Title: Light. (title not yet decided...).
Summary: Nezumi feels he must leave No. 6.
Notes: Set to tie into the last Nezumi scene in the book (volume 9). The last line is my interpretation/translation of said scene.
(Shion centric, 3rd person present)
Warnings: Spoilers! (if you haven't finished the series) Some angst.
Rating: PG
Fading Light.
The world stands on a thin sheet of ice. Shion's eyes flick between Nezumi and Inukashi. He can tell the conversation isn't an easy one, and that it covers more than just what they're actually saying. Unease makes Shion pause, watching tight smiles that barely hide their teeth.
At times like this, Shion still feels like he's the only one on the fringes, on the outside of the conversation. No words come to mind.
Nezumi is stronger than Shion was ready to admit. His bullet wounds seemed healed, even when Inukashi's singed hair hasn't made a full recovery yet.
Inukashi licks her lips and swings her bag onto her shoulder. It' a new bag, one filled with with baby clothes and cloth diapers, baby soaps and powders. A gift, she'd said, but Shion thought it might be used, maybe picked out of someone's house in the confusion after everything. After all, riots and raids were an everyday event, in spite of the mob Shion stopped that night. People in the West District were too desperate, too starved to stay away from the people who kicked them down.
Even now, Shion imagines he hears the sounds of a break-in- the wailing of a child, or sounds of glass breaking, and feet scuttling in through windows or doors. But he shakes his head free of that- there's no one breaking in, at least not near here. He tries to slow his racing heart, to rid his mind of the chaotic images lurking just behind even the the most casual observation.
Take deep breathes. Think of something peaceful, something calm.
Shion remembers the thin boy who he opened the window for all those years ago and considers. Remember the pattern on the curtains, the howling wind, the trees hitting the window.
He wonders if the lack of storm today is some sort of omen, some sort of sign. As sure as he is that he opened the window in order to meet Nezumi, he's sure now that he has some role to help Nezumi along, even if Nezumi himself insisted on leaving.
Nezumi didn't say goodbye four years ago...it was like he went out with the storm.
Shion blinks, refocusing on the scene before him. Inukashi scowls at Nezumi, her thin fingers clenching into a fist. "I ain't pretending, you cursed lying con-man! Sion is mine. Who gives a fuck if the bag belonged to some rich lady?"
Nezumi snorts, the familiar, cool smile on his lips. His grey eyes flash over to Shion, as though he feels his gaze. Some hint of the cornered predator is in those wary silvery-gray eyes.
He said he was afraid of me...Shion shivers even in the sunlight, wondering how much of him actually is a monster. He killed a man, and is one of two known parasite-bee survivors.
Monster. the word sears through his memory, overlaying his mental image of the correctional facility. 3rd floor, security camera on two sides. Blind spot every 25 seconds, 45 degree angle...
"...spend my money, or are you going to gorge on the pickings of a dead giant?"
"Damn straight I'll live off the pickings." Inukashi spits, her lips working into a frown. "'d be stupid not to."
Nezumi shrugs, but even that movement is fluid, graceful. As though he's performing his final soliloquy before a dramatic exit.
It's not Nezumi, but Inukashi that stops walking. She fixes Shion with a hard, measuring look, and seems to reach some decision. "catch you later, Shion." she says, and merely nods to Nezumi. As though this was any other day, any other goodbye. She turns around to walk back through the tunnel, silhouetted in the light.
Shion falls into pace next to Nezumi, and smiles, albeit distractedly. "I still haven't finished that book."
Nezumi only looks at him, a tired sort of confusion overtaking his features.
"The one about the man who sells his soul to the devil."
Nezumi nods, and offers a ghost of a smile. "Getting lazy about reading, then? You had plenty of time while in the hospital." The smile lengthens, coming closer to real amusement.
He hadn't really had time. Not after being named specifically to rebuild the city. Shion wonders how the story ends. He laughs, pleased to be thinking about books. "Only a bookworm like you, or should I say book mouse? would say so. I could barely remember all of those people's names."
Nezumi fixes him with such a look- the same suspicious, considering look he uses whenever Shion begins to irritate him. "You're lying. There's no way you'd forget anything."
Shion smiles again. "You know, I'm really not a computer. I have to make effort to remember something, or else I just filter it out. I couldn't manage to do anything if I had to remember every tiny detail I ever heard or saw."
Nezumi shrugs again, but some of the tension is gone, falling off him like dew drops rolling down a blade of grass.
They reach the wall, and climb over and through it without event. Even this barren landscape is a tiny patch of life...a rodent scurries over rusted rocks, and a lizard hides in the yellow grass. The wind tousles their clothing and a few wild flowers.
They walk in silence, drinking up the landscape. The farther they get from the skeleton of the wall, the more things start to look like the home Shion found. They walk up an incline, Shion slowly settling into a resigned, if not relaxed mood. He could almost feel hopeful, like they were walking back to the underground room.
Nezumi's silence and quiet mood suggests otherwise, though. He's ready to leave the city behind. Leave the city he worked so hard and so long to tear apart.
Shion wonders how far this place is from his usual way into the city, mentally calculating distance and topography. He spots a small hill before them, and picks up his pace to match Nezumi's long strides.
Soon. He'll tell Nezumi soon. The words and feelings are bubbling up inside, mixed up but still there, anxious to be sorted through.
The wind hums, and Nezumi sighs.
The sky spreading over the small hill in the West District is remarkably blue.
tbc...
(feed your starving author?)