It was night when Arisu had been locked away, put inside a room Chiasa had never dared to turn its camera on, turning a blind eye when the militants covered the light and took everything that composed the body they sat in a chair. No hearing, no sight, no clue of how time worked, they forced the living out of his mouth in forms of muffled screams and desperate limbs fighting against the duct tape that stuck its bones together. It was a type of punishment, of avoiding the dead's smell of rotting outside the hotel to penetrate the walls and scratch with loosen nails the doors that kept them apart from what they had been stolen; it was the aftermath of trusting, of letting slip the real connotation that tinted Chishiya's voice when he whispered he was counting on him, too calmly and cautious to not had been setting him one feet inside the wolf's mouth.
Chiasa thought Arisu should've known. The Beach's unity, after Hatter came back home as mortal as every one of them were even if he had walked with his head up the moment he said goodbye to join a game, fell apart a second before his body arrived with a quiet heart in replacement for what kept him alive, then when the militants already knew, like a mother would sense a storm by the looks of the clouds and the breeze breathing out a chill on her lips. He should've perceived it when Chishiya had spelled out the passcode, too fast and awaiting, willing to infiltrate someone else than himself onto Hatter's royal suite to steal all playing cards safely sealed inside a black envelope no other but the new Number One was allowed to see.
"How are things on your side, Kuina?" The radio mumbled, the silence a little bit louder than him, trailing behind Chishiya as his faint footsteps traced a path towards the suite.
"Aguni is still in his room." She reported, barely acknowledging her presence next to her, but then she added: "We're bored." And their eyes met, and Chiasa chased the way her gaze awoke captured by hers, trying once again to deny her.
But Chiasa didn't stop looking. At her and how she nibbled a cigarette like a promise she had been chewing on and held so close it had her tasting the reason why she hadn't lighted it up every time her lips parted and her fingers extracted it from them. She didn't stop looking, because she wanted Kuina to look back. At her and how she had everything hanging from the tip of her tongue, yet nothing ever sounded right so she just bottled them up, stuffing glass after glass on the edge of a shelf, wondering when one would fall and the next one would mirror the shattering in a domino effect.
"Then, shall we proceed with our plan?" Chishiya asked, "I don't know if Arisu is clever or stupid, there's no way the cards would be kept in an ordinary safe." The pause that followed by made her flinch under the pronunciation of her name and his tone so caring as off-putting, "Chiasa surely agrees with that, right?"
Of course she did, he didn't have to ask. She had been Hatter's little bird that told many things since it had many eyes, and because she had many eyes, it hadn't been unknown to her where one particular secret of The Beach was hidden from the rest. It had been thanks to her, after all, Chishiya stood in front of it, having only left on his list the work of threading on a faint breeze across a gap, like a spider hoping a fly changed the vibration of his web. But two spiders in the same center weren't good in company of the other, they eventually competed for food, or mates, or territory itself; perhaps that was why she hadn't initially accepted to be part of his plan, feeling each day more sceptical about her role than the one that passed by, or to live and die for him, even when she really didn't have much to lose nor risk.
"Where is the real safe?" Kuina furrowed her brows.
"When Arisu found the fake one, Aguni, who usually doesn't waver, was looking toward a certain location." Just as he answered, a thought came into Chiasa's mind, morphing her inner voice until vocals became antlers that grew upon a creature's head as if in salute to the trees, and stars, and something else that its eyes yearned for but never found, "I believe that the contents of the envelope did not contain a passcode or an empty letter, but instead, it might have been a drawing."
The deer's painting, Chiasa bit a smile back at his wit.
"So you used him for this?"
"To gain something you need to lose something." Was all Chishiya said about it, "He's just a sacrifice, things like this happen often, don't they?"
"Not at all," Kuina gave her a look then, as if she was expecting her to recognize it too, "I really don't want to be your enemy."
"I get that a lot."
The walkie-talkie beeped, no other sound was heard.
Chiasa glanced at her sideways, sucking in an inhale for what it took Kuina to let her in and share a breath with her. Not with Chishiya, not with Arisu, not with Usagi, not with Ann; just her, even if the only way of changing their situation had to be in silence, because they had spoken many words many times, but none of them worked how they wanted them to. They were seven steps away, and yet so tangled it hurt. It felt electric, a beating harmony that picked its way through the floor as if something ancient and longing whispered a truth directly to their souls, rearranging every thought that swam around their eyes whenever one had turned and the other took the opportunity to peek.
And Chiasa wondered, because it was all she did best, if Kuina could tell how much she regretted the day she decided Chiasa's fingertips didn't fit with hers like the ghost of her hand wrapping around them, weaving veins within hers from a single touch. She wondered about it each time she saw her, because Kuina had grieved it first, and if Chiasa had been guilty of it, she wasn't going to let her keep it to herself.
"When did we stop being friends?" She mumbled, though the second that came after infested by quietness made her believe she hadn't done it out loud.
But then, Kuina answered.
"We were never friends," her eyes laid an intervention on her lips, and suddenly, every part of Chiasa's body ignited, "We both know that."
It was her turn to speak, it should've been, but footsteps arrived too quickly to react, and Chiasa crossed the hallway before Last Boss did, leaning behind Kuina with her gaze stuck on him.
They waited, the three of them; one a bit suspicious and two hoping Chishiya didn't contact them through the radio.
Unable to articulate anything, Kuina winked at him and Last Boss faced the end of the hall without a word. However, he looked back, seeming to have taken into account Chiasa's protective presence watching him over Kuina's shoulder; they locked eyes, and Chiasa limited herself to lift a pair of fingers and simulate the act of walking of a little being, mouthing him without any sound coming out her lips: keep moving.
Chiasa felt it again, the electric current running up her spine, that time calcifying a bad omen between her bones.
YOU ARE READING
FREEFALL, hikari kuina
أدب الهواةNO TWO PEOPLE CAN KNOW THE SUN THE SAME WAY. . . ˗ˏˋ Chiasa was aware there were as many gods as many stars, that someone could have as many dreams as many wishes and could tell many lies as many monsters could hide inside the same closet, that livi...
