The Restraints That Tighten with Recovery
It was only a day after I first heard her raw, keening cry that I became able to speak her name aloud again.
"Eh, eh, eeh?"
"Thea—hup—"
I flailed my arms, far thinner than I had expected, and managed to prop myself against the wall. After so long buried in the bed, my dulled senses met the cold, hard surface and felt clearer for it, as if my mind itself had been scrubbed clean.
"Ha… heh… haaah… even sitting up is this hard—"
The dull thud of my head striking the wall again was entirely her doing. Her soft, fluffy hair luckily cushioned the blow, yet a groan still escaped me. Her arms, locked tight around me, were a problem all their own.
"Ugh… Thea, yes… I’m truly glad to see you."
But nothing seemed to reach her as she rubbed her face against mine and sobbed. She only trembled harder, clutching me tighter, so I simply stroked her hair. That pleasant sensation of gathering soft, fine threads into a warm mass in my palm. The heat of her tears. The chill of the fabric over my chest where they had soaked through. One by one those sensations returned, and at last I could be certain:
I had come all the way back to her side.
Pat, pat.
I slowly ran my hand down her light back and began to let my eyes wander. It looked like an ordinary home, yet the surroundings were nothing like the house we had once built together. Her clothes, too. Not medical whites, but formal priestly robes. The strange part was the emblem drawn across them—blurred, somehow. It was no complex pattern, yet merely looking at it made me dizzy. It spun and spun until it grew pale and unrecognizable, tilted at wrong angles, tangled… so I stopped trying to make sense of it.
Instead I lifted my head a little and smiled at her as she tried to meet my eyes. I never imagined that smile would only spur her on.
"…Are you hiding something?"
"Eh? Wh-what are you talking about…"
"Are you hurt? Let me see."
I laced my fingers through the hand she reached toward me and puckered my lips, ready to welcome her—
"Do I look like I’m joking, Evan?"
A voice gone cold. Eyes narrowed. Wrist seized. In an instant the ceiling filled my vision, then her expressionless face completely blocked it out. A hand settled on my throat; fingers pried open my eyelid.
"Pulse is normal. Eyes… looking properly."
Her lukewarm palms covered my stomach and forehead.
"No fever, and no abdominal pain like last time."
I ought to have told her I was fine, yet the same seriousness she once showed when examining patients sealed my mouth shut. The faint ripple that crossed her face—laughter and coquettish eyes completely erased as she scanned my entire body—came the moment both her hands stacked over my heart.
"Heart… beating well, too."
It answered her touch, faint but unmistakable, thudding hard enough to be felt beneath skin that now seemed far lighter and thinner than before, as if it had never been ruined at all.
"Thea, I—"
"Don’t say a word."
The blade of her voice sliced cleanly between us. What stitched the cut back together was tears.
"…As if nothing happened… you keep…"
Thump. Her fist struck my chest once. Then again. And again.
"I’m really all right, Thea, so please don’t—"
My words were cut off once more. This time the interruption was a gentle kiss. Soft, sweet, melting—like the cream I had once accidentally tasted on bread at some long-ago invitation—I could not refuse it. When her long, lush tongue carefully tapped at my closed lips, I parted them to receive her—
"Mmph…"
I could not push away the sincerity that invaded so deeply; I could only swallow it past my throat and store it carefully in my belly. Stirring, overlapping, tickling, caressing—she kept me pinned to the bed for a long while, as if determined to take every permission I had ever given her, sucking roughly. One hand gripped my head so I could not pull away, yet her tongue remained soft, slow, soothing. She pulled and pushed in turns; I swayed with the motion until I could see the half-melted curve of her eyes.
Then, without even closing those eyes, she mischievously turned the inside of my mouth into chaos.
"Nnngh…"
Only after remaining beneath her for what felt like forever, matching her every move, did I finally draw a breath of clear air again. It was hot. Thea’s body astride me seemed just as flushed; even her once-lukewarm hands had grown thoroughly warm. Apparently satisfied by the feeling, she let out a soft huff of breath and stayed nestled against me for a long time.
So I raised myself a little, laid my trembling hand on her, and began to stroke her slowly. Her hair, grown past her waist, was not even properly combed. I gently pushed the tangles apart with my index finger, only to find more knots elsewhere. When I gathered it into my palm and stroked it, though, the condition was not so bad. Soft, and fragrant despite the neglect. Far more so than in the days when her hair had been neatly cut and swayed lightly…
"Evan?!"
I caught her shoulders as she startled and tried to pull away, and buried my face a little deeper into her hair. Yes—thick peach scent filled everything.
"W-wait, I haven’t even washed properly yet…!"
I know. She had refused to leave my side, barely sleeping all this time. While I was gone she must have lived in even harsher conditions. And yet this sweet, subtle fragrance—what was it?
The peach scent she had always loved. Why did it cling so strongly now? Her hair, soft and fluffy even without care. The warm, cozy embrace that grew more comforting the deeper I sank into it. I closed my eyes, ready to fall asleep just like this, and breathed the words against her ear.
"…I missed it. This scent. The smell of the fruit you loved."
Of the state she had slowly fallen into without me, of her grief—
"I know how anxious you were. But I’ve truly come back to your side now."
"I brought you back."
Her voice was a little wet, almost protesting, as she clutched my shoulder. I hurried to soothe her.
"Yes, that’s right. You saved me."
Even that did not seem to ease her fully. She kept her face buried against my shoulder, refusing to turn, and when I tried to look she only pressed deeper. …She had never been this sort of person before.
