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"That was good work."
Yosano flinches at Ranpo’s voice and shakes her head. He turns to face her slowly, ensuring she is not further startled during what he can only guess is another flashback. Her unfocused eyes confirm it.
“It was, Yosano-san. You-”
“No!” She curls into herself, fisting some of her hair, “His life-”
Her sobs are choked. She uses her forearms to wipe her tears, smearing the light makeup she had applied that morning. Her body, her breathing, her mind—everything about Yosano is shaking with the horrors she is reliving behind her eyes. Ranpo knows he needs to distract her, but the right distraction is the key to breaking her out of it fully. He holds her biceps gently, not as used to touching another to comfort as Fukuzawa but still trying to give his adoptive sister a sensation to ground her that isn't the pain she is directing to her scalp.
“His life is not going to continue because you freely chose to let him see his family again.”
Yosano couldn't see it that way right now, that objective way Ranpo could. His words about her ability were always such a liberation. They worked, usually. When she would be awakened to the feeling of Fukuzawa holding her because her nightmares made her scream until she was hoarse and the sight of her brother at the end of her bed with her thrown blanket in his arms, they helped ground her. When she flipped through medical studies and breached certain topics that contradicted her war knowledge, they helped assure her. When she got stuck in her head and kept bumping back into the memories she didn’t want to touch, they helped pull her out. They weren't doing that now. Using her ability, feeling the healing rush through her and towards another, seeing the flashing colors she had not in years—it brought to her senses the sounds and smell that accompanied its usage in the past. It brought back things she thought stayed in the nightmares since the incident on the roof. The young physician keeps pulling at her hair in hopes the pain will ground her, but purple eyes flash in her vision to accompany the pain, making her drop her hands and tremble harder. The vile memories make her retort to Ranpo less composed than she wishes.
“I freely chose to let others never see their families again before- before- before…”
She doesn't know how to finish the sentence. She feels like retching all over the concrete. It wasn't supposed to be like this. They had paired up for an investigation just to find the person Ranpo deduced to be dead in a state of near-death in the alleyway beside where his murder scene was supposed to be. Yosano hesitated but, as a former surgeon in training, could not keep herself from activating her skill. Ranpo was there. The nightmares had stopped affecting her everyday life. She thought that maybe the healing had been enough to use it again, but clearly it hadn't. She wasn’t able to talk about the case with the man, standing behind Ranpo as she masked her grimace and nodded at the thanks. It was when the man finally left that she allowed herself to breathe, but with that came the anger and regret bubbling out her throat the moment he praised her.
Ranpo removes one of his hands to wave for her attention and hold out to her, silently asking permission to hold hers. She lets him, noticing the shakiness of her limbs she hadn’t before.
“Breathe, Yosano-san. Deeply in and out,” he guides her step by step, “Remember what Fukuzawa said about breathing through your nose. The smell isn’t here.”
She breathes in out of trust. She can still smell the blood lingering, but if Ranpo says the smell is gone then the smell is gone. Her surroundings come more to her as she focuses. They’re walking somewhere. Yosano hadn’t realized that they were. It’s bright outside. Cars and people are making noise around her. She tries to inhale deeply again to clear the memories more and catches the scent of a food stand they walk by.
“Can you feel my hand now? Is it warm or cold?”
She almost smiles at the words she’s heard before, slightly altered in tense as they exit Ranpo’s lips. He was copying Fukuzawa, trying to steady her in a way he knew how despite his inexperience.
“Your hands are shaking too, Ranpo-san,” she answers.
“Nah,” he grins, “It’s the wind.”