あなたのために
It was difficult getting to the infirmary while supporting Shin when he was heavier and much taller than her. She could tell he was trying not to lean on her too much, but it proved more than impossible for him to walk on his own when every step induced a pain that had him doubling over, barely able to breathe. She had her arm wrapped around his waist, her other stretched across her body as she held up his shoulder, following the bobbing purple kitsunebi ahead of them and trying to walk him along as straight as she could – the only way he could stand without the poison in his wound hurting him.
They made it, somehow.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled apologetically when she gently laid him down on the closest bed. He groaned in both pain and relief. "I'm sorry, I'm – "
"It's fine," he managed shortly, shutting his eyes as he shifted just enough that he was comfortable. His breathing wasn't so raspy and laboured as it had been on their way here, and she took that as a hopeful sign. "It's not your fault."
It is, she thought miserably as she watched his eyes wander over the ceiling, glazed over in pain. I couldn't tell the Oni was there, I got you to this point, I went to him, I made the deal, I got us here. It's all my fault.
Pushing aside her guilt and worry, she forced her emotions away. Kuniumi, silent, was there to help keep them from rising up like ugly serpents rearing up to bite her. She needed to be calm and collected if she was going to deal with his injury, just like Kanou was when he treated any of the Daitengu who got hurt while they trained. Emotions were messy and complicated. That was the very last thing she needed to be.
She reached over and, ignoring her hands slick with Shin's blood, her clothes stained a red darkening to rusty maroon; she pressed her fingers to his neck, looking for a pulse. She didn't need to do it, she could tell Shin was breathing – but at the same time, she did need to, if only for reassurance's sake. That was something she was in desperate need of at the moment.
It was there, drumming abnormally fast. His skin was pallid and clammy, but when she laid her hand on his forehead, she was glad to find that he didn't have a fever. He was hot, though, and she didn't know if that was because of his being Hengen, or because of the poison working through his system.
He brought his eyes down to look at hers. His pupils were dilated, the blue irises but a line surrounding the black. "Can you treat it?" he asked, voice tight and controlled as even now, he tried to mask his pain.
She pressed her lips tight together and nodded. "Yes. Kanou-san showed me some things. But..." she glanced down. "It will hurt. I don't know how to give injections for anaesthetic. It will hurt a lot, especially if it's infected." She prayed it wasn't.
"More than now?" he grunted sarcastically, grimacing when he pulled on the wound. "It's fine. Just do it."
She hesitated, then shoved any and all thoughts of modesty and reached for Shin's shirt. She slowly peeled it away to reveal the bloody mess underneath. She had to fight not to physically recoil at the sight of the thick blood congealing around his wound. When she peered closer at it she was gratified to find that the wound was neat, no ragged edges anywhere.
Kanou once told her that stab wounds could be made with minimal force. Once the tip of the blade penetrated clothing and skin, it was easy to follow through and make a deeper wound with remarkably little force. Treatment came from visually noting the depth of the wound, and if possible, what shape the blade was and if it was rusted and dirty or not. She needed to see how deep the wound is, to know if she needed to treat it with herbal concoctions Kanou and Yukiji taught her to make, or if she just needed to clean it out and stitch him up.
She stepped back and turned around, searching. She went over to a sink on the other side of the room and washed her hands as fast as she could, trying not to let her emotions overcome her as she glanced down at her pyjamas and dully realized that she'd need to wash them soon if she didn't want the blood to stick. She hated that she already knew and could perfectly imagine the soapy water turning pink, then red, with blood that was not her own.
She eyed the cabinet propped up against the wall beside the sink as she scrubbed at her hands, harder than was entirely necessary. Kagetora might not have been lying about the poison wearing off after an hour, but if the wound got infected because she was careless, things would get complicated.
Once she dried her hands on the clean white towel next to the sink, she stepped to the side and yanked the doors open, flinching a little when they banged loudly against the tables set on either side of the cabinet. She pulled out more gauze than she thought she needed, plenty of cotton wool, antiseptic, iodine, a curving needle and wiry thread specifically for stitching up open wounds, and put it all out on a metal bowl set on the sink. She didn't think she would actually need all of it, but it was better to prepare it in case she did.
