The stars twinkle in their permanence. Obi searches for a chance one may fall and comes up empty. Unwavering, resolute. Every instance of Miss’ smile flashes across his mind. It is one thing to belong so wholly to a place; it is another to a person.
He looks back at her.
One, two steps. An arm’s length.
He points at his chest. The black, shriveled up excuse of a heart. The one he thought he’d lost - cut out- down by the river, slashed up against a tree, grimace on face, sold away with words, “Job’s done, right?”
“This, right here,” he says. This broken, unrecognizable thing; this offering; this portion of a ghastly soul-
Me.
He reaches an arm around, gentle, shaking. His fingers alight, cinch on the cloth at her waist. Softly, with all the strength of a man forbidden to touch, he pulls her in, steps into her, leans his head on hers. Her hair tickles his neck, her breath echoes in his ears. His lips tremble into a smile.
“Hold onto this for me?” Obi asks.
A request snatched into the wind, a hook thrown into an unfaltering sea, a plea released. Obi’s hand lifts, moves along Miss’ back, a poor mimicry of the words he’s given away. He closes his eyes, entertaining a nearby eternity sworn to her side. An unyielding presence, but only if Miss agrees.
A hitch in breath is all the warning he gets before Miss’ arms are thrown around him. She tells him, yes, I understand. She squeezes him tight, hands drawing constellations on his back, fingers pin pricking at tiny universes over his skin. And she says the words that seal his fate.
“I’ll just have to keep holding you like this from now on then!”
Immediately, the noose loosens. It is mercy, a pardon from every sin he has ever committed. From the gallows, Obi trudges down, disoriented, only to find Miss waiting for him with open arms. Having spent every waking moment on death row, Obi finally takes the escape for what it is. And he laughs, and laughs, and laughs.
It is one thing to belong so wholly to a place, and another to someone.
The stars twinkle in their permanence, and Obi has finally found a home.
Welcome back one and all to our ninth annual Obiyuki Week! Our theme this year is:
Ballroom Dance
Each day will have a form of dance for a prompt, as well as a few themes that can be used to inspire works or continue existing ones. This ship week is open to all Obiyuki works, so even if a submission does not quite fit the day, please feel free to post and join in!
Day 1: Quadrille
Introduced in France around 1760, the Quadrille quickly became popular in 18th and 19th century ballrooms across Europe. It is performed by four couples in a square, with one couple at a time dancing while the other three rest. Although not performed in modern competitions, the quadrille late gave rise to other popular forms of dance, such as the waltz and American square dancing.
Themes: Change of Partners, Ensemble Piece, Meddling Matchmakers; White
Day 2: Foxtrot
Premiering in 1914, the Foxtrot was first danced to ragtime music before becoming the dance of choice for big bands from the late 1910s through the 1940s. Known for its elegant glide across the dance floor and quick steps, the foxtrot has since split into slow and quick versions-- also known as the quickstep
Themes: Compatibility, Banter, Swept Off Their Feet; Blue
Day 3: Paso Doble
Originating in Spain, the Paso Doble's dramatic steps are meant to imitate the movements of a bullfight, with the lead playing matador and the follow being either cape or bull. It is often known as the "man's dance," since it displays the lead position-- traditionally male-- to its best advantage.
Themes: Conflict, Obi POV, Vying For Dominance; Red
Day 4: Viennese Waltz
The first ballroom dance to be danced in closed position-- aka, partners hold each other while facing toward each other-- the Viennese Waltz caused a scandal when it was introduced in late 18th century ballrooms. It became fashionable during the Regency period, though it remained "riotous and indecent" as late 1825.
Themes: Scandal, Tradition, Falling in Love; Silver
Day 5: Rhumba
The slowest of the Latin dances performed in modern competition, the Rhumba was first danced in the streets of Cuba before gaining popularity in the early 20th century and becoming what is now known as Ballroom Rumba. Known for its sensual movements and emphasis on hips, it is both known as the "dance of love" and the "woman's dance" for showing off the skill of its follow.
