Limb by Limb and Tooth by Tooth
Title: Limb by Limb and Tooth by Tooth
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: OC + Yokoyama Yu, Nishikido Ryo; gen
Summary: No, she realized, he didn't remember a thing. She'd done her job all too well.
Notes/Warnings: For jentfic_remix, the original by moogle_tey is here: Bulletproof. To avoid spoiling the plot twists, read Tey's first and then this one. Story has been remixed from the POV of an OC who was a minor character in the original piece. Dark themes, graphic description, dead bodies.
Her boyfriend's words were still ringing in her ears from the night before. "I wish you wouldn't work so late. When we're married, you'd better stop working there."
As though marriage between them was inevitable. As though eight months and a visit to a love hotel every other week were grounds for an entire future together. She'd liked him until last night, until he'd thought to impose a life on her that she didn't want. Yes, she worked late, but only because she had to.
She couldn't exactly tell him why there was a "hiring freeze" at the clinic where she worked. She couldn't say that staff numbers were kept to a minimum for security's sake and because so much of the cash flow went to upkeep of the facilities. Her contract allowed her to say she was a receptionist in the medical industry and not much more than that.
So she sat at the desk in the upstairs office, arranging that morning's urgent appointment with utter professionalism, now fully convinced that the next time they met up it would be over. She'd apologize and tell him there was someone else and that she didn't want to see him again. This was her job, and it had to come first.
Yokoyama, she entered into the appointment software, wondering if there'd be any recognition in his eyes on this visit.
--
She was setting out the magazines on the waiting room table when Nishikido arrived, quiet and polite and ten minutes late as always.
"Welcome," she said, greeting him. It was even easier to forget her soon to be ex-boyfriend's pigheadedness when there were people like him as regular patients. "We've been expecting you."
He was in some obvious pain, but was stubbornly trying not to show it. He was in for his shoulder today. "Traffic was bad, I'm sorry for being late."
She said nothing, holding the door for him and escorting him to the elevator. In her first few months, she'd still been rather starstruck and prone to girlish flirting. Even in their casual clothes, it was obvious why people like Nishikido and Matsumoto and Kamenashi were in that line of work. Nurse Yoshida had chastized her quickly enough in her early days - "they don't want to date you, you're nobody to them. Because this place doesn't exist."
So she'd settled on polite indifference, her smile just as practiced as someone like Nishikido's. Nishikido smiled for the magazines, and she smiled to set him and his colleagues at ease. Nurse Yoshida took over as soon as she brought Nishikido downstairs. She doubted it would be as easy when their next appointment arrived.
Nishikido was still in prep when Yokoyama showed up, as flustered and fidgety as his bandmate had been calm and relaxed.
"Yokoyama," he said, his eyes darting around the office in obvious fright. No, she realized, he didn't remember a thing. She'd done her job all too well.
He'd never been the type of idol that had distracted her in her first few months. He didn't sparkle, didn't leave her weak in the knees. He wasn't a "star." He was normal. Maybe it was the lack of those qualities that made him a difficult patient. Maybe it was the lack of those qualities that made her feel so much more for him than the Matsumotos and Nishikidos of the entertainment world. On the first time or the fiftieth time, The Bath made sense to the stars. They saw it as just another aspect of keeping up appearances. To the people like Yokoyama, The Bath would always be frightening.
She got up from the desk, feeling worried for him. Would this time be any better than the last? "Follow me, please."
"Where are the offices?" he inquired as he trailed behind, reminding her of a lost dog. "Another building?"
"They're downstairs." She opened the door to lead him to the elevator and the waiting room on the floor below.
He'd always been so stubborn and too curious. That they'd accepted the appointment on such short notice had been Nurse Yoshida's call. Nurse Yoshida likened herself to a horse trainer sometimes when it came to patients like Yokoyama. She thought that every horse could be broken. Eventually.
So when the elevator dinged maybe half an hour later and Yokoyama came hurrying out, it was clear that there'd be a repeat of what had happened last time. Even if the receptionist thought the whole situation cruel, Yoshida would probably smile and remind her that they could charge the agency more money for Yokoyama's skittishness and multiple appointments.
