Shirotani's eyes stared forward in a daze, wild and wide and skimming across the alleyway. He glanced down to where he sat, watching as the blackness crawled up his hands, bit at his hands, and engulfed his shaking fingers. His sight blurred as thick tears once again began to stream down his cheeks. His ragged breaths began to hitch as he focused on the germs all around him.
Kurose bent down to Shirotani, and adjusting the jacket he had lent the man, he tried his best to cover his exposed chest. He looked down to Shirotani's pants, noticing the trace pieces of vomit still clinging to the fabric.
God, it hurt him so much to see his companion like this. He wanted nothing more than to hold him close, to embrace him in an effort to comfort, but he knew that in Shirotani's eyes, this would only irritate the situation further.
Kurose ran a hand through his hair, hushing his voice to a quiet whisper.
"I know that you can't stand the idea of sitting on the ground, so please try to keep your legs and arms inside my jacket. That should reduce how much contact you have with the cement. I have to run to the store to grab you a shirt, so please stay here until I return. I won't be longer than five minutes."
He waited a few moments for any terse reply, but noticing Shirotani's horrified stare through him, he decided it best to start his task as soon as possible and return to his side. And so, Kurose stood from his position and jogged from the darkness of the alleyway and back into the sea of bodies basking in the artificial light just feet away.
Shirotani clung hopelessly to the jacket loosely hung on his shoulders, and seeing the black once again approach on him, he struggled in vain to fit his entire body onto the fabric. He lifted his hands close to his face, seeing nothing but the corroding skin and blackening fingers. It was advancing up his body, tainting Kurose's jacket and everything it touched. His face twisted in a grotesque expression and he squeezed his hands together to cease all feeling in his fingers.
Everything here is dirty I'm dirty I'm dirty I'm dirty I can't escape it it's crawling on my skin and in my mouth and under this jacket and on the jacket and
The man's hot breathing escaped as ragged hyperventilating, and though he tried his best to take his mind from the situation, he couldn't escape the looming feeling of disgust and shame, of how the passing woman had glared at him with such pity and Disgust.
Before he could fully understand the situation, Shirotani was rising from his position in the alley, using an already-tainted hand to grab the wall and hoist himself up. Realizing the wall to be unclean, he recoiled in shock, brushing against the opposite wall in his backwards steps. His hitching breathing drove him to further hysteria.
I have to get out of here everywhere is dirty I can't stay here my stomach my hands my legs they're all dirty I have to wash them I can't sit here I can't do it I need to wash I need to wash
Shirotani's pitiful eyes looked all around, but settling on the entrance to alleyway, he disregarded Kurose's request. The swirling lights and the chattering voices and the anxiety attack and the germs and the fear and the disgust all pushed him away from the alley, wishing him closer to his own apartment to disinfect. The man began to walk, clinging to the warm jacket as though it would protect him from all of the germs and taint in the world.
And then he left.
