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Much like her right one, the tension winding around her left wrist numbs what’s underneath.
One wrap after another, the bandage loops round and round, one covers two-thirds of the last, perfect and consistent.
It slowly makes its way up to the base of her palm, and when it does, it arcs over her purlicue and cinches it down.
Hemostatic gauze pads are working their magic, hectically repairing the dam that has cracked wide open a while ago.
Misaki just stares, feeling the pressure against her skin, and watching the big, icy hands doing their work with heavy eyelids.
Drenched in winter water, the cold clings to her as if her skin grew another layer, another heavy, lead-infused layer.
Towels have been soaked, swapped, soaked again, and swapped for a space blanket. Air conditioning is doing its best to heat up the air.
The once pristine, perfectly white sheets under her are thoroughly wet ages ago, but she’s in no condition to get off.
Nor does she have the right to.
“You don’t need to do this.” She robotically squeezes the words out of her lips.
The hand in blue nitrile gloves stalls; she is almost convinced that they have finally succumbed to the cold and are frozen.
Their owner dived into the same river she was in, swam their way ashore while dragging her hypothermic body…
…And CPRed her, hauled her across the city blocks, commandeered a hotel room, and here they are.
Still, he continues. “Yes I fucking do.” And he croaks out, not a single shiver in his low airy tone.
The carpeted floor around him is waterlogged as he is still dripping wet; there are only two towels, and both of them are used on her.
Next to it, a backpack with its zippers ripped wide open and rummaged through, and an IFAK suffered the same fate.
Misaki swears that the one spot he has taken a knee on has been visibly dented; that, or her eyes are fooling her again.
The man before her droops his head down like a puppet without any strings, hovering his face over her left hand.
His hair mutely reflects a dim, red glow under the light, as if he just doused his own head in blood.
He finishes the bandaging without a word; she can’t see his face because his hair is in the way, curtaining the view.
For once in her short life, since she knows him, he seems small, scrunched up in front of her like a sinner to a cross.
“Are you not cold?” The sentence comes out of her mouth before she can react.
Seriously? Guy just pulled you out of a very… cold water from your millionth suicide attempt and this the first question you ask?
Misaki frowns. Hypocrite.
“No.” The adult says flatly. “Relapse is a hell of a thing, hm?”
She says nothing.
Sensei does one last inspection of his bandaging by carefully rotating her lithe, mummified hands around.
He cages her bandaged hands with his and dips his head further.
Big, ice-cold finger traces over the lines; the lines of the wraps, the lines between fiber and skin.
She can barely feel him, as her hands have long lost their heat and are struggling to create any.
Her numbing synapses are sending signals of the fleeting pressure of his touch and the faint exhale from his nose… but that’s it.
She can’t sense the warmth that’s supposed to be coursing underneath his skin, or the little ebb and flow of his breath.
He’s here but not here, like an old, out-of-focus photo; faded in colors, blurred in silhouette, with a shell that is worn and weary.
The slow pace in his metronomic breath changes.
“……” He says something. Something too light and weak for her to register.
In his inaudible whisper, Misaki can feel them down to the syllables.
And how each of them airs into her hands, long and short, strong and weak, stop and go.
All the airy notes, seeping through her fingers and into her palm before losing their warmth there, dissipate there, die there.
“Spells?” With raised eyebrows, she impassively prods.
“Prayers.” His reply is equally ghostly. “Chanting isn’t my thing.”
“You believe in prayers?”
“I’ve reached that point.” From that, a cold sigh makes her clasp her palms together. “Anything goes for me.”
After resting her hands back on her lap, Sensei pries himself out of the shallow puddle.
Arduously, exhaustingly, like a dying robot locked in its program, with no other options besides executing its duty.
“Am heading out.” He croaks.
“What for?” Misaki immediately follows, too fast for her own liking.
“…Buy stuff.” A brush-off, with a certain kind of jadedness from condensing hundreds of lines and thoughts into one.
“You’re still soaked.”
“And you should worry about yourself first.”
Misaki’s dark gaze sinks. “……”
“I suggest you stay here. You lost too much blood to move.” He adds gestures.
He picks up the keycard and pulls the hefty hotel door open.
“If my words still mean something to you.” Sensei says, head facing forward. Not an inch of the skin on his face can be seen from here.
Before the snarky remarks even land on her, the adult disappears behind the closing door, leaving her alone.
She remains a somber statue for a whole minute before the spell breaks.
Time seems to have stopped moving in this room. The world has isolated her.
The only thing she can feel right now is the pressure on her wrists and the muted pain of her cuts. Again.
Misaki collapses on her side and into the sheets; the creaks of the space blanket prick at her ears.
She blinks. Maybe he was right; it must be the blood loss doing weird things to her eyes. Otherwise, nothing else will explain the blur.
“……” She blinks again; her eyelids feel heavier than the last.
Maybe this is it.
It isn't until now that she realizes the reason behind the tone (or the lack thereof) in his voice.
Disappointment.
At least it’s bright and spacious here. Better than the river.
Misaki lets the wave of drowsiness take rein, shutting her tired eyes close, hopefully for good.
The next morning, she wakes up in a different world.
Not that she’s dead, no. Would’ve been a stairway leading down to black gates and a world of fire and torment, if she recalls.
The layout of the hotel room she was in doesn’t change a single bit, including her luggage and weapon, staying right where they were.
The drapes on the windows are pulled, gleams of light are poking through from the bottom, barely illuminating the room.
Soft and welcoming mattresses, as well as the weighted blanket, are engulfing her in a shell of warmth.
Misaki blinks again. The vision is still blurry, but for different reasons now.
Her body is completely depleted of water. And over every inch of her dry and porcelain skin, she can feel the soothing touch of quality fabrics.
