“Oh I don’t know know, dear. It’s… Oh wow, it is way… way too expensive.”
She looked at the window, then back at the lady. Everything the lady wore always flowed on her like they belonged. Like it loved her.
“But it’s so starry!” she says, her dough-brown eyes reflecting the sparkle of the black, galactic dress. “Like the milky way galaxy, mama!”
The lady smiles, the plastic corners of her lips nearly cracking, before her eyes fall to the girl.
Her smile rubberbands back to nothing.
“… Mama?”
The lady ushers a soft tuft, words fizzling out into a soft whisper of a hiss as her eyes stare a thousand miles beyond the girl. Lingering, searching for something in the sudden vacancy of thoughts, before she closes her eyes, and opens them down at the girl with a smile that made the cold winter night bearable.
“Wouldn’t that mean… you would have more than one Kira?”
The girl giggles.
“More mama!”
She kneels to the girls height, her white-puffed edge coat splitting in the middle. She wore dark, translucent stockings with wide unevenly placed rips that had been patched over. She reached her hands above the girls shoulders, her fingertips curdling ever so gently. She pulls the girl in, the hesitation trembling her slow and methodical embrace into an imbalanced stagger. The girl on the other hand had closed her eyes already, and lulled herself into the ladies caressing warmth.
The girl felt the uneven rise and fall of the lady’s chest, hearing her shuddered, and uneven breath. She knew the lady wasn’t cold, thanks to that beautiful coat she wore. The lady’s fists balled on the girls back, arms shaking, the embrace tightening. Then she felt it—the warmth of her mothers breathing past her hair to her scalp. With a soft click, she felt her mothers lips part, before resting back on her daughters hair. The girl peers up, and saw the snowflakes that pittered her mothers brown robe with white, glittering specks.
“My galaxy, mama.” she said, her unevenly grown teeth giving her a jagged grin.
Her mother’s head rises, her red-cracked eyes teeming.
She smiles.
“You are the only reason I am still alive.”
“There you are sweetie.”
The darkness didn’t let me see who spoke. The headache—as if my brainstem’s being pulled down by my clenching jaw muscles—sends electric arcs across the darkness.
There’s a warm touch on my cheek.
“Would you like something to eat? Something to drink?”
“W—water.”
I heard the shuffling of feet growing more distant, before becoming silent. Tried to open my eyes, but they seemed glued shut with gunk. Couldn’t rub it off either. Sleep paralysis making it hard. At least the cackling witch riding my ass wasn’t here to drink my spinal fluid this time.
I pry open my eyes, barely pulling them ajar, light bleeding through my crusty lashes, sunlight cracking into sharp, gleaming glints. The dryness turning my sights opaque like grease on paper. It stings, but I couldn’t reach up to scrub it off. So I squint, squeezing the grime out, before opening my eyes to gunk strands. I squint again, squeezing them harder, before opening them up to the blinds of the panoramic window splitting the sun into thin beams that illuminated the tingling little dust motes. They stretched across the longside of the room like translucent fluorescent light boards that slowly trailed upwards with the setting sun. They cross the closets golden door handle, sending the beams straight to my corneas—like a sundial at ‘fuck-you’o’clock. The light slowly trails, before shutting lower-eyelid-up, as the sun sets.
My tongue nearly cracked from the thirst, and I could taste the salt from the fissures of my dry-cracked tongue. How long is that fucking lady going to be now? Where is my fucking water?
“Here you go, sweetheart.”
It was dark yet again, obscuring whoever the voice belonged to.
“One moment,”
Click—a searing blindness forces me to squint shut, the pain nearly rupturing my eyes.
“Forgot to turn on the light.”
It takes a moment before I can see a lady clad in green pajamas holding a closed bottle before me. Brand hidden by her hand. Not that it mattered, really since I couldn’t exactly take it from her to inspect it.
“Sorry. Couldn’t find the chip for the vending machine.”
Bottle remained exactly where the lady held it. Made no efforts prop it up to me. Plus, even if she did—the fucking cap was still on.
“P… please…” my shout pisses into hissy whispers. “I’m… thirsty.”
She guides my arms before molding my fingers around the bottle.
“Gambare 頑張れ, Kumori-chan. You can do it.”
