Nothing much to say….I don't own the characters except the ones I made up. Thank you for reading! :)
Hands
Kisho glared down at the sink while he washed Hyun-Ae's blood from his hands. After Lavi had carried her to the Infirmary, Matron and Kisho had worked on getting her hands to stop bleeding. It seemed that Hyun-Ae had somehow extracted the Innocence pieces from her hands. Kisho shuddered thinking about it, because it seemed like she had just dug them out with her fingernails. He couldn't imagine how much that must have hurt, what it must have felt like, and had no idea how she'd kept doing it. After she had taken the pieces out, though, they seemed to have merged back into their original, single form and that's when Lavi and Kisho had spotted her. Matron cleaned her hands, made sure they weren't still bleeding, and bandaged them carefully. Hyun-Ae was now lying in a bed in the Infirmary, asleep. Kisho only left her to clean himself up when Matron had announced she'd be fine and hadn't permanently damaged any of her nerves or blood vessels. Even though she was hurt, Kisho felt angry at her and still had the urge to yell at her. The shock of the event had worn off and he was getting more and more annoyed with her. But he dried his hands and went over to her bed to sit on the chair that he'd dragged over to it. Lavi was sitting nearby, too, and for the first time since they'd come to the Infirmary, Kisho looked at him. "Lavi?" He asked, and the exorcist looked away from a painting of the ocean that he'd been staring at. His expression was slightly interested.
"What?"
"Your eye….the patch…it's gone." Lavi's face relaxed and he leaned back in his chair.
"Oh. That. Thought it was something important." Kisho looked puzzled.
"But this is. I've never seen you with the eye patch off. Why were you wearing it in the first place?" Lavi was looking sharply at Kisho. "And your right eye is…"
"Completely normal," Lavi grunted, sounding bored.
"Uh…." Kisho stalled, and Lavi smiled ruefully at him.
"You thought I covered it up because of an injury, or something, right?" Kisho nodded, also grinning, a little embarrassed. "Lots of people thought so. And they should have, since that's all it looked like. But it was so I couldn't use it." Lavi trailed off. "My Innocence was a little funny. It was Parasite, in my right eye, and I had trouble controlling it. I could see elements and see how to use them. Symbols appear when I use my Equip weapon, I'm sure you noticed." Kisho nodded. "That's sort of what I mean. But before my Innocence weapon was made, I could see where elements originated, and I could use them. I could find those sources and make water appear from ice, or fire from light. I could control all of the elements and fight with them."
"And it was too hard to control?" Lavi crossed his arms, face solemn.
"Well, sort of. But mostly it was just a strong power and started to take a toll on me the more I used it. It had to take energy from my body to work, more than any normal Parasite-Type Exorcist. If I'd trained enough, the Panda said I would be at the level of a General." Kisho lifted his eyebrows in wonder. "But whether I would have held up until then was another story…so part of its power was taken and forged into an Equip type." Lavi shook his head as he thought back to when that had happened. "Getting it taken out wasn't pleasant, and it left my right eye weaker than the other so I just decided to cover it up." He touched his right eye. "It's just like the other one now, though. It'll be weird getting used to not wearing that patch anymore."
"You could wear it anyway."
"Nah." Lavi shrugged. "We never explained what happened to the others, but I'd better go tell Komui first. I'll tell him, then find Allen and explain why we left. You stay here with her but if she tries anything funny, wait outside for Matron to come back." Kisho pressed his lips into a line and nodded. Hyun-Ae was on their side but she had gradually seemed less and less trustworthy. After Lavi had gone Kisho looked down at the sleeping exorcist and jumped. Her eyes were open and she was staring up at him.
"Whoa!" Kisho yelled, lurching backward in his chair and almost making it fall backwards against the bed behind him.
"Neither of you trust me," she noted slyly. Kisho didn't say anything. "Puts you in kind of a tight spot, doesn't it?"
