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beewolfwrites · 1 year

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The Oar in the Sand - Chapter Fourteen: Shelter

Happy New Year and happy new chapter! Thanks for waiting guys :)

AO3 link is here

For anyone new to Alice in Borderland, this is Chishiya x OC/Reader (You can read it either way). The links to all chapters in this fic and the fic before it, including AO3 links, can be found at the top of my tumblr.

Thanks for reading!

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Condensation dripped down the windows of the izakaya, pooling on the sills and benches. With my fingertip, I caught a stray drop from the edge of the windowsill and allowed it to trickle between my fingers. Across the room, Kuina was lying on a banquette. Her arm was draped over her eyes to block out what little light filtered into the room. Chishiya was sitting opposite to me in a booth, his head resting against a divider.

‘Do you think it’s safe to go out there?’ I asked.

‘From Niragi or from the rain?’ Chishiya’s eyes were closed, his body perfectly still, and if it weren’t for his question, one would assume he was asleep.

‘I didn’t just mean Niragi. It’s kind of hard to see where the King of Spades is from here.’

‘We’d probably hear his blimp anyway,’ Kuina murmured. ‘And if he really was here, we’d be dead.’

Despite the atmosphere of the room, we were all wide awake, almost waiting for the next big event to come crashing through the door. It had only been three days since the second stage began, but we had faced non-stop challenges. From our run-in with the King of Spades, to being chased by Niragi, Tatta’s tragic death… in the quiet of the izakaya, it was as if we were waiting for a battle to begin.

The only question is, what will it be?

The hanging signs outside creaked in the wind, swinging back and forth as the rain picked up. From the banquette, Kuina muttered, ‘Why doesn’t Niragi ever die? He’s been burned alive, beaten up by Aguni and Arisu, and me too. How is he still running around?’

‘Cockroaches are known for being persistent,’ Chishiya murmured.

‘Kuina,’ I said quietly. ‘I really am sorry about your apartment.’

She hummed indifferently. ‘We’ve got a whole city of them. I might even find a better one, maybe with a private swimming pool and a gym, the kind Yamapi has.’ She chuckled under her breath. ‘Who knows? I could be as chiselled as him by the time I go back home.’

I knew Kuina was just trying to lighten the mood, but the frustration was building up inside me. No matter how hard we tried, it was impossible to shake Niragi off. If I had known things would get this bad, I would have avoided him more back at the Beach. But could I really have done much differently? I wasn’t exactly the one who burned his room and set him on fire, all I did was reject him. It was getting tiring, fighting him off all the time, constantly dodging bullets.

Speaking of which…

‘I should have asked this before,’ I said, 'but is anyone hurt?’

Aside from a speckle of bruises on my arms and legs, and my throat, which was still burning from Niragi’s grip, I was completely uninjured. Kuina lifted her arm from her face and inspected herself. Her shoulder had been hit by flying glass.

‘It’s just a scratch,’ she assured me. ‘I’ve definitely had worse.’

She was smiling, but I knew her better than that. The glitter of blood was visible even in the dim light, a drop oozing down her shoulder like the rain on the window.

‘We’ll find a clinic or a hospital,’ I told her. ‘Chishiya’s really good at this stuff.’

I focused my attention on him next. He looked calm, almost totally at peace. But having barely escaped Shinjuku Gyoen National Park with him before, I knew how skilled he was at hiding his injuries.

‘Chishiya?’

He ignored me, his eyes firmly closed. For someone who criticised everyone’s predictability, he was rather predictable himself. I leaned over the booth table and reached for the zipper of his hoodie. His fingers clasped my wrist before I could.

‘It’s nothing,’ he stated, finally opening his eyes. ‘Just leave it alone.’

‘You remember that time after that Hunting Season game, don’t you?’ I reminded him. ‘The Two of Spades. You had to limp all the way back to the Beach. If you get septicemia, how are you going to win your next game?’

He perked up at this. ‘Oh? I thought you were against me playing?’

I pulled my wrist free. ‘Come on, just let me see it. It’s not like I’m going to make it worse.’

