NINE #3
“No. It was gravity but with extra steps. There’s nothing strategic about launching yourself into a basement like you’re skydiving without the parachute,” I counter, shaking my head like I can’t believe I’m having to explain this shit.
The jackass looks like he wants to smile again, and I point at him that little bit harder, growling, “Don’t even think about it.”
He inhales through his nose, visibly fighting his amusement, and says, “What? I didn’t do anything.”
“Your face did.”
“My face apologizes,” he relents, and then he looks away before I watch him lose the battle with his smile in real time.
With a shake of my head, I take the opportunity to look around.
Across the park are apartment blocks that stare down at us with rows upon rows of broken windows.
The world is just as gray and wet as it was this morning, crawling with things that want us dead and overrun with nature that is fighting and winning the battle to reclaim what belongs to it.
Another thunderous slam echoes from the door, metal screeching as the Runner launches itself against the barricade again.
The pipe Kaito has shoved through the handles rattles, holding for now, but I know it won’t last forever.
Nothing ever does. Not doors, not stitches, not the tiny scraps of calm I’m currently trying to tape and staple to my nerves.
We have to leave. I know that, my body knows that, the bugs on the ground know that.
But for one steadying breath, I just stand there in the wet grass with Kaito next to me.
Both of us alive only because he found me and didn’t once make me say out loud that I needed him.
He didn’t make a thing of it, didn’t make me owe him one out loud.
He risked his life and jumped into that hole without wanting anything in return.
He got me out, asked which way we should go, turned his head when the tunnel grew too tight and my body forgot how to be normal, and respected every boundary I’ve put in place until now.
The entire thing sits under my skin like an unwanted splinter that niggles its way deeper and deeper.
Eventually, as soon as I’ve caught my breath and my heart doesn’t feel like it’s doing its best to vacate my body, I calmly tell him, “You shouldn’t have followed me.”
Kaito scans the park instead of looking down at me, but he nods. “Yeah, I know.”
I frown and turn to look up at him, struck by the way what little light beams through the dark clouds highlight his sharp features. “Wait, that’s it?”
His gaze shifts back to me, those almond eyes filled with questions, dark brown irises boring into me. “What? Did you want me to argue?”
“No,” I answer, shaking my head.
“Then yeah, that’s it,” he says, shrugging his shoulder before wincing in pain.
My eyebrows pinch. What the hell am I meant to do with this guy?
That question is left unanswered, because another slam echoes from the door, and this one actually bends the frame.
Kaito looks over his shoulder. “We should probably get going now.”
I nod, forcing my knee into cooperating before I snark, “Try to keep up this time, yeah?”
Those brown eyes warm with a tired kind of amusement as he breathes, “I’ll do my best, how about that?”
“Eh,” I breathe. “Your best has been questionable at best so far.”
“Hey, I’m still alive, aren’t I?” he argues softly, gesturing his good hand to his body.
I raise an eyebrow. “Yeah, because of me.”
“Mostly because of you,” he agrees, nodding sagely, and his agreement steals the next insult I had balancing on my tongue. Rude.
For a brief moment, I think about telling him to stop following me again.
The words are right there, balancing on my tongue awaiting approval before spilling out of my mouth.
Familiar, easy, safe, and a total waste of my breath if the past several encounters are anything to consider.
The words sit behind my teeth, ready to be thrown like a knife, because that’s just what I do.
I throw sharp things when people get too close.
Knives. Words. Warnings. Whatever gets the job done.
Whatever forces them to take a step back before my body gets all confused and shit, mistaking warmth for safety.
Kaito doesn’t step closer, though. He doesn’t ask where we’re going, doesn’t act like surviving one collapsing clinic together has earned him a place next to me. He just waits patiently, pale and bleeding and much too big for the moment, giving me a choice as if it even belongs to me.
And that right there is the problem, because it doesn’t. It doesn’t belong to me at all, but I can’t seem to conjure the strength to shoot the words I know I should spit at him.
Instead, I turn before he notices the hesitation, starting toward the treeline on the far side of the park. I head toward where the shadows have grown the thickest and the paths disappear under six years’ worth of weeds, shrubbery, and a whole lot of green that was once maintained.
Without uttering a single word, Kaito follows after me, because of course he does.
But this time?
This time I don’t tell him not to.