𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄'𝐒 𝐌𝐘 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄? (𝗵. 𝗮𝗸𝗶) ✓

9

She stepped inside. It wasn't exactly warm, but definitely warmer than the bitter chill of the outdoors. She shut the door, and tried to remember how to fill her lungs with air again. While walking, she had had no consciousness of what she was doing; it seemed like it was only now she had properly woken up. The air of the house smelt familiar, and finally, of something that wasn't the clean, plain odour of headquarters.

Her arrival was greeted by a slow, small figure that paced carefully towards her from another room. As it came into view, Hanasaki could make out the cream-coloured fur coat, splotched with grey rosettes, and a winding tail held up high, tip flicking from either side as it approached.

"Lawliet," she breathed, as the cat reached her and began to meow grouchily. She crouched down, knees juddering in fatigue, holding out her trembling arms. He leapt into them in a delicate motion, and she scooped him up, holding him close to her chest. He felt so fragile, and so comforting, and she squeezed him tighter despite the boisterous yowling that signalled his disapproval.

She sighed, and buried her face deeper into the softness of his fur. "Miss me?" she whispered, as Lawliet's complaints faded away. In their place, a quiet rumble resonated through his throat, and Hanasaki wished she could lock away the sound of his purring somewhere safe so that she could keep it forever.

Her arms gave out against her will, so limp and weary that the muscles relaxed on their own. Lawliet scrambled out of her embrace, and opened his little mouth to continue his noisy demurral. With a heavy air of reluctance, Hanasaki stood back up and began to tramp up the stairs to her bedroom.

It wasn't a big room, by any definition of the word. Most of the space was taken up by her bed, which she immediately flopped down onto when she entered. The sheets, which looked practically untouched until she toppled onto them, felt cool and stiff. But she remained motionless, sprawled uselessly across the stretch of white fabric. Her ears rang, a shrill noise not overwhelming in volume but still irritating. It took a lot of effort for her to breathe with her face planted deep into the mattress, but either way, she couldn't be bothered to move.

She stayed like that for a long time. The ringing died down, only to be replaced by a thick buzz of thoughts that seethed in her head like a swarm of flies. An unrelenting wave of worries and fears occupied her mind, questions to which she had no answers. And among these was an echo of what Aki had said to her earlier:

"Take care of yourself for me, okay?"

She wasn't the best at 'taking care' of herself. As was already established. After all, when had she last eaten? Last showered? Last slept, properly? Long ago, that was for sure. The simple fact was that she was no longer motivated, or even capable, of looking after herself. Her body had simply become a vessel for a consciousness that was too tired to exist anymore. A vessel that she was slowly leaving behind.

Hanasaki remembered the gentle graze of Aki's fingers at her jaw, and wondered about it for a little while.

She sighed, and got off the bed.

Her limbs felt even heavier than before, weighed down by her lethargy. She traipsed out of her room, and ambled down the corridor to the bathroom. The floor there was even colder than the wood-panelling of all the other ones. Hands still wavering, she flicked on the light switch and stared at the mirror blankly.

In the harsh white glare of the bulb, her features looked even more stark than she had remembered. Or, maybe, she just hadn't checked her appearance in a long while. Both were probable. Either way, she looked dreadful. Her high cheekbones looked sharp in her face, and her complexion was so devoid of colour she looked more like a black-and-white sketch than a real person.

She brushed the strands of hair from her eyes, and regretted it instantly. They were ringed in shadow, the smoky bags underneath her tearlines so much darker than she had presumed them to be. But no matter how bad the surrounding skin was, her actual eyes were the worst spectacle of all. Grey, but the pale, sickly grey of a corpse. Fixed and glassy like the gaze of an animal carcass strung up at a butcher's, still frozen at the moment of its death. She shuddered.

She didn't look like the owner of the house. She looked like the ghost that haunted it.

Hanasaki took a step towards the ghost girl. The ghost girl came closer too. Leaning over the sink that stood between them, she twisted the handle of the tap and cupped her hands below the faucet. The rush of water surprised her, warmer than she had expected, but she splashed it in her face nevertheless. She began to wash vigorously, a strange sensation blossoming over the numb flesh of her fingers as the heat of the water brought back the feeling in them. She sucked in air, bringing her hands away for a second so she could breathe, and then continued the process.

When she was satisfied, she turned the tap back off and fell backwards, legs shaking. She blinked the water from her bleary eyes, wiped her dripping brow, and returned to studying the ghost girl in the mirror.

She didn't seem too changed, the only visible difference being that, from her hairline to her chin, she was soaking wet. She did look more alert than before, though. Lively, if you wanted to exaggerate a little. But Hanasaki decided that this was all she could be burdened into doing right now, and after carelessly drying her face and switching the light off, she blundered out of the bathroom.

Lawliet had bounded up the stairs without her realising and was awaiting her to take notice of him again. He started to meow at her noisily, and Hanasaki was reminded that the last time she'd fed him was when she left the house early that morning.

Sighing deeply, she staggered down the stairs after Lawliet, heading towards the little kitchen at one end of her living room. She didn't do much cooking, so she rarely spent time in that specific section of the space, except when she was giving Lawliet his food. She had already picked up his food and water bowls from the other end of the living room, and set about emptying and refilling them. Her head throbbed as she sloshed the stale water in one of the dishes down the drain. The only thing that seemed to be keeping her conscious was the chill of the air on her face after she had doused it and the rhythmic tap of Lawliet's tail on her leg.

She poured his dry cat food into the other metal bowl, the rattle of the pellets the loudest thing she had heard in hours. The noise almost made her jump, but her reflexes appeared to have simply stopped working. She walked back and placed the now replenished bowls where they were before, much to Lawliet's enthusiasm. He devoured his food with such gusto that Hanasaki wondered how a tiny thing like him could be so hungry when she felt nothing near to it after not eating for days.

After a few moments of lingering by Lawliet, she decided she wouldn't disturb his meal any longer and dragged herself back up the stairs, returning to her bedroom. This time, she decided not to simply collapse onto the cover, but actually climbed into bed. Hanasaki slowly wrapped her body in her blanket, and let herself sink into the mattress.

Her headache was somewhat soothed by the comfort of her pillow. Letting her weighted eyelids flutter shut, she drifted off to sleep almost immediately.

Finally.