Remembrance

Ch. 4

Hei lied on his back, staring blankly at the ceiling. Suou lifted the quilt and climbed into Hei's bed. She was still wearing her childish, flowered dress. Hei's lips briefly formed a smile. Suou slowly inched closer to him; this made him smirk, though he only glanced over at her encroaching figure occasionally. The mattress was very squishy, Suou felt she was nearly being engulfed by it. Beneath the snow white comforter that hid their bodies, Suou reached carefully for Hei's hand. He took the initiative, immediately finding her hand and entwining his fingers with hers. Suou blushed in the dark, facing the ceiling. A streetlight outside glowed orange and cast shadows all along the bedroom walls. The room was quite small, taken up almost entirely by the double bed.

"Hei..." Suou said softly, closing her eyes and smiling, loving him. She turned onto her side and placed her other hand on top of Hei's, sandwiching his hand between both of hers. Hei rolled over, facing her, then he softly stroked her smooth cheek with the back of his free hand.

"Suou," he said, "I'm not from this world."

"What do you mean?"

Hei sighed, rolling onto his back.

"What-" Suou prompted.

"Suou, we have met before this. I mean before a few months ago even. Do you remember?"

"I-" Suou began, thinking of her memories of Hei. She summoned up the one of him wearing a grey hat, dodging her fists as she threw punches at him, then there was the one which was more auditory. He had called her name as she looked through the scope of a gun. Suou knew these memories, knew they were her own, yet she could not place them in the timeline of her life. These memories did not fit with the ones of her mother and father. As these memories had surfaced, about a year before she'd met with Hei on the night he saved her, she'd been confused by them. Then when she did meet Hei that night, she knew she was not wrong: the memories were real.

"I remember" she said. Hei breathed steadily in the silence that reverberated in the small room. He felt Suou's tiny body beside him; she was warm, her hands soft around his. He was at a loss for words, unsure how to tell Suou of their history. Part of his speechlessness stemmed from his continuing indecision in telling her at all. Hei had his own memories from after Suou had gone to the world Shion had made for her. Hei shuddered at the thought of the darkness that followed, the offspring of Izanami and Izanagi swallowing the souls of contractors and humans alike. The worst part was its glowing silver hair, its big, purple eyes. The copy Shion(Izanagi) had made was a perfect product of Yin(Izanami) in all aspects except one: it was a male. Hei wondered if he should simply tell Suou his story, about what had happened to him. He glanced over at the girl, only to find her eyes staring back at him with concern.

"Hei, what's wrong?" Suou inquired, moving closer to him, placing her hand on his shoulder. Hei untangled their hands and wrapped his arm around her, holding her to close to him.

"I will always be by your side, Suou" Hei spoke softly, then kissed the top of her head. He'd tried, he really had, to revive Yin.

Hei had sought Madame Oreille, believing if anyone had the knowledge to restore Yin, it'd be her. As the world tumbled into chaos, the spawn cleaning up the mess the gate had caused, Hei lost hope. Sitting on the edge of the sidewalk one day, still holding the lifeless Yin in his arms, Hei watched as the sun slowly sunk below the horizon. It was that night he finally found her, Madame Oreille.

"Tell me how to fix her!" Hei'd barked, holding a knife to Oreille's throat. Madame Oreille chuckled.

"This one?" she said, pointing to Yin's body lying on the floor of the abandoned office building. Hei'd retracted his knife. He nodded, his hair brushing over his eyes. The room was dark with twilight. Yin's white skin seemed to be glowing in the fading light. Oreille placed a hand on Yin's cold cheek. Slowly, her laughter escalated then suddenly stopped; a freezing silence iced over the atmosphere of the room. She stood up.

"It does not matter how much you loved her. Yin no longer exists. Yin stopped existing when she let Izanami into her body."

Hei's eyes were blank; his expression remained vacant.

"But you already knew that, didn't you?" Oreille smirked, moving closer to Hei. "So why are you here?" she continued, a taunting sneer to her voice, "Why did the Black Grim Reaper seek out me?"

Hei quickly apprehended her, holding his blade to her throat again, binding her hands behind her with his hand. The smile never left her red lips.

"If you don't have anything to tell me, what's to stop me from killing you?" Hei growled. His hair was long, his face unshaven. He wore his bulletproof coat. It had tears along the bottom of it. Oreille laughed.

"What's to stop you anyway, Hei?" she cackled, "My, my, look here, the Black Grim Reaper, legend BK201, sunken so low... again." Hei felt nothing, did nothing except loosen his grip on her. He let her go, holding the knife at his side, picking up Yin's body with his other arm.

"I'm afraid I truly cannot offer you a way to return Yin to her body; however, I may be able to interest you with another offer." Madame Oreille looked as fashionable as ever, sporting a fur coat and white high heels. Her blonde hair hung over her brows. Her eyes looked tired, the lids drooping slightly. Hei turned his back to her, walking towards the door they had gone in. "What about the other girl: Suou?" Oreille smirked as Hei stopped walking. She kept talking, her heels clicking as she caught up with Hei. "What if I told you that the new world was not as perfect as we had hoped? That perhaps the young Pavlichenko girl is in just as much danger there as she was here, if not more..." Hei looked at Oreille over his shoulder. It was then that he noticed the look of weariness on her face, the way her bangs were untrimmed and the way her feet shook as she walked. No noise entered from the street, as this town had already been evacuated. The only ones left were those not part of the masses, those who knew there was no escaping Izanami's spawn.

"The new world is inaccessible to us; there's no sense in worrying about it" Hei said. A shaky grin crossed Oreille's face. She leaned close to Hei, whispering in his ear.

"That's where you're wrong, Hei"