Themes: Intimate, Shirayuki POV, Hips Don't Lie; Green
Day 6: Tango
Another dance tamed to the tastes of ballroom-goers, the Tango originated as an improvisational dance in the lower-class neighborhoods of Buenos Aires and was brought to the United States by immigrants in the early 20th century. It is characterized by drama and passion and precise footwork.
Themes: Passion, Close Quarters, Rivals-to-Lovers; Black
Day 7: West Coast Swing (Free Day)
Evolving from the Lindy Hop of the 1930s, West Coast Swing started as an adaptation of the dance to fit a more crowded dance floor, before gaining popularity as a style all its own in the 1960s. Meant to be improvisational and playful, it best showcases the connection between partners.
Written not only for Obiyukiweek but also for @sepalina, the last winner of the holiday raffle! It was never supposed to take so long to finish all of these but HERE WE ARE 🤣
The Marshal’s office might be the finest under the fortieth floor, but as nice as it is, Shirayuki has to admit: she’s getting sick of it.
“Sit down.” He already is, sparing her no more than a curl of his fingers as he pores over the tablet in his hand. “I’ve taken the liberty of arranging some tea.”
Making her mug appear was magic the first dozen times he managed it, but over that last two weeks, it’s turned from treat to trick. Just another one of the hundreds of ways the Marshal can pull the dome’s strings, closing and opening curtains, making tea mugs and pilots appear out of thin air. Maybe for his next trick, he’ll saw Zen in half too.
Shirayuki takes her seat, but she declines to take a sip. A detail that draws the Marshal’s interest; he glances up, setting aside the tablet with a hum. “All business today, I see, Dr Lyon.”
“We’re both busy people.” He is, at least, and it’s not as if he can tell how many hours she’s spent staring at the drop ceiling panels rather than academic journals lately just by looking at her. “I didn’t imagine you called me in here to catch up.”
Not when he’s had her in here every other day for the last seven. Shirayuki’s gotten more oversight in the past two weeks than she’s had the whole two years she’s been under this dome, and every last bit of it’s been about—
“The report on Obi’s postmortem.” Izana shifts in his chair without so much as a creak. “I haven’t seen it yet. Was wondering where it might be, in fact.”
Her palms press to the chair’s arms, steadying her. His mouth curls, too knowing, with every stretch of her knuckles. “I’m not done with it.”
“Is that so?” His eyebrows arch toward his hairline, like two terns taking flight. “It’s been several days, Dr Lyon. How unlike you.”
“My analysis” — is protected by doctor-patient confidentiality. That’s what she wants to say, at least, but this isn’t private sector, where the most dangerous piece of machinery one of her clients could get behind is the car they drive home in. No, this is the PPDC and all these people are soldiers, rated to handle ordnance that could take out whole cities, and—
And Obi had pointed one of them right at CIC. “It’s taking longer than expected.”
And would probably never be done. One session was hardly enough to get the broad strokes of something so…complex, let alone declare whether he was mentally fit enough to climb back in a Jaeger. And Obi didn’t seem to be in any rush to put himself back in the Conn-Pod— let alone her couch.
“Then give me your opinion.”
“Excuse me?” Shirayuki blinks. “It would hardly be professional to—”
“I am not interested in your professional integrity, Dr Lyon.” No, of course not; the Marshal’s made it supremely clear that his only concern is whether there will be two bodies strapped into Rex Tyrannis when the next siren blares. “I am interested in your expertise.”
“But it— it’s all conjecture,” she sputters, an indignant flush struggling its way over her cheeks. “There’s no possible precedence for me to base an opinion on…just…just…gut feeling!”
“You sell yourself short, Doctor.” Sharks smile with more sincerity than the Marshal smirks. “Around here, they call that instinct. All those rangers— they live or die by it.”
With his three-piece suit and hair longer than the regulations that ban it, it’s easy to forget: Izana Wisteria used to be one of them. “I can’t—”
“Tell yourself we’re having a friendly chat, if you have to.” His hands fold neatly over his desk, impatience in every twitch. “But for God’s sake, Doctor, tell me something.”
