Koi No Yokan (gojo x oc)

23. Coincidence

"Please," I beg. "Please don't pull me out of this darkness, this void. Not yet. Please." But there's a phone that won't stop ringing, vibrating above the nightstand. We both stir. I groan into his neck, "Is it yours or mine?"

"Who cares?" His voice is perfectly hoarse in the morning, arms gliding against my skin as they reposition themselves on my back. "Don't answer it."

I do as he says and the call passes. Only as I'm drifting off, the phone begins vibrating again. Satoru's chin scrapes the top of my head as it turns towards the nightstand. "It's yours."

Aimlessly I throw my hand out towards the nightstand, waiting until the phone is in my grasp. "Son of a—Good morning," my tone becomes pleasant.

"You always answer on the second try." It's Yaga Sensei.

"How else would I know you're being serious?" Eyes still groggy, I look at the clock next to us. Eight o'clock. A perfectly reasonable time to be awake, but my body feels worn. My shoulders are heavy, neck stiff. I want to stay curled up in this bed for at least another hour. "Okay." I hang up the phone.

"Mission?"

"A first grade downtown," I repeat from the call. There's hardly an inflection in the sentence. Being called on like this has come to mean hardly anything at all.

"When do you leave?"

"Chihiro will be ready for me in twenty minutes."

Satoru rolls our bodies over on the mattress, his wonderful, warm body on top of mine. "Give me ten of them."

March 2007
One year later.

Chihiro and I break through the crowd of crying parents, listening to them all complain as we dip beneath the police tape.

"Wait!"

"Why are they letting those kids through?!"

"Let me see my daughter!"

Chihiro leans in, "Don't let them get to you. They've only been waiting a couple hours."

"Probably feels like a lifetime for them." I place one earbud in after the other, plugging it into the MP3 Suguru let me borrow.

Chihiro's hazel eyes scan the seemingly normal building. "Are you sure you should play your music for this one?" She shivers a bit. "I'm getting a bad feeling."

"It's an innate domain."

"Another one?" she says in surprise, "How can you be sure?"

"You can smell it," I allude to the foul cursed stench oozing from the building. With that, "You can feel it in your shoes too."

Chihiro glances at her feet. "I don't feel anything."

"You're probably better off that way." I turn on the MP3. "You can put up the veil now."

If Chihiro responds I don't hear it. The music drowns out all the noise and other sensitivities I've developed. I can't possibly fathom how Satoru has lived with it his whole life. Noticing movement from miles away, catching sounds as small as a pin dropping, breathing cursed energy like it were air.

The only thing that makes me stop is a small tug on my pant leg. One of the kids waiting with their parents seemed to have slipped past the crowd, and was now clinging to my knee. 

I immediately regret pulling out my headphones. "My sister!" she sobs, "Can you save Kura-chan?"

I don't answer her. I've learned to not make promises anymore.