"That money keeps us in business," Nurse Yoshida would say. "That money bought you that lovely handbag, did it not?"
Even as her heart broke for him, she smiled and waved him off as he hurried for the exit.
"Please come again!"
--
Despite the difficulties the previous day, Nishikido returned with the same relaxed air. The promise of being good as new, of all his pain washing away seemed to be enough. Though sometimes she read about him in the tabloids, partying all night long, and wondered if it was his method of washing The Bath away.
She led him down for prep, and Yoshida was frowning at the machine readouts. As soon as Nishikido was settled in and off to change, the nurse waved her over.
"Yokoyama-san's coming in again," Yoshida said, obviously making the final tweaks in Nishikido's file in anticipation of that day's treatment.
"Yes," she nodded in reply. "He'll be here within the hour. Is something wrong?"
"We're rescheduling him for tonight after our 7:30 PM Bath," she said curtly. "Plan to be here late."
Her heart sank for Yokoyama, even if Yoshida's medical opinion outweighed her personal opinion. What could she tell him? What could she even say? It had to be nervewracking enough for him to come in twice in two days, and now they were going to drag out the hours? Was Yoshida doing this to prioritize Nishikido's treatment or to play with Yokoyama's psyche?
"Bring him down here anyhow," Yoshida insisted, getting up and yanking Nishikido's chart from the desk. "When he sees how simple it is, he'll be fine. He can view his friend's procedure."
But sure enough Yokoyama fled again, tearing past the reception desk an hour later as though there was a killer on his tail. Nishikido left soon after, healthy and perfect and with an apologetic nod her way.
She headed downstairs to help Nurse Yoshida with post-op cleaning. Yoshida, independent-minded as always, already had Nishikido's shell out of the machine, the empty body unceremoniously dumped onto the blue tarp.
"I'm going to need you to call the collection men," Yoshida said, yanking on the lifeless limbs, folding the arms across the chest. "I need the fridge dumped."
"Of course." She hurried over, helping to lift the tarp. "Will Yokoyama-san be returning?"
Yoshida grinned as they exited the room, turning the corner on their way to storage with Nishikido's shell in tow. "He'll be back tonight. He's in too much pain not to."
The nurse laughed as she explained Nishikido's procedure, how Yokoyama's curiosity had driven him to take a peek at Nishikido's shell. Patient trauma seemed to get Yoshida through the day.
They got into storage, heaving what had been Nishikido onto their last remaining body tray. "Thanks for all your hard work," Yoshida said, "get him tagged and recorded."
"Of course," she said agreeably. She couldn't be anything but agreeable, after all.
As soon as the storage door closed, leaving her alone in the bitter cold, she frowned. Nishikido's arm had slipped as they'd moved him, and she lifted it, moving it back on top of his body.
This was what Yokoyama had seen, the body of his bandmate, his friend. Of course, it was no longer Nishikido Ryo. She'd seen Nishikido walk out the door at 100% idol perfection minutes earlier. But she'd wiped Yokoyama the last time - he was experiencing this again like it was the first time. Anyone would freak out.
Nishikido's face was peaceful. The peaceful ones always disturbed her more than the others. It was the complacency, the resigned acceptance. She'd never been through The Bath herself - it wasn't an employee perk. Sometimes she wondered what she'd come through looking like.
As soon as she'd filled out the paperwork on the storage room chart, she moved back to the slab. Her fingers drifted absent-mindedly across the idol's cheek to the tiny moles on his lips, over the bridge of his nose, touching the dark hair that fell across his brow.
"They don't want to date you. You're nothing to them."
She took her hand back and threw the tarp over his face, using all her strength to shove the metal tray into the storage unit and locking it.
--
She smiled for Yokoyama when he returned that evening. She'd finally gone ahead and broken up with her boyfriend through a mail message during her late lunch break. She was ready to work. "Welcome back."
