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Elizabeth had a talent for arriving like nothing had happened.
The front door opened at a little past eleven, which was too late for casual company and too early for Shiori to have convinced herself to sleep. Rain came in with Elizabeth. Not much, just the smell of cold pavement and damp cotton, the faint mineral chill that clung to hair and shoulders after a long walk home.
Shiori did not look up from her book immediately.
She turned a page she had not been reading, let the silence stretch for three seconds, and listened.
Elizabeth closed the door carefully.
Too carefully.
Then came the soft clink of keys. The wet rustle of farbic. A pause.
“Hi,” Elizabeth said.
Shiori looked up.
Elizabeth was standing in the little entryway with one hand braced against the wall and the other tucked under her jacket. She looked exhausted. Worse than exhausted, really, but Elizabeth had always worn pain with the infuriating politeness of someone holding a door open for strangers. Her hair had been tied back at some point, but half of it had slipped loose, damp strands sticking to her temple and jaw. There was mud on one knee of her trousers.
And blood on her shirt.
Not a dramatic amount. Not enough to make Shiori move too quickly. Enough to make her book close in one clean, final motion.
“Elizabeth.”
“It’s nothing.”
Shiori stood.
Elizabeth winced.
The lie hung between them, flimsy and already falling apart.
Shiori set the book on the table. “You come into my home bleeding and open with ‘it’s nothing.’”
“It looks worse than it is.”
“It always looks worse than you say it is, because what you say is usually nonsense.”
Elizabeth’s mouth did something that might have been a smile if she had not been so pale. “That’s a little harsh.”
“Good.” Shiori crossed the room. “I’m starting there so I have room to escalate.”
Elizabeth’s hand tightened under her jacket.
Shiori saw it. Of course she saw it. Elizabeth was not subtle on her best days, and pain made her even worse at hiding things. Her shoulders were too high, her breath too shallow, her weight angled off her left leg.
Still, when Shiori reached for her, she did not grab.
She stopped close enough to smell the rain in Elizabeth’s hair and iron underneath it.
“Show me.”
Elizabeth glanced away.
Shiori’s anger sharpened. She inhaled, held the air inside her lungs, exhaled.
“Liz.”
That did it.
Elizabeth’s eyes returned to hers, softened by guilt. “I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t ask for sorry. I asked to see.”
“It’s not–”
“If you say nothing again, I’m going to make tea, drink it in front of you, and let you bleed out in my hallway out of spite.”
Elizabeth blinked.
Shiori held her stare.
Then, finally, Elizabeth gave a quiet breath that trembled just at the end. “Alright.”
The look she gave Shiori was familiar and painful. Embarrassed, grateful, reluctant, all at the same time. She could stand in front of a charging enemy with a greatsword in her hands and not flinch. She could lead Justice through a fight, give orders while bleeding, carry someone twice as far as anyone expected. But when Shiori reached for the zipper of her jacket, Elizabeth looked like she did not know where to put herself.
Shiori unzipped it carefully.
Elizabeth kept her arm lifted just enough to help. She was strong enough that even injured, even pale, there was nothing fragile about her. Her shoulders were broad under Shiori’s hands, her arms solid with muscle from years of training and fighting. Elizabeth had always looked like someone built to take weight. Armor, steel, responsibility, other people’s fear. All of it seemed to find her.
That did not mean Shiori liked seeing blood on her shirt.
The jacket came away and Shiori froze.
“I’m fine,” Elizabeth said at once.
The shirt beneath was torn.
Shiori’s fingers went still for half a second.
Elizabeth noticed. Of course she did. She noticed everything except the things Shiori wanted her to notice.
“It’s shallow,” Elizabeth said quickly.
Shiori looked up at her.
Elizabeth stopped talking.
“Bathroom,” Shiori said.
“I can clean it myself.”
“You can also apparently walk across the city with an open wound. Your judgment is not currently carrying much weight.”
