Chapter Text
Rain patters heavy against the cobblestones, thunder cracking and splitting open the sky. It’s the only explanation for this impossible deluge: consistent rain showers from the breaking of dawn to the fall of night. As Toji heaves the heavy limbs of his broken, fatigued body, he feels he is becoming one with the water. He has been so utterly liquified by his despair that he is no longer human—just another piece of the elements, blending in with the darkness, moving slower than he ever has in his life.
The bundle in his arms propels him forward, the only blessing left in his life, and soon he will be without even that. The bundle is warm and firm and alive in a way that has always frightened him a little, the only thing to ever truly scare him. Perhaps that is why he keeps going: he won’t rest until any memory of its existence has left him, although he knows it never will. It will haunt his every step from here onwards.
His feet slip from beneath him. A hand shoots out and grips the slippery railing beside him and his hand nearly slides from that, but he holds tight, his knuckles burning white, the bone standing stark beneath the skin. He stares at his hand for a moment, stunned by the touch of his skin against something substantial, real; he’s felt like a ghost all this time, and the reminder of his living and breathing is not welcome.
Thunder growls and rolls overhead and only seconds later does he hear the lightning not too far away.
Just a few more steps. He’s so close to the place he never thought he’d return.
Toji shivers against the rain pressing the hair against his face and neck, nearly choking on the endless stream, but he keeps moving forward. If he tries to wait out the storm, he won’t be able to make his decision. It’s now or never, and so a bone-weary Toji pushes on. “I tried,” he says—or thinks he says, the elements taking his words and throwing them miles down the road. “I tried,” he says again, and now he can hear the rumble of his voice vibrate through his throat, further proof of his sentience. He lifts his head and stares at the sky, the blue-purple of a bruise. He says it for whoever is listening: God, Heaven, her.
The wind screams like a woman and Toji stops for a moment. No, what haunts him is not up above, looking down upon him amongst the clouds. His ghost is here on earth and it dogs his every step. It will for the rest of his life.
———
If she were to lay out her story, she would not start from the very beginning. The circumstances of her birth and childhood and early adulthood were not noteworthy, not for what grew to matter to her later in life. She lost her parents young to a car accident and was raised by distant relatives and left as soon as she could. She went to nursing school and started working at Tokyo’s General Hospital not long before it happened.
The truth was that she never truly was living before. The life she had was not worth recounting because she herself, even as she was living it, felt that she was just rushing to a place she wasn’t even quite sure of. Only when she got there did she realize, Oh, this is what I’ve been waiting for. Like an invisible string tied around her ribs tugging her along: she trusted the path even if she didn’t know where it’d lead.
If she had to choose, she would start here:
A sharp knock on her apartment door. Her eyes snapped open, momentarily confused by her own waking, and her location. As her vision—and head—cleared, she realized she’d fallen asleep on the couch after getting home from work and having her microwave dinner. She blinked blearily, mindlessly staring at the television: some reruns of an old game show, the set a menagerie of oranges and reds and blues. Her mouth tasted of cotton. There was a sick twist in her stomach; perhaps from a forgotten dream? Not so unusual for her, especially lately.
She sat up, stiff and achy, and looked over the back of the couch to the stove. The green-neon clock blinked silently. It was a little after midnight. She’d been asleep only an hour or so, but it felt longer in her body. She swung her feet around to the floor and rubbed her face with the heel of her palm. She had work in the morning and she was wide awake. It’d be hell to get back to sleep—
The knock again. Only upon hearing it the second time did she remember that was what had woken her in the first place. She started at it, shoulders jumping, hand flying to her chest, as she turned to the door. The knocking—pounding, more accurately—went on for longer that time. Urgent, needy. It nearly rattled the door in its frame from the force.
They’re back was her first irrational thought, but the way the panic wound around her like a noose was too convincing; why wouldn’t they have risen from their shallow graves and returned to find her, the woman that was there to watch them leave this earthly realm? Their only witness. She imagined tattered clothes and dirt-caked feet, a Dickensian rattling of chains as the ghosts of her past came to seek their vengeance.
In cautious slow-motion she rose and tiptoed to the door. The light would alert the intruder to her presence, but perhaps if she was silent they would go away. They punched at the door again and being so near to the sound was a little frightening, knowing she was mere inches away from whoever had such a strong arm. She pushed even higher onto her toes to look through the peephole—and let out a shaky sigh of relief, even as her stomach tightened for an entirely new reason.
