昭

The trio left Taiyou Café shortly after Aihara's shocking revelation. Aihara gave Pai her contact information and said to call her when she was ready to. She said there were things to do, tests to run, to help her along in her 'transition'.

Pai doubted there was anything on earth that could possibly help her. As Aihara was handing her card over to Pai, Shin swiftly stepped in and snapped it up, pocketing and coldly informing her that they would decide what to do next on their own, thank you.

Pai would never want to be on the receiving end of that deadly, blaming glare.

They walked back to Ayashi House in total silence, both absorbed in the confines of their thoughts. She knew she could no longer go on keeping her secrets. She'd reached a breaking point. She wasn't sure if it was the right timing, or if it was even the right thing to do, to be blurting out her memories after what Aihara said.

She just hoped she was brave enough to follow through with it and wouldn't chicken out at the last minute.

She had no idea what was going on in Shin's head as they walked home. Every time she glanced at him, he was focusing stoically ahead, an inscrutable look in his eye. His utter silence was nerve wracking, and only alleviated by the fact that he held her hand all the way home, never once letting go. On the train, they sat beside one another in the vacant seats. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, ignoring all the stares they got for it. She laid her head on his shoulder, too tired to do anything else but relax with him next to her, finally.

When she was too absentminded herself to notice, he'd pull her out of the way of being knocked over by an incoming car or someone hurtling down the street on the bicycle like Izanami's wraiths were at their heels. He held her hand all the way home, but she knew he wasn't entirely there with her.

Unbeknownst to her, Shin was there – he was almost too aware of every aspect of her. She completely didn't notice the way Shin would glower at literally every man who so much as looked at her for more than two seconds. She always dressed depressingly plainly, according to Shiori, but that didn't stop people from noticing first the shock of white hair, then the girl it belonged to, whose soul shone through her eyes no matter how hard she tried to hide it behind deliberately impassive, flat gazes.

He watched her like a hawk without her realizing it, noting the shadows under her eyes, the paleness of her skin, the rush of blood to her cheeks when he, out of the blue at the foot of the climb up to the house, kissed her right on the street where anyone could see them. She didn't notice how he couldn't keep his eyes more than a few seconds away from her before being drawn right back to her.

She would have noticed, if not for the irritation swirling in her at Kuniumi's reappearance, and complete refusal to divulge where she'd been for almost a week. Irritation, and a nagging, persistent rush of relief at her reappearance that refused to abate no matter how Pai tried to ignore it.

Shinigami was right, Kuniumi chirped, acting so casual, as if she hadn't vanished for days and left Pai alone again. You are dying. This is what he meant. This is why he didn't need to act to fulfil his desire to see you dead. You're already dying.

Shut up, she thought grouchily as her feet crunched on the fallen leaves littering the ground. She blushed furiously when Shin put his hands on her waist and lifted her clear off a rather large log that had fallen right across the path they walked up on, blocking it.

Aw, she cooed scathingly, easily flicking through Pai's memories of the last two days like they were the pages of a glossy magazine. We thought you missed us. Looks like you got yourself occupied, though.

Shut up.

It is truly amazing how you've gone for so long totally oblivious to his true feelings for you, Kuniumi giggled. You should be given an award.

Pai regretted ever feeling bad for lashing out at Kuniumi. She wondered what could have possessed her to actually feel sorry for doing so when Kuniumi deserved it. She was especially angry with herself for feeling like that when Kuniumi merely cackled in mad glee whenever Pai asked where she'd been, why she hadn't answered any of her many, many calls.

You're imagining things. She stepped over a line of ants making their way from one side of the path to the other. They were so small. It would be so easy to just ignore and crush them all. Go away. I can't deal with you right now, Kuniumi.

Surprisingly, Kuniumi heeded her words, her presence beginning to slither away – but still leaving behind a hint of herself to remind Pai that she wasn't completely gone. Not like last time.

You know you are controlled by your own silence, don't you?

That's not true.

You can't fill that hole inside you with even a billion empty souls, dear Bibari. You already tried, and you failed.