She escorted him to the elevator, hearing him fidget behind her, shifting his weight from foot to foot, sneakers squeaking on the floor. She looked back over her shoulder at him as soon as the doors opened.
"Third time's a charm, right?" she asked, hoping he'd be able to just settle down and go through with the procedure. Yoshida didn't need to get any more amusement out of the man's pain.
"Three strikes and you're out," he said in reply, trying to joke. Trying to make small talk.
"Who's that?" Yokoyama asked nervously as they reached the desk. Yoshida had called in Nakamura-san, promising him time and a half if he came in. He was tall, bulky. Everything that their idol customers were not.
"Night staff."
She led Yokoyama to the x-ray room. This step was always just a formality, something for their records. The patients never saw them. It was blackmail fodder in Yoshida's eyes.
Yokoyama was looking around with the all too familiar nervousness in his eyes. That it was all too familiar was what made her hope that tonight would be different.
"The back, right?" she asked him. "If you'll strip down to your underwear, someone will be right in."
"Why?"
"It doesn't matter what it says on the x-ray," she told him as gently as she dared. "You'll be going into the machine shortly after."
Or at least as soon as the young man receiving treatment was done and taken care of. Another last minute appointment, but so it went with Yokoyama's agency.
"Couldn't I just go in with..."
"The faster you comply," she said hurriedly, trying to ensure that he stayed put, "the quicker this will be over with."
He asked her a few more questions and finally seemed willing to sit still. She found Yoshida at the desk. She and Nakamura-san were speaking in hushed tones, stopping when she approached.
"Yokoyama-san is ready for x-rays."
"Thanks," Yoshida said with a sigh, stretching. "Kid's out of The Bath in five. I'll need you here to get him all checked out when he's done."
"And the shell?" Her call to collection had not gone well that afternoon. Their rates were rising, and they weren't sending a truck until the following day.
Yoshida sighed. "We'll have to stack them."
Yoshida departed to take care of Yokoyama while she headed for The Bath. It had already unsealed, and the young man was waiting patiently. He couldn't have been more than fourteen, fifteen years old. They were getting younger and younger.
"Let's get you home, okay?"
He meekly followed her out and upstairs and as was customary with the younger ones, she walked him out to the car where a manager was waiting for him. Without another word, the child was whisked off.
She headed back inside. Stack them, Nurse Yoshida had said. She shuddered a bit in the elevator, making sure she was calm and focused when she got out and headed back into The Bath room. She had to prep in time for Yokoyama, whose x-rays would soon be complete.
But when she opened the chamber, there was more than an empty shell waiting to be retrieved. Nakamura-san had put the kid in here. It had been his first time, and Nakamura-san hadn't seemed to care. There'd been no sedative administered.
She heard the door open and Yoshida clear her throat behind her. "Well, isn't that just great?"
She turned, letting the nurse approach to examine the shell left behind. Eyes open, unseeing. Mouth agape, voice silenced. Blood on his hands - he'd tried to claw his way out of the machine. And of course, he'd nearly split in half. Even then, blood and viscera pooled around the bottom of the machine and dripped onto the floor.
"Should I get a tarp?"
"You pay them time and a half, and this is the quality of work you get," Yoshida grumbled under her breath. "We have to sanitize the whole space before we can even get Kanjani in here. Come on, let's just move the thing first."
Yoshida took the legs, and she grabbed the shell under his arms, hoisting him. They struggled at the door. "They're getting bigger all the time."
She still thought the boy had been small, but it didn't make hauling dead weight any easier. Especially when they were barely recognizable after a particularly tough go inside The Bath. "I hate it when they bust open like this."
"We need a better way of disposing them," Yoshida complained, as she did every time. "I asked them to build a bigger storage room and, hang on..." They readjusted and kept moving. "They said there wasn't enough in the budget. I told them we're getting backed up, they don't take them away fast enough - with all of them they've got now?"
When they turned the corner, Yokoyama was there. Yoshida's patience was wearing thin. "Yokoyama-kun, could you please return to your room? We'll be with you shortly."
