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“What are those bandages on your arms?”
Aki’s heart jumped, and he rushed to pull his sleeves down. He stared at Himeno across the table, waiting for the judgment to show in her single eye. It always came, from Makima, from Kishibe, from everyone he’d met before Public Safety. He didn’t have to say anything. There was an assumption that jumped to mind when people saw his bandaged forearms, and he couldn’t refute it.
But he couldn’t let Himeno believe that. He didn’t want to lose her affectionate gaze.
“Fox wanted some of my skin,” he explained. “That’s my end of that contract.” Not untrue, though there was a reason he’d been as comfortable as he was with that contract. Carving flesh from his forearms wasn’t new to him. And it made for a convenient excuse.
“Aw, poor baby.” Himeno grabbed his hand, pulling his arm and revealing the bandages again. “That must hurt like hell.”
Aki’s heart thudded in his chest.
“Well… losing your eye must have been worse.”
“Yeah, but I only had to do that once.” She tapped his wrist, so gently it didn’t hurt the raw flesh beneath the bandages. “How often do you have to?”
“Usually every time it eats a devil. It wants something to cleanse its palette.”
“Huh.”
“Why’d Ghost want your eye, anyway?”
Himeno shrugged.
“You didn’t ask?”
“You feel any better knowing a devil thinks you taste good?”
“I guess not.”
“Exactly. What I don’t know can’t hurt me, y’know?”
Aki’s arms itched. He stared at her with his head in his hand, watching intently as she dove back into her meal. She always seemed so calm, almost carefree. She could have fooled someone else, but Aki knew better. No one joins Public Safety because everything in their life is okay. If they did, they wouldn’t stay okay. There was something beneath the surface, but she didn’t tell, and Aki didn’t ask. He was better off not knowing.
Or maybe there was nothing to know. Maybe he just felt better imagining that they both held some deep pain within them. Maybe it made him feel closer to her. Maybe he just didn’t want to be the only one suffering.
Sometimes, suffering felt like too harsh of a word. Aki was functional. He took care of himself. He had a job. He didn’t quite have relationships, but he had friendly acquaintances, and he had… whatever he had with Himeno. He could go through the motions of someone who was okay, and sometimes that felt like close enough.
The facade was paper-thin. It only took a small thing to make him tear and crumble. Something as simple as a snowfall made him want to lock himself in his room and never show his face again. A casual acquaintance asking innocently about where he grew up made his stomach lurch. New recruits whispering about the Gun Devil made him want to scream.
He didn’t remember which of those things had first driven him to cut. When he thought back on that day, he remembered nothing in particular, no inciting incident, no surrounding events at all. He wasn’t even entirely sure when or where it happened. He must have been young, because he had quite a few scars by the time he joined Public Safety. It was probably a bathroom in some convenience store, sealed in a stall with razor blades he probably stole. He’d had a pocket knife at some point, and he’d probably bought or stolen it with the excuse of personal protection, but by that time he’d already known what it was really for.
It felt… well, painful. It hurt and it bled and the scars were ugly. But it was a manageable pain. It was a pain he knew would fade, blood he could sop up with paper towels and tissues, wounds he could cover with long sleeves and bandages. It made something snap in his fucked up brain, and for a while the only thing on his mind would be the cuts, and that was better.
Himeno made it better, too. Being around her didn’t fix him, because really, nothing could, but her presence made the gnawing ache in his chest go away. She always smelled like cigarettes. The smell had overwhelmed Aki at first, making his eyes burn, but he’d gotten used to it. He took comfort in how the smell of smoke filled his lungs. It made his chest feel achy in a different way. He could have breathed in her secondhand smoke until it rotted him from the inside out.
He was too cruel to her about her smoking. What right did he have to condescend to her about self-destruction when his forearms were riddled with scars? Just because the smell of blood didn’t cling to his clothes after his own self-abuse sessions, that didn’t make him any better than her.
Being around Himeno helped, yes, but Aki couldn’t cling to her all the time. He had to go home at the end of the day. He had to be alone with his thoughts and with his past, and he felt like shit all over again.
He’d switched back to razor blades now that he had a bathroom to store a box of them. It also helped that his bathroom was clean: the nagging fear of contracting some horrible infection from his various open wounds was hardly present. He would hurt himself, then he’d take a hot bath in his clean bathtub, and then he’d wrap his arms with fresh cotton bandages. The cuts would sting beneath the bandages for a while, and he could sleep more easily focused on that pain than he could if he let his mind wander.
