Kuoh is sleeping. Night owls are lost on their phone, searching for answers to their boredom in an illusory world. Night shifters sip coffee and wish morning could come faster. Some nervous humans are worrying about Christmas and the present they promised their parents and loved ones but didn't buy. Internet soothes their worry with promises of fast deliveries or spikes their anxiety with terrifying declarations of 'out of stock' and 'will be back in a few days '.
Issei throws his head back and breaths in the view.
His world is made of mottled concrete and stars that weakly shine imperceptibly over the blankets of clouds and covers of electric lights. It smells like fresh pollution.
Wind swivels around his legs. Behind him, the Gate is retracting on itself. It blends with the crumbling bricks.
Issei glimpses blurry worms moving on the surface of the wall, forming words and runes even his language seal cannot translate into a known tongue. Exactly like the seal from Amon's he pocketed just before boarding the train. Bashir is dutiful when he wants to be.
"Young one," a raspy voice calls him.
Issei turns his head toward the rotten bench he knows too well. "Have an awesome Great Night," he greets softly.
"It shall be, for we do not forsake nor forget our first home." The old Devil croons. There's a smile to his tone, a happy jolt to the twirls of his umbrella.
He is, Issei realizes, the first and probably the last person who will wish a happy Great Night to the Guardian. Kuoh is not a big town and neither does it have much importance for Devils.
Issei wonders if he ever sleeps, if he has ever left his duty. Worldly desires do not seem to bother him. He has seen him eat when he brought him takoyaki.
"I never asked for your name, Guardian." Issei chooses his words with practiced care. Each letter counts. The Devil in front of him is just that special. Without the bulky, pink umbrella bearing, back pushing Devil, what would have been his story but a tragedy? "May I have the honor of knowing it?"
The old man hides his gaze behind his grey fringe. His fingers stop their movements. All is still. "I was named Aquish,"
"Farewell, Aquish," Issei says. His voice is distorted by the silence, by the night. His whisper seems a scream. His new seal comes to mind and he wishes to show the weary Devil, to prove… to prove his innocence. He wasn't always lying. He did what he said he would. He did take tortuous roads and did try to erase his promise. In the end, he stayed true. Or rather, his promise stayed true against his best attempts.
Issei folds it, hidden in his pocket. He does not grab it and take it out for the Guardian's eyes to see. It's meaningless now.
The Guardian of the Gates, who once upon a time had a name he used, twirls his closed pink umbrella between his palms, tip digging in the cranny of broken asphalt. Like a dandelion, stubbornly holding on poor soil and weak sunlight. Glassy brown eyes flicker to his head, fleetingly meeting his gaze. He understands. "Farewell, young Issei."
Hayashi Issei bows.
He walks away from the Gates of the Underworld. He turns his back on the Guardian. A strange weight, one that is normally reserved for his moments of daynightmares about his mother's fate, rests on his chest. He swallows cold air. The end of that story, the tale between a boy and a Devil, leaves his throat dry and clogged.
It seems so wrong to walk away from his beginning without a thank you. It seems so wrong to leave the man who helped him more than anyone unknowingly stays in the dark about his part in Issei's tale.
Issei purses his lips. His feet do not stop. He treads from one pool of electrical light to another. The light, as fake and impersonal as it is, comforts him. He is back.
Strangers walk briskly on the immaculate sidewalk. A drunken couple stumbles by the small teen, snickering and giggling sweet nothings.
Issei listens to them, slowing his pace. He pauses when their voices disappear at a curve. They boom back into existence and the teen startles back on his tracks where he stopped. They are all that is normal to see on a night before Christmas. They're happy, hopeful and horribly obvious to the world of dangers that surrounds them.
There is bliss in ignorance.
Bright colorful lights flash left and right. Fake, plastic pine trees stand like milestones by the sidewalks. Garish lights strangle them. A bus passes him quickly, not going over the speed limit but not going slowly either. It's packed with nothingness and lonely souls.
