Chapter Text
A cold kiss of snow brushes your cheek, accompanied by the biting wind. Though you had layers upon layers wrapping around yourself, the harsh chill did not spare even you as it slices clean through like a sword. Still, you could feel a grin stretch across your face; a rising muddle of emotions which beat in your chest.
The fact that - in the midst of this curse - lays a hidden gem. Ocean blue gems – perhaps sapphires. Yeah, you can see the eyes being like sapphires as the hue is not unlike a clear sky casting its gaze. However, the previous gleaming has been dulled- no, not dulled. It’s merely taken on a different shine. Reshaped, is the correct word. Resharpened. Resharpened into its own weapon, cutting through the layers until you bear your soul.
“Do you… always smile?” ‘Like a maniac.’ is the unspoken words.
A- a traveller is what you’ll call them, is standing across from you like a statue, however the previous daggers they’ve been giving you have lessened into weariness. Success!
You chirp, “Sorry if it makes you uncomfortable.” The word pour out of your mouth. “Your eyes-”
Their face hardens as the blues in their eyes iced like frost.
“-Are the most gorgeous things I’ve seen! I don’t even know how you do it. I’ve never paid attention to eye colour before, but yours...” Your sigh drips like honey out of your lips.
All at one, their face shatters like glass. Sharp, but leaving what’s behind it vulnerable. In some way, the weapon is left behind to uncover what was previously hidden - gleaming, and sparkling, gems.
“… Not sapphires, topaz,” you murmur under your breath without you realising it. You hush excitedly, “Topaz!”
The owner of the eyes you’ve been so admiring sharply turns away to continue trekking in the forest. You eye appreciatively at their back for a second, before realising what was going on. Quickly, you switch gears.
You cry out, “Hold on! I meant it genuinely!” Trying to catch up to the stranger whilst not tripping over the forest floor proves to you trailing behind.
“What- what I mean to say was: what the hell are you doing walking with that injury?” You say, dogging the trees and bushes on route to them. “Listen, I have a place around here that I can patch you up and send you on your way. I’m a doctor! Let me tend to your wounds for the night.”
The traveller, stone faced, replies, “I am fine.”
“Bull- Lies! Lies.” You finally catch up to them, brushing off the snow off your hanten[1]. Sternly but also politely, you advise, “I have many years of medical experience, with all the tools in my home. The snow is only going to get worse, so please, dear traveller, let me house you for the night.”
You are met most with the most sceptical look you’ve ever seen; however, you must have looked harmless enough for them to be willing to surrender in face of mother nature.
“Just for the night.” Despite the monotone voice they say it in, they also sigh. In tiredness, or annoyance, you can’t tell. You’re too elated to focus properly.
You grin once more. Before, you were just being a decent human being - but now? Also that, but you get the bonus of helping the most gorgeous person you’ve ever seen.
You spin, turning to the direction to your home. With the sun setting and the evening creeping in, the snow is twinkling like stars in the last of its rays. You’ve never seen a more beautiful sight. Making sure that they’re behind you, you turn back but the traveller is staring at you. You heart flutters excitedly in your chest, skipping one or two beats.
“We’re not far,” you promise them.
A jagged breath of air escaped her lips, and Mizu had to fight her own lungs for another one. Blood, red as a spider lily, leaks past her clothes, staining the pure white of the landscape. Her heart tattoos the inside of her ribcage because she knows this was likely going to be the last thing she’ll ever see if she didn’t get it treated.
(And with her glasses breaking in the fight, who would help? Her true nature is bared for all to see.)
That is when she heard them.
A figure darts past the trees, footsteps crunching from the snow and wrapped in a deep blue hanten[1]. Reaching Mizu, their gaze is searching - urgently - as if some great calamity shall befall if not found. She is astounded by how open they are, how each emotion is painted vividly on their face. Anxious – by the nervous twitch of their fingers. Sympathetic – by the shining of their eyes.
