Work Text:
Himeno is dead.
Aki wakes up. On a strange surface under too-bright light, with cotton in his ears and a sludgy patch of fog for a brain. A man’s voice is speaking droningly to his right, sounding distant and staticky—a muffled, garbled mass of electronic nonsense. There is a single chair beside his bed, which Denji and Power somehow share. Neither one is looking at him.
“Give me—apple! Let me—!”
“No way! They’re all—!!”
Amidst the broken noise, Aki wakes up a little more. He moves his head a little more, blinks a little more, and then he remembers.
“Who else…,” he tries to croak, fails. Denji and Power are screaming at each other, they cannot hear him. He can’t hear them, either. Not really. Inside his head there’s only a memory sequence, one that expands and constricts like manipulated film, focusing on something horrific—Himeno, with her white shirtsleeves flapping in the wind. Empty, like a broken doll’s. And yet she still smiles, a bloodsoaked and destroyed one. Don’t you die on me, Aki.
His stomach churns. He wants to think it was all a dream, a nightmare, but denial has never been his strong suit.
Although sometimes, hope is. Or at least a small, vengeful, twisted version of it.
So he tries again.
“Who else from Division 4 is still alive?”
Only after the room becomes quiet that he realizes his hearing has pretty much returned. The news anchor is still giving his report on their recent fight with Katana Man, the air conditioner is humming on low, and the bedside chair creaks loudly as Denji adjusts his position on it. “That shorty called Kobeni…” Denji replies, matter-of-fact. Something in his tone keeps Aki’s hope dangling precariously, expecting a list and not an end. “I guess the guy with the glasses survived, too. Except he quit Public Safety.”
Aki waits.
Somewhere in the room, a clock ticks on. Aki counts the cruel seconds in wide-eyed blinks and bated breaths, but no other name comes to him, certainly not the one that feels like a homecoming.
Once more, the room is silenced. The weight of the confirmation hangs oppressively, a sewn-on shroud that takes away all the light. Everything is shadowed—the strands of his hair, the metal railing of his bed, his open hands against the white sheets. He doesn’t think he can look at anything white and made of fabric in his life ever again, not if he can help it. His ears close again; Denji and Power disappear, the television stops droning. He feels like he is alone in the universe, just a speck of sky among corpses of stars. Himeno, he thinks, prays, as if his thoughts alone could reach her. Himeno, Himeno. You asked me not to die, but look at what you yourself did.
What a hypocrite.
Click— The door to his room suddenly closes. The way it snaps with not too much force than necessary indicates that Denji is the one staying closer behind—Power is probably already running off by herself somewhere. In any case, they are both gone now. Aki is suddenly, actually, alone—with only the Cursed Devil sword as company. On the floor below his bed, the nail-like sword seems to pulse, tempting him with knowledge that can make or break his current state of mind.
How long? Aki thinks, as he reaches for the sword and the curse both. How many years would it be? How fast, or how slow, would I be able to reach her again?
How long will I cry for her?
Two years, the Curse Devil answers, in a voice that speaks of storms and doom. Two years, repeats Aki, his remaining age stretching before his eyes as a fact, an unadorned path he simply needs to follow. Two years. Approximately seven hundred and thirty days. If I still live after killing the Gun Devil, I can work with that.
He can’t work with that.
There’s a pack of cigarettes on his bedside table, already opened but with no piece missing. He can’t remember if it’s his, or a rather unconventional gift from some well-wisher… or if it was actually Himeno’s. They used to share smokes so often the actual owner’s name became irrelevant. What’s more, they had a taste for the same brands—although recently this indulgence had started to lose its importance as well. Because when it came to each other, both Aki and Himeno were not picky about destroying themselves.
Used to. Aki takes one cigarette, slips it into his mouth. The past tense in his mind hurts, and two years sounds like much too long a time, so he decides to take matters into his own hands. He can very well hurt himself, thank you very much.
His hand trembles when he tries to ignite the lighter. One flick, then another, two and three and four. On the fourth try, he succeeds. The flame sparks strong, the color of golden hour sky on the tips of his fingers, gently warming without burning him. How he wishes it would burn, would sear away the skin of his thumb until it crackles and crumbles into ash. He would have welcomed the pain that came and split him in two, because he would find it manageable—easy, commonplace, quick to fritter away and be forgotten—much, much more manageable than what he’s actually going through. Himeno-senpai, stop torturing me, he pleads to the remembered girl, whose hand forms from his hand and now holds his lighter for him. Her eyes shine with a knowing smile, but she soon turns out the light and moves as if to go. Wait, no, I don’t mean that. Come back. Himeno, come back.
Come back and light my cigarette for me again.
She doesn’t return, of course. Not in the flesh, not in fever dreams. Not to slay devils and seek comfort in him right after. Aki’s cigarette lies unlit with the hospital sheets as its backdrop, white rolled paper against white cloth, and he takes it back inside his hand in a pathetic attempt to ruin such deadly whiteness. His grip on it tightens after a while, but the flimsy smoke never crumples.
