Tokyo Demons Book 2: Chapter 3

Jo couldn’t sleep that night. After sleeping through an entire day, his body and mind were anxious for stimulation. But there wasn’t much to do in the church, especially considering the lack of privacy. Jo was basically trapped with his thoughts. He sat up in his futon, rolled an unlit cigarette between his fingers, and mulled over the plan to visit Blue Light.

The night passed slowly. The sleeping room was a little emptier than usual, considering Sachi and Kado were still wherever-the-hell with Nick. Daniel slept on the far end of the room, snoring quietly. Kiyoshi had taken the futon next to Jo’s, which didn’t surprise Jo–but Kiyoshi was definitely louder in his sleep than he’d been in their dorm room. He murmured to himself a lot. Sometimes he’d grunt or groan, squirming under his sheets. Once or twice he sat up suddenly and stared right at Jo, then dropped back onto his futon and grumbled something incoherent.

It was…unsettling. Jo wondered if the sleep-talking thing would get better once Kiyoshi was clean.

Sometime in the wee hours, Zayd snuck into the room. He nodded once at Jo before unrolling a small carpet in the direction of the wall. He closed his eyes, whispered something, then raised his hands to his face before clasping them in front of his stomach.

Jo watched the man perform some sort of ritual–whispering, bowing, dogeza. Jo vaguely remembered seeing it before. When the man finally finished and rolled up his carpet, Jo cleared his throat.

“Hey,” he whisper-called across the room. “Zayd.”

Zayd glanced back at Jo. He quietly walked over, careful to avoid Kiyoshi’s kicking feet.

“Yes?”

Jo fiddled with the cigarette. “What was that? Some kind of prayer?”

Zayd nodded.

“Do you do that a lot?”

Zayd nodded again. “Every day,” he explained. “Five prayers.”

Jo paused. As he tried to think of how to word his next question, Zayd stared down at him. Jo cringed a little under his gaze. There was something about Zayd that still unnerved Jo. The man was so…serious. Severe. Jo couldn’t shake the feeling that Zayd was judging him.

“Does that, uh…work?”

Zayd frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Do you think it’s…protected you? I mean, if that’s what you’re praying for.”

Zayd seemed to think on that a second. “It is a prayer about many things, but yes, I also pray for protection. And I am alive and safe only by the grace of God. We are all only safe by the grace of God.”

Jo crinkled his nose. He hadn’t been looking for a sermon.

“Never mind,” he murmured as he slipped the cigarette between his lips. He wished, for the thousandth time that night, that he could light the damn thing without searing his lungs.

For some reason, Zayd didn’t move. He just dropped his eyes to the floor. After a long moment, he looked back up at Jo.

“It is also calming,” he offered quietly. “And when I am calm…I can keep myself safe.”

Jo raised an eyebrow.

Zayd sighed. “I can only pray to God about the things I cannot control,” he offered. “But I also pray for the strength to control what is in my hands. And after I pray for mercy in all of these things…” He spread a hand. “I feel stronger. I feel like I have worked for these things. I do not have regrets.” He took a breath. “Regrets destroy men.”

Jo pursed his lips around the cigarette. You don’t have any regrets? he wanted to ask. Because he didn’t believe that for a second.

The door to the room creaked open. Adam poked his head inside.

He gestured to Jo. “Come,” he mouthed in Japanese.

Jo furrowed his eyebrows. As he got to his feet, Zayd stepped aside.

“Good night,” he said quietly.

Jo murmured the same as he shuffled over to Adam. Adam opened the door wider so Jo could step into the hallway.

“Shouri,” Adam explained. “Shouri is…mmm…” He glanced at some English letters scrawled across his hand. “Wants to…speak,” he finished in thickly accented Japanese.

Jo perked. “N-now?” he blurted in Japanese. “She can talk to me now?”

Adam stared at him blankly. He looked back to his hand.

“Shouri wants to speak,” he repeated in Japanese.

Jo sighed in exasperation. “Not sick?” he asked in English. “Zayd said she is sick.”