Before she could angrily retaliate, Kuniumi was gone. But not really. Just like always.

Shin stopped right at the turn that would lead them straight to the gates of Ayashi House. She could see the edge of the wall, and perched on the branches around them were Karasatengu's crows. She paused with him, looking up at him in confusion, then in the direction of the house.

"Are you coming?" she asked.

He looked back at her, and she worriedly noted that his usually sharp gaze was now wandering; lost. "Are you ready to go back in right now?"

She thought about it. Thought about Shiori, who said she'd wait for Pai to come back so they could try on the myriad of clothes they bought on her birthday and take too many pictures Pai wasn't looking forward to seeing. She'd promised to play hide-and-seek with the kids and Yukiji when she got back.

She loved her best friend, and the kids, but couldn't – she couldn't do any of that right now. After the talk with Aihara, she was tired. The exhaustion pulling at her bones was a taunt, now, a reminder of everything that was going wrong.

She shook her head slowly, almost shamefully. "Not really. Not yet."

Shin nodded up at the trees, eyeing the large crows that returned with red-eyed, blank stares. They watched, but made no sound. "We can go somewhere quiet, if you want."

She was nodding in agreement before he even finished. "Sounds good."

This time, even though she blushed furiously, she didn't hesitate to step into the circle of his arms before he flew them up over the line of trees making up the dense forest surrounding their home, away from the spying eyes of Karasatengu's crows. He flew to the east for a little while before coming down to land on a surprisingly big, sturdy branch that easily held both their weights.

Shin set her down on her feet, keeping his arms wrapped around her waist so she wouldn't make the wrong step and fall. She remembered how he'd lingered a few seconds too long last time this happened. Now she knew why.

This time, he didn't let go.

She looked down. The tree they were on was a large one, but it was dwarfed by the mammoth trees surrounding it. The foliage around them was dense, a solid wall of green all around her. Shiori had once told her that one of the things Kouta did in Sapporo was fight off conglomerate companies that kept offering bids – of ridiculously massive amounts of money – to cut down the forests in various places around Hokkaido and develop the land for whatever money-making scheme they'd cooked up.

She was struck by how small and insignificant she really was in the face of this nature, of this life.

Her heart grew heavy with every step as Shin took her hand and led her to the trunk of the tree. They sat down together and Shin instantly pulled her to him. She went easily, needing the comfort of his touch as much as he needed the reassurance of her next to him.

She snuggled into him as he spooned her, cheek pressed to the front of his shirt, listening to the calming drum of his heartbeat by her ear. Her hair was splayed over his arm, and he lifted a few strands and wound them around his fingers, watching the silken white strands slip between his hands. Her cold body was warmed by his heated one, and her eyes slipped shut as she simply let herself be in this quiet moment between them.

They sat in silence for a while, soaking each other up, listening to the sounds of the forest wide awake and teeming with life, absorbing everything Aihara told them. She knew, from the way Shin behaved, the way he reacted, that Aihara hadn't lied. Probably not about anything she'd said. If she had, Shin wouldn't have let her get away with it. He wouldn't be so broodingly quiet like this.

This...doesn't feel real, she thought to herself dazedly.

Though she'd thought that she had accepted it, she hadn't, not really. She'd never trusted Shinigami when he told her that she was dying. She'd never really believed Kuniumi when she said it either. But with Aihara's words, and her shaky memories to back it up, she couldn't deny it any longer.

Somehow, one of her parents was Ayakashi. There were ways Hengen could hide themselves from those who could sense them, like how Kagetora's little brother was doing in school. Hard as it was for her to accept it, one of her parents was Hengen, and whoever it was, they had hidden the truth from their children all their lives.

Because of that, she was going to die after picking a choice she didn't remember making.

Pai watched a butterfly dance in the air in front of them, its wings beating against the gentle breeze that wafted the butterfly this way and that. She didn't know what kind it was, but its outer wings were a radiant blue that reminded her of Shin's eyes. Its wings shimmered like starlight with every flap.

