The box sits in the back of a closet, buried under enough other boxes, spare blankets, and old clothing no one has discarded yet that it would be difficult to stumble upon it accidentally. So far as Jakurai knows, he's still the only one who knows it is here. He'd be happy if it stayed that way.
Right now, he's alone in the apartment, and the box is calling to him. He doesn't like to talk about it, but the box is always there at the back of his mind like an echo--sometimes faint and easily ignored, other times repeating itself over and over until it's heard. Maybe he shouldn't give in so easily. Maybe he should finally discard the box the next time they clean, but the box is part of him, and it's why he is the way he is now. Things could have turned out so differently without the box.
He kneels in front of the closet and slides the front panel open. Everything inside ends up in neat piles around him until, finally, all that remains is a single cardboard box. Its sides are battered, and its corners have been crushed for years, but it's still intact. Jakurai has lost count of just how many times the box has moved with him. He slides it out, opens the flaps, and lifts out a wooden trunk that just barely fits.
Perhaps trunk is the wrong word. It's really more of a briefcase or carrying bag. It is scuffed and battered just like the box, and in places, the leather looks as if it was singed once upon a time. Despite the wear, the structure is sound, and despite its apparent age, it is still obviously well-maintained. The leather has the faint sheen of something recently oiled, and the metal fastenings shine with evidence of recent polishing.
Almost reverently, Jakurai sets the case on the floor in front of him and opens the lid. Once upon a time, the entire case was filled to bursting with his medical instruments and supplies...or rattling with an ominous clatter as the battles dragged on and the supply chain failed. There's no need for it hold supplies anymore, but most of his instruments still gleam in their place. He's replaced them since, but any one of these holds more memories than an entire operating room with its trays of cold, sterile steel.
He touches each of them in turn, letting the memories flow through his fingers as he opens himself to the stories they wish to share. These shears cut loose a paratrooper who had become entangled in a tree on his landing. This clamp sealed a torn artery long enough for him to tie it off properly, stemming the pulse of blood until he could save the boy (and he had been little more than a boy; his collar still freshly-starched and his shoes barely broken in before they sent him out to the front of the battlefield). This probe had traced the path of too many bullets, helping him determine which ones were superficial wounds that could wait, which ones needed his immediate attention before a sharp piece of shrapnel tore through delicate arteries and organs, and which ones were beyond anything he could treat in the field--like the boy he had treated the day the armistice was signed; a bullet had torn through his kidney and shattered his spine. They had saved him, in the end, him in the field and the whole team of trauma surgeons and specialists that had come after him, but at what cost?
When at last he returns the final tool to its place, his head spinning with every story and half-forgotten memory now brought back to the fore, he sets aside the entire case. Underneath it lays his old uniform. It's folded into a perfect rectangle, virtually identical to how it looked when he first received it so many years ago. The folds have laid deep creases into the fabric over time, but the material still feels the same under his fingers.
He unfolds the jacket and runs his fingers along the buttons. How many times had he done just that, letting the smooth metal be an anchor as he broke down a plan of attack for an especially challenging problem, or even when he just needed a few seconds of his own before delving back into the fray.
It has been years, but the ghosts of the past still speak through his fingers. It has been years, but he can still picture the child he once was, almost as if he has summoned a ghost. He was smaller then, not of height but of build. The pale face that stares back at him is thin and drawn with the weight of responsibility and too many nights of little sleep. The apparition (or is it a memory?), reaches into the bag at his waist and takes out a scalpel handle.
Knowing what is coming next doesn't make it any less painful. His former self slides a new blade onto the scalpel, and suddenly his demeanor shifts. No longer is he a healer, burning himself out to save even just one more soldier. Now, he is the assassin. His accuracy with his weapon of choice is just as technical and precise as his work in the medical tents. He is nothing if not a living study in contradictions. By day, he heals every soldier who comes before him, regardless of rank or allegiance. Once he is freed from the medical tent, however, the scalpel he has used to heal so many, and will use to heal so many more, becomes the very antithesis of what he works for. The blades he uses now are dark as night; only their razor edges glint in the moonlight.
His past self is one soul torn in two directions. Everyone's hands have the capability to both hurt and heal; his are an anomaly in their extremes. The blood that covers his hands by day becomes a holy water that washes away the sins committed in the dead of night when the blood of his targets stains his hands black.
He holds the jacket to his chest, as if he could fold the apparition into his embrace. Gently, he presses his lips to the memory's shadowed face. It will be okay, he wishes he could tell his past self. You'll find yourself eventually.
