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Darumi toed at the broken glass strewn over her bedroom floor, in no hurry to clean it up. It wasn’t as if anyone else ever came into her room anyway. The ear-splitting sound of the ramune bottle shattering when it met the wooden floor, the weight of it leaving her hand as she slammed it down with all her might, the entire maelstrom of destructive had been Darumi’s soul setting free a sigh she had been holding for too long. Sometimes, when she was around the others for too long, it was like their cheery voices were holding her head under water. Smashing up her shower door shortly after arriving at the Academy had felt like being plucked from an undertow, laid out to dry on the peaceful shore.
The time she had smashed a vase back home had been purely on accident. Running down the hall as little kids do, she hadn’t meant to bump it. Really she hadn’t. Darumi hadn’t wanted to spend a night locked outside, curled up in the little house that had once belonged to the family’s old dog who had passed years before she was even born.
Unwanted and tossed away from the only ‘home’ she had ever known before waking up at Last Defense Academy, and it hadn’t even been real. Nothing more than a seventeen-year long nightmare. There was no one waiting for Darumi Amemiya on the Satellite. Real or not, no one would have missed her had the Invaders gotten to her right from the start.
As she stretched and rolled out of bed, a thin sliver of sunlight intruding beneath the door to her room caught her eye. “Freaking sun…” she grumbled, padding over to jam a pillow over the offending gap. There was still an hour left before the morning announcement, and while her insomnia held her in a firm chokehold for the past eighty-three days, she would at least like to cash in on her god-given right to bed-rot up until the last moment. It wasn’t as if she’d grab anything more than a can of Blue Ram from the cafeteria anyway. She had hoarded a few cans, now strewn around her room and dented, but at least the ones from the cafeteria were still cold.
The cafeteria…
There would be one less student joining them for breakfast that morning, Darumi remembered suddenly, clutching a pillow to her chest.
One less student…
Tossing the pillow to the floor, Darumi began to scramble faster than she could remember ever having moved in a given morning when not spurred on by an Invader Alarm. Quickly pulling up her hair into a single messy ponytail, Darumi hastily tugged on her boots before stumbling out the door.
With a hiss of distaste, she shaded her eyes from the rising sun, blinking as she scrambled to lean over the fencing. The simple metal barricade was the only thing separating both herself and the remainder of the SDU from turning into worm chow smeared across the front lawn four floors below.
As her eyes finally adjusted to the ill-mannered morning light, a figure clad in stark-white caught her attention. Back turned toward the school, the tall boy carried a satchel slung over his back. Even seen from a distance, the bag was far larger than what a typical single-day expedition would require.
It was abundantly clear that Eito Aotsuki harbored no plans for a return to Last Defense Academy.
By the time Darumi flew down four flights of stairs in a mad dash for the front hall, her lungs took up a strong argument in favor of curling up on the tile floor and gasping for air like a beached guppy. Instead, she heaved a single deep breath before hefting free the remaining fire extinguisher.
“I can smell you, you know,” A cheerful voice finally piped up despite Darumi’s best efforts in lagging yards behind. It wasn’t as if she had truly spent her nights sneaking out of the house in order to work the red light district, after all.
“Damn…” Darumi clicked her tongue playfully, trotting to catch up. Although this presented something of a challenge due to Eito’s long legs and utter refusal to slow his pace. Either way, his assessment was fair enough. She had taken off without bothering to reach for deodorant.
“Did I forget my toothbrush back at the academy?” Eito asked pleasantly, quirking his head in a curious tilt. Maybe it was only Darumi’s imagination, but he seemed to be walking even faster now, leaves crunching carelessly beneath his feet. “I discovered it can be a little bit hard to pack when you can’t see what you’re taking along… Though, I suppose it can also make it harder to see what’s been left behind…”
“Taking off all on your own is a major death flag, ya know,” Darumi informed him, finally falling in stride beside Eito, hands clasped behind her back. “‘Specially when it’s the token blind guy…”
“Is it now?” Eito smiled politely. “And what does it mean when two people wander off into the woods together without telling anyone else where they’re headed?"
“Hmm…” Darumi kicked at a stray pebble. “Usually one of them winds up murdering the other after a passionate love confession goes horribly wrong. Either that or they run out of food and water, then go for a romantic double suicide...”
“Well then. If you had told me earlier that I was going to die anyway, I wouldn’t have bothered plucking my eyes out,” Eito sighed dramatically. “Seems like I made an awful lot of mess for nothing-”
Before Eito could continue his tangent, his foot snagged a protruding tree root, sending him tumbling face-first into the dirt with a strangled yelp.
“Epic face plant, dude…” Darumi deadpanned, despite kneeling down to help him. However, as Darumi began to reach out a hand, she found herself hesitating. Despite no longer being able to see humans, Eito must still dislike the sensation of being touched, Darumi thought. Maybe it would be okay if she only handled him through his clothes? The thought of leaving a blind person lying in the dirt caused Darumi’s insides to squirm. A parade of times in which no one had offered Darumi so much as a hand when she had been hurt or in trouble marched through her mind. The memories may have been artificial, but the Eito pathetically sprawled out before her was very real, as evidenced by the low groan he let out while pushing himself upright.
“Uh… Can you stand?” Darumi attempted to quash any trace of concern from her voice, finally placing a hand on his forearm. Although she could feel Eito’s muscles tense beneath his jacket, he made no move to push her away.