She stretched out one hand, not really expecting it to come, but more out of habit than anything else. She and Midori used to do this when they saw a butterfly. A few times they did land on Midori's finger, eliciting squeals of delight from the girls that scared the butterfly off. They never really ventured too close to Pai, though. She wondered if it was because they could sense that she wasn't normal, wasn't good.

Her eyes widened when the butterfly fluttered around her outstretched finger, circling it a few times before finally coming to land on the tip of her fingernail. A quiet gasp parted her lips as she stared unblinkingly at it, feeling the tiny imprints of its legs on her skin as it walked down her finger to her knuckles.

She glanced back when Shin reached out and held her hand under the butterfly. He smiled softly at her before looking back at the butterfly. Together, they watched as the fragile creature turned right to left, wings flapping slowly. It wandered from her hand to his, going back and forth as if it couldn't decide whose hand was better to settle on.

"It's beautiful," she breathed, afraid of speaking too loud and scaring it off. Its feelers moved slowly, like they were floating in water as it touched Shin's thumb.

She felt his answering smile in her hair. "Like you. My very own butterfly."

She blushed at the endearment, watching the butterfly and wondering if that was how he really saw her. It made her feel softer, like maybe all the hard edges tearing her up inside weren't so sharp.

A few seconds later the butterfly lifted into the air, flying above their heads a few times, beating its wings rapidly as it took flight and left them as quietly as it had arrived. It was like the little creature was saying goodbye to them.

Tears unexpectedly stung her eyes at its leaving, but she refused to let them fall. She was so tired of always being tired, so drained from always trying to keep the tears at bay, but she didn't know how else to be. She didn't want to cry and be left with the numbness she always was left with the few times she did let herself cry.

It was just so unfair – she felt like a whiny brat, but it was unfair. How could she be dying just when one part of her life had fallen into place in a wonderful way she'd never anticipated?

She had just learned what it was like to kiss Shin, to be held by him, to know he felt something for her that was more than friendship. She just found out why he wasn't fond of monkeys. She wanted to know more about him, no matter how trivial. There was so much more to learn, so much more to find out.

In what universe was it fair that the chance of it all was being snatched away like this?

A phone dinged. She sat up a little as Shin reached back and tugged out his phone before pulling her back to him, as if he was reassuring himself with her weight against him. She watched him through the corner of her eye as he read the text message he just received.

"It's Kouta." He said quietly, locking the phone and stuffing it back in his pocket.

"Is something wrong?"

He shook his head. "No. He just wants me to go with him for a meeting with some company or other. I think he takes me to those things just for the sake of intimidating everyone in the room."

"Well," she tried teasing. "That glare of yours is pretty effective."

He chuckled lowly. "So I've been told."

She dropped her chin to her chest as she vacuously watched an ant struggling to carry a little piece of wood somewhere. "Do you have to go right now?"

"No." His arms tightened briefly around her. "A couple of hours."

She nodded absently. A couple of hours. That was enough time, even as she thought that she could have centuries and still never work up the nerve to say all she needed to. She didn't know if having a million years would make her ready for it.

"Are we...are we going to talk about it?" she asked quietly.

The silent elephant in the room. It stood between them, curled into each other as they were, separating them even as they held on to each other with all their might.

His breath stirred the hairs at her nape. "I don't want to."

"Me too." Her bottom lip trembled as she pressed her lips to a near-invisible line.

"But we have to."

"I know."

They continued their shared silence in their shared fear, Shin holding her to him, Pai trying to find some mental footing to tether herself in this moment rather than be swept away in the overwhelming tidal wave of conflicting thoughts over everything Aihara said, everything it meant.

Wanting to feel something other than the complete misery sweeping through her, she sat up and twisted around to Shin. She sat there, kneeling before him, level, as she trailed her gaze over every angle and plane of his face. His eyes dropped from hers when she leaned forward slightly and the necklace he made for her swung forward with the move.

She couldn't believe that she was allowed to be this close to him. She couldn't believe that he wanted her, and not all the beautiful people who would surely line up for a chance to be with him. She couldn't believe she was going to lose him when she just found him.