Her mouth works, trying to conjure some other excuse— integrity, ignorance, anything that might buy her another day, another week before she has to label Obi a lost cause or ready for action—
But when her eyes close, the lids bleed plasma blue, just the way they had in the CIC. “If I were treating a patient in the private sector, I would say they were experiencing chronic, coherent, and vivid auditory hallucinations, possibly consistent with a trauma of some kind, either physical or psychological.”
“You think he’s experiencing a break with reality.” The Marshal doesn’t so much move as lengthen, the space between chair and desk yawning into a chasm with only a tilt of his chin. “Schizophrenic. That’s what you would call it, isn’t it?”
His teeth snap around the word, steely enough to make her toes curl.
“That’s only one out of a dozen possible diagnoses.” Though certainly the top of a very small list. “And even with a typical patient, the lack of other obvious and intrusive psychoses would make a schizophrenia diagnosis hardly past muster.”
“A typical patient, hm?” One elegant brow raises. “And what about our dear Major, then?”
“With Obi…” She licks her lips, one knee crossing tightly over the other until she half twisted in her seat. “With Obi, I’m not even certain it is a psychosis.”
His head tilts. “Explain.”
Shirayuki clears her throat, nerves making her voice threadier, higher as she says, “There is an observable phenomenon found among rangers that have drifted for a prolonged period of time with the same copilot, a…synchronicity that extends past the initial Neural Handshake and into their everyday lives. You might be familiar with the term ghost drifting.”
The Marshal’s mouth curls at a corner. “Intimately.”
“Right, well, some people might find themselves reaching for a snack that they can’t stand simply because their copilot craves it, while others report a…heightened awareness of their partner’s emotions— or sometimes even thoughts— without them being expressed verbally.” There were its skeptics, of course, but most of those papers came from the private sector, from professionals who has never set foot on a hangar deck but wrote analyses of works of those who did, calling them sentimental at best and intellectually compromised at worst. The sort of baseless, armchair speculation that could be cured by five minutes in any dome’s commissary. “There’s not much independent study on the exact mechanics of it, but there’s theories based on casual observation from data collected from K-Science. That at some point the brain stops thinking of the other mind as a foreign entity but some other part of itself, and when the Handshake is over and the Pons completely disconnects, it experiences the copilot’s body as a, er…”
“Phantom limb?”
“Yes, exactly.” Shirayuki does not smile so much as relax, the corners of her mouth naturally settling more up than down. PPDC may not see much human conflict— few soldiers do nowadays, not when there’s a much more extraterrestrial threat looming on the doorstep— but it’s still military. As much as the branches might love to butt heads, jockeying to be the biggest, buffest kid on the world’s playground, amputation’s always been the great equalizer. “Except— ah, I don’t know if you know the science behind it, but…?”
Izana opens a hand, magnanimous. “Assume that I don’t.”
Ah, right. With the other branches, their soldiers still get to go home after a failed engagement. The most Rangers can hope for is for the kaiju to take them out quick before their Jaeger becomes a titanium coffin on the ocean floor. “I’m sure it comes as no surprise when I say that the amputation process is traumatic— not just for the patient, but for their body as well. Multiple organ systems are cut— bone, muscle, skin, blood vessels, and, most importantly, their nerves. They all heal over time, but it’s the nerves that take the longest. So when they get stimulated— ah, like when a patient moves, or twitches, or even just gets an itch— the sensory fibers will report what they should be feeling, rather than what they do. It’s…it’s neural feedback, with nowhere to go. No, wait, more like…with no place to come from.”
“And this…is what you think the Major is experiencing?” It’s impossible to tell what Izana thinks; his face might as well be a mirror for as much as she’s getting off of him. “That it’s all…neural feedback he’s interpreting as his dead copilots.”
“No. Yes. Ah…maybe.” Sweat prickles under her arms and behind her ears, itchy and off-putting. Distracting, which is the last thing she needs to be in front of a man who might as well be a tank of starving piranhas considering his potential to chew up her professional reputation and spit it out. “That’s all theoretical. And it certainly seems plausible, it just…it doesn’t seem to account for, ah…”
He raises a brow. “I am patient, Dr Lyon, but I don’t have all day.”
