Parasite Eve Sephirotto Part 19

"I could not find a single misspelled English word in your slides, and I think your explanations held up well... So what did you all think?"

Ishihara turned to the students behind him, thereby cuing them to share any points of criticism without hesitation.

They all looked down and avoided his gaze. Toshiaki suppressed a smile. Asakura's perfect presentation had thoroughly intimidated them.

Ishihara waited to see if anyone would speak up. Eventually, he nodded and asked the projector a.s.sistant to show Asakura's slides from the beginning.

"Let's all check once more to make sure there are no mistakes."

Ishihara questioned Asakura at length about each slide and listened carefully to her arguments. She answered everything perfectly. Toshiaki listened in half- surprise. She had really done her homework. He thought to jump in with some timely help if she faltered, but there was no need. In the end, she showed no uneasiness, but neither was there even a hint of arrogance. Her forthright responsiveness was even pleasant. Without rushing her replies, she presented her points clearly and in order, with a clear desire to convince rather than befuddle the questioner. She referred to surprisingly recent data as she did so.

"Yes, perfect. I see you've been studying well," said Ishihara at last, his voice filled with admiration.

"Thank you very much."

Asakura flashed a smile that was startlingly lovely.

"This certainly puts a lot of pressure on the next person, doesn't it?" said Ishihara, which brought a laugh from the rest.

After the rehearsal was over, Toshiaki returned to the lab.

"Wow. I'm really impressed. You even got the professor's seal of approval."

Asakura seemed flattered, and thanked him with a bow.

"I guess all that's left is to memorize your notes. Well, you have until the day of the meeting to do that, so don't stress yourself out over it. If you have any worries, though, just let me know and we can go over things the day before. And let's write up an outline you can take to the podium just in case."

"I think I'll be okay..."

"I don't know, you'd be surprised how easy it is to forget things up there. Comes with the territory. But if you can, try to do it without notes."

"I'll give it my best."

"By the way..." said Toshiaki, by way of changing the subject, as he looked at her knee.

"How's your leg?" "Oh, this?"

Asakura laughed and tapped her jeans with her fist. "It's healing. I still have a bandage on it."

"Doesn't it hurt?"

"Yes, but I doubt it'll even leave a scar."

She was limping the day she'd changed her hair. When he asked her about it, she claimed to have fallen on her apartment stairs and sc.r.a.ped her knee. Her fingers were taped up as well.

She'd brushed away Toshiaki's concern, saying: "Really, it's nothing. Besides, it's hard for me to keep my balance anyway, being so tall and everything."

Toshiaki had been struck by this comment; it was so unlike her. Until then, he'd never heard her make fun of her own height. He'd been taken aback for a moment. But it was really just a trifle, and he'd scrubbed the feeling of oddness out of his mind.

"It should heal by the conference, so please don't trouble yourself about it.

I'd look pretty silly with a bandage under my suit skirt, don't you think?" she said with a grin.

Just then, a group of seniors came into the room. One of them was holding a white box in his hands.

"The professor congratulated us on such a good rehearsal and bought a cake for us to celebrate. Please, have some," said the student proudly.

"Say, this is rare. He must really be in a good mood, thanks to all your hard work "Toshiaki said as he opened the box.

"Looks delicious," said Asakura elatedly. "I'll get some tea? Everyone grab a cup if you want some."

The tea was a welcome diversion and Toshiaki took his time to enjoy it.

"Hey, Asakura, that isn't your usual mug, is it?" said one of the students as he ate his cake. Toshiaki had not noticed it until now, but the design on her cup was indeed different.

"What happened to the old one?"

"Yeah, did you break it?"

"I don't know where it went," Asakura replied, enjoying the scent of her tea with a joyful smile. "I swear I put it right over there. Let me know if anyone finds it, though."

19.

SHE had surfaced, for the first time. It had gone better than She ever could have hoped.

Kiyomi's spirit had resisted a few times, yet, She had proven triumphant. To surface and to be held as Herself in Toshiaki's arms was incomparably more blissful than what She could feel while still buried in Kiyomi. But She was not satisfied. This was only the beginning.

She knew that Kiyomi was dreaming. Memories sometimes leaked out from Her and stimulated Kiyomi's nerves. Though She had been careful not to enlighten Kiyomi to Her existence, on the twenty fourth of December, the day Kiyomi was born, Her defenses were never as effective. Every year, Kiyomi seemed sharper that one night.

At last, the night before, Kiyomi had glimpsed Her memory < p="">

Kiyomi would probably never understand what it meant, but it would not do to be careless.

There was the danger that she would tell Toshiaki; and while Kiyomi's ignorance could be counted on, Toshiaki would probably decipher the dream.

At last, the time has come to take action, She thought.

It was time to renounce her status as an amenable slave. From last night's trial, She knew the necessary preparations were now in order. She thought and Kiyomi's body complied: a most pleasant reversal of who was mistress, and who slave.

The morning was calm and quiet. The persistently cold weather had begun to fade, and for the first time in a long while, a faint sunlight poured in through the bedroom window.

Particles of light pa.s.sing through the net mesh curtains floated gently above white bed sheets.

Crystallized kerosene sparkled blearily in the heater.