She unhooked the chain and flipped the lock, then cracked the door enough for her face to peer out. She said, “What are you—oh,” and it came out in a breathless voice, her eyes unable to look away from the blood coursing through his fingers and down his knuckles and wrist as it clutched his side.
His hair, as always, was falling in front of his eyes in limp strands. “Can I come in?”
She opened the door wider and stepped out of the way for him to enter. He slid in smoothly, turned sideways, like he was trying to get away from something on the other side. She turned her back to him to lock the door up again, jiggling the knob to double-check. He had his free hand braced against the dining table, shoulders hunched forward. Under the fluorescent lights, she could see the pallor in his face.
“Were you followed?” she asked.
“I look stupid to you?”
She pointedly eyed his injury, but said nothing. “Sit down.”
Toji did as he was told and collapsed into a chair, the wood creaking under his considerable weight. That shadow self—the nurse, the caretaker—had possessed her the moment she saw the blood and she knelt in front of him. Toji knew the drill: he spread his legs to make room for her, reluctantly lifting his hand from where he’d been applying pressure, his blood-soaked shirt stretching across his chest as he raised his arms for her to get in close and see what she was dealing with.
What she was dealing with was a sickeningly bloody wound an inch above his left hip bone, that side of his shirt tattered with a clean rip. “Knife?
“Sword,” he said, licking his lips, sounding out of breath. There was sweat beaded there, on his forehead. From blood loss, she’d guess, but there were splotches of red on his cheeks, looking unnatural against the pallor of his skin. Did he run here?
The injury needed to be tended to, too urgently for her to interrogate what the hell he meant by a sword, so she just asked, “Do I need to cut it off?”
“The shirt? Nah, no,” he said, then grabbed the hem and carefully dragged it up his torso, revealing smooth skin and muscles that twitched with his ragged breaths, shifting beneath his skin.
She focused her eyes on the wound: it wasn’t a scrape or cut, but a proper stabbing. It was too bloody for her to see precisely how deep—until one look at his back and she saw that it went straight through. Shit. “Get on the table.” She had only what was in her apartment to aid her, so she would have to improvise.
As Toji shoved things off of the table with a sweep of his arm—glass breaking, the dull thud of a plate—and pushed himself up, she went to the kitchen and left a bowl to fill with water as she raced to the bathroom, digging through her cabinets until she found a needle and thread, some antibiotic, gauze. It would have to do.
Toji was sitting with his hand braced against the table, bicep clenched, and his other hand held onto the wound from the front. She removed the bowl from the sink and washed her hands quickly and asked over the rushing water, “How long ago did this happen?”
“Twenty?” He cleared his throat with a dry cough. “Fifteen, twenty. I wasn’t too far.”
She looked over her shoulder, drying her hands with a paper towel. “Did you run here?”
He nodded.
She didn’t bother scolding him for exerting so much energy when he was bleeding out; Toji didn’t have the luxury of hospitals and doctors, not with his occupation. “The fact you were able to slow the bleeding from applying pressure,” she said, bringing her bowl of water to his side, “is a good sign. It went straight through. I’ll need to clean it.” She met his eye and he nodded again as her fingers pressed to his wrist. His pulse was high, as she’d expected, and the sprint here didn’t help that. “Are you thirsty?”
He nodded again.
“Here,” she said, and tipped the bowl to his lips. He took long gulps, his Adam’s apple moving, and she lowered the bowl before he could drain it. Droplets slid over his chin, down his throat. “Lay back.”
Toji did as he was told, the table shifting with his bulk. She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead; beneath the sweat, he was cool. Clammy. His body was going into shock, but she said nothing. Even someone like Toji couldn’t help the body’s natural reaction to such an invasion.
She worked with a practiced ease and muscle memory as she began washing the wound, the blood flushing out in abundance. When she first started studying to be a nurse and working with dangerous injuries, she remembered feeling so mortal at the sight of just how much blood there was in the body. At this point in her career she was unbothered, just trying to clean him thoroughly.
“Talk to me,” she said as she flushed the wound. There was a lot of blood and water spreading across her table, staining her hands and the front of her pajamas, but she didn’t recognize the panic of the state of her home, too focused on making sure he was lucid, coherent. If he started losing his breath or consciousness or started getting confused, she’d have to call an ambulance and pray she didn’t delay precious seconds that could’ve saved his life.