And then he had to go to work and face Himeno again. Himeno, who had not seen him use the Fox Devil’s powers recently, and who against all odds still seemed to think he was right in the head. Aki didn’t want to lose the only person that made him feel safe. Never again.
The bandages only stayed on for a day or so, until he was confident the bleeding had stopped and the cuts had begun to scab over. After that, he just made sure to keep his sleeves down.
He’d been invited out to dinner with Himeno and some of the other members of Public Safety. Aki could manage social events, but he wouldn’t say he enjoyed them. However, he managed to sidle up close to Himeno, his freshly wounded forearm brushing against hers. The little stings every time they touched made him feel so warm. The outing would be worth it if only for that touch. He’d remember it, relish it for days to come, run his fingers over his wounds and imagine her.
Himeno drank too much. Aki knew that. He lost count of how many drinks she’d had throughout the night, perhaps intentionally, but based on her drunken demeanor the answer was almost certainly too many. Her breath took on a different scent on nights like this, bitter beneath the still overwhelming smell of smoke. The only thing that could mask the cigarette odor entirely was vomit: he’d smelled it on her a few times, heavy and acidic, always accompanied by sweat-drenched hair and watery eyes. It made the cigarette odor seem sweet.
He knew Himeno would be hungover the next morning. She’d be exhausted and sluggish, and she’d lean against him for support as they patrolled. Aki would relish her touch, and he’d feel awful for it.
When he stood up to use the bathroom, he had to lift Himeno off him. He was gentle with her, making sure she could still sit up in her delirious state. Her dark hair fell to cover her half-lidded eyes. Aki turned away from her quickly.
She was beautiful. She was always beautiful, but now… now wasn’t the time.
The bathroom was dimly lit and empty. It was on the dingier side, but Aki had seen worse, and that meant fewer people would be desperate enough to use it. He rolled up his sleeves as little as he could manage, exposing only a few cuts in the process. He figured he could tolerate damp sleeves for the rest of the night.
Suddenly, the door opened with a sickly creak. Aki started, dampening his sleeves more than he would have preferred. He stepped closer to the sink and peered back anxiously, hoping the other patron would keep his head down on the way to the urinal.
Instead, he found himself staring at Himeno, leaning against the doorframe.
“This is the men’s room,” he hissed, perhaps more aggressively than necessary.
“Yeah, I know,” Himeno slurred. “Just checking on you.”
“I’m fine,” Aki said, narrowing his eyes at his own reflection. “Thanks, though.”
“Everyone’s leaving. You got a ride home?”
“I’ll walk.”
“It’s snowing.”
Aki felt a lump in his throat.
“I’ll get a cab, then,” he said dryly. “Since when do we get snow in November?”
“Dunno. Bad luck, I guess.” She stepped closer to him. “Come home with me. I’ll pay the cab fare.”
“I’m fine on my own,” Aki replied. “You really need to leave. Men’s room, remember?”
“There’s no one here.” She craned her neck, leaning over his shoulder. “Fox get you again?”
Aki’s heart was pounding. He hastily turned the water off and pulled his sleeves down, the cuffs now soaked with water.
“Uh… yeah,” he replied.
“Damn. What a bitch.”
Aki felt his chest tighten. It was a familiar feeling: guilt. He cared about Himeno, and he’d lied to her face. The guilt in his chest spread quickly. He was horrible, everything was awful and it was his fault and—
“How much have you had to drink tonight?” he asked, blotting his hands and sleeves with a paper towel.
“Six? I wasn’t counting.”
“I’ll come home with you. You probably shouldn’t be alone right now.” Bullshit. He knew Himeno could handle being drunk alone. In truth, he was the one who needed someone to accompany him. He didn’t want to walk through the snow alone again, thinking of what a horrible person he was.
“You wanna protect me?”
“I mean, I can hold your hair back if you throw up.”
“That’s cute.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him away from the sink. Her hands were so soft and warm, Aki didn’t bother trying to fight it. He let her drag him outside into the falling snow.
It was not a beautiful, picturesque snowfall. It would probably be better described as sleet, falling in thick wet clumps onto the sidewalk. Himeno’s hair was soaked, clinging to her cheeks. She still reached into her pocket for her cigarettes.
“Those won’t light, you know.”
“I know.” She rolled her eye at him. “Think the cab driver will let me smoke?”
“Maybe.”
She didn’t end up smoking in the cab. Instead, she rested her head on Aki’s shoulder until they were forced to shuffle back out into the cold night air. Aki could have stayed in the cab for hours.
Himeno was removing clothes practically the moment they were through her apartment door. She was down to underwear and socks by the time they were in her bedroom. Aki averted his eyes, staring at the wall until she’d crawled under the covers.