Elizabeth accepted that with the exhausted grace of a person too tired to argue properly. She took one step, then another. Shiori noticed the way she kept her left side stiff, the way her steps shortened when she turned, the way she kept her breathing shallow. Elizabeth had done this before: spent twice as much effort trying to look fine.
Shiori hated it.
She hated it more because she understood it.
The bathroom light was too bright when Shiori turned it on. Elizabeth squinted.
“Sit.”
In the bathroom, Elizabeth sat on the closed toilet lid while Shiori washed her hands and took the first aid kit from under the sink. Not the small one for paper cuts. The larger one. The one with proper gauze, saline, tape, antiseptic, closures, gloves, painkillers, scissors, everything she had started keeping after Elizabeth showed up one winter with bruised ribs and said she had “misjudged the distance.”
Behind her, Elizabeth said, “It really isn’t bad.”
The water ran.
Shiori watched it circle the drain.
“I need you to understand,” she said, turning off the tap, “that there are several versions of me currently trying to respond to that sentence. The calm one is winning, but not by much.”
Elizabeth looked at her lap. “I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
Shiori dried her hands and pulled on gloves. Her movements were precise. Too precise, maybe. The kind of carefulness that came from having nowhere acceptable to put her fear.
Elizabeth watched her. “Shiori.”
“Shirt off.”
A pink flush made the tips of Elizabeth’s ears burn, which would have been funny any other night. She was brave enough to take a hit meant for someone else, stubborn enough to walk home in the rain while injured, but being asked to remove her shirt in front of someone who knew the exact shape of her shoulder blades could still make her shy.
“I can–”
“You can ask for help,” Shiori said.
Elizabeth’s face changed.
Not much. A flicker. A small, startled tightening around the eyes.
Shiori softened her voice without softening the words. “You can ask for help, that’s allowed. It doesn’t make you weak.”
Elizabeth swallowed. “I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I’m trying to believe it.”
That was unfair.
It was simply so unfair that she could say something honest enough to walk straight under Shiori’s own ribs.
Shiori exhaled through her nose. “Arms up only as far as you can.”
Elizabeth obeyed.
Barely.
Shiori eased the shirt over her head, careful when fabric tugged near the wound. Elizabeth hissed softly and then immediately pressed her lips together, as if the sound had been rude.
“Don’t do that,” Shiori said.
“Do what?”
“Pretend it doesn’t hurt.”
Elizabeth looked away again. “I wasn’t.”
Shiori shot her a look just as the shirt came free. She dropped it into the sink.
And for a moment, she let herself look.
There was the long scar along Elizabeth’s left shoulder, pale now, old enough that it no longer raised much. A blade wound from before Shiori had known her well. Elizabeth had mentioned it only once, in the same tone most people used to talk about bad weather.
There was the mark near her collarbone from a fight outside a burning storehouse. Elizabeth had led the other members of Justice out through smoke and falling beams, then said afterward that she had only “gotten clipped.”
There was the thick scar on her forearm where she had blocked a strike meant for someone behind her. Shiori knew that one because she had been there when the bandage came off weeks later. Elizabeth had looked at it, shrugged, and asked whether dinner was ready.
There were smaller marks too. Little white lines. Old bruises that had healed badly. Places where armor had failed or where Elizabeth had decided her body was a better shield than nothing.
Every scar had its own silence.
Now there was a new wound below her left ribs, a slanted cut, worse than Elizabeth had implied. The edges were red. Blood still welled slowly when Elizabeth breathed too deeply. Shiori knew, immediately and with a cold certainty that made her furious, that it would leave a mark.
Elizabeth watched her face.
Shiori gave nothing away.
“Did you clean it at all?”
“A little.”
“With?”
Elizabeth hesitated.
Shiori closed her eyes. “Elizabeth.”
“There was a sink.”
“A sink.”
“In a public restroom.”
“A public restroom sink.”
“It had soap.”
“How luxurious.” Shiori took a slow breath through her nose. “You lead Justice. People trust you with their lives. You know how infections work.”
Elizabeth looked away. “I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“And still your plan was a sink and soap?”
“It was all I had.”
“You had me.”