“Right, it’s just…the phantom limb phenomenon seems to explain what we see when both partners are…extant. But when one dies— especially when they’re in the drift when it happens…” Her shoulders don’t so much shrug as twitch, flinching back from the unknown. “You’ll have to forgive me, there’s not much data on this, since…”
Since most Jaegers don’t make it back home with solo pilots. And the ones that do, well— the PPDC is still military. As far as most Rangers are concerned, psychiatrists are the enemy. “It seems that what remains of them continues to…drift with their copilot. Even after they’re disengaged from the Pons.”
“Are you trying to say that there is an actual ghost in the drift?” Izana leans back in his chair, shadows gathering in the sharp, patrician planes of his face. “That Obi is being haunted by the crew of the Hachimaru?”
“Not haunted.” Her tongue tangles, science and speculation at a roiling boil in her mind before she stumbles out, “Just…what if while they were in the Neural Handshake, they never let go?”
“Does that bring us back to the phantom limb, then?” The Marshal has never posed a question that hasn’t been half an interrogation too, but even Shirayuki has to admit he seems…interested. Invested, even. “A reflexive reach for the familiar? Neural impulses with nowhere to go?”
A shrug is never an answer— it’s a placeholder, an um or a hm in physical form. A pause right before the threshold of discovery, a stalling tactic to keep from facing what lays beyond just not thinking about it. And yet, it’s what Shirayuki does now, trying to keep the rest of her from squirming under the searing light of Izana’s attention. “It’s as likely a theory as any, at least. And in line with the current conclusions being drawn in drift research. It’s just…”
The Marshal’s brow curves in an arc too elegant for a man whose office is so far below the bay it can’t even have windows. “Just?”
There’s an itch this theory doesn’t quite scratch, a niggling that won’t stop pulling at her sleeve. “I don’t know what happened with the Hachimaru. I mean— before what Obi can remember. There’s nothing in the PPDC database on it” — or at least, none that she is cleared to see— “but everything we’ve been told…I mean, child soldiers? The training? There wasn’t even supposed to be a base in Osaka. There’s no telling what was done to those kids, let alone what long-term effects it could have had on their psyche.”
Or their bodies. Or even— even the drift. The implications of who Obi is— what Obi is—
“I’ll see what I can find.”
Shirayuki jerks back as Izana rises from his desk to pace the room. “Pardon me?”
“I’m sure you know my arms have a much further reach than yours, Dr Lyon.” His mouth slants into a smirk; wry, she thinks at first, but when he turns his head, it reads rueful. “If there’s something to find, I’ll find it. And if there isn’t…”
It’s him who shrugs now, but not to say, who knows, but rather— I’ll find it even so. “Now if you’ll excuse me, doctor, I should be getting myself down to the infirmary.”
Instinct has her half out of her chair before she manages, “Has something happened?”
“Ah.” Rueful widens into amused. “So you haven’t heard.”
*
It’s the sort of thing that’s bound to happen in any testosterone-soaked environment; get some young men together, force them to compete for a few coveted opportunities for promotion— and, most importantly, recognition— and it’s inevitable that tempers flare. The Academy’s major export is big egos, and the dome is the pressure cooker the PPDC puts them under, trying to see which will crack first. That Obi’s gotten himself in a dust up now isn’t so much a surprise as it is that it didn’t happen before, but…
She didn’t think it’d be Mitsuhide who put him in the infirmary.
“They’re both there, if you want to get right down to it,” Yuzuri informs her with no little relish, warming up for what will undoubtedly be an entertaining— if not extended— bout of complaining over commissary chicken and rice. “Lowen may have gotten in the harder hit, but I gotta say, that guy gave as good as he got. The major’s covered head to toe in bruises, and none of them are in comfortable places.”
“Is there a comfortable place to have a bruise?” Suzu asks around a mouthful of pudding— eaten first, no matter how many times Shirayuki’s insinuated dessert is supposed to be a treat for finishing a meal, not just sitting down to one. “I’ve gotten a couple in some pretty inaccessible places, and I don’t know, they always seem to hurt more than just like, my elbow, or even my leg.”
