lovesick Rehab, collectively call it "barcode". The red and swollen scars are now a common code amongst love-deprived people. I turned down the fling king I had used on several occasions. For her. She finished smoking a full packet of Blue Spirit. All by herself. All she cried about was how her boyfriend didn't take her to the newly opened Omakase. I heard her say "break up" countless times, yet she is still together with him.
After paying up, I sit outside to smoke on a distress-styled backless bench. According to hearsay, the previous store manager bought the bench out of his own pocket, so that he had a space to smoke conveniently. Before long, something happened and he was never seen again. The cutie on the late-night shift is his nephew. When I first moved here, I only saw the cutie doing the day shift during holidays. Afterwards, he dropped out of school (a rumour) and has since filled the late-night shift vacancy.
This became my daily highlight ever since: wandering to the store before supper, or after getting laid, then smoking a cigarette at the store entrance. Occasionally, he would join me.
"Haven't seen you for the past two days. I thought you went back to Hong Kong for the summer," Chun-hong hands me a box and asks casually.
"What for? I prefer Taiwanese sausages." I peel the plastic wrapper on the box away and tap its lid twice on my palm. Out of habit, I pull out a cigarette in the front middle of the box, flip it, and re-insert it in reverse.
"I'm almost done with work. Gonna change and we can have a quick puff. I'm on leave tonight. Breakfast?" Chun-hong has already taken off his uniform. He lugs some parcels into the storeroom and squats down to sort through them. The fabric of his shirt clings onto his spine, his back an alluring creature, roaming the boundless sea.
The sky turns from mist-grey to pale blue. As I inhale, I feel the cloying smoke inside of me, fostering my dependence on cigarettes to ease my cramped-up anxieties. I am always escaping that ghost in my room. I am always adrift, amongst the homes of strangers, trying to prove I am alive. I recall a stranger I once met. I recall seeing his family photo—his hand holding his wife, son by his side, at the foot of Mount Fuji.
A certain fogginess shrouded my memory of this middle-aged man, whom I called dashu, or Uncle. I wasn't yet eighteen then. Uncle was looking for a travel companion online to Lake Kawaguchi. Unlike that wild, lascivious man I met in the public toilet, Uncle showed me a lot of respect. He took note of everything I detested. The trip became my seventeenth birthday present from him. We stayed in a suite overlooking Mount Fuji, featuring an expansive pane of glass, which made me gasp at the power of money in society. In his embrace, I felt a father's love. Single-handedly, he undid a mahogany-coloured button at my waist. My chest was exposed—pink and tender skin gardened with bite-marks in full bloom. The immense sensations from the previous night's foreplay were still stirring when he suddenly started kneading my nipples with his fingertips. My body was subdued by uncontrollable shudders, buckling in limpness every time I tried to sit upright. I felt him. Swollen. Turgid. Ablaze. Taking shape in his underwear, it cocked upwards with its head poking out, wet as the drizzle outside the window.
As the cigarette in my hand perishes, its dying embers singe my fingers. The flashback comes to a painful halt, but the sounds linger as ever-softening reverberations.
Time to re-enter the story. At this juncture, the trip took a somewhat upsetting turn. Uncle reserved a table at a restaurant specialised in nantaimori. Right in front of us, a boy, of about the same age as me, undressed and lay down on the table, raw and naked. The waiter placed a spread of sashimi on the boy's arms, thighs, and belly. Red and orange and yellow, fish roe of uneven sizes were piled bountifully on his right chest, like mounts of flirtatiously dazzling gems. Next, the chef sliced a palm-sized beef steak and wrapped pieces of giant red shrimps with shiso leaves. The sliced beef and shrimps were placed on top of the fish roe. Oh, so the overflowing gemstones are just garnish…
The waiter ushered us to another room. Here, the chef stood naked in the center. Other diners sat at their designated seats. The chef lifted a fish from a wooden bucket, still alive, and placed it on a cutting board. Black spots speckled the florid body of the fish. A small spike swiftly pierced its brain. A blade severed its spinal cord through a slant in its gill slit, then stripped its scales from its body. The red lateral line marking its body vanished. From an incision in the abdomen, an egg sac, plump with fish roe, was retrieved. The fresh, orange glow of the roe was so much more vibrant than those on the boy's chest. The chef cleaned the roe with water from a metal tin at the side. I recalled Uncle whispering to my ears about the pricelessness of this sujiko—the roe encased within the egg sac—but what a shame, it is trout, not salmon.
