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The bed they had been given wasn't even really a bed, but rather a raised wooden platform built into one wall. There was no mattress, just a tasseled rug laid out for them and a few blankets and pillows. They'd made their beds in less comfortable places than this, but the wood was still an unforgiving surface to sleep on, and between the two of them, it would probably be so cramped that they couldn't extend their arms without whacking each other in the face.
But when Sayatoki gingerly lowered himself down, he didn't care. All that mattered was that there was a place to lie down, and there was room for Yoruma right next to him, and they were safe, and this entire mess was over.
It was all finally over, except for the things binding them together.
Their first night in their underground sanctuary, Sayatoki woke up at an unspeakably early hour, his chest tight and the wound in his side throbbing.
Instinctively, he moved to press a hand to his side, but a metallic clinking made him freeze. Right, he thought, still half-asleep and muzzy. The old lady--what's her name?--had given their jewelry an extra addition.
He wasn't even sure where the light was coming from, but there was just enough of it to see the string of beads, like metallic pearls, connecting his wrist to Yoruma's.
Now I really can't go anywhere without him, Sayatoki thought. It was a less frightening idea than it had any right to be.
He lowered his arm again and pressed his other hand to his side instead. The pain was sharp enough to make him wince, but the bandage wrapped around his midsection was still dry, so clearly he hadn't reopened it. And it hurt, but it didn't hurt that much. Barely a twinge, really, and it was only to be expected. It wasn't that bad. It wasn't.
Maybe a drink of water, Sayatoki thought. He was a bit thirsty. And wasn't good hydration supposed to help with healing? He'd heard that, somewhere. Probably. Maybe. Well, at the very least it might distract him from the throbbing pain in his side.
Yes, getting a drink of water was a fine idea. If only he could get up.
Slowly, Sayatoki turned his head. Beside him, Yoruma was fast asleep, his hair a tousled mess, his breathing slow and regular. Sayatoki opened his mouth--Yoruma, wake up, I need some water--and then his voice died on his tongue, his parched throat and the ache in his side both forgotten.
Yoruma was fast asleep, blissfully dozing, seemingly unaware of the thick metal collar digging into his neck.
Sayatoki stared at it, his brow furrowed. The collar jutted up at an awkward angle, the rim almost brushing against Yoruma's chin, the underside pressing angry lines into his skin. Sayatoki should have been used to seeing it by now, but it was still a horrid sight to behold. How could Yoruma even sleep with that thing on?
Then, with a wave of guilt, Sayatoki realized: He's had a lot of practice.
He reached out, slowly, tentatively, and touched the collar. The metal was smooth, worn down by too many years, and cruelly chill to the touch. Sayatoki snatched his hand back, his fingertips tingling with a sense of wrongness. Like he'd touched something filthy.
How many years had Yoruma worn this thing? How many nights had he lain down to sleep, only to toss and turn uncomfortably as the collar gouged into his neck? How many mornings had he awoken to find his skin rubbed raw?
And yet he slept so soundly now, snoring softly, his face slack. Because he was used to it.
He was used to it.
We'll get that off you, Sayatoki thought, with a vengeance so fierce it startled even himself. If Grammy here can't do it, we'll find someone who can. Somehow, someway, we'll get that collar off you. I promise. I swear it.
He swore it in the privacy of his own mind, and for a moment--just a moment--he forgot about the other chains holding them in bondage.
The second night, Sayatoki woke up abruptly, for no reason at all.
He blinked a few times, staring at the shadowy ceiling overhead. What, he thought, discombobulated, and did a quick mental catalogue. He hadn't had a nightmare. His wound didn't hurt, or at least not enough to wake him up. He didn't even need to go to the bathroom. He'd just... woken up.
He blinked in the darkness, and then, on instinct, he looked over.
Beside him, Yoruma was fast asleep.
Yoruma was asleep, and his neck was impossibly, gloriously bare.
She got it off, Sayatoki thought, almost numbly. It wasn't a dream. Grammy Medora really got his collar off.
He couldn't help but stare. He'd seen Yoruma wearing much less, of course--of course he had, it was only to be expected after weeks spent unable to separate by more than a few paces--but never had Yoruma looked so naked. His neck was slender and pale, and the bump of his throat looked even more prominent now. The collar was gone. It was really, actually gone.
Yoruma was free.
With nothing more than some clinks, clacks, and indignant metallic screeches, the collar had come off. The collar had come off, and Yoruma had been so happy, the kind of innocent, wide-eyed glee that only a child had any right to. He'd clutched at his own bare neck in disbelief, beaming and giddy, and Sayatoki had smiled too, helpless to resist--
And then Yoruma had gone dashing off, leaving him behind.
It's fine, Sayatoki told himself, it's fine. And it was. The most important thing was that Yoruma no longer wore the collar of a slave. The platinum armlets would come off soon, too; already they had been stripped of their binding power. Which was all they'd wanted, really; the whole point of their journey had been to claw their way to freedom, from their pasts and from each other.
This was good. This was how it was supposed to be.
Sayatoki tried to roll onto his side, then hissed in pain. No, not doing that, he decided, settling onto his back once more. He satisfied himself with looking at Yoruma from the corner of his eye instead, at that long, bare neck.
Unthinkingly, he reached out. The silvern bands of the armlet gleamed faintly in the darkness; the tips of his fingers settled gently on the hollow of Yoruma's throat, no longer hidden by any collar.
Yoruma's skin was smooth and warm.
Sayatoki jerked his hand back with a sharp intake of breath. His fingers tingled; he clenched them into a fist, but it didn't help.