He moved closer, and it was getting harder to keep a grip on the boy in her arms. Go back, she begged him. Go back, please just go back. She couldn't bear the look in his eyes, the growing realization that not everyone ended up like Nishikido. Not everyone made for a pretty shell.
"What's that?"
Yoshida was all business. The receptionist wasn't sure if it was an enviable quality or not. "It's nothing, please return to your room."
"Nothing? That's...that's one of the juniors..."
"No, it's not. It's a shell. Please..."
"He's one of the juniors!"
Go back. Please just go back.
Yokoyama bolted, and Yoshida groaned. "Shit."
The nurse let down her half of the burden to take off after the idol, leaving her alone with the bloodied shell. The fear in Yokoyama's face had frozen her in place, and she heard Nakamura-san trying to calm the man down. They were yelling. It was getting louder.
The urge to just drop the empty thing in her arms to help the very much alive Yokoyama nearly overtook her. He was frightened. He was in pain. And he was very, very alone.
"Three strikes and you're out."
There was nothing she could do for him. She readjusted her grip on the shell, walking backwards to drag him towards the storage room. It left a streak of red on the pristine tile. Between Yoshida and Nakamura, they'd calm Yokoyama down. She had to believe that. Even as she hauled the boy into the room, she could still hear Yokoyama's screams.
"Please!" he was begging as she brought the shell into the room, setting him down on the floor with shaking hands. "PLEASE!"
By the time she made it back, Yokoyama was propped against the desk, staring blankly. "Did you stop him?" she asked quietly, even though she knew they'd done more harm than good in doing so.
"We'll have to add a couple of lines to filter out besides the one for the problem in the lumbar vertebrae...the underlip is split and it looks like..." She knelt down to pick up the man's hand. "Probably something broken - probably a lot broken in his left hand."
She didn't dare wince in front of her boss or Nakamura-san. "Don't you want to x-ray?"
"No, I just want to finish this and go home."
"Okay," she replied with a shrug, even as Yokoyama's blank stare unnerved her.
"If it comes out wrong, we'll just correct it the next time."
"I don't want to repeat what happened with Yamashita-kun and the eyes," she said, trying to keep her voice level and calm. When Nurse Yoshida was tired, her work could get sloppy. They hadn't even cleaned The Bath out yet.
"Just...make sure it's all filtered out."
She truly pitied him, seeing him there. Utterly helpless and at their mercy. This had happened before. Maybe it would happen again. "And his memory?"
"Standard. No...take out the last two days."
She looked down into Yokoyama's eyes. It was obvious what he was saying.
Help me.
Polite indifference.
Help me. Please...
She looked away.
Nakamura-san picked Yokoyama up like he was a sack of rice and not a human being, hauling him off with Yoshida at his heels. There was work to be done.
--
"Have a pleasant evening," she said to Yokoyama's manager an hour later as he and Nakamura-san dragged the unconscious, but good as new idol out to the car.
He'd wake up refreshed, perfect, ready to take on the world. And the next time she'd see him, he wouldn't remember her face.
Nakamura-san didn't return, having already clocked out. Yoshida-san hurried out soon after with a mumbled "thanks for your hard work."
It was on her to close up shop for the night. She took the elevator down. They'd done a decent job cleaning up, though she wasn't sure it was up to biohazard standards. In the morning, she'd have to call collection, have them bring some stronger supplies when they came to clean out the fridge.
She opened the storage room. Nakamura had saved her and Yoshida the trouble, putting the kid in with someone else and shuffling around a few others to make it easier on collection. Yokoyama had his own slab at the end of the row, and she tugged his case open, sliding the tray out. They'd covered him, and she pulled the sheet away from his face.
His eyes were still open, so she shut them. Her hand lingered against his face, already so chilled from almost an hour inside. Her fingers stroked his mop of black hair.
He wasn't a "star." He was normal.
She kissed him on the lips, softly, sweetly. She let the guilt consume her for only a few seconds more.
