Broken
...Eighth Part: Dark...
Krad's injuries were healing well, but he still talked in his sleep a lot. On good nights, he might murmur my name or ask someone to stop whatever it was they were doing to him. On bad nights, he woke up terrified and crying. And on really bad nights... I generally woke to puncture wounds in my arms where his fingernails had dug into them, or the whole household woke to his screaming. As long as he was conscious, though, he was fine.
"So what do I do now?" Krad wondered at breakfast one morning.
"What do you mean?" I asked, puzzled.
"I have nothing to accomplish," he confided, poking at a sausage link in boredom and propping his head up on his fist. "At first, all I wanted as my own body. I have that now. I wanted to kill you and your little Daisuke – but now I don't. It would be utterly pointless now..." He glanced up at me for a moment and quickly averted his gaze again. "...and I would hate myself for it," he added. "And when I was captured... and..." Krad paused for a long while, glaring down at his food. "I... all I wanted was to escape. Now I'm free again, and Satoshi's already busy tracking that bastard down. I've done all that I could have there." He sighed and didn't say any more.
"I think you need some fresh air," I said. "After breakfast, how about we take a walk or something?"
Krad shrugged, but he started eating again.
. . .
"Do you always have this many people staring at you?" Krad complained, stepping a little farther away from me.
I flashed a smirk at a couple of girls who were waving as they walked by. Krad kept his eyes on the blond one uneasily as they went. "Jealous?" I teased.
Krad shook his head and looked down at the sidewalk.
"What?" There was obviously something wrong. "Was it that girl?" I was so confused.
"She had blond hair," he said simply, as if that would explain everything.
"Yeah. Well, so do you," I stated the obvious. "And lots of it. What's your point?"
"That exactly is the point," Krad insisted. "He likes blonds, Dark..."
Oh.
'He'.
"Did you tell Satoshi that?" I asked.
"No. I figured he would already have detected the pattern."
"Hmm..."
"There was one outlier, though..." Krad told me, looking over at me with puzzlement in his eyes. "A brunette – just one. She said her name was Amelia... She was thrown out before I was."
"Do you think she's still alive?" I wondered.
Krad kicked a rock sidelong across the street. "I doubt it. He only throws them away if they're dead."
I stopped walking, thinking that over. "He thought you were dead? ...Lucky break," I added as an afterthought.
"Lucky?" Krad scoffed. "The only reason I'm not currently getting eaten by maggots in some trash heap is because you found me, and like the strange man you are, brought your enemy home with you. Arbitrary coincidence, dear Mousy, not luck. Luck might've been if I were never kidnapped in the first place! If I would never have had by back turned! Or if I would've had enough energy to blast that damn place apart!"
I didn't know what to say.