彼らが彼女の顔に落ちたとき
"You – you've said that to me before."
The frown he wore deepened as something wet tracked down to her parted lips. She reached up and swiped away the blood, the red stark upon the pale skin of her fingers.
Oh no.
Her stomach twisted to painful knots. She quickly reached into her pocket and pulled out her handkerchief to dab the blood away. But before she could, Shin twisted, swinging his legs over the wall and dropping down to the snow-covered ground beside her. The move was quick and fluid, hardly giving her any time at all to react.
She flushed when he landed close to her. She could feel the warmth radiating from his body, and instinctively wanted to lean in to it. She stopped herself from doing it, and instead stared woodenly at the hint of black ink she could see on his chest.
She hurried to finish wiping away all the blood but froze when Shin reached forward, snaking his finger under her chin and forcing her to look up at the intense blue of his eyes. It was like looking into a deep, fathomless ocean that threatened to drown her, yet she couldn't force herself to look away.
Please don't say anything, she thought desperately. She didn't want to explain why she was bleeding, though she knew that even if she wished as hard as she could against it, he was going to anyway.
He did.
"Why are you bleeding?"
Pai pulled away from his grip, though she didn't move an inch from him. Her cheeks were burning, and she wished she wasn't quite so pale. At least otherwise it wouldn't be so obvious how much she was blushing.
She closed her eyes as she thought,Why him?
Why was Shin always the one to find out about the things wrong with her that she tried to hide from everyone else?
Shin tapped her chin again, lifting it, this time more gently, as if she was a porcelain doll that would crack if he handled her too roughly. Her heart clenched tight in her chest at the thought. She kept her eyes focused on the curving line of his tattoo, unwilling to look in his eyes and see him imploring her to tell him what was wrong, just the same way he'd gotten her to tell him about her hands shaking.
She didn't want to tell him, not anything, but she did at the same time. Pai had never felt more torn than she did then, fighting with herself, her heart telling her that it was fine to let Shin know what was happening, while her brain worried about how he would react once he knew.
Heart won out. She didn't want to keep it to herself, to keep it all in, not really. She was tired of hiding the bleeding and the fear of what her returning memories meant. She wanted to tell someone what she was feeling.
And that someone was Shin, right now. Maybe she would regret it later, but right now, she just wanted to tell someone – and he was right here. He was right here, asking her to.
"When I remember something," she slowly admitted, hesitant, second-guessing herself, wondering if this was a mistake. "I – my nose starts bleeding."
"When you remember something?" Shin repeated, watching her closely.
She hesitated. "I – I'm starting to remember. Little things, pictures in my mind. Sometimes I say something that doesn't sound like me and I don't remember ever saying, but at the same time I do. And, when I'm asleep, I have dreams that are too real to be just – just dreams."
"Why are you bleeding then?"
"I don't know why," she answered honestly, shaking her head. "Sometimes it's a lot, sometimes it's little, like now. I don't know why it happens at all."
"Have you told Kanou-san?" he asked. "He should know."
Pai swallowed thickly as her hand clenched around the handkerchief. "No."
She lifted her eyes to look at Shin. His lips were pressed in a tight line, and he looked – disappointed. She looked down again.
"Why?" his voice was hard and unyielding.
"I don't want to." Her words were forced out, thick with sudden tears she was struggling to keep from falling. "What I am remembering – I don't want anyone to know. I don't want them to be real." Her head snapped, eyes searching for his as she remembered why she'd started bleeding now. "'I was desperate'. I said that, in the Torimaku. 'I was desperate'."
Shin's eyebrow lifted minutely. "You remember?"
"Can you tell me what happened?" she asked instead of answering him, frantic as she realized that though she couldn't remember what had happened, surely Shin did. He didn't have the problems with his memory that she did.
She gripped the front of his sweater tight under her hand, pressing so hard that the curves of her nails dug into the palms of her hands through the fabric. A very, very distant part of her mind realized that she should let go of him, but she was overcome with blind hope and panic mixed together in one terrifying cocktail. "Please, Shin-san, please tell me what happened. I need to – I can't remember, I need to know and – and – "
"First," he said, capturing her wrists in each of his hands as her fingernails dug into her palms. "Calm down."
"But – "
"I won't tell you anything if you don't calm down." His face was deadly serious, eyes glowing ever so slightly. "Take a deep breath, and let it go."
Pai's brows furrowed down in a deep frown. She lowered her eyes to stare at where his hands touched hers as he kept a firm grip on her wrists. She forced herself to breathe normally, to calm herself. All she wanted to do was scream in frustration that she had to ask him to tell her what happened because she couldn't remember herself.