"See you next time," she whispered in his ear before covering him up, pushing the tray back in, and locking it tight.
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: OC + Yokoyama Yu, Nishikido Ryo; gen
Summary: No, she realized, he didn't remember a thing. She'd done her job all too well.
Notes/Warnings: For jentfic_remix, the original by moogle_tey is here: Bulletproof. To avoid spoiling the plot twists, read Tey's first and then this one. Story has been remixed from the POV of an OC who was a minor character in the original piece. Dark themes, graphic description, dead bodies.
Her boyfriend's words were still ringing in her ears from the night before. "I wish you wouldn't work so late. When we're married, you'd better stop working there."
As though marriage between them was inevitable. As though eight months and a visit to a love hotel every other week were grounds for an entire future together. She'd liked him until last night, until he'd thought to impose a life on her that she didn't want. Yes, she worked late, but only because she had to.
She couldn't exactly tell him why there was a "hiring freeze" at the clinic where she worked. She couldn't say that staff numbers were kept to a minimum for security's sake and because so much of the cash flow went to upkeep of the facilities. Her contract allowed her to say she was a receptionist in the medical industry and not much more than that.
So she sat at the desk in the upstairs office, arranging that morning's urgent appointment with utter professionalism, now fully convinced that the next time they met up it would be over. She'd apologize and tell him there was someone else and that she didn't want to see him again. This was her job, and it had to come first.
Yokoyama, she entered into the appointment software, wondering if there'd be any recognition in his eyes on this visit.
--
She was setting out the magazines on the waiting room table when Nishikido arrived, quiet and polite and ten minutes late as always.
"Welcome," she said, greeting him. It was even easier to forget her soon to be ex-boyfriend's pigheadedness when there were people like him as regular patients. "We've been expecting you."
He was in some obvious pain, but was stubbornly trying not to show it. He was in for his shoulder today. "Traffic was bad, I'm sorry for being late."
She said nothing, holding the door for him and escorting him to the elevator. In her first few months, she'd still been rather starstruck and prone to girlish flirting. Even in their casual clothes, it was obvious why people like Nishikido and Matsumoto and Kamenashi were in that line of work. Nurse Yoshida had chastized her quickly enough in her early days - "they don't want to date you, you're nobody to them. Because this place doesn't exist."
So she'd settled on polite indifference, her smile just as practiced as someone like Nishikido's. Nishikido smiled for the magazines, and she smiled to set him and his colleagues at ease. Nurse Yoshida took over as soon as she brought Nishikido downstairs. She doubted it would be as easy when their next appointment arrived.
Nishikido was still in prep when Yokoyama showed up, as flustered and fidgety as his bandmate had been calm and relaxed.
"Yokoyama," he said, his eyes darting around the office in obvious fright. No, she realized, he didn't remember a thing. She'd done her job all too well.
He'd never been the type of idol that had distracted her in her first few months. He didn't sparkle, didn't leave her weak in the knees. He wasn't a "star." He was normal. Maybe it was the lack of those qualities that made him a difficult patient. Maybe it was the lack of those qualities that made her feel so much more for him than the Matsumotos and Nishikidos of the entertainment world. On the first time or the fiftieth time, The Bath made sense to the stars. They saw it as just another aspect of keeping up appearances. To the people like Yokoyama, The Bath would always be frightening.
She got up from the desk, feeling worried for him. Would this time be any better than the last? "Follow me, please."
"Where are the offices?" he inquired as he trailed behind, reminding her of a lost dog. "Another building?"
"They're downstairs." She opened the door to lead him to the elevator and the waiting room on the floor below.
He'd always been so stubborn and too curious. That they'd accepted the appointment on such short notice had been Nurse Yoshida's call. Nurse Yoshida likened herself to a horse trainer sometimes when it came to patients like Yokoyama. She thought that every horse could be broken. Eventually.
So when the elevator dinged maybe half an hour later and Yokoyama came hurrying out, it was clear that there'd be a repeat of what had happened last time. Even if the receptionist thought the whole situation cruel, Yoshida would probably smile and remind her that they could charge the agency more money for Yokoyama's skittishness and multiple appointments.