‘I wouldn’t put it past you,’ he muttered, then slid his hood down. But instead of unzipping it as I’d expected, he pulled back his hair to expose the base of his neck. His wound from our encounter with the King of Spades had begun to bleed again, the dark crimson seeping through the dressing and leaving spots on the inside of his hoodie. My hand instinctively reached out to touch it, but I hesitated. He’d already made it clear that he didn’t want me poking and prodding it, and I didn’t want it to become more aggravated and painful than it already was.

‘God… why didn’t you say something?’

He shrugged me away and pulled his hoodie back into place. ‘It’s nothing I can’t fix myself.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, thinking back to our previous first-aid session. ‘I wonder who helped you patch it up the first time though.’

He turned away, refusing to back down. On the banquette, Kuina groaned and sat up. She fixed her hair and leaned back against the wall, looking more exhausted than I’d ever seen her. The shadows under her eyes were more pronounced, as if she had aged several years since our first meeting.

‘You know, sometimes I miss the Beach.’ Seeing the look on mine and Chishiya’s faces, she held up a hand. ‘Hear me out, I know it was crazy. Hatter was bonkers, the whole place was a cult, and we went through hell and back just to try and get out of there. But I forgot how easy it was. We didn’t have to move around all the time, it was warm too. Fresh water. Food.’

‘And we didn’t have to dodge anti-tank rifles,’ I added. My skin still tingled with the hot blast of metal and glass as the van exploded before us.

Kuina sighed deeply. ‘All those games seem easy now, looking back. The King of Clubs game had way too many rules, it was impossible to keep track at first.’

The last time Kuina mentioned the King of Clubs, she’d skipped out on a lot of the details. Seeing her look so torn up, I hadn’t wanted to pressurise her, but she seemed a little more open to talking about it now.

‘You didn’t tell me back in the hardware store,’ I said. ‘What was the King like?’

She snorted. ‘He was ballsy, for sure.’

Out the corner of my eye, Chishiya smirked. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘Like he was really confident?’

‘Yeah,’ she snickered. ‘He wasn’t afraid to lay himself bare - really stripped back the layers.’

Glancing back and forth between Chishiya’s sly expression and Kuina’s inability to keep a straight face, there was clearly something I was missing here. A language pun, perhaps?

‘ヌーデスト,’ Chishiya muttered under his breath, so quiet I had almost missed it.

‘What?!’ I spluttered. ‘For real?’ The rain outside was now lashing against the window. ‘Wasn’t he cold?’

Kuina’s shoulders shook lightly as she held back a giggle. ‘I don’t know. Probably. But he seemed genuinely cool, like someone you’d want to be friends with in the real world. He made all this big fuss about dying with your ideals, fighting for your life with all you’ve got, you know the kind.’

Hearing this, Kuina’s experience married with my own. These citizens didn’t seem like the kind of people who would design death games, killing people just for fun. They seemed genuine, approachable, and very, very human.

‘The Queen of Diamonds was the same. She kept talking about good and evil - Nietzsche. How our perceptions are limited by a black and white approach to morality.’

Kuina smiled shyly. ‘Sorry, I’m not exactly a Nietzsche expert. You’re going to have to explain it.’

‘He wrote a book called Beyond Good and Evil. Basically he says that it’s impossible to categorise people or actions as either good or evil, and that way of thinking isn’t even useful to us anyway. By removing yourself from that thought process, you can see the world for how it really is.’ I paused, remembering the clatter of the Queen’s shoe clattering to the floor in her final moments. ‘She made it pretty clear that she wasn’t our enemy.’

The room was silent, any humour we shared over the King of Clubs suddenly grim as we tried to fit the puzzle pieces together. Someone had to have designed this parallel world. It was too complex, with too many rules and systems to just be a natural coincidence.

‘Unless they’re also following rules too,’ Chishiya said, at last. ‘Like the dealers, there could be someone even higher than them. A hierarchy.’

His words triggered a memory… something the Queen had said. It was a small slip of the tongue, but it spoke volumes. Chishiya’s theory might have been right after all.

‘When I tried to question her in the game,’ I began, ‘the Queen claimed she’d “said too much already”. It was like she knew that if she said the wrong thing, something bad would happen. Kind of like Asahi and the lasers.’

Kuina and Chishiya nodded slowly. They had both seen it too, the way Asahi announced in the middle of the hotel lobby, loud and clear, that she was a dealer of the Witch Hunt game. The laser had immediately silenced her. It was evidently a rule that she knew about beforehand.

