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“A splash of lemon, a-a-and…done!” Aoi said as she watched the butterfly pea tea turn from royal blue to an elegant purple through her fancy glass teapot. She carefully poured it into a porcelain cup, wincing when a droplet or two hit the counter. She then sat it on her tray with other cups, including a nice warm-colored cup of ginger tea.
She couldn’t help but compare the color of the tea to the streams of golden-orange light shining through the window.
The lights on the sides of the building always brought her comfort. No matter how many blood transfusions she did or how many patients tested her patience, the lights always brought her back.
Back to the night she got her internship. Aoi was practically jumping with joy, Kanao more sophisticated, per usual, but happy nonetheless.
Aoi grabbed the rest of the cups off the counter, placed them on a tray and onto a small cart, and walked out of the office.
She wanted to get all her orders over in one go-round. Aoi stopped and pulled a slip of paper out of her scrub pocket. She checked the list given to her by Shinobu. She read the names and what needed to be done. Cliché nights end things—IV drip and bandage replacements, med tray refills, etc.
Aoi’s schedule was different from the other butterfly girls’, though. All of them still had school as they were underage. Aoi came into the hospital after lunch every weekday and an 8 to anywhere-past-9 on the weekends. The babies, as she calls them, helped out after their school got out at one and left around 5. They get weekends off, lucky for them.
“Great!” she said. “Everyone’s in a circle!”
She folded the list and stuck it back in her pocket, swapping it for a stopwatch. It was small and golden with spiral grooves on the rim. It was a gift from Shinobu. All the “butterfly” girls got a little “artifact” once they started working for the hospital. A small golden trinket and a beautifully colored butterfly clip were her little ‘thank you’ for agreeing to help.
Aoi clicked the knob to start a timer. ‘30 minutes’ she thought. She liked a little challenge at the end of her shifts. The faster she got done, the faster she could go home.
“Good evening! How are you?”
Aoi always had the custom of making small talk while she helped out. It made the time pass in the room quicker. Sometimes, both she and the patient needed it. Some had it worse than others, and it was hard to see. IV drips stemming from their wrists like wires connecting them to the motherboard that is the ‘Butterfly Hospitalization Center.’ She didn’t mean it in a bad way. It's just that seeing that many unfortunate souls, and more each day, was less than pleasant. They all end up back in the same place. Some never get to leave.
She finished hanging her first client's new IV and started to steer her cart out and into the hallway. She pulled her stopwatch out of her pocket and checked how long she had left.
“Patient 1: 5 minutes. That’s a record!” She chimed as she continued down the hall.
Aoi spent her next half hour taking care of orders. She listed the times after each room. “Patient 2: 6 minutes, Patient 3: 10 minutes,” and so on. Once the timer rattled in her pocket, she checked it, sighing in slight disappointment.
“All thirty gone, and one more patient? I shouldn’t have talked to patient four that long…” She slides the pocket watch back and heads off to her last patient.
“Patient 7: Mr. Kyojuro Rengoku. This is gonna be a chore and a half.” Aoi mumbles as she parks her cart outside his room door.
It’s not that she didn’t want to see him. She did, out of pity. It was his attitude toward his situation that set her off. Always claiming to be perfectly fine and that there's “nothing wrong with him.” But if his records of constant night terrors, fevers, and frequent complete brain fog have anything to say, they’d scream, “ There’s something seriously wrong with you! ” But it appears there’s no convincing him, so Aoi and the others will have to make due until he’s better.
“Bandage change, IV change, pill organizer refill… Got it.”
She wheeled her cart up to the door of his room, grabbing everything she needed for him off the cart and onto the tray she carried.
As she walked into the dimly lit room, her crocs squeaked and slid across the floor. She stumbled forward, hitting a table hard. Aoi stepped back, gingerly poking at a lower rib the table drove into. She reached for the light switch, flicking it on.
“What the… gah!”
She yelped, looking down at her shoes and then the floor.
