# - I don't usually make author notes, but on this occasion I feel it's my responsibility to warn any unsuspecting reader of some potentially disturbing content up ahead. If you don't wish to read it, simply scroll to the bottom of the page at the point where I have entered a line of '-#' and I will give a condensed explanation of its content. After that scroll back up to the point where I have entered a line of '+###' and continue reading as usual. Thank you - #
A triangular cut of grey flesh pierced the calm sapphire of the Seto inland sea. It lingered, slicing through the ocean silently, rudely exposed by the yellowing rays slanting down from the heavens to reveal the rough texture of its skin. Now, in reverse manifestation, the fin withdrew below the blue depths once more. A collection of circular ripples expanded into nothingness from the point the tip had sunk below; the fading undulations the only evidence the creature indeed existed somewhere in that alien world below the thin, watery surface.
''Now that's a sight to behold, it's certainly not every day a great white nods a 'hi' your way.''
Mei circled from the captivating scene, dismissing her calming thoughts of passing dolphins for the distressing image of the flesh shredding, man-eating machine centring a certain popular film adaptation.
''Now I wouldn't worry, I doubt he'll turn from his course to dine on the wood of this old boat. She may be old, but goddamn does she hold up.''
Takamoto affectionately patted the helm of his boat, however, doing little to ease Mei's sizeable concern over the live-flesh dieted predator roaming the waters mere feet from her person.
''Besides, I can't remember the last case of human fatality since that poor diving fellow, now what was his name? ''
Takamoto growled softly in annoyance, suffering under the infamous tip of the tongue feeling born from retrieval failure.
''Kazuta Harada,''
Harumi's voice called up from the bow of the ship, resulting in Takamoto snapping his fingers in sudden recollection and promptly cursing his old age to ruin.
This was followed up with a quippish, "I was unsure of which would infuriate you more, letting you drown in the dysfunctionality of that decaying brain between your ears or just highlighting your mounting uselessness by throwing you the answer right now. Looks like the latter was the best option after all.
''I'm sure you'll understand then if, in my doddering old age, I accidentally slip and kick that precious mutt of yours straight into the ocean with our little friend over there. I'm also sure that whilst we pop down to the laboratory of marine zoology to update those fatality records my decaying memory will slip straight into the jog it so needs.''
To this, Harumi produced the only hand gesture she concluded appropriate, before returning her attention to the two lengths of rope she was attempting to reef knot. Takamoto shook his head at the display of profanity, though not without a smile.
To Mei's bafflement, throughout the chain of chaotic events populating the past 15 hours, Takamoto and Harumi had managed to forge a bond of such natural ease, two peas in a pod might feel the challenge of bettering them too great. Their swiftly established respect for one another, masked behind blatant disregard, had caused the two to so naturally slip into the kind of sarcastic banter reserved only for friends of decades. Yet, Mei kept telling herself, here they were, mere hours in the making, a living testament against the claim.
Harumi had awoken the previous night disoriented by both her hour of unexpected rest and momentary embarrassment as she recalled her waking actions ( Mei, however, had quickly withdrawn her arms before she had fully regained consciousness.) Full recollection soon befell her and she rose from Mei's lap and rushed straight to the kitchen table to check on the condition of her precious hound. Once she found him resting peacefully and this reiterated by Takamoto's belief he would pull through, she fell to her knees near-sobbing again, apologising profusely and thanking him.
He assured her he wouldn't be holding any grudges and suggested she retire to the living room whilst he remade dinner for the three of them if she was to insist on rousing his patient with her incoherent blathering. She had immediately retorted, despite her immense gratitude and thus the friendly sarcasm between the two was born.