Adam nodded. “Sick,” he agreed in English. “But okay.”

That was good enough for Jo. He followed Adam through the church, passing the empty kitchen, the boarded back door, and the shut-up girls’ room. Adam smiled at Jo as he pushed open the door to the sick room.

Shouri sat on the edge of the hospital bed, grumbling under her breath. She was pale under her robe, but she looked better than expected. She pinched a lock of her cropped hair and pulled it closer to her eye.

“Assholes.” She released the hair. “Now I have to bleach it again.”

Adam called out to her as he closed the door. She turned her head.

Something burned on the edges of Jo’s senses again. It was fainter now, especially with a little distance, but it was unmistakable. He stepped closer. Sure enough, the feeling grew stronger as he approached. It was like a magnetism that drew him toward the woman on the bed.

He thought of Touya and a shiver ran down his spine.

She frowned at him. “Jo,” she said. “Right?”

Jo swallowed. “Yeah.”

“You look different when I’m not concussed.” She sighed. “C’mere. And don’t let the pheromones freak you out–you’ll get used to them.”

Jo stopped. He furrowed his eyebrows at her.

“Pheromones?” he repeated. That had been his first guess about Touya ages ago.

Shouri tilted onto her feet. She winced as she stepped away from the bed, one hand gripping her stomach. Adam ran over to help her, but she barked something in English and waved him off. He put an arm around her, anyway. She slapped it off.

They argued in English for a full minute. She eventually tugged his shirt until he bent to be her height. She kissed his cheek, then gently slapped it. He ruffled her hair before fetching a chair and helping her sit down.

Jo was getting anxious. He walked up to interrupt their public affection.

“Are you supernatural?” he asked Shouri bluntly.

Shouri shook her head. “Nope,” she replied. “And neither are you. But we’re not normal, either.”

Jo froze.

We?

“Adam said you’re in foster care. Do you know anything about your biological parents?”

Jo took a second for that one. “No,” he answered carefully. “Why?”

“So no one’s ever told you what you are.”

Jo felt a strong, sudden fear well up inside him.

“What I am?” he croaked.

Shouri flipped up a palm. “Don’t panic,” she said quickly. “It’s not that big a deal. Do you wanna sit down?”

Jo clenched his fists. He suddenly got a mental image of Sachi, holding everyone’s hands and telling them they were “special.” Of stifling Ayase, of tip-toeing around Kado…

Jo didn’t like being coddled, especially when it was personal. He shook his head.

“Just tell me,” he snapped.

Shouri raised an eyebrow. She exchanged glances with Adam, then shrugged.

“You’ve got a little superhuman mixed into your DNA. There’s probably a tiny bit of superhuman mixed into most of the population, granted, but you inherited enough to get at least one full trait.” She gestured to herself. “Like me. When you’ve got a full trait, you release a pheromone as a signal to the rest of your species. It’s so we can find each and mate, I guess, or so that we can protect each other from predators or–”

“What?!”

“I told you not to panic. It’s not a big deal.” Shouri winced and shifted in her chair. “You’re mostly human–something like 99.99999 percent. But that tiny portion of a percent, that one special trait of yours, came from a species that technically wasn’t human. And since it’s enough to quantify, the church wants to slap a label on you and give you a stigma because, newsflash, the church is great at judging people! So some asshole monks in the Dark Ages made a name for people like you and me.” She sighed. “We’re Malum. It’s the Latin word for ‘evil.’”

Jo stared at her. She murmured something at Adam; Adam grabbed another chair and carried it to Jo.

Jo pulled away from him. “I don’t need to sit!” he growled. Adam, probably not understanding the Japanese, gripped Jo by the shoulder and tried to guide him toward the chair. Jo jerked out of his hold.

“Goddammit!” Jo whipped back toward Shouri. “What the hell are you talking about?! Part of me isn’t human?! Are you trying to tell me we’re aliens?!”

“Keep it down or you’ll wake up the whole church.” Shouri said something in English to Adam. “And no, Jo–we’re not aliens. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Oh, so that’s arbitrarily ridiculous!”