"That money keeps us in business," Nurse Yoshida would say. "That money bought you that lovely handbag, did it not?"
Even as her heart broke for him, she smiled and waved him off as he hurried for the exit.
"Please come again!"
--
Despite the difficulties the previous day, Nishikido returned with the same relaxed air. The promise of being good as new, of all his pain washing away seemed to be enough. Though sometimes she read about him in the tabloids, partying all night long, and wondered if it was his method of washing The Bath away.
She led him down for prep, and Yoshida was frowning at the machine readouts. As soon as Nishikido was settled in and off to change, the nurse waved her over.
"Yokoyama-san's coming in again," Yoshida said, obviously making the final tweaks in Nishikido's file in anticipation of that day's treatment.
"Yes," she nodded in reply. "He'll be here within the hour. Is something wrong?"
"We're rescheduling him for tonight after our 7:30 PM Bath," she said curtly. "Plan to be here late."
Her heart sank for Yokoyama, even if Yoshida's medical opinion outweighed her personal opinion. What could she tell him? What could she even say? It had to be nervewracking enough for him to come in twice in two days, and now they were going to drag out the hours? Was Yoshida doing this to prioritize Nishikido's treatment or to play with Yokoyama's psyche?
"Bring him down here anyhow," Yoshida insisted, getting up and yanking Nishikido's chart from the desk. "When he sees how simple it is, he'll be fine. He can view his friend's procedure."
But sure enough Yokoyama fled again, tearing past the reception desk an hour later as though there was a killer on his tail. Nishikido left soon after, healthy and perfect and with an apologetic nod her way.
She headed downstairs to help Nurse Yoshida with post-op cleaning. Yoshida, independent-minded as always, already had Nishikido's shell out of the machine, the empty body unceremoniously dumped onto the blue tarp.
"I'm going to need you to call the collection men," Yoshida said, yanking on the lifeless limbs, folding the arms across the chest. "I need the fridge dumped."
"Of course." She hurried over, helping to lift the tarp. "Will Yokoyama-san be returning?"
Yoshida grinned as they exited the room, turning the corner on their way to storage with Nishikido's shell in tow. "He'll be back tonight. He's in too much pain not to."
The nurse laughed as she explained Nishikido's procedure, how Yokoyama's curiosity had driven him to take a peek at Nishikido's shell. Patient trauma seemed to get Yoshida through the day.
They got into storage, heaving what had been Nishikido onto their last remaining body tray. "Thanks for all your hard work," Yoshida said, "get him tagged and recorded."
"Of course," she said agreeably. She couldn't be anything but agreeable, after all.
As soon as the storage door closed, leaving her alone in the bitter cold, she frowned. Nishikido's arm had slipped as they'd moved him, and she lifted it, moving it back on top of his body.
This was what Yokoyama had seen, the body of his bandmate, his friend. Of course, it was no longer Nishikido Ryo. She'd seen Nishikido walk out the door at 100% idol perfection minutes earlier. But she'd wiped Yokoyama the last time - he was experiencing this again like it was the first time. Anyone would freak out.
Nishikido's face was peaceful. The peaceful ones always disturbed her more than the others. It was the complacency, the resigned acceptance. She'd never been through The Bath herself - it wasn't an employee perk. Sometimes she wondered what she'd come through looking like.
As soon as she'd filled out the paperwork on the storage room chart, she moved back to the slab. Her fingers drifted absent-mindedly across the idol's cheek to the tiny moles on his lips, over the bridge of his nose, touching the dark hair that fell across his brow.
"They don't want to date you. You're nothing to them."
She took her hand back and threw the tarp over his face, using all her strength to shove the metal tray into the storage unit and locking it.
--
She smiled for Yokoyama when he returned that evening. She'd finally gone ahead and broken up with her boyfriend through a mail message during her late lunch break. She was ready to work. "Welcome back."
