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There were things in Toji Fushiguro’s life he never expected to happen:
- Lose a fight.
- End up in hospital.
- Lose his memory.
There were other things, he was sure, but for all intents and purposes, those three things were exactly what he woke up to on a dull, Wednesday morning.
He didn’t actually remember how he got in the hospital bed, with needles poking in his arms and machines beeping and thrumming around him. Nor why he felt sore all over, like he’d been hit by a truck, which reversed right back over his body. And not even why he had gotten in a fight to begin with.
The only reason he knew there was a fight in the first place was because a certain, suited chainsmoker was more than happy to tell him.
“That’s bullshit.”
Shiu chuckled, playing with his cufflink. “It’s true. I’m asking around for the CCTV footage on the street, but take it from me, buddy — you lost, and you lost bad. I mean, just take a look at yourself.”
By that, he meant his bandaged abdomen and the right leg that was stuck in a cast, and awkwardly lifted up. There must have been a ton of scratches on his face and a huge, stitched-up gash at his hairline because it sure felt like it. Thank fuck for whatever shit they’d shot him up with though; it was the good stuff — he couldn’t feel any of the broken bones, bruised ribs, and stitched wounds his handler rattled off to him.
“Can’t believe the motherfucker beat over a month of memories from me. What kinda bullshit is that?”
“You were sloppy,” his friend retorted too smugly.
Groaning, Toji threw his head back into the pillow and made a mental note to kick himself, Shiu, and the bastard that did this to him when he was discharged. Shit was embarrassing; he was never gonna live this down and his fuckass friend was never gonna let him.
Soon, the humour in the room lifted and he finally asked the first question that came to his mind upon opening his eyes to blinding bright lights: “Where’s my girl?”
There were a lot of faces he would’ve liked to see before Shiu, and yours was naturally number one. Yet, you were nowhere to be seen. He’d inspected his phone, screen cracked but usable, when he came to and saw no texts, no missed calls, no voicemails from you. That worried him more than the hundreds from his friends and colleagues.
More confusing still?
Your contact was blocked.
A sigh left Shiu’s lips. He shuffled on his seat beside the bed, and mulled over his words for a second. The patient noticed. Of course he did — impaired as he was, a killer-for-hire didn’t lose their instincts so easily. And that bastard had a tell. He always did.
“What’s with the fucking silence?” He sat up, grunting with the sudden burst of pain in his ribs from the miniscule action. “Just tell me. She outside? In the toilet, grabbing some food, or something?”
Another sigh, this time followed by a response. “She’s not here, Fushiguro.”
Toji rolled his eyes. “Yeah, no shit. I’m asking when she’s coming. No offence, asshole, but your face ain’t exactly gonna be healing me anytime soon.”
“No, Fushiguro,” Shiu insisted, avoiding his eyes. He could be mistaken, but he could swear there was the slightest hint of pity in his voice. “I mean, she won’t be coming.”
That knitted his brows. “Fuck you mean she’s not coming? Why? Where is she? Something happened to her? Goddamn it, Kong. You shoulda lead with that. Fuck, I gotta call her.”
A calloused hand gripped his wrist, halting his reach for his phone.
Shiu sported a somber expression; not a hint of laughter or amusement on his face giving way to a semblance of mischief. It was rare to see the man look so serious — there seemed to be a perpetual smirk on his face, like he knew something you didn’t. That always pissed Toji off.
Now, with a weird feeling settling in his chest, the injured man kinda wished the asshole would smirk again.
“It’s over,” he said. “It’s done.”
“What the hell are you talking about? What’s with all the riddles? Give it to me straight already.”
Reclining in his chair, the other man ran a hand down his tired face. There were dark circles under his eyes, a stubble he’d yet to get on top of, and a wrinkle in his suit jacket that seldom meant well. Shit didn’t make sense — what was there to worry about?
He was alive, albeit badly beaten up, but alive nonetheless. Sure, he got amnesia and couldn’t remember the mission that left him like this, but it was just three weeks. Doc made it clear shit was likely temporary; he’d remember the son of a bitch who hospitalised him soon enough.
But Shiu didn’t seem to have the same optimistic outlook as he did.