God, why did she listen to him? The moment she saw him with blood soaking him through, she should’ve turned around and grabbed the phone. But she knew that the strict loyalty within her compounded with the urge to repay him for what he’d done for her would never make her turn her back to him. Even when she likely should.
“When you didn’t answer the door,” he said, “I realized you might have a graveyard shift. Glad you didn’t.”
“My shift ended at ten. I was asleep on the couch.”
“Sorry, then,” he said, staring up at the cheap chandelier, the light reflecting in his green eyes. “You work tomorrow?”
She cast a quick look at the stove’s clock again. “Six hours from now.”
Toji winced. She wasn’t sure if it was from the injury or from keeping her from sleeping. He said, “Admit it, though, you like having me around.”
“Bleeding out all over my nice table? I love it.”
“Maybe not this particular circumstance…”
He stared at the wall behind her as she carefully checked his wound, peering in close. “Fuck,” she mumbled, running to the kitchen drawer, digging around for a moment before finding what she was looking for: a flashlight. She clicked it on and stuck it between her teeth, leaning in to check for any metal bits. For how much blood came out, the wound wasn’t so wide. If the blade had been a centimeter larger, Toji might not be here. He was chronically lucky.
She needed to see the exit wound. “Roll onto your side.”
She offered a hand for him to use, but the ever-stubborn Toji gripped the edge of the table and white-knuckled himself over onto his side. She flushed that side too, not as much blood coming through. It was not as large as the opening, which wasn’t so surprising, but some small measure of relief penetrated through her cool veneer: at least one thing was going her way.
“I might need some mouth-to-mouth when you’re done.”
“I should just let you die.”
Toji chuckled, the sound rattling through her. For how tense the night had become, it felt good to hear something like his laugh cutting through the silence. When she was working, the logician took over within her; it had to be for her to be able to bear the terrible things she witnessed every day, the losses she occasionally experienced. But she wouldn’t lie and say she wasn’t a little disturbed seeing Toji—strong, implacable, superhuman Toji—bloody and broken, struggling to breathe every so often. She had it in her head that he was a savior, even if he did some unsavory things.
He held out a hand, donning a mockingly dreamy expression. “Maybe I already am,” he said. “I think I see an angel.”
She smacked his fingers away as they came too close to her cheek, even as she burned through like a candle. One touch and she knew she wouldn’t be able to let go.
She slipped off to the kitchen to wash her hands, scrubbing the skin so quickly and roughly that it hurt, but she had to be quick. Every second counted. Hair fell into her eyes as she scrubbed and scrubbed her soapy hands, praying that it would be enough for the work she was about to do. She was cringing at the thought of what could be happening beneath his skin that very moment: infection, internal bleeding. The wound was low enough that it may have just been a clean shot straight through, but if not then he would need surgery.
Toji could very well die there.
She ripped pieces of paper towel off of the roll and dried off her hands, returning to the makeshift surgery table. With blood-stained fingers, she tied her hair up in a messy ponytail to get her hair out of her eyes. “I’m going to stitch you up,” she said. “Can you handle that?”
His eyes slid to her, a brow arching.
“Thought so,” she muttered, moving around to his front. She began winding the thread through the needle and tied it off, an easy task from all these years of training. “Lay on your back,” she ordered, and Toji carefully maneuvered himself back around. A little blood was leaking from the wound, but she brushed it away with some wet paper towel and pinched the edges together and began to sew him back up, the skin tugging against the thread. Toji hardly reacted, just blinking up at the ceiling. He seemed to be in much less pain and shock than when he first arrived.
There was something immensely satisfying about watching a wound slowly close up. Back in school, she wondered if it was because of the completion of it: closing up an accident so easily, like erasing it from memory. There were a few parts of her past she wished she could do that with.
All she had for ointment was laughably minor for what his injury entailed, but she had no other alternative. When she was done with both sides, she lathered him with antibiotics, praying that her meager supplies would be enough; there was only so much she could do with what little she had. “Go easy on the stitching,” she advised. “It won’t be fun if they rip open.”
The chairs scraped against the floor as she moved them out of the way for his legs to swing around. Carefully, he let his feet touch the ground and raised up his arms for her to wind the gauze around him, tight but not too much.
“Where do you want to sit?”
Toji nodded at the living room.
She pointed a finger in his face. “If you get blood on my couch,” she said, “I’ll open that suture myself.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said.