Her heart beat hard, so hard that she could feel it against the fabric of her shirt against her skin. She couldn't tell if it was because of how angry she was at her muddling memory, or if it was because of being so close to Shin. She did as he said and took in a deep breath before letting it out quickly.
"Again, slower," Shin commanded, watching her intently.
Her lips twitched, but she did as he said. She closed her eyes and dragged in another deep breath, letting this one out slowly and steadily. She repeated it, breathing in and out steadily, until her heart ceased its frantic pattering, and she no longer felt like the world was going to end if he didn't tell her what happened, immediately.
Shin released her hands slowly, almost hesitantly. He took a step back, and she opened her eyes when she felt the cold of the absence of his warm body beside hers. She looked up into his eyes, but there was a wall there, hiding his thoughts, and only showing her an inscrutable look on his face that she couldn't begin to understand.
"I am sorry," she said. "I do not know what came over me."
The corner of Shin's lips twitched. "You should stop saying sorry all the time. You have nothing to apologize for."
The wrinkles in your sweater say otherwise, she thought as she quickly looked away from the crinkled fabric. Her tongue flicked out to swipe over her dry lips, and she dragged in another calming breath before speaking again, keeping her eyes focused on the ground.
She was ashamed of how she'd acted, suddenly grabbing at him and demanding he tell her what he knew. It was completely unlike her, and she didn't know how to look him in the eye without being embarrassed about what she'd just done.
Pressing her hands together to keep them from moving out on their own, she said, "Please tell me what happened, Shin-san. I need to know."
"Do you?"
Pai glanced up at that, confusion in her eye. There was a cryptic, frustrated look on his face, but she couldn't guess at why it was there. "What?"
"Do you really want to know what happened?"
She frowned, still not understanding why he was asking her that. "I do. Shin-san it's – it is like there is a hole in my mind," she said, trying to convey how hopeless she felt, all the time. "It is a hole where all my memories are supposed to be, and it – it's horrible to live with, every day. Whenever I think about Shii-chan, in my mind I always see a thirteen-year-old girl because that's who I can remember. I still see a little boy who barely came up to my shoulders when I look at Ryu-kun. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm eighteen and not fifteen anymore. Whenever I see green, the grass, Kaede-san's eyes, I remember my sister. I want to know what happened to my family, but I can't."
Shin gave her an odd look when she mentioned her sister, but she ploughed on, oblivious to it. This was the first time she was ever talking about how she felt without her memories to someone. In the year she'd been at Ayashi House, despite Shiori's and even Mizutani and Yukiji's occasional prodding, she'd never once opened up about what she felt regarding her disappearance and mysterious return.
She was afraid that if she stopped talking, she would never start up again. Then the heaviness and fear she'd been carrying with her all this while felt like it would drag her down to the ground and hold her there if she didn't tell somebody, anybody, anyone she trusted, of how she felt.
At the moment, she didn't think she trusted anyone more than Shin. Her emotions, so heady, were overtaking her thoughts, and she was completely unaware of any of the reasons she always told herself for why she refused to let anyone in.
"I hate forgetting things. I try to remember everything because I want to know that I can still remember, because what if I forget again? What if I start forgetting again, what if I forget Shii-chan, and Ryu-kun, and Kouta-sama, everyone at the house, you, everything? Who am I supposed to be when that happens? Who am I now when I don't remember, and what happens when I do?"
She blinked in surprise when a tear fell from her eye, down her cheek, and wavered on her chin before falling to her shirt. It was cold, and the wind blowing against her stung the track the tear had left behind. More followed until a river of tears were spilling down her cheeks as she lifted her hands to wipe them away.
Her heart was heavy as lead, her throat thick with the pain of not knowing what happened to her parents and her sister, and of the knowledge that she might have been a killer. She ducked her head behind the sleeves of her shirt as she wiped at the tears that refused to stop, tears that burned her as she pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes.
It hit her like a train, everything she had just said. Everything she had kept to herself for a year, refusing to tell anyone about when they asked – she just spilled it all out to Shin. Shin, of all people.
She wanted to hide from him, now. She wanted to hide from everyone, from everything, from the whole world.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled thickly, voice cracking and lower lip trembling. She took a step back, to turn and run. "I don't know why I – I'm sorry, I'm sorry – "
Shin crossed the space between them in one easy stride and encircled her in his arms. Pai, cut off from speaking and surprised at the action, stilled. It was only for a moment, however, as the warmth of his body enveloped her, and she almost unwittingly settled against him, her hands clasped between their bodies while her head fell against his chest.
She didn't like people touching her. She barely accepted hugs from Shiori.
She didn't push Shin away. She didn't want to.