She escorted him to the elevator, hearing him fidget behind her, shifting his weight from foot to foot, sneakers squeaking on the floor. She looked back over her shoulder at him as soon as the doors opened.
"Third time's a charm, right?" she asked, hoping he'd be able to just settle down and go through with the procedure. Yoshida didn't need to get any more amusement out of the man's pain.
"Three strikes and you're out," he said in reply, trying to joke. Trying to make small talk.
"Who's that?" Yokoyama asked nervously as they reached the desk. Yoshida had called in Nakamura-san, promising him time and a half if he came in. He was tall, bulky. Everything that their idol customers were not.
"Night staff."
She led Yokoyama to the x-ray room. This step was always just a formality, something for their records. The patients never saw them. It was blackmail fodder in Yoshida's eyes.
Yokoyama was looking around with the all too familiar nervousness in his eyes. That it was all too familiar was what made her hope that tonight would be different.
"The back, right?" she asked him. "If you'll strip down to your underwear, someone will be right in."
"Why?"
"It doesn't matter what it says on the x-ray," she told him as gently as she dared. "You'll be going into the machine shortly after."
Or at least as soon as the young man receiving treatment was done and taken care of. Another last minute appointment, but so it went with Yokoyama's agency.
"Couldn't I just go in with..."
"The faster you comply," she said hurriedly, trying to ensure that he stayed put, "the quicker this will be over with."
He asked her a few more questions and finally seemed willing to sit still. She found Yoshida at the desk. She and Nakamura-san were speaking in hushed tones, stopping when she approached.
"Yokoyama-san is ready for x-rays."
"Thanks," Yoshida said with a sigh, stretching. "Kid's out of The Bath in five. I'll need you here to get him all checked out when he's done."
"And the shell?" Her call to collection had not gone well that afternoon. Their rates were rising, and they weren't sending a truck until the following day.
Yoshida sighed. "We'll have to stack them."
Yoshida departed to take care of Yokoyama while she headed for The Bath. It had already unsealed, and the young man was waiting patiently. He couldn't have been more than fourteen, fifteen years old. They were getting younger and younger.
"Let's get you home, okay?"
He meekly followed her out and upstairs and as was customary with the younger ones, she walked him out to the car where a manager was waiting for him. Without another word, the child was whisked off.
She headed back inside. Stack them, Nurse Yoshida had said. She shuddered a bit in the elevator, making sure she was calm and focused when she got out and headed back into The Bath room. She had to prep in time for Yokoyama, whose x-rays would soon be complete.
But when she opened the chamber, there was more than an empty shell waiting to be retrieved. Nakamura-san had put the kid in here. It had been his first time, and Nakamura-san hadn't seemed to care. There'd been no sedative administered.
She heard the door open and Yoshida clear her throat behind her. "Well, isn't that just great?"
She turned, letting the nurse approach to examine the shell left behind. Eyes open, unseeing. Mouth agape, voice silenced. Blood on his hands - he'd tried to claw his way out of the machine. And of course, he'd nearly split in half. Even then, blood and viscera pooled around the bottom of the machine and dripped onto the floor.
"Should I get a tarp?"
"You pay them time and a half, and this is the quality of work you get," Yoshida grumbled under her breath. "We have to sanitize the whole space before we can even get Kanjani in here. Come on, let's just move the thing first."
Yoshida took the legs, and she grabbed the shell under his arms, hoisting him. They struggled at the door. "They're getting bigger all the time."
She still thought the boy had been small, but it didn't make hauling dead weight any easier. Especially when they were barely recognizable after a particularly tough go inside The Bath. "I hate it when they bust open like this."
"We need a better way of disposing them," Yoshida complained, as she did every time. "I asked them to build a bigger storage room and, hang on..." They readjusted and kept moving. "They said there wasn't enough in the budget. I told them we're getting backed up, they don't take them away fast enough - with all of them they've got now?"
When they turned the corner, Yokoyama was there. Yoshida's patience was wearing thin. "Yokoyama-kun, could you please return to your room? We'll be with you shortly."