Issei walks past the bus station without stopping. The bus' warmth is appealing. The bus plastic yet not too uncomfortable seats are inviting. The lull of the swift moving machine is singing serenades to his aching feet. Issei runs. He needs the cold's bite. He needs to hear the way his coat rustles when his steps are too large. He needs the feel of the asphalt under his padded boots. He needs reality. As surreal as reality can be, he needs it. He has to accept it.
It feels strange. The whole adventure in the Underworld, the whole time, he felt as if another boy was the one piloting. It wasn't happening to him. It was all happening to that boy who knew what to do, how to do it. The teen who was in control. All of this happened to him and Issei has to compute it.
Issei has never been in control.
He walks all the way to the hospital.
Its lights floodlight the street and its neighbors. The teen passes the tall, grey buildings without a second glance-
-is what he would like to think he does. His feet feel like lead. His boots encroach his legs to the ground. He trudges sluggishly, as if he were fighting against heavy snow mounting his thighs and hail blocking his view. There is no such thing. The street is as silent as it can be on a December night before Christmas.
Issei swallows. If the Guardian does not leave his seat, ever, then he can very well wait. He can wait and make sure everything will go right.
Fuck Murphy's law. That guy was probably a sadist. If everything that can go wrong will go wrong, Issei will make sure nothing can go wrong. Every little detail will go terribly well or else… or else Issei will do terrible things himself.
Issei will bully events into submission.
He walks faster, feet no longer sliding on the ground with raspy sounds. They go up and down with a steady rhythm that beats through his chest and thrums through his entire being.
His first stop is a motel nestled on a corner of a street. It has an innocuous view on the hospital's depressing walls. It is known as a resting place for people who couldn't get a visitor's bed in the hospital. It is known as a place where people gnaw on their nails and sometimes also what's left behind while they wait for happy or sad news. It is known as a place where people drink their sorrow away. It is known as a place where people party until the cellar is empty.
Issei remembers his sorry excuse of a father's colleague once told him the motel was haunted. Little boy like Issei had nothing to do around such a place.
A Christmas jingle sparks up as he pushes the door of the motel open.
A middle aged woman, face painted with cracking make up, look up from her computer with a frown. Clearly, she is no having fun. "Do you have a reservation?" She asks aggressively.
Issei offers his most boyish smile. "No. I would like to book a room for two."
Her brilliant nails tap the counter. "It's the night before Christmas… I'm not sure if we have a free room."
Issei translates silently; go away, you're a hassle, I'm tired. He acts if he doesn't understand her tone. "Can you check, please?"
"For you alone?" The way she gauges him is a good indication of how much she believes he is old enough to book a room alone. That is, minus 100.
The teen that is clearly not of age plays along. "No. My mother is at the convenience store," he replies with all the cheer he can manage. She is not, not yet, but if all goes well and it will go well, it will, maybe she will be waltzing around convenience stores soon.
"For how many nights?"
"Only one."
She tickles her computer keyboard some more, creating an off-beat song with the clatter of her nails against plastic. She looks up with pursued lips. "We have suit. It's empty tonight, but only tonight."
Issei does not flinch. His soul does not shiver when he thinks of the price of a suit. He knows it will not be cheap. "I'll take it."
"I need your ID." She seems wholly invested in thwarting his plan.
"I'm not of age, if that's what you want to know." Issei loses some of his cool in his biting quip, but he ain't here to be refused.
A long sigh. "Is your companion of age?"
Issei eyeballs the middle aged woman on the other side of the counter. He did mention his mother, didn't he? "My mom is."
If she wasn't, he wouldn't be running all over the place. He wouldn't damn exist.
"Oh."
Issei doesn't know if she registered what he said or who he mentioned. It's strange, how people seem to hear yet do not listen. Down there, people had a focus when Issei talked; they stared at him until he was done speaking. Then, they would answer. Each of their words was chosen with a care Issei has learnt to replicate.
He spent too much time around weirdos (willy, thoughtful, incomprehensible, sensible, crazy, clever, back-stabbing Devils.).
Speaking of Devils... He leans over the counter and flashes white teeth. "I'm the one paying. Can you not show her how much I paid? It's a surprise for my mom's birthday."
