Chapter 4: Unanswered

"...up... wake up..."

I can feel someone's hand on my forehead shaking my head side to side.

"Hmmm...?"

I open one of my eyes, and above me, my eyes are met by hers, those hazel expressionless eyes that I was already wary of to begin with but now even more.

"...So you really were being ordered to do shit all this time?" I sit up, rubbing my eyes as Sayuri tilts her head, visibly telling me that she's confused. I let out a sigh. "Never mind... Just forget about. What are you doing here? Don't you have work?"

"I lied to my co-worker that I was still ill and took a 'sick day,' or however she put it. There are more important matters that take priority over work at this moment."

She's in a large t-shirt and baggy basketball shorts, an outfit that one wouldn't expect a sophisticated looking girl like her to wear. I'm ninety percent sure that those clothes are mine, but I stopped caring about her wearing my shit a while ago, and chances are, they've already become her possession. Not like I wear shorts outside anyways.

"And those important matters are?"

I go through the garbage bag that holds all of my clothes. Most, if not all, are dusty and wrinkled, and it doesn't help that most of my clothes are darker colored, making the lint and dust stand out even more. I take out a white hoodie, one of the cleaner pieces of clothing I have right now.

"I've been ordered not to-"

"Yeah, that shit doesn't hold up anymore. Either tell me or I'm going with you. Your choice."

I leave for the bathroom to give her some time to think, assuming she can actually think for herself. I was always annoyed of her leaving me in the unknown, but I would pass it off as her being reserved and making up excuses. Supposing that the girl on the swing is the one giving Sayuri orders, she must have a lot of power over her for Sayuri to be following everything so obediently. She's practically a dog on a leash to her, and because of that, I can't trust Sayuri's actions or words until I can be sure of just who that girl is, and the only way to do that is to investigate.

After finishing up my morning necessities and putting on my contacts, I walk back to the living room and go through the already opened black garbage bag holding all my clothes. I take out two hoodies and hand her one.

"Here, put it on," I tell her as I put on mine. "It's cold outside."

"Thank you."

She has trouble figuring out what hole to put her head in, and reluctantly helping her, she finally puts it on. It's a little too big for her, but that's to be expected when she's half a foot shorter than me. Seeing her flopping the sleeves around, if it weren't for the fact that I personally know her, I'd have confuse her for a normal girl. At times, she might actually act like a normal girl, albeit never as a normal girl her age. I still ask myself at times whether she's actually three years older than me like how her license says.

"So, did she give you permission?"

She stops her flopping and nods.

"I've been given new orders to follow while you were in the bathroom. I am to answer every question you have regarding Doremi or about me. As for what I ordered you to do yesterday, that still stands," she says, taking a seat on the sofa.

"That's all good. I prefer staying inside either way. But can I really ask anything?" I walk into the kitchen, opening the fridge and taking out the milk.

"Yes, as long as it's not about her or certain questions pertaining to yourself."

Certain questions about myself? That's odd, but I'm in no rush to find out what I am so I'll let it slide if I end up asking one of those questions. I was already well aware that I wasn't normal way before all this. Not being allowed to ask about her, however... Now isn't that a bitch.

"Fine. I guess I'll put off any questions I have about her for now. Is there a sort of limit that I have or...?" I ask as I sit down at the dinner table with a bowl of cereal and spoon in hand.

"No, I wasn't ordered to give you a limit. You can ask me anything whenever you see fit."

"I see... By the way, how come you were trying to wake me up?"

That struck me as very odd. If there was one thing that I appreciated about living with Sayuri, it'd be that she never bothered me when I didn't want to be bothered.

She's my ideal roommate if I'm being honest. She never talks to me. She makes me food. She even does my laundry. She's practically my wife, only without the love and affection that comes with one. (I assume at least. The only married couples I've ever came across were all a bit dysfunctional to say the least)

"Your veins were showing while you were asleep. I wasn't instructed on what to do when that happens, so I did the only reasonable thing that came to mind and woke you up. I apologize for disrupting your slumber."

"They showed up while I was sleeping?"

That hasn't happened before. I can barely control that urge while I'm awake, so Lord knows what'll happen if I start getting it while unconscious. That's a thought frightening enough to make my hair go white again.

"Show me your arm," she orders me, ignoring my pointless question.

I should've known that's where she was headed. 'I wasn't instructed on what to do' my ass. I'm willing to bet that she didn't want to feel guilty extracting my blood while I was sleeping and woke me up to make herself feel better about it.

One would think that no matter the color, blood would still be just blood, but nooooooo. Supposedly, my blood in it's normal state is impotent...? Whatever that means. This was news to me at first and made no sense to at all, but if there were ever a person who could picky about somebody's blood potency, it would have to be the girl who actually drinks that shit.

To put it simply, my blood is 'potent' whenever the black veins surround my eyes and I get in that 'state.' Not allowing herself to miss the opportunity, whenever the veins appear on my face, Sayuri practically drops everything to get the med kit box and milk me of the only thing I have of value to her. It's funny really; she's in a city where people are willing to kill somebody for their wallet and all she wants for me to live here is a couple ounces of my blood to consume? It would've made sense if she were a dream oil junkie, but she didn't even know what the fuck dream oil was. If only she knew the massive oil hole she has at her disposal.