He moved closer, and it was getting harder to keep a grip on the boy in her arms. Go back, she begged him. Go back, please just go back. She couldn't bear the look in his eyes, the growing realization that not everyone ended up like Nishikido. Not everyone made for a pretty shell.
"What's that?"
Yoshida was all business. The receptionist wasn't sure if it was an enviable quality or not. "It's nothing, please return to your room."
"Nothing? That's...that's one of the juniors..."
"No, it's not. It's a shell. Please..."
"He's one of the juniors!"
Go back. Please just go back.
Yokoyama bolted, and Yoshida groaned. "Shit."
The nurse let down her half of the burden to take off after the idol, leaving her alone with the bloodied shell. The fear in Yokoyama's face had frozen her in place, and she heard Nakamura-san trying to calm the man down. They were yelling. It was getting louder.
The urge to just drop the empty thing in her arms to help the very much alive Yokoyama nearly overtook her. He was frightened. He was in pain. And he was very, very alone.
"Three strikes and you're out."
There was nothing she could do for him. She readjusted her grip on the shell, walking backwards to drag him towards the storage room. It left a streak of red on the pristine tile. Between Yoshida and Nakamura, they'd calm Yokoyama down. She had to believe that. Even as she hauled the boy into the room, she could still hear Yokoyama's screams.
"Please!" he was begging as she brought the shell into the room, setting him down on the floor with shaking hands. "PLEASE!"
By the time she made it back, Yokoyama was propped against the desk, staring blankly. "Did you stop him?" she asked quietly, even though she knew they'd done more harm than good in doing so.
"We'll have to add a couple of lines to filter out besides the one for the problem in the lumbar vertebrae...the underlip is split and it looks like..." She knelt down to pick up the man's hand. "Probably something broken - probably a lot broken in his left hand."
She didn't dare wince in front of her boss or Nakamura-san. "Don't you want to x-ray?"
"No, I just want to finish this and go home."
"Okay," she replied with a shrug, even as Yokoyama's blank stare unnerved her.
"If it comes out wrong, we'll just correct it the next time."
"I don't want to repeat what happened with Yamashita-kun and the eyes," she said, trying to keep her voice level and calm. When Nurse Yoshida was tired, her work could get sloppy. They hadn't even cleaned The Bath out yet.
"Just...make sure it's all filtered out."
She truly pitied him, seeing him there. Utterly helpless and at their mercy. This had happened before. Maybe it would happen again. "And his memory?"
"Standard. No...take out the last two days."
She looked down into Yokoyama's eyes. It was obvious what he was saying.
Help me.
Polite indifference.
Help me. Please...
She looked away.
Nakamura-san picked Yokoyama up like he was a sack of rice and not a human being, hauling him off with Yoshida at his heels. There was work to be done.
--
"Have a pleasant evening," she said to Yokoyama's manager an hour later as he and Nakamura-san dragged the unconscious, but good as new idol out to the car.
He'd wake up refreshed, perfect, ready to take on the world. And the next time she'd see him, he wouldn't remember her face.
Nakamura-san didn't return, having already clocked out. Yoshida-san hurried out soon after with a mumbled "thanks for your hard work."
It was on her to close up shop for the night. She took the elevator down. They'd done a decent job cleaning up, though she wasn't sure it was up to biohazard standards. In the morning, she'd have to call collection, have them bring some stronger supplies when they came to clean out the fridge.
She opened the storage room. Nakamura had saved her and Yoshida the trouble, putting the kid in with someone else and shuffling around a few others to make it easier on collection. Yokoyama had his own slab at the end of the row, and she tugged his case open, sliding the tray out. They'd covered him, and she pulled the sheet away from his face.
His eyes were still open, so she shut them. Her hand lingered against his face, already so chilled from almost an hour inside. Her fingers stroked his mop of black hair.
He wasn't a "star." He was normal.
She kissed him on the lips, softly, sweetly. She let the guilt consume her for only a few seconds more.
"See you next time," she whispered in his ear before covering him up, pushing the tray back in, and locking it tight.