Chapter Text
Broken Silence
1.- Leap of faith.
If Ayase Momo had to say when it all began, she wouldn't have the slightest idea what to answer.
Perhaps from the very moment when, letting herself be carried away by an impulse, and even with her bile stuck in her throat because of having witnessed how the human species was capable of isolating and intimidating some of their fellow men for pure entertainment or sadistic fun, she had entered that classroom ready to defend that boy with a blank look and, at that time, an alarmingly hunched posture.
Perhaps, it was the way he used to pronounce his typical 'Ayase-san'. As if he caressed the words with his tongue before saying it; with that characteristic softness that he used to imprint on it, as if the inside of his mouth were lined with something similar to velvet.
Sometimes, it even managed to shrink her stomach from nerves. The truth was that Momo Ayase had never been so receptive and aware of anyone other than her. That is, obviously her life had revolved around more people and she had never had greater difficulties interacting with others. Deep down, it could be considered a bit absurd, but this boy, with a shy appearance and a friendly attitude to say the least, had managed to become such a tangible constant in her life, that sometimes she managed to overwhelm her.
That is, at what point do you begin to feel the change at the center of your very existence? Well, this question could easily be considered a bit exaggerated, or even dramatic, but in those moments she could swear that it was what she was feeling in each and every bone in her body. And the truth is that it was even a little scary for her.
Maybe it was like the parachute jump. Truth be told, she had never parachuted before. Nor did she know anyone who had done it. But she remembered having read something about it at some point in her life, although at that moment she was not able to pinpoint it. The sensation was as if all the entrails were rushing in an uncontrolled ascent to the throat. In how the agitation shook each and every one of the nerves, in how the heart beat furiously against the ribs, while the brain barely managed to navigate in the sensation of vertigo. Until, at last, you jump.
Into the void. To nothing. To the unknown. To the depth of the abyss, where nothing is under control.
And that was how she felt. As if she were holding her breath with her whole being before taking the leap. She had lost count of how long she had been feeling that way. With that kind of constant tension in the pit of her stomach every time he held her gaze. In how unconsciously he always placed himself at an angle where she was always in his sight. How the blush climbed to the crest of his cheeks as soon as he doubted that he had crossed that imaginary line that he had drawn for himself in everything that concerned her. How sometimes she wanted with real desperation to destroy that invisible wall that he insisted so erecting around him.
Okarun was her emptiness. Her particular abyss. One in which she deeply wanted to dive and lose herself, not caring about never returning. And to feel that kind of thing on that scale, at just seventeen, could be a bit disturbing. And to think that she had thought she was in love with more than one oaf! For God's sake, it was like comparing a drop of water to the ocean itself!
Worst of all, all this multiplied exponentially every time he entered his yokai state. She could swear by the most sacred thing that nothing could strike her as hard as when Okarun fixed his crimson gaze on her and uttered those terrible words.
"Momo-chan."
And it took all her willpower not to hyperventilate. But had she really been able to weigh the possibility that she was only naïve attraction to this boy? chance? coincidence? Come on! Had to be either very innocent or very obtuse! And she seriously doubted which of the two options had turned out to be. Because when he called her by name, and skipped all the honorific paraphernalia and crossed without any shame or caution that imagined line that he imposed on himself, she forgot each and every one of the reasons why she had not yet jumped on the boy with unseemly intentions, to their deep shame.
On more than one occasion, Momo Ayase had found herself longing for a single moment when the upright and honest Okarun would send to hell every nook and cranny or doubt that might exist between them, only to take her in his arms and make her forget even her own name. The result didn't matter to her, she hadn't cared for a long time. And yet, the two were still in the same middle ground. Because, although it was difficult for him to admit it, and he had never spoken a word out loud, he continued to fight, among other things, with the idea of not deserving her. And though he had long since had had the courage -foolishness, he said- to confess, and both were more than aware of each other's feelings, they had continued to balance on the same fragile balancing rope.
