Ink Stained

67: nostalgia*

懐古

Pai had never been so completely unmotivated to do anything in her entire life.

Her feet dragged. She stumbled because of it more times than she could count. Her thoughts were slow and muddy. It was hard for her to keep her eyes open despite the fact that after what happened last night she'd slept through most of the day, a strange bout of total and utter exhaustion completely overwhelming her.

And she cried.

When she got back to her room after leaving Shin, she huddled on the bed and cried like she never had before. Her whole body burned as she cried, her breath hiccuping and her chest aching worse than anything she could remember. Her world was falling apart, and no matter how many pieces she picked up and stuck together, it was like new cracks formed and splintered all around her.

Everywhere she turned there was a new problem, a new obstacle, a new trouble, and it was almost always somehow her fault. She always felt guilt for whatever it was that was the problem, even if she could take a step back and see that it wasn't her fault – even then, still, in some way, it was.

It helped. It was like the tears that rolled endlessly down her cheeks were filled with all the turbulent emotions that she was struggling to keep behind the steel walls she built around herself. She exhausted herself and fell right to sleep, but when she woke up, there was...

Nothing.

Crying helped – but what came after that? What was she supposed to do with the silence left behind by the muffled sobs that broke her to pieces? What was she supposed to do with the hole in her chest, filling up with the blood of her sorrow?

To make matters worse, Kuniumi wasn't there. She had disappeared after seeing Shin's eyes very briefly turning black before Shin had regained control over Shinigami.

For the first few hours after that, Pai hadn't even thought about Kuniumi. She was too preoccupied with worry over Shin, over the fact that he was suffering – and trying to hide it – because Shinigami was breaking through. Her mind was filled with the images of Shinigami's red eyes smirking wickedly down at her as he gleefully told her that she was dying.

But then she noticed; Kuniumi hadn't said anything, hadn't appeared, for almost a whole day.

Kuniumi was never gone that long – at most, five hours. Pai knew this, she'd timed it. She had wanted to question Kuniumi, to somehow force her to tell Pai who it was she'd seen overtaken both Shin and Shinigami, and if he was doing the same thing to Shin that Kuniumi was to Pai – inhabiting the space of her mind.

She could still sense her presence deep inside her, but Kuniumi wasn't here.

She didn't understand how or why she found that a bad thing, considering all she'd been wanting from Kuniumi was for her to leave. Now that Kuniumi was gone though, she felt...lonely.

Without the voice perpetually chattering non-stop in her head about oft nonsensical things, flitting from one topic to the other on flighty whim, she felt hollow. Like a part of her was missing, a part she hadn't realized she needed until it was gone, and she was forced to continue on her own without it.

Pai was surrounded by people – Hengen, but still people. They were everywhere, all around her, at her sides, in front of her, at her back. They talked, they laughed, they looped their arms together and cheered and hugged and sang and drank and ate to their heart's content, celebrating the peace and (relative) unity of the Ayakashi.

She was surrounded by people, yet she didn't think she had ever been so alone before. All the people around her were shaded in the colours of the wind, bright and sparkling with energy and life, but she was a dark grey spot in the middle, the odd one out.