“I don’t know all the details, but this is how it was explained to me.” Shouri leaned back in her chair. “Way back in time–way, way back–there was a little split in the evolution of humankind. There were incredibly ancient people who spawned the people who exist now, and there were other kinds of people who were like humans, but were technically a different species. Those guys were Malum, okay? Humans and Malum. Not the same.”

She rubbed her jaw. “Malum were really, really similar to humans, but they had more physical advantages. They were stronger, faster, didn’t get sick as easily–that kind of thing. They supposedly looked just like humans, too, but the different pheromones probably distinguished them back then, and there’s a good chance those pheromones repulsed humans and vice versa, since humans and Malum didn’t get along. Since Malum were physically superior, they apparently subjugated humans a little, but I’m not sure I believe that. There’s only so much you can get from caveman paintings, y’know? And I can see the medieval monks adding that part, because they made up all kinds of shit.

“So the Malum were on their way to becoming the dominant species, until a plague suddenly came and wiped them out. The plague killed a huge swath of humans, too, but the Malum were especially susceptible, so they pretty much went extinct. But since they’d already been interbreeding with humans a little, and there were possibly a few left over after the plague, some Malum blood lived on in the human race.” Shouri frowned. “Most species aren’t supposed to be able to interbreed, so that just shows you how close they were to humans and how hard it is to explain all this.”

Jo swallowed. “So these were…ancient superhumans,” he clarified.

“Basically.”

“And I inherited…” Jo trailed off. “Wait, you said a trait?”

“You must’ve. You wouldn’t have the pheromone unless there was enough Malum DNA to actually affect your body.” Shouri shrugged. “But it could be really subtle. I think mine has to do with the synapses in my brain–my brain works really fast on some tasks, especially hand-eye coordination stuff. And there’s nothing else physically weird about me, so, y’know. Process of elimination.”  She raised an eyebrow at Jo. “Is there anything physically different about you?”

Jo didn’t know what to say. He dropped his gaze to the floor as his life became a tangled mess of memories in his head.

…

He raced through his childhood, puberty, teen years. Learning to steal, learning to fight, learning to read people…Jo had always been a quick study, but he couldn’t remember being exceptional at anything. He’d always sized himself up and balanced his weaknesses with his strengths. He’d never felt like Ayase and Sachi, who said they’d always known they were different, somehow.

He rubbed his temples. The images from his past were punctuated by pain. He remembered his first love, foster siblings getting sent to jail, and the woman he’d called “mom” dying in front of him in middle school. Kenta smiling from the top of the stairs. Seiya giggling as he slapped Jo on the back.

He gritted his teeth. “I’ve got shit luck,” he hissed. “And people around me tend to die. Does that count?”

Shouri blinked. Adam asked her something in English; she murmured her reply. Adam looked down at Jo.

And took a slow step away.

Jo scowled. “I’m not literally poisonous,” he said dryly. “I mean I’m cursed.”

“Oh.” Shouri brushed him off. “No, that doesn’t count. It’s gotta be something physical.”

Jo bristled. “Leaving a pile of bodies behind me isn’t physical enough?”

Shouri sighed. “Not to start the Pathetic Olympics,” she muttered, “but everyone at this church probably thinks they’re cursed. They’ve got dead family and friends. Half of us were dragged into Core and I spent the last few weeks getting the shit kicked out of me while I was shot up with poison.” She threw up her hands. “Is your luck worse than that? Or does it just feel that way because you’re a teenager who runs with street kids and supernaturals?”

Jo shrunk back. He looked away.

“Zayd said…I shouldn’t upset you,” he finally murmured. “Because you’re in Pitch withdrawal.”

“I’m not upset. And I’m not gonna be hurting for Pitch until tomorrow morning.” She sighed. “Jo, you can’t actually be cursed. You got me out of Motoi.”

Jo’s fingers twitched. He shrugged uncomfortably.