She looked back in the cabinet and pulled out another bowl, the metal clattering on the sink as she grabbed a clear plastic squeeze bottle that was filled with what she hoped was distilled water, and squirted it into the bowl. She kept on until the bowl was three-quarters full of water before setting the bottle aside and took it back to the bed Shin lay on.
She cast a worried glance over him, noting his utter stillness. He was staring fixedly at the ceiling, but, "Not moving helps with the pain."
"Oh," she mumbled, carefully putting the bowl on the small bedside table. "But, um...I need you to take your shirt off."
"Of course." He groaned as he started to lift himself up off the bed.
She put her arms around his shoulders as she tried her best to keep him from moving more than was necessary. Once he was semi-upright she quickly pulled his shirt off, discarding it in the waste basket at the foot of the bed before returning to him and helping him lay down again. He inhaled sharply and she froze, wondering if she'd done something wrong. When he finally let himself relax back on the bed, she realized it must've been the poison doing its treacherous work inside him.
She quickly went for the second metal bowl and brought it back, setting it on the table beside the first. As an afterthought she rushed back, washed her hands again, and took out another bowl and a pair of latex gloves, then returned to Shin, putting it on the bedside table on the other side of the bed. She would need somewhere to put the bloodied wads of cotton wool while she cleaned the blood away.
She slipped on the gloves and knelt on the bed by his side, glancing at him to check that he was still awake. She didn't know if it would be okay to let him sleep. Kanou had never mentioned if anything bad could happen in situations like these. You weren't supposed to let a person sleep if they had a concussion, right?
He wasn't unconscious. He was still staring at the ceiling unseeingly, chest rising and falling slowly as he tried to control his breathing, control the pain.
"Okay," she said, her voice tremulous with nervousness. "I'm going to clean the blood away now."
Shin didn't say anything, but she saw the slight movement of his head. She assumed it was a nod for her to go ahead. Slowly, she saturated a ball of cotton wool in the distilled water and started dabbing it on the wound, wiping away the blood without aggravating the torn flesh or making it more painful than it needed to be for him. Once all the blood had been cleaned away, she saw that the wound was clean, and not as deep as she'd feared it might be.
She sighed in relief. The words stumbled out of her, running into each other as she babbled mindlessly, trying to ease the tension in her hands by distracting herself. "It's not deep, but it needs to be closed. I have to stitch it because there's nothing to cauterize the wound. I don't – I don't know how to get the poison out, though. He said it'll come out on its own, but..."
"He wasn't lying," Shin said in a thin voice. He winced, paused, continued. "The pain is there, but it's lessening. It'll be gone soon."
The unspoken words bouncing in the empty echoes between them were, I hope.
"Okay," she whispered. She uncapped the green bottle of iodine and poured it out into the white lid, then made another wad of cotton and dipped it in the brown liquid. "Okay, this – this one will sting...a lot."
His hand clenched around the bed covering, and he nodded curtly. She gently pressed the brown ball of cotton on the wound, watching the liquid flow through the wound into his skin. Shin inhaled sharply, and she flinched inwardly, wishing she knew how to administer anaesthetic.
But she continued. It wasn't like she could just stop. She worked in silence as she put in as much iodine as she thought advisable before she stopped and discarded the used cotton into the third metal bowl she'd brought, already filled with other balls soaked in dyed red water.
After that was done she set to readying the curving needle and wiry thread. She licked her lips nervously as she pulled the two separated halves of his skin together and poked the needle through. Her stomach rolled nervously, but more out of fear of doing something wrong than her being squeamish.
After all her dreams, all her nightmares, she doubted she was prissy to begin with.
She paused when Shin's hand fisted in the bed covering, then went on, dabbing away anything that seeped out. She tried to be as gentle as she could, but there was only so much she could do without hurting him.
Then, finally, it was done.
She leaned back on a shaky exhale to inspect her handiwork, and thought Kanou would be proud of her. The stitching was neat and did its job of keeping his wound securely closed, though the area around it was deathly pale. No more blood leaked out. Even if a scar remained, the wound would heal quickly. Especially considering he was a powerful Ayakashi in his own right.