“That’s not the point, Suzu.” Yuzuri flicks her ponytail over her shoulder, unconcerned by how much of him is caught in the spray. “There’s not a single guy under the dome that hasn’t thrown down with the major and been dismantled for the trouble, and here Obi goes, deciding to go bare fists against him with no ref, no rules. He should have been wheeled out of the gym in a body bag, but the guy doesn’t even have a concussion.”
“Woah.” His eyes blow wide, mouth rounding to match— or at least, it tries; Suzu snaps his teeth shut just as they all are reminded that pudding isn’t liquid or solid, but a third, utterly different state of matter, beholden to its own rules. “I’ll have to tell him—”
“Don’t you say a word about it!” Yuzuri waggles a warning finger at him; her implied menace more effective at stopping Suzu in his tracks than if she’d laid hands on him. “Sure, I’m impressed as hell, but if that guy gets one whiff of positive reinforcement on this, he’ll be unlivable, and you know it!”
“Aw, but—”
“Nope! You figure out some other way to make your bromance blossom or whatever” She huffs, taking a desultory bite of the world’s saddest salad. “I refuse to have him hovering around, asking me to tell him how cool he is again. I’ve got my hands full just convincing him he can pee without me holding his dick for him, god.”
The fork jitters right out of Shirayuki’s fingers, landing on the tray with a clink they might be able to hear all the way in the hangar. “Is he really that bad?”
“Huh? Oh, no.” Yuzuri waves her off, scraping out a laugh. “If that was the case, I’d be enjoying this nearly food-like meal in a doggy bag at my desk. But they’re both fine— Obi just likes to see how far he can push this whole invalid shtick before I kick him out for a little peace and quiet.”
Suzu blinks. “How long do you think that is?”
“Twenty-four hours on the dot.” She spears a tomato, letting it bleed all over lettuce and croutons before she puts it behind her teeth. “If he hasn’t fallen into a concussive coma by then, he’s not my problem.”
“Unless he finds another way to hurt himself,” Suzu offers, thoughtful. “The Rangers are pretty good at that.”
Yuzuri sighs hard enough her bangs flutter. “Don’t remind me.”
“But he’s all right?” Shirayuki clears her throat as they turn to stare at her. “I mean, both of them. They’re…fine?”
“Well, obviously I can’t say uninjured, but it’s all just bumps and bruises.” Yuzuri’s shoulders twitch toward a shrug. “They’re in the infirmary more out of an abundance of caution than any real concern. And in Obi’s case, well”—she snorts, shaking her head— “he’s enjoying the idea of being waited on hand and foot. I’m just lucky the Marshal wanted a word, otherwise I’d be fending off spoon-feeding requests all dinner.”
Shirayuki blinks. “The Marshal’s still down there?”
“Oh yeah.” There’s a vengeful slant to Yuzuri’s grin, enough to send a shiver down her spine. “He told me to take a whole hour before coming back. And to smell the roses on the way down.”
Suzu lets out a long whistle. “Someone’s in trouble.”
Shirayuki’s stomach twists, tying itself not just into worried knots but discovering wholly unknown polygons of anxiety. It’s hard to handle Izana seated, even at his friendliest, but Obi— Obi’s stuck in one of the infirmary cots, the Marshal no doubt looming over him, unleashing the full force of his wrath. Oh, she’s run the gamut of Izana’s displeasure in the year and change since she’s come under the dome; she’s weathered his frustration, and impatience, and sometimes downright civil hostility. But mad?
She swallows, nearly choking on the heart lodged in her throat. Mad is something else entirely.
“Too bad,” Suzu sighs, finally scooping up a spoonful of rice. “I’d been hoping to stop by his office and show him the new projections. Now that we’ve solved the rounding error—”
“Wasn’t it a variable?” Yuzuri reminds him, too sweet. “A whole number you completely left out of your precious—”
“—ROUNDING ERROR that Ryuu discovered,” Suzu continues, undaunted, “I think we’re really starting to see that there’s a marked decrease of interval length, followed by an increase of kaiju—”
The table rattles as she stands, half-eaten rice making a liar out of her even as she says, “I think I’m finished.”