Yoruma is free, Sayatoki told himself, and soon we'll both be free. And that was good, that was right, that was what he wanted. That was what they both wanted, what they both deserved.
Nothing more to tie us together, Sayatoki thought.
He shivered and tugged the blanket up higher, swallowing down the unknowable words clawing up his throat.
The third night, Sayatoki turned in early, exhausted.
He collapsed onto the pile of blankets and just lay there for a while, staring at the ceiling. So much happened today, he thought. Their visit to the storeroom full of beautiful, sinful creations that they would help destroy. The attack of the doll-beast left behind by Grammy Medora's father. And--
Sayatoki raised his right arm and stared at it. It was bare, completely unadorned. No glint of white metal. No armlet.
It was really gone.
He clenched his fist, turned his arm, uncurled his fingers and stared at his palm. His arm felt strangely light, even though the armlet hadn't weighed much of anything in the first place. His own skin looked strange, too uniform, too plain. Nothing but his own flesh and bone.
It was really gone, and Sayatoki was alone.
He sighed and dropped his arm back down by his side. It's a good thing, he told himself stubbornly. Now we're both free.
He wanted to curl up on himself, bury himself beneath the blanket and shut out the world and go to sleep. But his wound still hurt too much for him to lie on his side like normal, and the cut in his left hand still twinged, and he'd gotten so used to sleeping with Yoruma's aura beside him that the absence prickled uncomfortably at the back of his mind. He couldn't fall asleep in the silence of his own breathing. Not anymore.
It's not like he's gone away, Sayatoki told himself crossly. He's probably setting up a bed for himself in the next room over. Relax. Go to sleep.
But time dragged by, and no matter how he squeezed his eyes shut, sleep would not come.
Then, suddenly, footsteps. Sayatoki sat up abruptly, staring. In the doorway, Yoruma stared back at him, one foot lifted off the ground, his boot peeled half off. "Saaya," he said. "You're still awake?"
"Don't call me that," Sayatoki said automatically, and then he blinked. "Uh. Yes?"
Yoruma looked about as bewildered as Sayatoki felt. "I thought for sure that you'd be asleep by now," he said, then resumed yanking his boot off. The other soon joined it, and he padded across the room. "You should be asleep. Aren't you tired? I am. Grammy was planning on working a bit more, but she realized that we're all kind of beat. We're saving the rest for tomorrow."
And then he plopped down onto the bed. "Budge over," he said, taking his glasses off. "You can stay awake if you want, but some of us are tired and need some room to lie down."
"Aren't you going to sleep somewhere else?" Sayatoki asked blankly. "Since, well, you know," and he held up his now-bare right arm in indication.
Yoruma stared at him in obvious bafflement. "No?"
"Oh." Sayatoki blinked. "I thought--"
"And where else would I sleep, anyway?" Yoruma asked. "There's nowhere else to sleep! If there were another bed around somewhere, we'd already be sleeping in it. And besides, you're still hurt, you need someone to look after you, what if you need something in the middle of the night! And--and--"
And then he broke off, his cheeks beginning to redden.
"Oh," Sayatoki said again. He could feel his own face getting warm. Why was he embarrassed? It wasn't--whatever. It didn't matter. What mattered was that Yoruma was there, and Sayatoki didn't have to sleep alone, and--
Was it weird, for him to be so hung up on this? He didn't know. He felt like he didn't know anything, not when it came to human interactions. He'd never had proper human interactions before Yoruma.
He'd never really cared, before Yoruma. Not like this.
Yoruma shook his head sharply. "Whatever, just go to sleep! You need it."
Sayatoki felt completely lost. But he scooted over and lay down nevertheless, and Yoruma flopped down beside him, and just like that, all sense of rightness returned. "Seriously, though, today was exhausting," Yoruma said, kicking his feet idly. He raked his hair back, glancing over at Sayatoki. "You know?"
"Yeah," Sayatoki agreed, gazing back at him. Yoruma's hair was tangled, but his eyes were bright. No glasses, no disguise. Just Yoruma.
Yoruma raised his left arm, staring at it. His bare left arm, at last liberated from the bedazzling armlet that had clung to it for weeks. "I still can't really believe it's gone," he said softly. "It almost doesn't feel real, you know?"
"I know," Sayatoki agreed, his voice soft. It felt surreal; it felt strange. But it felt less strange with Yoruma there.
Yoruma let out a jaw-cracking yawn. "I'm going to sleep," he announced, tugging the blankets up over himself. "You should, too."
"I will," Sayatoki promised.
Yoruma mumbled out something that might have been an attempt at a good-night. Within minutes, he had drifted off, snoring softly. Sayatoki's eyelids were getting heavy, too, but despite the fatigue, despite the exhaustion, he couldn't bring himself to close his eyes. Not yet.
Instead he gazed at Yoruma's left hand, just inches from his right. Both of them with no jewelry, no adornment. No armlets that had bound them together for so long.
Slowly, uncertainly, Sayatoki reached out. He brushed the backs of his fingers against Yoruma's knuckles. Real, human. He curled his fingers over Yoruma's hand, then slid their palms together. Palm to palm, fingers intertwined. Warm skin, not cold metal.
The armlets were gone. There was nothing to bind them together, not anymore. And yet Yoruma was still there, right beside him.
Sayatoki swallowed. I don't want this to end, he realized. He closed his eyes, fighting back the sudden lump in his throat. Not yet. Please, let me have this for a little while longer.
He squeezed Yoruma's hand, and in the darkness, Yoruma's hand squeezed back.