Mei took the remainder of the awkward silence that precursed dinner to fill Harumi in on Takamoto's offer and after the grateful meal of baked cod, the pair of them had mutually agreed to fill Takamoto in on their side of the story in return. Throughout the entire explanation, he barely spoke, giving slight hums and nods here and there until they had finished the chaotic recount of the past week. Though his suspicions were confirmed about the criminal nature of the two women he had so willingly allowed to board his vessel, he reiterated that he would not withdraw his offer and would indeed ferry them to Hiroshima the following morning. Following some additional thought, he decided, to Mei's jubilation he would even extend his offer and take them as far as the port of Kobe. Mei had nothing more to offer than her immense gratitude but he seemed more than satisfied with this form of payment.
The speeding boat lurched, causing Mei's unexpected assault from a spray of salty bullets. Releasing her grip from the taffrail and glancing down at her now dampened attire, she decided to return indoors for a short while. She sidestepped along the deck, ducked through the small doorway and followed the narrow hall. Mei found she felt vaguely at home in the small boat now her mind had grown accustomed to its simple layout. Much more so, she thought with disdain as she entered the kitchen, than she ever did the night in the significantly roomier home of the devious farm couple.
Upon entering, she smiled as Shinobu gave her a small bark of recognition from where he lay in a chaotic pile of newspapers by the steel oven. He had taken well to the make-shift bed and had even left it, on two separate occasions, to have a small pad around his new surroundings since he had awoken that morning. Mei admired his tenacity, considering his ordeal, he was in unnaturally good spirits, only dampened by the dish of pastel antibiotics that lay untouched before his front paws.
Even under his beloved Harumi's influence, he had only briefly taken in a brick coloured pill before promptly spitting it out and fixing her with a look of utter betrayal and disbelief as though questioning how she truly expected him to consume such rot.
Mei leant against the wall and watched him vacuously as he pawed at the rejected dish. The floating thought occurred to her, she should suggest to Takamoto he conceal the distasteful pills in a sausage or fish, perhaps then there might be some chance of Shinobu actually ingesting them. As she watched him further, she realised increasingly it was an obvious move, but then she had to remind herself it wouldn't have naturally occurred to Takamoto, he was a military doctor, not a paediatrician.
She turned her head to the view of the horizon above the sink and fell into hypnotic mesmerisation as the skyline bobbed slowly up and down. Her thoughts of Takomoto's chosen profession caused her mind to naturally slip back to his recount of the previous night.
''Let me tell you a story.''
Takamoto diminished into the shadow once more. He fidgeted, igniting the flame of the lighter and promptly extinguishing it. He threw his waltzing shadow onto the wall twice more before deciding to begin his lengthy tale behind the comfort of darkness.
/-#####################################################################
''1942, the year I believed, indubitably, the time for my retribution had come at long last. The winter had been agony, my mind wouldn't relent on its crusade to rip my fragile conscience to shreds. I had struggled desperately to dodge my fate as a contract killer the year before, finally using my profession to my advantage and enlisting under the role of military doctor in the fleeting hope of spending my service saving lives as opposed to ridding the world of them. I knew it'd be hell nonetheless, but perhaps a hell I could more easily stomach. I was naive. A soldier is a soldier, who earns his salary by killing, whatever he calls himself. I realised soon enough, I was there to exist as two sides of the same coin, flipped at the whim of the war's tide.
I was still working in a small field hospital at the time, one of many set just off the most recent battle lines of the Japanese attempt on Chinese East Asia. We moved a lot during this period, reducing the enemy by yards almost every day. That said, on this particular site the Chinese had put up an uncharacteristically strong defence, no match for the Japanese forces of course, though it had hindered the effort nonetheless. After a couple of casualty ridden months, it seemed the Chinese forces were due to fall in a mere matter of days - though not all were so prepared to go down quietly.
Dawn had barely broken when I heard the final scream of a nurse on the next ward announcing the last living soul in the tent had finally taken. Everyone had been executed, patient and doctor alike, all, but me. I determined it was through some sick mix of luck and resourcefulness that I found myself under a puss-soaked sheet that fine dawn; the sole survivor of the morning's extermination.
I had concealed myself in the nick of time, posing as a cadaver in lieu of the young soldier with a severe gut wound I had been treating a mere half hour ago (he had died minutes before the attack, apparently to his good-fortune.)