Yuzuri glances down at her tray, mouth pursing as she takes in what’s left. “Are you sure? The food actually looks halfway decent tonight. Better than this salad, at least. Should have just taken the lumps with those calories instead of—”
“Yeah.” She can’t eat when her stomach taking more tumbles than an acrobat, no safety net on this bout of nerves. “I just…”
Don’t know what a concussion will do to someone like him, is what she wants to say— what she should say as a professional, as the person who’s being pinned handle his condition long-term. But what she means is, I can’t just let him deal with Izana all on his own.
“I have a thing,” she says lamely. “And some paperwork. I’ll, uh, come back later if I get hungry.”
Suzu only nods as she slips out from the bench, adding, “Say ‘hi’ to Obi for me.”
*
Worry dogs her heels with every stride she takes down the quiet corridors, the metallic echo of her steps chasing her around every corner. It’s eerie at this time of night; the dome buzzes at most hours, day and night having no meaning without windows to help mark when one rises and the other sets, but with dinner served up hot and ready, only the PPDC’s most essential personal stay at their posts, waiting for the next shift to relieved them.
Shirayuki should be relieved too; going toe-to-toe with the Marshal is the sort of event that some enterprising officer could sell tickets to. With halls this bare— and the only spare set of eyes being Mitsuhide’s, who could probably make a career out of taking other people’s secrets to the grave— she’s practically guaranteed to keep this tête-à-tête private, and yet—
Yet she turns the last corner, and suddenly her slip-ons’ soles might as well be magnets for all struggle it takes to lift them an inch off the floor. It’s impossible to keep forward momentum, to do anything but stand still and wait, and— and—
Interrupting’s the right thing to do— she feels it, deep in her gut; the same place Rangers say they know when someone will take their hand in the drift, or whether a Kaiju’s going to fight to the death or cut and run once they’re against the ropes. It’s what she’d hope someone would do for her, if she was stuck playing wave breaker for Izana’s storm, but still, still—
She’s not sure she’d thank them for it. It might be nice dreaming of the rescue, but when someone actually rides to it, when they take the whole situation out of her hands and tells her to take a back seat, well…
Shirayuki’s known enough princes not to find that charming. Or at least the ones that think they are, taking choices right out of her hands and calling it kindness. The last thing she wants is Obi see her stride in and think, here we go, another person who thinks they can run my life better than me.
Her fingers curl, nails biting into the fleshy part of her palms. She could go in there still, just— just sit beside him as he took his lumps, but it feels too passive, too much like she’s just acting as witness rather than support, like this whole thing is an official part of his treatment, and she— she—
She sees someone idling down the corridor, just across from the infirmary door. A familiar someone, pale hair flopping as he runs his hand through it, looking just as tortured each time he reached for the door, only to flinch away, like it burns.
“Zen?” His name falls off her tongue before she can swallow it, lips too numb to do more than let it stumble out, more habit than question.
He startles, eyes wild as they dart up, looking for all the world like he’d rather have been caught in the women’s locker room than found here. “S-shirayuki! I wasn’t— I mean, I was just” — hanging around in the hallway, it seems like— “I’d been passing by and I thought I’d, er…”
His chin jerks down the junction of corridors; not the way she came, or the way directly opposite where the hangar sits, but the third option, leading back toward— “You were coming from the women’s bathroom?”
“What?” Zen’s neck swivels, chasing grating and plate all the way back to where the sign reads RESTROOM, a clear stick figure and skirt painted next to it. A strange sign to have in a facility where ninety percent of the population elects to wear BDUs regardless of gender, but Shirayuki supposes it makes its point. “No! I, er…”
It’s habit to wait him out, to let him finish composing his thoughts before she makes any attempt to guide him— but impatience wins out, this time. “Were on your way to the infirmary?”
“Ah…yeah. That’s it.” Red blooms over the tips of his ears, like he’s seen too much sun. “I just heard that Mitsuhide was down here, so I thought that I would, you know, check up on him.”
