Work Text:
It starts small.
A pang of pain, a smack on the wrist every now and then, an ache in his knuckles, the ghost of a bee sting on the back of Kazumi’s leg.
As time goes on, the pain worsens.
The feeling of his head hitting the concrete, a fleeting imaginary visual of his arm getting twisted backwards accompanying the burning sensation in his forearm. He can’t focus on anything anymore, too dazed because of his daily dose of ibuprofen just to keep the pain tolerable, lack of sleep getting to his head almost as if the haziness were a direct accomplice to the ghost feelings.
He wonders if the person on the other side is as pissed off as he is.
He knows they feel the accidental pangs. Thorns from hidden rose bushes poking the inside of his palms, hours of kneeling on rocks leaving scrapes and pressurised indentations in his knees, the blisters on the backs of his heels from shifts and shifts and shifts of standing. Sometimes he leaves them sensations on purpose, the dripping of hot coffee tickling the inside of his thigh just barely enough to hurt, the throbbing vibrations from a flick in the middle of his forehead in frustration, pain echoing through his skull just enough to be annoying.
There’s kind sensations too.
Kazumi has to be absorbed in concentration to feel these, which is kind of cruel he offhandedly thinks, the outline of a lover’s touch only echoing on his skin in the depths of night when he’s staring at his ceiling, alone, his eyes adjusting to the darkness to find something tangible to grasp. He knows the person on the other side, his supposed soulmate, has somebody already, the feeling of a fleeting kiss on his left cheek, the warmth of a hand slotting between his fingers. He isn’t too bothered by it to be honest, stories of hundreds and hundreds of failed partnerships ringing in his ears. The sensations stop someday, he’s heard, the loss of your soulmate ripping away their vulnerability, leaving your life to your own senses.
He gets worried when the good sensations stop.
He knows his soulmate is still alive, his hand flaming like he touched a hot stove, his pinky toe crumpling under the pain of stubbing it even through his shelled work boots. But the good sensations are no longer there, he no longer has the time to focus when nights spent searching for the echoes’ warmth turn into sleepless dazed aggression at the jagged fingernails scratching slightly against his forearm.
Kazumi looks at the ceiling, his eyes droopy and bloodshot from lack of sleep, hoping that the person on the other side will soon allow him to find rest, the frantic itching slowing with the drowsiness of sleep.