Chapter 43
I don't let a whisper of sound escape my lips as they drench my wounds in disinfectant and sew me up. The scars are starting to collect - little constellations that will never fade. At 24, I look like a doll that's been stitched and stuffed back to morbid completion.
Can you get in the shower?
I don't answer.
I feel like I gave all of myself to Ichihiro - gave something essential that should have never been in the equation of our relationship. The truth is that no matter how unashamed I am that I just killed him, he and I held a special bond that's now gone. All of the memories of my brother's last days are gone now. I wasn't there for any of their births but I had thought that I would be there for their deaths. It would have been something I could give them - the desperate courtesy of someone who had taken too much and given too little back in return. Ichihiro had taken that from me. I hadn't realized the twisted, grotesque thread that connected us until the moment that it was all done.
I didn't regret doing it. But I did regret the way that it was done.
You've been in there for a while.
The cream tile beneath me is still tinted pink, the water sloshing into the drain dyed from the blood still coming out of my clothes.
Mori, please talk to me. Minoru pleads on the other side of the door.
I shut my eyes, letting my senses slip into the feel of water pelting down at me, the feel of my clothes getting heavier and heavier against my bruised, battered body. I feel worn, tossed around and discarded and… sick. So fucking sick. Sick of feeling this way. Sick of hating myself so much. Sick of wanting things to change or reverse or just fucking stop.
I bow my head, reaching forward blindly to turn the heat all the way up until it burns.
I can't get through the door. Hisoka's here. There's an edge of worry to his voice that makes my head hurt. Another person that I can't force myself out of the mud for. I want to laugh but even that sound evades me. I'm sending him in.
My mouth still tastes like regurgitated food and stomach acid and against all odds, the pain of fresh stab wounds is starting to filter in.
"What are you doing to yourself, sweetheart?" I blink hollowly up, the overhead lights making Hisoka look like one big shadow - the boogeyman, the devil brought to life. But when he crouches next to the open shower door, his body bunching down so that he can take in my withered form pressed into the corner, his features snap back into perspective. The red, wild mess of his hair, the soft tilt to his cat-like eyes. Blood it smeared across his forearm and my eyes can't leave it for a moment - mine or Ichihiro's? His hair is oddly flat, pieces wilting down to curl along his ears and temples.
He's had a hard day.
I can relate.
"Come on," he murmurs and his voice is so gentle that for a moment red-hot rage burns up in my gut, heating my throat. I don't want gentle. I don't want anything. I don't want his pity or his kindness or whatever fucking bullshit he's concocted for the night.
My voice bites out, my knees curling closer to my chin as I snarl out at him - an animal cornered. "Did you know? Did you know that it would be like this?"
Killing Ichihiro was supposed to be the answer. It was why I was running so hard, so fast. I needed to learn nen. I needed to let Eimear beat the shit out of me and rub my face in the dirt. I needed Illumi to break my back open with a tree. I needed Hisoka - I needed him to open me up like a ribcage being split for organ harvesting. I needed all the pain and the fucking awful decrepit shit because that was going to get me to Ichihiro. That was going to get me to the answer I needed - the answer that would make it all better. Make missing my brothers so much that I wanted to reach inside of myself and pull out every beating organ just so I wouldn't hurt so much anymore. Make feeling like such a loathsome creature because of what I did to my own mother worth it. Make all of this make sense. Make it be for a reason.
What had happened in that stairwell wasn't my reason. It didn't solve anything. It was nothing - a drop in the darkness that I had begun to cultivate in myself.
Hisoka's face softened, all of those savage lines gentling into quiet understanding. I hated him in that moment. Hated that he was looking at me with all of that compassion. It meant something different between us - these looks. It meant that he had the upper hand. It meant that he had gotten to see me weak. His voice was low when he finally answered me. "I told you that some days it would be worse."
"You didn't-" I stopped, turning my face into the wet, giving flesh of my arms as my voice broke. I swallowed, forcing down the tears. "You didn't tell me that killing him would - would-"
"Feel so much like an ending?" he supplied softly and just like that all of my rage seeped away. I hated him for being right. I hated that I understood him so well. His eyes searched mine, seeing parts of me that I wasn't really sure I wanted to give. More than the wet, broken girl sitting beneath shower spray that would turn her skin into a giant, beating wound. "Did you want it to be glamorous?"
My brain spun with the word - the whole question sticking to me like spittle. Indignation rose inside of me. I spat the word back at him. "Glamorous?"
His expression didn't change, his brows furrowed. Steam was beginning to flatten his hair even more, telling waves starting to appear in the scarlet strands. "Did you want people to see you kill him? To cheer you on?"
The words stung. Is that what I wanted? "I-"
"Did you want to go into Heaven's arena and have all of those faceless people on your side?" His voice deepened theatrically, his brows lifting for a moments. "There's Ichihiro - the man that killed Mori Amori's beloved brothers. Watch as he grovels. Watch as he begs. Is that what you wanted?"
I tried to work around a response - fighting against the image of people - a whole crowd of people finally, finally on my side. Feeling my pain. Feeling my hurt and agreeing with my decision to end Ichihiro's life. It was a fragile, little thing - make-believe like that. Because who in this godforsaken town cared about anything that I had lost?
His face shifted slightly as he watched me flounder for words. "Did you want him to put up a better fight? To make you feel like you earned ending his life?"
"I-" I stopped, shrinking back into myself more. He had been so weak, so small in that stairwell. The villain that I had painted had disappeared somehow, vanishing into that distant figure from all those months ago.
I felt myself trying to hold on, grappling to keep that image of him I had had for so long. How could he be so weak now? How could he be anything less than what he had been so long ago?