Issei knows he has softened the receptionist's stance. She sighs again, but she is getting him a keycard now.
He hurriedly fishes in his pockets for his wallet when she gestures for the machine. "I'm paying cash, if that's okay." Her glance under heavy eyelashes that look definitely unreal tells him he's being a real hassle. "Last year red pocket," he adds with dropping eyes and an unsure tilt of his lips. He is aware he could take a picture of himself right now and put it under the definition of 'meek' in the dictionary. It's the goal of such a look.
She counts the bills he gave her methodically. Her movement is practiced; she is doing it better than Issei has even done. For such a money-grabber (Issei is more self-aware than most people think he is, thank you very much. He can't do much without money. It's normal to keep it close and not spend it for ridiculously expensive food like carrots. Carrots are good for his 'health', but do they offer him a smidge of the precious calories he needs to survive the day? Nay.), it's mesmerizing. Issei fights the urge to ask her how she can flick them so quickly between her thumb and her index.
"Suite 405, fourth floor. If you need anything, we're a ring away," she drones on as she hands him two keycards. Her eyes leave the computer she's tinkling. "Happy birthday to your mom."
Issei smiles back. She did listen, after all. "Thanks."
Under her discreet ogling, he takes off his shoes. He does not make a beeline for the lift; he hops through the door to the stairs with a wave.
He scrambles up the stairs to the fourth floor. The carpeted wood muffles his violence against it as he goes faster and faster. He glances to the ceiling long enough to see no cameras. Good.
He opens the door leading to the fourth floor and pauses. Still no cameras. He walks in the dim-lit hallway, counting the doors and the light filtering from the crack between the doors and the grayish carpet. At least two people are up. The fifth door on the right is his. He sweeps the keycard against the lock. It turns green and Issei manhandles the doorknob to get inside.
He softly bangs the door close behind him.
The suite is petite for the name it bears. Two large beds (queen? King? Twin? Issei has no idea how bed size works) are on each corner of the bedroom. A small bathroom is by the door to the hallway.
He tries one bed. The bedding is soft under him.
He jumps back to his feet. His knees wobble under him. He reaches for his bag, zips it open and pours its incongruous guts on the bed. A few smelly socks arranged in a big fetid ball fall of the edge. A book on plants which clearly cannot be found in the Human world, seeing the cover and its ferocious flower with black teeth, slams loose change under its weight. A keychain jingles its fall as Issei vigorously shakes his bag one last time.
Under one underwear he delicately pushes away with the book, (it's a dirty one, if he is to trust his nose. Issei does.) he finds his prize. His old phone is still intact after all it went through. Nokia does not make the most appealing phones, but they can take Life's thrown lemons and make hot chocolate out of it. They're tough little fuckers.
He flicks his phone open. The phone buzzes to life.
A few unread messages clog his vision. His neighbors left voice mail and frantic messages, from what he peers at. He sweeps to his other messages.
Ah, there she is.
She left a few messages. Of course she would. She did demand he live with her when her son left the house. Too many good reasons made sure that never happened. Issei was no quitter; leaving his mom's while she was at her lowest would have made him one, because of course she couldn't come, a house in the middle of the mountains isn't the most reasonable place to try to heal from one of the most vicious sickness known to men.
She didn't mention the awkwardness of housing the abandoned wife of his son, but Issei had not been deluded by her silence.
Her silence on the phone stopped being comfortable afterwards.
Reason and reasonable people is the enemy.
[Hey. It's me.] He types. His thumb hovers over the send button.
He thinks of homemade mochi and gyokuro tea drank on the fourth morning after every New Year. He tapes the button lightly.
That part of the plan rests solely on her. Her next action will steer him in the right direction.
Technology does its own brand of magic and he knows she will see his message the next time she opens the dingy phone he chose for her. She admitted she wanted to learn how to text and they chose it together, though he was the one to quiz the sellers for the cheapest, best deal. They somehow succeeded in fooling him, Issei still suspects to this day. She paid too much for the old version she got.
He switches from his messenger app to the Internet's guts. He watches several videos on the same subject intently. The Japanese Ministry of Health is nothing but dutiful in its videos.