Without a word, she went to his uninjured side and told him to throw his arm around her neck. He did without pause, his heavy, firm weight suddenly up against her shoulder, and she flushed against his naked skin, dangerously warm and alive under her touch. He took careful steps to the couch as she helped him along, although he seemed to be perfectly fine on his own. She couldn’t figure out if he had a high pain tolerance or simply masked it better than others.
She laid down an old blanket for him to lay atop of. She strained against his weight as she guided him down to the cushions to sit and he collapsed against the couch with a sigh. She brushed the hair away from his forehead and felt him again: clammy still, but getting better. Then their eyes met, her hand on his face, and she realized that she was not playing nurse anymore—that Toji was more than just her patient, and her robotic, perfunctory handling of his body was a little suggestive with the veneer gone.
She flinched away as if struck while Toji, unbothered by her touch nor embarrassment, blinked warily at her, staring up through his lashes and heavy eyelids with his head tilted back against the couch. Now that the panic had plummeted and the silence in the apartment was settling in, she was taken by his bloody, broken body. Despite the tension, she couldn’t help thinking about how handsome he was, even in the worst of times.
“You need rest,” she said, dropping her gaze. “I’ll go get—”
She was half-turned away, about to take a step, when Toji’s hand shot out. Even sliced up and exhausted, his grip was like a vise. “Stay,” he said so softly that she would’ve wondered if she was merely hearing what she wanted to hear if he hadn’t said again, “Stay here.”
The resolve within her melted. She seated herself on the edge of the coffee table not far from his agape knees and only then did he let her go, his arm falling back to his side. The skin of her wrist where he’d gripped her pulsed with how strongly he’d held on, even as the memory of his touch began to fade.
“What happened?” she said in a small whisper.
He blinked sluggishly. She wasn’t used to Toji being so slow and fatigued and it frightened her—as did the paleness in his face, but that was normal; it would take a bit of time to recover all of the blood he lost. Still. He was the protector, the fighter. Ignorantly, naively, she didn’t think he was capable of getting hurt.
“There were more of them than I expected,” he said.
Her eyes met, steely, against his. “That’s never been a problem in the past.”
Toji’s mouth pressed in a line. “Shit happens,” was all he could say. He shifted, trying to get more comfortable. He was shirtless and although he was covered in gauze on his lower half, the rest of his torso was exposed: the sculpted shape of his chest, the lines of his ribs and abdominals, the bulge of his mountainous arms and shoulders.
Something animalistic threatened to consume her, burning hot and heady through the pit of her stomach, and she nearly wept with the yearning that simmered within her at all hours, reaching its peak whenever he was around. Not so often, but enough that it threatened to drive her into madness.
“You were asleep,” he said. He licked his dry lips. “Do you have nightmares about that night?”
A stuttering pulse at the base of her throat made her chest feeling weightless. They hurt you? Staring at the carpet beneath their feet, she said, “Of course I do.” To admit weakness to someone like Toji was a vulnerability outside of her comfort zone. A man that reigned like Death with His pale horse and scythe asking if she was afraid: it was humiliating—even if he could so easily see the truth for himself. He’d seen her reduced to a whimpering, incoherent mess; their first meeting was with a version of herself she wished no one, even herself, could’ve seen.
“Tell me,” he said, cocking his head to the side. The underside of his jaw was sharp, tantalizing. Her eyes stayed on the scar on the corner of his mouth as he shaped the words, “Is the nightmare about them, or me?”
The air itself seemed to be holding its breath. Her eyes slid up to his: alight and wickedly green. “Why would it be about you?” she whispered.
“Because of what I did,” he said.
“They would’ve done worse.”
A muscle tightened and ticked in Toji’s temple, his jaw locking. He seemed to not like the very thought.
“Why?” she asked, soft as a mouse. “Do you feel guilty?”
A moment’s silence passed before a snort left Toji, his scarred lips spreading into a smile that made her dizzy. “My family used to tell stories to the kids before bed. All the children shared a room, so each of us would be tucked up in our beds every night, waiting for what it would be that night,” he said. He was staring off into the distance, some spot on the wall behind her head, trapped in his memory. “There was one about a priest. He’s wandering around outside of his home collecting firewood for a cold night when he comes upon a viper laying there, freezing to death in the grass as the snow comes down. He believes vipers to be godly, so he decides to save its life. He thinks if he brings it back to health, feeds it and gives it warmth, the viper will be grateful to him. He brings the viper back to his home, builds a fire, lays the viper in front of it, and slowly it gets warmer and warmer, gets back its health…but when the viper sees the priest, even knowing what the priest must’ve done for him, he strikes. As the priest writhes on the floor, venom coursing through his veins, he asks the viper why he would repay him in this way. The viper tells him, ‘It’s what I was made to do.’”