“Look, if you can’t figure out what your trait is, don’t kill yourself trying to find it. It’ll probably make itself obvious once you keep an eye out for it.” Shouri fingered her hair again. “You’ve probably got one of the really subtle traits. It’s more obvious in some people–I heard of one guy who could eat anything and survive on it. Like, he didn’t need food–he could eat dirt or grass and his body would convert that into energy and muscle mass. Crazy, right?”

Jo’s mind reeled. He blinked his eyes several times, trying to regain control of his thoughts.

He didn’t…he didn’t know what was different about him. Fifteen years on earth and he hadn’t known he wasn’t fully human. That he was different. Like Ayase or Sachi or Kado or Zayd…

But they had powers. Advantages. And now Jo was just different, without any of the strengths.

This is ridiculous.

“Y-you called me evil,” he said at last. “Is this what you meant?”

Shouri went quiet for a second. She licked her teeth.

“Yeah. I probably should’ve used the word Malum, but I was pretty out of it…sorry if I freaked you out.” She clenched her jaw. “The church uses that word to hide what they really think of us. I wanna throw the translation back in their faces so they can see what bigots they are.”

Jo grimaced. “Why do they use the word ‘evil’ at all?”

“We’re different from regular people. And people are always afraid of what’s different, right?” She paused. “And there’s…something else. But don’t take this the wrong way, Jo.”

Jo tensed. What now?

“They’ve done some studies on Malum to try and understand their genes better. It never gets very far, because hell, we’re still trying to finish mapping the human genome, let alone a tiny smattering of Malum genes that barely exist in the population. But they found that, well…” She took a breath. “A weirdly high percentage of Malum tend to…get in trouble. A lot of them are in jail.”

Jo’s eyes widened. Shouri threw out her hands.

“But these are outed Malum, okay? So don’t assume they were born bad–they were probably told they were bad, and public shunning can mess anyone up. Did you know a lot of churches excommunicate Malum automatically? For the way they were born. It’s such bull–”

“Wait.” Jo’s mouth went dry. “Then…Malum are actually evil?”

“No. No, Jo.” Shouri shakily got to her feet. “But you’re gonna meet people who think that. Especially in a church, where the whole Adam and Eve creation story makes a non-human ancestry pretty blasphemous. But I’m here, okay? And I don’t let shit like that slide.”

Jo’s vision swam. His legs shook beneath him, so he grabbed the edge of the chair for support. Adam took a step toward him.

Something in Jo snapped. “Don’t touch me!” he snarled.

Adam stopped. He tipped his head in apology.

“Jo…”

The blood pounded behind Jo’s eyeballs. This couldn’t be happening. After all the shit he’d waded through to eventually join the church, now he was marked? He’d not only inherited some invisible power–it was actively bad? Something the church had hated since the Dark Ages?

He tried to remember the first time he’d stolen something. It had felt so simple, so natural–an easy solution for a poor kid in foster care. He never stole from friends or family, but strangers? It was so easy to write them off, to put his needs ahead of theirs. He could block off his empathy response if it would get in his way. He’d robbed kids in his school. He’d let Seiya run into a deathtrap. He’d shot a man in Motoi.

Jo’s hands shook. He’d needed to convince himself, over and over, that he could do the right thing. That he was capable of the right thing. Because doing the wrong thing was…easier for him.

It was easier for him to be bad.

Jo covered his mouth. He wanted to vomit.

“Jo?”

“You and I have a lot more in common than you think.”

Jo froze. The sudden memory of Touya brought his thoughts crashing down around him.

“T-Touya,” Jo blurted. “He…he’s got your weird pheromone. Does that mean he’s–” Jo’s eyes widened. Puzzle pieces started to fit together in his brain.

“Touya?” Shouri repeated.

Jo’s head snapped up. “The upperclassman with the gloves. He’s in Core–he’s Zero’s son.”

Shouri frowned. “I was in solitary most of the time,” she admitted, “but I didn’t bump into any Malum in Core. We’re really rare, Jo. Other than my dad, who’s clueless about this whole thing, you’re the second one I’ve ever met.”

