gentle angel • kousano

II. suck the rot right out of my bloodstream

Kouyou was extremely confused.

As usual, she had woken up early that morning to get to her job at the quaint cafe situated across the street from her apartment in which she worked. She liked to be the first one there every morning, and she liked to make herself the same thing. She had a strict schedule of how she would do things throughout the day, and today was no exception.

Well, that was until she saw a questionably dressed (read: practically naked) girl asleep on the sidewalk in front of her cafe. Behind the girl was a brick wall stained with blood, and, with a start, Kouyou realized that the girl was as well.

She had her hand covering her stomach, but it was obvious that she was completely covered in blood, and Kouyou couldn't tell if it was coming from her.

She raced toward the girl, unthinking of the consequences touching a possibly dead body could have for her in the future, driven by her fear that she was too late and the girl had already passed and began shaking her desperately.

"Come on," she whispered urgently to herself.

And then, louder and to the girl, "Come on! Wake the fuck up!"

She was starting the panic; finding a body covered in blood on the streets of Yokohama was one thing, but a dead body? She didn't think she would be able to process that properly.

Thank everything, within the next minute of her shaking and begging, the girl underneath her groggily opened her eyes.

They were a striking violet color, and as soon as they opened, they widened to an impossible degree. The girl's pupils were dilated, and the whites of her eyes were pinky-red. Although the wide, curious look that had glazed over them gave her a childlike wonder, Kouyou could tell they were giving off a false impression of the girl.

Underneath the girl's eyes were some of the darkest bags she had ever seen, and she could easily see her ribs poking through her skin.

This girl was not well, and she needed to call somebody to help.

Before she could take the phone out of her pocket, a hand dragged down her face suddenly, shocking her from her morbid thoughts, and she quickly slapped it away, reaching for the phone again.

The girl on the ground grinned, eyes shining as she slurred out some words that sounded similar to "a' oo' my gawdian angle?"

Kouyou stared at the girl, shocked.

Slowly, she stood up from her crouching position and scanned the girl's face. She had no idea what she was going to do about this, but the longer she looked, the more afraid she became for the girl. She looked frail and helpless, so small with the minimal clothing that covered her little frame.

Without a second thought, Kouyou swiped her into her arms and swiftly made her way back to her apartment; there she could decide what she would do with the girl.

While on the way there, the girl had muttered something, obviously half asleep, and Kouyou stared at her a little longer.

She looked vaguely familiar, she realized; where had she seen this girl?

Without being able to pinpoint a place, she shrugged it off and continued the short trudge home while the girl fell asleep in her arms.

❀

It had been some time, and Kouyou was afraid that the girl was never going to wake up.

She was shivering aggressively in her sleep and would often mutter words and pleads as she trashed in bed.

Currently, Kouyou was crashing on her couch while the mysterious girl she had dumbly decided to bring home slept in her bed.

She was in an odd situation, she knew, but Kouyou had quickly grown attached to this girl whom she had never spoken to, as humans usually do when taking in living things.

She had been forcing warm water down her throat from time to time, and she had cleaned her up, bandaged her wounds, changed her clothes, and wrapped her in far more blankets than any normal person could survive in.

Despite all this, the girl remained frigid and stubbornly asleep.

She was rapidly losing hope, although she really knew nothing about how long it should be taking for her to wake up.

One fateful morning just one week before the New Year, she heard a loud gasping sound from her room, followed by what sounded like the girl thrashing around in the blankets.

Kouyou rushed to her bedroom, not quite sure what he was planning on saying to the obviously panicked girl, who was in new surroundings which she had never seen before. Kouyou felt like an idiot, having never thought all that much about what was going to happen once the girl woke up, but she kept her composure.

She knocked gently on the door and heard all the frantic movement in the other room freeze. She waited for the girl to speak for a minute, and when she never did, she gently asked if she could come inside.

She heard some shuffling from inside the room, some drawers opening and closing, the sheets ruffling aggressively, and, finally, a voice.

"You may."

It was obvious that the girl was trying to make her voice sound strong and confident, but it just came out small, weak, and breaking.

Slowly, Kouyou opened the door, only to be met with the girl on the other side holding a baseball bat in front of her threateningly.

Kouyou gasped, she had not been expecting this outcome, and before she could get a word out to calm the panicking girl in front of her, who was breathing rapidly and unsteadily and whose pupils were dilated to a mere prick of black, she was knocked out cold.