Not even when Aki himself does.
/
That’s right, Aki. Thank you.
Thank you for crying for me.
Honestly, it’s all I’ve ever wanted.
/
The first time Aki cried in front of Himeno was supposed to be a secret. Unintentional. Unseen.
But seen he finally was.
There had been a mission several days prior, a particularly bad one. All Aki remembers of it now is just some broken images—singed suits, melted metal, a devil that glows and razes the ground every time it moves. There were so many screams they rose into the air as a boiling substance and created their own smoke, choking to death the humans that had been their source. Aki’s comrades dropped around him, one after another, like moths being given to flame. The fight’s aftermath saw burning buildings in a sea of ash, and the resulting debris still held down chunks of bodies like hands to a drowning man when the bureau’s people came to clean them up. It wasn’t a bloody battlefield, not really, but death wore its crown there nonetheless.
Aki and Himeno were left standing, first amidst charred corpses and then two whole rows of gray as dawn headstones. The series of funerals had been held on a Tuesday morning, so before too long Aki excused himself to go into work before he could be considered tardy. “Miss Makima wants to see me,” he told Himeno when the latter offered him breakfast and a spot on her passenger seat, “I’ll see you at work, Himeno-senpai.”
It wasn’t a lie. Makima did want to see him, but their appointment wasn’t until late in the afternoon.
Himeno found him not half an hour later, sitting at a desolate corner of the Public Safety’s rooftop. The space was unlike those depicted in high school-set movies—there were no wide stretches of clean white tiles or balcony railings made out of reflective glass and varnished wood. The highest area of the bureau’s building was exclusively used to keep the whole thing running, which means its rooftop was home to a jungle of pipes and air ducts, as well as its cooling ventilation systems. It was not a very comfortable place to be in, obviously, and yet there Aki was. Sitting with his back against some water tank with his eyes swollen and leaking, hair a messy curtain around his face. Caught red-handed by his senior like a shoplifting child, except he was actually showing how he hadn’t let his heart and his tears be stolen. Despite the violence, despite the common deaths. Despite, despite, despite.
Aki watched Himeno watch him, counted the steps she took to reach him. When she did, he half-expected her to laugh in that mocking way she had or, god forbid—try to console him with awkward pats on the back or a forced conversation topic. He always hated it when his late parents or younger brother did the same when they found him crying. These are just tears, he used to say, just leave me with them for a while and I’ll be fine.
But we love you, Aki, they’d return. That’s why we don’t want you to keep crying.
They were just uncomfortable with the idea of having hurt him somehow and not being able to make him feel better, but he’d accepted their reasoning anyway because he loved them, too. Isn’t that how you keep the ones you love by your side—by eventually agreeing with their ideas even though it ate away a piece of yourself in exchange? Human relationships are a lot like devil contracts, in that regard. And they are also similar in the way nothing is guaranteed—his family was still taken away. Ripped from him like roots from its soil, they left him alone with something heavy and cold behind his chest. But a heart encased in ice is still a heart regardless, and sometimes its softness and longing for things freely given can generate enough heat to make it weep.
“Hey, scoot over.”
When Aki did, a little reluctantly, Himeno took a seat beside him. A juncture of pipes laid behind her back, a meeting point for all things mild and hardened. She sat with her legs crossed, one hand cradling a lit cigarette between her lips, and stayed there without summoning the comfort of words. Beside her, Aki measured the running seconds using her puffs of nicotine smoke, timed the quiet in the gray of her breaths. He waited for the inevitable break that would make him regret not finding an even more secluded place, but it never came. No questions. Not even acknowledgement—of feelings, of signs, of what this meant for both their prognosis as devil hunters. No patronizing comments disguised as wisdom— ”It’s okay for even boys to cry, you know” —and in the end, Aki stopped waiting. He just stared at Himeno’s profile, unusually serene without the hardness of combat. A huntress at rest in daylight. Her cigarette was slowly getting shorter. “You want a smoke?” he suddenly heard Himeno say, her eyes following his, misinterpreting. Her smile already unobstructed, the cigarette sat between her fingers, an offering and a gift both. “This is my last one, but we can share.”
As he accepted, Aki remembered his very first drag of smoke—also courtesy of Himeno. She’d offered him one over a meal of dumplings and almond tofu, and she had looked so sad, so lonely, when he’d initially refused. I wish you would, she’d told him, her eyelashes lying downcast, Because I have a feeling we’re gonna be together for a while. She’d needed someone who would also destroy themselves right next to her, and really, with his goals of revenge and everything, who was Aki to deny her that? He’d begun his contract with the Fox Devil at the beginning of that week, and she’d already eaten away a long strip of flesh from his right thigh. And now there he was, being given a choice to control what to destroy himself with while also answering another person’s pain with something other than cold judgment.
Honestly, there had only been one answer to give.
