Ink Stained

22: spring*

"I fainted?' she repeated.

Tsukuda nodded. "Dear child, does that belong to you?" he asked mildly.

With a puzzled frown on her face, she followed his line of sight to her hand, where her ring sat comfortably on her finger. She thought he meant the ring, but her gaze snapped down to her wrist at the peek of white from under the sleeve of her coat.

Oh shit.

It was real.

She stared at the pristine white sash double knotted securely around her wrist. Having it touching her bare skin didn't feel weird in any way, as she thought it might since the fabric somehow contained enough magic in it – or something of the like – needed to suppress a Makashi. It was surprisingly soft. It looked like it was made from cotton, but it felt like the fibres were spun from silk.

Odd.

She gently ran a finger over the sash, then quickly took it away as her mind flashed with all the memories of seeing Shin always, always wearing this on his own wrist. She shouldn't have been wearing this now. She had no right to, especially because it was her fault Shin lost it to begin with. It was her fault that she was wearing it now, when it should have been with the person it was made for.

The sound of Tsukuda shifting on the floor roused her from staring unseeingly at it. She looked up at him and couldn't muster the wits to come up with a lie. Why was he asking, anyways? Did he...could he tell that this was Mask?

How much did he really know?

"It – I..." she trailed off hesitantly. "I – I need to go home."

She wasn't planning on saying that, exactly, but as soon as the words were out, she realized it was true. She needed to go home. She wanted to go home, she was so tired and all she wanted was her bed in Ayashi House, the safety of the four walls that were her room, and the walls that surrounded the house.

Tsukuda nodded, not pushing further than he already had. "Are you all right to stand? We should go to the administrative office and get you to a hospital first before you go home. It could be something serious."

Her nose twitched at the mention of hospitals, recalling the stale, chemical smell she was subjected to for longer than she would have liked. She wasn't going back to a hospital. Over her dead body. Or, well – if she was dead it would be the morgue she would go to.

She shook her head off those morbid thoughts, immediately regretting it when a spiking ache pulsed from her nape. She started to stand, using the wall and Tsukuda's outstretched arm as support even though it had ants crawling over skin to be touching someone.

"It is fine, I do not need to go to the hospital," she looked at him apologetically. "I am so sorry for being such a bother to you."

Tsukuda kept a hand lightly on her shoulder, as if he was worried that if he took his hand back she would suddenly collapse again. "It isn't a bother. I hope you are not ill?"

She paused, and thought about it. Am I, or aren't I?

She couldn't even answer such a simple question. For a year now, she hadn't been able to do a lot of things because she got so tired far faster than she should. Her hands shook with tremors like Parkinson's disease despite not actually being ailed by it. She was always cold now, after what happened with the Oni; the chill never went away, no matter how much she bundled herself up, or how close she sat to the heater. It only ever really went away, just a little bit, when she sat right up against the boundary walls at home.