I allowed myself the luxury of breath as I heard trucks pull away outside, believing the Chinese had completed their small-scale extermination and were now moving to the bitter horizon of their own. To my detriment, I was still shaking like a leaf whipped up in a foul wind as the clatter of several pairs of sturdy boots followed the purposeful swish of the ward's main curtain. My hopes melted as sure as a premier candle wax then.
Even then, some irrational lobe of my brain told me if I could just get the damn shaking under control they would pass by, revel in their handiwork and be gone to their imminent deaths. But how could I? I was a soldier hidden like a coward, afraid of my death at the hands of cornered rats. This shaking was my divine punishment.
An insufferable minute more elapsed, perhaps the insanity of waiting would have led me to give away my position had my shroud not then been torn away.
My dazzled vision eventually adjusted to the sudden brightness, in turn revealing the smiling eyes of my executionist. His frame was wiry; living on rations had evidently caused his small yet defined muscles to dangle off the bone. This lack of necessary sustenance had mercilessly worn the fat from his sharp features, accentuating the protruding cheekbones of his gaunt, skull-like face. He stood a head shorter than me, but as I lay transfixed on those smiling eyes rolling in that starved face, fear didn't hesitate in its manifestation.
To my horrific realisation, I did not see a man who was cornered, nor scared of his impending fate. I saw a man who had all the time in the world. It mattered not, that the Chinese would lose occupation of this territory in a mere few hours because that was hours away. This was now and he was here now - and so was I. In his field of malice, hope withered, merciless fear grew and I was the ground, primed to be cultivated with all the metal implements he had at his disposal. He knew he could afford to take his time.
I was stripped down to the skin and strung up to the hospital flagpole; they didn't spare in gentleness. The insignia of the rising sun sprawled defaced by my ankles. For a time my three captors did nothing, they just stood scrutinising every inch of my naked skin with bemused expressions, sucking acrid smoke down into their lungs. I thought soon enough they would ask me questions of some manner, my logical reasoning wound further as the sun rose higher and I perused the scarce list of possibilities as to why they would go to such trouble with me as opposed to those they had slaughtered so swiftly indoors. Did they believe I held some classified knowledge that would save their forces? Did they realise I was only a military doctor, almost every snippet of my knowledge concerning the battle tide coming from my patients who had managed to survive it? Why had they crossed all this way at this late stage of the battle and not retreated like the others?
And then he came again, his scrawny figure snaked up behind the other three. One glance into those baleful eyes and my myriad questions faded into one final solution - it was always the only feasible answer. He had come for me, only for me.
His strides across the still cool sand were agonisingly slow. He stopped mere inches from my sweat-soaked face; I could smell a rotting world on his breath. Despite my sun obscured vision, that was when I saw the resemblance. I recognised the point of that nose, the hood of the eyelids, even saw an apparition of the shock of black hair that should have resided where the stubble of his head now sat. It was impossible, but here he was, the man whose chest I bore a bloody hole straight through with my Type 2 Hamada two months ago, back from the dead, dizzy to claim his vengeance. I thought I knew what fear was, but there I realised I had been a fool to believe so.
Satisfied realisation had finally dawned on me, he backed away relieving me of his foul stench. Then the other three began.
The largest man's knee connected with my jaw in a jarring thud, my bottom teeth sank into the flesh of my tongue, flooding my mouth with the metallic taste of my own blood. The world span before my eyes as I realised it had finally started. With my arms tied behind my back, involuntary reflex tried in futility to draw them to my defence. My flailing nervous system kept up the spasmodic jerking of my arms, unwilling to register they were stuck fast thus leaving my shaking body vulnerable to the whimsical torture of the three men.