A trail of crimson slithered out the door, decorating the side of the bed, her shoes, the doorframe . She stared at the mess for a minute, taking in everywhere it was and why. Then, the realization hit her. The realization of whose room this was.
Kyojuro Rengoku.
“Constant night terrors. Fevers. Frequent complete brain fog.” All of his symptoms echoed in her head, along with his loud voice yelling he was okay over and over.
“Oh god…” Was the last thing she said before bolting out the door, almost slipping again on the red line shimmering under fluorescent lights. By that time, everything she brought into the room was on the floor, now also colored in that deep red.
Aoi didn’t even realize her shoes were making the situation worse. Red footprints followed her through a trail of red drips as she ran down the hall. She wasn’t sure what exactly she was searching for. Another nurse? Shinobu? Maybe Kyojuro himself? Even she didn’t know. She did know she was running through a seemingly endless hospital hallway. The lights above seemed to get louder as she ran, bouncing off the walls of her skull like an out-of-tune organ in an empty church.
She kept running, checking every room out of the corner of her eye, looking for someone, something to help.
“Kanazaki? Why are you running? It's after hours!”
Aoi skidded to a stop, staring at the Kakushi. She looked around frantically, searching for an excuse. Did she tell them what happened? She wanted help, and the opportunity was right in front of her.
“I’m just looking for a mop. An IV drip leaked.” She said, pointing to the trail and her shoes.
A lie. She didn’t like to lie, so she didn’t know why she did. The Kakushi seemed to believe it, pointing down the hall to a storage room.
Aoi began walking now, staring straight ahead. The blood on her shoes made them squeak and scrunch more, adding to the echoing sounds in her head. As she reached the door, she hovered a trembling hand over the doorknob. She peeked over her shoulder, looking to see if the Kakushi was still watching her.
Seeing as they were gone, she backed up from the door, almost stumbling over her own feet.
Aoi began to run again. She still didn’t know why. But now, the halls seemed like a maze. She had walked these halls thousands of times before, but today, she didn’t have the slightest clue of where to go.
Doors seemed to lead to hallways they didn’t before. Some corners seemed darker than they were supposed to be.
But she still ran, her crocs scrunching through that practically endless trail of blood no one else seemed to see. She hit corners hard, almost running into doors, people, or stray equipment. Something just made her keep going.
But eventually, her running stopped, as everything does.
She’s dead in her tracks, staring straight ahead through the hall. It’s dark, like it’s never known light a day in its existence. The lights don’t help at all, as they still buzz with no light. It made it look like the hall never ended, going on and on forever in complete darkness.
Aoi can hear something else at the end of the hallway.
‘Splat…Splat…Splat…’
They add to the headache forming in the center of her brain.
She walks closer, tilting her head to hear the sound better, hopefully.
‘Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat.’
A couple more steps. Louder now.
‘Splat, Splat, Splat, Splat, Splat.’
And then.
‘SPLATTER.’ And a cough.
Aoi froze, staring at the end of the hallway, and the spats continued. She still couldn’t tell what it was. A demon? That would explain the cough. But what was she to do about that? Aoi Kanazaki, the girl who passed the selection but chose to become a helper rather than fight on the front lines, squaring up to a demon. With what bravery? What weapon?
But she had to.
Aoi walked forward, one step at a time. She made her actions soft so as to not disturb whatever she would meet at the end of this hallway.
But unfortunately, that wasn’t going to be the case much longer.
Whatever was at the end of the hall coughed again, hard, like someone with a lung problem. The lights flickered and shed sparks of electricity that hit the floor with tiny cracks. In that glimpse, Aoi saw what she had heard
A figure was hunched over on the floor like someone just finishing seppuku—a bandage soaked through with blood laid on the floor next to them. But there was one thing that confirmed Aoi’s fears.
Bright hair.
Bright, blondish hair with ends as red as the blood pooling onto the floor.
“Rengoku-sama!!” Aoi screamed, slapping a hand over their mouth.
The man lifted his head slowly, turning his neck to see her out of the very corner of his eye. His cheeks were stained with red, his eyes not far behind. As he analyzed her through glazed eyes, he noticed something.