And now I’ve become the sadder one, he thought as he inhaled, tears prickling the corners of his eyes once again. Looks like we handle each other the best when one of us is broken. Something in Himeno’s sadness at his refusal back then had called him to action without asking too many questions, and now Aki could only guess that the opposite was also true. He didn’t know if other hunters felt this way about their buddies as well, but it was the first time in a long while where Aki felt like he could simply exist just as himself—whoever that was.
Somewhere between the ensuing back-and-forths of the sole cigarette, Aki began to cry again. Himeno stayed next to him the whole time, smoking and sharing with him what little flame she had left. And when the cigarette was burnt to its butt and Aki got tired of his own tears, Himeno let him rest his softened temple on her shoulder. Just for a little while.
Just for a little while, before it was business as usual.
/
“How did you find me up there?” Aki asked as they descended the stairs, already several floors down from the rooftop. Their desks lie in wait still further below, but as always, Himeno was never one to live the easy life. Think of it as a light exercise, Aki, come on. The row of elevators had only watched in mocking silence as Aki let himself get dragged away, right before their perfectly-functioning doors. Fine, Himeno. But I’m not carrying you halfway if your legs get tired.
Oooh. Now that’s a tempting offer.
In truth, Aki was grateful for the long walk. It was a chance for his mind to stretch and take room, for his heartbeats and feeble eyes to settle once more into their typical, unbothered rhythms. People die. In fire and brimstones, in buckets of blood and missing limbs, very rarely in peaceful sleep—they all die. They die, and we cry, but we move on. “Himeno,” he calls again, insistent. “Answer me.”
“Hmm?” Himeno was a few steps in front of him, her hands joined at the small of her back. She had a habit of looking cheerfully absent-minded, especially when faced with such a confronting question. “Well—I don’t know, Aki. You just look like you prefer high spaces, I guess?”
“Huh.” Aki blinked at her answer, mulled it over, then sped up his pace just a little. Now they were both walking on the same stair, their steps falling with barely half a beat in between. “I think you might be right.”
/
Himeno was right. Aki does like high spaces, especially after the Gun Devil incident. Looking down from a good vantage point has its obvious benefits in battle, but even when the world is quiet and his hair is down, he always prefers it to being near the ground. It calms him, makes him breathe more easily. Like he is whole, or more in control. It’s an illusion, he knows, a fragile one—but although he is no con man, and he tries to always choose the blunt truth over pretty lies, he is not above the occasional plays of make-believe. After all, jumping down from on high to stop a disaster from unfolding has a much better chance of success than breathlessly running uphill.
And yes, he speaks from experience.
From the grimy windows of his hospital room today, Aki can see the sky without looking up. It is the palest of blue mixed with gray, the color of held-in rain, of shuttered grief trying to contain tears. It does not bring him any peace. He sees Himeno’s cigarette smoke in the leaden droop of the clouds, and at the sight of the next building’s balcony he recalls only ruin. So that’s exactly what he does. He lets himself fall into ruin again, right there on the brim of impending rain. He lets himself cry, for the second time in just half an hour after Denji and Power left, because what else can he do? Everything has turned into a question, an imagined glance, a memory. Not even a high place can save him now. He just wants to come down to the lowest ground, to really have no more depths to fall into, because now he feels like he is drowning, and the whole sea is salty and glides slowly like tears.
Like a fabled current, the room spins around him. His footing slips, the lamplight flickers into periodic darkness, the ceiling has suddenly become the floor—he has no evident sense of direction. They say the world turns into something clearer after you cry, but it is not the case with Aki today. A high place for him was just a space to be in and oftentimes a symbol of refuge, but now it has turned into a haunted house. When he sees huge windows he can only hear gunfire, when the sky looms close around him it is the backdrop of swords and death and blood blooming on an unworn shirt.
And when he thinks of Himeno, he cries. He sees the tailends of her smile from beyond a lighter’s glow and his chest feels like it’s being crushed. His own movement on the hospital bed mirrors hers when the night was too quiet to spend alone, just before she fell asleep holding him, and he has to stay very still if he doesn’t want to break into pieces. He thinks of Himeno and doesn’t remember a work partner, he thinks of Himeno and remembers everything.
Himeno. Just calling her name inside his head makes him want to melt into the walls and never get back out again. It never hit him this much before, the death of a comrade. He cried for them, sure, but he never drowned for them. Himeno, Himeno. Just what have you done to me?
Just who are you to me?
Outside, a thunderstorm howls. Aki continues to fulfill Himeno’s wish, and remembers everything.
/
After that rooftop incident, something between Aki and Himeno shifted. The air around them became ripe with not just professional amity, but also a real, comfortable warmth that Aki never had to think to navigate. Maybe it was friendship, maybe it was merely an evolving familiarity. Or it was affection born by being near and counting on each other for kinship and protection, like what develops between children who have been brought up together. A sense of loyalty, perhaps—or camaraderie brought into being by the many life-or-death situations they’d managed to subdue. Whatever you want to call it, it was there. Aki felt it with every inside joke he watched her laugh at, in every touch and pull of her hand he never jerked away from. It fluttered, bloomed, in every story of both their pasts and present that they didn’t keep alone anymore. And it went on growing over the years, like a cherished plant, the two of them continuing to swim in it until Aki forgot that he’d once thought he’d rather stay dry.
