Trigger Warning:
- PTSD nightmare
- self-harm
- hints of depression
- implied sexual assault
- mention of rape
- panic attack
It has been just over a week since I spoke to Sasaki-san.
Within that time, I have juggled my work-study, two exams, visits with Mom, and evidence collection.
I'm burnt out.
On a happy note, I did well on my exams.
On a troubling note, Selene's health is deteriorating, which snatches all the joy.
Every Saturday evening a car comes to pick her up; every Sunday evening she is dropped off. Within those twenty-four hours, I have no clue what happens to her inside the Hanada manor. During those twenty-four hours, I function restlessly.
My intention was to keep her away from Hanada-shi as much as possible. But if we are going to amass proof, there is no choice but for her to return there every weekend. It is a necessary sacrifice to achieve the goal, but it bothers me every time I have to let her go.
Hence in spite of my exhaustion, I am unable to sleep this Friday night.
Selene and I lie in her bed. The crescent moon peeps from beyond the slight gap in the curtains, filtered further by the white mosquito net, illuminating the room partially. The light dances across Selene's features, mesmerizing me in their movements.
Her chest rises and falls steadily. The braid has come undone. I watch her eyes flutter in the dreamscape her mind has drifted to. She looks at peace. That brings me some consolation. I release her hands and push back some stray strands of hair that tickle her nose. "Your dream must be beautiful," I murmur. "I wish I could join you."
After she had come back that Sunday evening, I explained the situation to her. She agreed to play her role and gave me Ahearn-san's contact information. But something had caught my attention. Selene appeared … how should I put it … deader. There is no such thing as being more dead, but it was the best way I could describe it. Her movements were more slow and sluggish than usual, and her eyes lost some of their luster. As soon as I finished talking, her attention drifted elsewhere. Somewhere deep inside herself. It took me two minutes to bring her back to reality. She apologized, claiming that it was the first time she had been so unfocused. I knew better, though. She may not have realized it, but since the implementation of the dormitory system last summer, her mental stability slowly began to waver.
Every week she spends a day and night at the mansion. I know nothing of the events there, but I see their consequences. Every week she returns, having devolved into the chasm of insanity a little more.
She smiles at me and brushes off the pain for my sake. Yet I cannot appreciate it when I understand that evasion does not erase the problem. It is a constant reminder that there is no time to spare. The longer it takes to gather evidence, the more Selene's mental health will spiral out of control. The more I risk losing her.
So as I watch her sleep, I contemplate my next moves to keep her safe.
Tomorrow, I should call Ahearn-san. London time runs eight hours behind Tokyo time, so if I call during the late evening, it should be early afternoon there. That means I must reach out to her when Selene is not here. In that case, telling Selene to carry a recording device on her persona might be a good start. If she catches anything incriminating, we can make a backup file for that.
I have just started figuring out what to do if she gets apprehended by Hanada-shi when Selene hisses.
I snap out of my thoughts. Her eyes are still closed, but they are clenched together. Her breathing becomes rapid. Since I freed her hands, she clutches the bedsheet with tight fists. She writhes in place, legs kicking, head swiveling.
I don't understand what's happening to her. Sitting with legs folded, "Selene?" I call out. No response. Of course, there is no response. At least, not the one I want. Her lips move. A sound comes out, but I cannot make sense of it. Bending down until my ear is close enough to her mouth, I listen.
"Please, don't do this!" she gasps. A chill runs down my spine. "Whatever it is you want, I will give it to you. Just not this. Spare me, please."
Urgency seizes me. I say her name again, louder this time. "It's a nightmare, sweetheart! Nothing more. So wake up! No one is going to hurt you." It is useless. She cannot hear me. What do I do?
I touch her cheek.
And everything descends into pandemonium.
My ignorant action is a catalyst that sends her into a panicked frenzy. I no longer have to lean close to her. She shrieks, "Why do you covet this body so?" I freeze. What did you say? When she lands a hard kick to my stomach, I keel over and struggle to breathe. The pain makes me remember that I must get Selene to wake up. Whatever she just shouted can wait.
That is easier said than done. Clutching one arm over my abdomen and using the other to stop her thrashing, she howls more frightening statements.
"I am just twelve. Your deal with Hanada-sama is not worth this. I'll do all that you wish, just don't drag me to your bed." More such pleas of desperation escape her mouth. Each one sends a wave of horror through me. Her movements become more frantic.
She screams, "I'LL EXPOSE YOU! ALL OF YOU! You. Hanada-sama. Your sick deal. Seeking pleasure from the bodies of young girls. You're disgusting! Vermin! Get off me!" She releases the sheet to press her fingers into her arms.
Tears prick the corners of my eyes. I had deduced she was a victim of sexual assault a long time ago. But this? If her nightmare is a medium of a past memory … then her trauma ran deeper than that. This is just speculation; I have no concrete proof. But there is a good chance that Selene is a victim of attempted rape. Of more than one attempted rapes.