“Look man, I really wished I didn’t have to tell you this. Believe me when I say I wanted to be the last person to have to break the news to you,” he disclaimed first, glancing at his watch absentmindedly, and wholly aware that intense green eyes were threatening to explode his head if he didn’t give it up fast enough. So he ripped off the figurative bandaid and winced all the same, as though it hurt him just as much. “You broke up with her before the job.”
“Bull.” Toji didn’t wait till he finished his sentence before calling it out like he saw it. “Now tell me the truth. Where’s my girl?”
Shiu persisted. “I’m serious, Fushiguro. First thing I did when I got news that you were hurt was call her. I know you well enough to know you’d much prefer to be fussed over by your broad than by some nurses, no matter how hot they are. But she told me she couldn’t come to see you. I don’t know the details, so don’t bother pestering me for ‘em. All’s I know is, you had a big fight and ended things with her.”
Suddenly, Toji’s head began aching. He heard the words, registered them in his puny brain, but couldn’t quite process what they meant. A big fight? A break up? He ended things with you?
That didn’t sound right — if anyone would end things with anyone, it’d be you with him. It was a joke you all told around the table, with some drinks in your hand: you were too good for him, and you ought to wake up one day and realise that.
Why the fuck would he throw away the one good thing in his life?
“This ain’t funny.”
A ping on his phone had Shiu standing, brushing invisible dust off his clothes. “I’m not joking. Text her and find out for yourself. But I’d advise against it; get some rest first, listen to the doctor’s orders and try to jog your memories, and I’ll welcome you out with drinks, on me. Then, you can revisit talking it out with her.”
The patient did as he pleased despite the advice. Tiptapping, ‘hey, doll. injured. in hospital. when u coming baby?’ and sending it without a moment’s hesitation, only for the message to instantly turn green.
Toji’s heart stopped.
At the door, his friend grimaced at the grim look on the man’s face, like if he stayed too long he’d feel the physical manifestation of whatever dark thoughts were spinning around inside his head. He sighed again — he’d been doing a lot of that since his best assassin got his ass handed to him.
“Look, I’ll do what I can on my end, alright? So relax. Flash your pretty boy eyes at the nurses and they might up the doses of the happy stuff. I’ll see you later.”
He didn’t hear any of that, not over the sounds of blood rushing in his ears.
Shiu left, and the amnesiac was forced to stare at the green speech bubbles, like he doubted his own eyes.
What the fuck did he do?
Toji spent the rest of the day driving the nurses and doctors insane. And the next.
Again and again, every time they visited his room, he bombarded them with questions: was she here yet, did you contact her, did you get through to her, what did she say, how mad was she, and so on and so forth.
He threw a fit when they tried to feed him; when anyone but her tried to visit; when all the straining and mental exercises he was prescribed did not produce a single drop of memory to fill the month-long gap; and especially when they finally heard from her.
The nurse crawled back into his room, flinching at the darkness of his gaze, the tense twitch of his scarred lips, and the bark of his voice as he asked, “Is she coming?”
The answer was a resolute no.
He had to be restrained by every member of staff on hand — and when he broke through those, sedated.
“Grow up.”
“Fuck you.”
Shiu flexed his jaw, likely convincing himself that injecting a bubble into Fushiguro’s IV line wasn’t worth the hassle of bribing nurses and cops alike.
He’d been called back into the hospital by fed-up, anxiety-ridden nurses who insisted he talk some sense into his friend. Apparently, he’d been a nightmare to everyone. And well, the handler wasn’t surprised — Toji was a pain in the ass by nature. It came easily to him, like breathing or taking a shit.
What didn’t come naturally was maturity.
“I’m not telling her you’re dying, you sick bastard.”
Staring at his wriggling toes up in the air, emerging from a thick plastering meant to fix his bones back into the right shapes and angles, Toji snarked, “You did this to me. Probably gave me the wrong information or a bad bounty ’cause your greedy ass wanted more money for fuck-ugly suits and shiny loafers. Can’t remember shit ’cause of you. Least you can do is get my girl here.”
“I’m not lying to her, Fushiguro,” Shiu insisted through gritted teeth, ashamed to admit the jab at his clothing stung a little more than it should.
“Why not? Lying comes easily to you, you smooth-tongued bastard. Tell her I’ve got cancer or tuberculosis. Fuck, tell her I’m pregnant and it’s hers. Fucking tell her something that’ll get her here.”
