Shattering pain. Sunlight on steel. The woman dying in the snow.
It always comes back to the woman dying in the snow.
Enishi shakes his head, not that it does anything to stop the visions, and he balls his hand into a fist.
"Oh! Please relax your muscles, sir," the nurse says from under his mask. "The vial is filling up too quickly."
More bloodwork. Blood on a pale cheek, a purple cloak. Blood in the sand, blood in the snow. The doctors ordered this test for gland irregularities, hormone level abnormalities, something like that. It's probably just a diversion to make up for the fact that no one can explain Enishi's constant hallucinations. He's already wasted so much time on brain scans, sleep studies, and psych tests that all came back as a punch to the face, a broken tooth inconclusive.
Enishi's phone vibrates.
::Where are you? I've been at the restaurant for 20 minutes::
Shit. It's Kamiya, the frustratingly cute Tokyo consultant on the Dao Island project, who always seems to stare too long whenever Enishi winces from the visions.
::Around the corner:: Enishi thumbs into the text box. ::Get me a vodka tonic.::
Kamiya pushes his drink across the table as Enishi slides into the chair in front of her. "Happy hour's over. You're paying for this one."
"Bill it to the client. 'Miscellaneous expenses.'"
"Can't do that." Kamiya blows her bangs out of her face. "My boss requires an itemization of everything."
"Your boss sounds like a boring rule-follower."
"No. He's just ethical. Kind, too." She smiles wistfully, and Enishi breathes through his jealousy. "I ordered the same appetizers we got last time so the waiter wouldn't make me move to the bar." A girl slams down a tray of food. 'If you cook for one, you might as well cook for two.'
At least that vision wasn't violent. Enishi takes a gulp of his drink so that Kamiya doesn't see whatever crazy expression is probably on his face. "Well, I'm here now. Tell me about your client's response to our proposal."
Kamiya tells him, and for a few minutes Enishi can mostly pay attention to what she's saying without the blood and pain welling up to the forefront of his mind. But then suddenly, there's a riptide -
The sword falls. The woman collapses, her small body cleaved apart, and the icy ground steams with a river of her blood -
"Yukishiro?"
So much blood, and Enishi reaches for his drink and a scream of grief echoes through the forest and he nearly knocks it over, but Kamiya catches his hand in hers.
There's the clink of silverware on plates. Soft dinnertime conversations. Unobtrusive instrumental music from the overhead speakers.
But not a single drop of blood.
Kamiya's eyes grow wide. She withdraws her hand, and the wailing grows as snowflakes melt in the slushy red mud so Enishi lurches forward and grabs her wrist.
"It all just - stopped -" she whispers.
Enishi freezes. His nails dig into her soft skin.
Kamiya stares back at him. "Can you see them fighting, too?"
Enishi swallows. "'Them'?"
"The guys beating each other to a pulp on the tropical beach. Do you see them?"
"It's usually a woman for me," Enishi answers hoarsely. "Beautiful. Dressed like she's in a historical drama or something. Bleeding to death in the snow." He closes his eyes and listens for the scream, but there's only the voice of a nearby waitress listing the daily specials. "These fighters, are they your only vision?"
"Visions? I always think of them as 'not-memories.'" Kamiya shivers, but she keeps ahold of Enishi. "It's not just fighters. It's all kinds of other people and sounds, too, and it's constant."
"Sounds about right," Enishi whispers, and for the first time in years, there's a new feeling - hope -- ?
"As soon as you touched me, they vanished." Kaoru claps her free hand over her mouth. "Sorry, I sound crazy. But the look on your face, sometimes - now, and before, too - I suspected that maybe you could see something similar."
"I guess I haven't been hiding it as well as you have," Enishi says darkly.
Kamiya looks down at her hand entwined with his. "This feels weird, holding hands at a business dinner - everyone's staring -"
"Do not let go," Enishi growls. The past two minutes have provided the greatest relief he's experienced in years.
At that moment, a huge plate of fried squid arrives at the table. The grease makes Enishi's stomach turn.
"Pack this up along with two orders of pork ramen," Enishi directs the server. One-handed, he fishes his wallet from his back pocket and slaps the company credit card on the table. Then he turns to Kamiya and squeezes her fingers once more. "Let's try something."
If Enishi had known he'd be bringing a pretty girl home to his place, he would have shoved his meds into a drawer, but he didn't, and there they are, all lined up on the kitchen counter, with each and every label printed with the extra large lettering he specifically requested for times when he couldn't find his glasses. He sets the takeout bags in front of the bottles and hopes that Kamiya doesn't notice.