Her head tilts, and oh, she hopes it looks more curious than confrontational. “You’re here for Mitsuhide?”
“Well, you know, it’s just weird for him to get caught up in something like this.” He scratches at the back of his neck, and Shirayuki would bet dollars to donuts that if she could see under his jacket collar, it’d be sunburn red there too. “A fight, I mean. He’ll spar with the other guys of whatever, but they don’t, you know…”
End up in the infirmary. Rangers are tough by design, not easy to break; once they roll out the Academy doors, they’re combat rated and ready, eager to take down monsters a hundred times their size. A man head and shoulders taller doesn’t give even a cadet pause— not until they end up flat on their backs, wondering how they mistook strength for slow.
But Mitsuhide— Mitsuhide is careful too. He might be a decorated combatant, a seasoned killer of kaiju, but when it comes to squaring up with humans, he might as well be fighting with kid gloves. She’s seen him on the mats before, carefully feeling out the edges of what his partner can take, making sure their spar is a challenge but not a rout.
Mistakes happen, she knows. Too much force behind a swing or fumbled footwork could send anyone to med bay, looking for a bandaid or a cold compress. Even Mitsuhide’s had his bell rung once or twice, too focused on keeping his opponent on their feet to watch how close their jo came to sweeping his. But for both of them to end up on a cot, well…
It’s concerning to say the least. Especially when the other body in that bay is supposed to be—
“I heard it was Obi in there with him.” Zen shrugs, but it doesn’t look casual. Not a smooth motion, but two pickets rattling up and down by his ears, never quite settling back to where they shoulder. By the pink spreading over his cheeks, he’s well aware. “I just thought that I…I don’t know, that I could…”
Talk to him. He doesn’t say it, but he doesn’t need to: the words are scrawled across his face, written in bold-faced print for anyone to see. Fix something.
“Would you like to talk about it?” It’s reflex to ask, really— one she doesn’t even realize she’s done until his eyes blink wide, jaw slackening to match. “My office isn’t too far down the hall.”
He hesitates, eyeing her warily before he asks, “Unofficially?”
“Of course. As friends.” That’s what she’d meant anyway, she thinks. “If that’s what you want.”
There’s another, longer pause; his eyes shifting away from her to the door and then back again before her nods. “Yeah. I think I do.”
*
Her fingers are already reaching for a pen, palm pressed right against the soft cover of her notebook when Zen says, “You promised.”
The pen rattles back into the holder, knocking aside its mismatched brethren before settling into place.
“Habit,” Shirayuki laughs, suddenly all too aware of herself in space, of how she’s practically hanging over her desk. Of how desperate she looks to categorize his thoughts into neat little boxes, like somehow it might make hers more orderly too. “It won’t happen again.”
“Are you sure?” The corner of his mouth hitches up, a smirk she knows all too well. “I am about to be really interesting, you know. You’ll be itching to put it in my file.”
It would be entirely inappropriate to say, I know. “I promised,” she says instead. “Boundaries are important. For both professionals and clients.”
“Is that what I am now?” He’s smiling still, joking, but there’s no humor in it. “Your client?”
“No, you are what you’ve always been.” It stings as she smiles, folding up her legs beneath her, but sweetly. “My friend.”
His smirk falters into a frown, that direct, almost challenging stare of his foundering to the floor. “Really? I don’t think I’ve been a very good one lately. Not to you.” He sighs, leaning into his hand. “Hell, not to anyone, I guess.”
“Is that what’s worrying you right now? That you’re not being a good friend?”
Zen snorts, sending her a wry look. “You’re doing it again. The therapist thing.”
“Ah! Er…” Heat prickles at her cheeks, and she doesn’t have to see Zen’s grin to know it’s a blush breaking out over them, just as obvious as any of his. “Sorry, force of habit.”
“Don’t worry about it. Honestly, I think it’d be weirder if you didn’t try,” he admits, letting himself relax into the couch cushions. The way he used to before, when it was just him and her and a way to steal time under his brother’s nose. “I don’t really care about the friend thing. No wait, I don’t mean—I do care about being friends, and er, being a good one, but that’s not really my biggest problem right now.”
