Tokyo Demons: Book 3, Chapter 8, Part 1

Ayase wheezed over Touya’s limp body, now crumpled on the floor. The sensation of the gun cracking into his skull still lingered in her palm, a tingling vindication burned into her skin.

Her vision swam as she stared at him. His bare back–sweaty and blood-sprayed, pale save for the rivers of Pitch marks that throbbed down his shoulder blades–rose and fell in shallow breathing.

The gun fell from her shaking fingers and clattered to the floor.

She felt something crack open inside her, the floodgates of her rage no longer staying the tide. Her hatred for this pathetic man vanished, drowned in a sea of despair, washed away in a flood of grief she’d forced herself to lock away.

Kadoyuki…

She covered her mouth as the memories rushed in, bobbing on the sea of mourning. She staggered back from Touya’s body, her bare feet slipping in sweat and blood, her eyes losing focus as two people in scrubs rushed over to Touya’s limp form.

“Watanabe-san.”

Kadoyuki’s voice echoed in her ears, suddenly and eerily present. She choked out a breath, her only hand reaching for a non-existent grip.

Kadoyuki, her mind reeled. Is it really over…?

“Watanabe-san.”

He sounded so real–a cruel trick of her spinning mind. Exhaustion and relief twisted with depression in her chest, the tightening of the cords sucking at the last energy in her brain. She staggered back again, her knees shaking.

The skin of her back brushed fabric.

“…Ayase-san.”

The word rumbled through the softness of a sweater, wisped through the air as a rasp behind her ear.

Ayase stiffened in terror. She jerked back from the contact, twisting her body around as it wobbled on rubbery legs. Her only arm lashed out…

And he caught it, his fingers squeezing over hers.

Shock vacuumed the sound from her throat as she stared at him, at his quiet form doubling and singling and doubling in her vision. He was only on one crutch now, his other hand balled into a fist by his side, his face hooded by a gray cap. Those dark eyes bore into her with an aching softness she’d never seen, never felt…never even fantasized about in her pained days alone.

This wasn’t him. It couldn’t be.

He’d never looked at her like that.

“I’m sorry,” Kadoyuki whispered, the words lacing through the air between them.

She shook her head, choking on a sob.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, his voice cracking. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry–”

Her legs shook, and she fell.

She collapsed against him, jarring him on his crutch, ripping her wrist free of his grip to instead claw at him. She was on her knees, so she was only high enough to grip the bottom of his sweater with one fist. She stared up at him, tears running down her cheeks, and crazily met his glassy eyes.

“Ka…”

People were running around them, reduced to smeared sights and sounds on the edges of Ayase’s narrowing awareness. The tunnel vision was blacking them out. Darkness closed around Kadoyuki as he stared down at her from the center of a tightening ring.

“Ayase-san…”

She gripped his sweater so tightly that it was raised from his waist; she felt him shiver when she gasped hot breath on his navel.

“I promise,” he whispered, “to be here when you wake up.”

She fell into blackness.

***

Everyone was alive.

Everyone was alive.

Jo ran a hand up his hair and reminded himself to breathe. He leaned against the scratchy wallpaper of the hospital, a failed attempt to steady his shaking legs.

“Jo?” Long fingers, still elegant despite cracked nails with dried blood under the edges, slid down his shoulders from behind. “It’s okay, baby.”

Jo swallowed and slid his hands over Mitsuko’s. “I know,” he murmured. “It’s…better than okay?”

She laughed by his ear, but he could hear how tired she was. He looked up at the hospital room again: at comatose Ban, reconnected to new machines and strangely peaceful in a pristine bed; at Kiyoshi and Emi sitting on the floor against the wall, his arm around her and her face buried against his shoulder; at Daniel and Hatsumi, leaning over the second bed that had been wheeled in, speaking quietly while a barely conscious Nick shifted against the sheets.

Jo rubbed his burning eyes.

His phone buzzed in his pocket; he heard beeps go off across the room as another group text message went through. With a sigh, he dug out his phone and flipped it open.

Traffic to the hospital is still hell. UPDATE ME ON ADAM, YOU SONS OF BITCHES.

Mitsuko leaned over Jo’s shoulder to read the message. “I thought you already told Shouri-san that they scooped out the bullet and they’re cleaning the wound.”

“I did. Like, eight times.” Jo tiredly typed out a reply. “I think she’s just trying to be a good friend? It’s hard to tell with her.”

Another beep went off behind him–Mitsuko’s phone this time–but she didn’t bother to check it. She just pressed a quick kiss to Jo’s cheek and pulled from her comforting place on his back.

“Duty calls. I’ll be at Blue Light for a while, if anyone’s looking for me.”

“Right.”

She was quiet for a moment behind him; Jo sent his text. Then her fingers snaked over his shoulders again, this time gripping them so she could force him to turn around.