‘Argh!’ Kuina groaned, rubbing her eyes furiously. ‘The more I think about this, the more I’m getting a headache!’

‘Me too,’ I admitted.

Kuina stood up and stretched her arms above her head, wincing slightly due to the cut on her shoulder.

‘Right!’ She clapped her hands. ‘Who wants to go on a trip to the hospital?’

_____________________________________________________________

The hospital was a terracotta building with dark panelled glass running alongside the eastern exterior wall. The entrance itself was hidden under a canopy which the three of us were able to shelter beneath. The rain hadn’t let up at all and the wind whipped through my clothes. I rubbed my arms, hoping to retain at least some body heat.

‘This way,’ Chishiya said, taking off towards a set of glass double doors. Kuina and I followed, eager to get out of the cold.

Our original plan had been to head for the Tokyo Metropolitan Otsuka Hospital, but once we had grown closer, so had the King of Spades. His blimp was hovering over Toshima City, heading southwest towards Shibuya, and although the blimp was moving away from us, we decided it was best to stay out of the King’s radar altogether, if such a thing was possible. So, we headed deeper into Bunkyo City, where Chishiya acted as our compass, directing us towards the nearest medical centre.

Inside there was a reception desk with several white couches lining the centre of the lobby. Posters with cartoon viruses advertised flu jabs and warned against the dangers of antibiotic overuse. At one end of the lobby was a newspaper and snack kiosk.

‘Yes!’ Kuina immediately headed over to the kiosk and rifled through a display. She held up a bag of cookies and a packet of instant noodles. ‘There’s enough here for a few days. We could stay the night, too.’

‘Plenty of beds upstairs, I guess,’ I said, flicking through a home decor magazine. There was a lingering tragedy about the glossy pages with warm homes with trinkets and ornaments, and DIY craft tutorials. In the real world, I never would have bothered with a magazine like this. But now, my heart yearned for its simplicity.

Maybe if I go back, I’ll finally buy one of these magazines.

‘Let’s go,’ Chishiya said. ‘We can talk about it upstairs.’

He led us towards a flight of stairs, without even bothering to work out where it lead. I didn’t question him on this. He seemed twitchier than usual, and I wondered whether the wound on his neck was bothering him.

‘It doesn’t look like many people have raided this place yet,’ Kuina remarked as we walked down a long hallway, passing signs for radiology, cardiology, outpatients.

‘Maybe they have.’ My eyes paused on an empty sandwich wrapper on a windowsill. ‘Though we’ll know depending on how many supplies are left.’

‘There are boxes stashed in the basement,’ Chishiya stated.

He turned, and pushed open another set of double doors which opened up onto a large ward with its own reception desk, a recovery room, and several doors marked 手術室.

Operating theatres?

‘Why don’t you two sit down in there?’ I nodded toward the recovery room. ‘I’ll grab some stuff from the storeroom.’

Kuina happily hopped on a bed, but Chishiya’s expression was stony. ‘You won’t even know what you’re looking for. ’

‘I will,’ I insisted. ‘You taught me, remember?’

He didn’t say anything, but the glint in his eyes revealed that he remembered it clearly. Sitting on his bed with a bowl of water and a cloth, the quiet conversation on intelligence and God, and the brush of cold fingers against his skin.

‘Are you really going to be like this?’ I urged. ‘It’s not like I’m going to come back with a hammer and nails.’

‘Hmm? And did you ever fix the bathroom door?’

Did he just?!

I was almost too stunned to speak. ‘Hey! That’s so not fair, you were the one who broke it.’ He brushed past me without answering, persistent on grabbing the items himself. ‘Chishiya!’ I called, following along behind him.

He didn’t protest when I entered the supply room and started pulling out drawers, choosing tape, gauze, dressings, chlorhexidine. With two of us there, it didn’t take us long to find what we needed, and in spite of all the fuss he made, I had the feeling that he actually didn’t mind my help.

He worked on Kuina’s cut first, the two of them sitting on one of the recovery beds as he disinfected and treated her wound. They were deep in a hushed conversation, and I took the opportunity to wander around the ward.