The soft fabric of his sweater tickled her nose. They were so close that she could feel the rise and fall of his chest, hear the echo of his beating heart. She could feel the ridges of his muscles through his sweater. Something coiled tight in her abdomen. He tucked her head under his chin, his other hand cradling the back of her head as he held her close, stroking her hair.
She found it oddly soothing.
It was only then that her sluggish mind realized that Shin was hugging her, comforting her without words. It was better than anything he could have said, because that would have given her room to doubt his words.
This, his actions, holding her when she felt like she was on the verge of breaking apart into a thousand little pieces, was better than anything else.
Her eyes fluttered closed at how warm and comfortable she was in that moment. Normally, she hated it when someone touched her, anyone at all, even if it was by mistake. But now she felt safe and at ease, for the first time in a long while.
"You don't need to apologize all the time," he murmured, voice close to her ear. She could feel the reverberation of his voice echoing through his chest. It was nice. "Not to me, ever."
"Kanou-san said that I'll eventually remember what happened," she mumbled against his chest. "But it's already been two weeks. A year has passed since I came back, and I still don't remember where I was, what I did. The dreams I'm having – I'm scared of what they mean. I need to know what happened. Please."
Shin was silent for a time, but now she was content to just let it be. It felt so good to be held like this, as if she were gentle rather than tough, like how she tried to make herself out to be so that no one thought there was something wrong with her.
She had no idea what he was thinking, but all she was aware of was how good it was to be encircled in the strength of his arms. She thought that it would be so easy to fall asleep like this, as if all the worries and cares of the world no longer mattered as much as they did.
And if he wasn't going to make a move to step away, well, she wouldn't either. She would just follow his lead.
"Someone was with you – in you." He finally answered in a slow, measured tone.
Her expression was the perfect question mark. Her eyebrows twitched, frowning. "What do you mean?"
He hesitated, but then continued on. "You couldn't have gotten in the Torimaku on your own. Kouta wouldn't have let you in when I was...in that state, and your body would have burned out if you tried to force your way in without an opening."
"Haru-san said – "
"It wasn't him," Shin said. "He wouldn't have made that opening without Kouta's consent. Someone helped you."
Someone did? But "Who?"
She felt him shake his head slightly over her. "I don't know. Karasatengu-san tried to stop you from leaving the house, but you got past him just by telling him to 'get out of your way'. Haru only let you in because you made him, just by telling him to. He said that it was like he couldn't control his own body. You even told him why the Torimaku wouldn't work on me, or him, because of what we are – that's not something just anyone knows." He stroked his hand down the back of her hair almost like he was trying to soothe away the torrent of disarray swirling in her at his words. "You got my Mask back on me by forcing him to kneel before you, with only your voice."
Pai was stunned. She was incapable of doing any of that on her own. She was human – she couldn't enthral anyone to do what she wanted just by telling them to, the way Hengen could.
"Then how – ?"
"He thinks you let an Ayakashi into you, with tsukimono."
He? Tsukimono? Her? How?
"He?" Pai repeated, mind in a whirlwind of confusion at his words.
"Shinigami." He replied. Shin leaned back, but he didn't let go of her, dropping his hand down to cup her face as he peered into her eyes. There was concern in his as he asked, "You okay now?"
She nodded absently, too distracted by what he was saying to fully understand what Shin was asking her. He looked down at her for a moment longer before releasing her, stepping away and leaning back against the wall. She was still staring down at the ground with a frown on her face as she tried to understand what he was saying, the implications of what it meant. Distractedly, she noticed that though he wasn't touching her the way he had only a moment before, she still felt warm.
She also noted that Shin was leaning back on the wall in a way that had his legs settled on either side of her, as if he was trying to keep physically close to her. She wanted to slap her cheeks to make herself focus away from that.
That doesn't matter, she scolded, shaking her head as she looked up at Shin again. His arms were folded across his chest. He was watching for her reaction.
"Shi – he thinks that I let myself get possessed by an Ayakashi?" she asked, catching herself just in time from saying Shinigami's name out loud.
Shin nodded. "That's all he'll tell me."
"'All he'll tell you'?"
"He's blocking my memories." Shin explained, frowning sourly. "I can only remember what happened to a certain point. After that, he's blocking everything."
"He can do that?" she asked, surprised that such a thing could happen. "Seriously?"
"Same as I can do to him. Only I don't."
"He sounds – mean."
More like arrogantly pompous and murderously self-entitled.
This time it was Shin who blinked owlishly at her, as if astonished that she would use such a bland term to describe his Makashi. He snorted derisively, and she could imagine he was coming up with more than a few choice words in replacement of her own.
"That he is." Shin said slowly, the faint echo of a smile on his face.
"But why would he do that?" she asked.