"I'm done," she said quietly, relieved, swiping her pyjama-sleeve clad arm over her forehead beaded in cold sweat. She pushed herself to standing and walked back to the medicine cabinet. "I – I'm sorry if it hurt."
"'s fine," he replied drowsily.
She glanced back at him, concern wiggling in her heart as she turned back to search the cabinet. She returned to his side with a box of big bandages in her hands, already ripping the top open and reaching in to pull one out. She knelt on the ground beside the bed again, carefully peeling the bandage open and flattening it out firmly over the now closed wound.
Her gaze drifted as she spied the dark ink markings of his tattoos at the back, peeking over his shoulder just a bit. She didn't see the markings of his status as Daitengu that the other men had inked on their chests, but then she remembered Daichi telling her that the tattoo was only seen when they wanted it to be.
It was only now, when the worst of the worry wore off now that she'd treated his wound as best she could, that a slow-working burn built up in her cheeks as she cast her eyes over Shin's well-formed body. She shook her head roughly, dragging her mind away from such thoughts, ashamed at herself for having them in the first place in such a situation.
Shin, surprisingly, didn't make a sound as she finished up with the bandaging. She wondered if the effects of the poison were starting to wear off, or if it was because he was about to pass out. She stood, removed her gloves and threw them into the waste basket. She leaned over Shin, lining her hand up along the side of his face. His eyes were closed, but they flickered open at her touch and wandered a bit before focusing on her.
His hand came up and he held on to her wrist, keeping her right where she was when she made to move her hand away. A small frown worked his dark brows low as he looked up at her leaning over him, her hair falling to frame around them like a white curtain trapping them in their own little world.
"How am I ever going to beat someone like him?" he asked quietly as he looked into her eyes, like he really thought she could answer him.
She gulped, bit her lip. She desperately wished she knew what to say. "I don't – I don't know." She wished she knew how, so she could help him, instead of just sitting by and watching him get hurt because of what consequences her mistakes wrought. "I don't know."
His eyes lowered to her lips, staring at them, transfixed. For a second she couldn't move – even without him holding her wrist she wouldn't have been able to move away. She couldn't stop staring at Shin in puzzlement, wondering at the slight darkening of his eyes as he looked at her. Something stirred in her abdomen, something she wasn't familiar with.
With a slow nod he released her, the moment between them broken by reality. She pulled away, straightening as she fought to calm her frantic heart, trying to puzzle out why he looked at her like that, why that something strange tightened her stomach. She thought about going to see if there was something else from the medicine cabinet she could get, to try and gather her scattered wits about her, but she paused.
She sank down, sitting just on the edge of the bed. She looked out the window the bed was set under, watching a trio of birds circle outside. They spun and wheeled around each other in a dance, flying to a tune only they could hear as they twittered a song out for the winds to beat through.
"I don't know how you can beat him, but..." she felt like a fraud for saying it, but she didn't know what other way she could encourage him. She wanted to look him in the eye as she said it, but she simply couldn't bring herself to. "But you can't give up. You can't give up, even if you think it doesn't matter if Shini – if he comes out. It does matter, because you have a whole family waiting for you to come back home. So you can't give up, Shin. We...I don't know what I'll do if you do."
She finally looked down at him, and a twinge of disappointment went through her. Of course this would happen.
His eyes were closed, his breathing slow and steady. He was so tired and drained from everything that happened, he must've fallen asleep faster than he usually did. She didn't even feel bad that he hadn't heard a word she'd said – he slept so little as it was. She was glad he was getting the rest he desperately needed.
But for a second, before she could convince herself to leave, all she could do was stare down at him.
She'd never actually seen him asleep. Despite the pallor to his tan skin, he looked more at ease, more peaceful, than she ever remembered seeing him when he was lucid. It was such a change to the usual Shin she knew that she couldn't help sitting right where she was for a few seconds, simply watching him. Then she noticed his lips moving.
Hesitantly, she leaned forward until her ear was close to his lips, a frown almost bringing her eyebrows together as she tried to make out what he was saying.
"You," he mumbled. "I won't...for you."