Soulmate Stories

The lights were on again, the lights were always on in Night city. He liked to watch them sometimes, just watching all the glittering lights in their dance. Night after night. A million million souls filtering about their life. Hoping, fighting, dying. He liked to watch the lights. Once and god sometimes it felt like a lifetimes, lifetimes memories ago he was one of them. Tucked away under the blood and the sweat that comes with shitty neighborhoods and poor mothers. Wonderful, beautiful mothers, mothers that smelt like car accidents and that shone in bright yellow vests. Fucking amazing mothers. That sometimes felt like a lifetime ago too. 

So he looked down on the lights removed from the dog race to live among the hounds. It’s funny, his mother always wanted him to go to the top of Araska tower, and always fought so hard for it. Worked so hard. He wonders sometimes if she saw him now, if she would be happy. Sometimes when he was good, he would be allowed to watch a BD. Not any of the more vulgar stuff no, none of the interesting or good stuff. Someone in his station shouldn’t be tainted by such things. No, just fucking boring ones. Ones with happy little families, or informational nature documentaries. Something at least somewhat useful. But sometimes, on rare occasions in them there would be an actor with the same little quirk to their smile. Or one with just the hint of a Valentino accent. Something almost impossible to notice if you weren’t used to that very particular way you're supposed to roll your ‘r’. That very particular way you're supposed to shape your mouth around the ‘o’ sound. 

Sometimes he would hear it and think of his mothers smile and sometimes when he was feeling particularly brave or despondent he would think about if she would still be smiling if she saw where he was. Who he had become. 

He wished and god he fucking wished he could get drunk or high or anything really but that wasn’t allowed either. Nothing much was but him sitting up behind bullet proof glass so thick it could take a missile with a veritable army between him and any unauthorized visitors. Staring out at the little lights. 

He just wanted someone to talk to, someone to smile at him and say something. Not the veritable robots in their black and red suits. Cold faces and cold hearts. Rigid and hard, no soul. Or the instructors who were professional and oh so very careful with their words. 

Or the little robot servants who buzzed and twirled around but little else, beeping lights the only reminder of their presence. Someone else but Yorinobu with his frowning face and piercing gaze. Someone like his mother, someone alive. 

Sometimes he thinks he would take an edgerunner as psychotic as those freaks or Katsuo even with his mocking smiles and petty insults. Not the cold surfaces of apartments that cost more than his mother made in ten years for a single night of rent and scared people. Too terrified to act anything but absolutely perfect around the soulmate of an Araska, of the Araska. 

The princeling turned emperor. The man who gripped the world's balls in one hand and Japan's freshly beating heart in another. 

Yet, he never got anything but smiling people with dead eyes and how selfish he was. He had everything he could ever want and he doesn't think he had ever been so miserable. At first, he remembers at first he was greedy. The soulmate of Yorinobu Arasaka, how could such news be anything but good. A godsend in a shitty world that fucked you sideways and then back again and then when it had taken absolutely everything from you it decided to take even more. How could he not be happy? How could he not? 

Then he was angry, so very angry, he wasn’t some hooker to keep locked away, some prize thing to be hoarded. He was a fucking grown man, not some pampered little thing. 

Wife, Yorinobu said, he was his wife and that enrageded him more than anything, he wasn’t a trophy, wasn't some thing to fuck and forget. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth now when he thinks back on it. Thinks back on why his father was never around. He thinks it was his similarity with her in those moments when he still felt raw and used that hurt the most. 

Then, then he was depressed, suicidal even. Ready to jump off the nearest building ledge but Yorinobu probably had a full team of psychologists assessing his every move and before he even knew he wanted to die that man knew. One day he woke up and every gleaming metal thing was gone, his cups, and plates, and utensils exchanged for copies made out of soft almost plasticity but much higher quality. The windows didn’t open and his food and water were drugged and watchers seemed to appear at every corner. 

After that, after that he was resigned.  Quiet and meek and tired, so tired of everything, dead to the world. Yorinobu didn’t care though never did beyond keeping him alive and complacent. 

He always thought the expression he had learned in school from some bygone era of a bird in a gilded cage was stupid. So stupid, what person in their right mind would complain about expensive food, and nice accommodations. About a wealthy benefactor. What fucking idiot. 