Selene is fighting the demons of her past, yet I cannot stop feeling like the ground has slipped away below from my feet. My eyes are brimming with tears now. I blink. They trail down my cheeks. They take no name of stopping.
I cup her face and repeat sweet nothings to her. Praises, promises, anything that might reach her and pry open the bars of the mental prison of horrors. She wails and cries, retreating further into herself.
Suddenly, her hands, with which she had been hugging herself the whole time, reach up toward her throat. Five fingers dig and scrape at the flesh. Another five fingers join in.
She is suffocating herself without realizing it. If I don't interfere, she'll injure herself. Swallowing down the shame at what I am about to do, I climb on top of her and straddle her hips. With one hand just above her sternum, pushing her down, I use the other to force hers off her throat.
"Stop it, Selene!" I cry out. "Snap out of it!"
For someone with a physical disability, Selene is astonishingly strong at moments. Such as now. No matter how hard I pull, her grip won't ease up. Red lines mark where her fingers chafe the skin. They only increase in number. What makes things more difficult is deflecting her kicks at the same time.
Once before, I have seen Selene relapse like this. Though a different memory, the parallels are similar. That day I could not do anything but call for help. I will not let that history repeat itself. I will not remain helpless this time.
Releasing her hands, I slip mine under her back and lift her up. She has not given up choking herself. I glance at the nearest bedpost supporting the mosquito net. "Forgive me, Selene. But this is for your own safety."
And I slam the back of her head into the bedpost.
The effect is instant. Her hands slip lose, falling to her side. Her head lolls back. It is possible to knock out a sleeping person. That is what I just did. Pushed her into a deeper level of subconscious until she awakened.
Carefully, I set her down on the bed. The bed is a mess from the battle that just took place. Getting off it myself, I arrange the bedsheets and pillows. Cupping her cheek, I place a kiss to her forehead and pull the covers over her body. But I am not nearly done yet. She has a little shelf, stocked with some tea blends and a portable water boiler. Tea would do her some good.
After turning on a lamp, I open her fridge, finding a bottle of water and a thermos of milk inside. I pour about half a mug of water and half a mug of milk into the boiler. While I wait, my mind flashbacks to the sentences Selene exclaimed in her nightmare.
My stomach churns from just thinking about the atrocities she endured. But she had to undergo those acts of savagery! Her agony must be unfathomable. If my conjecture is true, then no wonder she was so reluctant to divulge her trauma. Sexual assault is already stigmatized globally; rape even more so. No surprise why she doesn't want to file a case of abuse. She even took Hanada-shi's name. Meaning that he was an active participant in her assault. The flame of hatred I harbor toward him flares at the realization. There is more kindling, more reason, to despise him and get Selene away from him.
Once the boiler emits a little ding, I remove the jug from the machine and add the tea bag. Swirling it left and right, clockwise and counterclockwise, up and down, the contents of the bag mix into the liquid, changing its color. I attach the lid to the jug, and shake it vigorously. Once thoroughly mixed, I pour the tea into a mug.
Selene still hasn't woken up. Setting the tray on her nightstand, I move by her side to wake her up.
"Selene?" I say. "I know it's late, but you should get up. You can sleep all you want after this, but have something to drink." I pat her cheek repeatedly, hoping it is enough to stir her from the depths of her subconscious. It works. She moans and squints her eyes open.
"Hmm? Shouto?" she groans out. "Is it morning already?"
Cute. "No," I tell her. "But there is something I want to talk to you about."
She stretches as she sits upright. Then she winces. "Ouch! Why does my neck hurt so much?" She touches the tender flesh, and I have to restrain myself from pushing her hands away. She flinches again. "What did I … Is this …" She turns toward me, eyes wide in terror. "What happened to me, Shouto?"
I sit on the edge of the bed and reach for her hands. Cradling them in my own, I pepper many quick pecks to them. I have to be careful with what I say. A single wrong word, and she might go into panic attack mode. As calmly as possible, I answer, "You had a nightmare, Selene. A pretty terrible one. You scratched your throat in the process, and I tried to stop you."
She stills in place. "A … nightmare …?" At my confirmation, she scrambles to get out of bed.
"What are you doing?" I ask her. "Wait, Selene! Let's talk about this, okay?"
My words are not reaching her. She tumbles over the edge, only to push herself up and grab her cane. "I-I-I'm sorry," she stammers. "I-I disturbed you, b-b-bothered you. Y-You were sleeping, and I … and I made you witness that." With every apology, she moves one step closer toward the bathroom door.
I stand up and slowly close the distance between us. Raising my own hands, I attempt to comfort her. "I'm not upset. Not in the slightest. Please, Selene, I just want to speak to you."
