Nihilism

Nothing is more garish to the senses than reacclimating to the world after it's been spun in circles around your head, contorted and blurred, drenched with unfamiliarity - no, with a familiar but dreaded emotion.
That sticky sentiment was still lingering in my gums, its scent constantly pricking my nose, just as I thought it was gone, it was right back there, like a swing drawn upwards and out of sight in the wind, only to come furiously back down as that wind dissipated.
Sorrow was standing next to me, his words distant and muffled as he reported back what had happened to us, purposeful, clean, never inserting unnecessary emotion, probably leaving out some bits for a more succinct picture, and probably leaving some out to protect me.
I sat limply on a bench facing rows of desks, some without an inch of wood to be seen, littered with white and blue and green and punctuated with stamps and clipboards and smudge-rimmed indigo mugs.
Above me, Sorrow stood imposingly, casting a black shadow across my face, and giving the impression of a small cutout from the rest of the brightly lit room.
After a while, when he had drifted off to the side to say hello to some coworkers while jotting down some important notes and filling out slips of paperwork, another field operator, probably just returning from some mission out in the country, slid across the hardwood and stopped shoulder to shoulder with the sorry soul that was myself.
"What's there to look so glum about huh? Everybody should be happy and smiling and ready to take us out to lunch, tell us about all the things that haven't changed, and how glad they are we're back!" 
Bobbing in tune with her words, the bright blonde locks of hers, when curled giving her the features of an old European queen, tapped the side of my head, and I could already feel my own features scrunching up with annoyance.
For somebody that had only just set foot back in town after a months long assignment out on the fringes, she was rather energetic, her clothes and hair as clean as if she had just opened the door and walked out of her apartment, and her makeup was as heavily though aesthetically applied as always. Somebody once told me that it takes a lot of skill to make quantity look like quality, and I guess she really is skilled in some regards.
"How come you're not covered in dirt head to toe?" I asked, looking away from her prying hazel eyes while she pushed her face closer and closer into the tiny bubble of despondency that was distorting space around me.
"That's kind of rude. But what, did you really think I wouldn't change on the train over here?"
"I thought part of your assignment was the train over here?"
"A train ride is longer than five minutes, you know" she chastised, looking with incredulity at my own worn-out eyes and rough cheeks, probably wondering just how bad of a morning I had had, maybe even gauging how far she could tease me without causing serious distress. It's always the case with these people, that they try to annoy you just enough to rile you up but not enough to make you hate them.
But... today, I guess, I didn't much feel like complaints or sorrow or dejection.
Most days that would have been pretty literal, considering one third of those are real people I would liked to have avoided.
"especially from all the way out on those outskirt towns. It smelled like fish all the time! Awful!" she added with a sigh, slumping backwards against the bench, then turning and fiddling with the imported Schefflera and kicking her feet against the table in front of us, rattling the glass rectangle at the centre. 
To be fair, it was a pretty nice area to do boring paperwork and get chastised for it and such.
Lots of pleasing, dark wood, lots of patches filled with emerald leaves, windows stretched far along the walls, looking out against the buildings encircling the offices, our ever-persistent mountains only peeking between concrete and metal.
Those mountains... they were nice to look at, but sometimes, it was a heavy melancholy that they forced down upon us, like they were the edges of a snow globe, reminding us of the invisible sphere that rested above our heads. All these winding alleyways, streets littered with unused cars parked on the sidewalk, massive buildings staggered in size, growing to their highest in the centre, like they were trying to rally the rest of the city and pierce the shell warping the horizon, didn't do anything to assuage that feeling. It was like a government promising to find a vaccine to placate a raging virus that causes people to feel sad and lethargic all the time. Sure, it's nice to know something is being done about it, but it's too ambiguous, too far away for us to latch on to.
Just as my thoughts were wandering dangerously like a lost hiker deeper into the snow, I was led back to the warmth by a repetitive bumping against my side.
"Ooooii! Stop being so sad that I've returned to torment you. Am I really that annoying?"
"No no, it's not that. Are we going to get out of here and get lunch?"
"Uh huh, wait for your owner to finish cleaning up after you though" she teased, glancing across the room at Sorrow, who was wrapping up his conversation with a coworker.
His face seemed relaxed, like he was enjoying a cool watermelon in the summer, while his coworker's eyes were flushed with excitement, her giggles at something he had said reaching us from over here.
While he strolled over to us, his expression soured a little, then grew dark, before his eyes lit up once more on seeing the two of us, my face half obscured by the blonde waves of the girl stretching her legs out to the side, clawing at my head like a monkey.
"Hey. Let's go for lunch, huh?" came the serene words, all the more tranquil slipping with a low, gemstone-like smooth sprawl from his lips, while those jade eyes clouded indiscernibly.

While the two hailed a cab, since her favourite noodle place was way too far to walk, I was startled by a strange buzzing in my pocket, which I soon realised was my mobile phone, and dug around for it before slipping backwards underneath the flat shadow of an apartment building. Standing out in the now sweltering brightness, neither of them noticed my receding and whispering into the tiny silver device.
"What is it now?"
"...I don't know where the trash goes."
"Oh, my bad, it's out front right now. You can get a new bag from the bottom left drawer in the kitchen."
"..."
"Are you good being all alone?"
"Uh huh, I've got your magazines to read, so I'm entertained."
"Magazines?!" I shouted in surprise, instantly glancing over to the two who were washed over in too much sunlight to make out their expressions from here in the cool shadows.
It didn't look like they had turned around, at least.
"I'm joking, don't get so worked up huh."
And so, I guess, that's how this girl is getting introduced.
With blood staining my teeth, crawling up into my gums, and the blistering heat beginning to fall down in waves, distorting the city around me, my only thoughts of the desperate need to fall back into the damp darkness below a cedar or storefront; it was no different from that time.
Yes, I am a vampire.
And so is she.
The woman that I saved from death oh so long ago.
Both of us melted into the same person under a summer's heat, becoming the same wounds, flaws, distastes, ideals.
"Oi, come on Kisaragi, hurry hurry!"
I hoped that these noodles would drown some of my worries in their soft broth.