Aren't You Lonely?

Police and emergency services arrived on scene in five minutes flat. It was a high-volume, high-foot traffic area already, but certain events still circulating in the news had brought that slice of Shinjuku high on the agendas of focus groups wanting to keep public opinions relaxed. It was still raw, like a day-old artificial turf burn. Keep it clean or risk infection.

First item on arrival was to check the cameras: get some information, a couple faces, run background checks for building cases, the whole shebang. When security footage was corrupted beyond use they turned to the victims, then the witnesses. Every time the same bones of ultimately the same story.

Dead phones. No footage. I saw this this thing, or was it this thing, or, nah, definitely this shirt color – confidently incorrect without fail. No one had known which three fleeing the scene to look for.

Meanwhile, Arata was laughing all the way to the bank he’d never hold an account with; Kira, not so much.

“To think, the Lieutenant had those permutations already figured out this entire time! Did you see the length of that blade? She’d have to have devised out a new fuel element to sustain a blade that size for that long. Wild stuff!”

He whooped into the air as they ran, breath a little white cloud escaping, like he was blowing off steam now that combat had ended.

Kira’s only built inside as she stumbled beside him, one hand clutched over the foreign territory where her ear used to be: bumpy, tacky to the touch flesh. Press any harder, and she’d pop young blisters. She felt light-headedness beyond simply missing a sizeable portion of her hair to the impromptu salon appointment by a stylist who’d ground her proverbial axe with the wielder’s head.

“I think… I th-think…” she panted, “I think I need to sit down.”

A stepped planter box bordering the street called her name. She collapsed without waiting for an opinion onto its lowest stone surface, nearly falling back and ruining maintained bushes. Shivers wracked her body as adrenaline bled out.

Taking the next step up, Arata sat next to her, leaning back until his ponytail brushed the greenery. “Good idea. Let’s take a little break, and then we’ll get right back to business.”

“I think I need to go to a hospital.”

“You got the money?” he asked, knowing full well the answer. She might have punched him, had the road not been so close. Wind whipped her remaining hair each time a car passed by. “Or a good cover story? An injury like this is bound to raise questions.”

And it would result in more damage than what could easily be calculated. Specialized machines bore costs Kira could only fathom, and rampant magic from doctors laying on hands to inspect her wounds and the nature of her wielder existence would dismantle each and every one, given time, and the severity of her injury demanded an extended stay. Others would die for her decision.

“Allie,” she said. “Allie might have something for this.” She removed her hand for only a moment, taking in the new, half-eared world. Sounds weren’t as crisp, nor as loud, and wind tickled her inside places that raised fresh goosebumps.

“Too far, and too dangerous to go there now, if you ask me.” Arata raised a thoughtful hand to his chin. “I’ve got some medical supplies unless you want to try for a classic smash-and-grab. I’m game if you are, for that, but…” Up and across the road he pointed, past the trees and two overpasses, where a high-rise stuck out over the ward like a Brutalist sculpture, all glass and grey concrete against the sun starting to set. “My place isn’t too far now.”

Nausea was starting to set in now. She sucked in greats gulps of air to keep her stomach down. “Thought that… was dangerous.”

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “But I was spotted elsewhere. Maybe the Pride’s been ordered to close in, you know. Circle in and build a perimeter. Those tactics your father would talk about.”

She hadn’t the energy to glare at him.

“I think it’s our best bet. But if any goons are hanging out, I’ve got a way to give them the slip.”

If this is all as temporary as you say, why not just kill them and be done with it?

The thought roiled against her guts. In truth, she wanted more than anything a familiar place, with walls she knew and company whose interests were her own. Even if they had poisoned her – those intentions had been helpful. Home was a distant dream. A thin sheaf of hope separated her from the life she’d known, diffracting light and sound. Quiet comforts. The mushing of cartilage.

“Fine.”

---

Apparently, window washers worked even in winter. Snow stains were a greater bother than expected. They’re included in the rent, Arata explained, but you can request them any time of the year for any reason.

Their lift was set up along the building’s face, wires continuing upward to the apex where the skylights lay to warn aircraft of their dangerously low altitude. It would break like any other technology, especially carrying two wielders, but Kira’s luck had been poor enough that she convinced herself she was due for a reversal.