When her heel hits the door, she whips around and struggles to open the doorknob. It jiggles and wiggles. The lock is on the inside, so it should not be difficult to open it. But like I feared, panic has gotten a hold of her, preventing her from doing the easiest of tasks. I cross the grap in three strides, and hold her shoulders. She recoils from my touch. I repeat what I said earlier.
Tears slip forth from her eyes. This exchange carries on for a while. She apologizes profusely, I soothe her. Neither of us get anywhere.
Then, she chokes out, "I thought the nightmares stopped. They were absent for a long time. I was happy. But now? Now you're burdened with them, too."
One of us has to remain strong, and it is not Selene. Frustrated, I spin her around by the shoulders. Her hands instinctively rise to rest on mine, and I bend down to scoop her into my arms. She protests that she doesn't deserve this, but I am tired of listening to her demean herself like this.
As I maneuver through the partition of the mosquito net and sit on the bed, I pull her beside me.
She endeavors to get up and flee again. I'm not letting that happen.
"Enough, Selene," I order coldly. "This is getting old. For your information, I was awake when you had that nightmare. And when I saw you trapped in a mental cage, I fought to free you from it. I don't regret helping you. Understand?"
If my harshness stuns her, she does not express it. Instead, she nods silently.
"Good." I reach for the mug of tea on the nightstand. "Drink it. It's chamomile. Should help with sleep and anxiety." When I wrap her fingers around the handle, she takes a sip. I wait for her to drink a little more before I resume talking. "When was the last time you had a nightmare?"
She hesitates before replying, "The night of my birthday. Just before you knocked on the door." It is early February now. So that was almost three months ago. "When we began sharing a bed, they ceased."
But recent stress must have brought them back. What with the criminal profile we have been creating, Hanada-sama's latest lack of effort to conceal the abuse, and the conglomerate she has inherited, her anxiety has rose. "I'm glad to know that my presence prevented them, but what did you use to do before we spent the nights together?"
"Sleeping pills," she responds. "I have a bottle in one of the drawers. I usually took one before I slept or after a nightmare."
"Can you show me?"
She leans down to open the second drawer of her nightstand. A white, press-and-twist-capped bottle appears in her palm. This specific brand of pills is available at any drug store because it is not as inducive as its prescribed counterparts. "How long have you been taking them?"
She ticks off the time on the segments of her fingers. "Years. The bad dreams are fairly recent. Before, I would consume them whenever I could not sleep from stress or after a session of beatings. They worked as a pain reliever."
Selene is only sixteen. It is not normal for someone her age to be take sleeping pills from a young age.
Her gaze alternates between the bottle and the drink. "It's probably not a good idea to ingest medicine with milk," she says.
"Probably not. Do the scratches hurt?"
"Yes."
I raise my right palm. "May I?" Her consent is an arching of the neck. Though the necklace of band-aids has long since been removed, a new morbid garland circles the flesh. Cooling the area, the redness slowly fades into pink. After the incident and this new bit of information, I do not have the heart to make Selene eat ten chocolate-coated almonds.
She asks, "Shouto, did I say something while I was dreaming? Anything concerning?"
I look into her eyes. She is visibly agitated. It's probably for the best that I don't reveal my speculations. "No," I lie. "The things you screamed were incomprehensible."
Her tension eases conspicuously. A slump of the shoulders and a relaxed posture. After she finishes the drink, she makes a request.
"Could you please hug me, Shouto?"
As if I would say no to you. I put her cup aside and proceed to do just that. She snuggles into the crook of my neck. "Would you like anything else?" I susurrate.
"Yes," she breathes. "If it is not presumptuous, could you hold me until I fall asleep?"
Some adjustments and shifting later, Selene's head rests in my lap. I am sitting criss-cross and reading a story to her. Initially, she had asked me to sing her a lullaby, but when I told her that my musical skills were shit, she suggested story time. Any story would do, she had said. Just something to take her mind off things.
So here we are. I stroke her hair with one hand and hold my phone in the other. Reciting Japanese fairy tales available on the Internet, her eyes close, imagining the stories unfold in her mind. When I come across a particularly emotional scene, she turns to the other side, wrapping her arms around my waist.
I cannot help but emit a wheeze of pain. My stomach still hurts from where she kicked me.
She notices it, too. "Shouto, are you all right? Did I hurt you?"
Best if I hide this from her, too. "Nope. I'm fine. Just a little lingering ache from the work-study today. You just keep listening to my voice, okay?"
"Sure," she murmurs.
Perhaps one hour later, perhaps two, Selene has dozed off completely. Feeling the familiar consistent rise and fall of her breathing puts me at ease. Her hold on me still has not slipped. I smile to myself at that.
Bending down, I plant a kiss to her cheek.
"As long as I'm with you, you will never be harmed like that.
"I swear it to you.
"You are safe with me, my moonflower.
"I love you, and I am going to prove it to you."
Hanada-shi will never lay a finger on you again.
I'll make sure of it.