The operating theatres were cold and sterile, but exploring a single door hidden in an alcove, I happened upon a kitchenette that opened up into what looked like a staff room. Bench seating lined the back wall, and in the corner they had managed to squeeze in a table and eight chairs. All along the walls were cork boards, pinned with the latest notices, changes in policies, new orders for supplies arriving. I couldn’t help but enjoy reading them; the small scraps of handwritten notes were a glimpse of a world long-gone. My eyes scanned several sticky notes and reminders, trying to decipher the Japane—

My gaze stilled on a sheet of paper titled 木曜日の研修会. Beneath, several names had been scrawled in different colours of pen by different hands.

阿久田　小衿

伝谷　一向

苣屋　駿太郎

鈴木　大翔

Although I couldn’t understand the kanji, one name stuck out. I had seen that handwriting before on a post-it note stuck to the top of a homemade taser. I would have have recognised it anywhere.

苣屋　駿太郎

A smile pulled at the corners of my lips as I gently touched the characters with my fingertips, tracing each blue pen stroke. I was only vaguely aware of the footsteps sounding from the kitchenette.

‘Did you find something useful?’

I kept my gaze on the writing, absorbing every small character, the tiny intricacies of each kanji. ‘You didn’t tell us this was your hospital.’

The way he led us here… he didn’t even bother looking at the signs…

Maybe I should have noticed that this was the University of Tokyo Hospital, but I hadn’t stopped to read the signs either.

‘It didn’t really matter,’ Chishiya said.

I glanced over at him. He had already reapplied a new dressing to the wound on his neck, the surrounding skin tinged orange with the chlorhexidine. His hair was unkempt and his face looked older, somehow, as if the Borderlands had aged us.

Pointing towards the title at the top of the sheet, I asked, ‘What does this mean? I know it says Thursday’s something… but this longer word.’

He sauntered over to the pinboard, taking one brief look at the sheet of paper. ‘Training session. They ran training for medical students and junior doctors every Thursday.’ He paused, the barest hint of a smirk. ‘I didn’t know you knew how to spell my name.’

‘I don’t,’ I admitted. ‘It’s your handwriting. You have a slight slant to it, and when you draw those tiny boxes in kanji, you make the corners really sharp, like spikes.’

‘…I see.’

I sat down on the bench seats, relaxing into the smooth, squishy material. I could almost imagine Chishiya sitting somewhere like this with a paper cup of terrible coffee. ‘What’s your medical speciality? You never really told me about it, but you must have one.’

‘Cardiovascular surgery,’ he replied. ‘I was curious about the human heart.’

In more ways than one, huh?

Unexpectedly, he moved to sit beside me, leaning back until I could feel the warmth of his skin through his hoodie. It was so tempting to just shift my head a few inches and nestle into his shoulder, but I didn’t want to hurt his wound any further.

‘I don’t know if I’d want you cutting me open on a table,’ I said lightly. ‘You might accidentally nick my aorta.’

‘I don’t do anything by accident.’

‘And that’s supposed to be reassuring, Dr Chishiya?’

‘Oh?’ His eyes narrowed as he slowly leaned closer, his breath fanning my nose and cheeks. ‘Who said I was trying to be reassuring?’

As if swept along by the tide, I was drawn into his kiss, his hands supporting the small of my back as I was pushed further into the bench seating. His figure hovered over mine, his body the warmest thing in the room, and I slipped both arms under his hoodie, trying to lessen the space between us. It was a little disconcerting given he wasn’t someone who often initiated physical intimacy, and part of me was slightly suspicious, but I wanted to take this moment for everything it was worth.

But then…

I broke away from his kiss. ‘Do you really thing we should be doing this now?’

He hummed, uncaring, and buried his face in the crook of my neck. ‘Your doctor says it’s fine, so it’s fine.’

‘Kuina’s right outside,’ I whispered, trying to resist his pull. ‘What if she walks in?’

‘Who cares? That’s her problem.’

The sky outside was darkening, a fusion of the rainclouds and the sunset. In the deep blue light, Chishiya’s hair had regained its silvery hue and his eyes glittered with amusement, just like they had when he’d first treated my bullet graze in the pharmacy. Except the scene was a mirror image — a total inversion of our relationship back then. He was propped up on his elbows, one hand resting against my head as his fingertips played with a lock of my hair — something that would have been pure fantasy several weeks ago. Looking at him now, it was like staring into the eyes of a totally different person.