She already had the med kit out and ready for me, her assortment of tools laid out on the dinner table: the extraction needle with the bottle connected to the tube, cotton balls, alcohol, an old shirt, and for no reason whatsoever, a juice box.

"Refreshments... Nice."

Ignoring the sudden hospitable customer service, I take off the sweater and do as she says. First time I've had to do this two days in a row. That seems foreboding as fuck, but with my summoning to who knows where last night, I can tell that this is just the tip of another enormous iceberg that I'm being forced to flip over. Such is the sad fate that comes with being me.

She gets done quick, taking about a pint in total from my body. She filled 4 bottles, roughly around 4 ounces each. I feel light headed, but the itchy feeling I have inside is gone so all's good. The juice box without a straw, I take the now-used needle and poke a hole on the top. It's my blood, so I should be alright.

"You know, it would be a whole lot more convenient if you were a vampire or something," I say while taking a sip, widening the hole I had previously made with one of my sharper front teeth.

"Vampire?"

"Yeah, like the white guy in that movie with the dog people. The one that was 'eating' her neck, remember?"

"Oh yes, I remember now." She goes into her room to put away the bottles, leaving me alone in silence for a moment. When she comes back, she sits back down across from me, sitting up straight and her body stiff. "You can begin to ask me questions now, if you'd like."

I don't know why, but I get the feeling that she's trying to get this over with. Oh yeah, she had those 'important matters' to get to. I should tell her to come back to me later when I'm more prepared, but am I?

Haha... No.

"I can ask you about anything, correct?"

"No, you aren't allowed to ask me about her nor about yourself. Doing so will result in my silence."

"Yes, yes, I'm aware of that. Everything else is on the table though, right?"

"Yes, that would be true."

She gives me a nod, her hands on the table. I, on the other hand, take a bite out of my cereal, regretting my previous decision of drinking a bit from the juice box. Who fucking makes tomato juice and puts it in a juice box?

"Hmm... Well then, first things first: What were you ordered to do on the day you saved me?"

I've asked her this many, many times, all of those times getting the same vague response of 'I was ordered to.' Seeing as she wouldn't tell me why, I never bothered asking how either, but would it even matter if I did? It doesn't take a genius to figure out that whatever she did to heal me, it was something that no doctor could ever do in this day and age or quite possibly ever. Knowing how she did it would only further ingrain it in my head that I'm involved in some weird shit, but it's not like that matters anymore now, does it?

She pauses for a moment and stares blankly at the table, presumably to think about how she's going to answer without letting certain things slip out. She's not telling me that she can't answer, so I think this one's in the clear. Looking up, I take it that she finally decided how to word out her response.

"I was given the order to give you a golden heart if you were to ever fall victim to a mortal wound. On that day, looking at the amount of blood coming out from your wounds and the lack of breathing from your body, I concluded that it was the correct moment to fulfill that order and proceeded to transfer a golden heart to your chest. I'm sure you've felt the after effects that came from that."

"Yeah, obviously..."

It'd be impossible for me to not notice them. Imagine living your entire life without a heart beat to one day suddenly wake up on somebody's couch with an unknown pounding in your chest; there aren't many oblivious enough to let something like that to go unnoticed. However, other than an occasional panic attack whenever my heartbeat started rising, (which only caused my heartbeat to rise even more, I should add) the sudden appearance of a heart in my body didn't faze me as much as you'd think it would, and eventually, I got used to having one.

If only it were just that though...

Her answer is practically the same thing she's told me every other time though, only with a few minor details added. Still, I can't complain. Just from those little extra bits of information, I've learned more than I ever did in the entire year I've been here. But there's something she said that threw me off a bit.

"What's a golden heart? Unless I've been believing a lie my entire life, hearts are typically red, no?"

"From your perspective, yes, you would be correct. As for what a golden heart is, I can only offer a simple explanation as even I am not fully aware of what it is myself. From my knowledge, a golden heart is as it seems: a heart that is gold. It's sole purpose is to offer soul and body to Diatra, but you are an exception."

"Who the fuck is Diatra!?"

"The being who spoke to you. I advise you to treat that name with respect. She is a being of unfathomable power, and to even mention her name in the same sentence containing such vulgar language would subject you to divine punishment in Doremi."

She says all this with no change to her expressionless expression, but I can tell what I just said hit one of her nerves.

"Sorry," I say, mockingly putting my hands up. "Kinda hard to respect somebody when you don't know them."

She's stays quiet after that, but I don't think it's because she's at a loss for words.

Squinting her eyes slightly, she suddenly stands up. Tilting her head in the air, her nose twitches as she sniffs the air for something in a the room where all I can smell is a bit of lemon scented floor cleaner.

"What are you doing?" I ask obviously confused, but instead of replying, she rushes straight to the front door, forcefully opening both doors. By the time I can even call out to her, she's already outside and reaching the bottom of the stairs, the stench of the outside seeping its way into my nose. I let out an exasperated sigh, watching as she runs to the gate and heads off to who knows where. That's all for today, I guess. I take a seat back down at the table, rubbing the bridge of my nose with closed eyes.

"Just what have I gotten myself into?" I ask out loud, hoping that by some miracle everything will finally be explained to me, but deep down, I know that it's pointless. Even the person that's supposed to explain things to me runs off when I'm finally beginning to get information on the oddities in my life. To think that there's more that I have to deal with now... all it does is frustrate me even more.

Is it selfish for me to want everything to end?