There had always been that strange blank space between the two of them. It had no name, it just was. Something that held them back from making the leap definitively. The young woman with psychic powers did not know if it was the aliens, the spirits, the constant dangers, the fact that he had been able to continue to access his yokai form even after he had returned the powers to Turbo Granny -to the dismay of everyone, including especially Momo's-, the threat of a mysterious and disturbing shadow that had put a price on her head, or the whole fucking of it.
Without a doubt, the worst of all the variables was the idea that the boy might no longer feel the same way about her. And although internally her rational part had opposed with all its might this absurd and stupid conjecture, her irrational part flirted with it as soon as its defenses wavered because of uncertainty. She knew him. She had known him better than anyone else, even though no one else knew him. Okarun's feelings could not be so ephemeral or transient. But… what if it had happened? What if the time they had let pass between them had killed every glimmer of possibility? What if they had been so long waiting, that in the end they had let the train pass under their noses without even trying their hardest to catch it?
That part was the most terrifying of all. But worst of all, without a doubt, was that every time they managed to get out alive from the fights that came their way, and he looked at her with his soft eyes, she internally relived this same dispute with herself. The truth was that Momo Ayase, still with her hand clinging to her shoulder, and trying to hold back the hemorrhage she seemed to have, had lost count of how many times she had kept this same verbiage internally.
—Are you all okay?
Momo recognized Aira's voice behind her. Still sitting on her knees on the ground, Momo began to notice with annoyance how the environment around her seemed to begin to blur and spin around her. She couldn't help but close her eyes and click her mouth, annoyed with herself. She had lost her mind for a single measly second, but it had been enough time for the blow of that damn bug to have hit her squarely in the shoulder, managing to pierce it, literally, as if it were a blade. During the heat of the fight she had ignored the stabbing lashes, but with the adrenaline waning in those moments, the burning had begun to become unbearable.
—Shit... —the young psychic would recognize anywhere that deep voice that tended to crawl, as if it cost him a titanic effort to pronounce certain syllables. If she had ever doubted whether Okarun was aware of her wound, she had been very foolish. Before she knew it, the boy, still in his yokai form, had crouched in front of her, frantically searching for the spot where she was losing blood. —Momo... —his voice emitted a kind of muffled gurgle, an unmistakable sign to the young woman that he, for not a change, had begun his mental whipping.
She couldn't help frowning. Despite her condition, he had managed to make her skin stand on end because of the reverence with which he seemed to call her by name. Around them, the others seemed to be silent. —It's just a scratch. —she pointed in a tense voice, and pressing her hand more tightly over the wound.
Far from reassuring, the girl's statement managed to make the pale yokai livid. — A scratch? —he questioned skeptically and in a flat voice, making his scathing bite screech in Momo's ears. —We have to go. Now. —he didn't even wait for the girl or someone else to say anything else. He just threw her on his back, ignoring the young woman's faint protests, and started running in turbo mode, getting lost in a blur of black, gray, and red.
Those who remained looked at each other somewhat tense and uneasy, and Jiji couldn't help but put a hand on his neck. After a few moments of quiet calm, he shrugged and sighed, looking at the spot where the boy had disappeared with his burden like the devil's soul.
***
The puff filled the atmosphere with abstract smoky figures in the darkness of the room. After a few seconds, and as if she had been weighing options, the white-haired woman rested her calm gaze on the young man who remained hunched and kneeling in a corner of the room.
—It wasn't your fault, kid. —she murmured calmly, watching the boy seem to be mortifying. There was no need for someone to call his attention. He himself knew very well how to be his own executioner.
Okarun did not think about it for a moment, and, placing his hands in front of him, he stuck his head on the ground, in a bow that might well have broken the bones of more than one person's spine. —Please forgive me, Seiko-san! —he exclaimed, trying to make the voice as faint as possible. He wouldn't forgive himself for anything in the world to disturb Ayase-san at such a time; not even himself. He clenched his hands into fists, feeling helplessness bite him with real despair.