She smiled, her mouth pulling at the swollen bottom lip that had turned purplish over two hours. The small bandages dotting her face–chin, cheek, the one over stitches in her eyebrow–somehow made her more beautiful, and Jo wasn’t sure how. Gently, she pressed her forehead against his.

“Good work,” she whispered.

He closed his eyes. “You kicked ass,” he murmured back.

“Mmm. I get really hot when you say that.” She rapped a few fingers on his chest. “Remember that for later.”

Jo kissed her before she pulled back; she wiggled her fingers in a wave. As she left, Jo turned back to the hospital room.

“Kiyoshi, where’s Sachi?”

Kiyoshi, his eyes distant, suddenly looked up from the floor. “Huh?”

“Sachi. He left after checking on Ayase.”

“Oh. I think he’s with…Kado.” Kiyoshi’s voice quieted on the final word, his mouth curving into a half-frown. “In that other recovery room.”

Jo was dutifully silent for a moment, his default way of apologizing to literally everyone for hiding the whole Kado-isn’t-really-dead plot. Among other things.

“Thanks,” Jo murmured. “I’m gonna go check on him.”

Kiyoshi, clearly a little surprised, blinked. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, Jo?”

“What?”

“I just mean…maybe they should be alone.” Kiyoshi paused awkwardly. “Since they’re…y’know.”

Jo squinted.

“Wait,” Kiyoshi said. “You don’t know about their…thing?”

“What thing? They’ve always had a thing.”

Emi finally looked up from Kiyoshi’s shoulder, causing him to tilt his face to her. “I don’t think Kadoyuki-kun’s actually had a check-up yet,” she said, throwing a look back at Jo. “And the nurses here are so busy. If you bring him back, I can do it.”

Kiyoshi furrowed his brow in thought, then let out a breath. “Uh…y’know, it’s probably fine? I’m sure they’re done. With, uh…doing the thing.”

Jo was pretty sure that wasn’t how they were using that word, but it also didn’t matter, so he murmured a goodbye and left the room.

He paused in the hallway. Right beside the door, pushed up against the wall, was yet another wheeled bed–a mimic of countless other beds, filled with shaken patients and crammed into every free corner of the busy hospital. Jo narrowly stepped aside as a frantic nurse ran past him.

Ayase didn’t even stir in her hallway bed.

She looked…peaceful. Compared to the bandaged or moaning patients clogging the hallway, she didn’t have a scratch on her. Just no left arm, barely any hair, and a few smudges on her cheek. Two thick, vanished tear tracks had carved through the dirt on her face.

He knew she was just sleeping off the exhaustion and didn’t need medical care, but he still felt a nagging desire to do something for her. Jo’s eyes lingered on her shoulder, peeking out from under the blanket–he saw the pale blue of the hospital gown he’d tied on her naked body himself.

Leave her a drink for when she woke up? Try to find her shoes? The options sounded so stupid when he laid them out in his mind. He noticed that a ripple of the blanket was brushing her cheek, near her parted lips and bobbing closer to her open mouth with every breath; he reached out to pull it back, absently thinking that it might annoy her if it soaked up any drool.

He got his hand close enough to feel her warm breath on his fingers…

And then he pulled back, feeling stupid again.

I’m still coming down, he thought. I’m being weird. He watched her for a long moment, focusing on the hypnotic rise and fall of her shoulders.

And then he left her, trying not to overthink it.

The other recovery room was on the opposite end of the floor, abandoned once Adam had been moved to have his bullet removed. It took a while for Jo to get there; he flattened against a wall as a team rushed a patient on a stretcher through the hallway. Some barely conscious man on a hallway bed snarled at him, rattling the handcuffs that tethered him to the metal sideboards. An alarm went off somewhere, launching an echo of shouts and pounding feet.

Jo grimaced as he dodged another running doctor. Yes, he definitely wanted Sachi and Kado in eyesight again, considering the hospital was a mess–and, to be honest, he still had the vague suspicion that Kado would try to disappear again.

When he finally got to the recovery room, the door was open a crack and he heard voices inside. He reached for the doorknob.

“…I love you.”

Jo stopped as the hair stood up on the back of his neck.

Hearing Kado rasp those words made a shiver run through his spine. He looked up and saw a sliver of the two boys through the door.

Sachi’s eyes were wide, the wild emotion behind them especially clear without his glasses. He opened his mouth, but Kado shook his head.

“I know,” Kado mumbled. “It just…feels like every time I told you, something was compromising it. So I want you to hear it again now.

“And,” he added quietly, one hand delicately sliding up Sachi’s neck, “I want you to remember this one.”

Jo watched, frozen, as Kado tugged Sachi’s head down…and pressed his lips to Sachi’s cheek.