A buddy is only a tool. Like a sword, or a devil contract. That was what Aki had believed in, back when he first joined Public Safety. He remembered thinking he’d do anything within reason—get trained by any strong and experienced hunter, be anyone’s partner, ace whatever mission he was assigned, form a contract with any powerful devil—as long as he gets to kill the Gun Devil. By himself. With his own power. Not by getting along with anyone else, and certainly not with the badly-injured girl standing alone in a cemetery who, apparently, was to be his first buddy.
“Are you useful?” Himeno had asked him that day, the first time they met, the very first question she’d ever made him answer—to which Aki only gave an affirmative but noncommittal answer in return. I suppose I am, or at least more so than you, he’d replied inside his head, staring with disappointment at Himeno’s numerous bandages. Her injuries had been severe, he could see that, and even when he promised Himeno he wasn’t planning to die anytime soon (not to gain her approval but only because that was a fact), he told himself once again that he would work without getting attached with anyone, buddy or otherwise. And definitely not with someone weak. Not with someone who had fought a devil and came out maimed—in more ways than one, if he were to judge from the near-empty light of her one remaining eye.
“Aki, what did you want to be when you were little?”
Himeno’s voice was a crack in his memory. They were taking a break on an empty balcony in the bureau’s building, nursing soda cans and letting the breeze play with their hair. “I don’t remember,” After a considerable pause, Aki replied, “Probably something cliché, like a doctor or a teacher.”
“Bo-o-ring.” Himeno singsonged. “Let’s change the question, then— If devils didn’t exist and you hadn’t become a hunter, what would you want to be?”
“You mean for work?”
“Yeah.”
Aki puffed on his cigarette, watching the smoke swell. “I never really thought about it, Himeno.”
“Then think about it now.” When Aki rolled his eyes at her, she laughed. “Come on, I’ll wait. We have time.”
Sighing, Aki turned around, letting his back hit the railing. “Okay, then you help me think. What am I good at?”
“Mmm… Something that’s not devil-hunting related…” A crease formed between Himeno’s eyebrows, then she made a list within her fingers. “Probably cooking, driving, writing reports, arranging budgets?”
“Those are just basic life skills.” He glanced at her, shaking his head. “Do better.”
“No, no, wait.” Something inside Himeno’s eyes brightened, and suddenly Aki found himself unable to look away. “By being good at all those things I said… You would do great as a restaurant owner, don’t you think?”
“A restaurant owner?”
“Yeah!” Himeno was full-on inspired now, and she began to paint her vision in words so Aki could drown in it, too. “Picture this: A small restaurant, probably selling soba or those grilled fish in meal sets. You’d be cooking in the kitchen, Denji or Power would be taking orders, or doing deliveries. Sometimes you’d man the cashier too, after you got another chef to work for you. You’d chat with customers when you feel like it, and in the evenings, you’d organize your workers’ schedule and look over the shop’s finances. That kind of life suits you, don’t you think?”
“Nice dreams, Himeno.” Aki crushed his cigarette underfoot, trying to look unaffected. He was never one to entertain imaginations, but he was beginning to see Himeno’s delusion, too—in increasingly greater detail—and it scared him. “Although I would never trust Denji and Power anywhere near a customer.”
“Good point.” A new cigarette lit up and ready, fished out from her suit pocket, stopped its trajectory in midair as Himeno gave a small laugh. “Aki, don’t you want to know where I am and what I would be doing there?”
“Inside this dream world?” Aki tried to confirm, and Himeno nodded. Sighing, he began to untie his hair, shook it out, then tied it again. Just to have something to do with his hands. “If you want to tell me, I’m not gonna stop you.”
“Well, then. I would be a frequent customer, coming for breakfast every other day before going to work in a tall, sophisticated office building downtown.” Himeno’s cigarette laid small and white between her fingers, a delicate poison coming to rest on her lips. A stream of smoke blew out when she exhaled, and beneath its scatter, she was smiling. “I think I would be good working in an advertising agency. I’ve always liked persuading people, and I’ve always wanted to learn how to design something… engaging. Something that drew people’s eyes and made them want to act, and do what I want them to do. It always feels powerful to me, in a way.” She shrugs, her eyes looking far away. “I would be too busy to cook for myself, so maybe I’d have been surviving on convenience store food until I found your shop. And the rest is history.”
Despite his unwillingness, Aki could almost see it, right before his eyes— Himeno in a tailored skirt and blazer, high heels confidently clicking the pavement, running around the city to meet up with clients, then takes her break in a small restaurant. A restaurant that he owns. He decided it would sell grilled fish meal sets, just like Himeno said, complete with homemade miso soup, rice, and pickles. The interior would be mostly wooden, preserving a traditional feel, and there wouldn’t be too many tables. At night it would double as a bar, selling grilled skewers over alcohol, and Himeno would probably visit after work as well. Aki imagined tending the bar himself some nights, serving drinks without much chatter, but when Himeno came alone one night and tried to rope him into a conversation, he couldn’t really do anything but let her.