She does, of course.
"I tried most of those too," she says quietly. "Looks like they've got you on an anti-anxiety regimen, plus, what, pain relief?"
Enishi nods slowly. "What do they have you taking?"
"Just sleeping pills right now. I had some low level antidepressants, but I weaned myself off when it was clear they weren't doing anything to stop the not- the visions." Her stomach growls, and her face flushes. "Sorry."
Enishi glances down at their glued-together hands, then back to the takeout. "I need both hands if I'm going to get us set up for dinner."
"Oh. Right." She loosens her grip but doesn't let go.
"This is the first part of the experiment," Enishi says, trying to talk himself into releasing her. "Ready?"
Kamiya nods quickly. "Ready."
He drops her hand. "See anything?"
She blinks. "Not much. Just - the surf breaking on the sand. Seagulls crying. That's about it." Excitement dawns on her face. "You?"
He closes his eyes. A light wind rustles the tree branches. There's smoke - no, sulfur - wafting on the breeze. "I'm not completely free of hallucinations either, but they're not as bad as usual."
"Let's see how long we can go, then," she says with a smile that lights up her face, the kitchen, the whole apartment.
Enishi looks away.
It takes Enishi and Kaoru many nights of sweaty-palmed hand holding over takeout - and it takes Enishi a few one-off dates to confirm that the contact is specific to one person, and not to women in general - but eventually they both conclude that the longer they touch one another, the longer they can extend the length of time between visions.
"I think the amount of skin-to-skin contact affects the visions, too," Kaoru says off-handedly one night while they're sitting hip to hip on the couch, scrolling through the streaming options.
Enishi inhales, and he can smell her shampoo and the last traces of her perfume, and perhaps he'd be trying to get this activity going in an even more enjoyable direction if rivers of blood weren't currently gushing through his brain.
"Have you noticed that?" Kaoru squishes closer to him. "If proximity solved the problem, we wouldn't be experiencing the visions right now, but I'm still getting all the usual garbage. Aren't you?"
Vultures swoop down from the skies as the scent of carnage wafts up from the forest floor - "Yes." Enishi grimaces. "Let's go back to holding hands."
Kaoru bites her lip and looks up at the ceiling. "I think - what if - ugh. I'll just show you." She sighs, clearly embarrassed, then pulls her sweatshirt over her head to reveal a loose, narrow-strapped camisole and a lot of smooth skin. "It might be awkward, but maybe we could try watching TV cuddled up like this? I promise I'm not trying to hit on you," she adds.
"I know that," Enishi snaps before he can stop himself, and a gunshot rings out across the bay as a woman screams. "You've already told me how you're desperate for your boss to leave his wife -"
"That's not what I told you. I said I care about him more than I should. It's shitty of you to try and throw that secret in my face. You know what, forget it -"
"Wait." Enishi grabs her hand. The last thing he wants is to hear more about Kaoru pining over her stupid boss. "I want to try your idea." He unzips his polar fleece and tosses it to the floor. His sleeveless gym shirt feels even thinner than usual under Kaoru's hard gaze.
"Wow. You're in really good shape," Kaoru says, her voice low in her throat, the previous topic of discussion apparently forgotten.
Enishi flexes his muscles just a little, and it's gratifying to watch Kaoru's eyes widen. He pulls her close.
The relief from the visions is immediate. "You're right. This is a good plan," he says, though a new problem is quickly manifesting itself: without the visions, his unclouded mind is entirely focused on the very pretty bare-shouldered woman in his arms who is not at all interested in him like that.
She looks up and meets his eyes. "Ready to watch something?" she asks with a smile.
"Sure. You choose," he says quietly.
She selects a popular KDrama and settles against him, and he spends more energy soaking up her warmth than paying attention to the silly plot of the show. "This feels really nice," she says after a while.
"Yeah," he agrees. "How long do you think we can keep the visions away doing this?"
"I don't know. But I'd be grateful for a few quiet hours." She wraps her arm around his waist and rests her head against his chest. She yawns as she continues, "Maybe we can work up to a whole day eventually."
Enishi laughs too loudly, and he tries to concentrate on the show instead of replying. But after a few minutes, he can't help himself. "How much skin contact do you think we'll need to share for a whole day of peace?" he dares to ask.
Kaoru doesn't answer.
He looks down at her. Her eyes are closed, and she's breathing evenly.
He strokes her cheek softly. "I hope we can find out someday," he says, and he turns off the television.