Every inch of my bare flesh was scoured with acid blows. Relentlessly, my blood splattering their faces and my own. They continued the obliteration of my body in high-intensity intervals, pausing only to allow me to agonise in the pain of my broken body before beginning the next remorseless assault. Skin turned to bruise, bruise turned to seeping flesh in a matter of minutes. I could do nothing to defend myself, I tried limply to slide down the pole and draw myself into a fetal position, instinctively using my knees as some form of feeble defence. I sat there, begging my torment to end under the freedom of internal bleeding. My hopes were destroyed as the rough hands of the second man dug under my armpits and pulled me savagely to my weak legs. As if in punishment for my attempted escape or just to make up for the firepower of the man who now had to restrain me, the two remaining upped the ante. After thirty minutes I swore every organ in my midsection had been punctured beyond repair.
At the midpoint, I was given an elongated rest period, my head rolled on my sagging neck; the pain in my torso so intense, so white-hot, my broken mind couldn't fathom how I was possibly still alive. I strained to lift my head, begging the Gods to end it then, questioning surely I had suffered beyond measure now. But I could see them again now through my hazy vision, extinguishing their brief cigarettes, coming again, how could they possibly be coming again? But they did. Again, rest, again, rest. Again. I felt my guts twist inside me, my kidneys screaming in agony for it to stop. My ribs cracked and scraped inside my chest with each blow. At some point, the world fell to black.
I opened my eyes suddenly as I hit the scorching sand, the tiny grains that filled my wounds biting me like razor shrapnel. Disoriented, I realised by some delayed act of mercy I had finally fallen unconscious after an hour of this merciless beating. As my hearing tuned back into the frequency of my miserable reality, I caught the back and forth slurs of a heated argument well underway.
The little Chinese I held to knowledge translated the anger of an unfamiliar voice, outraged at one of my three murderers for allowing me to fall unconscious. The dispute was decided by a single gunshot resulting in the limp form of the man who had administered the first blow to contact the sand with a sickening thud; his thick blood seeped toward me through the grains.
Soon enough, I felt the sharp toe of a boot lodge into the area of my aching ribs flipping me like a fish onto my back. Two of the remaining men clamped their dirty hands down on my bleeding wrists, revealing my convulsing stomach to the hot kiss of the sun. I opened my dust stung eyes to reveal the identity of the man who had fired the shot. The black eyes of a starved face returned my fearful gaze and I realised my torment so far had only been a taster of what was to come. Naturally, he had come in-person to pick up where his loyal dogs had left off. He withdrew his pistol and returned his smiling eyes to mine as he mounted me in a slow and measured manner; his putrescent breath catching the downwind.
In the dizzying moment, I reevaluated the structure of the man's face, noticing this time the creases that differed from the branded imprint of the ghostly apparition that haunted my restless nights. But this man was of flesh and blood, his image almost identical, but not exact. This wasn't him. No, this was his brother.
I strained my mind for his image in that dark trench two months prior, replayed every second up until the young Chinese had jumped me from the shadows, his glinting bayonet aimed toward my heart. My reactions were fast, I had dodged him colliding with a box of standard-issue helmets as I had done so. Before he could round on me, my hand had found the hilt of the pistol fastened to my damp thigh. The bullet had born a hole through his pulsing heart before realisation of what had happened dawned on his unplugged brain. His lifeless eyes beheld me, a dumb shock struck in them, before his legs gave way and his body snaked after; rifle clattering clumsily by his pale hand.
And now, as I lay surveying every groove of that arid, hateful face, I knew for sure - it was his baby brother I had murdered that night.
It was then that sense finally enveloped my witless perceptions of morality. I had agonised every night for the last two months over my own instinct to survive. Nothing more, nothing less. I wasn't evil, deserving of fiery inferno and torturous doom, I didn't deserve anything. The world was cruel and I had simply acted on my innate instinct to continue my meek existence on its fertile plain. Nothing more needed to be said on the matter.
He drew that ugly knife from its holster; taloned blade glinting in the yellow sun. His eyes came to life then; the black adorned with fire.
This wasn't justice, just revenge of one mortal to the next. I didn't deserve this, I never did. It was all faulty human perception, just guilt playing possum.
He brought the hot tip to my navel, his mouth finally cracking into that disgusting smile, the rotting breath now at its foulest and most potent intensity.