And the rest, like she said, would be history.
“I’m glad I could still be useful to you, then,” Aki responded after a pause, praying Himeno wouldn’t notice his momentary lapse into hallucination. He wished he’d still had his cigarette to crush and crumple, to light and blow and hide his face in. “In this improbable dream world.”
“Of course, Aki. We’d still be best buddies, no matter where we are.” When Aki glanced at her, Himeno’s eyes were closed, but she was still smiling. Almost like she was truly dreaming—sleeping and sewing fantasies and waiting to wake up in her imaginary life. “You would still be useful to me and I would still try to be stronger every day.”
You are already strong enough to me, Himeno, Aki wanted to say, but something stopped him. Instead, he just watched her face, uncannily calm and beautiful in the safety of her fantasies, and wished he could remake the world to fit her dreams. It takes a certain kind of strength to conjure a friendly world when all you’ve known is a hellish one.
/
The first time it happened was a half stumble, a split-second decision. A badly formed thought inside a head muddled by alcohol, meant to dull the spikes of adrenaline just a little. Their mission that night hadn’t been particularly hard, but a child had been taken hostage. For Aki, it hit a little too close to home, reality looking more like memory, and maybe that was why he’d walked out of the fight with a stomach gash a little too deep. Himeno had to half-carry him home to his apartment after he’d gotten patched up by the bureau’s medic (he’d refused to stay overnight at the Public Safety building to recuperate), and helped him shower when he couldn’t manage to move without doubling over in pain. It was mortifying, to say the least, but she’d insisted. “Drink this,” she’d said, giving him a glass of strong wine from an opened bottle, “Just to take the edge off.” She poured him two more glasses on his request after that, making him pliant and not as self-conscious during the whole process. Later, when they were both stretched out on his living room sofa trying to discuss the earlier conflict for their next report, Himeno’s hair tips softly brushing his left shoulder, Aki had searched for comfort by moving in to kiss her. Slowly, painfully, full of doubt, giving her ample time to refuse. But in the end, it was Himeno who closed the gap and made the first touch bloom. And it felt good. It felt good, and just the right amount of reckless.
In the absence of painkillers, what followed after felt like an escape. A distraction, a welcome desperation, a desperate consolation. Aki clung to her with white fingertips, letting Himeno be the lead dancer. He’d had no choice but to be gentle, but he also welcomed each sear of pain around his wound like an old friend, because it numbed whatever else he was trying not to feel. His heart was a seat of ice, thudding hard and heavy behind his chest, but at some point during the night Himeno had to wipe away his tears. She’d let him cry, though, soft fingers tracing the wet tracks left behind, no questions asked, and for the first time in his life, Aki let himself be taken care of.
And it didn’t stop, after that first time. There was always a reason—a colleague’s birthday, a newbies’ introduction party. A stumble home, bone-weary and adrenaline-filled, after bloody battles and violent missions. They started finding solace in each other without ever defining anything, and Aki just stopped thinking and went along with it.
You’re my new bad habit, Aki, she’d told him once, over a spread of Chinese food platters. So don’t you dare die on me.
Okay. Aki didn’t even shrug, just kept eating his portion of sweet and sour pork. Are you gonna eat that almond tofu? Weird—she always ordered the dish, but she would only pick at it until he offered to take it off her hands. Every single time.
Oh, I don’t think so. She’d always look surprised, as if she’d simply forgotten. I’m already full. Go ahead, Aki. You can have it.
One night in his own bed, Aki watched Himeno fidget, trying to burrow herself deeper into the sheets. The season was just beginning to fall, away from summer and into autumn, but Himeno was the type of person who got cold easily. She could detect the slightest chill in the wind like a bloodhound to a scent, and this ability was somehow enhanced on quiet nights. Rainstorms are better for sleeping, she always said. They take away your brain, just a little.
Aki, you could benefit from that.
“Aki, aren’t you cold?”
“No,” Aki replied, meeting Himeno’s half-open gaze. “You can hog the covers, I don’t mind.”
“The covers?” A wrinkle of the nose, then a smile lit up her side profile—a little mischievous, a little desperate. There wasn’t a mission nor a drink party earlier tonight, and maybe that was the reason why she got so restless still. If Aki usually searched for her after blood and tears and violence so he could coax and take and handle someone so gently he felt like himself again, Himeno often chose to run down her list of vices on peaceful nights. Emptier nights. “Why would I want the covers when you’re right here?”
Hearing this, Aki sighed, but he adjusted his position. Shifted his body toward the headboard, realigned the pillows, and opened his arms. “Fine. Come here, then.”
Himeno went in easily, almost obediently. Her earlier smile was still there, so Aki wasn’t surprised when she told him next, “I was actually hoping you’d warm me up in some other way, you know.” And she stirred ever nearer, brushing his stomach on her way downward. When her fingers found what they were looking for, she didn’t hesitate. “There we go. Do me a favor, partner?”