That uniform…
“N-n- ‘hack’ No!” He yelled back, rolling onto his back and scooting across the floor, and smearing more blood into his hospital dress.
“I’m s-sor-sorry! Do not come c-closer!”
Aoi stood, watching the man scramble against the wall, trying to stand and slipping on his own blood. She had heard worse, yes, but she had never seen it this bad herself. This was usually the Kakushis place to step in, but no one was around now.
Aoi mustered any confidence she had left, which wasn’t much, and stepped towards Kyojuro.
“Wait, wait, wait! I d-do not-t need your h-h-help!” He cries, scooting closer to the wall as if to go through it.
She steps closer again.
“I-I’m fin-ne! I don’t need help! I do-on’t!”
Aoi bent down next to him, wincing at the blood on the knee of her scrub.
“I prom-mise you I d-do not need your he-help!”
“I don’t need it! I’m fi-ine!”
“Why don’t you need it?”
Rengoku stopped, turning to stare at her. What did she say? Why..? Did he need a reason?
“I-I just don’t!”
“But why not?”
He stops again. That made him think. Why didn’t he? Aoi was right there, a nurse who knew how to handle this situation more than he ever would.
But he did know. Through all his brain fog and the shaking so hard his brains would mix, he knew.
“My… m-my dignity… it’s go-one…”
Aoi’s eyes softened. That’s what it was. She’d felt that before.
“It’s gone, Kanaz-zaki-san… It’s gone…”
“It’s not, I promise.”
“You wouldn’t u-understand…”
Aoi tilts her head, reaching to put a hand on his shoulder. The same comfort Shinobu often gave to her.
“Don’t.”
She whips her hand back immediately. Did he not want to be comforted? Aoi didn’t know how to deal with emotional patients; that was Shinobu's job.
“Yo-ou don’t get it. You don’t! My pride! W-what I f-f-ought so long fo-or!” Kyojuro rambles on, shaking like an angry chihuahua. “He took it! And he-he’ll do it again! He’ll come ba-ack and k-kill me!”
Aoi’s concerned look returns. What is he talking about?
“W-who…?”
“Him!” Kyojuro yells, his bushy eyebrows furrowed down. He looked…mad. Extremely mad, his fists gripping his knees as he huddles against the wall. It was a surprise he could even do that with the leaking dent halfway through his body. Aoi couldn’t even tell if he remembered what concentration breathing was with all the brain fog to stop it.
“He won’t, I promise. I-“
“You don’t. Get it.” He snaps again.
“He knows me. He-he’s fascinated by me! He asked me to join him, and he would back out of it until the last moment. He was toying with me! What makes you think it won’t happen again?! That this time, that forsaken arm of his won’t go all the way through?”
Aoi stares at him as he rants on and on about this “him.” What was she supposed to do now? A man was crying about some mysterious “him” with about 10% of his blood on the floor. She had no idea what to do. At this point, she wanted to start panicking.
Aoi sat silently beside him, thinking of what to do other than cry with him. ‘What would Shinobu-sama do…’ She thought in her head, over and over.
Suddenly, an idea popped into her head. She had heard more than just Shinobu do this, and it seemed to work mostly every time. Aoi took a deep breath to not embarrass herself by letting her voice crack.
“Rengoku-sama, can you count three things for me?”
Kyojuro pauses his ranting to look at her. Still quite polite, even in his state of mania, Aoi would think.
“What…?”
“Can you count three things you see here for me, please?”
Kyojuro looks at her as if she’s crazy for a second. But soon, his eyes slowly scan the hall as if looking for something particular. “M-my bandage… The window… and…”
“Go on, one more!” Aoi says softly, hoping her encouragement wouldn’t be annoying to him.
“You..”
Aoi claps quietly, smiling the best she can while still having the urge to run and cry.
“That’s great! Now, name three sounds you can hear.”
“What i-is this for..?”
“Please, just do it.” Aoi insisted, sounding a little too much like the passive-aggressive Shinobu for her comfort. Kyojuro also noticed that, and he would have laughed if not for the hole in his abdomen.
