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Masaki showed up at the street corner where Saejima and he had first met with a fistful of coupons and a big grin. A minor gig had payed mostly in gift cards and coupons and since his mother wasn't interested in tiny corner grocery stores, Masaki got to keep the lot. An added bonus was that since they weren't technically real money, it was easier to convince Saejima to let him foot the bill.
As they walked out of the store with their bounty, something hit Masaki on the face. At first he thought it was a bug and dodged back, then it hit him again. Dark spots started to appear on the sidewalk. Saejima and Majima shuffled back under the canopy to stay out of the rain.
"Yuck," Masaki grumbled, "I hate walking home wet."
"Ya wanna go to my place?" Saejima asked, still squinting up at the rain.
"I didn't know you had a place, since you don't have parents." Masaki realized immediately how insensitive that had to sound and mentally slapped himself. Orphans have places to live.
That's what orphanages are, you idiot. Maybe there's a reason you have no friends.
"I ain't homeless. Well, not recently." Saejima's face scrunched, trying to think of how to explain, if he could explain without mentioning that he was in debt to the yakuza. He decided he didn't have to as long as Masaki didn't ask. "Got an apartment with my sister. It's small, but it'll get us outta the rain."
"Sounds good to me," Masaki replied, relieved to have escaped that topic without Saejima making him into an interesting stain on the pavement. He tried in vain to shield his hair from the rain with his hands. Saejima shed his coat and held it over both of them like a canopy, making a makeshift umbrella.
"Ya good to run?" Saejima smiled. There was a hint of challenge in his voice.
"Think you can keep up, old man?" Masaki grinned back. Challenge accepted. He stretched his legs and bounced.
"Gonna have to, unless you wanna get wet."
They ran, keeping pace with one another so they both stayed slightly sheltered from the rain; Masaki practically leaping to keep up with Saejima's wide strides, Saejima slowing his pace just enough so Masaki stayed at his elbow. None of it kept either of them any drier, but Masaki enjoyed the feeling of the cold rain against his face with Seajima breathing heavily from above his shoulder. They dashed down the street, through a side alley and up a rusted metal staircase, leading to the door of Saejima and his sister's apartment.
It was small, just one open room connected to the kitchen and a couple of doors leading to a bathroom and a closet. The wallpaper was old fashioned and peeling, and the floorboards were buckling around the corners, with worn paths showing where the most traffic through the room went. Scratches and pencil scribbles pocked the surface of the low table in the center of the room. It was the nicest place Masaki has ever been. He was used to a sterile home that looked like a magazine article. This was a home where people lived.
Masaki sat by the door and pulled off his shoes. There was something bulky on the back of his heel, under his socks.
"What's up with yer feet?" Saejima asked, and Majima pulled his feet closer to his body, trying to shuffle them out of view.
"Ah, just got some blisters."
"You got blisters that bad and you ran here?"
"It's fine," Masaki waved a hand to shoo the topic away like a fly, "just the damn things bleed like fuck if I don't pad the hell out of them with toilet paper."
"Don't you have gauze back home?" Seajima was relentless, and his growing concern pressed down on Masaki like a weight.
"Had to change it too often, ran out." Not technically a lie. It was just that he was going through so much to keep the blood out of his shoes and pad the wounds enough where he didn't limp that his mother had started threatening to take the cost of bandages out of his allowance, so he switched to taking toilet paper from public restrooms instead. That had quieted her down.
Saejima reached out and grabbed Masaki by the ankle and dragged him over, ignoring the kicks and indignant squawking. He yanked off Masaki's sock, revealing the large pad of wadded up toilet paper stuck to his heel. Saejima peeled away the padding to reveal just about what he'd expected. It wasn't a blister, not anymore, it was more of an open wound, swollen around the edges from infection and oozing blood. Bits of paper were stuck in the body of the wound, contributing to the problem.
"Don't you know how to clean this shit?" He tossed Masaki's foot aside and stood, dragging Masaki by the arm.
"What're you doing?" Masaki gawped at the hand clenched around his arm. It was gentler than he'd expected. Saejima's thick fingers held him firmly, but didn't dig into his skin or pinch.
"We're goin' to the bathroom to clean you up and get the first aid kit." Saejima led Masaki to the bathroom. It was small and old, like the rest of the apartment. The tiles on the floor were yellowing, and the grout on the sink and tub was peeling, but everything was remarkably clean. Saejima dug around in a cabinet under the sink and pulled out a metal tin that had begun to rust around the edges, chipping the paint. It looked like an old military kit, the type that might be carried in the field. Saejima opened it and revealed the contents to be mostly new. "We gotta bandage you up proper before ya end up in the hospital."