"Can you really tell me that no one would be the least bit suspicious of you after what you just did?" Kisho demanded harshly, ignoring her question. "Why did you rip your Innocence out of your hands? If something was wrong, or if you just didn't want to be an exorcist then why didn't you go to Komui or Hevlaska?" Now Hyun-Ae didn't respond. "They just want to help! You've been here longer than me, but you don't seem to trust them." With a little jolt and feeling of guilt, Kisho realized he'd repeated Lenalee's words to him after he'd been reluctant to tell her what Hyun-Ae had told him. Now he understood what she'd been talking about.
"I usually don't trust anyone," Hyun-Ae said in a low voice. "And I never wanted to come here. I wanted to stay home and help my mother, and my younger brothers after our father killed himself. I never wanted any family except my own."
"What—" Kisho started but was cut off.
"It might be easy for you," Hyun-Ae went on accusingly, "since you were too young to remember any of your family."
"I remember my mother!" The Finder snapped defensively.
"She's not your birth mother, though, is she?" Hyun-Ae taunted, grinning ominously, and for an instant Kisho felt like slapping her.
"I'm not going to apologize for liking how my life is!" Kisho shouted, but against his will, fell into a seething quiet at Hyun-Ae's threatening glare.
"It must have been nice to be able to latch on to a new family here so easily," she said in a low tone. "I, on the other hand, am going back to the Asia Branch to ask Bak if I can go off on my own." Kisho began shaking his head.
"I don't understand you." Hyun-Ae shrugged and gave a little 'humph' of contempt.
"I didn't want you to understand me," she shouted, then grinned so unsettlingly that Kisho remembered Lavi's words and stood up from the chair. "After I figured out what you could do, I only wanted this." Without provocation Hyun-Ae lunged at Kisho with her left hand, grabbed a fistful of his shirt, and yanked him forward. She pressed her mouth over his for a moment, and then Kisho's eyes widened when he felt a stabbing pain in his lip. The teenager realized with a shock that Hyun-Ae was biting his lip so hard that she'd drawn blood. Kisho grabbed at her shoulders, trying to push her away, but stopped. She was still biting into his lip and if he pushed her away she could cause even more damage. A flood of disgust went through Kisho when he felt the exorcist sucking on his lip. What the hell is she doing? Finally Hyun-Ae pulled away and Kisho grabbed her shoulders and with a shove pushed her away, holding his bleeding lip. The area was throbbing and he could feel bite marks. Hyun-Ae wiped the blood from her mouth, then licked it off of her arm. Kisho leaned forward and looked at his hand. Blood from his mouth had pooled inside it, but when he calmed slightly and touched his lip again he knew the bite wasn't so serious, even if it was bleeding a lot, but he grimaced because it felt deep.
"Thanks." Hyun-Ae wiped her mouth off again.
"You're not welcome! Why the hell did you do that?" Kisho shouted, clenching a blood-covered fist and shaking it at her.
"I had to do that before I could tell you the rest. Your blood can heal people. Parasite-Type exorcists heal more quickly than normal, right? But I needed something more to heal myself."
"What was wrong with you?" Kisho demanded.
"Tease. I had Tease inside me. I had a piece of the Heart but it couldn't heal me, and when I heard how Allen had saved you, I wondered if two exorcists' Innocence had to be in contact for the healing to work. So I tried it, and I found out I was right." Kisho shook his head.
"When did you get infected with Tease?" He demanded. "And how did you get past Gatekeeper, anyway?"
"Noah. A month ago," came the too-casual answer. "I was on my own for a while on a mission and I got caught. They let me go so I would leak information. I just ignored them, but realized later I'd have to do something." Hyun-Ae shrugged. "As for the Gatekeeper, I used my Innocence to make him believe there was nothing wrong with me. It's a kind of mind-control…I was going to do the same thing to you earlier so you'd forget what I did, but we got found out."
We! You mean you got found out! Kisho opened his mouth to speak again but felt blood trailing down his chin and pressed a hand to the bite. He had to repeat himself a few times because his speech was muffled. "Why didn't you ask anyone for help? And I would have liked it a lot better if you'd asked me!"