Elizabeth’s face changed.
It was small. Someone who did not know her might have missed it. Shiori did not.
She soaked gauze with saline and stepped closer. “This is going to sting.”
Elizabeth nodded.
“Don’t pretend it doesn’t.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“No, you’ll do the opposite of your best. Your best is apparently stoicism as a public health hazard.”
Elizabeth let out the smallest laugh, and then Shiori pressed the gauze to her side.
The laugh vanished.
Elizabeth’s hand clenched hard around the edge of the toilet lid. Her eyes shut. She breathed in through her nose, steady and controlled, but the control was a little too deliberate.
Shiori cleaned the wound carefully.
She had done this before. The practiced part of her knew what to check: depth, debris, length, whether the bleeding slowed with pressure, whether the edges could be closed at home or needed a clinic. The frightened part of her kept seeing Elizabeth in the doorway again, one hand hidden under her jacket, rain in her hair, saying it was nothing.
Nothing. As if Elizabeth had ever been nothing when hurt.
Elizabeth stayed still, but her body was tense under Shiori’s hands. Not from the injury alone. Shiori knew the difference. Elizabeth was used to pain. She was much worse with attention.
“Tell me what happened,” Shiori said, trying to distract her.
Elizabeth opened her eyes. “It’s stupid.”
“Most injuries are.”
“I was helping someone.”
“Of course you were.”
“That sounded judgmental.”
“It was.”
“They were being followed.”
Shiori paused only long enough to make Elizabeth continue.
“It was near the station,” Elizabeth said. “There were three of them. She looked scared. I asked if she needed help. They didn’t like that.”
“No, I imagine men who harass women at night are rarely fans of interruption.”
“It escalated.”
Shiori resumed cleaning. “Clearly.”
“They recognized me.”
Shiori’s hand paused. “They did?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“And they decided they wanted to see if I was as impressive without the others.”
Shiori looked at her.
Elizabeth’s smile turned lopsided. Like this, she looked almost boyish. “I was.”
“Elizabeth.”
The smile faded.
Shiori kept cleaning the blood away. “Were they armed?”
“They had knives. One of them had a gun, but I knew it wasn’t loaded.”
The gauze compressed too tightly for half a second.
Elizabeth drew a sharp breath.
Shiori loosened her hand at once. “Sorry.”
“It’s alright.”
“No,” Shiori said. “It isn’t.”
She found a fresh gauze pad, pressed it to the wound and held it there. “Did she get away?”
“Yes.”
“And the three men?”
Elizabeth hesitated. “Alive.”
“That was not my question.”
“They won’t follow anyone tonight.”
Shiori pressed her lips together.
“She called the police. I left before they arrived.”
“Why?”
Elizabeth’s silence answered.
Shiori looked at her.
“You didn’t want anyone to make a fuss,” she said.
“I didn’t want to make it about me.”
“You were hurt.”
“It wasn’t about me.”
“It became partly about you when someone cut you open.”
Elizabeth’s shoulders curled slightly inward.
The motion was small. Defensive, though Elizabeth would hate that word. She did not defend herself from violence the way she defended herself from tenderness. Against violence, she stepped forward. Against tenderness, she folded at the edges.
Shiori dabbed carefully around the wound. “You get hurt, then you try to make it smaller for everyone else. You say it’s nothing. You say you’ve had worse. You say it looks worse than it is. You say anything except the truth.”
“What truth?”
“That it hurt. That you were scared. That you needed help.”
Elizabeth looked at the floor.
Shiori knew she had gone too far only because Elizabeth went very quiet. Not shut down. Not angry. Just quiet in that way that meant something had reached her before she was ready.
Shiori softened her voice. “I’m not saying you did anything wrong by helping her.”
Elizabeth’s mouth tightened. “It sounds like you are.”
“I’m not angry that you protected someone.”
“Then what?”
“I’m angry that you walked here in the rain with an open wound and planned to call it nothing.”
Elizabeth swallowed. “I didn’t want to worry you.”
“You did worry me.”