Issei learns a great deal.
He turns off his phone.
He takes a long scarf, red and bright, from under him. A tuque, checkered with snow white and bloodly orange, is found under the bed after much raking and sacking.
Issei wounds the scarf around his neck loosely with drawn gestures. He thrusts his chopped mess of hair into the tuque. He glimpses at the sliding mirror which hides a secret closet all hostel's rooms seem to have. His reflection in the mirror shows a teen with a wool scarf that blankets his chin and mounts the tip of his nose. The tuque atop of his head lets a few wisps of brown hair out.
He tugs them back inside forcefully until they obediently stay there.
He arranges some clothes haphazardly on his bed, sprawls a few hygienic necessities in what looks like teenage chaos.
The sealed little thing that was concealed against his thigh is put in the smallest front pocket of his bag. The sealed little thing digging into his navel stays where it will need both.
Swaddled in his warm clothes, bearing a bag that feels nothing, he stumbles out of the hostel. He keeps his back turned on the hospital. He knows better than to look. The urge to just run for his life, for his mother's life, has not disappeared. The itch is there and one sideway glance will not content him.
Issei is not a freaking idiot.
She will need a place to rest and clothes when she is out. She will need his presence. No way, no way, no way is he leaving her sides once she is up.
(If the tears do work.)
He goes to the convenience store next. It is thankfully nestled by the hostel, open 24 hours for lonely souls in need of calories and other important resources. He finds clothing that feels thin and plastic under his fingers. He buys it without a change in expression as the cashier holds back a perplexed stare at the women's underwear and outer wears he chose. Issei wouldn't have noticed if the man behind the counter hadn't starred at his purchases a tad too long as he scanned them.
"No need for a plastic bag." Issei hoists his bag higher with a jolt.
The cashier wordlessly gives him his items. He glances at his bag. A blink later, his decision is taken; he does not ask to see the insides of a teen's bag that did his business quickly and politely at such a late hour. It is too much effort demanded for the night before Christmas.
"Happy Holidays."
Dead eyes who whimper tales of deathly boredom and long hours spent standing in a tiny convenience store tell him their time there has been everything but fulfilling and happy. "Happy Holidays," the cashier strangles out.
Issei offers a tilted nod of his head. He marches to the door without further ado, because he has a mission, he is a man on a mission. By the automatic door, a mess of stapled papers, ads and special discounts for buyers, clings to a peeling board. In the middle of chaos, a neat plasticized sheet of paper stands out. It is too proper for its surroundings.
He reads its bold letters before he realizes it.
Hyoudou Issei
13 years old, Kuoh Middle School
Disappeared on-
Issei ducks his head, chin digging into his scarf. He hunches his head into his tense shoulders, neck coiled in a position that resembles the one shown on the not-so old picture of himself.
The picture of him, in his school uniform, acne burgeoning around his thin lips, reels in his mind like a movie. He remembers the day they took that school picture. He remembers how his then best friend pushed him against a desk so hard he thought his hip had broken. Just a game, he said. It's just a game, Issei. Why are you crying, you big baby?
His eyes were moist for a reason and it shows on the picture.
The cashier is back to sweeping the shop with a gaze in an effort to stay awake.
Issei unlocks his back. He flees the shop with a wave and a steady pace.
This time, his destination is in line with his heart's desires. He marches to the back of the building, bypassing the front entirely. The back is as gloomy as the front. Only one thing somewhat saves appearances.
The garden. It stretches itself along the walls of the grey buildings. Winter has not been kind: the plants are withered and dying, even those that are supposed to survive harsh weather.
Nobody haunts the inner garden, locked between the palliative care building and the children ward. It's too cold to let patient wander outside, not to mention the night is deep. Sophisticated lamp streets made of wrought iron and delicates arcs dimly lit the barren ground regularly. Brown coarse grass sparsely covers dark, hard soil.
He skims walls and finds an unlocked door.
His arm tingles and leads him to safer, darker, lonelier corners. It cannot obscure him from the view of the cameras. They undulate the smooth ceiling with their black form and red dots of light. He keeps his head down.