Shiu pinched his nose — there was no getting through to him. How did he find himself in the middle of some relationship drama? What sins had he committed in his past life to warrant the torture, the ridicule, the indignation of being a messenger between two stubborn idiots?
Slowly, and as patiently as he could be, given that he was about to pop a blood vessel, he said, “I’ve been trying, alright? I texted her that you want to see her, that you forgot the break-up, and that it’s practically been wiped away for good. But she’s not having it. The only thing she said was that ‘just because he doesn’t remember it happening doesn’t mean it didn’t.’ And that was that.”
“That’s fucking bullshit,” Toji spat, waving his hand about and triggering the machines to beep louder and more frequently. “I’ve taken the break-up I don’t even remember making happen back. There. Done. We’re together again. What’s her fucking problem?”
“You. Broke. Up. With. Her.”
Swiping a hand down his face, Shiu finally stood up, beyond ready to wash his hands clean of both of you. This was more trouble than he deserved. Still, something about the grimaces and hisses the guy on the bed made made his fingers twitch and his head hurt.
The dumbass was somehow pulling at his heartstrings without even realising it.
No memories, no working limbs, and no fucking girl.
And he was muttering to himself, furrowing his brows, pouting — actually pouting. God, he’d never looked more pathetic.
“Look,” he began, reluctantly and with a lot of self-hatred, “I’ll tell her she really needs to see you. But that’s it. I’m not point-blank telling her you’re dying. My mother’s superstitious, always rambling about not manifesting bad news into the world, and I’ve got enough blood on my hands. I don’t need yours dragging me deeper into hell. I’ll tell her, and that’ll be that, alright? That’s the last thing you’re getting from me.”
Toji grumbled, “Bare fucking minimum, asshole.”
As the handler got into his car and set course for your address — the new one you’d moved into after the break-up ‘that didn’t happen’ — he knew this probably wasn’t going to be the end of it.
You didn’t come until two days after.
When you did, it was a quiet day — the skies outside his window were a dark grey, cloudy, in that melancholy stage before it rained, light or heavy no one could ever tell. The nurses knew well to avoid him unless it was important; they’d stopped trying to coax a rapport with him. Shockingly, he was beginning to think maybe he should be nicer to them, especially when they’d often ‘accidentally’ forget to get him jelly with his meals. He fucking loved those jelly cups.
Your arrival came with a knock.
The door opened carefully and hesitantly, drawing out the inevitable. Then there you were, strolling in, as beautiful as all the days he remembered, and it stole his breath. Toji blinked frantically, disbelieving. But once it set in — once he realised you really were here, alive and well and gorgeous — his dry lips stretched into a wide smile.
“Baby, fuck, thank God. C’me here.”
He reached for you, sore muscles pushed to their inadvisable limits.
“Let me get a good look at you. Almost forgot your face. Jesus, doll, had me going there for a second. Thought you’d actually left me.”
His words were punctuated with light laughter. With relief.
Perhaps, if the prolonged bedrest — unlike anything he’d experienced before as an untouchable assassin — hadn’t weakened him, hadn’t made him restless and complacent, he might have noticed the tight lines on your face. Might have noticed the tautness in your lips, the drawing of your brows, the rapid flitting of your eyes, unable to remain in one place for long. And he might have known better to keep his hands to himself, to be modest with those smiles, and to stop fucking talking.
“Can you believe this shit? Got my ass handed to me. Think I’m getting old, ma.” He ran the hand you didn’t hold through his hair and sat up, brushing crumbs off his chest. “It’s been hell, being stuck here. Woulda made it all better if you were here, jerking me off or sneaking me some scotch and burritos. They’re feeding me healthy crap; all leaves and full of fibre. It’s like prison, but worse. Give me a kiss, will ya? Lay a good one on me, come on.”
“We’re over.”
Toji’s smile dropped. Disappeared. Vanished.
Gently, like he was a child who’d been picked last for a game of dodgeball, he forced a light-hearted tone. “You still on that? Didn’t Shiu tell you? I forgot. Don’t got my memories on me, doll. Don’t remember a damn break-up, so as far as I’m concerned, we can pretend that never happened, alright?”