“I’m fine, thanks,” Eito reassured her, looking up to face Darumi with a stilted smile. “Although I could use some help finding my glasses…”
It was then that Darumi realised that she was staring at Eito’s bare face for the first time since the morning he had decided to melodramatically crush his own eyeballs like grapes.
Darumi knew that her stomach should have lurched, that a normal girl would have turned away, repulsed by the ghoulish level of mutilation he had inflicted on himself. Hell, Tsubasa would have been off puking in the bushes.
Unlike the cuts forever carved into Darumi’s arms, Eito’s sunken wells were raw as they were breathtaking, and Darumi could feel the crunch of plastic lenses beneath her boot.
Takumi had worked so very hard on gathering the materials for Eito’s new glasses.
Takumi had been the one to oust him after Eito pleaded for forgiveness.
Once Eito was back on his feet again, Darumi couldn’t help but notice the splotches of dirt marring his stark white clothing. There was no way it wouldn’t have driven him up a wall if he could have seen himself.
Darumi vibrated with silence.
“...They’re broken, aren’t they?” Eito sighed, resigned to the fact that his glasses were gone for good. “Oh well, it’s not like anyone is going to see my face out here any way,” he chuckled weakly.
“I’m right here, dude,” Darumi pointed out, kicking dirt over the broken frames, giving them a half-hearted burial. “Or, like, what? Do I not count as a person to you? I mean, whatev, it’s not like I’m not used to it…”
“Oh, you are most certainly very human, Darumi-san.” Eito smiled serenely.
Perhaps he had meant it as an insult, or maybe he was doing little more than voicing a simple fact. Either way, the statement settled strangely in the depths of Darumi’s guts.
“What’s that supposed to mean…?” Darumi squeaked.
As Darumi continued to trot along beside Eito, a strange silence fell between them. As each moment passed, Darumi couldn’t shake the notion that Eito was about to halt at any moment, turning to send her along on her merry way back to the school. She was no different from the rest of the SDU to him, wasn’t she? Just another monster lurking inside of what had been, up until that morning, his own personal funhouse.
Darumi’s musing, however, was soon cut short by a grunt of surprise as a long-hanging tree branch slapped Eito straight in the face.
She was almost starting to feel bad for him. Although Darumi hadn’t gouged out her own eyeballs (yet), she was painfully aware of how hacking up your own body always came back to bite your ass in the end. Even if it felt like heaven at the time.
“Darumi-san?” Eito said, massaging the bruise forming on his forehead. “You know how I hate to be a burden, but would you mind being my eyes for a while? I’m afraid we might not get anywhere by nightfall at this rate…”
Leaving the purple splotch to swell as it may, Eito instead reached his hand in Darumi’s general direction, searching for a human hand to cling to.
As if her body moved on its own, Darumi found Eito’s gloved hand wrapped tightly inside her own. Her pale fingers looked strangely small contrasted against the dark leather covering his larger hands.
“It’s good ya left the gloves on,” Darumi nodded appreciatively, despite the fact that Eito couldn’t see her reaction. “They always warn kids our age about unprotected hand-holding.”
Eito forced a chuckle as Darumi cackled at her own joke, his hand squeezing her own just a bit more tightly as they pressed on through the thickly wooded forest.
“Hey, uh…” Darumi cocked her head, the birds squawking in the trees taunting her, pecking at her thoughts. “I’ve been wondering for a while now, but… where are we headed anyways? Or are you just expecting the autosave to pop up and tell us when we get there?”
“I was actually planning to hold up at the Second to Last Academy for a while. It’s empty right now, and Sirei told me there should still be enough supplies to last for a while…”
Darumi stopped in her tracks, hand slipping free from Eito’s grasp. “Huh?”
Eito quirked a brow. “Care to inform me of your little revelation?”
“I mean… Don’t the Invaders know where the Second Academy is by now? We’ll be total red shirts the minute we walk in.”
Eito seemed to consider this for a moment. “Did you have another place in mind?”
“Actually, yeah. When I was exploring solo one time, I found this old hospital. Some of it had already been looted but there were still more drugs and medical crap than I could even carry in one trip. Might be handy if, ya know,” Darumi gestured toward the state of Eito’s face. “Things go sideways with your little DIY project. I never saw a single Invader around either, which, was kinda disappointing TBH. Getting jump-scared in an abandoned hospital is pretty high on the top-ten in my bucket list.”
Eito nodded his agreement, an inscrutable smile playing on his lips. “Lead the way.”
It was dusk by the time they arrived at the hospital. Using the last faltering beams of sun to locate the secret side opening Darumi had discovered, the two began to move the debris Darumi had piled overtop in hopes of deterring any passers-by.
Exhausted, Darumi slumped onto a threadbare waiting room couch, launching a cloud of dust airborne. A fit of coughing erupted beside her as the miasma of crumbled drywall and dust-mite sheddings enveloped Eito’s remaining senses. After catching his breath, Eito settled beside her.
As Darumi rested her head on the back of the couch, her eyes traveled toward the ceiling. Webbed with cracks, it was easy to imagine it collapsing in on them at any moment. It was entirely possible that she just might die on a moldy couch, shoulder resting casually against Eito Aotsuki and his dirt-stained jacket.
And… Darumi was decidedly okay with that. But no matter what came next, for one fleeting night, they were alive, and neither was alone. Two monsters hidden away from eyes who had never known them.