Finally, he is in a part of the hospital where privacy is more valued than catching a wayward boy.
He treads on plastic tiles and hope.
The sound of dashing wheels brings him to a stop. A nurse with a trolley walks at an intersection without seeing him in front of him. Just what he was searching for.
He follows her. She transports what he seeks. He clenches his right fist. The bow does not retard its appearance.
Guide me.
The bow does.
Issei feels his muscles move, hear his movements and see his finger handle the weapon as if he had been born for it, born with it. It should be extremely worrying to have a magical piece of wood controls his body; it is not. It's right.
The bow hums a happy tune. Issei lets go of its string and even though he felt nothing besides the coarse material, even as his brain recognizes he fired nothing, he knows what will happen. It's a whisper in his bones, a knowledge of his soul.
The pot of hibiscus the nurse walked by explodes.
Her strangled yelp does not equal Issei's efforts.
Her scream when she understand what kind of freak accident just happened to her does. She runs, runs like her bouncing little balls of fat she considers legs have never run before. In her panic, she only sees a looming shadow by her fallen trolley.
Issei slackens his grip on the bow. It disappears, clinging back to skin-covered territory.
Later, when a sleep deprived security guard comes hastily, he does not nor will notice for a few precious minutes that a syringe and a bottle of disinfectant have disappeared from the frightened nurse's trolley who collapsed at his feet, howling about a bomb.
Issei has calmly pocketed the stolen items and sauntered in another direction a long time ago.
He doesn't find his mother in the room his memories identify as hers. A new name slates the door. Issei pushes the door ajar and peers into darkness. A scent that does not belong to his family, to his mother, permeates the air. It smells like musk and old sweat.
They moved her. That's not a good news.
How is he going to find her? Does he have to forget prudence and scare the hell out of the whole damn hospital's staff?
Issei hears their footsteps long before he sees them. He looks up and lets go of his plans to terrorize the whole town. He leans against a wall.
Two women are talking, walking down the hallway in a manner that is neither too fast nor too slow.
Issei hates it anyway. His right hand's knuckles twitch.
The two nurses do not turn their head. They do not notice the boy resting against a wall, playing with the hem of coat as he watches them with unblinking eyes.
"No visits for room 376, eh."
"The only visit she will probably get is when her husband will come sign the papers."
"Even then, do you really think he will go see her? Signing papers don't mean he will. That sort of thing, you do in the doctor's office, not in here."
Issei stays glued to his wall long after their voices have fallen to an imperceptible lull, distant and ghostly.
Room 376, eh.
He saunters down the bright hallway. The teen stares at numbers as they go up, from 200 to 300. He jumps up a flight of stairs or two. Finally, he finds the room. Predictably, it is his mother's name that decorates it. Life is sometimes a convenient story teller.
He plays with the doorknob. Unlocked. He grasps it with both hands. And doesn't turn it. His mother is on the other side. Their fate is on the other side. He can't be weak now. He shudders a breath out. It's gonna be alright. It's gonna be alright.
... please.
Issei pushes the door to his and her fate open.
He blinks the darkness away. A familiar scent caresses him. Slow beats hit his ears.
A form rests on a lonely bed.
He wobbles his way to her.
Hyoudou, née Hayashi, Hikari does not resemble the memories he has of his mother. Ghostly skin does not glow in the dark twilight of her room. Black hair has disappeared, leaving a bluish canvas of bones behind. She is so small.
His fingers find their way to her gaunt cheek. They shake as they touch paper-like matter.
The skin he grazes doesn't feel human. Bereft of her warmth, bereft of her luster, bereft of her soul, bereft of her life.
She doesn't murmur his name with a voice he has forgotten. Her eyelids quiver. Or at least, Issei thinks they do.
Issei mimics the nurses and doctors he observed on his phone. He takes the bottle of disinfectant, the syringe, his vial and the Glorygold out. He snuggles the flower against her skull. It starts its burning dance, free to heal and hurt.
(The Phenex did not choose their flower for its jolly flames and burning passions. They share attributes no others can copy.)
