Melting.

Yuyuko is melting.

She is melting, and it is hot, and there is blood-spray and the sick death-smell and deranged giggling over on top of it all swirling into the middle of it dribbling and foaming over her mouth and her eyes and her head and-

She is awake. How long has she been awake? She is awake and staring at the ceiling of their apartment, lazy fan spinning, concrete ceiling, and Youmu is there. She looks scared. Is she scared? Why is she scared?

You touch the line of blood, rolling droplet down your cheek, and smile faintly at Youmu. That's how you feel. That's how that job makes you feel. Faint. Not like smiling. It is daytime outside the dark curtains of your shared room shared bed shared life, and you remember that this is because of your fainting-job. The one with ghosts. All of them have ghosts. You see the dead. It is what you do. But you were hoping this one wouldn't have ghosts. Especially not so many. So sad. So angry.

She's still shaking you. Worried. There isn't anything to worry about, you say, finally, forcing words through your groggy sick mouth. You are fine. You had a bad dream. Your eyes are burning. Another droplet of crimson red makes its way, lazily, down your face. That is probably what she is worried about.

You say you probably scratched your eye when you dug your face into the... blanket. Pillow. One of those. You say, again, as clear as you can through a tongue like cotton and a mind that craves the sleep and peace it has been denied, that you are perfectly fine. You smile at her, stronger, reassuringly. You are okay. You are okay. You are okay.

(You cry the red for child-creatures who died too fast to cry tears for themselves.)

-/-/-/-

You wake up when you hear the scream.

You hold yourself up with one arm, lean over Yuyuko, call her name once. Her eyes are open but she can't see you. She's still dreaming. The dead are comfortable speaking with your girlfriend, fully human though she may be, and they tell her their darkest secrets, their grave-secrets, the kinda you don't usually get to share with anyone. All of them. An honor. And you wish they didn't. You wish they'd let her sleep.

You aren't surprised, though, to see her waking in cold sweats and screams and sobs. You woke up in sweats screams sobs too, thirty years ago (your youkai blood you hated let you be here for her today), thirty years ago to the day when you took that fucking job with those psychopathic broken shells of youkai who needed to look at their hands to tell right from left. You hated them. Vehemently. You fantasized about their death daily.

And now that your Yuyu spent her nights immersed in the death rattles of those beasts bearing the heaviest soul-burden, you regret those thoughts. She comes home in the mornings with bloodshot eyes and neat printed papers from the library and tells you about two more fucking murdered children, tells you how they put four youkai to sleep for one's anguished crime, tells you how twenty two - TWENTY TWO - people's deaths are tied to the fucking franchise. Twenty two. You say she must be swimming in ghosts. She smiles, tired, and says she is.

You see the glimmer of fear behind her eyes when she says that. You see her breath hitch, her knees shake ever so slightly. She is brave. Very brave. But raw souls carry raw emotion. You can't stand ghosts. She is braver than you.

You come back to the present because she is crying.

And it's red.

She notices, in a moment, slowly, that you look terrified. Your girlfriend is lying on the bed and leaking blood from places humans don't bleed, places no one is supposed to bleed. Bloody eyes are reserved for statues in churches with too much holiness for even stone to handle, and hidden mechanisms, and pranks, and horror movies.

It's not a lot, she's saying, and you think she must have snapped because she's goddamn bleeding from her eyeballs. Crying. Blood cry. You blink down at her, shake her shoulder because she must still be delirious because she would be more upset if she were okay.

But she just smiles, slow, reassures you, so slow, so tired, and you curse the job stealing the sleep right out from under her. Not for the first time, either. Stupid fucking pizzeria, stupid fucking horror attractions that couldn't leave well enough alone.

She reassures you, again, rolls over slightly and tugs you down, wraps one arm around you. I am okay, she says, I am okay, I am okay. You return the hug, a little too tight, whisper something you're not proud of because she says not to speak ill of the dead but you do anyway. Just today.

She sighs and runs her fingers once through your short white hair, nuzzles in close, stains it red, you don't care.

"Please try and rest." You say, and you try to will the ghosts and the nightmares away.

"I'll try." She says, closes her eyes and resigns herself to a fate you yourself could never succumb to.

Yuyuko is a braver woman than you are. And you know it.