Ink Stained

71: talk to me*

話して

Pai woke with a startled gasp of surprise to the gentle touch of someone wiping away something warm, and wet, leaking from her ears. When her eyes flashed open, panic brimming, it was to see Shin leaning over her, peering down at her with concern such an open look in his eyes that it was almost jarring to see the emotion completely unfiltered, with no walls to parse it through.

"Easy there," he murmured soothingly as she jerked awake, a steadying hand on her shoulder. "It's just me. Just me."

She squinted through bleary eyes, the haze of slumber clouding her, deluding her into thinking she was still asleep. It was either that or Shin, for some reason, looked exceptionally sharp-cut and more handsome that he already usually was. Or maybe it was the light from the bulb fixed to the ceiling that was outlining his body so pleasantly.

Be still, my useless heart. She commanded, to no avail.

Groggily, she mumbled, "Shin-san?"

He hummed in affirmation, a low sound that did surprising wonders to calm her frazzled nerves. Her senses were slow to return to her.

At first, all she was aware of was the twittering of birds flying around outside the window. Then she felt the cold of the mountain air stinging her skin, and the warmth of the blanket covering her from neck to toe, her hair lying open under her, tickling the skin exposed at the back of her neck over her pyjamas. The bed she lay on was hard, the mattress thick, entirely unlike her own more springy mattress.

Her throat was horribly dry, her nose stung with cold, and her eyes were puffy. Her ears hurt like she'd stuck in needles and punctured the eardrum, and her loose hair brushing over her ears pained her almost just as much as a sharp arrow of wind would. The only reprieve she had was that her nose was clear, for now.

For a long moment, she had no idea where she was. She didn't recognize her surroundings. She didn't know what room this was, why there were several identical beds like the one she was on stretching out on either side of her. She didn't know why she felt so awful.

Then she remembered. She was in the convalescence room, sick with a flu she'd caught from a man on the flight back to Sapporo. She'd been here for the last two days, recuperating until she could go back to school with Shiori. By this point, she was beginning to wonder if she'd have to repeat a year, what with how many absences from school she'd had.

"Steady," Shin said as she started to push herself up to sit. He kept a hand close to her shoulder in case she lost balance. She didn't, managing to right herself as she fought off a yawn. She wasn't about to advertise the inside of her mouth to him.

"Sorry," she mumbled, hooking her hair over her ears and resting back on the headboard of the bed. She almost instantly regretted speaking. Her voice was nasally, and her head rang. She felt awful – she could only imagine what she looked like. "I was sleeping..."

"Mhm."

"This is Kanou-san's offi...room?" she continued, squinting as she looked about her at the empty room.

"Mhm."

"I have a flu?" she asked, scrunching her stuffy nose.

"You do," he nodded sagely, wearing a perfectly straight face devoid of the teasing lilt in his voice.

She thought about throwing a pillow at him, but her bones weighed heavy like metal coated them. She grumbled, "Stop teasing me."

Shin chuckled at her pout as she crossly folded her arms over her chest and glared at him, even though all she really wanted to do was smile because of the sound of genuine laughter she almost began considering Shin incapable of nowadays.