Renji woke up in a cloud.
The sheets were Egyptian cotton, thread count somewhere in the thousands. The mattress was memory foam that contoured to his ribs. The pillow smelled like sterile lavender.
It was the most comfortable bed he had ever slept in.
And he felt like a corpse.
Renji tried to sit up. His joints clicked. A wave of dizziness rolled through his skull, graying out his vision. He looked at his hands. They were pale, the veins standing out like blue wiring under parchment paper.
[SYSTEM STATUS][Vitality: 4%][Body Temperature: 35.8°C][WARNING: Metabolic functions suppressed to preserve core heat.]
He wasn't resting. He was hibernating.
"Alive," Renji whispered. His voice was a dry croak. "Barely."
He forced himself out of bed. The floor was heated, but his feet were too numb to feel it. He shuffled to the ensuite bathroom.
In the mirror, a ghost stared back. Dark circles under eyes that looked too sharp, too hungry. He splashed hot water on his face. It felt lukewarm.
I need calories, he thought. I need sugar. I need heat.
CRASH.
The sound of shattering glass exploded from the living room.
Renji froze. Adrenaline spiked in his chest, giving him a momentary, painful burst of energy.
He grabbed the thick white bathrobe hanging on the door, wrapped it around his shivering frame, and opened the bedroom door.
The hallway was long and white. At the end of it, the massive living room was bathed in the gray light of a stormy morning.
Elena Tsukimoto was standing by the floor-to-ceiling window.
She was pacing. Back and forth. A tigress in a cage. Her phone was pressed to her ear, her knuckles white as she gripped it.
On the floor, a crystal vase lay in pieces, water and white roses spreading across the marble.
"What do you mean 'frozen'?" Elena screamed into the phone.
Her voice cracked. It wasn't the voice of a CEO. It was the voice of a victim.
"That account is personal! It has nothing to do with the merger! Kurasawa signed the—"
She stopped. She listened. Her face went ashen.
"He did what?"
Renji walked into the room. He moved silently, the thick carpet absorbing his steps. He leaned against the white leather sofa, crossing his arms to hide the tremors in his hands.
Elena lowered the phone slowly. She didn't hang up. She just let it drop to her side.
She stared at the rain streaking the glass.
"He flagged my personal accounts," she whispered to the empty room. "Suspicious activity. Fraud investigation. The bank froze everything. Even the payroll account for the staff."
She turned, and her eyes landed on Renji.
For a second, she looked confused, as if she had forgotten he existed. Then, recognition flooded back.
The Consultant. The Mechanic.
"You," she said.
She crossed the room in three strides. She looked wreck. Her hair was messy, her silk blouse was wrinkled, and the dark circles under her eyes were bruises of exhaustion. The 3 AM nightmare had come, just as Renji predicted.
"Fix it," she demanded.
Renji looked at her. "Good morning to you too, Elena."
"Don't play games with me!" She slammed her hand on the glass table. "I haven't slept. I can't think. My chest feels like it's in a vice. I have a board meeting in two hours, and I can't stop shaking."
She held out her hands. They were vibrating.
"You did something in the car," she said, her voice desperate. "You made the noise stop. Do it again. Make me calm. I need to be calm to fight him."
Renji looked at her outstretched hands.
To her, he was a magician. A dispenser of peace.
To him, she was a nuclear reactor leaking radiation, and he was a man walking in without a hazmat suit.
[Target Status: Volatile.][Yin Overflow: Critical.][Estimated Cost of Treatment: 15% Vitality.]
He had 4%.
If he treated her fully, he would die. Right here on the white rug.
But if he did nothing, she would crumble. And if she crumbled, she would kick him out.
"I can't do a full session," Renji said, his voice flat. "I told you. I need supplies."
"I gave you the card!" Elena snapped. "Buy whatever you want later! Just... take the edge off. Please."
The 'please' broke her voice.
Renji sighed. He tightened the belt of his robe.
"Ten seconds," he said. "That's all you get."
"Fine. Whatever."
She stepped closer, invading his personal space. The cold rolling off her was intense. It smelled like winter air and old dust.
Renji reached out.
He took her right hand in his.
CONTACT.
[SYSTEM ACTIVATED][SIPHONING NEGATIVE YIN...]
It wasn't a flow. It was a flood.
The moment skin touched skin, Renji gasped. It felt like sticking his hand into a bucket of liquid nitrogen. The cold shot up his arm, past his elbow, straight for his heart.
Elena's eyes rolled back. Her shoulders dropped three inches. A long, shuddering breath left her lips.
"Oh," she whispered. "Oh god. It's leaving."
She leaned into him, hungry for the warmth he didn't have to spare. She was drinking his life to replace her pain.
Renji bit his tongue to keep from screaming.
He watched the veins in his wrist. They turned dark blue. Then purple. The frostbite was spiritual, but the physical effects were real. The blood was coagulating.
Five seconds. His vision blurred. Seven seconds. His knees buckled. Nine seconds. The System screamed a red alert in his vision.
[CRITICAL FAILURE IMMINENT. SEVER CONNECTION.]
Renji ripped his hand away.
He stumbled back, catching himself on the sofa. He clutched his right arm to his chest. It was numb. Dead weight.
Elena blinked, looking like someone waking up from a deep massage. Color had returned to her cheeks. Her eyes were clear.
"Why did you stop?" she asked, reaching out again. "I feel... I feel lighter. But it's not done."
"Don't," Renji wheezed.
He held up his right hand.
Elena looked. And gasped.
His hand was corpse-pale. His fingernails were blue. A visible layer of frost—actual ice crystals—was melting on his skin, dripping onto the floor.
"Your hand..." Elena whispered, horrified. "It's frozen."
"That's your cold, Elena," Renji said through gritted teeth. He rubbed circulation back into the limb, grimacing as the feeling returned in painful pins and needles. "That is what you carry around inside you every day. I just took a cup of it."
Elena stared at her own hands. They looked normal. Warm.
"I... I did that to you?"
"You're toxic," Renji said brutally. "Right now, you are a walking blizzard. If I hold your hand for a minute, my heart stops. If I sleep with you, I don't wake up."
He stood up straight, forcing his body to obey through sheer willpower.
"I told you. I need fuel. I'm running on empty."
He walked past her toward the hallway. He needed to get away from her gravity well.
"Where are you going?" Elena asked. The panic was gone, replaced by a stunned, guilty awe.
"To get breakfast," Renji lied. "And to buy the supplies I need to survive you."
He stopped at the door and looked back.
"Use the ten seconds I gave you. Go to your meeting. Don't let him see you bleed."
Renji walked out.
He made it to the elevator. He pressed the button with his frozen hand.
As the doors closed, hiding the luxury of the penthouse, Renji leaned his forehead against the cool metal wall.
[Vitality: 1%]
He chuckled. A dry, rattling sound.
"Breakfast," he muttered. "I need... breakfast."
But he knew bacon and eggs wouldn't fix this.
He needed the Spring.
He needed the neighbor.