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Yohan is dirty. Yohan is grimy, greasy, foul. Yohan is filthy through to his soul. Yohan has the stains of hundreds and thousands of lives on him – one more than most – and he doubts they will ever wash away.
He wakes up not to Isaac but to rain rolling down the window against the backdrop of gray skies. A heavy contrast to the fire that he swears, almost a decade after, is still lapping at his skin. Yohan watches the raindrops chase one another to the bottom and leave water trails behind them. They look like tears. He traces one of the paths with a finger, trying to reach them through the glass. Rainy days have felt like misery and death lately. All sadness and a gaping maw of despair. More and more, he feels as though the church will cave in on him any second. It never rains as much here, though, so perhaps it's not as bad as it could be.
Gaon has been throwing him looks all day, hovering and making sure that Yohan won't do anything foolish. He cooks and cares and brings his meds and tends to Yohan as though he's a flame about to die out. Distantly, he appreciates the concern, but right now, in this deep well he has found himself mired in, Yohan knows better. He doesn't deserve death. He deserves worse.
They haven't touched since Gaon came to his and Elijah's little chalet on a hill in this foreign country. There have been echoes of their old connection here and there, two people once bound by anger and blood and the aching inevitability of family, but Yohan has tried his best to keep his distance. Gaon kissed his forehead once, a grounding gesture after he hadn't left his bed for a week; its tenderness felt like the susurration of echoes in a cave they have long since left. Yohan had to do everything in his power not to jump from the touch. He stays away, which is for the best. He doesn't want Gaon to feel the grime on his skin.
Yohan runs out of soap once a week. Gaon has joked that maybe Yohan hasn't been able to get dirt the out of places where the sun doesn't shine, but that's not it. Not precisely, anyway.
*
He walks home in the rain. Colors are dulled, more gray. Roads and sidewalks are several shades darker. He can't remember how long it has been nightfall. The sounds are pressing in on him. The steady pitter patter of the raindrops hitting pavement. The splash of a wheel going through a puddle.
Yohan's hair plasters to his forehead and water runs down his face. He is soaked all the way through. He thinks he was driving moments ago, the space suddenly constricting, but now he's walking. He tries to jog his brain and comes up empty.
Gaon catches up with him. His hair is also plastered wet over his eyes that Yohan wonders how he can see in the dark. He's asking questions now. Yohan has never been good with answers. He hugs Yohan hard, practically trying to wring all of the water out in Yohan.
Stop, Yohan nearly says. I don't deserve this. I never did.
Only Gaon, really. Only Gaon would be this bold. Only Gaon would dare to wade through all this muck just to get to him.
They stand there, outside the home away from home they have painstakingly built, in a tight embrace, and Yohan lets go of so much. He cries for Isaac, for K, for himself. Tears pour down his face and neck, indistinguishable from the rain. There is no sobbing, no sniffling, no shaking. The rain purifies, rinses away. He can start again, maybe. Begin to redeem himself.
I'm dirty, he thinks, but for this one moment, absolved by Gaon's touch, he is clean.