MARIGOLD |H.S. AU|

CHAPTER THIRTY

I start to register my surroundings, and I realise I'm in another hotel room, but not my room in Tokyo. This one's different, it's colder, the interior is duller, and the buzz of life coming from outside of the window doesn't feel the same. Like the major key of sound has converted to minor, the sad tuneful melodies circling round my head.

There are minimal lights on, and the dark red interior of the room is muted by the grey sky peeking through the white transparent curtains. I gulp down the rest of the water in the bottle before placing it back on the floor.

The door clicks open, and my breath stops. Do I want to see anyone? Who is checking on me? Who has a key to this room?

I see a chocolate brown mound of long tangled curls walk through the door with a tinge of sadness on his face, his eyebrows are furrowed, but not in the playful way I recognise. He hasn't acknowledged that I'm awake yet, and as he turns to close the door behind him, his hand stays placed on it as his head drops down.

He releases a huge exhale and a baby sob as his hair falls from its perched position on his shoulders. He's shaken up about this, and he looks completely drained himself. I don't know where we are, what time it is, what day it is, where all of my stuff is, all I know is I just need him right now, we need each other right now.

I stand up, and the joggers on my body fall from my waist slightly, so I roll them over and continue my walk over to him. As soon as I get closer to him, I can feel him sniffling and breathing heavily, the sound muffled because he's facing the door still.

I place my hands on his shoulders and feel him tense as he notices the contact. I urge him to turn around with my hands, but he fights me, trying to hide from me. I use one of my hands to grab his jaw, and this time I win the fight.

He turns to face me with bloodshot eyes and wet streams of sadness trickling down his face. He keeps sniffling his nose and scrunching it up. His eyes don't meet mine and he's looking down at the small stretch of carpet between us.

Both my hands grasp at his jaw, pulling his eye-line up to mine as best I can. He fights me yet again, but this time grabs hold of the tented t-shirt I'm wearing at my hips, scrunching the material in his fists, pulling me closer to him. He's tugging small and quick movements on my shirt, urging and pleading for me to move towards him. 

I urge his jaw up to me once again, wanting him to look at me, but not wanting to break the silence between the two of us.

This time he obliges, offering his eyes to me, and the moment I see them, full of tears to the brim, spilling out of every place they can escape, dripping down his face as innocent drops of water. I don't know what happened, I don't remember where we are or how we got here, all I know is that it's taken its toll on him, in a way that I feel guilty for not being able to protect him from.

I know I should be focused on me, working towards how I am ever going to function normally again, but right now, and right this second alone, he needs my comfort more than I need his, and that's okay.

His mouth scrunches as he registers my face, like he's checking to see if it's really me, like I've been gone for some time and he needs to know if I'm back. When he notices it, there's a gratification present on his face telling me he's glad I'm here, back from wherever I've been.

All of a sudden, as I tighten my lips, into a sad sort of smile, he releases a gasp of breath and lets his head fall onto my shoulder. I respond quickly, comforting him as best as I can by fishing my fingers into his hair to caress his scalp, wanting to calm him.

"I... I'm sorry." He splutters in between pants and sobs, the material on my shoulder becoming damper.

"I'm so sorry this happened to you." He says again, the sadness in his voice causing a thickness in my throat.