A Forgotten Desire Awakens
In all my life, I had never been truly, terribly ill.
A bad cold, at worst. That was about the extent of it.
I could still faintly recall the cold sweat soaking my scalp, the clammy weight of clothes plastered to my skin. Reaching for something and failing to grasp it properly; and when I finally managed to catch hold of it, that dull, full-body throb—as if every inch of me were being slowly pressed down—that made me groan from the pain and the raw, instinctive jolt of it.
Of course, with the medicine I'd prescribed myself and a warm blanket, I'd been back on my feet within a day. But it had been more than enough to teach me what helplessness felt like.
This, though, was something else entirely.
To feel, firsthand, the phenomenon of soul and body reconnecting—something I could never have understood from the outside—defied description. If I had suffered every kind of injury in this body myself, I might have found the right words. But for all the wounds I had treated in others, I had been fortunate enough never to be badly hurt myself. Focusing on training, never prying into what I was told to leave alone—that temperament had probably saved me more than once.
Yes. The simplest phrase kept circling through my mind: the sensation of my whole body was slowly returning.
If it was the exact reverse of dying—when strength drained from every limb and feeling dulled by degrees—then that might come close to explaining it.
...Even though dying is usually something you only do once.
Death, that great equalizer, had passed me by. And in its place, it had granted me this—this sweet, happy moment.
"Evan... Heh. Evan. You really came back. You really did."
A faint warmth pressed down against my chest. Her soft breasts pushed my body deeper into the mattress even as her arms locked around me, as if determined to make absolutely certain that I was real—that I existed.
That longed-for feeling. This warmth. This moment. Just being able to feel it again was enough to fill me with gratitude. Whatever that presence had been, this much was absolute fact: I had waited in the void, rotting with longing for her, and I had been allowed to return to her side once more.
Even with a hole through my chest.
"You're so warm... Hnnn..."
My eyes still couldn't make out the world properly. I could just barely sense her outline—could tell that she had draped herself over my prone body and was nuzzling her face against mine. That was enough. I had come back from a place of nothing into a room filled with her.
I wanted to stroke her hair as she breathed me in, exhaled against me, rubbed her face into mine—but—
"Don't. If you move. You have to stay lying like this until you're all the way back. Got it?"
She had dropped all formality with me now. Instead she cupped me with her hands and kept pressing her lips to mine, over and over. The rough, dried surface of those lips seemed to speak of everything she had endured, and it made my heart ache.
"Close your eyes, too. Everything's still all blurry for you."
I still couldn't see clearly, still couldn't move—but I felt her gently bite my lower lip, felt her tongue push into a mouth that had no strength to resist, felt her impure hands roaming over my body.
That was how I knew.
She had come to want me far more fiercely than before.
"While you were gone... it hurt so much. I was so lonely. I resented everything until I thought I'd go mad. It was so hard.
Watching you work yourself to the bone for half a year—that went by in a blink. The four years you were alive vanished in the time it takes to close your eyes. But the half-year without you... God, time barely moved at all. It was unbearable.
...I never want to go back there. Not to then."
She was only lying beside me, murmuring softly. And yet everything was different. The rustle of fabric against the bedclothes. The faint tickle of her palm brushing my cheek. And those eyes, fixed on me alone.
Everything was different.
The voice that used to pour out complaints and then, just as gently, pour gratitude and love into me had cracked and roughened. When she chewed her words and spat them out hard enough for the veins in her throat to stand out, that voice trembled easily. It was like that now.
The hand that used to stroke my hair with such love, that used to move busily as if determined to polish the skin of my face to a shine, was gradually slowing. A cold chill was beginning to gather in the fingers that lightly held my chin.
"I'm not going back. I won't go back. How could I? I could never do that. I never want to set foot in that hell without you again. Not ever."
I was being pressed down. At some point she had taken hold of my shoulders, and the weight pushing me into the mattress kept growing—as if she were restraining a thrashing patient to the bed.
"How could I? How am I supposed to go through that half-year again? Time in a world without you was a nightmare. Those disgusting... those people who killed you—my only warmth—and didn't even feel a shred of remorse. How much they..."
A shadowed face. Her expression veiled in darkness. Hot droplets falling onto my cheek seemed to speak her sorrow for her.