You didn’t reply.
“We’re good, yeah?” His voice rose. “We’re fine, ma.”
Still nothing.
Panic-stricken, his words wavered with denial and disorientation. “What the hell are you standing so far for? You my sister or something? Give me a kiss. Just ignore the bruises and scratches — they ain’t contagious.”
You shook your head, crossing your arms. “We’re done for good. I only came to check that you’re fine, and you certainly sound like it, so I’ll be going now.”
“No,” he growled. “Don’t play this fucking game with me. This shit ain’t fair.”
Your scoff was cutting.
“Fair?”
You finally met his eyes, and he wished you hadn’t; there was an inferno in them that drew a sharp flinch from him. Suddenly, you looked like a whole different woman. There was no warmth, no love, no life in them — only a wrath he felt pulse in his chest. His knees would have trembled if he’d been standing.
“You’re right, this isn’t fair,” you agreed, a flurry of emotions coursing through you now. “It’s not fair that you broke up with me, broke my heart, right before you left on a job. It’s not fair that you blocked me, that you were gallivanting through the country doing God knows what with God knows who, and it’s definitely not fair that the next thing I hear is that you’re in hospital and asking for me.”
Toji sighed. “Baby, sit down and let’s talk this out.”
“Don’t baby me, Fushiguro. I’m not your fucking baby, or your doll, your ‘ma,’ and I’m not your girl. You made sure of that.”
Frustrated, he glared right back at you. “You’re always gonna be my girl. Quit throwing a tantrum over some argument we had and sit yer ass down. Been waiting fucking forever to see you, and I can’t even get a hug? Real sweet, doll.”
An empty laugh escaped you.
“‘Some argument?’ You think it was just an argument? That it was one of our usual ‘break-ups,’ where we pick a fight ’cause we want some angry make-up sex?” His silence was your answer — that was exactly what he was thinking, and his grimace made that clear. “You’re unbelievable. Thisis unbelievable.”
That was when all the anger seeped out of you. He could see it, like it was a visible thing — a wisp that danced in the air until it dissipated into nothingness. In its place, only exhaustion and true, genuine defeat remained.
“Toji,” you cried out, your voice broken, “you left me. You left me.”
He reached for you again, groaning at his body’s complaint. “I’m here, baby. I’m here.” Watching you stand there, trembling before him, and not pulling you safely into his arms felt more unnatural than losing a fight. But you didn’t fall into his chest, didn’t melt into his hold, nor soften into him. No — you stepped back.
And it broke him.
“You hated me. I don’t know why. I’ve been beating myself up, trying to come up with a reason for why it all happened. And nothing. I mean, sure, you were more distant for almost a month, hanging out at bars more often, coming home late and leaving earlier. And yeah, you were snappy, pulling away, not letting me touch you, and not listening when I talked. But I thought it was just a phase, that you were just tired from work. I thought it was just something that happened to every couple — being irritated by everything they do, y’know?”
None of what you were saying sounded like him; you could have been telling a story about your friend’s crappy boyfriend or some horror story you found online.
“I’d try to talk to you, but you’d look at me with cold eyes.” Your lips quivered as you relived a past Toji didn’t remember creating.
He tried — tried to relive it with you, to imagine himself in the role of this big, bad monster.
He couldn’t.
He could only envision himself standing off to the side, a bystander, a witness to a car crash no one could look away from.
“Like I was bothering you, like I was some idiot wasting your time. It hurt. It hurt so much. But I brushed it off.”
Picking at your lips until you drew blood, you still wouldn’t let him hold you, wouldn’t let his desperate fingers graze your clothes, to coo the nervous habit away. You continued on, rambling, venting, as if it were all rushing out of you now — a dam destroyed, a woman broken, abandoned.
“I’d ask you if an outfit looked good on me, and you’d just grunt. Most times, you’d walk off, ignoring me. Other times…Other times, you’d actually look at me and I wished you wouldn’t. You’d look at me — eye me — and I felt like you were seeing where my jeans didn’t hug right, where skin pudged out, how the colour didn’t match my skin tone, or how my shoes were wrong. And I’d see some kind of humour in your eyes, like you were laughing at me.”