No men belonging to the Don had been spotted yet. From wall to bush the two slunk in hopes of evading notice, their efforts so far fruitful. Now, a large empty parking lot was all laying between. Signposts gave no cover, and neither did the ankle high stops in the parking spaces, so it was then Arata revealed his plan.

It took a moment for Kira to process what she was seeing – or, rather, what she wasn’t.

“When did you learn that?”

“You fight enough Falcons, you eventually pick up on their tricks. How do you think I avoided notice for so long?” Even invisible, she could feel smugness radiating off his grin like breath on her skin. It wasn’t complete, however, as the Falcons magic was during the heist. He followed her as a blur of heat, a wavering mirage that would draw suspicion if anyone staring rubbed their eyes and took a closer look. “With any luck, no one knows to keep aware for you yet. Just go slow and don’t draw attention.”

Easy for him to say. He wasn’t pressing a hand to a missing ear, elbow jutting out, making a flag shape with his arm. Fallen snow visible through the gap made it appear white from a distance – the color of surrender.

They reached the lift without harassment. The control box was easy enough to understand: one button for down, one button for up, one big and red for emergency stops, and a slew of others that didn’t matter. Kira pressed the one for up, and the silver lift began to rumble towards the sky.

“And this will take us to your place?”

“If all goes well. But it’s not directly under my window, so we’ll need to reach out a bit.”

“How far?” she asked, trying not to think about the ground underneath their delicate vehicle falling further away.

“Just think about the view this offers instead.” With that Arata faded back into visibility, now resting on the machine’s floor, backpack an uncomfortable-looking mattress, arms folded behind his head, swinging lightly with the lift in the breeze.

In the face of what he’d accomplished, it was impossible to do so.

Arata had cast a spell.

Unlike Kira, blessed – some would claim – with inborn magic rarer than rare that required no thought to wield, like her father before her, spells were like metaphorical limbs; people often spoke of an “ear for music,” or an “artist’s hand,” but it all came down to a person’s accruement of hours toiling at their chosen craft. Dormant at first, each spell needed constant practice, constant working at, to see results.

It was why so many wielders fell into the ostensibly easier formulaic side of magic: potion making, blacksmithing, sigildry, and the like, becoming academics in the process. A spell had never passed Allie’s hands – she lacked the spark. The same could have been said of the Arata she knew.

Yet he’d cast a spell.

A spell, she assumed, had been well documented and taught easily amongst the Falcons, if every member was so “sneaky” as Arata liked to put it, but he’d spent no effort learning it, insofar as she knew. Had he done so in secret, or was this a product of the memory crystal’s influence?

Her hackles began to rise, the lift bumping unexpectedly in response, and she shoved the tumult down before further damage was caused.

From their height, Japan spread out endless in every direction. The roads, the construction, the urban sprawl like skin over arteries, overbearing grey amplified by the frigid weather – a bit of color if Kira squinted towards the denser zones – greenery if one imagined it brighter. The setting sun added a tinge of orange, but the pair had seen more vibrant tones in recent days.

It was the kind of view infinitely more enjoyable had the season been summer, drink in hand, boombox with the top twenty hits playing from the kitchen for ambience – and if intrusive thoughts over the height they had to fall in the event of misfortune weren’t preventing her from taking the sight in too deeply; that, and the reality of being sans an entire ear. Time hadn’t made that any less a mood dampener.

“Honestly, it’s kind of dismal.”

“Something else, then – just how do you survive the loneliness?

He spoke to her not-ear, so she was forced to turn to hear him properly. “Come again?”

“The loneliness of it all. With your magic, you can’t hug, kiss, touch, or even hold hands with anyone else. Doesn’t it get, I don’t know, difficult to manage?” He kicked one leg over the other, tapping any passing windows with his shoe.

“Can we talk about something else?”

“I mean, your parents had to be taking blows every time they had to change your diapers. In school we loved telling off the class clowns that their parents didn’t love them enough – but you – you couldn’t be held without driving your parents…” He paused as Kira’s glare fell upon him, the bruises left by her father’s hands flushed dark now. “…I just wonder, is all.”