Elizabeth flinched. “I didn’t mean to.”
“Maybe not. But you scared me, and then you stood there acting like I wasn’t allowed to be scared.”
Elizabeth looked up.
That landed.
Shiori held her gaze for a moment, then looked back down at the wound. “It needs closure strips. Not stitches, I think.”
Elizabeth nodded.
“You’re lucky.”
“I know.”
Shiori prepared the closures. “Then act like it.”
Elizabeth almost smiled, but it faded before it fully formed.
Shiori placed the first strip. Elizabeth bit her lower lip. The second went on easier.
On the third, her breath caught.
Shiori’s fingers paused against warm skin.
“There you are,” she murmured.
Elizabeth’s cheeks flushed again. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know. That’s why I believe it.”
Shiori finished closing the wound and covered it with a sterile pad. She taped the edges down with more care than was probably necessary. Her fingers brushed the old scar near Elizabeth’s ribs.
Elizabeth looked down at Shiori’s hand.
“That one was from the Retreat outside Immerhim,” Shiori said.
Elizabeth blinked. “You remember?”
Shiori looked at the scar. “You told me you tripped.”
“I did trip.”
“And then Kiara told me you held the rear line until everyone else crossed the bridge.”
“I still tripped.”
“Mm.”
Shiori’s gloved fingers moved to the scar near Elizabeth’s shoulder. “This one was the training blade.”
“Gigi still feels bad about that.”
“As she should. She was showing off.”
“She was seventeen.”
Shiori felt some of the tightness in her chest loosen.
She peeled off her gloves and threw them away. “This one will leave a scar too.”
Elizabeth looked at the bandage. “I figured.”
There it was again. That calm acceptance.
Shiori sat back on her heels and looked up at her. “Does that bother you at all?”
Elizabeth seemed confused by the question. “Not really.”
“Why not?”
“It’s just a scar.”
“It’s your body.”
Elizabeth was silent.
Shiori stood and began putting supplies away. She needed something to do with her hands. “You always say it like that. Just a scar. Just a bruise. Just a cut. Just a bad night.”
Elizabeth’s voice was low. “What should I say?”
“The truth.”
“I don’t always know what the truth is.”
Shiori closed the first aid kit.
That answer was worse than any argument.
Elizabeth rubbed her palms against her thighs. Her hair had dried a little, curling near her cheek. Without her armor, without her greatsword, without the others looking to her, she seemed uneasy in a way Shiori did not often get to see. Unsure what she was allowed to be when nobody needed her to lead.
Shiori sat on the edge of the tub across from her. Close enough that their knees almost touched. The rain ticked faintly against the bathroom window, a small, persistent sound.
“You’re very good at being hurt,” she said.
Elizabeth frowned. “That’s a strange thing to say.”
“It’s true. You know how to stand through it. You know how to keep moving. You know how to make decisions while bleeding. You know how to calm everyone else down. You’ve had years of practice.”
Elizabeth looked down.
Shiori continued, quieter now. “But you’re terrible at being cared for.”
Elizabeth’s hands went still.
“You act like it hurts worse than the injury.”
A small, sad smile touched Elizabeth’s mouth. “Sometimes it is.”
Shiori’s anger left her so fast she felt tired.
“Why?”
Elizabeth took a while to answer.
When she did, her voice was careful. “When you’re hurt, there are things to do. Stop the bleeding. Keep moving. Protect whoever is behind you. Make sure everyone gets home. It’s simple.”
“Simple.”
“Not easy. Just simple.”
Shiori nodded slowly.
Elizabeth looked down at her hands. “Vulnerability… it’s not simple.”
“You notice when someone is tired before they say it. You carry bags without asking. You remember how everyone takes their tea or coffee. You stand between strangers and danger. You make yourself useful until no one can object to you being there.”
Elizabeth’s mouth pressed thin.
Shiori softened. “But when someone tries to do even a fraction of that for you, you act like you’ve been caught stealing.”
A breath left Elizabeth. Almost a laugh. Almost not. “That’s a little dramatic.”
