June 13th, 2022

Shion found that she actually quite liked knitting. It felt like she shouldn't: like it was too much of the person she was supposed to be, the softer, weaker, more fragile and feminine twin.

But somehow, she liked it anyway. She liked making something grow under her fingers, turning from a loose pile of meaningless string to a neatly-gridded web of warmth. She liked feeling the bumpy, soft lines of yarn under her fingertips, liked the satisfaction of how they felt all locked together, of how she had created a bright, fuzzy something from colorful threads of nothing.

And this blanket was to be special. Shion had been an intermediate knitter before, her needles clacking and scraping carelessly, even sulkily together as she had worked on whatever stupid ladylike project St. Lucia's had made her do, but now –now, she was glad of those skills that had been forced onto her. She could ask people in the village, of course –plenty of them knew how to knit– but Shion didn't want to. This was private. This was special.

She had even gone to Okinomiya for the yarn, ordered it in from a city far away. She wanted something softer, finer, warmer than the ordinary crafting-yarn and twine that they had in the stores here, in the rural mountains. She'd gone to the store herself, ordered it herself, paid for it out of her own pocket money, and carried the shopping bag home on her own. Other people might see, her sister and her mother and her father might see, but this was something…personal. Something for her.

Or, really, not technically for her at all, but the making of it, the way the knitted blanket grew under her fingers and her clacking needles –that was personal. That was something that Shion wanted to, had to do alone.

She had chosen the colors with care. Red was to be avoided, as vibrant and healthy as it was –it might remind Satoshi-kun of blood, of what she darkly suspected he had done to save himself and his sister. That would not be the first thing he saw when he awoke, the first color that she gave him. Shion was better than that. Orange was a lively color –but too lively, she thought, too energetic. The color would scream into his weak and tired eyes when he finally peeled them open.

Something relaxing, Shion had thought as she paged through the catalog of yarn colors, something nonthreatening and calm. Green was a good candidate, reminiscent of herself, but it might also remind him of the turquoise medical scrubs and the sterile blankets crowding in around him, harsh and unloving. Blue was out for the same reason.

Pink was a good color, though. It was a soft and kindly thing, something not at all reminiscent of blood or of hospitals or of anything but the first blush of the dawn –of childishness and soft toys and femininity, all things that would do him no harm.

Shion had picked out some purple yarn, too, a deep and rich bold color that reminded her of royalty, something saturated and bright that could not be mistaken by blinking blurry eyes as wine or blood.

She had woven another color into this blanket, a light faun brown that reminded her of gentle crumbling leaves, and the silky-soft dirt they left behind.

The patterns these three colors made as they wove in and out of each other were splotchy, striped and meaningless, but Shion didn't care. She wanted to bring color and life into Satoshi-kun's grey medical ward, give him something beautiful and warm to focus on when he awoke. She wanted to do for him what he had done for her, offer an unlooked-for and unexpected gentle protection, a sudden chivalrous boon, a gift. As Satoshi-kun had stood up to those thugs to support her despite his shaking legs, Shion would knit him a colorful blanket to awaken to, something to tell him that even though he had lain unconscious and forgotten for so long, there were still people that loved him, there was still someone who cared.

Shion smiled to herself as the knitting grew under her fingers, listening to the beeping of the machines at Satoshi-kun's beside.

9.40 PM, USA Central Time

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