Ink Stained

18: a losing fight*

負け戦い

Shiori jerked awake with a harsh gasp ripped from her throat.

Her legs hit the underside of the bed painfully as she snapped awake, shuddering. Her eyes flash open, and she immediately blinked at the twinge of pain brought on from the bright fluorescent light of the hospital room that burned her eyes like fire. She shut her eyes with a small, pained sound.

For one horrible second, she thought she was still trapped in that endless, cold black water – then she realized she couldn't be. She was sitting on the cold metal firmness of the chair she was in when she drank the jade water. Her forehead rested on her folded arms lying atop the hospital bed Pai was on. Her forehead was dotted with a thin line of sweat that made her cold from the room's air conditioning.

When she opened her eyes again, she stared down at her arms. They were clad in the baby-blue fabric of the blouse she was wearing, that she remembered so clearly taking off before diving into the pond. Same went with the beige slacks clothing her legs.

She wasn't wet. Her clothes were bone dry and soft against her skin.

Her hand went up to her neck, but she wasn't wearing her necklace. She felt bereft without it, as if she was a ship at sea in a storm with no anchor to hold her down or land in sight. She touched her hair and found it completely dry, falling down to her shoulders. She wriggled her toes in the shoes she'd had on when she drank the jade water.

It was like none of that even happened. There was no evidence of any of it on her body beside the memory of it, locked in her skull.

After she was done dazedly inspecting herself, her gaze fell on the stirring form of Kouta. The hospital room was otherwise empty with no one else there. He was sitting in an identical chair opposite her, on the other side of the hospital bed.

He was wearing the same clothes she last saw him in; jeans and a white and black striped shirt. His jacket was folded over the back of the chair, acting as a cushion over the hard metal. He was slouched in the chair, long legs disappearing under the bed as she watched him doze fitfully with his cheek resting on his hand. His Mask was tied loosely over his wrist, sliding down his forearm when he shifted.

As Shiori watched his eyes slowly blink open, she realized this might be the first time in almost a week that he had gotten any sleep. Every time she had seen him, he had been awake, speaking with the Daitengu, or being with her, giving her a companionable presence despite her attention wholly focused on every tiny movement Pai made. She knew Hengen didn't strictly need as much sleep as humans did, but they did still need it.

When was the last time Kouta got enough sleep?

When Kouta saw that Shiori was awake, he bolted up from his chair so fast it scraped on the floor as it was shoved back against the wall. He didn't notice, or care. He walked quickly around the bed and came to Shiori's side, kneeling by her and running his hands over her face, down the length of her loose hair, as if he was checking for signs of injury.

"Shiori," he breathed in a sigh that was almost reverent in its relief. "You're all right. You're okay." When he was appeased that she wasn't hurt, he drew her to him and hugged her so tight that she lost her breath.

She didn't push him away. Instead, after a moment's confused hesitation, she hugged him back just as fiercely. The relief that swept through her at realizing that she was still alive, still able to see Kouta every day, hear his voice, have his arms hold her close to him, was beyond anything she could describe. She was smiling against his shoulder as she buried her face against his clothes, breathing in the citrus scent of him. It felt so good to be held like this, to hold him like this.