Her lips pursed for a moment as she stared at him, taking in every part of him she could. "What am I doing?" she said, almost to herself.

A faint smile graced his face. "Anything you want."

"Can I..." she hesitated. She shook her head, her throat too thick, and moved instead.

With her fingers trembling, she reached out slowly, waiting for him to rebuff her. He did no such thing, and only watched her with hooded eyes, tracking her every move. She got the feeling that he knew what she wanted to do. That he made no move to stop her meant he didn't mind, right?

She traced the tips of her fingers down the sides of his face, over his forehead, down to his sharply angled cheekbones, hovering over his lips. She'd done the same thing in her mind countless times, more than she was capable of admitting without bursting into embarrassed flames, but now she wanted to physically memorize every part of him, to know what he felt like under her hands.

She didn't know how much longer she would get to do this.

Reality was different from her mind. It was better, and all the more painful when she was struck again with the realization that she wouldn't get to do this for as long as she wanted to – and she wanted to be able to do this forever.

She was focusing so intently on just barely touching him that she didn't notice the glint in his eye. She held her breath when he kissed her fingertips, gaze fastened on her. He twined his hand with hers, running his fingers over her knuckles and tracing the lines on her palms, sending waves of heat straight through to places she didn't know she had.

"Do you know what kisses on the palm mean?" he asked quietly, lifting and peppering her hand with kisses, trailing them from the tip of her fingers, to the centre of her palm, to her wrist.

"N – no." Her voice came out husky. She was barely able to keep herself from shivering in unexpected pleasure at the sensation he arose in her.

His eyes bled to crimson as he looked at her through her fingers. She waited for some sliver of fear to soil this moment at the sight of the red that used to look at her only in hate – but it didn't come. All she felt was an overpowering love that crushed her to bits.

"My heart is in your hands," he said quietly, fixing her in place with his words. "Nothing of what she said changes that. Not who your parents are, and not what you may be."

Pai stared at him with wide eyes, surprised despite herself. This was more than last night or this morning. She didn't know how else to think of it, but it was just more. With a simple gesture, Shin was telling her that he didn't just care about her – he was giving her all of him.

She reached forward and took his hand in hers. She laid it out on her lap, looking down as she traced the lines of his palms, dancing her fingers over the calluses along his knuckles from years of daily training. Before she could scare herself off doing it, she tucked her hair behind her ear and leaned down to kiss his palm.

She straightened, smiling at the vulnerable look on his face as she lifted his hand and settled it against her cheek. "Mine is in yours, too. I don't know know when it happened, but I think it has been for a long time."

Steeling her quavering nerves, she dropped her hands to curl around the front of his shirt as she leaned forward, pressing her lips to his. He wound his arm around her waist and gently cupped her cheek as he pulled her closer to him, his lips gliding over hers, taking the lead she didn't know how to yet.

She wondered if this was what he'd wanted her to do – she wondered if he'd wanted her to initiate it, to make the first move. To show that she knew what this meant without him starting it, but her.

Shin kept her close to him with one hand pressed to the small of her back and the other at her cheek. She almost cried at how small and protected she felt in the enclosed circle of his arms around her. His kiss was far more tender and sweeter than she was expecting. Before, he kissed her like he was afraid she would dissolve into mist right before his eyes if he didn't tie her to him. Now he kissed her the way she imagined a lover would greet his beloved after too long a time spent apart.

They were so caught up in the emotion between them that they didn't notice how close they were to the edge of the branch they perched on. One second the firm wood was under them, and the next she yelped and shut her eyes when she felt them going over, her stomach dropping to her feet.

Shin's arms tightened around her as a low chuckle sounded in her ears. Half a second later the air around them changed. She cracked an eye open and a wobbly laugh breezed out of her at the sight of his magnificent wings beating around them, keeping them afloat as he slowly set them down to the ground. It felt good to have her feet on solid ground again, much as she did like flying with him.

"Handy to have wings," she managed shakily.

"Did you really think I'd let you fall?" he teased in a whisper over her lips, a wicked gleam in his eyes.

