A Dream Where I’d Overslept

Kira woke up to the memory of ginger on her tongue, marinated in brine long unfit for human consumption and steeped in a cat’s unbridled disdain. Hacking up half a lung kept the acidic fluid from dripping down into and making a hole in her throat, and also drove her face into the hand perched above, Allie squealing in surprise. When her eyes were clear Kira saw she held an eyedropper with maybe a thimble’s worth of the stuff. The couch, surely for unrelated reasons, bore several new – and smoking – slightly damp pockmarks.

“Are you trying to poison me?” she asked, voice edging towards frantic.

Sleep had claimed her, but for how long? It was impossible to tell within this den if the sun had yet risen – or if it had set again, once more rising towards the heavens.

“Would never dream of it,” the vulpine girl replied. In her waving hand the eyedropper’s contents sloshed black and inky. “Not the most pleasant tasting solution, I agree, but it gets you up and moving faster than any espresso shot with none of the drawbacks.” She grinned, smile working its way further up her cheeks than Kira could recall. “Sleep well?”

“Too well, I’m afraid. What time is it?” Kira tried to move her arms, panic taking hold momentarily when she found their mobility restricted, but calming again upon seeing she’d only had blankets dumped around her. They fell like water off her body rising from the sea.

One of Allie’s ears flitted happily. “I’ll bet so! Sorry to say that was my fault.” Rolling on her chair, she returned to her inert cauldron, eyedropper's end held skyward to prevent spillage, and selected one bottle half-full of night with metal laced around its neck in a latch design, squirting the murky liquid back inside. “I intentionally overshot the dose of the calming potion I gave you.”

Cold horror rose in her stomach, and Kira felt the muted sensation of nausea. “But I took your drink.”

“Well you weren’t going to accept it willingly amidst the distress and the not eating. If you weren’t intending to nourish your body one way, I wasn’t going to sit by while you drained what was left in the tank.”

“But you weren’t affected?”

“Oh, honey, it’s like any drug out there. I’ve built up a bit of tolerance over the years. Sleep offers an easy reprieve from the pains of this body.”

“How long,” muttered Kira. Her limbs started to shake. She kicked one leg back, striking the Don’s case exactly where it’d been left. Eyes flitting to the corner of the den, she found the backpack. All her possessions located, she began to untangle herself from the blankets trapping her under an ocean of scratchy fabric weight. “How long, Allie?” she repeated.

“Oh, years,” she assured, drawing out the -sssss sound.

“Not what I’m asking.”

“It’s about eight in the morning or so. Sun’s barely up.”

The time struck Kira across the face like a boxer’s fist, head protection still on the floor and useless beside the mouthguard, her enemy’s fist naked, their callused knuckles blending her fat with shards of her cheekbones.

She wanted to scream at Allie. Grab her by the ears and lay into that sensitive vulpine hearing with all the force capable of being squeezed from her lungs about how she had no right – no damn right to poison her – if it wouldn’t have wasted the precious minutes. Her home was across the city and no vehicle could deliver her there without risk of breaking down. Whether having weighed Kira’s possible responses to her poisoning or not, Allie had placed herself by the cauldron and therefore far out of her path to the stairwell. The transformed girl hefted a gallon jug of water from the floor.

“I threw a dash of rejuvenator in there for the damage vomiting causes, too. Should have eased your stomach and throat without interacting detrimentally with the calming effect.” She dumped the liquid into the cauldron, a new concoction beginning her day while Kira rushed past, equal parts dread and fury in her sprint.

---

She found Arata at Yotsuya Station, almost overlooking him under the disguise of a railway worker and the pressure of countless curious glances.

From the overpass she spotted him down by the tracks at the moment he’d removed his uniform’s safety helmet to wipe away sweat, the incongruity of his ponytail with standard grooming requirements shining like a beacon in the morning light. A multipurpose grabbing arm leaned across his shoulders. Someone was missing their tool. From the tightness of the uniform on his body, their clothing as well. The orange, fluorescent vest adhered to his chest posed a circulation risk in its current, form-fitting state.

Stairs provided an easy way to reach the lower level, but the chain-link fences intended to keep unwary bodies from reaching the tracks earned their keep by impeding her progress. She was forced to shout his name from across the way, to which he turned instantly and ran towards her, meeting Kira partway up the incline.

He slammed himself against the fence, and she started back. Patterned metal divided his smile into even sections. Around his wide shoulders were the straps of a new backpack; new in the sense Kira had not seen it before, though wearing on its material spoke of better times once known.

“Well, aren’t you a sight for a cruel workday!”

Dirt and ash were stippled across the wielder’s skin. Under his eyes, the skin was dark and pronounced against the surrounding area.

Questions boiled in Kira’s head. She started with the most pressing one. “Where the hell did you go last night?”

“Here; there; all the places you weren’t willing to break for.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I got around, baby! The night was young and full of freedom for two thieves fresh from the job, but if you weren’t willing to check out the options then I wasn’t about to drag you out along with me.”

His speech was off. He was circling, and intentionally vague. Kira sniffed, but smelled nothing on his breath but unbrushed teeth. “Well thank you kindly for not dragging me through Allie’s damn window. What were you thinking?”