So I stroked her more carefully, trying to calm her, and her whisper reached me.
"So I thought and thought. Why I had to lose you. Evan… my Evan. My everything. Why I lost you and had to suffer."
For a moment the space in my arms went empty. She opened the door and walked somewhere out of sight. The peach scent and the warm weight vanished, leaving me with a hollow chill—until she returned wearing a smile. In her hand were handcuffs. Heavy iron cuffs meant for criminals, complete with chains. Metal clinked as she let them hang long.
"The first reason was that I was weak. Because I only ever leaned on your kindness. …I understand now. I can admit it. It would be stranger not to. Evan, do you know how many tried to rape me after you died?"
The moment those two syllables struck my ear, my mind went blank. The word for being taken by force left her mouth as if it were nothing. And she was smiling as she said it. She gazed at her hands for a moment the way one might recall a distant memory, then strode over and kissed me again—short, but certain. She crushed her lips to mine, lightly bit my lower lip, then whispered proudly into my ear with a face full of laughter.
"It’s all right. They didn’t take me."
Yet in the same motion she seized one of my wrists and casually locked one cuff around it.
Click.
With that sound my hand fell limp onto the blanket.
"…Thea?"
I wanted to ask why she was doing this. She did not answer my call; she simply continued her story.
"Four of them. Fully four. Three elves. One necromancer. …I killed them all. At least three with my own hands. And Tolfen, the devil who killed you—the one I could chew up and still not be satisfied—is probably still living just fine in the forest. The one who stole everything from me, that worm’s mother, and the one who held me down. I haven’t forgotten. How could I? I still remember them gouging out your heart and leaving you to die."
She tapped the cuffs lightly with a fingertip, then drew a deep breath and went on, voice hollow and empty.
"No one helped me. My half-year was filled with idiots who only wanted to hurt me, mock me, or use me to satisfy their filthy desires. Do you understand, Evan? …My life before I met you wasn’t much different."
Click.
The other cuff locked into place just as naturally. Both of my hands lost their freedom. She watched it happen with a soft smile, the shadows under her eyes still deep.
"So… I met an Outer God. A god that had never belonged to this world. The sealed Chaos. I unsealed it with my own hands… and this is how I held you in my arms again."
Facing me, she was crying. Smiling, making no attempt to hide the tears that kept sliding down her cheeks.
"…I’m learning so much. How easily a life can be snuffed out. No matter how precious, how cherished… it can vanish in an instant under a single blade. And how even the most hideous, base, worthless lives that should never have existed… can keep going on so unreasonably."
As if checking whether my wrists were all right, she lifted my hands, felt the gaps, gently pushed a finger between the metal and my skin.
"I’m going to become stronger. To protect you. Because I never want to hurt like that again. Because I never want to lose you and relive that half-year of pain. And… the second reason. You’re curious about the cuffs, aren’t you?"
With a rattle she drew my wrists into her embrace. She buried her nose against me for a moment, then left a light mark on my neck.
"Back then you died because I was endlessly weak—but also because of that heart of yours that always wanted to sacrifice itself. That love that would throw even your life away for me is what moved you. And you died so miserably right in front of my eyes, coughing up blood."
Another mark bloomed on my nape. This time harder, deeper, more painful; the skin began to throb.
"I can’t watch that again. And you, who know how to lie for the sake of kindness… no matter how much I beg you, you’d throw yourself onto a blade once more."
She gripped my shoulders and pushed me back as she spoke.
"From now on, as much as I am able, you will stay with me. Forever would make me happier than anything, but I have a lifespan too. …There’s still plenty left, though. Safely, happily, comfortably. You don’t have to do anything. Just stay here with me, far from outside threats… and I’ll give you everything I can. I want you to live without a single worry, loving only me. Walks are fine. Tending the garden is fine. But not those hands. For now I’m leaving your feet free so we can go outside together, but when we come back, just like taking off shoes… I’ll put cuffs there too."
What thawed my frozen face was her kiss. After gently stirring my mouth once more, her expression melted even further. Simply feeling my warmth seemed to make her happy; her eyes shone brilliantly as she grinned.
"My Evan. My only Evan. I’m sorry for startling you like this. But I refuse. I hate seeing blood on your chest every night when I fall asleep. I’m tired of seeing the sword that pierces your heart again. So I’m sorry. In this world I have no one on my side but you. The only one who ever made me happy was you. Isn’t protecting someone so precious only natural?"
Click.
A final locking sound. Another chain linked to the first. It was already connected to her own wrist.
"Always together. Always side by side. I can’t feel safe any other way now. …I won’t ever leave you either, so don’t worry, Evan. I don’t want to do to you anything I would hate myself."
She rose lightly, gathered the chain in her hand, and naturally pulled my arms so that I stood.
"Shall we go, then? To celebrate your recovery—just a short while in the sunlight."
That I followed without a single act of resistance… was it because I had glimpsed, however faintly, the deep darkness inside those bright eyes, the wounds she had buried so far down? Or simply because my body no longer had the strength to refuse, and so it had come to this?
As we passed down the corridor she lifted a basket and began packing the bread and fruit left on the table.
"How long has it been since I could share leisure with Evan? How long since I could greet happiness like this… ah, truly…"
I had no choice but to drag my heavy feet and slowly keep pace beside her as she hurried forward in joy. Any protest over everything that had happened so suddenly seemed, for now, to have missed its moment.