Koi No Yokan (gojo x oc)

15. Geto

February 2006
Two days later.

Nothing.

There's nothing here.

Only an endless, soul-sucking void.

Of nothing.

"Kaede-chan." Someone calls my name from far away. Again, "Kaede-chan."

Nothing.

I'm ripped back into reality, roughly pulled at the shoulder. "Kaede-chan!"

Like a lens coming back into focus, Suguru's face becomes clear, expression wild, pants clouding into the air.

We're outside. Somewhere wrapped in trees with no leaves, only snow.

"We've been looking for you for forty-five minutes."

Snow.

The realization that I'm planted in a thick layer of it is sudden. My clothes are sopping wet, along with my hair. The skin of my lips and fingers are raw.

How long have I been sitting here?

"Kaede-chan?!"

My teeth chatter too hard to respond. Suguru pulls the jacket of his uniform off, swaddling my shivering limbs to the best of his ability. Then he takes me up into his arms, summoning a winged curse.

A breeze whips past as the curse flies forward. It makes my bones ache, burns the air entering my lungs. I try to sink deeper into Suguru, but his body heat does little to ease the frigid sensation. Within less than a minute, he calls out to someone else. "I found her!" he says.

I can't make out where I'm being taken. The massive shivers force my eyes to clench shut. I cradle myself the moment he sets me down, but whoever else is present is pulling me to straighten out.

They're removing my clothes.

"No, please," I try to beg, but the words never fully form.

"Careful." The voice is unmistakably Shoko's. "Moving her too much can set off cardiac arrest."

The next voice I recognize to be Hairbara's. "Where did you find her, Geto-san?"

"In the middle of the woods. Have you called Satoru?"

Satoru. What I would do for him to hold me right now, to stop this unbearable climate with the perfect temperature of his skin.

"He's not answering, so I left a message. Nanami and Mariko too."

"What was she doing out in the snow?" Shoko pulls off the last soaked garment, and I am too weak to object. For a moment that lasts too long, I am completely nude, shaking vigorously until the weight of a blanket lands above me.

"Nothing. She was just sitting there."

"I found her the same way one time," Shoko says. "She'd been staring at the wall for hours. Didn't remember when she came in, or why."

"I can hear you," I try to object, but I hear myself. Nothing but murmurs tumble from my mouth. The cold has rendered my tongue useless.

"I'm going to get more blankets," Shoko says. "Haibara, turn around. She's covered up now."

With too few senses to rely on, I force my eyes open. Suguru stands over me, the low ceiling of the dormitory lounge above us. "Back to life now?"

"Kaede-chan," Haibara turns from the wall and approaches, "We agreed to meet for lunch, remember? After you didn't show up for an hour, I thought to call Geto-san to see if you'd taken a mission."