“God, Himeno. Again?” Aki asked, breathing a little harder now. The sliver of skin on her lower back seemed to have fused with his fingers, trapping them between the hem of her shirt and the waistband of her shorts. He thought, this is what lovers who like to tempt fate do. But we are not lovers, aren’t we, so nothing will happen to us.
“Why not? We have all night, don’t we?” Himeno hovered above him, one leg poised to straddle or to kick, sometimes Aki had trouble deciding. “The next night might not be this peaceful, you know.”
She didn’t say, the next night might not even come for us. Or the next night might end too quickly while we’re cleaning blood off each other. But Aki understood it all the same. There is no time like the present, Aki. We might not live long anyway, Aki. And so, just like with his first cigarette all those years ago—when Himeno offers, Aki takes.
But unlike other nights, that night he didn’t stop thinking, even at the first touch of her mouth on him.
/
On nights as quiet and clear as this one, Himeno makes love like she smokes. It is an escape from something dark and hopelessly hollow, and she does it with practiced hands. Without hesitation. Without inhibition.
I used to mind it, but now I don’t. Now I am her cigarette and her kisses are my drags. She lights me up and I burn for her. She goes down on me and I return the favour—I stop her when my edge is near, she forbids me to stop when she’s approaching hers. We’re two people battling our own ghosts using our own ways in different corners, Himeno more literally than I do, but sometimes we decide to meet in the middle and become each other’s backup. It feels nice. It feels similar to sharing a cigarette with her—our mouths meeting behind an ember, our breaths lighting the same fire, the world disappearing for a little while. A constantly replaceable vice, a convenient way to pass the time. That’s what I am to her. What we are to each other.
She guides me inside her, where I burn brighter. Takes me in like a challenge, absorbs me still deeper. I smolder. I am one breath, one drag closer to death, and I move in her like I am desperately trying to hold on to my flame. I do not want to be discarded.
“Give it up, Aki,” Himeno soothes me, trying to coax my undoing. “Come on. You can let go.”
I do not want to be discarded. “Himeno,” I gasp, “I don’t—” I don’t want to die. I do not want to be stepped on, I do not want to be crushed underfoot. “Himeno, I don’t want to go out.”
She must not have understood me—I didn’t even understand myself—but she calms me down anyway. “Sshh, Aki. Sshhh. It’s okay. Who says you’re going out?” She kisses away my tears, so I can see her more clearly. “You’re only coming alive.”
When she tells me this, she becomes my vice, too. Validating my goal, making me believe I deserve peace and release. Convincing me I am not on a path to self-destruction. That I can die a little, in this room, in her arms, for her senses only, and walk away strong as ever tomorrow. So in the end, that’s exactly what I do. I come apart with a sound I dare not make anywhere else, and she follows me right after. She trembles around me—a sweet, sweet sensation—and I continue to burn. I do not go out.
I do not go out. I am still here, the two of us are still here. Although no one really knows for how long.
“Do you love me, Aki?” As always, Himeno asks this question afterward, as if gauging my usefulness after she reduces me to ash for the night. She speaks of love like she craves only its likeness and never its essence—like vices, like death. She looks at me like she doesn’t want to own me. Only light up. Only keep alive. Like any other temporary lust, I am to be replaced any day, although for some reason it hasn’t actually happened yet.
And so I told her no, because a cigarette is bound to go out. When it is down to a stub and its master finds nothing else to take, it will be replaced. It cannot love its master, it cannot crave the same hand that has both ignited it and will throw it away. “No, Himeno,” I say, when I actually mean I don’t know, I don’t want to know when we keep treating each other like this. To which she replies, the same old reply every time, “Good. Neither do I.”
/
But now Aki wishes he’d told her yes, at least once. Maybe then she wouldn’t have wondered how it felt to have someone cry for her. Maybe she wouldn’t have used up all her strength just so Aki’s life didn’t go out, only to have her Ghost be swallowed whole by another devil before it can fully expend her lifeblood. Maybe then she wouldn’t have had to die.
And I wouldn’t have had to realize what she meant to me all along in this way. In this lonely, regretful, tortuous way.
He wishes he’d told her yes, he finally realized, because it was the truth. He did love her. Like a partner, like a lover, like a comrade in arms—the definitions all blurred, but honestly, what did it matter? He loved her enough to lose himself in the pain of losing her. He loved her enough to realize he shouldn’t have been stingy with his time and words when it came to her. He should have been brutally, blatantly honest, like he did with anything and anyone else. After all, they were already living like they were going to die any day, so why did he never confront himself with the truth? What was it he was so afraid of? What was he trying to avoid?
The answer, unfortunately, doesn’t exist. It never did, because Aki honestly had never thought about any of this before. At least not like this. He just knew that she was an important person in his life, and that he sometimes, when the mood was right, wanted her. And when he found out that she wanted him in return, he just let himself be pulled along. He found a vice and stayed a vice. And he was content with it all.
