Sayane and Masaru Pt V: Your Touch Or Oblivion

Steam rose from their bowls as voices spoke unclear words all around them. Fragments of his chest burned away like the edges of paper in a bonfire. Dusk had arrived swiftly, falling behind the mountaintops and leaving all the world painted in a soft blue that seemed to absorb all shadow and contrast. The scents of plum blossoms had faded.

But Masaru was still grateful to be sharing one last moment with her.

He didn’t know it, but she was feeling the same thing. A gnawing, excruciating pain had set into her stomach and she wondered if she was bleeding internally. Years of fighting and living on in spite had finally started to overwhelm her, and it felt like her spirit was simply giving up. As cruel and ironic as it was, this one day of loveliness and respite might have triggered her body into collapse.

But Sayane was still grateful to be sharing one last moment with him.

“How’s your hot pot?” Masaru asked.

“Broth’s really good. Want some?” Sayane asked.

“Sure. Want some Kenchin Jiru? It’s really nourishing.”

“Sure,” she said as a forlorn smile pulled her heavy bottom lip upwards.

His eye was burning to an excruciating level but he tried not to think about it. Even though he’d been wearing the patch for over ten hours, the feedback had stopped bothering him. Aside from his eye pain, a hollowed out vacancy had set into his body and he knew that time was swiftly running out.

Bowls were rotated and broths were sipped.

“Might be the healthiest thing I’ve eaten in years,” Sayane whispered.

He wanted to reply but couldn’t think of anything. Instead he watched the warm reddish orange curry broth spill over the edges of his spoon as it collected disparate vegetables.

They finished their meal in silence and decided it was time to head to the hotel. One room awaited them. Heavy summer traffic and influxes of visitors had left them with few options, and the last thing Masaru wanted was to stay anywhere cheap or under maintained. So they’d found a small three star hotel with a single room available.

When they opened the door, the solitary queen sized bed waited for them, almost beckoning for them to immediately crawl into its medium thread count embrace. Long dormant sensations fluttered in Masaru’s chest and he wondered if he’d made a mistake. The last thing he wanted was for Sayane to be uncomfortable.

Beside him, Sayane was blushing in embarrassment as a torrent of conflicting feelings battered her wits. Her lips parted and unleashed words she wasn’t ready to say.

“Masaru, I’m sorry…” she blurted in a low volume.

He turned to her as the door closed them in to their private moment.

“Hmm?” he asked.

She inhaled as her brow raised in shame.

“I… I don’t think I can have sex with you…” she muttered in shame.

A nervous chuckle almost escaped his throat but he bludgeoned it into submission.

“Sayane, no. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t even thinking that.”

A new shame washed over her shoulders as she nodded then removed her shoes without a word. Masaru realized his partial mistake.

“Wait. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean t-that I didn’t want to. Because of course I do…”

He was struggling to make anything make sense. The air was stuffy yet calming. Humidity had stuck his shirt to his collarbones. She finally faced him. For only the second time ever, her blind eyes looked directly into his. Pale, scarred pupils gazed through his as her wounded soul waited for clarification while it poured more and more humiliation into her chest.

“I… I never did any of this with an expectation of being with you. Certainly not for sex. I just…j-just wanted to be kind to you.”

She exhaled as her brows pulled inward in thought. Warmth flooded his face as his fingertip tapped on his thigh. Words seemed harder to formulate than usual.

“But of course I w-want… WANT to have sex with you. Y-you’re gorgeous. And are kind. You you you were kind to me. But that wasn’t what today was for.”

Her face contorted slightly as she bit the backside of her bottom lip in thought. Words rose with the vulnerable elegance of a shattering ceramic vase.

“I… I wanted to as well. That’s why I wanted to. Because you didn’t expect it. Just once… it would have been nice to know what that was like. I think… it would have…”

She wiped her eyes.

“-It would have been nice. But I’m sorry, I just… not tonight…” 

Masaru nodded.

“Seeing you smile was all I wanted for today. I’m grateful I got to smile as well,” he said.

His tone confused her. There was something sinister in its parting, accepting tone. Sayane’s head tilted slightly as he slid off his shoes.