I was only asking for this the minute I started to think too much.
Then he did it. The anticipation subsided and the scorching point pierced my bare flesh spurting my fresh blood onto the already smeared canvas. Then he began to pull. The pain was far more intense than anything my merciless nervous system had so far managed to conjure. I felt every thread of my skin shred one by one, my awareness of everything so unforgivingly heightened, I knew there was no hope of phasing out again.
I wanted to cram my eyelids shut, but by God they were thrown so wide, the relentless sun threatening to burn the ocular jelly straight out of my sockets. I prayed; begged by the time the sun had risen to its peak in the next vile forty-seven seconds, my guts would lay in steaming coils on the burning sand, and I in a better place. Lest in that higher place the God's had sadistic plans for me too. Hope and faith seamlessly intertwined and fell as fragile concepts under the might of that steel blade as it so enthusiastically ripped my physical manifestation apart. I wanted to die, just to die so damn badly, yet still, I lived, the sole auto-biographical witness to the mere half-inch the blade had travelled - and the devastating mile it still had left to lacerate. I despaired.
And then she came. And that blade never moved more than that half-inch.
The absolute velocity with which she collided with the demon's body might well have killed him, had she not even bothered to tear his throat out three seconds later for good measure. I felt the clammy hands about my wrists slip away two seconds into the savage attack on the starved man. His bony hand reached out to grasp fitfully at the hot air, his body twitching spasmodically, blood still spurting from his dying heart. Then he stopped moving.
Ice fear had frozen the legs of the one on my left, and to his detriment, as she rounded on those powerful hind legs and made straight for his scrotum. His heartrending screams echoed across the plain forcing the third and final of her victims out of his hypnotic trance and into a dead sprint. He didn't get far. I turned my head from the massacre as the bloody entrails of my captor littered the sand in thick roll's and almost amusingly not my own. I heard her growl of bloodlust pass behind my head once more as she crossed back across the clearing to finish her work on the one minus his scrotum.
I fixed my steaming eyes on the sun until my vision was all bright spots; the multiple images filtered through my constant film of tears. His harrowing screams were silenced as the sun finally struck noon, and then it was over.
I heard her soft pads scatter loose sand as she padded over to my paralysed body. She sniffed me, almost cautiously at first (thinking back now, perhaps fear made me smell differently) and then affectionately licked my tear-streaked face with her pink tongue. She nuzzled me with concern when I didn't move as if to ask 'I'm sorry I took so long, I'm not too late am I?'
I eventually willed my rigid hands to move and took her face between my trembling fingers, her head eclipsed the relent of the sun; it was all so surreal. For the second time that day, instant recognition befell me as I looked into her face.
She was undoubtedly the mongrel I had secretly taken under my wing during the first week of the season. If the general would have known I was spending precious little time and resources on her cause whilst the lives of his men hung in the balance, she would have been shot immediately. But I've always been sly enough to keep a secret, even when I was nine years old my vigilant mother wasn't aware her rhododendron secretly harboured a shoebox containing an ailing young pigeon under my care (that story had a happy ending if you were curious).
In terms of the mongrel, she had a gunshot wound, most likely a stray bullet from the battle lines, that had almost sliced her inner thigh in half. Though unlike your case, the problem was a rifle bullet lodged deep into the tissue; a trickier situation. Nonetheless, I kept her out of sight, feeding her a share of my rations and tending to her wounds using my adapted knowledge of human anatomy whenever a rare moment of quiet found its way into my lap.
I admit my attempt at veterinary surgery was a little slapdash, but it sure as hell did the job. After a couple of days, she was walking again and after seven more, my little side-project had limped back off into the night.
After that, I'd see her pop up here and there around the camp, always skillfully avoiding the lax vigil of the watchdogs. I fed her whatever I could spare, enjoyed her company then bid her farewell into the night. Though she couldn't verbalise it, on choice evenings when she'd lay next to me under the glare of that unforgiving sky, I felt her display of gratitude towards me. In part, her affection kept my sanity knotted tightly in place throughout those hellish two months.