“That thirty seconds per lock was five minutes too long.”

“I was forced to waste a good chunk of money on repairs. That’s coming out of your cut, by the way.” He responded with only a shrug, fingers slipping through the links of the fence as though he would start climbing at the instant the mood struck him. An announcement sounded in the distance, heralding a train departing down the hill. “Why are you even here?” she asked.

He touched the grabber at his back. “These things have magnets built into the ends, so they’re great for collecting slivers of metal debris from the tracks, and other valuables dropped by any idiots embarking and or leaving. I’ve got a nice collection of earbuds going. Some old bag’s ring, too, with a fancy emerald inset.”

“Yeah? You plan on starting a collection of crystals now to go with the memory one? Provided, of course, you haven’t lost it along with your goddamned mind!” Her muscles ached from the weight of the case, but desire to swing it like a baseball bat at the fence would have outpowered exhaustion if doing so would make Arata flinch; anything to wipe the dazed look from his face. He didn’t smell inebriated, but his attitude emulated one beyond influenced by some invisible narcotic.

Raising a questioning eyebrow, he lifted his shirt and vest to reveal a length of cord wrapped around his muscled torso – and the memory crystal against his skin. “Come on, Kira. Give me some credit. As if I’d lose something so important.” He lowered the uniform. “So where are you off to on this fine day?”

“My interview.” I’m being distracted, nagged the logical part of herself. I’m wasting time entertaining this bastard after all he’s done. “I’m heading home to prepare.”

“Don’t go.”

She barely heard the words over the clatter Arata’s body made on impact with the fence, metal groaning at the weight of impact, links cutting into the meat of his face and puffed lips scaled by dehydration. His eyes were wide enough to count each hypoxic red vein digging through white towards his pupils, grey compared to his knuckles bent around gaps in the fence. Kira fell backward, wincing as her rear struck the concrete.

“Don’t go home,” he repeated. “The Don’s men will be waiting for you.”

“Me? All I did was take the money I was promised! You killed his men!”

“‘Killed’ is too strong a word. I prefer ‘maimed irreparably.’”

“We could have walked about before they even knew what had happened. Don’t forget this situation is your fault. Not mine.”

“You know what an accomplice is, don’t you? It’s a rat like the next.” he replied, a mocking falsetto of the Lieutenant’s own. “Fault or not, you helped me escape. We’re both in their crosshairs now.”

“First they need to find where I live.” She tried to pare away the creeping note of concern from her voice. “I didn’t exactly fill out a job application with all my information for the Pride to have on hand, so good luck on tracking me down.”

“Kira, Kira. You and your silly name have no idea what kind of man the Don is. Promise me you won’t go home. Promise me you won’t find out.”

“How about my promise for the crystal?” she suggested. “Hand it over. It’ll be safer in my hands,” she wiggled her fingers, “over your own. Not one soul alive can lay a hand on me at all.”

“No dice, baby. You’ve got the magic touch, but I’ve got keys to the city.” He wiggled his hips back against the fence, the familiar outline of the master key ensconced in his pocket making itself apparent against the ill-fitting and definitely-not-stolen pants. “I can open up doors you’ve never thought of traversing and seal them up tighter than priestess’ thighs afterward. Blacksmith’s promise.”

“Guess I’ll risk going home.”

“Kira…” he growled, voice turning deathly low. “Don’t you jest on matters with this sort of gravity. There’s more than a crush risk.” Arata drew back from the fence. He took several steady, deep inhales, as if finally noticing the uneasy air he’d been putting off with his actions, letting the ambient odor of the train station take its place.

“I never would. Nothing is graver than this future I’ve worked towards.” Standing herself back up, Kira drew on her memory of Arata’s tough-guy face and slid it over her own. There was a queer comfort to the mask. It felt a supporting beam propping up the resolve warm in her chest. A secondary barrier in line with the chain-link fence. Arata appeared to shudder but she brushed it off as a trick of the morning light, pale pink in the sky.

Suddenly, there came a shout: below, close to the rails, a worker outfitted in attire identical to Arata’s raised an accusing arm to the pair at the fence – a real worker. One with real power and authority in that environment where the unauthorized were at risk to themselves and others, and security couldn’t have been more than meters away. His jig at an end, Arata took a step from the fence, preparing to run, but not before flashing Kira a look of worry that stole the air from her lungs; real, genuine concern.

“Tell me you won’t go home,” he begged. “Do what you must, but stay far away from such an obvious place.” A second alarm sounded from below. Out from the shadows of the station’s overpass flew security, hats clutched to their heads, emblems of authority readily in hand. Arata stood motionless, awaiting a response.

Fighting the urge to roll her eyes, Kira mumbled, “Fine. If it’s so important.”

It was a lie, and a poor one, but Arata smiled just the same, even if the expression were simply to mask his disgust at such obvious dishonesty.

So long had he delayed his leaving that security reached the stairs and had begun their ascent, believing to have cut the wielder off. With a salute to their effort, he vaulted the railing and fell to the grassy hill below, a somersault on hitting the ground to preserve his momentum and ensure escape. Kira took off as well, the chain-links claiming no allegiance in who they divided from whom.