Toji rejected that. “Bullshit. You know I think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world. Always pop a boner when I look at you, don’t I?”
You didn’t hear him.
“It wasn’t just an argument, Toji,” you insisted, horrors of a night that came out of nowhere flashing in eyes that no longer saw him — not the himlying in a hospital bed, but the him you couldn’t forget. “It was the end.”
“I don’t remember,” he muttered.
“You didn’t raise your voice, didn’t stomp off and drink yourself stupid until you stumbled back into bed and muttered apologies into my skin. You were calm; you’d been thinking about it. You weren’t just annoyed ‘cause you were being nagged or ‘cause you wanted to get laid. You were sure.”
That wasn’t him.
That was not Toji fucking Fushigiro — the only thing he’d ever been sure of in his life was that you were the one, the one worth living for, one worth fighting for. You were the love of his stupid life. The only good thing in the world. The best thing that had ever happened to him.
So why did you look convinced otherwise?
What’d that bastard said to you? What lies did he spew?
“Oh god,” you gasped, shuddering. “You looked at me with so much resentment. I couldn’t sleep for days; I kept seeing the way you looked at me in my dreams. You hated me.”
“I love you.”
“You hated me!”
Toji’s broken ribs creaked as he pushed himself even more upright. The machines were beeping rapidly, flashing lights in time with the rumbling of the clouds outside. “I don’t care what that bastard said. We’re not over. I still love you — I never stopped, alright? I never stopped. And as long as you love me too, we can fix this.”
“But you did! You did, Toji, don’t you get that? You did stop. You only think you love me now because you’re stuck in time.”
That pissed him right off, as did the pang your cowering voice birthed in his chest. “Don’t tell me how I feel. I know I love you. May not show it in the best ways sometimes, but I love you and I’d kill for you and I’d fucking die for you. So don’t say I don’t love you. Don’t say I’ll stop. If you think that, then you don’t know the first thing about me.”
Not a single syllable registered in your mind, not when your own words filled your mind, a debilitating realisation, an undeniable setting of the truth, a profound, heartbreaking revelation you wished you never received.
“You’re stuck in time…but you’ll move back forward.”
You stepped away.
The machines were rattling down. Wind howled a haunting melody, banging against the glass. “Doll?”
A sad smile graced your features. “You’ll move on, remember, and you’ll stop again.” The distance grew infinitely bigger with that one step you took. He noticed. He couldn’t not.
Toji’s legs jerked. He hissed with regret. “Don’t you dare leave me. Don’t you fucking dare. Don’t. Please.”
“I’m sorry,” you cried, arms wrapping around yourself. “I shouldn’t have come. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I love you,” he insisted. Then, louder, like he could shout it into erasing the past. “I love you! God, I fucking love you. Don’t do this. Baby, please. Forget what that bastard said. I don’t know what happened, and I don’t care. I’m here now and I love you. That’s not gonna change.”
That made you smile more brightly.
For a second, he thought everything was going to be fine — that the certainty in his words, the sheer will in them, had righted the wrongs he’d been suffering the consequences of.
But then you pointed out with a laugh, “You talk like it wasn’t you.”
“It wasn’t.” That was the Old Him. A version he didn’t remember living. This is the New Him. No — the Him that had always existed. The only Him that should matter, that you should listen to. “Shit’s in the past. We can move on. Just gotta give me the chance, ma. One chance.”
You sighed, smiling a bittersweet smile. “And we’ll go back to normal?”
He smiled too, nodding, convincing. “Yeah, ma, we’ll go back to normal.”
“We can’t, Toji,” you said, smile unchanging and he thought he might never get that agonising moment out of his mind. “I want to. Trust me, I do. I’ve been thinking about how nice it’d be to come home with you, to have dinner on the sofa and watch trashy reality TV, to cuddle in bed, and get ice cream in the middle of the night just ‘cause I’m craving it. To hear you say you love me over and over again. To go back to how it used to be. To be happy again. But we can’t.”
“Yes, we can,” he insisted. “Of course we can. We’re meant to be — ain’t that what you always say?”
