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Hanako reaches for the bandages, hand trembling as he closes his fingers around the familiar linen and gauze. He can’t look at her, not yet, anyway. This is all his fault. She stays quiet, just as she was all the way up the stairs. He grabs the antiseptic and a handful of cotton balls, floating back over to her to dump them on the bed beside her.
She keeps her head turned away from him, but he doesn’t take it personally. It's his fault she’s gotten hurt, his fault that she’s waiting for his calloused hands to fix her. He soaks one cotton ball, picks up her little hand, and swipes it over the abrasion there. Hanako waits for the little explosion of scales, keeps moving and cleaning as they shimmer up the line of her arm.
Hanako accepts the little tube of antibiotic ointment from Hakujoudai, smoothing it over the wounds after the shiny scales have fallen to the sheet beneath her. Yashiro turns as he shifts to grab the bandages, and he smiles down at her as softly as he can as he unravels the gauze.
Amane sniffled softly as he sank to the floor behind the curtain, staring down at the smear of red across his hands. He’d thought it was going to be okay, he thought that everything was finally starting to get better. He was doing better in classes, he was trying…
He hiccuped and shoved his palm over his cheek, wiping away the tear streaking down over his skin. He could hear his books, their pages torn and crumpled, turning in the breeze from the window. How was he going to explain to Tsuchigomori-sensei that they’d been destroyed? How was he going to be able to ask his parents for the money to replace them without spilling just what was happening to him?
Just as Amane was about to fold, there was a soft sound from the middle of the room, quickly followed by a bright and happy cheer. There was something familiar about the giddy girlish voice floating in the empty space, and he couldn’t help but peek around the curtain to see.
…it couldn’t be…
She was hurrying across the room before he could process her rapid-fire questions, before he could even think to flinch away from her soft hands as they took his and lamented over the cuts and bruises. She was still exactly as she had been all those years ago when she’d given him so much hope.
Amane jumped to his feet and sprinted out of the room, ignoring her calls for him to come back. He couldn’t let her see how broken he’d become. Couldn’t tarnish the brilliance of her smile with sorrow that he wasn’t strong enough to carry on his own.
Hanako winds the gauze over her pale skin in a cruel memory of the way Tsuchigomori-sensei had done the same so many years ago. There should never be bandages on Yashiro; she should always be unmarked and pristine. She should be blush pink instead of bruised, glowing instead of the haunted look that made her look like him.
He helps her sit up so he can reach her other arm, apologizing as her hand slips from his and hits the bed. His eyes shoot to her face, wincing with her as he picks it back up to continue his ministrations. Hanako drops another bloody cotton ball to the floor, sweeping it over the edge before he dampens another and keeps going.
This arm is worse, jagged lines carved into the soft skin, her ribbon soaked through from trying to staunch the blood. It has finally stopped, and he sighs in relief as he unwinds it. He’d been so worried that he’d been too late to help her as she’d screamed and fallen back. But she’s just fine, the wounds are deep but nothing that can’t be fixed, and he’s an expert at patching them up.
An old hand, he says with a chuckle, and he doesn't need to look at her to know he’s getting a disapproving look. He apologizes again as more scales burst over her skin, and he has to pick them out of the wounds so he can keep working.
Yashiro shouted and cried as she shook one scaly fist in his direction, and Hanako just floated higher in a loop as he reminded her that if she hadn’t been so impulsive, she wouldn’t have this problem. He dodged the rubber glove she’d pulled off when her hand slipped into the bucket, shiny scales still glittering in the fluorescent light of the bathroom.
It wasn’t the glamorous form of a mermaid she’d been imagining, he knew that for a fact. He’d seen the gooey romance novels she hid in her bag, all dashing rouges and dainty sirens that made her ears turn red when she read them under her desk in lessons. She wanted the long sweeping tail, the magic voice; instead, she became such a cute little fish.
