My entrancement lasted for the four minutes Hayashi serenaded the De'en nest. I was captivated by the movement of his nimble fingers. My eyes wandered back to his face, often, more often than I'd admit. Mostly, I'd watch his lips move with the lyrics. The voice that came from them was stunning, and the lower key he'd chosen flaunted his voice's deep, smooth timbre. This was the most I'd ever heard him say, and time stretched on and on. Yet, the moment the song ended, I removed myself and hobbled back to the privacy of my room. I was crying... again... The song resonated with me in a way I hadn't imagined. Even though I knew the lyrics by heart, it hadn't dawned on me that, in my current circumstance, they would become profoundly upsetting.
Alison had needed me to compound my genuine affection for her by being intimate with her in the way a loving husband ought to, and I couldn't. I'd been selfish. I'd failed her. My love had become nothing but shallow sentiment, and all my words became lies.
Slumped against the mossy wall of my room, I wrapped my arms around myself in the futile hope that I might hold myself together and emotions at bay. I was tired of feeling so utterly miserable, tired of the ache that wouldn't leave my chest, tired of my loneliness.
When Hayashi brought up my dinner, as had become his habit, he watched me eat in a suffocating silence. The way his eyes burrowed into me so intensely made me keener to avoid his eyes, but the tension had just become something else to be tired of. Before I mustered the nerve to say something, he collected up my plate the second I set down my fork and stood before me with his hand impatiently waiting for me to drain the last of the water from my glass before he took that away and left.
"Goodnight, then. Thanks for the food." I called out after his shadow.
All the Fae found their beds and cosied up for the night. Alone, with my pulse thumping in my ears - a reminder that my biological clock was counting the seconds until I expired, I once again loitered in thoughts that the end couldn't come soon enough. I threw myself back into my bedding and resigned to another restless night when the linen sash over the door shifted - moved, surprisingly, by Hayashi's arm. My brow cocked curiously. First, I thought he'd left when I heard Kenichi say goodnight, and second, he carried a basin of steaming water in his other hand.
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Coming to sit cross-legged before my bed, he set the bowl to one side and put a black canvas bag in the nest his legs made. Eye to eye, he stared at me while my eyes flickered slightly cautiously between him and the water, which felt silly - It was only a bowl of water.
"One step at a time." He stated.
My expression was enough to question his motive. Did he want me to bathe myself with that small bowl of water?
"It's time you took the first step."
Hayashi's explanation was so vague that I still hadn't caught on to his meaning.
"You need to wash your face, and this needs attention." He stroked his own tidy stubble, alluding to the thicket growing on my chin.
His intention was innocuous enough, so I obliged and reached behind my head to peel my shirt from my back. Undressed to my waist, I shuffled my butt over the floor, closer to the bowl and crouching over it; I gathered the hot water into my cupped hand and splashed it onto my face. Gently kneading my fingertips into my eyes and rubbing the water into my beard with one hand, I reached my other towards him with a simple request.
"Did you bring any soap?"
"Hei," He replied and rummaged a hand into the black canvas. Sure, he handed me a pale green bar of soap but didn't stop unpacking. I paused to watch him. He undertook the task regimentally. First, placing down a washcloth, onto which he set a tin of shaving soap, a soap brush, a straight razor and a pair of trimming scissors. It didn't stop there; then, there was a tube of some kind of lotion and a little brown bottle of an oily-looking substance.
"I don't usually go to all that trouble when I shave."
"Grooming is an important aspect of care."
He always had such eloquent and straightforward answers; my urge to grin couldn't be contained, but just like when he'd begun playing earlier, how intensely his eyes met mine killed my spark of cheerfulness and caused me to swallow it whole in one great gulp. I hunched my shoulders; how his dark, smouldering eyes flickered down my body made me self-conscious. Naturally, I followed his eyes to where they'd settled. On the waistband of my pants, a patch of the fabric had darkened in colour because it was wet. Water had dripped from my chin, down my chest and settled in the cloth.
"The water is getting cold." He prompted.