Parasyte -the maxim-
Symbiosis
Chapter 4: Affection

Hideo stared at Kayoko in shock. He was, for the first time, feeling something other than nothing. He couldn't fathom what he'd just heard from her.

"What?"

Maybe he was hearing things.

"I know you've been killing girls, Hide. You can change your face to lure them in. You're a bad liar, you know." She smiled weakly at him. "If you need to eat human flesh so badly, don't you think it'd be better if I died than you killing random people?"

He wasn't hearing things.

He frowned, not liking the idea at all. It repulsed him, actually. "No. That wouldn't make anything better. Because I wouldn't like to see you get hurt." He paused, then repeated what he'd been saying for ages. "It's not right for you to die."

Her eyes widened. "Hide…" she managed, but he cut her off with a dark look.

"Don't bring up the subject again. I'd rather you hate me for killing people than hear you suggest that I kill you instead."

Yuko somehow knew now.

She knew, in her gut, that Hideo Shimada was one of the things that her brother was investigating.

Akiho had been joking when she suggested that Hideo's face was fake, but it stirred a thought in Yuko's mind. She saw the sketch that her brother had done for his investigation. She heard what he'd said about the things that were killing people.

Everything made sense. Hideo had to be one of the things that her brother was looking for. It was the only solution.

But she couldn't quite figure out how Kayoko fit into his plans.

If she even did.

Hideo sat next to Kayoko, sitting up straight and proper, while she held a pillow to her chest, snacking on some of her favorite chips. His eyes were only half on the movie that they were watching. Something about a man with wings and a girl who was cursed to become old. It was "anime," or so Kayoko called it.

"It's my favorite," she'd claimed, showing him the DVD case proudly. "Can we watch it?"

She seemed happy. Her eyes were no longer lifeless, like they had been after Shinichi completely trampled her feelings. They were twinkling at the mere prospect of being able to watch her favorite movie with him. Of course he agreed. It was only right that she was shining like that.

Every so often, she pointed at the screen, explaining certain plot points to him. She somehow knew what he wouldn't understand, such as the parts that had to do with the war and magic.

"Humans are so fragile," he muttered as he watched the main girl try to save the man she was in love with, walking through time in order to do so. "They become so blinded by love that they don't realize the consequences of their actions."

Kayoko glanced up at him. "Love makes people do crazy things," she murmured.

"I wouldn't know." He met her gaze. "My kind… we don't have the ability to love the way that humans do. I can't feel the same emotions that you do."

She frowned, her hand moving to rest on top of his. "Sure you can, Hide." She managed a small smile at him, her attempt to reassure him of things that he knew were false. "You're just like a human. Your kind can't be so different, can they?"

"Kayoko, my kind is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people." She flinched. It didn't escape his notice. "You lost people to the violence of my kind, too, didn't you?" Her eyes suddenly turned towards the floor.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she nodded. Her hand found its way to hold his, her fingers weaving between his as she held it. She was shaking.

"One of your kind killed my parents. They were turned into food for one of your kind," she admitted softly, tears welling up in her eyes. "The police told us that we should have a closed casket funeral. There wasn't enough of them to have an open casket."

Hideo did the only thing he knew would work. He tightened his grip on her hand.

She looked at him, a small smile forming through her tears. "It's okay, though. A lot of good things have happened, even from all these bad things," she said quietly.

"How can you be so positive?" he asked softly. "Your boyfriend, who was supposed to love you, beat you instead. Your parents, who were supposed to watch you grow up, were stolen from you by one of my kind. I don't understand how you still have the capacity to care so much about others… and especially about me. After all I've done, after all my kind has done, you still care about me. Why?"

Kayoko hesitated for a moment, sitting up straight. She ran her thumb over the back of his hand. "Well, people do bad things all the time, but we don't condemn all of humanity for the actions of a few." She smiled softly, feeling his skin under hers. "This body may have belonged to someone who hurt me, but you're the one who's here now. You, who decided not to kill me, even though you could have. You, who let me live with you, even though I'm sure you could survive on your own. You. Hideo Shimada. Even if you're not human, you're a better man than… than Hiroshi ever could've hoped to be." She sighed happily, her grip on his hand not loosening.

