Flecks of dappled sunlight on the ground. The hospital in Tokyo. The glinting glass ceiling in the Coliseum. Memories cascaded through her, of places she had been… places she had been destroyed and remade and destroyed again.
She remembered how alone she had felt in the other hospital after Mitogawa had attacked her. The nurses had fed her, bathed her, and cleaned her wounds, but it had been with the mechanical professionalism reserved for a patient, not a person. She remembered wanting just a little bit of kindness, to have someone take care of her and soothe her fears. Her, the girl who had never once needed someone to take care of her in her life. And here, now, in Landel‘s Institute the same fear was pressing in. There was a part of her craving that human touch again in the manner of a terrified child.
But it was wrong to want it now, more wrong than it had been before. The loneliness, the alienation… these were things she had earned for herself. Klavier’s attempt to help her was a waste of his time. It was too late to put things right…
Compared to the commotion of more people bursting into the room, Klavier’s request that she sit up was an insignificant discomfort. In the dim light provided by his flashlight, she saw flashes of legs, heard their footfalls thudding on the floor. Who? Who was here now? To Yomi, the strangers might as well have been screaming at the top of their lungs; their presence made her nervously hug the folds of her sheet to her chest. Every sound seemed to go straight through her like a shard of glass.
She didn’t want to move, she wanted to curl up in a hiding place where not even the sesshouseki could find her. But Klavier was pulling her and before she knew it she was upright. It hurt, it was true, but she had done worse struggling inside the drawer. No matter what she did, though, the pain would eventually fade as the sessouseki healed her--that was a blessing, if nothing else.
No, it’s not. It’s not.
Yomi stared at Klavier. How long until she stopped caring who he was?
no subject
She remembered how alone she had felt in the other hospital after Mitogawa had attacked her. The nurses had fed her, bathed her, and cleaned her wounds, but it had been with the mechanical professionalism reserved for a patient, not a person. She remembered wanting just a little bit of kindness, to have someone take care of her and soothe her fears. Her, the girl who had never once needed someone to take care of her in her life. And here, now, in Landel‘s Institute the same fear was pressing in. There was a part of her craving that human touch again in the manner of a terrified child.
But it was wrong to want it now, more wrong than it had been before. The loneliness, the alienation… these were things she had earned for herself. Klavier’s attempt to help her was a waste of his time. It was too late to put things right…
Compared to the commotion of more people bursting into the room, Klavier’s request that she sit up was an insignificant discomfort. In the dim light provided by his flashlight, she saw flashes of legs, heard their footfalls thudding on the floor. Who? Who was here now? To Yomi, the strangers might as well have been screaming at the top of their lungs; their presence made her nervously hug the folds of her sheet to her chest. Every sound seemed to go straight through her like a shard of glass.
She didn’t want to move, she wanted to curl up in a hiding place where not even the sesshouseki could find her. But Klavier was pulling her and before she knew it she was upright. It hurt, it was true, but she had done worse struggling inside the drawer. No matter what she did, though, the pain would eventually fade as the sessouseki healed her--that was a blessing, if nothing else.
No, it’s not. It’s not.
Yomi stared at Klavier. How long until she stopped caring who he was?