Jo furiously shook his head. “No, I’m sure he is! He feels exactly like you!” He grabbed his temples. “And he was stalking me. He started following me around after we met. I know he felt what I did.” Jo raced through his memories. What were the specifics? What had Touya said?!

“He told me we have a lot in common. That if I joined him…” Jo swallowed hard. “I’d see a side of myself I never knew.”

Shouri furrowed her eyebrows. “Shit,” she breathed. “I know that some Malum seek each other out…but he didn’t give you any details?”

“No! He just tried to get me to join him!”

Shouri’s gaze dropped to the floor. “If they grabbed me and were stalking you,” she murmured, “does that mean they’re targeting us?”

Blood rushed to Jo’s face, making him too hot in his clothes. He couldn’t process this. He needed to think. He needed to leave.

He headed for the door. Adam called something in English, but Jo ignored it.

“Jo, wait!”

Jo wanted to ignore Shouri, but something wouldn’t let him. That pheromone…that goddamned pheromone! Some painful need screamed at him to stay connected to her. He looked over his shoulder.

Her dark eyes had turned grave. “If Zero’s son is Malum, then I have to tell Daniel. Especially if Core might be targeting us.” She hesitated. “But I’ll have to out you to the church. Are you okay with that?”

Jo grunted. “Of course I’m not,” he spat. “You said the church hates Malum, right? I’m having a hard enough time fitting in here without some fucking target on my back that doesn’t even come with a fucking power.”

He irritably let out a breath. “But Kado’s already pulling the ‘secret supernatural’ shit. If hiding my…background will threaten everyone’s safety, then just tell them. I’ll get over it.”

The tension slowly melted from Shouri’s face. She hobbled over to him.

“Jo,” she said carefully. “What’s your last name again?”

He scowled at her. “Oda.”

“Jo Oda.” She held out a hand.

He stared at it. When she caught his eyes, she raised an eyebrow.

“I’m American. Humor me.”

Jo hesitated. He reached out and gripped her soft, cool palm.

She shook it.

“I’m Shouri Hyatt,” she said evenly. “Nice to meet you.”

Jo snorted. “A little late for that,” he murmured.

“I know. But we got off on the weirdest foot ever, so can we start over?” Her face softened. “I didn’t mean to trample in here and fuck up your worldview in five minutes.”

Jo sighed. “That happens a lot around here,” he mumbled. “I’ve seen a girl from my class turn into bees.”

Shouri smiled. “Your high school was a real nest for crazy shit, huh?”

“Don’t remind me.”

She paused. “Thanks for saving my life, Jo Oda.”

Jo squirmed a bit. He stared at their hands, but she didn’t let go.

“Don’t worry about the church–I’ve been dealing with their bigoted asses for years, and I won’t let them give you trouble. Besides.” She smiled over at Adam. “We’re the inter-faith outreach branch! These guys are way more pragmatic. Daniel was only shipped out to Japan because the Vatican couldn’t stand him, which makes him a thousand times more likeable in my book. If you had to get outed as Malum in any church, this is probably the best one you could’ve ended up in.”

Jo said nothing. I wish that made me feel better.

“Just keep an eye out for your Malum trait, Jo. Who knows–it could turn you from a badass into a powered badass.”

He grunted. “I doubt it. I would’ve noticed it by now.”

“Not necessarily. What if you could breathe underwater, but you’d never gone swimming before?”

He hesitated.

She finally released his hand. She clapped him on the back.

“Don’t panic, okay? You may know more now, but you’re still the same person you were when you walked in here a few minutes ago. You’re still the guy you’ve always been.”

Jo grumbled and looked away.

I know, he thought. And that’s exactly the problem.

***************

A creaking noise dragged Ayase out of her sleep. She blinked against her pillow, disoriented.

Huh?

She heard the shuffle of shoes from the hallway. Suddenly remembering Wipe’s escape, she scrambled out from under her blanket. She jerked her head around.

Sachi and Nick were still asleep, curled up in uncomfortable positions on the cold concrete floor. Kadoyuki’s blanket was abandoned.