Well, I guess he’s not totally different.

‘Chishiya.’ Comfortable against the bench seats, I didn’t want to move, but I had to ask… ‘How many days are left on your visa?’

Some of the humour disappeared from his face as he considered his answer. ‘It’s been three days since the second stage started. I suppose since the games stopped after we finished the Witch Hunt, I’ve got one week left.’

So it’s not urgent.

Relief coursed through me, but really, there was still one other issue. If Chishiya waited a week before taking part in another game, there was a chance the Diamond and Hearts games could be completed already, and Spades and Clubs were hardly his strengths. Even though I’d said that I didn’t plan on competing again, it looked like I was going to have to take back my own words.

‘Look,’ I mumbled, ‘I know you want to try one of the games. You’re always checking the blimps, and even though I don’t like it, realistically there’s nothing I can do to stop you from taking part, even if I wanted to.’

Chishiya’s stare was intent, his interest already piqued. His fingers stilled, no longer playing with my hair. ‘And?’

‘I want to make another deal.’ I didn’t intend for the words to come out so unsteadily, but my heart was thrumming so loud I was sure he could feel it. ‘You can take part in a game - any game you want - but we’ll complete it together.’

‘No.’

‘I know you said you don’t want me taking part in your games—’

‘So it’s settled.’

‘No, it’s not.’ I slid my hand up to rest on his cheek. My fingers were icy cold, but he seemed unbothered. ‘I get that you want to prove yourself, even if I don’t really understand why, but I can’t just wave you goodbye and hope for the best. If I’m there, you’ll have one less enemy to think about. I want to do everything I can to make sure you win.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘And if there’s only one winner?’

I gulped. It was a very real possibility. ‘Then so be it.’

His lips curled at the edges, but there was no enjoyment there. ‘Are you really willing to risk an outcome like that? How selfish.’

Selfish?

What a strange word choice. Was it really selfish to want someone else to live on for you?

‘Like I said, you could choose any game you want. It doesn’t have to be Diamonds - you can keep those. Just let me have tomorrow with you. One day together - just in case things don’t go to plan.’

He was silent for several seconds, but those seconds stretched on as he meditated over my proposal. And just when I thought he was going to shut the idea down entirely, he eventually reached a calm decision.

‘Fine. ’

‘Fine?’

‘You win,’ he said. ‘But you can’t argue with my choice of game, even if you don’t like it.’

Threading my fingers through his hair, I pulled his face down to mine, meeting halfway with a kiss. ‘Thank you, Chishiya.’

I melted into his embrace, knowing that this time around, we would complete a game together. As a team. Even if it meant putting my own life on the line, I wanted him to win. I wanted him to return home a different person, someone unlike his father, capable of love and kindness, and genuine laughter that he could feel deep inside instead of just perform. I wanted him to have a life worth living.

Somewhere down the line, Chishiya’s hands had slid inside my shirt, his kisses becoming more and more urgent. Drawing my shirt up, his cool fingertips drew constellations on my skin, every trace of his fingernails sending stars reverberating through my entire being.

‘What the fuck?’

My eyes flew open. Chishiya stilled, pulled away slightly, but didn’t move beyond this. Kuina was standing in the doorway, her jaw slack.

Oh no…

‘Oh my god, I can’t believe you two!’ She paced back and forth, shaking her head. ‘You could have just said you wanted privacy or made up an excuse instead of just disappearing.’

Oh no no no…

My cheeks glowed hot with humiliation, whereas Chishiya was entirely disinterested by the intrusion, re-directing his attention back to the column of my throat. As enjoyable as his ministrations were, the moment was already broken. I patted his shoulder, the signal to retreat.

‘You’re still… Christ!’ Palms firmly over her eyes, Kuina scrambled to the door. ‘I was literally just in the other room, how am I supposed to unsee this?!’

‘Wait,’ I tried to scramble away. ‘Stop it Chishiya. Kuina, wait!’

Even as the door creaked to a close, Kuina’s protests echoed throughout the empty ward. Burying my face in the warmth of Chishiya’s shoulder, it was impossible to hold back laughter.

#alice in borderland #Imawa no Kuni no Arisu #aib #chishiya #chishiya shuntaro #chishiya alice in Borderland #Chishiya x reader #chishiya x oc

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