Kim nodded without looking up from the cotton ball. He dabbed the antiseptic against my tattered skin, and the pain that followed blurred my vision. I sucked in a quick breath to keep from yelping.
“Sorry,” he said, tapping the cotton ball lightly against my skin. “I’ll try to be fast.” He threw the bloody cotton into the trash and went about wetting another one. Before he went back to work on my hands, he asked, “What would you have done if you walked in on the intruder while he was in your room?”
I squeezed my eyes shut in an effort to keep them from tearing up. “I don’t know,” I hissed through clenched teeth. “Ever since this whole possession thing started, I never know what I’m going to do next.” When Kim frowned, I made a correction. “Sorry. I forget you call it an
awakening.
You say po-tae-to and I say po-tah-to.”
He continued to dab at the blood on my hands as the tendons on his jaw flexed slowly, like a horse chewing on a lemon. “So you would not have touched the sword? Even if your life depended on it?”
I shifted uncomfortably on the toilet lid.
Kim threw more bloody cotton away. “I will tell you a secret, Rileigh. I used to envy those who went through this life completely unaware, happy in their dormant mind state.”
That was a shocker. If anyone in the world could be a spokesman for transcending, I thought that person would be Kim.
He laughed at me. “You look surprised.”
“I am,” I answered. “Did the awakening disrupt your life, too?”
“Yes.” He smiled, but there was a heaviness to his eyes. He looked past me as he reached for a box of gauze. “But I guess I had time to get used to it.”
“When did you awaken?”
“I was three, almost four years old … ” He brought both of my hands up to his mouth and my heart froze inside my chest, waiting for the brush of his lips.
Instead, he blew lightly across my knuckles, forcing the breath from my throat. Only when he released my hands to get the gauze was I able to inhale again.
“What?” My voice cracked.
He nodded, his eyes focused on the gauze he wrapped around my hands. “It’s rare for it to happen to someone so young.” He shrugged before reaching for the medical tape. “I guess I was just unlucky that way.”
“I don’t get it. I would think it would be a relief to know right away, and so much less confusing.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he replied. “Some of the first memories of this life that I can recall are of remembering the old one. I was only a young boy, and to have all of those images … the battles alone.” He shook his head and cut the tape. “It was very difficult. I didn’t have a chance to establish myself.”
“What do you mean?”
Kim gathered the medical supplies and stood up. “Because I awakened at such a young age, this isn’t really a new life for me—it’s a continuation of the old one. I didn’t get to grow up like a normal teenager. I tried to date, but it was pointless. No one could measure up to the girl I lost in Japan—the girl that haunts my dreams, my heart, and now my toilet.”
I blushed and pretended to study the tops of my tennis shoes.
Kim continued. “I gave up on school too, because in my mind, school is for people who have choices. I have none—I am a samurai.” He sighed and turned away, but it was too late. I’d seen the pain in his eyes.
“What about your parents? Didn’t they want you to have a life and go to college?”
His lips pressed into a weary smile. “They died two years ago in a car accident. They never knew. I did everything I could to hide it from them.” He crossed the room to the closet. After placing the supplies back inside, he turned to me with a smile. “Don’t look so sad,” he told me. He walked over to me and crouched down in front of me, meeting my eyes. “I’ve made my peace and moved on.”
Liar. The sorrow that etched his smile and tightened his back was undeniable. “How do you make your peace with something like that?”
“My parents were wonderful people, and I am grateful for the time I had with them in this life.”
“But you didn’t
have
much of a life!”
He smiled again, but his eyes strained from the forced effort. “When I was a child, the memories of the past were difficult because they reminded me of everything I had lost. It wasn’t until after my parents’ death that I realized it didn’t have to be that way. I didn’t have to be alone. By meeting others like me—like us,” he corrected himself, “I learned that my friends, my family, all the people that I loved were still out there.” He sat back against the wall opposite me. “I just had to find them.”
I folded my hands together to keep from reaching out to him. “So you’ve spent your whole life looking for people from the past?”
“Well, mostly just for you,” he answered.
My throat tightened. I distracted myself by picking at the new bandages on my hands.
Kim continued. “I didn’t care if you experienced the awakening or not. It didn’t matter to me if you would ever remember me. I just wanted to find you and make sure you were happy.” He looked down at the ground. “There are many things I can handle, Rileigh, but not having you in my life isn’t one of them. Look, I know you barely know me, and you are dating …
some guy.”
His mouth twitched slightly. “I’m not asking anything from you, except that I could be your friend.” He tilted my chin and forced my reluctant eyes to meet his own. “That would be enough for me.”
The tension in the room had built to an overwhelming level, and I had to fight to keep from squirming. “Are you sure you don’t want anything more?”
The corner of his lip folded into an upside-down smirk. “The truth? I’ve wanted nothing more than to hold you from the second I saw you.” He shrugged. “I’m not saying that this won’t be hard on me, but I want to try if you’ll let me.”
Before I could answer, the cool wind stirred inside of my mind.
Remember.
I shivered. It was as if a veil was lifted from my mind, just enough that I could see Kim for who he really was. I remembered. I saw his brilliant smile from across a garden of falling cherry blossoms. I felt his muscled arms pluck me off a blood-stained battlefield and secure me onto his horse’s saddle. I smelled the musk of his sandalwood cologne as we awoke every morning, intertwined like the branches of a tree.
I remembered how much I loved him. No, that wasn’t right. I curled my fingers around the toilet lid in an attempt to remain upright under the flood of memories. I gasped. That was it. While the experiences were memories, the feelings weren’t. My need for Kim, my longing, surpassed anything I’d ever experienced before. I wondered if my heart would break under the strain.