She thumped his shoulder, earning her another laugh. "No," she said, her smile fading as she looked up at him seriously. "I know you won't."

That was what scared her now. It was slow-going, but she was beginning to truly see just how much she mattered to Shin. What would happen to him when he had no choice anymore, when all he could do was watch her fall?

He lined his hand along the side of her face as he looked down at her, a sadness creeping into his eyes. Her heart twisted at the sight of it, and guilt pervaded through her.

"Pai, about what she said – "

She shook her head. Before he could say more, she tiptoed and pressed her lips to his again. He kissed her for a few seconds before he leaned back a little, a wary look in his eye. He knew what she was doing.

"Pai."

She shook her head again. "Not yet. Please."

He watched her for a long moment, a myriad of thoughts flashing behind his eyes that went by too fast for her to grasp and inspect. Her heart quavering in her chest, she reached up and kissed him again, afraid that he would reject her.

He didn't.

He took her invitation, tilting her head to deepen the kiss. She lost all feeling in her body except where he touched her, his arms tightening around her as he started walking backwards to the tree they'd rested in only moments ago, her back pressed against it with Shin in front of her caging her in, in a way that made her shiver.

"My butterfly," he whispered against her skin, dragging his lips from hers to her cheeks, down her jaw, before coming back full circle to her lips. There was sadness in his voice, longing, love.

It broke her heart.

She smiled shakily against his lips as she lost herself to the madness that was his mouth hot on hers, his hands trailing down her shoulders to her waist and lower, her tongue dancing with his, leaving her boneless.

In that perfect moment, when she forgot all her troubles, the scent of vanilla was her only warning before a memory she'd avoided thinking about for weeks punched her in the gut with the strength of a train shattering bones and breaking bodies.

Her skin crawled at the abrupt memory of another man's meaty, drunken hands pawing at her, inside her clothes, her heart drops to a bottomless cavern at the sickening sensation of his hand forcing its way under the waistband of her standard issued pants, eyes blacker than oil leering at her as he puts his other hand to her mouth, silencing her screams that no one cares to hear.

Shin instantly knew something was wrong when she stiffened, and he stopped immediately. Leaning back, he searched her eyes carefully, but she avoiding him as her gaze jumped from one point to another. She was looking at anything but him, her entire body frozen to a block of solid ice as she tried to reign control over herself.

"What's wrong?" he asked quietly, as if he could see the wild panic flowering in her eyes and didn't want to startle her. "Pai?"

She shook her head once, twice, lips thinning. Angry tears stung her eyes and she pushed past him, trying to muffle the ball of tears working its way up her throat by pressing her hands to her lips. If she let herself cry, she would loathe herself for being so weak and pathetic to break down like a little girl. She would not cry. She'd survived more memories than that –

But this wasn't just another memory of what she'd done to others.

This was a memory of what happened to her. It was the reason she'd been tortured. She'd hidden from this memory for so long, and at the worst possible moment it was rising up to remind her of yet another reason why she couldn't be with Shin.

He would hate her if he knew how wrong she was.

She only walked a few feet away from him before she stopped and went down on her haunches, arms wrapped around her middle as she hunched over, trying to make herself as small as possible. She lifted her hands and pressed them against her head, squeezing her eyes shut against the pictures playing in her mind.

She felt sick.

Her stomach tightened painfully, and the back of her throat burned with the memory of how she screams herself raw in a room built to keep all sound from breaking out, and no one hears her, no one's listening. No one cares.

Shin knelt beside her a second later. "Pai, look at me."

She shook her head. She wanted so bad to lie against him, to feel safe in the strength of his arms...but she couldn't. Not anymore. She didn't want to taint him. How could she let herself pretend nothing was wrong when everything was?

He cupped her cheek in his hand, and she wanted to move away, but her treacherous body disobeyed her and instead she leaned into his touch. "Talk to me. Don't shut me out, please."

She looked at him, at the beautiful man kneeling on the ground in front of her, pleading with her to let him in when she was so afraid to.

"You...you don't want me to do that."

"I do," he insisted.