Yes, every single inch, as she is apparently naked.
“!...” She tenses, arms retreating to cover her torso while folding up her legs instinctively.
A frantic function check follows; everything appears to still be in the same place and working. No lost kidneys, no lost virginity.
Next, she pries herself off the comfy nest of the bed while trying to hold onto the weighted blanket to cover herself.
And her hands work as she commands them to, much to her surprise.
The lack of protesting pain and pressure leads her attention down to her arms.
Her bandage-less, wound-less wrists greet her, adding more fuel to her firing confusion.
Huh? Is it all just a dream?
Questions are springing up left, right, and center, begging for answers that she clearly doesn’t have.
Beep!
Click!
The door languidly swings open right after the distinctive noise of the keycard lock pipes into her ears.
Misaki reaches for the nonexistent revolver that should’ve been mounted on her left ankle, only to grab nothing but air.
“Oh hey,” He greets, audibly on energy-saving mode. ”Good timing.”
In a pale gray robe and indoor slippers, he’s carrying a big white basket with laundry filled so far up that a small hill is poking over the rim.
The messy nest of red and brown is freshly dried, and the silver eyes have been reignited with a mellow glint.
“Time to retire those jeans,” Sensei approaches before placing the basket next to the bed. “I’ve seen rags in better condition.”
“Fuck you.” She burrows into the blanket in defense. “What have you done?”
“Stuff.” He shrugs as he rocks his head sideways to get his messy locks out of his face.
Now that his hands are empty, Misaki can see that there’s a streak of white wrapped over his palms. You didn’t have those last night.
“What did you do to me?” She frowns, fortifying her defense further by piling up the weight blanket before her.
“More stuff.” He mumbles with a gesture. Scoot. “Made use of every drop.”
“Of what?”
“…Long story.”
Misaki fails to reach for whatever’s in the basket before he unties the robe and gets in her way by getting into bed with her.
“!...” So she retreats further to the other side, making herself as small and unapproachable as humanly possible.
And before he gets under the blanket, the last thing she sees is his bare back… and what’s below.
One of Misaki’s eyelid jumps in a well-suppressed astonishment.
“Are you-”
“-Yes.”
“Why are you-”
“-Laundry.”
Clearly, the adult is in no mood to conduct any profound conversation longer than five words, or two words, actually.
Nor does he have any thoughts, intention, and energy to do whatever is surfacing in her mind right now.
The only thing she can do is hug her knees while keeping her (somehow healed) hands free to fend off the ass-naked big man.
“Gottabeheresomewhere...” The adult pulls the basket closer to the side of the bed.
With his right hand, he starts digging into the basket without looking while lying on his back.
“……” Misaki just watches with a look of what the fuck is your problem?
Eventually, he pulls out something out of the basket, dragging more clothes out of the basket on his way.
“There it is.” He exclaims.
With only an arm and what’s above his shoulder poking out of the blanket, Sensei turns around to face her, a teddy bear in his hand.
“!...” She recognizes that bear. It’s the one he got her last Christmas, soft and velvety, and it has a red scarf.
“You lost it in that river,” He hands it back to the owner. “The magic was worn out, so I rewoven it last night.”
Misaki takes it within an instant before tugging it back into her arms, the fur tickles her chest.
Faint, wordless hum from the silver embroidery on its red scarf greets her like it used to, chanting the same line she’s familiar with.
“You went back?” She murmurs into the teddy’s forehead, her eyes dipped down at it, struggling to focus for how close it is.
“Mhm.” He sinks his head into the pillow with an exhale doubling as a response. “And got lucky.”
“…I thought you were…” Misaki clutches the doll. Why didn’t he add a functioning mouth for it while he was at it?
“Yeah.” Sensei shuffles a little. The inertia gently rocks the whole bed. “A little, but then I realized that…” A pause and a blink.
“…That my perspective on things might sway when I swam across a winter river while carrying a fully-loaded person for 30 minutes.”
The silence between the two stretches for several seconds. Sensei yawns several times meanwhile.
Misaki’s dim red eyes wander absent-mindedly over the view before her. The pillow, his dreary eyes, his dark red hair, a slow blink…
The next time she focuses on his face again, she finds that the adult has shut his eyes and hasn’t opened them back up.
His breaths deepen and lengthen: inhale, pause, exhale, pause, falling dead asleep on his side, facing her.
Really? She almost lets out a scoff. Didn’t even give her a chance to apologize.
But honestly, he had a long and exhaustive night, and who is she to judge? If anything, she’s the culprit for this happening.
Now is a good chance to get out, grab her clothes, and maybe head downstairs to get some breakfast for both of them.
Or, now is a good chance to be gone with the wind, leaving no room for any further complications between herself and the adult.
“……” But Misaki stays, admiring the view in front of her, a tangled web is thrashing under her ribs.
She frees one of her hands from the teddy to reach for his bandaged palm, the price he paid in exchange for her wounds, she presumes.
Why are you like this? Tracing the lines of the medical fabrics and caressing his rough fingertips grants her no answer.
Carefully, Misaki scoots closer, ignoring the fact that they’re both very ass-naked and the consequential rising heat on her cheeks.
She hovers her hand over the center of his chest, the distance is infinitely close, yet not touching. Will be a shame if he wakes up to this.
The fleeting warmth radiates into her palm, sending signals down from her arms and into her head.
Life, the one thing he desperately wants her to hold onto.
Misaki closes the distance again. The scent of pinecone and fresh laundry soothes her, singing her a silent lullaby.
I’ll play your game for once. She says with sealed lips and closed eyes.
And she drifts into her dreamland, listening to the quiet symphony of his breath and pulse thrumming at her ears.