The woman sighed, knowing that nothing she could say to the boy would be able to change his mind. She put her cigarette back in her mouth to inhale slowly. She turned her head to look at her granddaughter again in the middle of the night. She would have a considerable scar on that shoulder. She shook her head, somewhat annoyed by the vicissitudes that had been coming her granddaughter for a few years now, and resumed the task of continuing to bandage the girl's shoulder, who was lying unconscious on the futon due to fatigue and blood loss.
—Listen... —her faint voice was heard, as if floating around the room. —She's back. Both of you —she emphasized—, are back. And that's enough for me. —Okarun shrank, as if he had been whipped. No. She couldn't be condescending to him. She definitely wasn't supposed to be nice to him. He alone deserved punishment for letting her be hurt. Nothing more and nothing less than her.
—Please… —he whispered in a trembling voice, unable to bear Ayase's grandmother's kindness for a second longer. He was not deserving.
—Look… —she interrupted. —I don't know the reason why for some time now strange things have been happening around you. I don't know why my granddaughter has the capacity she has, or because someone seems to be determined to get that innate gift that she harbours. And even less do I have any idea why you can still transform into a yokai, despite having restored the powers to Granny Turbo. Somehow, it's as if they've residually clung to your own essence -Okarun didn't even know what to say to that. Not even Ayase's grandmother had been able to give an answer to the question, much to her chagrín- allowing you to access them innately. And most of all, I don't know the fucking reason why we always seem to be on a knife's edge, but, —she hesitated—, even with all that, I can only acknowledge the fact that you're always there for her. And I couldn't be more grateful for that.
At that point, the black-haired young man had been able to do nothing but close his eyes tightly, to avoid crying like a brat, and swallowing the tremors that seemed to shake his body in waves.
—I-it's me who is actually deeply grateful, Seiko-san... —the boy muttered, dying of grief.
She limited herself to slowly exhaling the smoke from her mouth, again in abstract and undefined figures in the middle of the night.
***
She grimaced at an annoying pang from her subconscious. Her mind seemed to be unravelling in fits and starts. After a few moments of emptiness, she began inwardly to question what had happened, receiving a blank space as an answer. What the hell had happened?
Still with her eyes closed, she frowned, making an effort to remember. She had gone to class and then to work, as usual. The crazy group of whom she was lucky -or unlucky, it all depended on the perspective- to be a member, had appeared in the cafeteria in order to pass the time, not to vary. They had waited until the end of her shift, so that they could all return together, and-
The bug.
That nasty, disgusting bug with mantis-like claws.
She opened her eyes tightly and sat up suddenly, until she was seated. She made a gesture to get up, until a burning lash pierced her shoulder from end to end, and she hissed involuntarily in pain. She did not realize that he was in the comfort of her room, still in the darkness because of the early morning.
—Calm down, Ayase-san!
The girl hadn't even noticed her heavy breathing, until she recognized as best she could a pair of unmistakable glasses in the dark. And the relief that flooded her almost made her dizzy.
—Okarun? what-?
The young man, pale as paper, had almost been obliged to pounce on her to restrain her, having contemplated her intentions to rise with her usual hurricane-like temper. Momo made an effort to focus her eyes a little better, after blinking several times, adjusting to the darkness. With the pale night light falling on the boy's face, it was when she noticed a cut that he kept on one of his eyebrows, still of a vivid and intense reddish color.
—You're hurt...
The boy looked away, a little sorry. —This is a trifle, Ayase-san. —he muttered.
Momo's stomach bubbled in indignation. —A trifle?? —she said ironically. —Damn it, Okarun, let me see that wound right no- —indignant, she struggled to have better access to the boy's wound. It was when another whiplash paralyzed her in her tracks and, shrinking, she was forced to put a hand up her sore shoulder.
—Ayase-san, please, be still! your shoulder! —the pale boy argued, somewhat despairing at her lack of active listening.
It seemed as if she had deflated like someone who punctures a balloon and, without being fully aware and still trembling, she placed her forehead on the boy's shoulder, hiding in the hollow of his neck. With her senses still thick and blurred, she recognized the boy's warmth. She would be able to recognize anywhere that faint warmth that he always managed to transmit to her, regardless of the situation in which they found themselves.