"Nobody goes to the hospital over some blisters." Masaki lingered in the door, watching Saejima pull out a glass bottle of iodine and some medical tape.
"Do you know what 'sepsis' means?" Saejima asked as he dug around for a handful of pre-wrapped gauze pads. By the look of it the supplies had been replaced regularly, likely due to Saejima's rough background.
"Well..." Masaki stalled, afraid to admit that he did not, in fact, know what "sepsis" meant. Saejima cut him off.
"It means bacteria gets in your blood and you die, Goro."
There were a few items in the first aid kit that seemed to be as old as the case, like a crumbling tourniquet band and a brown paper box labeled "Ammonia Inhalant." Masaki picked it up and opened it to peek inside. It was full of what appeared to be little bundles of cotton batting with something hard in the center. Some poking revealed that each bundle contained a glass vial of yellow liquid. The vials were like pills with no opening.
"Smelling salts," Saejima answered the unasked question, "they're for if ya faint." Masaki palmed one of the vials on the sly, pocketing it before returning the box to the kit just as Saejima finished finding the supplies for Masaki's blisters.
"Sit on the edge a' the tub and rinse yer feet," Saejima ordered.
"I can clean it myself," Masaki complained, still obeying. He winced as he let cold cold water run over one of his heels.
"Naw, I've seen what happens when you do it yourself. Hot water, idiot." Masaki grumbled under his breath and turned up the heat, hissing between his teeth at the pain. "I'm gonna clean this up the right way before you lose a fuckin' foot." Saejima took the bar of soap from the edge of the bath and held it under the sink faucet; washing his hands before surgery.
Saejima sat on the floor, soaping his hands more. "Gimme your foot." Masaki obeyed, and Saejima rubbed the sore, causing a jolt of pain to shoot up Masaki's leg.
"Ow!" Masaki jerked his foot away. "That fucking hurts!"
"It wouldn't hurt so much if ya hadn't got it all nasty." Saejima snatched the foot back and continued working soap into it. "Don't be such a baby about it." Masaki held still, fighting the urge to whine or kick. After what seemed like an hour of agony, Saejima released him. "All right, rinse that and gimme the other foot." This time the hot water was a relief after being brutalized by Saejima's calluses.
"How do you know how to do this?"
"I read a lot." Saejima leaned over and rinsed his hands in the tub, then re-soaped.
"About treating blisters?" Majima winced again as Saejima rubbed his hands over his heel.
"First aid, cooking, saving money. Ya know, household stuff."
"Are you working on being a good wife someday?" Masaki grinned. Saejima pinched his heel to shut him up.
"Got a little sister to take care of. It's just us, so I gotta know everything I can," Saejima tapped Masaki's leg. "Rinse."
"You must read a lot." Masaki swung his foot into the tub and turned on the water.
"Go to the library about once a week." Saejima gently dabbed iodine onto Masaki's first foot with a cotton ball.
"Wow. I didn't realize you were a fucking nerd. Fuck!" Saejima had pinched him again.
"Had to quit school. Gotta work."
"And your sister?"
"She's still goin' to school. She wanted to quit so she could work too, but I want her to at least finish high school. Make some friends."
"What about you? You don't want to finish school too?" Saejima looked distant, sighed and then went back to bandaging Masaki's foot.
"Don't matter what I want. I gotta work."
"What kind of work does a teenager do to afford an entire apartment?"
Saejima stopped. He did not look up, and his breathing seemed slower, more tightly controlled.
"Goro." Saejima was serious; more grim than Masaki had ever heard him.
"Hmm?"
"If I just said I don't wanna talk about it, would you drop it?"
A chill ran up Masaki's spine. Something about that rubbed him the wrong way, almost scared him, but he wanted Saejima to like him. He could be whatever Saejima wanted He could be the kind of guy who wasn't annoying; didn't ask unwanted questions.
"Yeah. Sure," Masaki said, looking away and playing cool. "Forget it."
"Thank you." Saejima sounded genuinely relieved. He finished wrapping Masaki's heels in silence. When he let him go Masaki stretched his foot, testing the pain. It was odd. They still hurt, but the pressure from the bandaging felt almost nice, like the pain was wrapped in a blanket. Still very present, but safe and cared for.
"So what happens when I bleed through the gauze again?" Masaki asked. Saejima washed his hands a final time in the sink.
"You'll just have to come back so we can change your bandages." A quiet invitation. He had to come back. For the bandages, you see. Can't be helped.