“You can take your clothes off,” she said, glancing up at him. “I mean, if you want.”
Aki shed his jacket and tie. His shirt sleeves were still wet. He sat on the edge of her bed, readying himself to actually crawl under the sheets.
“You’re really gonna sleep in your work clothes?”
Aki took off his belt. He debated taking off his pants, but he left them for the moment. It didn’t feel appropriate to take them off, and it would make leaving his shirt on less conspicuous. His shirt wasn’t coming off. It couldn’t. Not now.
“I get cold,” he said.
“The blankets are really warm. I promise.”
“You did say ‘take your clothes off if you want.’ I don’t want to take off any more.”
Himeno sighed.
“You’re not trying to hook up with me, are you?”
“No! I just want you to be comfortable, okay?”
“Good. Because I mean, we’re coworkers, and you’re drunk, and I… I can’t—“
“Aki. It’s okay.” She rolled onto her side, facing him. “I just don’t want you sleeping in your clothes. That would suck.”
“It’s not that bad.” He fussed with the buttons on his shirt. “You sleep in your eye patch. Isn’t that uncomfortable?”
“Huh? No. Kinda forget it’s there, honestly. I’ve gotten in the shower with it on before.” She slid her finger under the fabric band. “You wanna see what’s under it?”
What kind of question was that? What sounded better: yes, I’d love to see your desecrated eye socket or no, gross, why would I want to see something like that? Did she know in her drunken state what kind of an ultimatum this was?
“If you want to take it off,” he sighed.
Himeno smirked at him. She pulled off the eye patch and set it on the nightstand.
What was underneath was not what Aki had expected. Himeno’s right eye was crudely sewn shut with thick black thread, like a hastily-repaired doll.
“Why is it…”
“Like that?” Himeno shrugged. “I mean, if you saw Ghost—well, you couldn’t, but if you could, you’d understand.”
Aki nodded.
“I’ll put it back on now if you want.”
“No, you don’t have to.” Aki maintained eye contact with her, his gaze fluttering between her good eye and the sewn-up socket. It’s not so bad. I’ve seen worse. He repeated it in his head over and over. The sight still made his heart ache.
“Can I see yours?”
“My what?”
“Y’know, from Fox.” She pulled her arm out from under the sheet and gestured in the air.
“You don’t need to.” Aki shook his head.
“It’s only fair, isn’t it?” She propped herself up on her elbow and reached out to him. “They looked fucking nasty. I wanna see.”
“How many drinks have you had tonight?” Aki asked softly. He massaged his wrist through his sleeve gently.
“Uh…” Himeno trailed off. “God, I don’t know. Five?”
Aki took a deep breath and hoped her prior estimate was closer. Maybe, if he was more lucky than he deserved to be, she wouldn’t remember this. He unbuttoned his shirt slowly, in a way that would have seemed teasing if his hands weren’t shaking so much. He kept his arms in the sleeves as long as he could get away with, but he could feel her getting impatient, and he was forced to shed the shirt.
Himeno blinked, staring at his arms. Aki held his breath, waiting for an answer, but she was silent. He pointed at a thick purple line near the crook of his elbow.
“Here,” he said, tracing it with a finger. “I cut some of my skin off, and then she takes it.”
“Huh. I figured she bit you or something.” Himeno reached towards him, and Aki pulled his hands away. “How do you not bleed out, taking chunks out of your wrist like that?”
“If you start horizontally, and you don’t go very deep, you don’t hit the vein. Hopefully. It just wants the skin, so I don’t have to cut so deep.”
She pointed at a few thick scabs, touching his arm and making him flinch.
“Those look deep.”
“That’s because…” Aki swallowed. She won’t remember. She’ll wake up hungover with no memory of any of this. “These aren’t from Fox.”
“Oh.” She laid her fingers gently over his wrist, tracing over his injuries. It made Aki’s spine tingle. He’d wanted this, sure, her warm touch on his wounds. He’d fantasized about it every time their bodies met. But he still felt bad about it. It was the kind of fantasy that was never meant to come to fruition, something he should have kept in his twisted head.
“Alright. You’ve seen them.” Aki grabbed his shirt and started pulling it back on, but Himeno took hold of the fabric.
“I’m not done looking,” she protested. She snuggled up against his thigh, resting her hand on his arm again.
“Why not? They’re just cuts. There’s not that much to see.”
“They’re not just cuts.” She took him by the wrist, delicately holding his hand. “You were trying to hide them from me.”
Aki felt his stomach twist. Himeno was nuzzling him, kissing at the crook of his elbow.