“You get used to it.” Her voice was colder than the ice formed on the lift’s railing. Balconies creeping past were decorated by thick fingers of frost, some having gone unswept by their occupants.

He snapped his fingers. “Wait, I know! Lust! If you were head over heels for someone then they’d be head over heels for you too, right?”

“I suppose.”

“I could be that person if you need me to.”

Kira only returned a sad sort of expression, like she was overseeing the final moments of a dying pet’s euthanasia.

It was strange: this return to normalcy from him. He remembered his lines, finally, but doing so brought her no comfort nor fulfilled the sense of familiarity she had wanted. He was a foreign soul in familiar skin rapidly losing warmth. There was no hiding from her eyes.

But you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?

Arata coughed, then cleared his throat. “Anyway. How do you feel about me?”

How to put it? There existed no concise way to sum up using a person like a mirror, picking out details you liked and disliked before applying it to your own self like makeup, sometimes without intending to, and an explanation towards one now occupying that quasi-state between friend and stranger only upped the challenge.

So, she didn’t.

“It’s complicated.” Kira said. “Although, I’d prefer having you around than not.” She shifted her stance as the lift sputtered for a brief moment, feeling the oblong shape of the Don’s talon against her outer thigh. Cold against her fingers, and with no one visible below at risk of being struck, she started to pull the golden filigree out.

Then the lift whined to a halt, and the thought was lost. Kira slammed the ascent button to no avail.

They were dead in the proverbial water.

“Oh, so close.” Arata said, muttering as he rose. He stuck his head out over the edge. “We made it eleven floors. Could have been worse, I guess.”

“It also could have been better,” Kira shot back, heart rate already on the rise, but her own reflection looking back at her sparked an idea. “Can we go through this window? Cut through apartments the rest of the way?”

“If you want to end up arrested before the day is out. These tenants won’t take kindly to us breaking in.” He was looking up now at a window slightly ajar almost directly above them, counting under his breath. “Seven floors to go…” Rolling his shoulders, he nodded. “Yeah, I could do that.”

“That crystal really has taken your mind from you, hasn’t it?”

“If only. I’d be less afraid of ending up splattered on the sidewalk that way, and that same fear is gonna keep me from success. Oh, if only I had the determination to overcome my fear of falling.”

He dropped his eyes to meet Kira’s, and, up in the air, trapped on the workman’s lift with only two ways out, Kira was faced with the reality that he was horribly, beautifully sane when he’d proposed that. A small, lively smile played upon his lips as he readjusted the backpack to hang off his chest.

“No.”

“I remember what you did to that guy chasing me. This will just be more of the same. Just don’t look down or feel fear and we’ll be prime.”

“You’re entrusting your life to magic that can change on a whim!”

“Oooh, look at me, I’m already climbing. Better grab on soon!”

He wasn’t lying. One foot on the railing gave him a jumping point to propel himself to the balcony of the next floor, and years of physical training had given him the arms to pull himself up – Kira’s strength, on the other hand, had mere sparks left after all this time. She’d never make it. Not on her own.

And so, with great reluctance, she leapt up onto Arata’s back, arms wrapping his neck. His body shuddered under her inherent magic. Determination flooded in, thoughts of doubt, self-preservation and identity subsumed by tides borne on aversion to the alternative route downward.

Arata didn’t climb to the next balcony – he flew.

Kira almost lost her grip right then and there from the power her magic provided, and she felt her friend’s grip start to waver before she reaffirmed him steady. Up and up they progressed, one floor at a time, hand over hand along the building’s side like death-defying acrobats without wires providing safe conditions. Entertainment unions would have dragged the pair into Japan’s court system had they been aware.

She wrapped legs around his waist, feeling the tempered muscles flex under his clothing, thickly woven over bones fed nourishment day after day. Worked over without second guesses. A correct feeling that the body was home.

Wincing, Kira shifted her head: the necklace was pressing into the thin, bruised skin along her neck.

They were almost there now. Reaching out a shaking hand, Arata knocked aside the open window with his knuckles to widen the gap, fingers taking hold of the sill to pull them through the hole. Tepid air washed over the two – an all-too-familiar alchemical heat. He groaned with effort, that sound becoming a shout as they tumbled forward onto the wooden floor of the living room.

And then it was laughter.