He dodged another glove and swooped down before she could grab something else, snatching up a paper towel to pat her arm dry. The Bond flickered in his chest and he shoved it down, locking it back away before the power could creep across to Yashiro. If it made the connection, she was going to be stuck with him, and it would ruin everything he was trying to do to set her free.
Hanako finishes wrapping her other arm and moves down to the tear in her tights. He can't help but blush and fumble as he tears the hole a bit wider on her thigh so he can tape a square of gauze over the cut. It's not as bad as the one on her opposite calf, which takes two rolls of bandages all its own. Maybe it's a bit overkill, but he would rather be safe than sorry. She’s already going to be hurting when she wakes up tomorrow.
He pulls off her shoes and sits them on the floor beside his pile of discarded cotton balls, and waits for the roll of her head before he rips her tights at her knees and rolls them down. He lets them drop to the floor with her shoes, and brushes his thumb over her ankle before she can kick him. He wraps both carefully, tying little bows against the bone before he smiles up at her.
She’s doing so well, he tells her as he pulls a bandaid loose from the box brought over and wraps it around her ring finger, so much less whiny than the kid would be if he was in her place. He folds a few more around bruised joints before he presses a quick kiss to her palm. He looks up at her shyly, her ruby eyes dark and shadowed with the moonlight spilling in behind her.
Amane held up the pearlescent coin Nene-nee-chan had dropped when she went flying off. It had fallen out of her little bag, and he’d looked around for her to return it before Tsukasa had come hurtling around the corner and tackled him down the hill.
His brother had already tried to eat it once, so Amane tucked it into his treasure box; not even Tsukasa would take things from it. He pulled it out every night, trying to figure out what it was. It tasted a bit salty, like licking your fingers after you’d been in the ocean, but oddly floral too. Maybe it had been Nene-nee-chan’s perfume or lotion that had been spilled on it.
Whatever it was, it was nothing that Amane had ever seen before. Neither of his parents had seen anything like it either, so maybe it was magic. Tsukasa called him silly, but Tsukasa always said that. Silly Amane, he would say, before he pounced and tried to lick him.
He turned it in the light from the lamp on their table, watching as it almost glowed in the warm light. It kinda looked like a scale, like one from the koi that swam in the little pools around the temple they went to. Amane jumped up with a gasp and jumped over Tsukasa coloring on the floor to scramble to their bookshelf, pulling out the picture book that was dusty with disuse.
There, on the cover, sitting on a rock and singing was a mermaid. Her long shiny tail dipped down into the water, but Amane knew it had to be just like the scale he held in his hand. Nene-nee-chan was a mermaid! Maybe that's why she was being so weird and mysterious. He tucked it back into his treasure box and flopped down on his futon to color too, taking the seafoam green to color in the hair of the princess in their coloring book.
Hanako helps Yashiro scoot down the blankets until she’s flat on her back, and hopes she’s blushing as bad as he is as he pushes her skirt up so he can dab at the wound on her belly. He can see the outline of her panties through her tights, and rips his eyes away from the little bow he can make out beneath the sheer fabric before she hits him.
It's his fault she’s hurt, he reminds himself, and it's no time to ogle her. Maybe she’ll let him once she’s all healed up, especially after the way she’d grabbed him and kissed him right before…
He folds her skirt back down as soon as he’s done, helping her sit back up as he leans in close to clean up the cuts on her face. They're so small, but head wounds bleed so much, so it takes him a lot of time to clean away the blood caked on her cheeks and matted in her hair. The scales keep getting in the way too, and he ignores the way they clink together on the sheet around them, like seashells rolling in the surf.
Hanako cups her face gently as he swipes a spot of blood off her lips, tells her they’ll have to go back to the beach Boundary soon. He hums as he sticks a bandaid just under her fringe, barely even noticeable as he sits back with a wide smile.
Only one more to go.
Nene screamed, high and loud and horrible as Hanako turned.