There was a cold shiver in her chest. She gave him a humorless smile. “And that’s you? You feel no guilt because it’s in your nature.”
“It’s how I was raised,” he said. “I wasn’t good enough for so long until I got a weapon put into my hands. Suddenly I was the best. Only then did I matter.” His face was impassive as always, but this time she was having trouble looking away. “They put me down for years, but it made me better. Had to prove them wrong, right? And I did—tenfold.”
She was stunned into silence, not so much by what he was saying than by the fact he was saying it at all.
“I had no interest in life before,” he said dreamily, like his mind was fading, slipping into sleep.
“What changed?”
He smiled right then, a warm one that made her cheeks burn. “Meeting you, I think.”
A fire crackled in her chest and her face was flat, any amusement vanished.
“Would you ever hurt me, Toji?”
Toji looked at her through the flutter of his long lashes until she could see the whites of his eyes, looking like a caged predator. “Never.” Despite the exhaustion, he was staring at her like he wanted to eat her.
There was a spot of blood pushing through his gauze. He was laying there vulnerable and drained and she knew deep within her that no matter how much blood he shed beyond these walls, she trusted him. “That is why you aren’t in my nightmares,” she said. The slickness between her legs made her add, “I have dreamt about you, though.”
———
Slowly, Toji recovered. She could see he wasn’t used to being hurt because he was grumpy at the prospect of laying low, staying off of his feet. No matter what she said or how much she persisted, he still disappeared at odd hours to ‘do jobs’. She knew what that meant, but that didn’t mean she wanted details. Even so, she almost always kept the news on the TV in case she heard something about him.
Something seemed to shift between them after that night. They’d known each other only a few months before that and were shoved into the deep end upon their first meeting: her cowering in an alley with tear-streaked cheeks and her whole body shaking with fright, him blood-flecked with his sword, the bodies of five men strewn around him. From there, he walked her home and he assured her the deaths wouldn’t be linked back to her and then he’d disappeared into the night. Until he’d shown up a week later needing somewhere to sleep. I’ll even sleep out here, he’d said, gesturing to her little welcome mat. I just need something. So she let him in and he passed out on her couch and she kept her bedroom door locked just in case. He really was just needing somewhere to sleep: she woke up the next morning and even though it was five o’clock, he was already gone to God knows where.
From there, they became friends.
Or, what she liked to consider friends. Considering her odd work hours and disposition, she didn’t have friends. Or family, or even acquaintances. The death of her parents scarred her in ways she hardly realized. Sure, she didn’t cry at the thought of them anymore, so used to their being gone that it felt more normal than if they were there, but there was no denying it altered her perception of life. She loved being a nurse and science and putting her mind to a task and getting it done; she didn’t need people in her life. Until she met Toji and realized that she was so used to loneliness that it didn’t even register as loneliness until someone was suddenly there to keep her company.
After staining her fingers in his blood, they were changed. She thought a lot about what she’d said to him and how he had fallen asleep so soon after. She worried yet hoped that he didn’t remember, but she could see in his face that he did. She suspected he didn’t make any moves because of how they’d met. He didn’t want to make her do anything she didn’t want to.
She was at the hospital making her rounds when she was paged to the front desk. The receptionist—Ema—pointed to a phone on the wall at the other end of the lobby and said, “I have a call for you. I’ll redirect it there.” From the glint in her eye, she could see that Ema was intrigued by whoever had been on the other end. She purposely didn’t share any details of her life, so her co-workers ate up any little crumb they could get, as rare as they were. She was sure people would be talking about this mystery phone call for the next couple of days.
She picked the phone off of the wall and looked to Ema, who gave a thumbs-up. Then the dead air switched over to the crackle of a too-familiar voice. “Hey, doll.”
Even though she’d hoped it was him, it still felt so stupidly exhilarating to hear him on the other end. She couldn’t help smiling a little, praying he couldn’t hear it in her voice. “You’re interrupting my work day, Toji.”
