Disclaimer: I wish I owned Wild Adapter. I'd even settle for EC. But I don't. They belong to Minekura.
Summary: A theoretical outlook on some aspects of Wild Adapter. My latest hypothesis on where the story might be headed – The conclusion.
Warnings: Spoilers for WA, of course. Also, this is a BL manga, so expect there to be boy's love in this, though I think it's safe to say this chapter doesn't have anything that overt. You all are NOT gonna be happy with me at the end of all this - just a warning.
Seventh Heaven Chapter 4 – Jouyatou
The rain had started by the time I finished my delivery. It had been threatening all morning, and finally with a crash of thunder that made me look to the street expecting an accident, it began to fall. A silver sheet, shimmering in the dim light, the blur of liquid occluding my glasses. I took them off and slipped them into a pocket of my trench. No depth perception and blurred shapes were easier to deal with, in a storm like this.
The water soon rushed like a river in the gutters, and pools were beginning to form on the darkened pavement at the low points. Cars drove by slowly, cautious in the torrent, yet still managing to splash murky water onto my feet and lower legs. Thoughts of the warmth of the apartment crossed my mind, and I picked up my step slightly. I was quite a ways away, and the chill of the rain had already soaked its way through my trench and reached my skin.
Tokito would probably still be asleep, curled up in a little ball underneath the covers. This thought brought a slight smile to my lips, a pale amusement in comparison to the way days like today normally made me feel. I tried not to think about it, the silence that enveloped me and the memories that surfaced with the rain. There is a taste that comes with the rain, the soft scent of ozone created by the flashes of lightning, metallic and crimson and flowing. Bringing back memories that slept in my heart these days, drugged and ignored by the presence of the now, the warmth of a stray cat.
Stopping at the corner, I drew out a damp cigarette and spent a moment struggling to light it. Finally my lighter caught, and I fought the rain that wanted to extinguish the small, red ember.
Fucking weather. Why the hell did it have to rain like this? Couldn't it at least have the decency to wait until I had gotten home? I was soaked, a few blocks from home still, and it was fucking cold! The apartment would probably be cold, too, since I hadn't thought to turn on the heater. Like I knew it was going to rain. Kubo-chan's the one who reads the paper and watches the news, not me.
I glared at the rain around me. If it had been human, it would have apologized and disappeared from my presence for at least a week. People know better than to mess with me when I'm in this sort of mood. But it had no effect on the rain. I still glared at it, though. Just a few more blocks, and then I'd be back at the apartment.
As I neared the door to the building, a familiar figure drew close from the other side. My footsteps slowed to a halt of their own accord. Seeing the familiar movements, knowing immediately who it was, my anger vanished, replaced by a numbness with overtones of something uncomfortable that I didn't want to think about. I have to run away. The thought surged up, but I bit my lip and waited.
"Nice weather, don't you think?" He asked as he got to me, a slight smile playing on his lips against the gloom that was in his eyes. His glasses were off but I knew he knew me. He always did, regardless of whether he had his glasses or if it was dark. I opened my mouth to speak, but couldn't find the words, and claws tore at my heart. Before I could let the uncertainty stop me, I shoved my hand into the pocket of my jacket and shoved the crumpled paper that was there at him.
Taking it, his head cocked to the side slightly in curiousity and slight confusion, he slipped his glasses out of his pocket to look at it. Unfolding the wrinkles and examining the picture, he was silent for a moment. I never understood how people could say that a moment could last forever until now.
"Ah." Was all he said as he folded the picture back up and then held it back out to me.
"Don't say 'Ah'.." I snapped, a surge of irritation breaking the numbness. "What the hell is that?"
He took a draw on the dying cigarette in his mouth, and exhaled while dropping it to the ground. The hiss of the dying ember, and then he shrugged. "A picture?" I ground my teeth for a moment before he spoke again. "Looks like it was printed off the internet." His hand holding out the picture dropped back to his side when I didn't take it back.
"What I'm asking is, what's up with this company you were part of? Why didn't you tell me anything about it?" I spit out, knowing full and well what he would answer.