I watched the chef's nifty knife work. He portioned out the front third of the fish and discarded the remainder. He then served Uncle a slice of raw fish, almost free of fat. Uncle chewed. And spat it on the floor. Kneel and eat it up. At first, I didn't hear what Uncle said clearly. Around me, half of the other diners knelt on the floor, chomping and gobbling away. As if bewitched, I too, knelt on the floor. As my knees landed, I instinctively used my hands to pick the glob up. Out of nowhere, I was smacked on the face. The waiter took a long, white cloth from a box and bound my two hands. Restrained, I was forced to hunch my back and lap the glob up with my tongue. Swallowed. All the diners then went back to their respective rooms.
Back in our room, the boy was still lying on the table. It dawned on me—what I had done. Only in this moment did I comprehend what the boy told me earlier—this was the tradition of the restaurant, all in the name of appeasing the food we had consumed.
The waiter plated the sujiko. To eat it, newcomers were forbidden to use their own hands and must use the boy's semen as sauce, said Uncle. He gently fed me a scallop from the boy's belly. And a second. And a third… Being gorged felt like a dash of loneliness, with a pinch of an urge to cry. The freshly-grounded wasabi was barely stimulating. A stifling sensation rose from my immobilised hands, as I pleaded for mercy.
He shook his head. This is the rule.
As my mouth was constantly being stuffed, a bout of nausea surged upwards. That moment reminded me of the time I first sucked a man at a park, out of impulse—his salty smegma a distant ocean; a rugged fisherman letting blood out of a fish trapped in cold storage. That time, I satisfied my desires out of desperation. Now, my desires toyed with me to the point of desperation. All because of uncles.
In spite of that, I was still loveless. In spite of that, I still needed a father figure. Before I turned eighteen, I only wanted my father. Father would share his cock with many others. I was a voyeur, peeping: men thrusting their flesh into the orifices of desirers; men sharing their cigarettes with plumes of thick smoke spitting on each other's faces; men whipping their cocks at gaping mouths; the bodies of men turning soft upon the heat of semen on their faces. Still holding onto his cock, I used my tongue to seize a pearl of viscous semen, which refused to fall off. Only then, I became complete.
Herbert Lacsina, Host and Inhabitant Remix: Lungs, 2025.
Image description: Intricate black line drawing of lungs pierced by bone-like spikes.
Replaying these scenes in my head had only gotten my desires aroused. In the nantaimori restaurant, I looked at the boy lying flat in front of me and stared at his cock, half-erected, resembling a collapsing building, but also resembling a man. Yet I couldn't touch it. The sight transported me back to a bridge I frequented in my younger school days. I would cross the bridge on a bicycle, below which lay a neglected creek, overgrown with weed. The bridge led me to an estate where two jarring sights conjoined. It used to be a military dependents' village, due for demolition by the authorities. Thoughtless redevelopment planning resulted in blocks after blocks of regal and eclectic buildings being erected behind the hill, yet the buildings were situated in an orderly fashion, like tombs in a cemetery. I wasn't emotionally attached to our house there. I followed Mother to Hong Kong when I was small and occasionally returned to our house for the summer holidays. When I returned to Taiwan for studies at an older age, I only stayed there for a year before moving out. I heard cracks started to appear in many of the houses there after an earthquake, including ours.
A collapsing building is a warning; a hook that fishes my trauma out from the memories of roaming the two cities. And of sex.
All that I remember from that night at the restaurant is this. I finished all the roe on the boy's right chest and wriggled my way to his cock. With the moistened tip of my tongue, I stroked its frenulum and gulped down its head. Suck. Suck. Suck. Until Uncle applauded. The waiter then placed the whole sujiko in my mouth.
A collapse, a rumble, an abrupt end. Chun-hong calls my name several times but there is no response.
When I wake, the area at my feet is scattered with cigarette buds and ash.
"Fuck, didn't I tell you not to dirty the floor?" Chun-hong, one hand with a drink can, another with a tissue, cleans the mess I have made.
"Paiseh la, I'll buy breakfast." I light a cigarette. Is Blue Spirit a ghost? Nah, just another carcinogen. I remember it was blueberry-flavoured when my fling gave it to me for the first time. When I first bought it myself, it tasted like soda pop. Right now, the label writes "apple flavour". What is the taste of apple? An unripened greenness that I identify with. Now, I feel as if I have painfully released the eggs in my body at my birthplace.