My arms might as well be held aloft by a scaffolding with parkinsons. The water, swirling, shaking and stirring all at once in the bottle, the cap being the only thing keeping it from spilling.
Seemed to be good enough for the lady, as she reaches in and unscrews the cap.
“Slowly now,” she says, motioning her hands like a fucking aircraft marshal. My arms push and pull at once as I try to keep it steady. Bottles mouth nearly meets mine—but the scaffolding fucking breaks, the water see-sawing allover my lap—but the nurse catches me.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
The drink washes away the chalk from my tongue and throat—it is cold, fresh, glorious, —until… Eugh… Mizuhana.
I choked half-way through, and coughed it out. She puts the bottle on my lap, and I try to hold it steady—when she lunges for my legs.
Muscles suddenly cramp into solid steel, the aggrevating tension increasing density until I can feel my muscles snapping like braided overburdened steel wires.
“Ah, s-stop!”
She glasps, grasps, and clamps—her grip shearing the bristles of my bone. I feel the marrow squirming out—when suddenly she spikes the underside of my foot with her knuckle. My reflexes throw my fists in an arch—sending my water straight to the fucking ground.
“D-don’t fucking… touch… me!!”
Nearly fucking decked her—but she dodged the swing.
Sporting the look of an otaku that’s denied the attention of his favorite fucking idol, she didn’t expect these arms being lethal as dead weight. Try me when they’re not, bitch.
“… I am sorry, but it was necessary, Kumori-chan.”
She
“Try moving your feet.”
“W…what!?”
“Try to see if you can move your feet.”
No way I’m breaking sights with her. Arms were limp before—but now they’ve got that sting and tingle, meaning she’s one wrong move from finding out what happens when these hands clock in.
“Go ahead,” she says, glancing at my legs, then at me.
You daring me, lady?
She’s still smiling. As if she thinks I’m this fucking dumb to take the bait—
… My toes are moving again.
“Is that a little smile I see, Kumo-chan?”
I look up at her, and realise she’s gotten closer. Too close for a wind-up.
She dabs my cheek with a handkerchief. Then my eyes. Then my chin. Before she cups my cheek, her thumb drawing slow and gentle circles. I could see the cyberware on her fingernails. Fashion-ware that retracts the nails during business hours, and produces them during party hours. Could’ve used those, too, during the tram-ride. Especially seeing as mine are… still there?
“I know it’s painful, sweetie.” she says, her face honing in deep into my retina. “But it was the only way to get the circulation going.”
My legs feel warm. I am moving my toes—hell, I can feel the numbness going away from them completely.
She pulled them back to life. And I was about to deck her for it.
“I’m sorry, kangofu-chan.”
I try to look at her, but all I’m given is a church-glass blur.
She pulls me into her embrace.
I don’t understand.
I don’t know who this lady is. But the moment I realised the weight of my body turning to weightless foam—something that only happens between jumps—I realised something.
I wish this moment lasted forever.
The door slides up, weight weight draping wet coats over my body again.
“Hikari, Kumori.” It’s the doctor. “Fractured ribs. Punctured lungs. Extensive blood loss…”
He walks in, door hushes shut behind him. Buckling his knees, a chair floats from underneath my bed to prop into a seat as he floats to me. The nurse gives a curt bow, and he returns it with a dimpled smirk, before she leaves.
Moment the nurse left he radiod in on me all shifty-eyed, Sherlock Holmes in a white coat. Then Mr. Holmes fucking peek-a-boos me.
“Peek-a-fuck-you too, doc.”
“There you are!” he said, as he pointed at my face. “A cute blush with that cute smile, Kumo-chan!”
Hands teflexively shot to cover my face—ribs stop me mid-way. Thought the pain had gone.
“Woah! Bone-meds haven’t fully developed in your system yet,” he says, carefully guiding me and my hands against the bedrest. Good cardio on him. Heart’s beating slow. Selling that hotshot, main star of the ER role.
“Heartrate’s a bit high” he said as he noticed it on the ‘digital panel footboard’ to my bed. “Can’t say I blame you, though.”
He throws his sparkling white grin at me.
“… he said to a 14 year old girl?”
Boom, lips fold like a noosed bag. Bye-bye, sparkleshine.
“Guilty as charged,” he said, shutterblinds wrinkles forming on his forehead from his raised brows.