“It isn’t?” Her head tilts, an invitation. “Then what is?”
He stares at her wearily. “Really?”
“Oh! I really…” Her hands clap to her cheeks, but it does nothing for the heat radiating beneath her palms. “I didn’t meant to that time. I just…it’s Obi, isn’t it? You’re worried about him, even more than Mitsuhide.”
Zen lets his head drop back, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s kinda hard not to be. I mean, if you’d seen what I saw in there…”
“You mean in the drift?” Electricity zips through her fingers, chasing her nerves up her spine, and she pitches forward, struggling to keep the eagerness from her voice. “Can I…can ask what happened? When you were in there, in his…?”
Mind. Memories. There’s hardly a difference either way,
He doesn’t lift his head, but she sees the muscles of his neck move, the furrow of his brow implied rather than implicit. “You don’t know? I thought you and Obi had some sort of postmortem or whatever. I figured he’d be your favorite patient by now.”
“No. We never got past broad strokes. I don’t even think I could call him a patient.” It’s strange how relief floods her as she says that— not my patient— and how quickly guilt twists her stomach right after. He should be her patient, she should be helping, she just— just—
Doesn’t want to. Not like that anyway. From the outside. Professionally. But she’s not being given much of a choice. “I think it was too difficult for him to get past all the…commentary.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” He eyes her, almost speculative, before shaking his head. “It’s confusing in there. I don’t even know how he manages to walk and think at the same time, let alone mouth off the way he does. But you know about…?”
“Osaka, and the Hachimaru,” she confirms, the fabric of her skirt dimpling between her fingers. “That there were unauthorized experiments going on with the number of pilots in a Jaeger. That they were all…” Children. She can’t bring herself to say it. “You probably know more than me.”
“Maybe. Not enough. Too much. I don’t know.” Zen sighs, his head rocking forward, bowing over his knees. “It’s just…I don’t want to go talking about stuff that’s really his to tell. But…yeah, there was something with Osaka’s program. Some lack of oversight— or maybe everyone was purposefully looking away, who can tell? But there was seven of them, all packed into one Jaeger, in a big row like— like sardines in a can, and their commander, this woman, she—”
He rubs at his arm, teeth grit. “Let’s just say, she wasn’t a good mother figure.”
“Seven of them?” She’d heard of three— Crimson Typhoon and its triplet pilots— but more than one report had said they were like one mind in three bodies, rather than the other way around. That there was something wrong with them from drifting so often so young. Seven completely different children, forced to link mind in some unregulated daisy chain since before they were even in puberty… “How many of them are…?”
“They’re all in there,” he says, toneless. “Like they never left. Just a whole Con-Pod filled with…”
Ghosts. Shirayuki never was one of the girls who would shiver at a scary story, or see faces in the dark— no point in inventing horrors when there were plenty more real ones lurking just off shore. But there’s no better term for this, these leftover impulses that stalk Obi’s brain stem, or…whatever they were.
“I wish…” Zen doesn’t have Obi’s sharp jaw or Mitsuhide’s square one; his muscles don’t stand out in relief when they flex, but she sees the tension in his throat, the swallow. “I wish he’d just talk to me about it, you know? He saw all my shit and just took it, and now that I’ve seen all his…”
His hand scrapes through his hair, tugging at the ends. “He knows I’m not afraid of him, doesn’t he? That I don’t care? I just want…”
She thought she’d known what yearning looked like on his face, what harsh planes even the briefest touch of it could carve, but she sees him now, mouth twisted so tight it carves new fissures into his cheeks, biting runnels into the corners of his eyes, and she knows— however much he’d wanted her, it doesn’t come close to how much he wants this.
“I don’t know. We’ve talked, but Obi hasn’t really told me what he’s thinking.” And by now, Shirayuki knows better than to guess. “But I think…I think he does. He just…isn’t ready for that right now.”
For being known. For being accepted despite it.
“When he is though,” she adds, carefully picking around the words. “You should tell him.”
“I’m trying,” Zen sighs, sliding further onto her couch. “I’m trying.”
