Warm Blood

Inspired by Dorohedoro

By Tomasina Reynoso

“You still have to remember my birthday,” Noi is saying when Shin tunes back in.  He’d been lost in thought, something that happens too often these days when they’re together.  “And don’t let En get too comfortable in that stupid mansion.  And if you take a girl out for lunch, eat normally!  Don’t play any weird tricks on her.”

“No promises,” Shin remarks mildly.  One of Noi’s sharp elbows flails out to catch him in the ribs.

They’re sitting side-by-side on a low wall not too far away from Flower Smoke, bellies still full from lunch.  The sun shines high above them in a cloudless sky, baking Shin’s back in his too-big suit. 

Noi seems comfortable, kicking her feet against the bricks and every so often scratching at the base of one of her tiny black horns.  They’re still shocking to see, rising out of her salt-colored hair, and part of Shin wants to ask about them—if they itch, what it’s like to be so close to the full transformation.

Part of him feels like asking will make it too real.  As Shin reminds himself grimly, over and over, that part is the stupid part.

No matter how real or unreal he can manage to make the whole thing seem to himself, the fact of the matter is that Blue Night is fast approaching and soon his only friend in the world will be gone, maybe forever.  He still hasn’t managed to bring himself to say anything about it, apart from noncommittal responses to the long list of demands she starts in on whenever there’s an idle moment between them.

“Yes, promises,” Noi retorts sulkily. 

Shin files away the response in his head.  He kind of hates that he does this, but he can’t help it; he wants to be able to detect a shift, some difference in her besides the changes to her outward appearance.  There’ve been some, maybe, but Shin doesn’t think he’s known her long enough to gauge the full extent of them.

Then again, maybe knowing her has little to do with it; En remarked once over dinner in tones of despair that Noi acted half-devil long before she ever started training. 

Now that it’s almost over, this close to Blue Night, she may as well be one already.  At least, that’s what Shin keeps telling himself.  It’s the only way he can think of to steel himself for the time after she’s gone.

He realizes too late that he’s paused too long before answering her, and now she’s turned her attention from a beetle on the trunk of a nearby tree to focus fully on his face.  He waits for her to ask what’s wrong with him, or tell him something else he needs to promise, but she does neither. 

Instead, she jumps lightly down off the wall and moves to stand in front of him.  Her wiry tail swishes back and forth like a cat’s.

“Let’s do something,” she says.  “Like a going-away thing.”

It’s the first time she’s spoken about it in such plain terms, past listing out all the things Shin is or isn’t allowed to do in her absence.

“Like what?” he asks warily.  A going-away thing could be anything from an eating contest to making someone bleed for fun. 

She frowns, and scratches her horn again, and then her eyes light up like she has a plan.  Shin is suddenly moderately concerned.

“We’ll fight!’ Noi says at last, tail swishing faster.  “No magic, just like that time we were supposed to before you brained me.”

She says the last part reproachfully, not making any reference to the fact that that had been the first time they’d ever met, but Shin can see the symmetry of it.  He appreciates it, in a way, even though it’s yet another thing that makes the concept feel too real.

“Okay,” he says, getting up off the wall as well and stretching his arms out above his head.  His shoulder’s a little stiff from his last job, but hardly anything to turn down a fight over.  “Might as well.”

Noi doesn’t even bother to respond before she rushes him, eyes intent.

Five minutes later, after she’s knocked him on his ass and he’s trying unsuccessfully to staunch the torrent of blood flowing from his nose, Shin thinks maybe he shouldn’t go along with Noi’s plans so easily all the time. 

Noticing his predicament, Noi crouches down in front of him, peering with interest at his bloodied face.

“Bad luck,” she says, grinning.  That’s all the warning he gets before she takes his face in her hands and tilts his chin up, blowing a stream of healing smoke right up his nostril as he scrunches his eyes shut against the sun. 

Shin stays like that a second longer after she pulls away, eyes closed, trying to memorize the feeling of that moment in case there’s never another one like it again.

“Let’s have lunch again tomorrow,” Shin blurts out as Noi gets to her feet, shaking out the hand she’d decked him with. 

She wipes sweat from her forehead as she turns to look at him, the surprise in her expression almost immediately giving way to excitement.  

“Yeah!  Let’s celebrate the first day of Blue Night!  You’re treating me, right?”

“Ah, we’ll see,” Shin says noncommittally, getting up to face her.  Just as she’s opening her mouth to reply, he sneezes three times in rapid succession. 

When Noi ducks out of the way, yelling with outrage, the laugh Shin lets out is genuine.