I don't own Tsukihime.
"Do you like me, Shiki-kun?"
"To be honest, I don't know. I don't feel like I've known you for years, but I...think I do...like you."
Shiki stabbed at the point with his knife, destroying the dark thing she had injected into him, then rolled his head backwards, looking up at her triumphant face. Did she suspect? Did she even really see anything he was doing?
Probably not.
Probably, she was too wrapped up in her glee at finally owning him--at finally being able to spend time with him, not as a classmate, but as someone important.
A part of him found it funny. He'd never once considered this sort of scenario at all--that someone would obsess over him--
He wanted to kill something, very suddenly. He made a strangled noise, nearly at once overcome by the powerful urge to kill the monster that was standing before him.
He couldn't do that. He didn't want to do something terrible as that. She said that he was a killer, but he wasn't! He wasn't at all, and he didn't want to do anything that would make that claim true.
Lines ran through--
His glasses--where were his glasses? They had fallen off at some point. He wasn't sure when. It had to have been before he'd stabbed the point of her blood that had been flowing through his body, of course. There they were, on the ground. He grabbed at them weakly with his left hand, like a baby not yet in control of its motor functions, fumbling with the leg of the frame.
"Now, it's been long enough. Stand up, Shiki-kun"
Shiki heard Yumizuka's command. The pain faded away.
It wasn't fair at all, he found himself thinking. One day, she'd been so happy, just walking partway home with him from school. And the next day--now, she was the sort of thing you had to kill, even if you didn't want to. Like a rabid dog, right? Even if you loved that dog, you still had to kill it so that it wouldn't attack anybody.
He half rose, half stumbled, rising slowly on shaking limbs. His left hand simultaneously came up to his face, placing his glasses upon the bridge of his nose. Miraculously, the glass curtain fell upon those terrible lines, and they disappeared from his view as if they'd never been there.
"Good. From now on, we'll always be together, Shiki-kun."
She was just lonely, wasn't she? Even being one of the more popular students, all she'd wanted was...
"Now, come here. Come by my side, hold my hand, and make me feel better." She held out a pale hand daintily.
Shiki's heart pounded in his chest. He felt as if he was suddenly on the edge of some great precipice, and that a single misstep backwards or forwards would doom him utterly. He didn't know at all what to do. Should he retreat, and try to reason with her? Or obey her command, then strike when she least suspected it?
A voice spoke in his memory.
"Ever since then, I really believed that you'd come and help me no matter what the problem was."
His breath caught in his throat.
"So if I'm ever in a pinch, you'll come and help me, right?"
Guilt filled his veins like blood. It crushed him, pressing at his stomach until he wanted nothing more than to fall on his hands and knees and vomit. His legs shook. His mind was a sea of raging contradictions.
He wanted nothing more than to run away, back to the mansion, and never step outside again. He wanted to tell Yumizuka that despite what she was, everything would turn out alright in the end. The toe of his shoe poked forwards, as if he was a swimmer, testing the temperature of some nonexistant pool.
He took a step forwards.
He took another step.
He looked, for a moment, at her cold, outstretched hand...then took it, enclosing it in his, his fingers folding around her palm.
She gasped and tried to draw back, and, almost unconsciously, he tightened his grip so she couldn't run away. It was his body temperature, Shiki thought dimly. She must have only realized when he touched her hand--his warm hand against her cold one--that he was still alive, that he had beaten the blood she had put in his body somehow--that he wasn't a slave to her commands at all--
"I don't understand--" She had stopped struggling, and stood, looking at him in dull wonderment. "Why are you still--you--you shouldn't be--" She gathered himself, and her expression changed to a combination of incomprehension and despair. "Why--Why didn't it work?"
"Please," Shiki heard himself begging her. "Yumizuka--please, let me help you, somehow. I'm sure that somehow, there has to be a way--I mean--" He was just babbling senselessly, now, meaningless words spilling out of his mouth.
It didn't matter. His stammerings finally ceased as he noticed that she wasn't listening anyway. Shiki followed her line of sight, his eyes coming to rest as he looked at her hand--his hand holding onto her hand--
Silence.
It was cold.
A cloud melted across the sky, uncovering a blanket of stars overhead.
"Yu--Yumizuka?" Her hand was shaking slightly. Shiki peered slightly closer at her face, bent downwards. Her bangs hung over her eyes, making her expression unreadable. The two of them stood like that--Shiki didn't know how long. He simply stood there with her, waiting.
At last, Yamizuka spoke.
"It hurts."
Her voice sounded strange, hollow.
"It hurts, and it's so cold all the time, and I have to drink blood to stay alive, Shiki-kun." Her voice hitched violently, and she reached up with her other hand to wipe at her eyes. "It--it would have been better if I--I had just died--"
She burst into tears, and collapsed against Shiki again, but this time the pain she fell under was emotional as she sobbed into his shirt.
Shiki stood awkwardly, unsure of what to do, before finally putting his arms around the trembling body of his classmate.
They stayed together that way for many hours, and then Yumizuka left for cover from the sun.