He looked down at her. He felt something stirring in his gut, and it was something that he couldn't quite identify. It was an unfamiliar something that he'd never felt before.

Felt.

His mind quickly scanned through the possibilities. It wasn't a negative feeling, that much was certain. It wasn't fear or anger. It wasn't hatred or bloodlust. It wasn't any of those things, the feelings that Kayoko would call "ugly feelings," because she claimed that feeling those things and holding onto them would cause them to leave a scar on the heart.

It was a positive emotion. Something that wasn't ugly. It wouldn't leave a scar on his heart if he held onto it, so he thought that maybe, he could keep it for a while.

He finally settled on the feelings of "pride" and "affection."

Pride for the fact that he'd kept Kayoko from dying at the hands of her abusive boyfriend and for the fact that he'd been the one to keep her from believing that all of his kind were as bad as the one that had killed her parents, even if that only applied to him.

Affection for the way Kayoko was. She was quiet, weak, and cowardly, shying away from any situations she deemed dangerous, but she was, maybe, braver than even Izumi. She could face her fears if she thought it was safe, and even trust other people, even if she was to be hurt. Humans were never very good at facing things that scared them, but Kayoko…

Kayoko smiled at him, an inhuman creature that was created for the sole purpose of survival, even if that meant killing humans in order to survive.

She smiled at him like he was human.

He felt something fall onto his shoulder. He looked down to see the dark-haired girl's head resting against his shoulder, her eyes closed as she breathed in and out. She looked content, even with the talk that they'd just had. Her hand still clung to his.

Her hand, which was small and delicate compared to his. His hand engulfed hers in its grip. It was just like her – fragile compared to him. But he didn't mind being the stronger one.

He could protect her if he was strong enough.

Sighing, he let his head fall back against the wall. She may have thought that he was a good person and, in her eyes, he might have been. But it didn't stop the fact that he'd hurt other people – not her – in order to keep his strength up.

"Should I stop killing?" he mumbled. "Would that make you happy?"

She didn't answer, but maybe that was for the best. Whatever she said would make his decision for him.

This was something he had to decide on his own.

Kayoko raced down the street, away from the school. She'd heard from Akiho that Hide had been called out by a group of older boys, some gang that had been harassing students from the school – including Shinichi – for the past few months.

She'd left her bag behind as she ran towards where the boys in her class said that they took their victims to fight them. She stumbled a few times, her weak body nearly failing her as she prayed that they wouldn't try to fight Hide before she got there. If she was there, she was sure that she could talk him down, but if she wasn't…

… it was sure to be a slaughter.

She panted as she turned the corner, skidding to a halt.

Hide stood near Shinichi, blocked from her path by a group of tall, intimidating boys. She bit her lip, hesitating because of the situation she'd just run into, but she knew that everyone else in the vicinity was in danger if they threatened him.

"Hide!" she cried, catching the attention of the boys. They all turned to look at her, even Shinichi, all of them showing the same shock on their faces. "Hide, what're you doing?!"

He was calm as he pushed past the boys, picking up the bag he'd discarded near the entrance to the lot. "I was telling them that they shouldn't pick fights that they can't win." He glanced towards the boys, his eyes radiating hostility. "And that if they try, they should be prepared for me to end them."

Kayoko frowned, seeing the hatred in his eyes. "I know you're stronger than all of them put together, but you shouldn't fight them. If you got serious, you could kill them. Please… don't hurt them. They're just dumb boys. They don't know any better," she murmured quickly, so only he could hear her.

Looking down at her, he nodded. "I understand. I wasn't going to go all out, anyways." He held up his hand, clenching it into a fist, as if that demonstrated the immeasurable power she knew he had. "It'd only take a portion of my strength to knock them all off their feet."

"Just promise me that you won't get into any stupid fights."

She held out her pinky, pouting childishly. Hide sighed, but nodded once more, holding out his pinky before interlocking it with hers. After a moment, he pulled away, offering his hand to her. She took it, a happier, calmer look on her face.