“No.” Something clouded your eyes — maybe pity, maybe agony — lashes soaked with salty tears. He wanted to wipe the stains on your cheeks, to kiss the shake of your body away. If you would just let him. “We can’t. Because one day, you’ll get your memories back. One day, you’ll become Him again. And I won’t know when it’ll come. I’ll spend every single day until then waiting, anticipating, bracing for impact. It’ll kill me, Toji. Again. And I can’t. I can’t do it again.”
Toji reached for you. He’d been reaching for you. Why wouldn’t you meet him halfway? Why was he not healing fast enough? Why was his body failing him? Why couldn’t he sweep you up and stop you from twisting the knife? Why were you backing away, a scared sheep in the face of a docile wolf?
“Come here. Right now. Come here.” You made no move to bridge the gap, to relieve his poor, weak body. He pulled at his hair. “Fuck! Please, baby. I’m not gonna fucking hurt you. I just need to hold you. I’m losing my mind over here, and you’re killing me.”
The door met your back.
The sound echoed, despite the cacophonous din of the machinery and his unrelenting heartbeat, which grew faster and faster til it mocked you both.
“You’re going to regain your memories, and you’ll remember why you fell out of love with me. You’ll remember, and I’ll know. It’ll kill me all over again. I’ll die all over again. I can’t go through that, Toji. Not again. Not ever again, do you understand? I’m barely surviving as it is. Please don’t make me.”
With that, you left.
He tore himself out of the bed on pure panic, on animal instinct, on a terror so visceral it drowned out the pain screaming through his body. His limbs tangled in sheets and wires, alarms shrieking in protest as he hit the floor hard. He didn’t feel it. He didn’t feel anything but the space you’d just abandoned.
He reached for where you’d been standing, fingers curling around nothing, clutching air like it might still hold your warmth. Your name spilled from his mouth again and again, ugly and raw, staining his tongue like blood. He crawled — dragged himself forward, snarling, pleading, breaking apart inch by inch.
You never came back.
Exhaustion took him like a mercy killing, consciousness slipping away beneath a swarm of shouting nurses and grasping hands.
A week later, he was discharged and picked up by a silent Shiu, who didn’t prod at his longer-than-necessary recovery, nor at the fact that they were once again in the same boat.
Toji went looking for you.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
Each time ended the same.
If you didn’t look like he was burning you with his presence, stepping on you with his declarations, and squeezing your beating heart in his palm with his apologies, he would have worn himself down to bone, chased you to the ends of the earth if that’s what it took. He would have begged until the world ended, or until you relented.
Whichever came first.
But eventually, he stopped. Had to. Because you really were wilting before his eyes, every time he promised things would be different, better. Every time he swore you were the only thing he ever wanted.
That thing hung over the both of you though, a suffocating fog that obscured your vision of him, a blade yet to drop, a loose noose and a body soon to swing.
You begged him to regain his memories, for both of your sakes. Thought it vital to move on. Inevitable. Carved in stone by nails.
He acquiesced — not because he wanted to, but because you were right. Once he got his memories back, he might very well become a different man. A man who didn’t wake up and think of you, a man who sleep evaded because a woman’s hauntings frightened it off, a man whose hands didn’t shake with the weight of blood.
Dutifully, he submitted himself to doctors and specialists, to anyone who promised answers. He told himself that if he remembered, if he truly remembered why he’d ended things, it might dull the agony. Maybe it would justify the loss. Maybe it would make letting you go survivable.
That was what he told Shiu, anyway, who warned him against chasing ghosts.
The truth was simpler and far more pathetic: he wanted proof, he wanted to tell you it was a mistake, he wanted to show you the past was a thing that could be buried.
Mental exercises.
Meditation.
Pills.
Nothing worked.
He never grew the balls to face you again. Couldn’t stand to hear how you were doing either. If you met someone else, someone who wasn’t an asshole and would run away from the consequences by forgetting. If you repaired the tear he ripped in your heart. If you found happiness. Forgot him.
Shiu might have mentioned you were married. Or maybe he saw that on a social media post.
Might have drank himself stupid to forget it, and again when he was reminded.
He never got his memories back, just as he never lost the belief that if he could just prove he would love you right as a man made whole again, if he could stand before you as a man unfractured by violence or absence or time, you would return to him.
In the end, that was his punishment.
A boulder of his own making, a will that wouldn’t let him stop, a peak he will never stand at the top of.
And no, one ought not to fucking think he was happy.