With her breath still vibrating from the living pain, she found enough determination to ask.
—What happened? —she asked in a whisper.
—They attacked us. An alien.
She avoided pursing her mouth. —Anything I don't know?
He had to suppress a half-smile at her scathing response. —They're all fine. There is no major damage, Ayase-san. You don't have to worry. Just rest. —he begged patiently.
She took a deep breath, trying to fill herself with patience. She wasn't good at it. He had a dreadful habit of putting her priorities first, even above his own. He would have no problem losing, for example, both hands, if in return she kept all her limbs intact. It was exhausting. She was deeply grateful, but she needed him to understand that his integrity was also just as important and indispensable.
—You lost consciousness shortly before you arrived. Seiko-san treated part of the wound. I ruled out taking you to a hospital, as a precaution for indiscreet or uncomfortable questions, and I came directly here. It has required stitches. —he finished, troubled after his lurid imagination had wreaked havoc on him.
She sighed, unable to help herself. —It wasn't your fault. —she muttered softly. —I got distracted for a few seconds and this is the inevitable result.
He didn't answer, but she felt his body shudder at her whisper.
She insisted again. —Okarun —she repeated—, it wasn't your fault.
He closed his eyes tightly, trying not to let her words travel directly into his bloodstream. He didn't deserve them. —I-I don't have the same opini-
—It wasn't your fault.
He did not answer. She knew it. For the time being, he would not try again to refute that statement. She suspected that, at least at that moment, he would not try to contradict her again, at least out loud. Internally and mentally, it was a completely different matter.
—Please, tell me that my uniform survived this time. —Ayase muttered, pulling away so that she could see the face of his still sorrowful partner again. God, from how pale he looked, could well have passed for a real ghost.
The young man responded with a laugh strangled by the tension. —Of the whole, the shirt has been the one that has taken the worst part. —he admitted.
The girl let out a kind of muffled moan. She seriously considered the idea of starting to do the math and passing the fucking bill every time her wardrobe was damaged. Would the aliens have some kind of Customer Service? With reflection still going around in her head, she was about to ask the boy for his opinion. However, she frowned at the absurdity and preferred to ask another question that floated through her numb brain.
—Medication? —she asked in a whisper, seduced by the idea of resting her head again in the hollow of the boy's neck and closing her eyes again. It was the best idea she'd had in months, if anyone was interested in knowing.
Okarun gave a bitter half-smile. —Seiko-san considered you to be treated by a doctor off the record. He owed her a favor and he came as soon as she asked for it. He has treated the wound without further questions. He has been prescribed antibiotics, to avoid any possible infection, and painkillers for pain. He has been optimistic, so he will review it again in a few days. The wound will have to be cleaned and the bandage changed daily, so you must rest, Ayase-san.
—So, if I had an anti-doping control right now, I would get an A. —she muttered somewhat jokingly.
The boy couldn't hold back a weak laugh at the witticisms of the young woman with psychic powers. Ayase's mind worked on a frequency that he, no matter how hard he tried, was not able to tune in. And internally, it was a trait he loved deeply about her. Always surprising him with his capacity for unique and divergent thinking.
—I don't think you had scheduled to apply for the hundred meter hurdles for these days. —he mockingly ironised.
She didn't give up. —You never know.
He, now, laughed softly. —I'll keep that in mind.
And she couldn't help but laugh softly with him.
It was those strange stolen moments that managed to stir her up the most. Fleeting moments, as if they had been stolen from time itself. As if they never met at the right time, or were not on the same page. Ayase wondered if things would always turn out this way between them. They were the embodiment of some damn ellipses.
She couldn't help but grab his shirt between her fists, with the strange feeling that the boy would vanish into thin air at any moment. Just in case, she had the perfect excuse for her behavior at hand. Drugs induced people to behave in strange ways, didn't they? In any case, Okarun did not seem at all uncomfortable.