Yashiro smacked Hanako’s hand away from her bento before he could sneak his fingers in and steal an onigiri. He pouted up at her, but she turned to her thermos to open it; he wouldn’t try again. And she was right. He waited until she’d poured a cup of tea before he reached again, holding his hands out pleadingly.
She sighed and set one in his hands, hiding her smile behind the second one she’d made as he devoured it in three bites. He poked through the rest of the things she’d brought, crowing in delight as he found the donuts she’d made the night before.
She’d spent hours scrolling through old-fashioned recipes online, trying to find something that would have been close to what Hanako could have had when he’d still been alive. She’d finally found one, so simple with only a few ingredients, but it must have been right with the way he moaned as he sank his teeth into the pastry.
She blushed, and it was her own fault for trying to hide her blush with her cup and spilling tea over her hand. Yashiro gave a little shout, not really for any reason but surprise, but Hanako was folding his icy palms over her skin and scales before she could tell him she was fine.
She should tell him it didn't hurt, that her tea was lukewarm at best; but maybe in a minute. Maybe after her heart slowed back down from something thunderous in her chest, after his eyes stopped looking like warm amber, like rich honey, like safety and friendship and something she didn't want to name just yet.
Hanako screamed as he tore into the creature. There was so much blood…
Hanako sets a kiss on Yashiro’s forehead as she closes her eyes, and he sets to wrapping the final hurt. He folds and tucks the white linen neat and precise; just like watching Tsukasa make origami cranes. He ties the ends into cute little bows, just like the ones around her ankles…around her wrists…around her throat…
He swings Yashiro up into his arms once he’s done, leaving the mess of the infirmary bed behind them. He doesn't look back at the crimson puddled on the sheets, on the droplets splatted over the floor and walls. He keeps his head up so the crown of her head fits neatly against his shoulder as he floats down the hall.
He ignores the carnage around them as he makes his way out the doors, as the supernaturals lucky enough to survive dive out of sight as soon as he appears. They don't matter to him now, Yashiro is the most important thing.
“Hey,..hey Yashiro, you’re gonna be fine.”
“Ha-Hana…ko-kun…”
“Shhh, it's okay. You’re gonna be fine.”
“Ha…Amane.”
“...Nene…”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Everything is going to be just fine. I swear.”
Tsukasa is bouncing on his toes and floats right up as soon as Hanako steps into the practice garden. Nanamine is beside him, eyes not on him but the bundle in his arms. She doesn't waver, doesn't shy away from the wild look in his eyes as the raw power tumbles off him. She’s used to the unfettered energy of an unsealed apparition; Tsukasa’s power rolls through her with every second of her borrowed breaths.
She helps Hanako sit Yashiro carefully on the edge of the koi pond, holding the younger girl as the twins work out the steep price of this Wish. Hanako watches her eyes close as he and Tsukasa seal their deal. He knows she’s judging him with those solemn viridian eyes, but he can’t lose Yashiro.
Hanako holds one side of Yashiro as Tsukasa takes the other, and Nanamine cups her head before she nods. They plunge her body into the water, the shroud Hanako had wrapped his precious assistant in unraveling as the scales of her bond form and burst as they hold her under.
The gaping wound where her heart should be stains the water, the sheet, and all their sleeves as everything becomes crimson. Tsukasa laughs wildly as Yashiro begins to thrash, and Hanako watches in relief and amazement as the skin stitches itself back together, a neat black seal patching the wound.
It's Hanako’s turn to laugh as Yashiro surges out of the water with a gasp, yanking her into his arms as they fall back on the grass. The long glittering mermaid's tail and sharp teeth look good on her, and he brushes his thumb over a patch of scales on her cheek. He waits until her terrified eyes meet his before he crushes their mouths together, finally sealing the Bond he’s so carefully constructed to make sure she can never leave him.
“I told you, Yashiro. Everything is going to be just fine. Forever.”