He shook his head. "I don't know." He frowned, frustration clearly evident in his words. "It's unlikely, but he acts almost like he's listening to someone else telling him not to tell me anything, and I can't imagine who would tell him that. I can't imagine him listening to anyone enough to heed them."
"What do you remember?" she asked him, still hoping that he might be able to tell her more than he had.
Shin looked at her with his closed-off eyes for another second before speaking. "You weren't afraid of him. These hands," he lifted his left hand in the space before them, splaying out his fingers so that she would see every curve, every callus, and every line.
She stared at it in something akin to rapture, as if it was her first time seeing another person's hand. She wanted to reach out and touch his hand, to see if it was as rough as it looked, or as gentle was the way he had held her.
"These hands took the lives of five Nue clansmen. I almost killed Haru with them, and Yuu." He clenched his hand into a fist and dropped it back down to cross over his chest again. "I could have killed you, too. I almost did. Yet you were not afraid of us, of what we could do."
"Of him," she corrected automatically. "It wasn't you, Shin-san."
"What's the difference?"
"You wouldn't have done all that if you were yourself. Not to Haru-san, or Yuu-san...or me. Maybe – he is a part of you, but he is not all of you. Everything he is, is not all of who you are."
"How do you know?" he replied bitterly. "I killed the Nue without a second thought. Those were not the men who deserved to die, but even now I feel nothing for it."
"How do you feel about it, then? How do you feel about those you killed?"
"I feel nothing."
She flinched at his hard voice, at the words he said that so mirrored those she very well might have spoken herself, about the same thing. Shin saw her wince, and his face softened a bit. Despite that, she could still see a darkness that frightened her lingering in his gaze.
"I'm – " he began.
The shrill scream of the bell had her jumping in surprise, and Shin scowling in discomfort at the loud noise. She glanced behind him, only then realized that they were standing close enough that if she moved her hands from where they lay at her sides, she would be touching his forearm.
She took a hasty step back, cheeks burning. She glanced away to see the students who had been playing baseball and football all gathering together as they headed for the main building of the school. Other students walking around in the courtyards turned and followed suit. She looked back at Shin apologetically, wanting to stay yet having to go.
"I – I need to go." She said, making a conscious effort to use formal speech again.
Shin frowned. She thought he wanted to say something. She waited for a second, for him to say what he wanted, but he only nodded instead. A twinge of disappointment went through her because he didn't. She ignored it.
Pai ducked her head as she turned around and started walking back in the direction of the door that led back down to the multi-purpose hall. Her shoes crunched on the snow underfoot, and she felt like wincing every time they did, the sound too loud for the silence that followed the bell.
She hadn't noticed it before, but it was only so quiet now because all the students who were loitering around outside the school buildings had been talking, and the sounds of their incessant chattering coalesced into one big bubble of noise. Now, the only sound left to be heard was the wind sighing as the birds twittered while they soared through the clouds.
She had her hand wrapped around the rusting handle of the door when he called out to her.
"Hey."
She glanced back at him expectantly. He was standing upright again, arms loose at his side with his body half-turned away from her, as if he was planning to going back to sitting on the ledge and brood again.
"Do not ever bow before me again," he said. Though his tone was bland and neutral, there was a fierce intensity in his eyes as he looked down at her that left no room for argument. "I saved you, and you saved me. We are equals."
She thought about how the man before her was an incredibly strong Daitengu, and she a simple human who couldn't have saved herself from a mere Shimo Oni. It would take a lot more for them to be equal than just that. She felt that 'even' was a more apt word for what they were.
Pai smiled.
It was shaky, wobbling at the edges as the hopelessness of her inability to fully remember what happened to her began to invade her mind again, after she had been given the short reprieve while talking to him. Shin blinked, eyes widening slightly when he saw the smile, but she remained oblivious to his reaction.
"It will take a lot more for me to be your equal," she said. "But 'even' is something I can live with."
Shin returned her smile with one of his own. She was pleased to see that it almost – though not quite, but almost – reached his eyes, lighting them up for a brief instant. "Even it is, then."
With another small smile, she turned to go, pushing down the rusting handle. The door creaked as it swung inward, and she stepped over the raised threshold to begin her descent back down to the ground when she remembered something. Turning, she stepped back over the threshold and opened her mouth. The words stopped in her throat, and only a white cloud of the breath she puffed out came.
The ledge Shin had been sitting on and where they talked, was empty. There was not a sign that either of them had ever been there, except for two pairs of scuffling footprints imprinted in the snow. Her lips turned down at the corners as her shoulders slumped in disappointment, gaze lifting to look at the clear blue skies.
Far in the distance, she could see heavy grey clouds loitering over where she guessed Ayashi House to be. She sighed heavily, eyebrows scrunched as she turned to go back to class.
She forgot to say 'thank you'.