“Rather stick to boy bands and idols, doc.”
Got him cracking up again. Even his fucking crows feet glimmer when he laughs.
He takes a deep breath, his grin slowly fading into a well-pressed smirk, which slowly turns into a frown.
He looks up at me, lips opening, then closing. Before he chuckles once, and breathes in through his teeth.
“ICE-contact says here… Hikari, Kira.”
Don’t remember giving them moms name. Makes sense the fucker felt awkward.
“Cool.” I say, which will hopefully be enough.
Each nod of his head is a note of thought. He sways to the foot-end and pulls out nothing to hold in front of himself. At least nothing I could see.
Judging by the glimmering azure from his eyes, he was reading an AR chart.
“Yo,” he whistles. “Got quite a rap sheet here with us, Hikari Kumori.”
He looks at me past the nothing rectangle. Face pressed into variations of neutral, I can see him rummaging through the wrinkles of his brain trying to figure out how to get through to this ‘lost cause’ he’s looking at.
And I? Well, I stared back. Rummaging through fuck-all. The moon-light rows from the blinds fade into orange beams. The soft night dissipates, and the room is bathed in the warm light from the rising sun.
“Kumori.”
I look at the Doctor.
“I wish I could say, ‘I hope to never see you here again’.”
He stops for a beat, takes a deep breath, eyes reddening. Sure knows how to make a gal lucky.
“Oh stop. You’ll make me blush—”
“I’m serious, Kumori.”
We remain quiet another beat. As in ‘bad vibes’ quiet.
He rises, hoverchair easing down and under the bed, before he approaches the window.
“I don’t know why you do it,” he says, voice a dire and droning rumble. “Whatever it is that you do.”
He glances half his face at me.
“But every time your name pops up on the chart,” he says, the final words fizzing into a trembling breath. “I stand outside of the door for at least fifteen minutes before entering—preparing myself for the worst.”
He approaches the bedside again.
“But it’s never enough.”
Teeth barely clenching, a mere gap where he drew short, pausing breaths.
“Keeping a tally with the nurse, huh?” I say, lying against the bedrest.
He grins, his gaze longing for something more than just a stifled laughter. He finally gives in—a snort-chuckle—which hushes into nothing.
He shakes his head, before walking with bated steps over to my footboard. My hoodie was lying on the footboard bench. He grabs it, slowly unfolding it—sights landing on a pair of rabbit ears Kira stitched on the hood.
He slowly shakes his head before exhaling a hushed breath.
“I shouldn’t get this sentimental about you.” He scoffs and grins. “You’re not even my kid.”
He takes the rest of my clothes from the footboard bench, and comes back to place them by my bedside.
Huh. No tears in the fabric. Amazing material on this thing. Surprised to see the blood’s been cleaned off, too. I glance at them, then up at him. He’s
“The pills seem to have done their usual wonder,” he murmurs looking at the heart rate monitor.
His eyes, faded and wrung dry of life, suddenly glow again.
“Systems seem nominal. Bones back in place. Lungs sealed. Hemodynamic stability holding. Hemoglobin… hematocrit.. within range.”
With a deep breath, he looks at me, his brows pressing onto his blood-cracked eyes. His twitching lips can’t decide whether to smile or mope—dribbling between whatever emotional firewalls he thinks I’ve shot up—before his eyes lands on the folded clothes.
“Freshly cleaned, freshly pressed, neatly folded—nurse Kanoko delivering the special treatment for you, kid.”
“Sure,” I say, tugging them closer to myself. “Just like when she folded my fucking legs.”
He snorts, shaking his head with yet another grin. But he avoids my gaze. Instead, his eyes linger on the rain-blurred, featureless skyscrapers beyond the panoramic window. The drumming of the downpour, the shape of the droplets, the daft lighting of the room—it was probably as much of a respite for him as it was for me.
He swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing taut before lowering his gaze.
“You’re clear for checking out, kid.”
He remains quiet for a while longer, before half-facing me with a smirk. “You can stay for as long as you need—well, at least until other patients need the room.”
He presses off the bed and heads for the door, which hushes up, then down, sealing him out. He hadn’t even bothered to remove the heartrate monitor tags on me, the tone of the machine still as stable.
I didn’t mind it, I guess.
There was a cadence to it that fit the raindrops.