“I know, I know,” he said, “I’ll make it quick. I want you to go somewhere with me.”
She half-turned to the lobby, for some reason expecting someone to be eavesdropping, but the waiting room was—oddly—barren. “Where?”
“You ever been to a racetrack?”
She blinked. “A racetrack?”
“Horses,” he clarified.
“I’ve always thought of it as a little cruel,” she said frankly. “Do you go there often?”
“Sometimes,” he said. “I don’t care about the racing, I’m there to bet. Would you be interested?”
She wound the plastic cord around her forefinger, watching the skin blanch. “It sounds…boring.”
“It won’t be,” he said. “I’ll make it fun.”
The mere suggestion made her bite down a nervous, giddy smile. This time he could certainly hear it in her voice. “I don’t wanna lose any money, Toji.”
“You don’t have to bet, then,” he said. “Just hang off my arm and when I win I can bring you to dinner.”
Her brows knitted, her face burning all over. Her mouth was agape. “Are you trying to get me to go on a date with you?”
Toji’s chuckle crackled so nicely in the receiver that her eyes autonomously shut against the sound as it shot straight down to her pelvis. “That depends,” he said. “You gonna be there?”
She clutched the black plastic phone tightly against her ear, suddenly wishing he were right in front of her. “Yes, I’ll be there.”
“Good,” he said, his voice deep and arousing. “You free tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll come get you at ten,” he said. “How does that sound?”
She nodded, then realized he couldn’t see her. “Yes. Good.”
Toji was definitely smirking. “See you tomorrow then, doll. Wear something cute,” he said, then clicked off, nothing but dead air in his wake. Still, she hovered there for a moment, holding onto the phone as if it were a piece of him, basking in the warmth of her sudden, unequivocal elation.
———
She’d never been to any sporting event, so it was startling how many people were there, especially since it was merely horse racing. It was a sunny spring day with clouds scattered about the sky, fluffy and pure-white as cotton balls. It was the kind of sky that looked like it came from a storybook, enhancing the dreaminess she’d been feeling all morning. Her dress matched: baby blue, with three buttons up the front and a neckline that swept low across her chest, hugging her figure and emphasizing the dip of her waist enough that she thought of finding something more modest but decided against it.
It was worth it when she opened the door at his knock and Toji stood there for a moment in his black button-up and slacks, staring openly at her. “Shit, doll,” he’d purred.
They walked side by side, their arms occasionally brushing, as she turned about, looking at the stables down on the ovoid dirt track, the verdant grass at the center. She could see the horses and their riders down there with the officials, each located at a stall with a number overhead from one to seven.
Everyone was dressed so nicely in their Sunday best: untouched whites and pressed khaki pants and matronly dresses and sweeping sun hats. Every so often a stare would linger on her or Toji and she would bristle, feeling like she stuck out like a sore thumb. This was not her scene and she was sure they could see it in her gait, her posture, her very being. Toji, though, walked into every room like he owned the place and the eyes that found him seemed envious and intimidated. He was young, perhaps mid-twenties like her, but there was something otherworldly about him. A confidence that felt ancient.
They were standing amongst tables where people were sitting, but mostly everyone milled about with their dull conversation and pithy laughter. It was a balcony high above the track with formal seats to watch farther below, much closer to where the race would be held.
“Here,” said Toji, snatching a champagne flute from a passing waiter’s tray and pressing it into her hand after grabbing one for himself. “We can play rich too, yeah?” He raised his glass and said, “To money.” She giggled and tapped the rim of their glasses together, taking a small sip as he did, eyeing her over the flute as he tipped his head back.
“You said you come here sometimes?”
He raised a shoulder, shrugging, the fit of his button-up emphasizing his barrel chest. “Just when I get in the mood to gamble.”
“Is that often?”
“Eh,” he said with another shrug, which she took to mean as Yes. And if he wasn’t so keen to admit that, she was willing to bet he didn’t win very frequently.
She felt a creeping chill along the nape of her neck and turned, pretending she was looking over the tent they were in, until she caught the source of the feeling: there was a man in a disheveled white suit staring at them. He stood alone with a drink in hand, not even trying to hide his attention. He had a pencil mustache and wide-rimmed glasses. No, he wasn’t staring at her; he was staring at Toji.
She turned back around and laid a timid hand on Toji’s forearm. “Toji,” she muttered, praying she didn’t look too obvious. “There’s a man staring.”
