Work Text:
Yashiki had come to dread Autumn. It was a season of dying things; the world shriveling, withering away in its grasp as the days trekked onward towards the icy corpse of winter. Nothing was safe from its march. Not even the students of that academy made victims of an obsessive monster. Not even his precious little sister.
Time played an endless loop this time of year; every day feeling like a repeat of the last. A monotonous cycle of waking, working, sleeping. He went through the motions in a haze, barely aware of his actions. His thoughts felt as though they were coated in molasses; slow moving and getting stuck to the horrid memories he would much rather forget.
Lying here in bed, the gray light of early morning filtering bleakly through his curtains, the image of Saya sunk its jagged teeth into his brain. The memory of her face—kind, dark eyes and a slightly lopsided smile—rotted and deformed into one of her final moments. Lotus pods and foxtail bursting from her abdomen as roots marred her lifeless face, blood staining her hands and the white of her torn shirt. Even in death she’d looked unnaturally serene, ever the perfect, dignified family heir.
And hadn’t he been the one to push that burden onto her? He’d been careless on his trip overseas; leaving her alone for years to handle things on her own, only to return and set in motion the events that would lead to her death with a callousness that turned his stomach. It was the same carelessness that had resulted in the lives of the Departed’s targets being snuffed out. Izumi, Naomi, Manabe, Kakuta. All of them had been killed due to his failure to properly investigate; his blindness to the monster dwelling right beneath his nose.
Yashiki pressed the backs of his hands to his eyes, feeling the wetness welling in them trace its way down his wrists. He pulled in a shaky breath, lungs rattling with the exertion. The frightened faces of the dead flashed through his thoughts in a sickening flurry. He sat up, inhales becoming ragged as his chest tightened around the mixture of shame and grief overtaking him.
As he exhausted himself, the emotions were replaced with a hollowness that consumed him, swallowing him up in a dispassionate fog. He welcomed the numbness and the reprieve it offered from the guilt; although he could feel the ache lingering at its edges, biding its time until it could find a foothold.
Although he couldn’t see much purpose in it, he drug himself out of bed and stumbled his way down the hall. On his way to the stairs, he passed a decorative mirror. A glance at it did nothing to improve his mood. He was dressed in yesterday’s—last week’s?—clothes, wrinkled from sleep and bearing a coffee stain on the collar. His shaggy hair hung limp and dull around his face, framing the shadow of his untrimmed jaw and cheeks gaunt with a viscous combination of sleeplessness and malnourishment. Yashiki quickly averted his eyes.
Downstairs, the foyer yawned dark and barren. He didn’t bother with the lights; the illogical sense that the brightness would chase away the safe detachment staying his hand. Instead, he proceeded to the kitchen with only the light that slipped its way past the heavy curtain illuminating the way. The kitchen was just as lifeless, although the window above the sink brightened the room to a more sufficient level.
His eyes caught on the knife block sitting to one side of the counter, pale morning light glinting off the metal pommels. As if drawn in by the pull of a magnet, his feet slowly drew him towards the counter. Without meaning to, his hand came up to wrap around one of the handles, pulling it from the block. He studied the metal blade for a moment, his image in it blurred and distorted. It felt like a rather accurate reflection of himself. Pressing the flat against his wrist, he watched as tiny beads of crimson formed along its edge. The temptation to turn the sharpness into the pale skin beneath it gnawed at him, nearly irresistible.
The ear-splitting crash of a pan slipping off the hook and onto the floor snapped him from his trance. He dropped the knife onto the counter, picking up the pan by the handle. The shallow scratches on his wrist itched as he held it level with his chest. On cue, Yashiki’s stomach rumbled; he was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that he hadn’t eaten in days.
Placing the pan on the stove, he opened the fridge and took stock of its contents. There was a package of chicken thighs still unfrozen from the last time Banshee had visited. He checked the expiration date and was satisfied to see that they were still good.
He added a head of broccoli and a slightly wrinkled red bell pepper to the pile on the counter, along with a clove of garlic and some soy sauce. A jar of peanut butter and a tall container of rice joined them. He pulled out a cutting board and cleaned off the knife before setting to work dicing the vegetables.
Setting the chopped pepper and broccoli florets in a bowl, he sliced two of the chicken thighs into large chunks while butter melted in the heating pan. Tossing the chunks in salt, pepper, paprika, and onion powder, he transferred them to the pan. Pausing to wash the raw chicken off his hands, he used a wooden spatula to separate the chunks before setting to work on the peanut sauce.
As he switched the heat off and poured the sauce over the chicken and vegetables, a chime signaled the rice was finished. He spooned a heap of it onto a plate and drowned it in the peanut butter chicken. Taking a bite, he nearly let out a sob as the hot meal relieved his hunger.
Standing there in the kitchen, eating his first real meal in weeks, it occurred to Yashiki that the sense of numbness and agonizing self-loathing had dulled, overshadowed by a slow-spreading warmth. It wasn’t sufficient to rid him of the miserable feelings of Autumn entirely, but it took the edge off enough that his earlier impulse with the knife felt irrational.
The reminder of that stopped him for a second, fork paused over the half-empty plate. It wasn’t the first time he’d gotten like this, but he’d never gotten to that point. Usually he kept these periods in the dying season to himself, not wanting to trouble his friends, but…
With shaky determination, Yashiki set down his plate. Walking into the drawing room, he switched on the light and dialed Daimon.