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“ DON’T LET GO!”
A shadow above, the air around him dyed a grayish tint of unnatural twilight.
Kazuya felt his faltering grip in the rough palm, thumbed over the fleshy mark of scars on a hand.
And suddenly, the wind throwing its relentless barrage of tiny meteor punches at his body stopped. He was able to take in a breath that gave him little relief as if it was blocked in its travel through heavy foliage.
Before blotches of black paint covered his entire vision, in his hazy mind he wanted to know what was happening above. He edged his chin upward, seeing what he will with his horrid eyesight. And he saw-
Kazuya wrestles the hospital covers away as if they were pinning him down, springing to life with the kinetic energy of a repressed coil.
His scream rips apart the quiet fabric of night within the enclosed space.
The dull shine of tears and sweat gleams on him sitting form while it took him a bit to build the world around him.
Nighttime. Hospital room, Teiai symbol on the door.
Flowers by the bedside, calming and thickly sweet aroma ( Still can’t mask the too clean antiseptic)
White sheets, balls up in his hands.
Soft hospital gown ( only the finest)
Throat like swallowing bricks, tastes vaguely like bile.
The echo of his own cry in his ear might have woken someone up if there was another patient here.
Luckily, the hospital room is barren save Kazuya, and some blacksuit he spots out the corner of his eye. Someone he hadn’t bothered to learn the name of.
Teiai’s prince regains his breath and composure, then rakes in memories like leaves on a windy day, sorting them into piles that made sense.
There was the trip to the graveyard
The Salvation Game
One Poker and then…. then?
The young man sinks back into the plush mountain of pillows, a creeping tiredness overtaking him in the effort of trying to remember.
Kazuya casually turns his head, and it was almost eerie like the way a doll might rotate its head on its own in the movies catching his attention toward his only company. The somewhat portly (at least compared to the rest of Kazuya’s force) man in his late twenties, has a thinly veiled look of terror and consternation plastered onto his visage.
A heavy few seconds passes between them, while Kazuya begins to speak.
“I just had the craziest dream, ya know?” He says with a breathy sigh, the man stiffens.
The recollection of the dream comes mysterious and momentary, but clearer than when one sees the moon through the brush lining the highway.
A dream crackled with the intensity of reality.
The foreign “FWAP!” of wings.
He heard them opening ,when he fell.
He lost. Sophie betrayed him again. Down down into the depths of hell.
Through a whistling wall of gale, someone called his name which forced him to crack open an eye.
The sight he beholds, is only the mirage of a dying man.
An angel. An Angel coming to meet him. It’s a sign he was going to die.
Soon, he thought. He’ll see his mother again.
The voice calls again, louder this time. More raw. More Real?
“TAKE MY HAND!”
And Kazuya obeyed, fingers wrapped around the outstretched hand that had appeared almost out of nowhere.
The next his arm was treated like fishing line, and was going to be yanked out of its socket.
It Hurts, but someone was trying to pull him up, haul him back into the world of the living. The wind stops as his body ragdolls into a position of dangling rather than falling. He can hardly breathe. Though exhausted, he takes the time to look up.
His angel.
Hell, It’s Kaiji of all people, a wall of white feathers painted around him, showered fluffy downy feathers around them like soft snow. Though in contrast, his face was stained with deep red flows of effort, and anger and sadness.
He was like one of Giotto’s Crying Angels. No even more beautiful. Shimmering a dull sheen from his face although that was really just sweat.
Kazuya, bewildered at this development looked down and thumbs over the scars on the older man’s hand while the other latched onto his upper arm. Desperation woven into the tightness of a grip that was enough to go ahead and break bone.
Falling Tears blotted against Kazuya’s cheeks catching his attention. They’re…cold. They’re… very warm.
He peered up to see the source and can’t tear his eyes away.
This rawness and sincerity wrapped in the folds of Kaiji’s crying eyes tore into him.
For the first time in a long time. He felt it: The genuine and cutting care of another person. Someone who wanted him to live. He’d seen it a long time ago… on the boat. With Sophie.
In this way, he recognized it as not as a Kaiji characteristic. but just as a Human characteristic. And even though he tried to deny it for so many years...
In this moment he was tired of fighting he simply… understood .
The two of them floated to the ground while the fallen prince took it all in.
Finally, Kazuya’s body crumpled to the ground, he took one last glimpse at his savior in full glory as the man fell down onto the ground next to him.
Kaiji got up and stood his distance a bit away sweeping white wings trailing along the ground. He scrubbed drops of crystal from his eyes with his palms. Like a radiant ethereal thing from the realm of imagination from some children’s book.
Though he didn’t see it for too long, before his vision scattered like dust.
Kazuya finishes the tale, staring into space for a moment, the unreality of it all still has him in its grip.
A human with wings? He’s not five anymore, he won’t believe in something like that.
And Kaiji and those guys, coming to save him? Some kind of joke. No one, and he meant, NO ONE could be that magnanimous. Not even a faker like Kaiji.
“It’s a stupid dream right?” Kazuya prompts with a nervous laugh, crisis stored away in the corners of his voice, quivering now if only slightly.
“Yes, a ridiculous notion indeed young master.” The man replied serenely as he could forcing the sides of his lips into a nervous smile.
The stout man shifts uncomfortably in his chair again, and a couple of downy white feathers freed themselves from the bottom of his pants and were lost with the wind.