He just never thought that idiot would be him.  

So now he sits here in a cozy little alcove with plush seats filled with real goose feathers and real oak shelves and stares out the window at all the little lights. 

The only sound was the minimal shifting of two men who knew a thousand and one ways to kill anyone who came within six feet of him. Who he had seen kill. Watching the pretty, pretty lights. 

He was in school when it happened the day he got into a fight with Katsuo, he was in school when for just the smallest smallest second his shoulder burned like someone had lit a fire under his skin. He was in school walking to his seat full of false pride and spite when he tripped on his own feet catching himself at the last second. He gets a few odd looks for it from the people not already in class, their headsets gleaming under the artificial lights of the atrium but most don’t take notice. Most ignore it, he does too. At the end of the class the teacher asks for him to stay behind, they have something they need to discuss. He does with stiff shoulders and a stoic face while inside something quivers with nerves. Worried that doc’s headset had caused a problem he hadn’t known about. 

Instead though the teacher bot recommends he go see the nurse. Says that it is school policy for all students to have their soulmark recorded. The word soulmark steals his breath and a light flush appears on his cheeks the nerves of a teenage boy slithering through him. He grins and says he’ll get right on that. Heading through gleaming Araska academy halls with an anticipatory smile on his face. Images of hot topless women flashing through his head as he imagines what his alter might look like. Little thought was given to their personality at that time outside of general sexual characteristics. He was a teenager and though he didn’t always think with his dick, when conjuring up images of his future hopeful it was hard not to sexualize them. Though his mother always snorted when he got the dreamy look on his face when thinking about them. Said that they will think that él cree la última Coca-Cola del desierto. Say’s to not get ahead of himself. 

He almost skips on the way to the nurses office. He is so happy, bouncing along as he goes. Though when he actually gets there it is a fairly boring process. First he explains why he is there in the pleasant looking room with the pleasant looking women at the front desk. She has very few visible modifications, visible chrome being considered a little distasteful and he wonders if his alter will be a chrome jock or have barely chipped in. He honestly didn’t know what he would prefer. 

The nurse smiles, sweet and professional and waves a hand to the bed in the back. It is white like the rest of the room, hospitable but designed to look expensive and uncomfortable. Not the shitty place doc owns. 

Doesn't even smell like a hospital but instead like fresh flowers. Well what he thought fresh flowers smelt like gentle with little hints of sweetness. The women smiled at him professionally and coldly, told him to sit down and take off whatever article of clothing that covered it. He blushed but he did it without question. She used a machine that spun and moved. A bright light taking one photo and then the next spinning around and around him until every angle was covered. 

It wasn’t until she went to input it into the system that a little frown appeared on her face. He was putting his shirt back on when he saw it and couldn’t help but ask.

“What's wrong?” 

She glanced up at him once more the business smile appearing in its place comfortably on her face once again. 

“Nothing dear, nothing at all.” 

He looked at her for a second longer but when her cool professional did not let anything through he decided to give up on his curiosity. One of the most important lessons he had learned at Arasaka academy. 

“Ok… uhm so.” he blushed again bringing his hand up to rub at the back of his neck. “Did you find a match?” 

“Sadly it may take a few business days to process, the company apologizes for the inconvenience and should send you your results as soon as possible.” 

He glanced over at her again pegging for the first time for the corpse she was. “Uhm.” He swallowed the feeling of disappointment down. “Ok. thanks I guess?” 

He was shuffling out the door as he spoke. Hearing the women trail off with how they were always happy to help as long as it was in his tuition package. He didn’t catch the rest but he didn’t think he was really missing anything. Still, he was sure he would match with someone pretty hot soon all he had to do now was wait. He could always wait, he knew how, better than most things at least. 

The day passed as it usually did with him being ignored by more influential classmates, as he stood with the chip on his shoulder he liked to lug around. It wasn’t until the last class of the day when the new upgrade from doc connected to the main server that things went wrong. The upgrade caused the program to fail and for Katsuo to make some more disparaging comments about his family's situation. Things almost came to blows right there but then the bot insisted he had to go to the principal's office and he knew better than to get security called on him. He hated seeing his mothers face when he did dumb shit like that. 

