Work Text:
Shiomi Yoru’s cigarette smoke has not become something for Yoshihide to hack her lungs out to anymore. Instead, it’s a connection. A rope. A lifeline. An unseverable thread from pinky to pinky. It’s a reminder that she’s there. One day, she won’t be there anymore. And perhaps that will be the best day of Yoshihide’s life.
That smoke is pungent in the air as Ryoshu, 12 years old, sits on Shiomi’s bed, arm held out, tattered in scars she’s made for the past week. She believed that wearing a hoodie all the time would hide them, but Shiomi was always thorough in her questions, and she made her discard it. Trying to ignore the situation at hand to the best of her ability, she stares at the blue streaks in Shiomi’s hair. She wonders why she didn’t get those. The hoodie lays on the floor, leaving Yoshihide in a t-shirt that Matthias gave her.
Shiomi squirts out gel from a tube. Yoshihide winces as a slick coldness makes contact with the cuts, most red, but some fading back into skin. She’s never been so physically close with her mother before. Oh, Shiomi has gotten in her face and yelled at her in the past. Many, many times, in fact. But she’s never put her hands on her in any way. She’s never done anything like this.
“Do you realize how stupid you’re being?” Shiomi’s tone is a hiss.
“Probably not, since I’m here.” Yoshihide is still staring at those blue streaks.
“You’re acting like me. I told you to never act like me.”
“Guess I can’t really help it.”
Her mother has done this. She’s always derided Yoshihide for acting like her.
“When Rien —” Shiomi stops in her tracks. “It’s nothing.”
“What about him?”
“Don’t concern yourself with it. It’s over.”
Yoshihide doesn’t say another word. She only allows Shiomi to slather the gel onto her wounds. It’s not the sting that makes her ache as much as the reality that it’s physical touch from her mother.
That’s never happened.
Throughout all of Yoshihide’s life, she’s never been able to recall Shiomi actually touching her. The closest thing to touch she’s gotten is her giving her objects to carry. Actually, she hasn’t seen Shiomi touch anyone. The other Nursefathers seem to mostly go along with whatever makes her not want to touch or be touched.
She’s seen Rien pat her on the back a few times and that’s it.
“It stings.” But does she really mind? Or is she just saying that in the hopes of affection? Yoshihide doesn’t know.
“Quiet. Nothing, especially something as idiotic as this, will ever amount to the pain he put me through. That pain that brought me here and shackled me to this web. That pain which created you.” Wrinkled hands glide over scar tissue. The gel is cold. Shiomi is being remarkably thorough, and once that’s all done, she moves to the other arm. Yoshihide flinches at the newfound contact. “You’re badly scratched up. What were you thinking? Is this what you’re going to do now every time life gets hard?”
“Beats me.”
Shiomi goes silent. Good. Stay quiet. Yoshihide’s eyes are narrowing. No, she doesn’t mean that. Her focus shifts from blue strands to red eyes. Shiomi is entirely absorbed in taking care of Yoshihide’s scars. Say something kind. Anything.
As Shiomi begins to speak again, Yoshihide is met with coldness, yet not without a wavering tone. “You’re so, so… so stupid, Yoshihide.”
“Must be those blood ties that Rien always goes on about.”
“That bastard,” Shiomi mutters under her breath. “How did nobody else in this Hell notice? It makes sense that the vagrant abandoned by her own Famiglia and the disgraced artist wouldn’t think twice about it. But I would have expected Matthias to at least say something. I…” She chokes on her words. “I would have expected Rien to at least say something. Just goes to show how appalling everyone here is. Including you and me, Yoshihide.”
“How did you notice, then?”
Shiomi pauses. Her hands stop slathering the gel onto Yoshihide’s skin, which has piled into an excess. “Yoshihide. Have you never wondered why you were born?”
“Am I supposed to?”
“Idiot.”
“Sorry.”
“No apology will ever make up for the fact you were born in the first place.”
“Yeah, you’re right. It’s too late to do anything about that now.”
Shiomi stands up. She clips the cap back onto the bottle of gel. The look on her face is one of disgust. “Yoshihide. After I found out you were going to be born, I did exactly what you did for years. I still put the blade to my flesh every now and then.”
Yoshihide doesn’t know how to respond.
“It’s his fault. It’s all that bastard’s fault that you’re even alive. Yoshihide. I have to see him every day. I see the same smile he had on his face when he took everything away from me. I see how he reaches for that pager to ask for what way he should drink his coffee in the morning. I see how everyone else jokes with him. It makes me want to die, Yoshihide.” Shiomi’s hands are twitching. “But the thread will never break. Yoshihide… If that man ever comes to see me alone once more, I can only hope that I am strangled in my sleep.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Becuase the pain will never end. No matter how much you mutilate yourself and ask when it will stop, it will never end. So quit with that rubbish. And I will keep checking on you to see if you keep doing this and I will get more of that cream if you keep it up. Understood?” Shiomi throws Yoshihide’s hoodie onto her. Yoshihide scurries to get it back on.
“I guess.”
“You better understand, because it’s disgusting how quickly you’re turning into me.”