Her heart pounding in her chest, Ayase grabbed her shoes and slid them onto her feet. She hurried out of the room as quietly as she could.

The door to Wipe’s room was still closed, an old chair rammed up under the doorknob from outside. Ayase peeked through the crumbling keyhole; Wipe was still in bed, one wrist handcuffed to the bed frame. She let out a sigh of relief.

She heard the sink quietly rumble to life down the hallway. She headed for the bathroom and noticed the door was slanted open. Soft panting echoed from inside.

Uh-oh.

That had to be Kadoyuki. Spurred by the worry of him having another meltdown, she leaned in and knocked on the wood.

“Kadoyuki?” she whispered. “Are you okay?”

The panting stopped. The sink was cut off the same moment that Kadoyuki threw open the door.

Ayase blinked.

Kadoyuki was flush, the color to his cheeks a stark contrast to his usual pallor. A sheen of sweat along his face and neck caught the dim glow of the overhead light bulb. Ayase stared at him, surprised, as he clutched his bandaged arm closer to his body.

“Watanabe-san,” he breathed.

Ayase shoved the door aside and rushed into the bathroom. He cringed against the sink, pulling back from her body.

“Are you sick?” she asked quickly. “You look like you have a fever!”

He licked his lips and shook his head. “No,” he wheezed. “Just…nngh.”

Ayase’s eyes fell to his bandaged arm. She stiffened.

He shook his head at her unasked question. “It’s n-not Pitch from Wipe,” he breathed. “Nick-san said I would feel that right away.”

“Did…did I bandage it wrong? Will you let me check it?”

Kadoyuki hesitated. Ayase reached past him to grab the basket of medical supplies on the sink. Since he’d taken them out, she assumed he was worried about the same thing.

He slowly stretched out his injured arm. Ayase gripped it.

To her surprise, he didn’t feel particularly warm. She carefully unwrapped the gauze from earlier that day. His arm was still a torn mess of flayed skin and dried blood; she cleaned the injury again like Nick had shown her, using soap and water at the sink before applying a generous layer of antibiotic cream. She checked for signs of infection, but the injury looked like it was healing.  She carefully felt the temperature of his skin around the bite.

Kadoyuki hissed as she pressed near the broken skin. She apologized and pulled back.

“This doesn’t look infected, Kadoyuki.” She gently wrapped his arm in gauze again. “And you’re red, but you don’t feel hot. Do you feel sick?”

He murmured something, but she couldn’t make it out. She looked up from his arm.

He was staring at her, his eyes glassy. There was an odd emotion behind his pupils–something powerful and wild, and stripped of his usual fear. He swallowed hard and gripped his mouth.

Ayase released him, confused. He shrunk back against the sink and averted his eyes.

“No,” he murmured at last. “I feel…crowded.”

Crowded?

Before she could ask, those dark eyes flicked back to her.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “It’s hard to explain. But I don’t feel sick.” His fingers slid up to his temple. “There’s just…something building up inside me, like a house of cards. I keep waiting for it to fall. For something to burst and scatter through my body.”

Alarm seized Ayase. Was Kadoyuki hallucinating?  She stepped back toward the bathroom door.

“I’m getting Nick,” she murmured.

“No!” He suddenly stood from the sink. “Don’t, please!”

She froze. There was desperation in his face, but it was firmly lucid. His eyes weren’t dilated. If anything, he seemed more focused than usual.

“S-something isn’t right,” she argued. “What if Pitch did get in you?”

“Wipe bit Nick-san’s fingers when he was trying to feed him. If Nick-san is okay, then I should be.”

Ayase had only glanced at Nick back in the sleeping room–he’d been sleeping deeply. She clenched her jaw.

“Then I have to wake him up. He can check himself, too.”

Kadoyuki squirmed. He finally nodded, but he didn’t look happy about it.

“Can we talk first?” he asked. “Please?”

Ayase let out a breath. If he was willing to go to Nick, she was willing to give him some time.

