Eternally Yours

11. Alcohol's Result

The ride had been a blur of city lights streaking past the window and road noise blending with the low thrum of whatever song was playing on the radio. Ren blinked slowly, feeling detached from reality in a way only excessive alcohol could induce.

When the cab rolled to a stop, he handed the driver some rumpled bills without really registering the address or even checking if it was enough to cover the fare. Ren simply stepped out onto the sidewalk, the door thumping shut behind him as the vehicle quickly merged back into the flow of late-night traffic.

He stood there motionless for a long moment, the sounds of the city fading into an indistinct white noise. Ren's unfocused gaze drifted upwards until it landed on a particular window a few floors up, a dim glow of light emanating from behind the curtains.

He wasn't sure what compelled his leaden feet to carry him toward the apartment building's entrance. Just knew there was something...a presence he was being inexplicably drawn toward.

So deep was Ren's alcohol-soaked trance that he didn't immediately register the figure emerging from the lobby until she moved into his peripheral vision. Slowly, incredulously, his gaze tracked over to find...her.

Hana paused in the act of hauling a trash bag toward the dumpster, her form haloed in the sickly yellow glow of the outdoor lighting. Ren could only stare with a blank, glazed expression, momentarily struck incoherently.

Perhaps sensing his presence, Hana turned, her dark eyes widening almost comically as they landed on the decidedly out-of-place figure before her. Ren watched her mouth work wordlessly before she seemed to find her voice.

"...D-Dr. Jenkins?" The words left her lips in a hushed utterance of disbelief.

Ren's only response was to sway slightly on his feet, jaw slightly unhinged and eyes drowsily blinking at her as if struggling to comprehend her existence before him.

In his drunken, fuzzy state of mind, Hana's voice sent a shockwave of recognition ricocheting through his psyche. Like a temporary bolt of clarity piercing through the hazy memory, whispering that he knew this woman...knew her in a bone-deep way that logic couldn't begin to comprehend.

Hana inched closer with cautious, hesitant steps. The distinct scent of alcohol wafted off Dr. Jenkins in waves, but there was something else too...an aura...

"Shizumi..." he rumbled, tongue thick around the syllables of her name. "Hana..."

She stilled at the sound, hardly daring to breathe. "Y-yes, Dr. Jenkins? It's me."

His brow furrowed deeply, struggling against the hazy fog of inebriation as if trying to hold onto that single lucid thread. When his eyes finally refocused on her face, its vulnerability shining there sent a shockwave through Hana's core.

"I don't know what to do," Ren said, voice cracking. He looked oddly small in that moment, any trace of his usual towering poise and control shattered into pieces around his feet.

Hana's breath hitched at the man before her now — disheveled and swaying slightly on his feet with glassy eyes brimming with naked desperation — was the complete opposite of the unshakable, icy doctor she knew.

"Dr. Jenkins..." she began again, words stalling in her throat as a thousand questions whirred through her mind.

Before she could voice any of them, his head dropped onto her shoulder with a heavy thud. Hana froze, almost expecting a vision to crash over her, but...nothing. Just the clammy feeling of his sweat-drenched forehead seeping through the thin cotton of her loose, off-shoulder top.

"I hate how she controls my life..." Ren mumbled, his words slightly slurred. "But it's my fault they got hurt." The cold dampness on her shoulder suddenly turned warm. Tears? From Dr. Jenkins? Hana's mind could hardly process it as the broken man before her, began to quietly sob against her skin.