Until that day, she hadn't made an appearance for over three weeks, so you can understand how shocked I was to find that it was indeed her who had been my saviour. This life is so full of surprises.
After the initial shock had subsided, I finally felt capable enough to act and thus withdrew my hands from where they had been working their way through her soft fur. After one attempt to stand, I understood my legs were not going to work. I accepted this and instead squirmed across the burning sand on my lacerated flesh towards the slaughterhouse. Upon entering I relinquished a young major from the burden of his radio and issued an incoherent SOS, in which I so nearly forgot to give my location. Despite the pain, I couldn't bear to remain in that place and instead suffered the journey back outdoors to the tyre of one of the remaining Chinese trucks.
The events after that are hazy, the most I really remember is sitting hunched against the colossal tyre, holding her soft body against my knees and waiting numbly for the dispatch to arrive.
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The rest is a scattered blur of fragmented images of whitewashed hospital walls and nondescript clinical settings. Three weeks later the sensation had returned to my legs and I learned my temporary disability was apparently the mere fallout of psychological trauma. I was informed that by some miracle no one of my organs had sustained damage as severe as predicted, only my kidneys were in need of minor surgery and my multiple fractures were repairing at a satisfactory rate. A month later I was redeployed.
I should have been infuriated, at least frightened at the prospect of returning to that inferno that had nearly robbed me of both my sanity and life. But, I wasn't. In fact, so alien from the intermittent emotions of rage and fear, a sense of calm had filled me. My darkest nightmares had been realised and the world had failed to slip from its orbit, the war waged on and my heart continued to beat. During my stay in that antiseptic smog, I was granted a new gift of perspective. Though it wasn't until many years later, I came to realise in exchange for that gift, I could never return to my peaceful life in Japan.
I hung up my scrubs along with my infant notions of morality, replacing them with a rifle and steel blade. Five months into retraining it became apparent I had missed my calling as a cold-hearted killer, my skills swiftly besting those who had agonised in the nefarious field for far longer. After my epiphany, I always had something even the most disreputable of men did not. I had both dealt death and almost succumbed to its torturous blade, I had tasted the other side of reality and as a result, emotions for better or worse had entirely fled me. Before long, I was one of the best in my particular field of expertise. I would get the job done without hesitation and my superiors revelled in that knowledge - I was the finest blade in their otherwise dulled arsenal.
The rest is just as the history books will tell you, the war ended in the Japanese defeat and we finally made the long-awaited trip back on to Japanese soil. The tales of us individuals charged with the dirtiest of work, however, is something you will not happen across in the dusty pages of your local libraries chronicle of the 20th century.
I crossed the border of my hometown in Sakata neither thrilled or deflated. As I said before, emotion had left me - I was immediately restless in Japan. Even as the porch of my childhood home came into view, the sense of urgency didn't diminish. I knew then, as I climbed the steps to greet my mother, I had to get out of Japan.
As my mother cradled me in her arms, I felt something warm brush past my leg and promptly heard the excited thud of a strong tail stomping the ground. Time had greyed patches of her fur, but my saviour was just as I remembered her on the day I left her in my mother's care prior to my being deployed for the second time.
Holding her furry neck in my arms, I decided I would travel from then on, she would be the only company I needed. I had seen enough plains, deserts and land in my time, the sea called to me and it was the sea's seductive voice I followed.
We travelled the pacific to the end of her days, cashing in for this old boat a year into the voyage. That dog was my dearest ally and I owed her my life.
Chance has it, that warrior hound of yours happens to be the very same crossbreed as my Yuki. As if, in some crazy destiny, she handed her great-grandson to my questionable veterinary skill this fateful night. Perhaps everything isn't firmly rooted in logical coincidence.
All in all that's about the size of it. Perhaps I've rambled a little more than necessary, but it has been a while since I've had such a, ahem, captive audience, excuse the pun. That said, I believe my tongue wagging has served some purpose at least.