“My breathing, the lights, uhm… your voice.”
Aoi nodded. “Great! Now, move three things on your body.”
Kyojuro compiled without much of a problem this time. He kicked his right leg, waved his left hand, and made a ‘pop’ sound with his lips. He looked back at Aoi meekly, still shaking from everything, but at least now he wasn’t screaming about something that wasn’t going to happen.
“Good job, Rengoku-sama! You did good!” Aoi said brightly, clapping for him. She slowly held her hands out, nonverbally asking to touch him. Maybe if she did it like that, he wouldn’t snap again? She hoped, at least.
Kyojuro nodded, and with all her strength, she helped get him off the floor. It took everything in Kyojuro not to scream as his core straightened out.
“Let’s go lay down, okay?” She offered, starting to walk him slowly back down the dim hallway.
“N-no… I-I can’t!”
“Why not? Nothing will hurt you, I promise! We just want to help.”
Kyojuro immediately started to tug his arm from her grasp again. Aoi let go, startled by the sudden move, internally facepalming. ‘Help is definitely a trigger word, got it…’ She thought.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry! J-just… let’s go get some more bandages, alright?” She offered, trying to at least attempt bargaining with him a little. How silly did she feel right now, trying to make a compromise with a grown man? But she couldn’t think like that. It was her duty as a healer to help him the best she could. He was traumatized, for Pete's sake!
“Please? I-I… We won't let him do anything to you. We’ll do whatever, okay?”
Kyojuro couldn’t help but stare suspiciously. Aoi’s smile faltered a little as his large, barely blinking eyes were drilling blazing holes into her head. Why was she agreeing now? Earlier, she was questioning him, but suddenly she decided ‘he’ exists. But she did offer to protect him. But that was even more humiliating.
Kyojuro just nodded, gingerly holding his blood-stained hand out to her. Aoi grabbed it softly, almost just hovering her hand over it.
She led him down the hall, her adrenaline subsiding enough not to see the halls as a labyrinth. She talked slowly, asking him about things she knew about him—His favorite foods, how he trained Mitsuri, his brother, anything to keep him grounded, really.
Soon, they reach the room. If Aoi could facepalm her hand through her head, she would right now. Almost all her supplies were on the floor, including his tea.
“Erm… Rengoku-sama..? Do you think you can change your clothes on your own after I change your bandages?” Aoi asks meekly, gesturing to the mess on the floor. Kyojuro examines the room, subconsciously wanting to clean up himself, but the pain is currently crushing him like an internal hydraulic press.
He nods silently, limping over to the bed and taking a seat. Aoi gets to work putting on his new bandages, which goes quickly, considering how he already ripped the previous ones off. She grimaces every time he winces at a hard tug, but eventually, she gets them on.
Kyojuro then heads off to the bathroom to put a new kimono on while Aoi cleans the floor. She'll definitely have a fun time cleaning the rest of his blood off the floors.
The rest of Aoi’s 30-minute overtime was spent organizing Kyojuro's room, refilling his medicines, reconnecting his IV, and making an entirely new pot of tea.
“Alright, that’s all. Have a good night Rengoku-sama. And please. Stay in bed this time? Your wounds will reopen..” Aoi says, dusting her hands off on her apron. Kyojuro nods slowly, appearing to be already drifting off to sleep. Aoi smiles, more out of pity than anything.
She goes to relock the windows and close the blinds, turning her head to make sure he’s watching. She then blows the big lamps in the room out and lights a smaller one near his bedside, bowing deeply before exiting.
As she walks out, she takes the second deepest breath of her life, letting it out slowly. That was… definitely an experience.
After mopping the halls for what seems like an eternity, Aoi’s finally done. She heads to the break room to grab her bag, but not before writing a note.
“Dear Shinobu-sama, I’ve taken care of everything tonight. P.S. … Rengoku-sama still needs some work. A lot of work.
, Sincerely, Kanazaki Aoi.”