"You mean you didn't enjoy that?" Hyun-Ae asked, sounding hurt.
"I hated it! Why would I like something like that from you?" Kisho yelled furiously but the female exorcist just laughed as if all Kisho's outburst had been was a child's tantrum.
"You must not mind something about me, since you don't bother to be all polite around me like you're supposed to." Kisho was taken aback and felt his face burning.
"That's….shut up! It's because you're so hard to deal with! You're crazy! And now you've just admitted that you might have betrayed everyone!"
"We're all crazy." Hyun-Ae sneered, ignoring his last statement, but her tone was solemn. "Some of us are just more open about it."
"Or no one but you is crazy," Kisho growled, crossing his arms. Hyun-Ae laughed again.
"You really are a child." Kisho scowled and rolled his eyes. "You mistrust me. But would you really mistrust me over the Earl? Hate me?" Kisho's face became startled, and then it hardened as he looked away. "Or over the Noah Clan?"
"You could have put everyone in danger," he told her fiercely. "I can't trust you that easily again."
"You never really did, did you? But that's fine. Emotions are better expressed if they're not forced. You should be honest and let your feelings happen naturally." Kisho eyed Hyun-Ae sharply.
"Are you actually trying to say that I might like you someday? Because I won't."
"Maybe you will when you stop being such a brat." Kisho snapped. He'd heard that enough and jumped up from his chair, pointing a blood-covered finger in anger.
"You'd better stay here, understand? You should have told someone—"
"If I had, I would have been killed," Hyun-Ae grunted. "Don't you get it?"
"No, I don't," Kisho replied sharply.
"Then go tell on me. If you do, it's a moot point now. I can't use Innocence anymore, and I'm also no threat. Like I said, I'm returning to the Asia Branch and asking Bak for permission to leave and go back home." Kisho clenched his teeth, then gave a sigh of frustration. "I'm waiting until Matron comes back to watch you, and then I'm going to tell Komui about all of this."
"That's fine with me. But I'm going to say again what I told you before—you really should stop what you're going. You're doing fine now, but you'll just get yourself and others in trouble someday."
"In trouble how?" Kisho questioned suspiciously.
"Don't use your healing ability anymore."
"I haven't used it at all."
"That doesn't matter. Using it will let people use it against you someday—either to hurt you, or to take advantage of you." Something in the fifteen-year-old snapped.
"So you want me to just sit and wait while people in front of me die? Is that what you mean? If you then you just wasted your breath! Congratulations!" Kisho was yelling louder than he ever had before and heard his voice echoing down the hall. He turned when footsteps ran hurriedly into the Infirmary. It was Matron and she was staring at him with a bewildered expression.
"What's going on? She needs to rest! I expected you to behave better. Really!" The Finder held up his hands.
"I'm sorry. And I'm glad you're back, because that's all I was waiting for." Before Kisho left he glared at Hyun-Ae. "If you try anything, I'll know about it."
"Kisho!" Matron admonished him warningly, but Hyun-Ae spoke up.
"It's alright, ma'am. He's right to be angry, but I promise it's all under control." Matron looked from Kisho to Hyun-Ae and sighed after a moment.
"If you're sure. But I don't want any more scenes like this. Understand?" Both people nodded. "Good." Kisho turned, clenched his teeth angrily, and stormed out just as Lavi and Komui walked past him into the Infirmary.
"Kisho, stay to explain your side of the story, please." Komui's voice stopped Kisho and broke him out of his angry state. More subdued now he walked back into the Infirmary and stood at the foot of Hyun-Ae's bed. The exorcist was sitting up and Matron was giving her a glass of water.
"Lavi tells me you forced yourself to De-Synchronize with your Innocence." Hyun-Ae nodded, looking steadily into Komui's eyes. "And that it was a Heart fragment….something that neither you nor Bak told me."
"He's telling the truth; I did," the Korean woman replied. "And Bak didn't know. I didn't know, either. We guessed that somehow my Synchronization level was high and that's why it seemed so powerful. But he didn't know. I swear." Komui at Lavi, who gave a brief and subtle nod, and then at Kisho, who was staring at Hyun-Ae with narrowed eyes.
