Ink Stained

05: quiet*

静か

The air around her whipped, and something beat through it as a pair of arms came up around her. One settled under her knees and the other curved around her back, smoothly catching her. Pai kept her eyes shut tight, a good part of her unconvinced that she had just been saved from a fall until she felt whoever caught her settle on solid ground.

When she peeled her eyes open, she saw her hand gripping onto the front of Shin's black yukata so tight that for a split second, she was surprised there weren't any tears in the fabric already. She had pulled it open a little, enough that part of his chest was exposed so that she saw the tip of what looked like a white-black wing tattooed on his skin.

She looked up, saw the sharp definition of his jawline, the curled sweep of his long eyelashes, the tangled mess of black hair. She shakily let go of his yukata as he slowly set her on the ground, an arm around her waist to make sure she didn't collapse – which she was immediately grateful for, because her knees wobbled so bad she genuinely worried she would fall without the support, delayed adrenaline pumping through her veins. Her hand felt like it was burning where her fingertips brushed his chest, his bare skin.

"You shouldn't climb so high if you can't fly," he said simply. He looked up at where she had been only moments ago. "From that height, if you landed wrong, you could have broken a bone. Your neck, even."

She followed his gaze, swallowing thickly. She hadn't quite realized just how high she had climbed. It didn't look so high up, from there. It...it could have been a very bad fall. But then again, she wouldn't have slipped if he hadn't scared her.

She looked down again, smoothing her clothes down, hands shaking – but not from anything wrong with her body, just from the shock of thinking I'm falling I'm falling I'm falling I'm going to maybe die, and then simply...not. Her heart was stuttering in her chest, frantically trying to calm down. She felt like she could start hyperventilating.

It was not every day one was saved from a big fall by a man who could fly. It didn't help that said man was objectively attractive. Or maybe it did? She didn't know. She'd rather not dwell on it, even if she could admit she was not blind to what Shin looked like.

Why am I thinking of this right now?

Pai took a deep breath in an attempt to gather her wits, to keep calm and not lose control. It's just Shin. There's nothing to be worried about.

She peeked up at him. His eyes weren't glowing as they had been the last time she saw him, on Monday – Shin was like that. He lived in Ayashi House, but sometimes he could disappear for days, even weeks on end. She didn't know where he went, and she was not entirely sure anyone else did. Kouta must, though, surely; they were best friends.

"Th – thank you, Shin-san." She said gratefully.

He tilted his head in that particular way of his. "What are you doing?" he asked.

Pai glanced back. The basket of fruit she had collected was still there, safe at the base of the tree. "I am collecting some fruit. I want to make a pie for everybody after I come back."

"Come back?" he echoed.

His eyes aren't glowing, she thought, unable to keep herself from making direct eye contact with him. But it still feels like his True Ayakashi is close.

She didn't know why she felt that way, just that she did. It wasn't so much that there was no outward sign of it as it was that she could feel the domineering strength from his True Ayakashi, scratching underneath the layer of civility Shin donned.