In Shadow: Hypmic, Jakurai, T
The box sits in the back of a closet, buried under enough other boxes, spare blankets, and old clothing no one has discarded yet that it would be difficult to stumble upon it accidentally. So far as Jakurai knows, he's still the only one who knows it is here. He'd be happy if it stayed that way.
Right now, he's alone in the apartment, and the box is calling to him. He doesn't like to talk about it, but the box is always there at the back of his mind like an echo--sometimes faint and easily ignored, other times repeating itself over and over until it's heard. Maybe he shouldn't give in so easily. Maybe he should finally discard the box the next time they clean, but the box is part of him, and it's why he is the way he is now. Things could have turned out so differently without the box.
He kneels in front of the closet and slides the front panel open. Everything inside ends up in neat piles around him until, finally, all that remains is a single cardboard box. Its sides are battered, and its corners have been crushed for years, but it's still intact. Jakurai has lost count of just how many times the box has moved with him. He slides it out, opens the flaps, and lifts out a wooden trunk that just barely fits.
Perhaps trunk is the wrong word. It's really more of a briefcase or carrying bag. It is scuffed and battered just like the box, and in places, the leather looks as if it was singed once upon a time. Despite the wear, the structure is sound, and despite its apparent age, it is still obviously well-maintained. The leather has the faint sheen of something recently oiled, and the metal fastenings shine with evidence of recent polishing.
Almost reverently, Jakurai sets the case on the floor in front of him and opens the lid. Once upon a time, the entire case was filled to bursting with his medical instruments and supplies...or rattling with an ominous clatter as the battles dragged on and the supply chain failed. There's no need for it hold supplies anymore, but most of his instruments still gleam in their place. He's replaced them since, but any one of these holds more memories than an entire operating room with its trays of cold, sterile steel.
He touches each of them in turn, letting the memories flow through his fingers as he opens himself to the stories they wish to share. These shears cut loose a paratrooper who had become entangled in a tree on his landing. This clamp sealed a torn artery long enough for him to tie it off properly, stemming the pulse of blood until he could save the boy (and he had been little more than a boy; his collar still freshly-starched and his shoes barely broken in before they sent him out to the front of the battlefield). This probe had traced the path of too many bullets, helping him determine which ones were superficial wounds that could wait, which ones needed his immediate attention before a sharp piece of shrapnel tore through delicate arteries and organs, and which ones were beyond anything he could treat in the field--like the boy he had treated the day the armistice was signed; a bullet had torn through his kidney and shattered his spine. They had saved him, in the end, him in the field and the whole team of trauma surgeons and specialists that had come after him, but at what cost?
When at last he returns the final tool to its place, his head spinning with every story and half-forgotten memory now brought back to the fore, he sets aside the entire case. Underneath it lays his old uniform. It's folded into a perfect rectangle, virtually identical to how it looked when he first received it so many years ago. The folds have laid deep creases into the fabric over time, but the material still feels the same under his fingers.
He unfolds the jacket and runs his fingers along the buttons. How many times had he done just that, letting the smooth metal be an anchor as he broke down a plan of attack for an especially challenging problem, or even when he just needed a few seconds of his own before delving back into the fray.
It has been years, but the ghosts of the past still speak through his fingers. It has been years, but he can still picture the child he once was, almost as if he has summoned a ghost. He was smaller then, not of height but of build. The pale face that stares back at him is thin and drawn with the weight of responsibility and too many nights of little sleep. The apparition (or is it a memory?), reaches into the bag at his waist and takes out a scalpel handle.
Knowing what is coming next doesn't make it any less painful. His former self slides a new blade onto the scalpel, and suddenly his demeanor shifts. No longer is he a healer, burning himself out to save even just one more soldier. Now, he is the assassin. His accuracy with his weapon of choice is just as technical and precise as his work in the medical tents. He is nothing if not a living study in contradictions. By day, he heals every soldier who comes before him, regardless of rank or allegiance. Once he is freed from the medical tent, however, the scalpel he has used to heal so many, and will use to heal so many more, becomes the very antithesis of what he works for. The blades he uses now are dark as night; only their razor edges glint in the moonlight.
His past self is one soul torn in two directions. Everyone's hands have the capability to both hurt and heal; his are an anomaly in their extremes. The blood that covers his hands by day becomes a holy water that washes away the sins committed in the dead of night when the blood of his targets stains his hands black.
He holds the jacket to his chest, as if he could fold the apparition into his embrace. Gently, he presses his lips to the memory's shadowed face. It will be okay, he wishes he could tell his past self. You'll find yourself eventually.