Komui glanced back at Hyun-Ae and asked calmly, "Why did you purposely take it from your body? You could have harmed yourself or destroyed the Innocence."
"I don't want to be an exorcist anymore." A deep silence met her words. "If you'll give me permission," continued the woman, without showing any reaction to the silence, "then I want to go and tell Bak the same thing." Hyun-Ae nodded to Lavi. "I realized I'm sorry for putting this on you, but he's strong enough to handle it."
"That's not what was worrying me." Komui had a troubled look on his face." Hyun-Ae shook her head and Kisho couldn't help giving an annoyed snort.
"Shrimpy has some things to tell you," the female exorcist said while gracefully indicating him with a wave of her bandaged left hand. "One of the things is probably 'Sorry I'm bleeding all over the floor'." Matron, Lavi, and Komui turned sharply towards Kisho, who was reminded of the incident and touched his bitten lip. Lavi was gaping at Kisho with a baffled expression.
"How'd you do that to yourself?" He shook his head. "I wasn't gone that long, was I?"
"No—it's just that—she…" Kisho started to point at Hyun-Ae, but trailed off and let his hand drop. Even if it hadn't really been a kiss, that's all it would seem like. He needed to tell them, so he took a breath and quickly searched for a way to start.
"Nevermind, I'll tell them." Matron beckoned to Kisho to sit on a stool next to a vacant bed, and she left momentarily, then came back with a rolling tray of medical supplies. While she worked on Kisho, Lavi and Komui tuned into Hyun-Ae. "I did that to him." Komui and Lavi blinked in unison.
"You almost bit right through his lip," Matron stated as she pressed ice to Kisho's mouth. Lavi raised his eyebrows, then smiled in spite of the situation.
"What were you two doing? Kissing?" He joked, looking over at Kisho. His grin wavered slightly when he noticed the younger teenager's face was burning red. "You were?"
"Not exactly. I needed his blood." Lavi paled slightly and he looked nervously at the floor. "Obviously I never told you, but a month ago, I was caught by a Noah and he put Tease Golems inside of me. I managed to get this far without telling him anything, though."
"Keep pressing the ice on it," Matron instructed Kisho, who nodded once and cast his eyes towards the ground. Lavi had just looked over and caught the movement.
"You knew?" He asked, and Kisho glanced up and shook his head quickly.
"I just told him before you got back," Hyun-Ae said, and Lavi narrowed his eyes at her.
"I don't think I was talking to you."
"Hyun-Ae…" Matron began, frowning and shaking her head slowly. "You could have come to any of us. There was a reason you didn't come to us, but it wasn't just about how you felt. Everyone, including yourself, was in danger."
"Was what you said about having not told the Noah anything the truth?" Komui asked severely. "The Noah or the Earl?" Hyun-Ae looked at each of their faces for a moment, then slowly nodded once.
"I didn't tell them anything. I was just going to wait for them to realize that I wouldn't, and then die. But I found out what Kisho's blood could do."
"When did you find that out?" Komui questioned calmly, relaxing slightly.
"After everyone heard about what happened when Kisho got the Heart fragment to Walker. Both of them had the Dark Matter inside them destroyed—or at least gotten under control, in the Shrimp's case." Kisho automatically touched his chest with his right hand while pressing the ice to his mouth with the left. His heart had stopped hurting recently, and the cold sensation in his chest had gone. The Golem seemed to almost entirely be dissolved.
"Is that why you attacked him that time?" Matron asked, and something clicked with Kisho.
"That was the reason, wasn't it?" He mumbled around the ice pack. "You stole one of my knives and you were trying to cut me."
"And then myself." Kisho and Lavi made a face. "If our blood mixed, the same thing that happened just now would have happened then. But you made too big of a fuss and I had to forget about it."
"I wouldn't tell Shady any of this," Lavi said to Hyun-Ae while smirking grimly. "She'd rip your lungs out." The redhead threw Kisho a glance over his shoulder. "You and Lenalee have family with sibling complexes in common."