"You won't," her lip trembled. "You won't if I do, and then it will be too late to pretend I didn't."

"Don't shut me out," he repeated quietly. "Please, Pai. Don't do it."

She broke at the plea in him.

"I'm not – " she swallowed. She didn't want to say it. She wanted to say it. "I'm not...clean. I'm not good for you."

He frowned. "What are you talking about?"

She furiously shook her head. "I don't want to," she moaned. "I don't want to, you'll hate me if I – "

"No," he said, so forcefully that she stopped, lips trembling as she watched his eyes flash from blue to red in an instant. "You don't need to tell me now, but Pai, I could never hate you. Don't you ever think that."

She looked hopelessly into his eyes. She could see the worry that he'd done something wrong, the confusion at what he did, the want to help her, the love in there, for her.

She squeezed her eyes shut and cursed herself for breaking down like this, for making Shin worry about her, for making him feel like he did something wrong when all he'd done was make her feel good. But she couldn't force the pictures in her head go away. She couldn't bury the memory of the sickening hands digging into her skin, hurting her. All she wanted was for it to sink into oblivion, to fade away, to leave her alone.

Let him save you, Kuniumi murmured soothingly, an invisible and cold finger trailing down the side of her face, following the path her tears would make if only she would let them out. Her gut tightened at Kuniumi's return.

Why did you do that? She cried silently. It was you. You reminded me. Why did you remind me?

We have tried. We tried as much as we could, as long as we had. But we can't save you. A chill draped around her shoulders, as if Kuniumi was wrapping an arm around her. Remember the release you felt when you told him about Aihara. Remember, and let it go.

Make the pain go away, she begged instead. Please make me not feel.

No. Kuniumi refused in a quiet voice laden with sadness. You need to let Shin see the deepest, rawest parts of you if he is ever to love you as much as you deserve. That will not happen if you don't open yourself to him. You can delay it as long as you want, but he needs to know.

And when she tried to do it herself, tried to dampen her emotions so she didn't feel so much that she was left in broken pieces, she found she couldn't. The pain continued to drive her to the ground until she could barely breathe, and she realized that however she'd learned to do it on her own, Kuniumi was blocking her.

Kuniumi was stopping her from cutting off her emotions.

We gave you the knowledge of how to kill your emotions. She said coldly. We can take it away just as easily.

She stood abruptly, keeping her arms folded around her stomach, as if she could hold her breaking innards in that way. Shin stood after her, but he didn't go to hold her, recognizing the tell-tale signs that she couldn't handle touch now. He remained where he was, helpless, watching her as she started pacing up and down, right to left.

"I lied," she whispered, focusing all her attention on her feet as she watched them rapidly walk from one point before twisting and going to the other. The quick pace settled her nerves a little. Not enough, but enough.

"About what?" he asked softly.

I lied to Rikuto, to Kiku, to everyone.

"I said – I said it didn't happen, I told myself it didn't happen, but it..." she shook her head. She turned to Shin, pleading with him to understand her. "I didn't want to, Shin, I tried to fight, but I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't strong enough yet."

Shin hesitated, and then slowly approached as he eyed her warily. When she didn't dart away like a terrified rabbit, he stopped her pacing with his hands on her shoulders, carefully not touching her bare skin but instead the clothes that covered her. He caught her panic-stricken gaze with his as he asked in a low voice, "What do you mean? What happened?"

A single tear rolled down her face, following the path Kuniumi had traced, chilling her to the bone. He brushed away the tear with his thumb, wanting nothing more than to hold her in his arms. But he didn't know if he could.

"Please," he said, his voice almost breaking as he tried to keep at bay the helplessness he felt at seeing her so in pain and not knowing what to do to make it better for her. "Let me help you."

Her lips trembled. She was shaking under his hands like a leaf in violent storms. The words were coming out, they were building in her chest and about to detonate, and nothing she did could stop them.

"I...he...his name was Akira. He..."

Shin visibly tensed, and she knew a part of him could sense what she was about to admit out loud.

The world did not end when she said it. Her world didn't explode. His did.