—Late?
He answered without thinking. —Only just.
Ayase gave a small tired smile. She didn't even need to see his face. —So, yes, it is.
He was silent. He forgot that sometimes she was able to read him like an open book.
With an unknown courage that threatened to burn her throat, she forced herself to keep pulling the thread. She could not waste that opportunity. She needed to pull hard and finally get whatever it was. She needed the answer to the question. That one that shrank her heart and made her bones tremble. It didn't matter that her arm had almost been severed, it didn't matter that he hadn't taken care of his own wound, still too worried about her. It didn't matter if the two of them were sneaking in her room in the middle of the night. None of that mattered a shit.
—Do you sleep with me? —she asked in a whisper, as if the slightest attempt to raise her voice a little higher might break the fragility of the moment.
However, she knew that he had heard her. Loud and clear, even though she had asked him in a faint murmur. She knew, because that simple question, which contained a lot of complicated implications, had made him stop his breath in its tracks.
Come on. Come on, she thought.
It was somewhat ironic, because the moment could well be considered the least opportune. And yet, there they were: with the possibility hanging by a simple thread. She didn't know what might be going through his head, but she did know that he was weighing in at the same demonic speed as Turbo Granny.
After a few moments, he managed to regain enough fortitude to answer her. He seemed to hold back a powerful sigh. —I don't think it's appropriate, Ayase-san. —she couldn't help but loosen her fists a little. —Seiko-san was kind enough to give me the guest room again. It would be very impolite of me. Besides, you're hurt. You need to rest. —he defended, as if he were begging her for something.
After this, Okarun watched as she seemed to lose all the strength she could have left, and slowly let go of the grip on his shirt. It was then that he realized the enormous knot that irremediably formed in the pit of his stomach. He was almost tempted to shake her for put him back on the edge of the precipice. Didn't she see that it was becoming more and more difficult for him to stay in the same place every day? Was she not able to glimpse how much she meant to him? They were no longer just kids, and all this that was between them went much further as well. He was grateful enough for the mere fact of having her in his life. He hated himself enough for not being able to suppress the greed to desire her. He had nothing to offer her.
She let the bangs keep her eyes covered. She didn't feel able to look back at him. Not at that moment, when she felt so extremely vulnerable inside. She had a feeling that she had finally jumped, but the parachute hadn't opened. And she had been torn to pieces. It wasn't the jump or the fall that killed, she thought, but the landing.
—If you need anything, just call me; I'll be in the next room. —he added quickly. He began to notice a kind of uneasiness attacking him in each and every one of his senses without any mercy. She hadn't even raised her face to look at him. What the hell was going on? With nerves squeezing his body, he waited for her to answer something on her line. A noisy reply, a scathing intervention, whatever. But nothing. There was no further response.
—Ayase-san? —the restlessness began to bite him in the bones mercilessly.
Until at last she raised her face and gave a small smile. One that managed to make his hair stand on end, because of how empty it looked. He was about to enter his yokai form, gripped by the panic he began to feel in each and every nook and cranny of his body.
—You're right. —Okarun felt a punch in the stomach. —It's late, and here I am talking nonsense, forgive me. —she muttered with an intonation so sad that it caused a hole in his gut. —At least I was lucky enough to get injured at the beginning of the winter break, huh? —she cocked her head a little. —With a bit of luck, I'll be back on my feet in time for new semester, at the end of vacations. —she announced, trying to sound animated.
Okarun did not answer. For some bizarre reason, he only felt how each and every one of his poor alarms went off in his head. What the hell had just happened? He only managed to nod, nodding awkwardly.
—It's too late. —Momo whispered, causing Okarun to lift his face, suddenly frightened. —You should go to rest too. Tomorrow we'll look at that eyebrow, shall we?
He only managed to head again, nodding awkwardly. She seemed satisfied and settled back into the quilts, letting her head rest on the pillow.
And for the first time, Okarun felt like a kind of intruder within the walls that made up Ayase Momo's room.