It enunciates the fact you should never, ever, feel like you deserve some retribution for what you did to survive. The hand of man is far too quick to profit on the opportunity to reprimand your sins. Such thoughts only land you in situations you never asked for and it's in your own best interest to cut ties with them now if you truly mean to survive in this cruel world.
And apart from fulfilling my duty in educating the next generation of accidental murderesses, I have my own reasons for my offer.
An old war dog like me can never settle neatly into retirement. Like I said, the very day I set foot on Japanese soil I knew I could never be at peace or belong anywhere again. I've been fighting the same old war for far too long - a disease without a cure perhaps. And maybe, all chips in, I'm doing this for me more than you, but for the heck of it, one last adventure, for old times sake.
And if I can help a young soul out of the rut I climbed into so long ago, well all the merrier. What do you say? ''
''Did you run across any trouble getting the bike this morning?''
Mei broke from her trance and looked blankly at the skyline that still bobbed aimlessly before her. She phased her attention back inside the boat and scanned the small space for the source of the intrusion to her recollection.
''Y'know a bike, two wheels, pedals, chain…?''
Mei's eyes fell on the back of Harumi's head where she crouched next to Shinobu, stroking the short fur at the nape of his neck. His eyes fell closed and his mouth slightly opened as he eagerly embraced the visible pleasure this simple action caused him.
Mei finally became aware she was an active participant in this conversation.
''What are you...yes, I mean no, no trouble at all - everything went without a hitch.''
Harumi's hand left Shinobu, to his grumble of displeasure as she turned to face Mei.
''I'm glad to hear it, Takamoto was worried the police or guys by the dock might have cottoned on already; I knew he was fretting too much. ''
Mei inclined her head in agreement.
The brief silence invited the elephant in the room. Harumi's regretful gaze fell on the reddened flesh Mei was absently clutching above her wrist. Harumi chose to address it first.
She rose unexpectedly, causing Mei to spring slightly as she strode purposefully across the room to where Mei still leant against the wall. Before Mei could protest, she took her cold hand in her own and lifted Mei's arm to her examining glare.
Mei reddened at the sudden scrutiny and cast a questioning glance at Harumi, demanding an explanation for the sudden invasion of proximity. Her vexed questions swiftly fell away however, as she noted the pooling tears in Harumi's pained eyes as she examined the small puncture wounds now set into the skin of her forearm.
''Does it still hurt?''Mei shook her head almost too readily to be entirely convincing, quickly withdrawing her arm from Harumi's warm palms.
'No, not anymore. It's fine.''
''I can't even begin to tell you how sorry I am, I - ''
Mei forced an uncharacteristic smile of reassurance, though the pain in her arm still bit her invariably.
''Like I said before, I understand. I'm not going to hold any grudges, not over something as frivolous as this, especially in the light of things.''
Harumi nodded gratefully and stared at her shoes still looking put out, Mei noted this expression and hastily began to restate her reassurance. She was cut short in her reiteration however, as Harumi stepped forward then unexpectedly embraced her. Though stunned by the unexpected display of affection, Mei returned the brief embrace gladly. She was happy enough their friendship had transcended the awkward small talk that would otherwise accompany minor fallouts ; the feeling to just move past the events of the grisly night as swiftly as possible apparently mutual. Perhaps, Mei wondered as she loosened her grip around Harumi, something positive after all had come out of last night's intimate resolution.
As Harumi turned her attention back to convincing Shinobu to swallow his pills, Mei mused on the question of whether this newly established physical contact between them would become a regular thing. Either way, at least things were now falling back to normalcy.
Mei found herself bemused, as Shinobu regurgitated yet another brick coloured pill, that this crazy rollercoaster of late was what she now considered normalcy.
/
#- Takamoto recounts an event from the war in which he was working in a military hospital and was almost murdered by the brother of a soldier he had killed in self defence two months prior. He was then saved from his grisly fate by a dog resembling Shinobu, whom he had nursed back to health during that time. - #