Kadoyuki swallowed. “I-I wanted to thank you. For defending me when he was mad.”

Ayase assumed he meant Nick. Then Kadoyuki had overheard that conversation.

“My power isn’t always…useful right away. It just helps me piece things together. So I needed a long time to understand Wipe, and Nick-san is hard to talk to…” He trailed off.

Ayase sighed. “Nick was really on the warpath earlier. Don’t beat yourself up over that.”

“He…he listens to you.”

A tiny surge of pride welled up in Ayase. “I guess,” she murmured. “But probably just because he knows I can hurt him if I have to.”

“No.” Kadoyuki shook his head. “Nick-san respects you. Because he doesn’t know how to be kind, but you always are.”

Ayase, surprised, felt a little blood rush to her face. “Oh,” she blurted.

Kadoyuki stared at her. His beady eyes, glassy and loaded, cut through to her core. Ayase shivered.

Kadoyuki dropped his eyes to the floor. “Sorry,” he murmured.

Ayase clenched and unclenched her hands. This was the most verbose she’d ever heard Kadoyuki, so she wanted to press him a little. Especially since he didn’t seem sick…even if he did seem different. She took a breath.

“Kadoyuki,” she began. “If you heard us arguing with Nick, you know what we were arguing about.”

He nodded, hesitantly.

“You said your power helps you piece things together. Can you tell me any more than that?”

Kadoyuki swallowed. “I…I want to,” he said weakly. “But…”

Ayase leaned closer, careful to still afford him space. “But?”

A familiar furrow creased his brow. “I-I can’t. It could…ruin everything.”

Ayase frowned. “What do you mean?”

“It’s bad. It eats at me. And I don’t want anyone else to…” He took a shuddering breath. “I don’t want to spread that.”

Ayase felt a swirl of sympathy in her heart. “I was afraid to tell people about my power,” she said quietly. “I attacked Nick and Daniel-san when they forced it out of me.”

Kadoyuki wilted. “And now it…helps the group,” he mumbled. “Like I should be helping the group.”

Ayase sighed. “You’re helping the group, Kadoyuki. We can all see that.”

Kadoyuki looked up. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He stared back at his feet.

“But we need you to communicate with us better, even if it’s in other ways. We need to know what you’re trying to do or we can’t keep everyone safe.”

Kadoyuki tucked his injured arm closer to his body. “I…know that.”

“Nick and Detective Nakajima won’t press you so hard if you offer them something. And if they’re scaring you, you can tell someone else.” She gestured to the door. “Like Sachi.”

Kadoyuki shifted on his feet. He looked up through his sparse eyelashes, the crease depending between his eyebrows.

“Or like you?” he whispered.

He suddenly seemed fragile again. She saw through the strange surge of emotion that night and saw him as he usually was–a rail-thin teenager with fear in his eyes. He trembled slightly.

Ayase swallowed down the heat that rose in her chest. “Um…sure,” she murmured at last. “Like me.”

Kadoyuki stared at her, intensely silent again. After several painful seconds, he closed his eyes.

“Thank you,” he breathed. “For not…pushing me.”

Ayase shrugged off the praise. “I don’t like being pushed,” she murmured. “I know where you’re coming from.”

“You don’t.”

Ayase froze. Kadoyuki looked up at her, the mysterious passion flaring up behind his pupils again. He pulled his lips into a tight line.

“Sorry.” An uncomfortable dread laced through her veins. “I just meant–”

“You don’t.” His trembling hands closed into fists. “No one knows. I know what it’s like to be everyone, and no one knows what it’s like to be me.”

What?

Ayase had no idea what he meant by that. She spluttered for a response.

“Like…like Sachi?” she offered. “He can feel everyone, but no one can feel him.”

Something hardened in Kadoyuki’s eyes. “Sachi doesn’t know,” he insisted. “He calls me Kado. Kado. Just the kanji for gate. I hate it.” Kadoyuki’s nails dug into his palms. “I don’t want to be anyone’s gateway. I want them to stay out!”