“Why are you talking like that?” she whispered.

They stood there at the threshold, inches away from one another. The fading reached his neck. Nearly all of him was turned to a smudged, half-remembered ghost. She couldn’t sense him in the same way anymore, and it caused a nervous knot to form in her already pained diaphragm.

Masaru breathed in as he looked at his all but erased arm. For whatever reason, the truth felt easier. Or, at least part of the truth.

He didn’t want to vanish without giving her some manner of warning, lest she feel as though he’d abandoned her.

“Sayane. I’m sorry. But something has happened to me. And I think it might be too late for me.”

“Too late? What, are you sick or something?” she asked.

There were lamps on both sides of the bed, and they were the only lights currently activated. As Sayane stood there waiting for an answer, Masaru couldn’t help but notice the faint glowing orbs were flanking her shoulders. They may not have been The Eyes, but they were close enough to warrant a shiver of dread.

Masaru shook the cold from his shoulders as his throat seized.

“What if… what if I told you I was fading? And I don’t think I can stop it?” he answered.

“Fading?” Sayane repeated.

Visions of the Warm Embraces mural haunted Masaru’s mind. He finally realized the hotel had been mocking him all along. His curse had been laid out before him from the day he’d been banished to that cursed place. Those two lovers were forever reaching out for one another. Never touching. Never being touched. Never knowing connection with anyone. That would be his fate. It was time to prove that.

“Try to touch me. My hand is right here in front of you,” he muttered, even though he feared he already knew what would happen.

Sayane shook her head in confusion, but still raised her free hand towards him.

Their lips parted. Masaru’s eyes closed as he braced for the final defeated revelation. Sayane’s fingers trembled as the moved closer. Inch by inch.

Then they reached the cold spot where he was supposed to be, and they passed right through. A vacuous, slicing drain tore her insides and she let out a shocked groan of horrified uncertainty as her hand jerked away in pain. Heartbreak shattered Masaru’s resolve and his hand almost fell away.

“What is happening to you?!” Sayane gasped as tears gathered in her eyes.

New throbs of hurt radiated from her fingertips and up to her chest, but she tried once again. To her terror and his grief, her hand still passed through his. Then it passed through his chest. Then it passed through his ribs. One final option remained.

Sayane’s hand raised to Masaru’s face and he almost pulled away.

“Please. Please. Let me touch you… please let me be able to touch you” she begged as tears rolled from her cheek and onto the tile.

Masaru’s eye scorched in agony. Behind her, the two lamplights shined brighter.

Her palm met his cheek and partially passed through. It stopped just below the surface, and Sayane grimaced as something otherworldly and primordially cruel dove into her essence.

Blood ran from the corner of her eyelid and from her nose, but she didn’t pull away.

“Sayane!” Masaru shouted.

His hands raised to separate them, but they fell through her.

She gritted her teeth as her blood turned black. Growling, gnashing, biting hate clacked at Masaru’s neck. His eye felt like it was about to burst. She cried out but still did not abandon the touch.

The orbs turned pure yellow and rose. Masaru watched in horror as the eyes fully appeared.

“No!!” Masaru shouted as he yanked his face away from her.

The momentum threw his body into the doorway as she crumpled onto the floor, gasping for air.

“Oh gods. Oh gods no. Please, no,” she sobbed.

Masaru steadied himself and tried to move. The darkness returned to the edges of his sight and his palm buried itself against his damaged eye socket.

“Stop! Please, STOP!!!” he begged.

But the darkness continued to bleed over. Bit by bit, his sight fell away, until only the smallest, unrefined centerpoint remained. Sayane was there in the middle, sobbing in lost confusion is more black ran from her face.

“Sayane! I’m here! I’m still here!” Masaru called out as he forced himself to her.

Muscles finally functioned and he fell forward beside her. His fading hand returned long enough to touch her, and the two of them let out a gasp of shock. Neither of them felt any manner of pain. For the first time since they’d known one another, they could truly feel the other. For one single moment, they could be alone together.

His palm met hers for only a moment and their cries stabilized as he felt the softness of her wrist just beneath his thumb and she felt the gentle pressure of his grip.