Something fiery flickered behind his eyes. He ducked his head low so as not to be overheard, his warm breath stirring in her stomach. “Where?”
“Not at me,” she said. She met his eye, hoping that to anyone else it would look like they were just having an intimate moment together—which was how it felt, really. Gingerly, she inclined her head towards the left. “Over there. Glasses.”
Toji didn’t even look. A thunder cloud cleared in his face. “I know him. A work friend.”
That made her heart drop. “Should we go?”
“No,” said Toji, “I expected to see him here.”
Her brows furrowed. “Meaning…” Her face fell. “Are we here for one of your jobs?”
Toji’s mouth pursed. “You think I’d bring you to something dangerous? No, I’m just…scoping things out.”
“Toji—”
“C’mon, forget it,” he said. Then his hand slipped to her waist, the gesture so unexpected and flattering that any complaint instantly fell from her tongue—clearly his intention. “Let’s go to the ticket counter. We can make our bets.”
Toji guided her away from the man’s unwavering glare and she was glad to leave him behind. There was something off about the interaction and it simmered in her stomach, feeling like a premonition. But then Toji held her closer to his side as they wove between people and she tried to take his advice and forget it ever happened.
Still, she looked over her shoulder for any pursuers as Toji spoke with the man behind the counter and was handed a slip of paper with numbers and words on it that she couldn’t even begin to decipher. It was utter nonsense.
“Here, you pick,” he said.
Her eyebrows raised. “I don’t know the first thing about betting.”
“You don’t have to,” he said. “Look, you just pick a horse, bet on their place, and wager an amount.” He tapped his finger across the ticket. There was something frenetic about his energy suddenly. It seemed to confirm her suspicions that Toji had a problem with gambling.
She leaned in closer to look as Toji spun the stubby pencil between his fingers, anxiously waiting. She pointed at a horse labeled with the number three. “That one,” she said. “Bluebeard.”
“You think he’ll win?”
“Sure,” she said offhandedly. When she looked up, Toji’s eyes were intent upon her face. A strange, heavy silence passed between them that she was too stunned to even try to decipher.
“How much?”
She gaped. “Oh, that’s up to you, Toji.”
“Well, it has to be enough to get you dinner,” he said. He returned his hand to her waist and used that distraction to scribble something across the ticket without her seeing. Then he picked it up and held it between them. “Kiss it.”
Her lips parted, stunned into near-silence. “Wha—?”
“For luck,” he said. “You’re my good luck charm, right?”
That heaviness returned between them. His attention was keen and unwavering and she resisted the urge to shrivel beneath it. Really, she wanted to woo him. So she puckered her lips and kissed the paper for one, two seconds, and then pulled away, opening her eyes. Toji looked like he wanted to say—or do—something, but he simply passed the ticket across the counter to the man there and received a replacement in a matter of seconds.
Toji led her beneath the balcony and down to the seats. There was an announcer talking through the speakers overhead, but she tuned him out in favor of Toji saying, “Where do you want to sit, doll?”
“Wherever.”
Toji smiled as if he were hiding a thought. He simply said, “How about here?” and gestured towards a pair of seats near the front, raised at least ten feet above the track. As they sat down and she smoothed out her dress, she wondered what it was he’d been thinking.
Toji spread his thighs as he leaned back in the chair, his elbow on the armrest and rubbing at his mouth. She wanted to run her finger down the length of his scar, feel the texture, and ask what happened. Was it an occupational hazard, or was it from his seemingly terrible childhood? Every so often she resisted the urge to bog him down with inquiries about his past. What did a person have to go through to become the man sitting before her?
He draped his arm over the back of her chair. She wanted to fall against him, let him consume her whole. Instead, she stiffened and heat flushed through her at his nearness, staring intently at the starting gates as the race began.
Number three, she remembered. Her eyes drifted to what little she could see of the horse, what with the gate in the way, but she could see the jockey mounted atop Bluebeard with his appropriately blue helmet. Despite her indifference to sports, her heart began to beat a little faster in anticipation as the announcer said, “On your marks…get set…and they’re off!”
A bell chimed as the gates slid up and the horses burst forth like lightning. The beat of their hooves on the ground rumbled like thunder, increasing the rapid beat of her heart, and she watched keenly for that blue hat as the horses clumped together indistinguishably, panic rising in her as she wondered if they would all fall over themselves. But the riders created a distance between them and began turning the corner, coming around to the stretch that she and Toji sat alongside.