“And yet it’s true.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“That’s the difficult part.”
Shiori could not argue with that.
She busied herself by picking out the painkillers and shaking two into her palm.
“Take these.”
Elizabeth accepted them.
Shiori handed her a cup of water from the sink.
Elizabeth swallowed the pills obediently, then looked faintly embarrassed by how obediently she had done it.
“Good girl,” Shiori said dryly.
Elizabeth choked on the last sip of water.
Shiori hid a smile by turning to gather the ruined shirt from the sink. “You’re very easy sometimes.”
“That was unfair.”
“You walked into my apartment bleeding and lied to my face. I’m allowed one unfair thing.”
“One?”
“I’m showing restraint.”
Elizabeth watched her wring rainwater and blood from the fabric. “I can wash that.”
“You can sit there and continue not bleeding.”
“I’m not bleeding anymore.”
“Congratulations. Keep it up.”
Elizabeth leaned back slightly against the tank, fatigue finally beginning to drag at her features. Without the immediate task of enduring treatment, she looked younger. The lines of her face softened, the careful strength of her posture loosening by degrees.
Shiori noticed the goosebumps on her arms.
She took a clean towel from the shelf and draped it around Elizabeth’s shoulders.
Elizabeth caught one edge of it. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Their hands almost touched.
Neither of them moved for one suspended second.
Then Shiori stepped away.
“Can you stand?”
“Yes.”
Shiori gave her a look.
Elizabeth sighed. “Mostly.”
“Better.”
Shiori offered her hand.
Elizabeth stared at it for a second before taking it. Her palm was rough and warm, her grip careful. Shiori pulled steadily, not enough to strain her, just enough to help. Elizabeth rose with a controlled breath and swayed only slightly. Even now, she was trying not to put too much weight on Shiori.
Shiori did not mention it.
She led Elizabeth to the living room.
The apartment looked warmer after the bathroom, softer around the edges. A lamp glowed beside the couch. Shiori’s abandoned book waited on the table, face down, its spine open in mild accusation. Rain blurred the dark window glass.
Elizabeth moved toward the chair.
Shiori stopped her. “Couch.”
“I don’t want to get blood on it.”
“You are bandaged.”
“Mud, then.”
“Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth looked at the couch, then at Shiori, then at the couch again.
“It’s your couch.”
“And I am telling you to sit.”
Elizabeth sat, careful with her side. Shiori pulled the blanket from the back of the couch and set it over her lap, then went to the kitchen to make hot chocolate. She did not ask whether Elizabeth wanted any. Elizabeth would have said she did not want to be trouble, and Shiori would have had to commit a small crime. Easier to make two cups.
While the milk heated, she stood with both hands on the counter and let her calm face fall away.
Only for a moment.
Her eyes closed.
Anger moved through her again, bright and useless. At the reputation that made Elizabeth a challenge to men with knives. At every person who had ever taught Elizabeth that pain was manageable but care was dangerous. At Elizabeth herself, for walking bleeding through rain as if her body were just another errand to complete.
And under all of that, fear.
Stupid, ordinary fear.
The kind no amount of cleverness could refine into something elegant.
She heard the couch creak in the other room.
“I can hear you thinking,” Elizabeth called softly.
Shiori opened her eyes. “Then stop eavesdropping.”
“I’m in the other room.”
“Exactly. Very rude.”
The milk began to steam.
When she returned, Elizabeth had managed to tuck her legs onto the couch and was holding the towel around herself like a borrowed cloak. She looked half-drowned and half-asleep.
Shiori handed her the mug. “Careful. It’s hot.”
Elizabeth took it in both hands. “You remembered.”
“That you don’t like tea? I’m not concussed.”
“Still.”
Shiori sat at the other end of the couch, angled toward her. “Drink.”
Elizabeth did.
They drank in silence for a few minutes. The rain tapped against the windows. The apartment was warm. Elizabeth’s breathing had slowed now that the wound was closed and the painkillers were starting to work.
Shiori watched her over the rim of her mug.