“Poor baby,” she murmured, stroking his arm gently. “You’re too pretty to cut yourself.”
“Clearly I’m not.”
She hummed, moving down to kiss his forearms. Aki gasped.
“Don’t do that,” he murmured, weaving his fingers into her hair and gently pushing her away.
“Why not? Someone has to be gentle with you.”
No, you don’t. I don’t deserve that.
“I’m going to sleep.” Aki pulled away from her. It felt like ripping off a bandage that stuck painfully to his skin. He pulled his shirt back on, leaving it unbuttoned but making sure to cover his arms. “You should too.”
“Aki…” She wrapped her arms around his waist, pulling him close.
“Goodnight,” Aki said firmly, pulling back the covers and sliding underneath.
Himeno clung to him throughout the night. It stopped him from tossing and turning, even as he struggled to doze off. He didn’t want to disturb her. Hopefully at least one of them could get enough sleep that night.
When he finally woke up, Himeno had already gotten out of bed. Aki took some time alone to button his shirt and adjust his now decidedly messy ponytail. He needed to bathe. It would take a few showers before his hair stopped smelling like cigarettes, and he’d probably have to do a separate load of laundry lest the rest of his clothes be tainted with the smell. He still didn’t want to bring the smoke smell into his home.
He immediately noticed the lighter on the nightstand when he crawled out of bed. When he looked back down, he saw a few small black marks on the pillowcase. An image crossed his mind of the bed engulfed in flames, Himeno along with it.
At least he kept his own vice safely hidden in the medicine cabinet. At least his bedding wasn’t stained with the evidence of his self-destruction. At least he wasn’t so far gone he had to carry his tools of injury like a security blanket, waiting beside his bed or tucked into his pocket when he went out. If Himeno was still here, functioning in her own way despite being so broken, there must have been hope for him, too.
He found her on the balcony, wearing sweatpants and a thin sweater, a cigarette between her lips. She’d put her eye patch back on. Aki wasn’t sure how to feel about that. The snow had stopped, melting and evaporating in the early morning light, but there was still a noticeable chill in the air that made him wish he was wearing his jacket.
“How long have you been up?” he asked.
“Maybe half an hour,” she replied, gazing out at the orange sky.
And you’re already smoking. Aki held his tongue. He once again took comfort in not being so far gone.
“How many lighters do you have, anyway?” he asked, as if it was casual small talk and not an investigation into how deep her self-abuse ran. “I saw another one on your nightstand.”
“A few, actually,” she said. “It’s convenient to have more than one. Plus, this one’s really pretty, isn’t it?” She held up the lighter, letting Aki look at it closely. It was small and white, resembling the sort at the counters of gas stations, but it was adorned with pale pink flowers. It was oddly mesmerizing. He nodded, staring at it for a few more moments until she placed it back on the table.
Then she grabbed for her cigarettes, holding the pack out to him.
“You’re welcome to them, you know,” she told him. “All you have to do is ask.”
“I don’t smoke,” Aki said. “It rots your bones.”
Himeno glanced back at him, smiling as she exhaled a plume of smoke.
“Funny you care so much about your bones,” she mused. “The skin’s the largest organ in the body. Did you know that?”
Aki felt a chill run up his spine.
“That’s interesting,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets.
She stood up and walked close to him, the nicotine haze thick in the air between them.
“I’d feel better if you smoked, okay?” She caressed his cheek. “I meant what I said. You’re too pretty to cut yourself.”
“You remember,” Aki said in a hushed tone.
“Yeah. Hard to forget that.” She glanced aside and took another drag from her cigarette. “And it’s not like I was blackout drunk after a few beers. You know me better than that.”
Did he? Did he really expect her to forget his confession, or did he actually want her to remember? Now that the night had passed, maybe it would actually feel better to have gotten that secret off his chest. Whatever was going to happen because of it would come to pass, and he could stop worrying about it.
He’d stop worrying eventually. Right now, his stomach was in knots.
“I guess I was right about you. No one joins Public Safety without being fucked in the head somehow.”
“I’m fine,” he muttered. “You’re worrying about me. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Liar.” She smiled at him and placed her hand over his wrist. “You know I was already worried about you. If you cared, you would’ve quit Public Safety with me.”
“I…” Aki swallowed. “I just… didn’t want you seeing. I don’t know why.”
“Asshole.” She lifted his arm by the wrist, and he allowed it, going limp in her grasp. “It’s not nice to keep secrets like that.”
“I didn’t want to upset you. What you don’t know can’t hurt you, right?”
