#divaki

“You came back.” Divine’s voice was raspy, narrowed eyes watching as Aki sat down at the seat across from him. Each time the guards alerted him to a visitor, he knew it had to be her, but he still couldn’t understand why she insisted on coming to see him. Her friends had no idea, she had admitted that much, claiming to them that she was studying alone.

“Of course I did,” She replied simply, leaning forward on her elbows to watch him closely, rolling her eyes as his own darted down to her cleavage for a brief moment. “We won that tournament, remember the one I mentioned about?”        

He did remember. Most things the woman before him said were ingrained somewhere deep in his mind, partly because of a long-lingering soft spot for her, but mostly in case he ever did escape from these concrete walls. “Impressive.”

She leant back again, and he watched as she fiddled with the hem of her gloves; she always did this when she had something to say, something she was afraid would gain a negative response. At first, he wondered if this was something to do with Yusei, but what came out of her lips instead startled him.

“Have you ever seen a psychic with healing powers before?”

Divine’s brows furrowed, and he lifted a hand to his chin as he thought, scratching the stubble as if it would jog his memory quicker. “Yes. Once. Why?” Her silence, brown eyes focused on her own hands, answered his own question. Now that…. That was an interesting revelation. A woman who could heal and harm could be very useful.

Aki finally lifted her head, mentally tracing the scar along his face. It had marred what he considered to be perfection, and she surely knew how much he hated it. There was a reason his hair constantly covered it. “…I could try to remove that, if you wanted me to, Divine.”

A promise to bring him back to how things used to be. She even outstretched a hand, palm up waiting (or hoping, given the glimmer in her eyes). It reminded him of how things used to be, Divine offering his hand to pull her away from the darkness of the world around them. It was a promise of protection, a promise to take revenge on anyone who hurt her.

And yet, he had a feeling her promise was one of recovery. She claimed to be in a good place now, with friends and family and a place in a university starting in autumn. He hated it, the woman he had moulded from a young vulnerable girl was slipping through his fingers, with nothing he could feasibly do to stop it.

“You don’t need to do that.” An itch, a temptation to take her hand and tug, pull her back into him until they were intertwined again, unsure where Divine and his ideas ended and her own consciousness began. Instead, he allowed her to rise from her seat, eyes watery with a lingering sense of rejection.

But the light wasn’t enough to calm her nerves. No, staying put was only making things worse, the voices from her nightmare taunting her, reminding her that she was alone – it sounded far too familiar, as though it was her father speaking to her through her own psyche.

She finally rose from her spot on the bed, throwing on her dressing gown as she stepped into her slippers. She didn’t want anyone wandering the halls of the building seeing her pyjamas, an old EDEN t-shirt that Divine had handed her ages ago that would cause far too many questions. That would only be made worse by exactly where she was heading.

There was nobody else that Aki wanted to speak to when her head was muddled like this. She wasn’t sure whether he would listen to her anxieties or simply distract her, but it didn’t matter. His presence alone would soothe it, surely.

Still, she grew more nervous the closer she got to his bedroom. It was on the top floor, far above anybody else’s quarters. She supposed it helped to keep his status above everyone else, though that did often leave her wondering why her room was only a few floors below, away from most of the other members.

When she finally made it to his room, her stomach tight and her body trembling, she considered turning the other way and running back to her room, bolting the lock and hiding under the covers until her fears finally subsided or morning came. Instead, the door opened before she even thought to raise her hand to knock.

“Aki?” He raised a brow, leaning on the doorframe as he rubbed his eye. She wasn’t sure how she could have woke him up – she was silent as she crept up – but she did suppose they always did have a strange connection. She sometimes wondered if he felt everything she felt, his own insides twisting in response to her emotions. When she didn’t answer, too caught up her in fears to even begin to speak, he nodded, as if hearing her thoughts himself.

“Sorry,” She mumbled, fingers digging into the fabric of her dressing gown as she dipped her head. Still, he hummed in response, not sounding frustrated as much as tired. He stepped aside, and she understood, making her way into his room to sit herself on the end of his bed. It was so much more comfortable than her own mattress, but she couldn’t complain too much, not when he often allowed her to nap in here while he was in board meetings.

“Bad dream?” He sat beside her, those hazel eyes watching her from his peripheral vision. When she nodded, he frowned. “Want to talk about it?”

In truth, she didn’t recall the fine details, but she guessed it was better to at least tell him the overarching theme: “It was about my parents, that’s all. I don’t remember much else.”

She was relieved that he didn’t press, considering she had no other explanation to give. Instead, he shifted to lay at the head of the bed, patting the space beside him. She was quick to shed the dressing gown before scrambling to follow him, leaning against soft pillows with a sigh.

“You can stay here for the night,” He spoke surprisingly softly, offering an arm to her as he got himself comfortable again. Divine had never offered her something like this, typically calming her down before walking her back to her room. She felt her cheeks redden at the thought of it, the implications floating around her head as she settled, her head on his shoulder.

“Thank you, Divine.” She mumbled, smiling up at him when he glanced down, though she was pretty sure her expression was still laced with nerves. He gave his best attempt at a smile back, closer to a smirk but warming to her heart all the same.

“You’re welcome.” He moved briefly to switch the light out, pulling Aki closer. “You really like that shirt, hm?” She hadn’t expected him to even notice. A squeak in response, hiding her face in his pyjamas. He seemed endeared by her reaction, chuckling quietly. “It’s okay. I gave it to you because you liked it.”

It was true, though she mostly liked it because it was his. She had a feeling he knew that and was grateful that he didn’t mention it. “It’s cosy…” It was her best attempt at a reply, yawning a moment after, exhaustion finally catching up to her. Divine yawned immediately after; she vaguely recalled being told people yawned contagiously when closer to someone. She never knew if it was true, but she chose to believe it all the same.

“Get some rest, my love.”