He cleans and scrubs the hollow of her elbow until it's bright and ready.
The son breathes in. He inserts the syringe and a drip of red magic fills the syringe.
He puts the sharp tool against her transparent skin, in the hollow of her elbow. Finding a vein is not difficult; they appear, faded snakes of green blue under her parchment skin. He pinches her fragile skin between his growing nails. He plods her flesh until he finds the vein he is searching for. Her artery is thin, but he is sure it is what it is. The spot is right and the thin tube looks relatively bigger than the others.
He inserts the tip of the syringe in.
He pushes forcefully and empties the syringe in before the tear can be tainted by blood outside of her body.
The beats of the heart machine go up.
Issei stills. The Glorygold dances.
Her eyelids stay closed.
He says a very bad word his mother would have been horrified to hear.
A door creaks.
He sits, immobile as a statue. The Glorygold waltzes.
Nothing.
He learns to breath again. He sits by her side. He plays with the straps of the respirator that devours her face.
She stirs.
He stops breathing. Hope crashes all pretenses of calm. He rips her mask off. His fingers curl her chin.
"Hey, mom."
Her eyelids flutter open. Issei dares not, cannot hope everything is good-
She closes her eyes.
A part of him is relieved. Ah. He failed. It's finally finished. The others parts howl and scream their anguish.
He grasps her hand. Her brittle bones barely hold their own against his forceful embrace.
"Stay with me, mom," he begs.
She breathes feebly under the rough fingers that search for her pulse.
"Issei." She murmurs. He can see how much effort it demands of her, to just say his name. Her eyes are wavering between him and a tunnel of light where pain is but a word and gentle hands are waiting for her.
Her eyelids flutter, eyes unfocusing and focusing on her son.
He holds the vial over her chapped lips. His fingers pry her jaw open, pushing on stoned muscles and granitic bones. He tips the vial until a drop of liquid dances on the edge. "Drink, mom. Drink," he begs.
Brown eyes focus on a trembling boy.
A tear falls on a frozen tongue. "There. Swallow." He massages her throat until he feels her muscles ripple and move under her skin. "There. You're good. You're good."
He peppers her forehead with kisses. "You're okay. You're okay,mom!" She whimpers a complaint.
Issei stops his attack with a start. He helps her up. "Who am I?"
She blinks artificially sleepy eyes. "Ise."
"Yeah. It's me." He acknowledges himself like he used to. His hope is soaring high and it must not crash. "I'm back."
He grabs her hands. "Do you know where you are?" he ask.
"The… hospital?" She answers slowly.
"Yes. Yes. We're in the hospital." Issei can't help it. He laughs. His eyes burn and gosh, he must look mad.
His mother looks so lost he has to stop. She doesn't need madness when her own just left.
She's blinking and feebly scratching the dust of artificial sleep out of her eyes. She squirms and stares at her Glorygold. It still dance to an unknown song, burning softly through her pillows.
He buries his head the place between her neck and her collarbone, forehead pushing against a pillow smelling of better days. For a blessed moment, his life has gone back to the way it was before his mother collapsed on the kitchen's floor.
He is Hayashi Issei, thirteen years old of age. Human. Weird Human.
And he is hugging his mom and no one will stop him.
There will be time. They have time!
Her arms, hindered by wires and weeks of inaction, tremble to grab his clothes. She grasps his clothes and they're locked in an embrace.
"I missed you so much."
The only sound is the continuous beeping of the heart monitor. It's going faster and faster. Issei glances at it. His mother's heartbeat are displayed on it, changing erratically to higher numbers. He rips a cord out of its plug and it screeches a whimper before it goes silent for good.
Even with a little freaky bombing accident, Issei wouldn't forsake the possibility of an overly concerned nurse making her way to his mother's room.
He pockets the vial with its last drop of miracle tears and holds his mother's hand.
That's the end of the first arc.
I'm going into silence for a week (which means I'll be away from my computer for a week.). Then I'll be back with more. I take full responsibilities for the weird errors you might see: I wrote the last part on my dingy ? I hate this and will never do it again. Respect for the soldiers who do this everyday!
18/02/2019