How hard had it been for her, without me? What kind of heart had she carried through the time I was gone? Had she been all right? Had she been safe?
But something must have happened—something that changed her this much. I could only hope it hadn't been anything too terrible.
"...There's only you. From the beginning to the end, there was only ever you. That's right. Of course there was. How else would any of it make sense? The way life got so much more awful after I lost you. The way the world only looked bright again once I got you back. Everything I went through, every moment I hated until I thought I'd lose my mind, every stretch of time so hard I wanted to die—the second you came back alive, all of it just... turned into nothing. It's so strange. Evan. It's really strange. Heh. How is that even possible? I went through so much. But just looking at you like this, all I can do is smile. ...I cried so much. And now even that is starting to fade."
It was good to see her so happy that I was alive again. But more than that, I was beginning to worry about her. How many wounds had been left in that chest of hers? How much darkness had she buried? I had no way of knowing.
If only my mouth would move, I would have asked her. For now I could only lie in her arms and keep receiving the old love that kept pouring out of her—sweet, and so dense it was almost bitter.
"Get better soon, Evan. Once you do, I'll make you happy. I'll make you feel good. I'm sure of it. It'll be... so satisfying."
And what did it mean that, as she said those words, her hand kept drifting lower and lower? That she was breathing hard through her nose, letting her gaze slide downward?
The hand that had been caressing my face had, at some point, trailed its fingertips down along my jaw, tickled the slight jut of my Adam's apple, and brushed across my chest—covered by nothing but a single thin layer of cloth.
I hadn't been ready for any of it.
"...Ah. Not yet. Not yet, is it?"
Her hand flinched and stopped dead at the exact center of my navel. The tip of a finger, flexing and unflexing, lightly teased the slight hollow of skin there—even as she seemed to be speaking with someone, her head held still.
"Yes. Of course. I'm looking forward to it... so much."
Why? Why did she lift that hand away and gently stroke her own lower belly? Why did the smile that had already bloomed at the corner of her mouth only keep widening? What was she thinking as she bent her head and kissed me once more?
My head was already far too heavy to dare consider the meaning of it. The dense tension she had woven seemed to fill my whole body like something sticky, and I had no choice but to keep my eyes closed and focus on a single point inside my mind for a long while. If I didn't, something truly disastrous was going to happen.
Her sly little chuckle, tickling my ear, nipped softly at it. Both of her hands slipped behind my back, working their way between the bedclothes and the clothes warmed by my body. Her slender fingers, slightly cool now, thoroughly disordered every gap they found—and each time those fingertips clenched tight against my back, I curled in on myself even more. Though a body not yet fully awake could manage nothing more than a flinch.
"Evan, look forward to it. Really—look forward to it so much. I'm already at my limit. Ever since you came back like this, my head has been completely full of just one thought."
Was it true that my senses had dulled? And if so, then what was this thing I was feeling right now? This swelling in my chest as if it might burst—rising up and ringing in my ears like a river after rain, surging and racing—this rush of blood racing through my body... what did it mean?
If I had been in my right mind—would my body even have endured all of this? Wouldn't I already have surrendered myself to her completely, drowning in nothing but that peach-colored scent of hers?
My nose brushed against the soft embrace that was slowly crushing me once more.
"We can be happy. Of course we can. After everything it took to get this chance..."
The arm coiled around my neck, pulling my head fully into her hold, began to constrict my throat. If my body had been whole, I would have drawn in her intensified peach scent with that slightly obstructed breath. But this weakened body couldn't bear it, and I started coughing reflexively.
She didn't miss the reaction. In an instant my head, which had been lifted, was laid back noisily onto the pillow; the blanket that had been pushed down to my feet was seized in her hands and drawn up again. Then she cupped my chin, tilted it up, and opened my airway—exactly as one would treat a thoroughly drunk patient in respiratory distress.
"Just a little longer. I'll hold on just a little longer, Evan. You have to get better soon, all right?"
A smile hung on her lips as she rose unsteadily from the bed. But her body couldn't hide her fluster, her unease. Still smiling at me, she backed away, failed even to aim properly for the door, staggered, and finally bumped her head lightly against the wall—then hurriedly opened the door and left the room empty.
I was the only one who could catch her when she wavered like that. And all I could do was resent this aching body of mine.