“I’m not upset.” She laced her fingers with his. “Okay, maybe I’m a little upset. But I’m more upset that you were hiding it from me.” She held her cigarette between her lips and pulled at the button on his shirt cuff. “Roll up your sleeves.”
“It’s cold.”
“Then we’ll go inside.” She shoved him through the patio door and kicked it shut behind her. Aki made a feeble effort to back away from her, letting her trap him against the couch. He sat down slowly. She stood over him and withdrew her cigarette from her mouth. It was still smoldering, and she made no move to put it out even now that they were inside. Smoke hung heavy in the air, and Aki suddenly felt hot in his shirt.
“Why do you want to see so badly?” Aki asked.
“Because my vision’s shit when I’m drunk. I deserve another look.”
Aki unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and rolled up his sleeves to the elbow. He presented his wounds to Himeno like an offering to a shrine, arms outstretched, head bowed. She rested delicate fingers on his wrist, still cold from the outside air.
“Fuck,” she sighed, tracing her hand up and down his arm. “Those must hurt like hell.”
“Not really.”
“You don’t have to be brave for me, you know.” She wrapped her fingers around his wrist, tightening her grip slightly. “If it hurts, tell me how bad it hurts. Tell me you cry.”
“I don’t cry.”
“Liar.”
“I don’t cry from the pain.”
“Aw.” Her grip loosened, and she stroked him gently again. It felt so fucking good. His spine tingled when she grazed over the deeper cuts. Sex wouldn’t have felt as intimate as this, soft hands exploring ugly, shameful wounds.
“You’re fucked up too,” he said. “If you weren’t, you wouldn’t touch my cuts like that.”
“But that’s why you like me.”
“I… yeah…”
“No shame in that. No shame in the cuts either, really. Lots of people hurt themselves.” She paused, pressing her cigarette between her lips again. Aki took a deep breath, letting the smoke fill his lungs, warm and acrid. “But I do wish you’d smoke instead. It’s not so…”
“Ugly?”
“No, not ugly.” She grinned at him. “Was that what you were afraid of? That I’d think you were ugly?”
“No,” Aki muttered. “Maybe.”
She shook her head. Her eye moved slowly, following the lines up and down his forearms.
“You don’t have to be afraid of that, believe me. You’ll always be a fucking prettyboy.” She held out her cigarette to him. “You’d be cuter if you smoked, though.”
“That was literally just in your mouth.”
“You’re welcome.”
Aki took the cigarette between his fingers. He placed it between his lips. All he had to do was mimic Himeno’s motions. He’d watched her smoke enough times to know what they were. He’d memorized how she closed her lips around the cigarette, drawing smoke into her mouth, then withdrawing it. He’d watched her chest rise as she inhaled deeply. He’d stared at her lips as they parted again, allowing smoke to gently cascade out.
He coughed before he got a chance to exhale. Himeno giggled.
“Too much?” She asked. “It’s your first time. Try to inhale a little less.”
Aki took a deep breath and brought the cigarette to his lips again. He took a quick drag, letting a small puff of smoke fill his mouth. It burned on the way down, but he suppressed a cough that time.
“How is it?”
“It’s fine,” he replied. He brought the cigarette to his lips again almost subconsciously. He liked the way the smoke burned his tongue, a fresher version of the stale smell that filled Himeno’s apartment and clung to her clothes.
“You’ll get used to it,” she said. “You probably didn’t tear up your arms like that the first time you cut, right?”
“No,” Aki said. He looked down at his left arm, at long-faded tally-mark scars hidden under the mess of scabs, the first hint of smoke before the fire.
“Do you think you’ll keep smoking?”
Aki let another cloud of smoke fill his lungs.
“I could get used to it.”
“Do you think you’ll stop cutting?”
He looked up at her. There was a hint of sadness in her single eye. His chest felt tight, and he almost coughed again.
“No.”
“Hm. Guess I should’ve expected that.” She wrapped her hands around his wrists. “It’s just so… violent. Don’t you want something more gentle?”
It wasn’t that he didn’t want something gentle. The way Himeno was touching him was gentle, and he never wanted it to stop. But she wouldn’t touch him like this if there weren’t cuts to mourn over, would she?
“It’s a distraction. It works. I need it to work.”
“Baby,” she muttered. “Poor baby.”
Aki’s eyes fluttered. He wanted to finish the cigarette, but he didn’t want to make Himeno let go of his arms. He sat there, cuts proudly on show, cigarette slowly burning down to the filter between his fingers. He felt debased, a pornographic image of self-abuse spread out before her.
He liked the feeling.