"Why do you only smoke the blue Esse?" Chun-hong lights a Marlboro and spits out an equally pungent smoke.
"You are no better with only Marlboro, SevenStars, and Camel," I rebut. But why do I only smoke Esse? In Mandarin, Esse is transliterated to Ai-Xi, meaning love-joy. Is it because I am loveless, and enjoy being fucked? Or maybe it is because of my "barcode" girl friend, who once said only those slim cigarettes with saccharine flavours suited me. After spending two full days with that girl, I have lost contact with her. I really want to tell her all my stories, my past, hug her, and have her listen to me cry.
"Fuck, don't bring it up. I live very far, you know? Out of nowhere, the old estate beside my house is being demolished. Motherfucking noisy. I can't sleep properly." Chun-hong rapidly inhales the remainder of his cigarette and throws it into the drainage.
"No wonder recently, you are not like Rabbit, but like Chun-hong."
"Son of a bitch. Don't make me fuck you till you can't get out of bed. Where have you been for the past few days?" A dirty grin appears on Chun-hong as he snatches the cigarette on my hand and takes a puff from it. "Ugh, too sweet." He throws it away.
"Nowhere. Stayed home in the morning, went out to screw around at night."
"To screw? More like get fucked. Ha, so you leave home joyfully and come home broken." Chun-hong wraps his arm around my shoulders.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Still want breakfast?" I roll my eyes.
"Of course, but at your house. I'd like to sleep in your bed. By the way…" Chun-hong gently pinches my butt cheeks. That makes my body feel weak and gives me goosebumps.
"Up to you, but no jerking off in my bed." Right after saying this, I dialed her number again. No one picks up.
At the breakfast place, the television is broadcasting today's breaking news. "A dead body of a girl was discovered by a creek in the suburbs. Her torso has been cut open and her organs have been emptied. Due to repeated blows with an unidentified heavy object, the girl's face was severely disfigured beyond recognition."
I don’t pay attention to the news. Back at my place, I let him sit on my sofa. Curious about the tattoos, I eagerly strip his shirt off. Piercing his skin: Prajna, koi, and Fortune Cat. I am feeling his raw energy with my hands—a horny rabbit hopping into the forest. And morphs into an ocean trout, bound by a deep desire to spawn in the freshwaters of its birth river, inevitably migrating, death imminent.
Herbert Lacsina, Host and Inhabitant Remix: Brain, 2025
Image description: Intricate black line drawing of a brain encircled by a snake-like monster.
Ng Zheng Wei is usually blessed by Cangjie but sometimes kissed by a Muse. He translates poetry and fiction between Chinese and English. His poems have been widely featured in Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. He has published two Chinese poetry collections: The Child Made of White Paper (2022) and Hallucinations and Mishearings (2024).
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Yu Xi, born in the early spring of 2001, Aries. Attended National Cheng Kung University for Chinese Literature. Currently, pursuing a Master of Fine Arts at the National Dong Hwa University Department of Sinophone Literatures. He is born in Guangzhou, grew up in Hong Kong, and is residing in Tainan / Hualien. He was a member of Imaginary Friends Literature for two years and is currently the lead coordinator of Typhoon Signal Poetry Club. Other than poetry, he writes fiction, creative non-fiction, literary critique. His works have been widely published in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
He has been awarded the top prize for the Flame Tree Literary Award, Outstanding Young Poet Award, Tao Cheng Literature Prize, National Taiwan Literature Camp Creative Award, Liao Yu-ju Award in Drama and Literature. He was also nominated for the 3rd People Fish Poetry Poet of the Year Award. His poetry collection, Eclipses (2025), has been shortlisted for the 9th Crimson Hall Poetry Society Publication Sponsorship Program.
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Herbert Lacsina is an interdisciplinary artist and art director whose work spans design and visual art. Born in the Philippines and now based in New York City, he has worked as a designer and creative lead for diverse brands and agencies. His artistic practice reflects an ongoing exploration of personal, creative, and cultural identity through visual experimentation and collaboration. He can be found at https://www.instagram.com/aboutberto
In a short story by Yu Xi, translated by Ng Zheng Wei, a gnawing hunger consumes everything.