Long fingers tipped my face toward him, nails pricking at the skin of my cheeks as he forced me to meet his gaze. "We don't live in a fairytale, Mori. Our endings don't make everything better. This is real life. These are the consequences that come with every decision you make that seems so easy. You killed him and he deserved to die. He deserved every bit of pain that you gave him. The man that slaughtered your brothers is dead now. What do you want? You want his death to mean anything other than an end to this chapter in your life? You want it to all make sense - all the pain that you've had to go through? All the death and suffering? All the things that you've given up? You wanted life to finally acknowledge it all and make you feel something other than the emptiness that you've created to make room for your revenge? And now that that revenge is met? Now that it's fulfilled? What happens to all the things you had to get rid of to create space for it?"
A sob worked its way up my throat, bubbling out into the wetness of my arms. His words struck through me, lancing me to my very core.
"You and I aren't heroes," he whispered and I hated that he understood me so well. How did he know? How could he know so well what this felt like? "Things that seem like treasure can turn into trash in a matter of seconds."
The words rang through me, familiar. He had said it once before to me while we had been training. Perhaps I just hadn't been listening. Perhaps I wouldn't have been able to understand until this moment.
He helped me to my feet after that, shucking off my shoes and socks in silence after turning off the water.
"Can I help you out of your clothes?" Such an odd request. I stared up at him blankly. Hisoka seemed like the sort of person to take what he wanted - the sort of person who lacked manners. His smile was a small, bitter thing. "I don't dine down for dinner. Taking from the weak is beneath me."
And I was weak right now.
Mindlessly I took off my pants and underwear, helping him slip away my tank and bra and leaving them in a wet heap in the shower. There was nothing sexual about how he handled me - no lingering touch to the way he wrapped the towel around me, squeezing the water from my hair. He moved around me in concentrated care, his hands diligent and short as he took care to dry me as best he could, his head bent toward me in diligence that almost frightened me. Hisoka always had an angle. It was just becoming harder and harder to find one this evening.
Is she okay? Minoru got up quickly, nuzzling at my bare feet as Hisoka carried me to the bed on the other side of the room. He lumbered after me, buzzing around my face in anxious attention. Are you okay?
Yes. I murmured through our bond, bringing out a hand to run along his maw in tired reassurance. I'm sorry for worrying you.
His flank quivered in a deep breath out, his eyes closing momentarily as he leaned into my touch. It's fine. You're fine. Thank god, you're fine.
My mind spun restlessly, pulling the robe tighter around me. I killed him, Minoru. I killed Ichihiro.
His eyes burned obsidian, his face becoming unreadable. I know.
Without you.
I know.
It all felt so wrong. I shrank further into myself, exhaustion making me feel small and used.
I'm sorry, I breathed through our bond, our nen going tight as a cord for a single moment before loosening once more.
His eyes gentled. I know that too.
I searched his face, shame burning hot in my chest. There was still so much to be said - too much for tonight. Too much while I could barely keep my thoughts right. Hisoka sat quietly at the edge of my bed, his eyes distant as he stared around at the small level 100 room. He was higher in the tower, his position already stable as I knew it would be. He must be used to rooms fancier than this one. Although I wasn't sure that he had never been in my position. In him, I could feel the same bitter pull of someone who had had to crawl their way to the top.
I dragged a hand over my face, rolling to face the blank white walls of the room. Behind me, I could hear Hisoka murmuring something softly to Minoru. When they had started talking was beyond me. They eventually stopped, Hisoka's body a gentle reminder beside me, his body weight weighing down the bed until my back was pressed to his, his hand leveled beside my shoulder. My thoughts drifted, tumbling together into a haze of words and phrases that I could barely grasp. Hisoka's words had eased some of the emotions that had been scraping me clean but there was still a gaping hole inside of my chest - an emptiness that felt bigger and bigger the longer I sat with it.
Things that seem like treasure can turn into trash in a matter of seconds.
Treasure - what else was I holding onto like that?
I whipped around with a speed that surprised even me, reaching up, my nails digging into the side of Hisoka's face as I hauled him closer. His aura withered along mine, lashing out for one testing moment before settling, his body relaxing into my hold. Those golden eyes of his burned down at me, his breath deep and steady along my lips as he waited.
"Will you become trash one day too?" I whispered and my fingers made harsh indents into his skin, digging and digging until anyone else would have pulled away in pain.
Instead, his smile deepened, his eyes heating with barely contained interest. "Maybe." That smile was utterly humorless, sad in a way that seeing something that you had purposefully let go of could only be. "I trust that you'll throw me away if that day ever comes."
We stayed like that for too long, his big body poised at the edge of my bed, my fingers curled around his jaw, digging into his cheek with a ferocity that the stillness contradicted. Measuring. Waiting for the other one to move or speak. He could have broken my hold at any moment - yanked me around like a ragdoll if he really wanted to. Instead, he relented, submitting to what I wanted in an intoxicating display of docility.
I slowly unclenched my fingers, watching the red marks that bloomed on his ivory skin in my wake. His smile turned a bit crooked, his eyes darting to keep track of my fingers as I brought them back to my side. My eyes stayed with his, watching him as he watched me sink back down onto the mattress before I finally turned my back to him once more, the cold, white walls meeting me once more.
The bed shifted behind me, his warmth slipping away just as quickly as he had arrived. "You learned a good lesson today, Mori. I think you deserve a rest."
I shut my eyes. I wanted to burn that stairwell to the ground. I wanted to rip off Ichihiro's head one more time. I wanted to stop thinking about the way the things that he had told me about my brother's last day. I wanted a lot of things and I would say that I deserved a lot of things as well.
Sleep wasn't one of them.
Please leave a fav/follow or a review if you like it!