The kiss lingered just long enough for Jo to feel guilty; Kado’s mouth parted just wide enough for the thing to feel loaded. Kado whispered something in Sachi’s ear, and the resulting sound from Sachi’s throat made Jo jerk back from the door.

This is…more of a thing than I expected.

He got one step backward when a force rammed into him from the side; Jo stumbled to stay on his feet as a tripping doctor, her arms full of medical supplies, yelled at him.

“Get out of the hallway!” she snapped. “We’re dealing with a mass emergency here!”

Jo winced at her cry and whipped his head back to the recovery room; sure enough, the door creaked open and Kado stared straight at him.

The disconcerting laser of Kado’s gaze made Jo’s hands fly up. “I…didn’t mean to interrupt,” he blurted.

Kado sighed. He called something back into the room and clomped out into the hallway.

Jo suddenly flashed back to Kado in that alleyway, and a line rose to the top of his memory.

“Sachi agreed to this plan. But, by design, he can’t remember that part.”

As Kado hobbled closer, Jo looked at the room past the guy’s shoulder. He saw Sachi through the cracked-open door, flush and wide-eyed, his fingers touching his cheek…the way he’d been compulsively doing for days.

“Shit,” Jo breathed, only loud enough for Kado to hear. “This…explains a lot.”

Kado glared at him, and Jo threw up his hands again.

“That’s not what I meant! I just…”

“Nngh.” Kado leaned into his crutch, the edge to him softening. He tugged at the brim of the cap that still hugged his head.

“We all need time,” Kado murmured. “To process everything.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t want to overload him with anything complicated. Not after…” Kado trailed off.

“Uh, r-right.” Jo tried to push his raging guilt to the pit of his stomach. “Sorry again about–”

“Don’t apologize.” In a surprising moment that almost felt nostalgic, Kado’s mouth sank in his face. He nervously looked away.

“Help him,” Kado requested quietly. “I’m not…good with him.”

Jo let out a breath and let Kado hobble past him. “Don’t sell yourself short there,” he muttered before stepping into the room.

Sachi glanced up from the floor, then immediately turned red and took a step back. “Jo!” he blurted. “How long were you… H-how’s Ayase?”

Jo noticed the support bandage wrapped Sachi’s wrist, the dark splotch of blood on his thigh. His scrubs were filthy and still plastered with sweat under his arms.

And he was…shaking. He clenched and unclenched his hands, but Jo could see the tremor to them.

“Ayase’s fine,” Jo assured her. “Still asleep. Do you wanna, like…clean up?”

“Uh… N-no, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? There’s a patient shower in the other room.”

“I-is that where everyone is? I’m sorry, I know I kinda ran off.” He chewed his lower lip. “I, uh…”

Jo waited, but Sachi didn’t continue. He just chewed his lip, his eyes darting everywhere in the room except for Jo’s face.

Jo gestured with his head. “Come on.”

Sachi nodded, but he didn’t move. His hands clenched and unclenched by his sides. He opened his mouth…but then, slowly, he closed it again.

Tears welled up in his eyes.

Before Jo could say anything, a surprised blurt erupted from the hallway. “Wait,” an unfamiliar voice said. “Is that recovery room empty?!”

A pair of nurses rushed into the room, shouting at people behind them. One of them shoved Jo into Sachi as an unconscious patient was wheeled inside in a stretcher.

A nurse glared at Sachi–still in scrubs–accusatorily. “Why didn’t you mark this room as free?” she snarled. “We’ve got people bleeding in the elevator!”

Sachi stared back like a deer in headlights, so Jo grabbed his arm and tried to exude as much calm as possible.

“Sorry,” Jo offered as he pulled Sachi through the sudden throng of employees. “We’ll get out of your way.”

He made sure Sachi cleared the door before throwing it shut behind them. His fingers slipped on Sachi’s clammy skin, so he tightened his grip.

Jo leaned against the hallway wall and pulled, as gently as possible, until Sachi’s back was pressed against the wallpaper. While another stretcher zoomed past them, Jo finally let go.

“It’s nuts out here,” Jo said. “Gotta, uh, find a little corner out of the way.”

Sachi didn’t even look at him; his eyes just rolled up to the half-broken lights in the ceiling, riddled with bullet holes. The back of his head scraped against the wall as his Adam’s apple trembled, something incoherent spilling past his lips.

He clapped his hands over his mouth and sobbed.

Jo sighed. “Let it out,” he murmured. “You’ve had a rough few weeks, man.”

Sachi wailed through his fingers, the sound loud enough that a nearby nurse jumped. But when a flood of tears spilled down his face and he broke into wracking sobs, she went back to work. The other employees who rushed past–for the next several minutes–clearly ignored the teenager in scrubs having a relieved breakdown against the hospital wallpaper.

Jo just waited, by his side, and let Sachi cry his eyes out.

To be concluded in Chapter 8, Part 2 + Epilogue.