"She can try if she wants to," Hyun-Ae shrugged. "I don't care. Mostly because I'll be long gone by then. Will you give me your permission to leave, Komui?" The group looked up at Komui, wondering what he'd say. Finally, the man sighed.
"You may go. I don't want to force you to stay here if that's not what you want." Lavi appeared to have been taken by surprise and Kisho managed to anxiously bite his lip around the ice pack and immediately dissolved into muffled cursing. "But report straight to Bak and tell him exactly what you told me—and report to me by Golem once you've talked to him."
"Yes, sir." For once Hyun-Ae was being genuinely compliant without sounding disrespectful.
"You should rest now that this has all been sorted out."
"What's going to happen to her?" Lavi asked once he, Kisho, and Komui had departed the Infirmary and walked some distance away from it. Komui crossed his arms and frowned.
"She didn't betray The Black Order…and I believe that she was putting herself in danger to avoid putting us in danger. I don't appreciate the fact that she didn't tell us she was infected with Tease, but fortunately nothing bad became of it." Komui's gaze travelled down to Kisho, who was gingerly holding the ice to his lip. Matron had made him hold ice to it, then cleaned it, and finally had stitched the bite up since it was deep. It had stopped bleeding thanks to the ice and the pressure she'd put on it, and Kisho had learned new things today. The first was how to treat injuries like his, and the other was to not go near people like Hyun-Ae.
"Had a hard day, eh, kid? Everyone's still in the hot springs." Lavi nudged Kisho in a friendly way. "Want to go join them?"
"Do I ever," Kisho groaned, then looked around. Komui had stopped at his office.
"Well, goodnight, you two. Take it easy for now." Lavi and Kisho nodded.
"'Night," Lavi said as they left for the hot springs.
"Hyun-Ae's leaving," Kisho heard himself saying. Lavi looked down at him curiously.
"Are you upset?"
"No…this whole thing is just strange." Lavi sighed agreeingly.
"Yeah, but it's over, at least. Just relax for now like Komui said. And at least you won't have to put up with her anymore." They walked into the men's changing rooms and got into their swimming trunks, leaving their clothes in cabinets in the walls, and walked out towards the springs. "I didn't know she was into that kind of crazy stuff, though," he remarked. Kisho gave him a confused glance.
"What do you mean?"
"Like randomly kissing someone. Did you like it?" Lavi grinned. Kisho looked at the ground for a moment before glaring at Lavi and throwing a towel he had over his shoulder in the exorcist's face. "I was joking! Well, not really…but come on! You got your first kiss." Allen, Chaoji, Krory, and Toma looked up. They were all sitting in a large hot pool and of course couldn't help hearing Lavi's yell. Kisho groaned.
"Someone did what?" Allen asked dumbly.
"Who did?" Toma questioned with interest.
"Must have been a birthday kiss," Krory noted, and they all laughed as Kisho and Lavi climbed into the hot spring.
"Who was it from?" Chaoji asked and Kisho leaned his head back and sighed up at the sky.
"No one that I want to talk about," Kisho answered in a low grumble.
"Kisho and Hyun-Ae sitting in a tree…." Lavi started chanting, and Kisho swept his arms through the pool and splashed Lavi with a wave of hot water, causing him to yell and cover his eyes with an arm just in time.
"Hey….Lavi!" Allen exclaimed suddenly, having been studying Lavi for the past few minutes, knowing there was something different about him. "Your eyes….you're not wearing your eye patch!"
Allen was the first one to get it. Now Lavi doesn't wear the eye patch—sorry to people who liked it as part of Lavi's character image….but anyway, yep, there we go. My idea about Lavi's right eye. Might not be what Hoshino had in mind but eh….it was cool to plan out.
Thank you for reading! ^^ Thank you as always!
Hyun-Ae is the tiniest bit "not all there"—but it's interesting to make a character like that. I mean a good interesting even if she acts weird sometimes.