“No,” I heard myself whisper.
Kim flinched, and then lowered his eyes to the floor. “I understand.”
“No.” I stared at him, my eyes heavy with unshed tears. “You don’t understand at all.” I slid off my perch and kneeled on the floor. “I don’t want you to try to be my friend, and I don’t want to be yours.”
Kim reached out and traced my jawline with his thumb. The sensation made my breath catch in my throat. “Then tell me, Rileigh, what
do
you want?” His face inched closer to mine until I could feel the warmth of his breath against my neck.
I shivered, lifting my chin in invitation. He obliged, weaving fingers in my hair as his teeth grazed the tender spot below my ear. “I want,” I whispered, not quite knowing how to finish the sentence. It was suddenly so hot in the tiny bathroom, I couldn’t think.
I tried again. “I want—” But I never finished.
Kim’s arms were around me. One hand knotted in my hair, and the other pulled me onto his lap. I braced a hand against his unyielding chest, enjoying the sensation of hard muscles flexing beneath my fingertips. He kissed the skin beneath my ear, then worked his way along my jaw, into the corners of my mouth, and finally ended on my lips.
I felt my body ignite. The world seemed to move. I wrapped my arms tightly around his neck to keep us from falling apart.
Kim tightened his grip and I could no longer determine where he ended and I began. It was like we were melting together.
I pulled away with a gasp.
Kim grinned, and it was nothing short of heart-stopping. “I’m sorry, but I’ve waited a lifetime for that.” He reached behind me for what I thought was going to be another kiss, but instead lifted my hair up with his hands and let it spill through his fingers around my shoulders like a curtain. “This can’t be real. I’ve dreamt of this for so long. And now you’re here, my Senshi. I’m so afraid I’m still dreaming.”
“Yoshido,” I replied, then jerked upright and out of his arms. “Holy crap!” I dropped my forehead into my palm.
Kim snapped forward. “What is it? What is wrong?”
I shook my head. “Oh no. No. No. No.”
He frowned and reached for me.
I scurried to my feet. “Don’t you get it?” I asked.
His eyes widened, but he said nothing.
“That wasn’t me! That was the other girl. Senshi! She’s trying to take over, just like I thought!”
29
K
im slowly rose to his feet. “Rileigh, calm down. Tell me—”
“I’ll tell you!” I shouted, then took a breath to steady myself. “I would never call you Yoshido. I don’t know a Yoshido. I only know Kim.”
“Yes, you do. You know my name was once Yoshido.”
“No, I didn’t! Drew, Braden, and Michelle told me their names from the past, but I never knew yours. I had no way of knowing.” I struggled for a moment to make sense of the thoughts tumbling inside of my mind.
“Senshi
knew,” I whispered.
“You’re not making sense.”
My pulse skipped in my veins as I pulled the pieces together. “It makes total sense. Senshi knows your name was Yoshido so obviously
she
was the one who spoke it out loud. It couldn’t have been me, even subconsciously. I’d never even heard the name Yoshido until it came out of my mouth. It’s proof that I’m losing control!”
Two lines pinched the bridge of Kim’s nose as he frowned. “Rileigh, it doesn’t work like that.”
I jabbed a finger into his chest. “That’s what you
want
me to believe.”
He took a step back, not bothering to mask the hurt on his face. “Rileigh, I would not lie to you about such things.”
I crossed my arms. “Oh yeah, then why am I so out of control when this girl takes over? Why does she do things that I wouldn’t normally do? Is that what’s going to happen when I transcend? Is Senshi going to be completely in control, and Rileigh just … disappears?”
“You won’t disappear.” Kim took another step forward, but stopped when I almost tripped over the tub in an effort to back away from him.
I had to keep distance between us. It was the only way I could think. When I was near him there was only the scent of sandalwood, the heat of his touch, the velvet of his lips … How did I not see it before? Kim was infecting my head just as much as the spirit!
“There is no other girl in your head,” he said. “I know it may feel like that, but there is only one you, just different layers. The voice you hear, the actions you do, that is all you.”
I shook my head.
“Rileigh, you are worried about being taken over?”
I nodded.
“Well, in a way you are being taken over—but by the
real
you. Your mind is locked right now. The person you are, the real you, is shut away. The person you think you are now is only a fraction of who you are, and she’s holding you hostage. Rileigh, you will lose nothing by transcending, but gain everything.”
I ran a finger along my temple, unable to think through the forming headache. “I’m so confused,” I whispered.
“I know,” Kim answered back. His hands hung loose at his side.
“Look, about all this—”
Kim lifted a hand to stop me. “I understand. This is not our time. No need to discuss it further.” He motioned toward the door. “Please stay here tonight.” I started to argue, but he cut me off again. “As my guest. You can stay in the bedroom, and I’ll take the sofa. Later, we will find you somewhere to stay where you will be more comfortable. At least until I discover who is after you.”
I tugged at the bottom hem of my shirt, partly to mask my trembling and partly to keep my betraying fingers from reaching out to him. “But what about Senshi’s katana?” I asked. “What if we can’t get it back?”
Kim shifted awkwardly. Meeting his eyes, I caught that unmistakable look of guilt that I was growing all too familiar with.
I narrowed my eyes. “What is it?”
“It’s nothing.” He gripped his elbow and studied a spot on the ceiling.
“Kim Gimhae,” I growled. No longer afraid to close the distance between us, I took a step forward and poked my finger against his chest. He looked down, surprised. “I know you aren’t telling me something, and I’m in no mood for any more of your secrets.” I jabbed my finger against him one more time for emphasis.
He ran his hand through his hair. “Senshi’s katana was not stolen.”