But the pill was already weaving its subtle spell. The overlapping chorus of sneers and accusations – "Hikari… useless… skinny… prostitute…" – didn't vanish. They receded. Muffled, like shouts from behind thick glass. The frantic drumbeat of her heart slowed. The nausea biting at her throat lessened, replaced by a leaden weariness that sank deep into her bones.
〖Quiet. Please. Just be quiet.〗
She curled tighter in the worn armchair, pulling the scratchy blanket over her head like a shroud. Wool rasped against her ear, a familiar discomfort that felt almost grounding.
〖Like the sweater mother knitted… before she stopped knitting, stopped seeing…〗
The memory was a dull ache, softened by the medication. Here, in the semi-darkness, with only the faint hum of the ventilation and the distant, rhythmic beep-beep-beep from Kuro's monitor faintly audible through the walls, the chemical calm spread like warm honey through her veins. The sharp edges of panic blunted. The phantom hands lost their grip. For now.
Outside, Jin stood sentinel.
He didn't pace anymore. He leaned against the wall beside the recovery room door, arms crossed, his gaze fixed on the unblinking red light above it. The fury that had radiated from him earlier had banked into something harder, colder—a watchful intensity. Hikari's fragile retreat into the office hadn't escape him. Neither had the tremor in her hands, the ghostly pallor, the way she'd flinched from the nurse's touch like a scalded thing. He saw the echoes of wounds that had nothing to do with alleyways and pipes. Wounds that ran deeper, older.
〖She's broken, too,〗 he thought, the observation clinical, detached.
〖Just a different kind of broken.〗 His loyalty was to Kuro. To the man who'd walked into fire for a stranger nine years ago and had apparently done it again tonight. This girl… she was collateral. A complication. But Kuro had called her 'kid'. Taken a pipe to the skull for her. That meant something. Jin would ensure she didn't shatter completely on his watch. Not until the Boss decided her fate.
He shifted his weight, the movement fluid and silent. His eyes never left the red light. The steady beep-beep-beep was Kuro's tenuous hold on life. Jin's own heartbeat seemed to synchronize with it. Waiting. Guarding. The decoy team reported clean streets. No Hideo tails. Safety, for now. But Jin knew safety was an illusion. The real battle was behind that door, fought by a stubborn heart against shattered bone and stolen blood.
Inside the dim office, Hikari floated.
The voices were distant murmurs now, losing their power to wound. The scratchy blanket wasn't rough hands; it was just… wool. Warmth seeped into her icy skin. The chemical calm deepened, blurring the sharp corners of fear and shame.
〖Forty-three seconds…〗
The thought drifted by, weightless.
〖He saw stars…〗
Her eyelids grew unbearably heavy. The distant beep-beep-beep became a lullaby. In the fragile sanctuary of chemical quiet and scratchy wool, exhaustion finally won. Hikari's breathing deepened, evening out. The tension slowly bled from her clenched fists. She sank deeper into the chair, into a sleep that was less rest than temporary surrender. No dreams. Just a grey, blessedly silent void.
Above her, unseen, the red light still glowed. Steady. Unblinking. A silent vigil over two broken souls clinging to the edge of different abysses. The night stretched on, held in the fragile balance between a steady beep and the scratching of wool against silent tears.
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