A deep chill resonated through Ayase. As the flush deepened in Kadoyuki’s face, his eyes welled up with tears.

“I’m too crowded. People push their way in and I can’t keep them out. They think that I can lead them to power, to freedom, to peace, but I’m not a gate.” He dropped his eyes to his injured arm and crazily scratched at the bandage. “So they just tear into me and never break through. They eat at me from the outside, from the inside, and my clothes can’t keep them out. My skin can’t keep them out. They fill me with their poison until it floods my body and I drown from the inside.”

Ayase’s mouth opened, but she didn’t know what to say. Memories clustered in her mind–of Kadoyuki in a fit of terror in the hospital bathroom, emaciated in torn clothes on the floor of the church. Clutching a robe around his body and cringing from Sachi’s outstretched hand. As he groaned before her and clutched his injured arm, she saw a new side to the fear that seemed to strangle him at every turn.

Violation.

She’d heard multiple theories for Kadoyuki’s hysteria–abuse at home, drug use, sickness. Now she believed it could be any of that. It could be all of that. His power, whatever it was, was probably just a piece of the puzzle that was killing the boy in front of her.

“Kadoyuki,” she breathed. “Y-you’re right. I don’t understand.”

He whimpered and grabbed his mouth.

Ayase swallowed hard. “Can I…help you? Can you tell me what you need?”

Kadoyuki looked up at her, tears spilling from his wild eyes. “Please,” he begged. “Just keep them out!”

A tiny, jingling song arose from Kadoyuki’s pocket.

His head snapped down, his eyes wide as saucers. The flush drained out of his face as he turned white as a ghost.

It was his mobile phone–the one he’d had before joining the church. Ayase even vaguely recognized the song.

Kadoyuki fumbled through his pocket, suddenly focused and alert. The tears dried in his eyes.

“I have to take this,” he breathed. “I have to. Please.”

Ayase was surprised at his mood shift, but moved out of his way. He ran out of the bathroom as he whipped out the ringing phone.

“I still have to wake up Nick,” she told his retreating back. “To check his fingers and your arm.”

Kadoyuki threw a piercing gaze over his shoulder. “I’ll be back,” he promised. “Five minutes.”

Ayase nodded, hesitant. Kadoyuki flipped open the phone and held it to his ear.

“I’m here,” he blurted. “But I’m with someone, Mother.”

Mother?

As Kadoyuki turned a corner of the hallway, Ayase’s stomach clenched. The mysterious mother. The one with problems, the one suspected of hurting him…the one who’d left text messages when Nakajima and Zayd had gone through Kadoyuki’s phone. Ayase checked her watch. It was three in the morning.

What mother called her son at that hour?

Ayase took a long breath. As she pulled the light bulb cord and soaked the bathroom in darkness, she wondered, yet again, how she could possibly handle Kadoyuki. Sachi couldn’t understand him, and Sachi was an empath. And from what Kadoyuki had said, Sachi’s attempts to get through had only made him raise his defenses.

She didn’t want to make things worse. As she walked through the crumbling hallway, rubbing her chilled arms, she found herself deliberating on a line in his hysterical confession.

“I know what it’s like to be everyone, and no one knows what it’s like to be me.”

Something had been nagging at the edge of her mind–a vague memory that surfaced whenever she tried to figure out Kadoyuki’s power. It was from the first time she’d turned into a swarm. She’d attacked Nick and Daniel, and Kadoyuki had emerged from a back room; she’d tried to defend him from the men and he’d cowered in fear. But he’d spoken to her. He’d known she was the swarm…and every time she replayed that day, she knew he hadn’t been in the room when she’d transformed. She could maybe attribute it to him hearing her change through the door, since Kadoyuki seemed to have an uncanny knack for learning secrets through doors. But she wasn’t sure. It nagged at her.

“I know what it’s like to be everyone.”

Ayase dug her fingers into her arms.

Kadoyuki had said he felt invaded by the people around him. But she was starting to wonder if, maybe, that invasion went both ways.

Proceed to Chapter 3, page 4–>