Hearing a low groaning at her side, she looked in its direction to see Toshiaki's back.

His naked shoulders moved slowly up and down with his breathing. She realized that she had slept on Toshiaki's bed. She touched his shoulder gently with her hand.

"Hey. Didn't know you were up." Toshiaki rubbed his eyes and sat up. His eyes were puffy and he was clearly not fully awake.

With a huge grin on her face, she said: "I want to register at a kidney bank."

At breakfast, Kiyomi noticed Toshiaki giving her strange looks. When she turned to him, he look fl.u.s.tered for a moment. Then he averted his eyes and spread margarine on his toast with a sc.r.a.ping noise.

"What is it?" she said, getting suspicious.

Toshiaki looked down as if what he was about to say didn't come easily. After a moment, he muttered, simply: "Don't you remember?"

"Remember what?"

"This morning. You said you wanted to register at a kidney bank, totally out of nowhere."

Kiyomi looked up from her breakfast in surprise. She had no memory of it.

"It's your choice, of course, but... I was just a bit shocked since I didn't think you cared about such things."

She blinked. Toshiaki looked away and took a bite of his toast. This was no joke.

She wanted to ask him what was going on, but for some reason her mouth would not open.

She had to really concentrate to finally move her lips. When the words came out, they were not ones that she had willed.

"So how do I register?"

Since that day, Kiyomi started to become unsure of herself. She feared that she was doing things without her own knowledge, and this zapped her desire to do anything at all.

After Christmas too, Toshiaki tried to make love to her, but she kept refusing. Who knew what might come crawling out of her again, and maybe she'd never come back the next time it happened.

Then one day her donor card arrived in the mail. A phone number was printed on it, and underneath it: ORGAN DONATION DECISION CARD.

In the event competent medical authority declares me brain-dead, I hereby agree to the brain-death declaration and to donate my kidneys for transplantation purposes.

She fiddled with the card, holding it between her index finger and thumb on opposite corners while turning it. She had gone through the registration process without even realizing it. It was around that time that she mysteriously began seeing a whole slew of news and articles about organ transplants. She never noticed them much before, but now she was running into them everywhere. There must have always been plenty of reports about transplants; she probably just used to overlook them since she'd had little interest in the topic before. And yet, why they seemed so prevalent now was beyond her.

Winter pa.s.sed and a new school year began. Temperatures rose, cherry blossoms bloomed.

One day in the middle of June, Toshiaki shouted with joy and came running over to give Kiyomi a hug.

"Yes! It went through!" hollered an excited Toshiaki to his equally star tied wife. "My Nature article!"

He embraced her and spun her around, but Kiyomi hadn't a clue.

"Wait, what happened exactly?"

"The piece I wrote for Nature was accepted for publication. I got the notification today.

Don't you remember that conversation we had once? I told you I wanted to get published in a top scientific journal someday."

She remembered it now.

"So that means..." said Kiyomi, at last comprehending the situation.

"You got it! So, what do you think of your husband now! Aren't you happy for me?"

"Of course, that's terrific news!"

Kiyomi embraced him and was about to tell him, "Congratulations."

The words that came out of her mouth were quite different.

"You're wonderful, Toshiaki. I knew you were the one I've been looking for."

She immediately covered her mouth, surprised at what she had just said.

"Don't be silly, Kiyomi. We're already married," said Toshiaki, confused. Kiyomi turned away.

"No, that's not what I meant..."

"What, then?"

"I love you."

She broke away from their embrace.

Those hadn't been her words. Someone was manipulating her!

A coldness spread across her back as if an icicle had been planted there. She suddenly felt her own body to be a grotesque thing, clamped onto by some unknown ent.i.ty that now wriggled all over her. She wanted to take off everything, and just run away. Toshiaki embraced her again. Rigid in his arms, chilly from her own cold sweat, she shivered.

One week later, the time came for the annual open lectures sponsored by the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

The school had sixteen seminar groups, and each year, four of them a.s.sumed these duties by rotation. Toshiaki's course was among the four this year.

On the day of the lecture, he told Kiyomi he was going to meet with Ishihara beforehand since he was a.s.sisting with the professor's slides.

"Is it alright if I came along?" Kiyomi said, without even thinking.

The skies were clear on the day of the open house. A pure blue expanse spread above the Pharmaceutical Sciences building just like the day they first saw each other again.

Ishihara's lecture was the first of the afternoon. Toshiaki and Kiyomi entered the hall ten minutes early. As Toshiaki set up the projector, Kiyomi walked leisurely around the room, admiring the view from the windows. She was searching for her sense of reality. As she walked, she had a hard time believing that her own feet were actually moving one in front of the other as they should. Her consciousness seemed somehow separated from her body.

"We all have countless parasites living inside us," began Professor Ishihara, in nearly the same manner as when Kiyomi attended his lecture a few years before. Toshiaki changed each slide at the professor's signals. About half of the presentation was as Kiyomi remembered it, but certain data had been updated in light of new discoveries. She gazed at the screen, listening intently. She understood much more of it now than when she had been a student. What amazed her, however, was that she was somehow able to grasp all the new material as well. More than a quick understanding of unfamiliar concepts, it felt like she was remembering things long forgotten.