Elizabeth noticed. “What?”
“You need to stop doing this.”
“Getting stabbed?”
“That would be a good start.”
“I’ll put it on my list.”
Then Elizabeth said, “I didn’t want to go home.”
Shiori looked at her.
Elizabeth kept her gaze on the mug. Steam curled against her face, softening her profile. “After. I mean. I could have. It’s closer from the station.”
“It is.”
“I thought I should. I could clean up, sleep, deal with it in the morning.”
“That sounds like you.”
Elizabeth gave a weak smile. “Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Elizabeth did not answer right away.
The silence felt heavy. Shiori let it sit between them. She had learned that, sometimes, Elizabeth needed time to allow herself to feel.
Elizabeth’s thumbs shifted against the ceramic. Finally, she said, “I didn’t want to be alone.”
Shiori’s throat tightened.
“With the injury?”
“With myself, I suppose.”
The words were almost too quiet.
Shiori set her mug down.
Elizabeth looked at her then, apologetic, vulnerable, fighting sleep and honesty at once. “And then I thought of you.”
Shiori’s hands curled loosely in her lap.
Elizabeth’s smile was faint and helpless. “That sounds worse than I mean it.”
“No,” Shiori said. “It doesn’t.”
“I didn’t come here because I needed bandages.”
“I know.”
Elizabeth’s eyes were getting heavy now. The painkillers, the warmth, the hot chocolate, the simple fact that she was finally sitting down somewhere safe. “I did need them. Obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“But that wasn’t why.” Her head tipped slowly back against the couch. She blinked at the ceiling. “I came here first because I wanted to be around you.”
Shiori did not know what to say.
Elizabeth seemed to take that as a reason to keep going, or maybe she was too tired to stop herself now.
“I know that’s selfish.”
“It isn’t.”
“I came here and made you deal with this.”
“You came here because you trust me.”
Elizabeth looked like she might say sorry again. Then she seemed to think better of it.
The rain filled the silence for them.
Shiori reached over and took the mug from Elizabeth’s loosening hands before it could tip. “You’re falling asleep.”
“I’m awake.”
“You’re barely sitting up.”
“I’m resting my eyes.”
“You’re twenty seconds away from spilling hot milk on yourself.”
Elizabeth leaned back against the couch. “That would be a waste.”
“It would.”
Shiori set both mugs on the table, then adjusted the blanket around Elizabeth. She tucked it carefully near her uninjured side and pulled it up over her shoulders.
Elizabeth watched her through heavy eyes. “You’re good at this.”
“At tucking you in?”
“At making it feel normal.”
Shiori’s hands paused.
Elizabeth’s voice was low now, almost slurred with exhaustion.“Shiori.”
“What?”
Elizabeth opened her eyes a little.
There was too much in that look. Too much trust. Too much affection. Too much neither of them was ready to say, though both of them knew it was there.
Shiori brushed a damp strand of hair away from Elizabeth’s cheek before she could convince herself not to.
Elizabeth’s eyes fluttered.
“Sleep,” Shiori said.
“You’ll be here?”
“Always.”
Elizabeth’s eyes closed again.
After a minute, her breathing evened out.
Shiori watched her sleep. Her face had finally relaxed. Without the strain, without the polite smile, without the careful effort to make herself smaller, Elizabeth looked peaceful. Worn out. Injured. But safe.
Shiori looked at the place beneath the blanket where the new bandage covered the wound.
It would scar. She knew that. Elizabeth knew it too.
But for once, Shiori had been there from the beginning. Not after the battle story had been shortened. Not after Justice had moved on. Not after Elizabeth had turned pain into a sentence so plain nobody could hear what it had cost her.
This time, Shiori knew the whole thing.
The rain. The blood. The stubborn lie at the door. The way Elizabeth had leaned on her, just a little. The hot chocolate. The quiet. The almost-confession.
Shiori reached down and tucked the blanket more securely around Elizabeth’s shoulder.
Elizabeth did not wake.
“Idiot,” Shiori whispered.