Throughout their relationship, he was fine with knowing how their nights together would end, how she would only look for him when she was lonely, and vice versa. Himeno loved him the same way she loved cigarettes, and Aki was pretty much okay with that. He knew he was probably just a replaceable, convenient little thing that made her feel like she still had some control on her life. A wavering little light at the edge of her bleak worldview, a pretty piece of defiance she could twirl between her fingers. Maybe it was the truth, maybe it wasn’t. To Aki, it didn’t matter then, and it sure as hell doesn’t matter now. None of it matters anymore—not what she thought about him, nor what he left unsaid—because Aki was actually the one who got hooked on Himeno the way he latched onto a good smoke. He didn’t think he’d need her at first, but then he’d gotten to know her. He’d had her, lit her, craved her, and finally lost her. It didn’t matter if she loved him like a bad habit or an exalted soulmate, because the last few days did happen, and the fact of her death remained—she went out so he could still burn.
Aki, don’t you dare die.
And now her very absence takes so much out of him he’s spiraling into a withdrawal. His hospital room swirls once more, and now she sits in front of him with her hands outstretched, like she did on so many post-mission nights before. Come here, show me your wound. Does it hurt? Let me see.
It does. Aki answers her, giving her his hands. The Katana Man stabbed him in his middle, somewhere near his ribs, and yes, that part of him still throbs like crazy, but what he showed Himeno is his hands. It hurts. I have your blood on my hands.
It hurts so much, Himeno.
My blood on your hands? A laugh, breathy and barely there. No, you don’t, silly boy. Himeno takes his hands even as she berates him, softly running her cold, cold fingers on his palms. You didn’t kill me. I didn’t die because of you.
But you died because you had to sacrifice everything, Aki protests, spelling out his guilt one small word at a time. You did drastic measures to give me time, when I got hit. To save me.
That’s true, but you didn’t ask me to save you— I did it all myself. I wanted to do it all myself. So that means I didn’t die because of you, but because of myself.
No one has my blood on their hands, Aki. Well, except maybe that damn Katana devil. Man. Fiend. Whatever.
Somewhere in the hospital room, a clock announces its seconds in straightforward ticks. As Aki falls abruptly silent, Himeno’s fingers dance on the back of his hand, drawing patterns like shapes of water. Sofly, familiarly, dreamily. Until finally, a question: Why, Himeno?
Hm? Why what?
Why did you do that? Why would you want to go to that extent for me?
Himeno makes a sighing expression. Because that’s what we do, Aki, she says. We save each other. You would do the same for me, wouldn’t you?
Aki nods, no hesitation, because of course he would, ten thousand times over, but then he realizes that the answer he wanted lies deeper than that, from both Himeno and himself. Why would he do that? Why would they do that for each other? Sure, they had been colleagues and teammates, they were used to watching each other’s backs—this is a normal thing, he also does it with pretty much any other hunter in the Bureau who has ever worked with him—but when it comes to Himeno, it is also wholly different. No matter how self-deprecating Aki sometimes gets, he wouldn’t sacrifice himself and everything he has for just anyone, without calculating the pros and cons: How much would him fighting to the death turn the current tide of war? Would the person he saves be able to prevail in the end? Would they be strong enough to someday kill the Gun Devil in his stead?
If the answer to all these questions are not present, even in a hypothetical situation…
Then there is only one other explanation.
Because I loved her.
The word and all its meanings crash in his chest, curves around his heart and lungs like waves settling into familiar shores. It’s always been there, all this time, a series of steady knocks and twinges that always got sidetracked by pumps of adrenaline and blood outside bodies. It’s almost like a neglected child, waving its little hand around in a dark-as-death room hoping for a hold, over and over and over. Its pleas and cries have gone unanswered so far, but not this time. I got you, little buddy. Aki has found it in himself to double back in the dark and search for the outstretched hand, the small light of a cigarette his only beacon, his only torch. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. He has taken hold of the small palm, encased it whole in his own hand. Look, I’ve found you now. Everything’s gonna be okay.
It doesn’t bring a rush to his head, this final reason. It’s always been a part of him, so its awakening just resembles a kind of settling, a long-awaited acceptance without questions, an easy surrender. And because Himeno is his mirror, both his opposite and his twin, Aki thinks that his reason is probably hers as well, maybe wearing a different twist but just as easy to realize once given the right prompts. A little hard to coax out, perhaps, because Himeno shows people her surface only at first, but knowing her for as long as he has, he thinks it is time for both of them to say what they really mean, to tack on a word for how they feel about each other. It’s time for them to lose their defenses, more so than they ever did by being naked.
“Of course I would, Himeno.” Aki’s fingers move, bending the air into a tentative hold. “But not just because that’s what we do.”
Oh? Himeno smiles in her usual sly way, like she already knows what he’s thinking and is just waiting for her prediction to come true. You have another reason? Do enlighten me, then.
“Because I loved you.” Aki meets the eye that still sparkles even in death, watches it widen imperceptibly. “And I still do.”