She sat on the edge of her seat to watch, gripping the railing in front of her and barely blinking, meanwhile Toji perused their ticket, a flat look in his face.
As the horses really started to get settled, her jaw dropped and a small laugh slipped past her lips. “Toji, our horse is leading.”
Toji glanced up, eyes narrowing as he tried to see across the track. “No way…” he muttered, right as the announcer continued his flood of commentary: “Number Three, Bluebeard, is pulling a strong lead—Number Four is on her heels at three strides behind—bringing up the rear is Six—two strides behind now, for Four, but Three is keeping a steady pace—thirty seconds into the race now—”
Toji pushed out of his seat and leaned his hands against the railing, watching intently as the horses came closer and closer, Three leading the pack. The finish line was right in front of where they sat and it seemed the horses would be there any second, the jockeys sitting with their entire bodies raised and yelling for the horses to push faster, go harder. She stood, too, and Toji drummed his hands against the railing. “C’mon, c’mon, baby, get there…”
In a flash, the horses seemed to reach the line within milliseconds of each other, but Toji whooped, pumping his arms in the air. He spun and wound his arms around her middle and she squealed as he lifted her like she weighed nothing. He set her down and shouted, “My fuckin’ good luck charm!” For a breathless moment, she wondered if he would kiss her, but he simply grabbed her by the hand and ran her up the steps to receive their winnings.
———
It was late and she was unsure of how many coffees she’d had. Overnight shifts weren’t too bad, but she was having trouble sleeping lately. On the days when Toji never showed her face, she couldn’t help worrying over where he could be or what trouble he’d be getting into. She never did before, but ever since he got hurt, she had a hard time getting that image out of her head when he wasn’t around. Now that she knew he wasn’t untouchable, it was all she could think about.
The reception desk was empty. She loitered with her elbows up on the desk, sipping on her umpteenth coffee as her eyes unfocused on the wall across from her, staring at the flowery calendar hanging there. It had been a slow night and she’d made her rounds more times than necessary just to stave off the boredom
“Nothing?” asked Ema as she returned to her desk from the restroom. She settled into her chair with a squeak, spinning towards the computer.
“Nothing.”
“Grab some food, maybe,” said Ema.
She hummed somewhere in her throat, taking another long sip. Food would do her good. She nodded, pulling away from reception with her coffee close by. “Sure,” she said. She sounded half-asleep to her own ears, practically robotic. “I can’t remember when I ate last.”
“Keep an eye on yourself,” said Ema kindly.
She spun away from reception and started retracing her steps back to the break room. She was craving something greasy and nasty, something that would offer a temporary respite to break up the monotony and anxiety. Yet all she had was a sandwich and whatever she could decide in the vending machine. It was so slow that maybe they wouldn’t notice if she clocked out and ran to grab a pizza really quick, especially if she bought some for everyone—
Something outside the E.R. doors caught her eye, halting her mid-step. There was something on the ground, utterly indistinguishable even under the lights, in the center of the large black mat in front of the automatic doors. She peered for a long moment, trying to make out the shape, but she couldn’t comprehend what she was seeing.
Until it moved.
She was running within the same breath. The doors slid open at her approach and the gasp she let out when she saw the broken body huddled there woke her right up. “Call a doctor!” she shouted as she jogged back out to the reception area, Ema immediately paging anyone within the area. She grabbed a stretcher from where she knew they were, dragging it out behind her.
The man was lanky, but he was much too big for her to handle by herself, especially when he was nothing but dead-weight. The first thing she did was crouch at his side and call, “Sir? Sir, are you lucid? Can you—”
He turned onto his back at that moment right as she was reaching to check his pulse at his neck, but he had no neck. The blood drained from her face as she stared down at the man with the glasses and pencil mustache while a doctor and nurses rushed out to help her. There was a gaping slit across his throat, nearly black blood pooling around him and soaking into the mat beneath him. The cut was too familiar, too clean, and for the first time in her nursing career, she reared back from the patient, falling back on her ass as the other nurses and doctor helped lift him up, asking him questions as they did.
“Nurse? Are you okay?”
One of the other ladies was crouching in front of her with a hand on her shoulder, worry pinching her face. But she couldn’t see her through the fog of her memories, the trauma climbing back up her throat. All she could see were those man’s eyes looking back at her like an accusation.