Parasite (Completed)║🏳️‍🌈 LGBT+

21: Epilogue

Dawn's half-light streams into my little room. When I'd first seen the sun I'd been astonished by its inescapable brightness and warmth, never quite replicated accurately by sims.

Shy drags me out of my thoughts by flying in and signing manically, "He's awake."

I spring out of bed then crash back against the blankets, my head in a whirl. But Shy's smile is worth the nausea. The past three days have shot by in a blur: I've been interviewed countless times by Earth authorities in the search for Meg. The inquiry into Kida Biotech's practices has already uncovered eleven grievous crimes that Meg must be brought to trial for. Shy has barely slept with helping to analyse the PCR files brought to Earth. She's leading on the project to develop a controlled freezing procedure to remove nematode colonies safely from her partner, Zichen, and from the others working as underground automata. As urgent as the investigation into Kida Biotech is, my priority has been to keep watch over Shiro.

But now my love is free, on Earth, and awake.

"When?"

"Four hours ago." Shy sits heavily in the bedside chair, itching her belly.

"Four hours?" I scramble up and hop around the room, signing in between shrugging on hospital clothes. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"He has short-term memory loss. He doesn't remember you yet, but he's ready to meet you now."

Thoughts scatter and reunite in a ragged jumble. "He doesn't remember me? What did you tell him about me?"

"Everything. Memory loss is common, and only lasts a few hours. Don't worry."

Shy's reassurances mean nothing. The fears that infiltrated my brain on arrival on Earth multiply with abandon. What if Shiro's radiation sickness is too severe to recover from? What if his ankle doesn't heal? What if the extraordinary events of the past weeks have caused him irreparable trauma? What if he no longer loves me?

As if she can read my floundering mind, Shy prods me unceremoniously through the door. We pad along corridors, the Fukuoka sunrise flooding through gaps in hospital blinds as we go. I halt at the door to Shiro's room. Having wandered in and out of his room as his partner for the past three days, I'm now entering as a stranger. Shiro doesn't remember me. I pat down my hair and straighten my clothes hoping that he isn't disappointed by his unkempt and unknown love.

Shy and Shiro sign to each other at an incredible speed. My lenses offer glimpses of a risible exchange between them. I wait at the door until their bickering peters out.

Shy then signs slowly enough for me to follow along, "This is Heems."

I peek at Shiro, unsure if I should approach the bed. He's propped up on pillows, all drowsy and pale. I'm supposed to be wearing the bravest of faces but the sight of him carries me a few careful breaths away from tears. Shy signs indecipherable instructions to him and then leaves us alone.

Piercing eyes explore and characterise and analyse. A pale hand emerges from under sheets. Shiro pats the bed and says, "Come and sit."

"Are you feeling OK?" I nestle at the foot of the bed, afraid to gaze in case it all overwhelms Shiro.

"Just tired." Shiro blinks and grimaces as if it's taking a monumental effort not to let his head loll on the pillow. "Come closer."

I move to the chair near his head, the very chair I've been sleeping, eating and interviewing in for almost three days. "Sleep if you need to."

"I want to talk first. Shy says you've not left my side for the past three sols. I mean days."

"I haven't." I stare into my lap, my face twitching in an effort not to cry. But it's no use. Sobs shake me. Before I know it Shiro has me tight in his arms and I'm weeping into his shoulder. "I've been so scared, Shiro."

"It's OK. We're on Earth! Can you believe it?"

Whether he remembers me or not, Shiro's love surrounds me. I paw at my cheeks, Shiro's sleepy attention eventually turning my tears into smiles. I'm on Earth, free from meatware, and with my love.

Shiro's hand covers mine. "Did we touch on Eris?"

I nod.

His voice drops to a murmur. "Did we kiss?"

I can't help smiling at that. Desire born of despair on a stolen 'porter is all I've experienced of Shiro's charms. Not that he'd ever have to work to win me. Had we met in a sim bar in Eris-1 I'd have been smitten by the merest glance from him. "We did kiss. A lot."

Shiro leans towards me, but I can't accept a kiss if he has no memory of what we shared on the Edge.

His face falls when I shrink away. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry. I can't kiss you if you don't remember me yet. If you don't love me."

The brightness of Shiro's smile rivals the Fukuoka sunrise. "How do you know that I don't love you already?"

"Shy said that you have memory loss, so—"

"Shh. Now, where is it?"

"Where's what?"

"That smile you had on when you came in?"

I'm smiling before my brain has a chance to digest Shiro's scheming.

"There it is." Shiro leans close again. "I don't remember you yet, but I remember that smile."

Shiro gets his kiss. Not the smack on the lips that he wanted, but a kiss that mimics the first wondrous kiss that he gave me, the first time that I didn't feel like a parasite. I pop the softest of kisses to his eyelids, his cheeks, his chin, like the pattering of the first sweet drops of a monsoon, yet another miracle of Earth that I am yet to see.

Dozy eyes blink in satisfaction, and Shiro drifts off to sleep. Not too long from now he'll be forced to answer endless questions that send him back into his living nightmare on Eris, just as I've been forced to confess my entire life to Earth's governors over the past days. But Shiro is indomitable, and I'll be by his side.

Thirteen sols ago my life was a perpetual scramble between hunger and guilt. Now, my curse is broken and I'm no longer vampire, vermin, nor parasite. Shiro dared to love me yet he's escaped my family's fate, and together we have delivered Eris. 

My hand still clasped tightly by a slumbering Shiro, I peer out of the dusty window at Hakata Bay glinting beneath a thick blue atmosphere dotted with clouds. Earth's incomparable beauty tugs so hard at my heart that it hurts, and I find myself shedding tears for the mountains and forests of my magnificent new home. 

My eyelids droop and I nestle into Shiro, my mind meandering through plans for excursions when Shiro is better: Mount Fuji and the Holy Mountain will be the first two on the list.

To be alive is to love.  



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Thank you for reading Parasite! I hope that you enjoyed reading Heems's journey as much as I enjoyed writing it.