Oh. There is a pause, measured still in the clock’s unforgiving beats. Tick tick. Tick tick. Aki waits for the inevitable boom, whichever way it swings. Outside, it has begun to rain—the gray quiet of the room broken slowly by the sound of water needles splattering against the window. The Himeno before him sways, blurring at the edges, although her smile remains steady. Thinner than he remembers but still as pretty. Thank you, Aki, she finally says, gliding closer. I needed to hear that.
“I’m sorry I never told you that.” All this time, if only I’d told her just once. “I’m really sorry.”
That’s okay. She slowly settles inside his arms, her cheek on the crook of his neck. That’s okay, I understand. The words get repeated over and over, until Aki is left clutching at nothing and everything all at once, fresh tears streaming down his face. He thinks of Himeno as she was before, a girl who destroyed herself for want of love, who only knew loneliness as fuel for vice, and how her meeting him was a blessing and a curse both. Because loneliness made him withhold love, made him hide it away in some faraway corner and pretend to forget, to ignore. They understood each other just to dip and rise in a deadly, eternal waltz; they hurt and save each other in predictable three-quarter beats, always in sync, always in rhythm. It’s okay, Aki, it’s okay. Shh. Don’t cry.
Don’t cry for me anymore. It’s okay.
It’s okay, Aki. I love you too.
Himeno says I love you like she’s apologizing, and Aki is there to catch the shame and the regret. “I know,” he tells her. “You don’t have to say anything else, Himeno. I know.” I know, I know, I know— when he actually means he knows now, he finally knows. Why now? Why at the end of everything?
Thank you, Aki, Himeno whispers against his chest. Because of you, I can die a second time.
Aki bites his bottom lip in little pricks, sucks the inside of both cheeks. All to will himself not to cry again. “You’re welcome,” he replies, voice breaking. “I wish you would take your time, though. It’s not really something I look forward to.”
Laughter, soft as clouds. I’m afraid I can’t do that. Himeno runs her thumb along his forearms, soothing, memorizing. But I’m glad I’m here. With you, it feels like I’m alive again. Like it’s just a typical quiet night, but it’s not scary because you’re here.
Aki, when the time comes, please don’t let me go.
“I won’t.” At this point, Aki’s voice has become so low it’s almost turning into a fellow ghost. “Stay with me, Himeno.”
Sure. Until you’re old?
“Until we’re both so old and jaded, we hit anyone who breathes wrong in our presence.”
I can totally see you doing that. Himeno snickers, the sound growing faded with each ticking second. But that’s not gonna happen until almost a hundred years in the future, right?
“Yes. You’re right.”
What are we doing in the meantime, then?
“Whatever you want. Maybe I can open that restaurant you speak of— spend my time there during the day and sometimes well into the night. Or we go the more predictable way— I work a 9 to 5 job, and you stay home with the kids.”
Mmm. I can work in an office too, you know. I told you I want to be in a tall building, wearing blazers and high heels, having important meetings all day long.
“Okay, then you work and I'll stay home. Or we both work and we’ll leave the kids at a good daycare.”
You cook, I clean?
“Does ‘cleaning’ include washing dishes?”
Yes, as well as laundry. But ironing is your job, and we’ll work together on the children.
“Deal.”
Look, Aki, the rain is starting to stop.
“Yes.” And you’re starting to leave, Himeno. “Do you think there’ll be a rainbow?”
No. Aki, don’t let me go.
“I won’t.”
Aki, please be happy.
“I won’t.” How can I?
You know, you should at least try.
“No.”
Will you look for me? Will you find me again?
“Yes. I’ll probably be close behind anyway.”
Even if I end up in hell?
“You know I’m not exactly a saint, either.”
Good. Don’t let me go, Aki.
Don’t let me go.
So Aki doesn’t.
Until he finally does.
/
The sky also lets go of the rain, but all through the rest of that day, the sun doesn’t shine.
/
EPILOGUE
There’s an eye inside a belly, and Aki is sinking his face into the pupil. He feels nothing. No boundary, no fluids, nothing. The Future Devil soon presents him with the contract: its devil power in exchange for living inside his right eye. Not a bad deal.
You’re gonna die in the worst possible way, it says, so I want the chance of seeing it happen with my own eyes. A front row seat to the most horrible tragedy mankind has ever come up with. Now, do you want to know how you’re gonna die?
“Don’t bother.” Aki brushes it off, because he’s really not interested in how he dies. And he won’t ask if he’ll achieve his goal of killing the Gun Devil as well, because he will. What happens to him after that’s done, he doesn’t really care. Dead or alive, it doesn’t matter.
What happens to him after his death, though…
“Tell me something.”
“What? You changin’ your mind?”
“No, it’s different. After I die, will I see her again?”
The Future Devil doesn’t have facial expressions, not really. It only has three pairs of eyes and a wide yawning mouth that never closes, but when all of its eyes stare at Aki without contracting, it somehow resembles human eyes in the face of another’s suffering.
“Oh, you poor, poor thing,” it says. Pity drips from its voice, a foreign sound.
“There are as many hells as futures, you know. Humans, devils, angels, fiends… They all have separate hells.”