He turned back for a moment. "Izumi. I wasn't about to hurt them. At least, not too badly." He smirked, letting his words sink in for a moment before he pulled Kayoko away.

"Hey, Hide, wait! I left my bag at school!"

Shinichi cursed his strength and his hatred. He'd already managed to push away Kayoko after she tried to convince him that Shimada wasn't as bad as he seemed. He'd scared Murano even more as Shimada tried to talk to him, his survival instincts causing him to hurt her, even if it was just by accident.

He couldn't help but remember how Shimada and Kayoko had seemed so close, so comfortable with each other, as they faced off in front of the school.

She'd stood close to the parasite, practically hiding behind him. As if he'd noticed it, Shimada had shifted underneath Shinichi's glare, moving to block Kayoko from his sight. She'd shrunk even further behind him as he did. As Shinichi had yelled, losing his temper with Shimada and his speculations, Kayoko had latched onto Shimada's arm.

At first, Shimada looked as if he'd wanted to fight Shinichi. But after she whispered something in his ear, he'd backed off. He'd turned away without even a single jolt of hostility leaking from him.

"Migi," Shinichi began, glancing at his right hand, "do you remember what Shimada was feeling? What kind of signal he was radiating today?"

Migi opened his eye, staring at his host. He blinked. "Of course. He was mostly calm today, even during the time when he was being threatened by those humans. The only two times he spiked were when that girl appeared at the lot and when you raised your voice at him." He paused, then added, "But only the latter of the two was when Shimada showed any signs of hostility. The first incident was something else entirely. I'm unsure of what it was." He blinked, his lips frowning a little.

Scoffing, Shinichi fell back on his bed. "So, he gave off some sort of signal that you can't identify?" he muttered, glaring at the ceiling rather than at Migi. All of his focus was going to dissecting the enigma that was the parasite named Hideo Shimada. Shinichi just couldn't figure out his motivations.

"I can make a guess," Migi suddenly interjected. "From what I know of emotion, Shimada was radiating something that you would call 'worry.'"

Shinichi's eyes widened. "Worry? Why?"

"I can only assume it was because the girl interjected herself into a possibly dangerous situation," replied Migi easily.

Biting his lip, the human of the two moved his gaze back to the ceiling. He took a deep breath, thinking back to how Shimada had acted when Kayoko got involved.

"Worry, huh…?"

Hideo took a look at his hands. They were stained with the blood of a girl he had killed. He didn't even know her name. He just knew that she was an easy target. She was quiet, unsuspecting. She was probably a tourist who'd been lost in the city. No one would notice that she didn't come back with him.

But Hideo would know. He knew that he'd just hurt a human being again. He'd done it for himself, to sustain himself. And somehow, that repulsed him.

Sighing, he walked to the nearest public bathroom, staring at his reflection for a moment, seeing the blood splattered across his cheek. He turned on the faucet and let the blood run down the drain. As he did, he looked into the mirror, seeing his own blank eyes staring right back at him, like they were taunting him.

"What if Kayoko knew?" his reflection asked, taunting him with those blank eyes. "Wouldn't she hate you? Wouldn't she cry? She told you today. She stopped you from killing those boys."

"Shut up."

"You're a liar, Hideo Shimada. You don't deserve the name she gave you. You lied to her. If she knew, she'd never look at you the same."

"Shut up."

"She'll never trust you again. After all, she'll know that you could kill her, too. She'll know that you're just like the thing that killed her parents. A murderer."

"Shut up!" Hideo roared, feeling anger overtake him, much to his shock and horror. He found himself slamming his fist into the mirror, shattering it with all the strength that he had. He panted, seeing the blood run down his fingers, dripping onto the tiles beneath him.

This time, it was his own blood.

He backed up, against the walls of the bathroom. He slumped to the floor, watching as the red, human blood trickled down his palm. He bled just like she did. Her blood was red like this, too.

"Sorry, Kayoko," he muttered. "I'll stop now."