They are determined – she could tell by the steadiness of their shoulders.
Their eyes rise to meet hers and she wouldn’t dare to breathe too loudly. Maybe she stopped breathing at all. She holds steadfast at their shining, all to knowing like the stars, gaze. At some point, the pain fades to a dull sensation in these moments. It is around this time that it seemed they find something amid her wretched soul…
Because they start smiling so hard the corners may as well reach their ears. It is open, like everything else about them, and Mizu isn't sure how to feel about doing nothing yet earning it all the same.
It is foreign, like the emotion swelling in her chest. Still, it fills her from her toes to her head - that may just be the blood loss talking though.
Her words are croaked out, “Do you always smile?”
Like you saw everything…
… And wanted it all the same.
Her words seem to break the trance, making them gaze up at them with a more present gaze. Their smile softened into something more manageable for Mizu.
They say, quite merrily, as if she isn’t bleeding out, “Sorry if it makes you uncomfortable. Your eyes-”
She waits for it. The knives for words – sometimes literally.
“-Are the most gorgeous things I’ve seen! I don’t even know how you do it. I’ve never paid attention to eye colour before, but yours...”
Mizu’s world view shatters and reshapes itself spanning in the matter of minutes. This? This is something which she only experienced once after the slow building of trust, after the slow breaking down of walls. Yet, this absolute stranger waltz in and was distracted from their primary goal of aiding her in the face of their own absolute enchantment of her eyes.
She isn’t sure how to cope with that, nor with how the wound was draining her dry.
“… Not sapphires, topaz,” Under the spell of … whatever they were feeling, the person continues to mumble about- gems? She isn’t sure on that either. In fact, it feels as if the ground itself is tilting.
Again, that could also be the blood pouring out of her. She swiftly turns on her heels, feeling more agreeable to dying in a ditch than facing whatever this and the distracting emotions which made her stomach do summersaults.
Behind her, they shout, “Hold on! I meant it genuinely!” Oh great, they’re following her.
“What- what I mean to say was: what the hell are you doing walking with that injury? Listen, I have a place around here that I can patch you up and send you on your way. I’m a healer!”
And of course, their words are as- as expressive as their smile. Mizu mentally hardens her resolve.
“I am fine.” Yes, she’s aware that’s complete-
“Bull- Lies! Lies.”
They catch up to her, heavily breathing a bit but still energised enough to try to persuade her.
“I have many years of medical experience, with all the tools in my home. The snow is only going to get worse.” Their eyes are pleading, which is strange because shouldn’t she have that look? And their words are so, so sweet and drifting between them like perfume. “So please, dear traveller, let me house you for the night.”
Mizu desperately wants to escape this feeling in her chest because someone like her has no use for it. It’s merely a distraction. What kind of sick fuck would look at her and the blood on her soul and find it desirable?
But beggars can’t be choosers, especially someone like her.
“Just for the night,” she drones, letting the heaviness in her chest be carried through her sigh.
The stranger grins, bright and so open it sets off alarms in her mind. They begin leading her in different direction, one she never went to just because all it leads to is forest.
She’s staring. She knows she’s staring. She rationalises it in her mind because who is this person who throws out smiles like it’s free? She also knows she’s caught when they turn around, probably to check she’s not dropped dead, and the excited glimmer in her eyes tells her they saw her.
“We’re not far,” they promise, making Mizu desperately hope they keep it.
[1] A hanten (袢纏) (also 半纏, 半天 or 袢天) is a short winter coat and an item of traditional Japanese clothing. The hanten started to be worn, especially by the common people, in the 18th century, during Japan's Edo period (1603-1867).
The shape of the hanten bears a resemblance to a noragi, a traditional patchwork jacket, and the haori, and is worn by both men and women. The facing and lining are padded with thick layers of wadded cotton for warmth. The collar is usually made of black sateen. Hanten often display a family crest or other designs.