"You didn't ask." He said flatly, slightly shrugging his shoulders again.
"I'm asking now." And then I waited. I didn't care if we drowned in this rain, I would wait forever until he told me.
He studied me for a moment, taking in every detail of my stance like he does sometimes, as if his eyes were x-rays seeing through me to the bone. Then he sighed, and struggled for a moment to light another cigarette. The minute change in his stance instantly told me he was going to speak, and a blackness closed over my heart. I hated it when he made me feel like this, like I didn't know what would come tomorrow or the day afterward, like I didn't know where I was even though I was right there next to him.
Taking a deep draw, he exhaled, the fog of smoke dispersing almost instantly, obliterated by the falling drops. "Yeah. I worked for Kou-san back then. I've worked off and on for him for quite some time." He paused, and it seemed like his words were forced. Slow, as if he wasn't used to speaking. "We tested some drugs. Then we shut it all down."
Nothing I didn't know. And nothing that I wanted to know. "You…" The words didn't want to be asked, they wouldn't come out right like I wanted them to. But I had to know. "You're Akira-san?" I clenched my right hand into a fist, feeling the leather pull tight, staring at the pavement at my feet. I couldn't look at him as I waited for an answer.
He drew on his cigarette, fighting with the rain as the ember hissed and popped. I knew he was studying me again; I could feel his eyes. Finally, forced again, I heard his "Yeah."
Flashes of the bits of memory in dreams ran through my mind, and I found I was shaking, that my fists were clenched so tight that the glove had ripped and my nails had pressed into my palm. The trickles that I knew were blood were warm next to the trickles of the rain. I looked up at him, saw him, that shape that haunted my dreams so often. "Is that why you picked me up?" I spit out, anger seething in my voice.
His eyes matched mine, and a look of understanding settled onto his face. Letting his cigarette drop to the ground, he stepped forward, one hand reaching out, palm up and offered to me. "You will always belong only to me…" His whisper resonated in my ears, ringing like a bell as my vision faded, red and water and salt all mixed together in a wave of warmth and fury and the feel of tearing flesh.
It didn't hurt. That surprised me, as I fell to the cold pavement with the warmth rushing down my chest. It was like my feeling were reflected back at me, looking up into that familiar face that I knew so well. Shock and horror, realization at what he had done. I felt his hand slide out of the wound, a sensation that I had never imagined I'd feel but couldn't help but find interesting. A new experience, I suppose. I couldn't help but chuckle, even though it sounded more like a gurgle. There was pressure in my left chest when I drew breath in; he probably had punctured the lung.
"Ku… Kubo-chan?" His face paled slightly as he looked disoriented, a sickly look crossing his face as he looked at his right hand as if for the first time. All of the anger that had driven him washed away like the stream of my blood that I could see draining into the gutter, streaming across the sidewalk bright crimson. It should have been black. It would have been right if it were black.
I turned my head back to his face, away from the sidewalk. In the end, it didn't really matter, that crimson. Nor did the heat, the burning that I felt, the slipperiness. Blood or viscera, it didn't matter. All that mattered were those arms, pulling me up, enveloping me. The heat of his chest. Everything was fading into a dye of pure black. A flash of memory of Komiya's unseeing eyes looking up at me. Is this what Tokito would see?
It seemed to take too much of my strength, to raise my hand, to find his cheek. But it was soft, as I knew it would be, and a sudden thought brought on a slight nausea in my chest. This would be the last time I'd feel this softness. The proverbial three weeks had passed, and it was time for another new item.
"Kubo-chan…" His voice was a sob and I knew he was crying. I never was able to cry, not like that. I never was able to feel, not like that. He taught me to feel. He taught me to live… He taught me to…
The warmth was beginning to fade and I knew it would be over soon. There was one sentence left unsaid for so long, too long. The cats I had buried couldn't say it when their time came, so I forced myself to say it for the cat that buried me.
"I loved you."
The blackness that I sank into was warm and salty, and smelled of Tokito.