So with a grumble and a heated glare with the promise that this would continue later he marched off anger bleeding away with every step until only defensiveness remained. 

His shoulders hunched up in a protective shield. Yet, when he came into the office his mother was smiling bright and happy and the principal's face, always so cold and calculating, had a gentle smile on it. He looked to him like he was a long lost son, it made his skin crawl and his shoulders bunched up even higher. 

He looked to his mother a silent question in his eyes but she was gleaming at the Araska goon happier than he had ever seen her. For just a second he thought himself in some strange dream but then his elbow was painfully bumping into the metallic tasteful but uncomfortable chairs making him let out a little hiss of pain. 

He went to move and sit down when he noticed that the principle had gotten up blantant concern on his face, that made shivers run down his spine and goosebumps to pop up on his flesh. 

When the principal spoke and his voice still had that slimy copruate quality he actually felt glad to still be in familiar territory. “Good boy, are you alright?” 

He stared at the faux concern, concerned himself for the reason the principal had suddenly decided to put so much effort into putting on a show for them. 

His mother glanced over at him for a second concern on her face but when he just looked away she turned back to the principle still beaming.

 “I never knew this was an option, I mean how often do such.. Uhm… grants occur?” her voice was giddy. He knew without a doubt that something was very very wrong here. 

The principal returned her smile only confirming his notion. “Not often, surprisingly, Araska is a very charitable organization” he almost snorted at that but decided to hold back for his mother if nothing else. “But such things are generally rare but your son was just such an exceptional student, that, when we realized the… effort such a caring mother put into his education, we thought at Araska that it was only right that such a promising mind not go to waste.” 

If it was possible his mother only beamed brighter. “Thank you, I don’t know what to say, uhm… this is just so unexpected, it’s uhm…” When he realized his mother was about to start crying in the middle of the principals office he intervened before things could get even worse. 

“So, is this about the incident earlier today?” 

His stomach twisted when the principal smiled at him like he was a dog who had just done a fairly interesting trick.  

“Why yes! You see David though there will be disciplinary measures from such an incident.” For the first time if possible his mothers smile dimmed just slightly and he knew he was in for it later. 

“It also drew the school's attention to your particular.” He licked his lips as if having to hunt for the appropriately polite words. “Situation. Such a bright student we thought shouldn’t go to waste because of” he smiles then as if selling something “such a minor incident.” 

His mother beam turns back to one hundred watts and suddenly without really knowing how he knows, he knows he is being watched. Not by the principal or his mother but by someone else, someone he couldn’t see. It made him straighten his back and the creeping feeling in his chest to tighten until it had a stranglehold around his heart. It didn’t just feel like there was a person watching but that this person was very, very dangerous. 

He licked his lips which had suddenly gone  dry. “I see.” He breathes in one deep lungful of air, his aggression deflating in the face of knowing that there is a predator in this room and he can’t see it. “I’m glad.” 

The principal's grin stretched into what he was sure the principal thought was a winning smile but just looked like a washed up tiger claw that manned the front desk of one of their lower end brothels.

“I’m glad that the school could catch this error so soon, we hope for a productive year moving forward.” 

His mother had this dazed look as if she had just won the lottery and no one knew her name. 

They shuffled out of the office, his skin still crawling and the world not feeling quite right. 

His mother kept going on about how wonderful this was, how proud she was of him, all the way until he saw the glint of a machine gun in the window and the instincts that all night city residents had kicked in. He leaned back as far as he could and his mother did the same. 

When the other car moved, the animals bringing out something big and metal and dangerous he knew with a sinking feeling in his gut that something very wrong was about to happen. Something indescribable. 

When the car flipped it wasn’t even unexpected. It was just the natural order of Night city, the law of the jungle. So it flipped once, twice, three times. He was screaming then break or stop or just his mothers name. He wasn’t sure.

Then there was fire and pain and it felt like his soul was ripped from his body. There was a ringing in his ear and blood in his eyes but his mothers prone figure still seemed perfectly clear. He started screaming again but he couldn’t hear it over the sound of a Trauma Team's AV’s descent. He paid it no mind, just kept struggling, always struggling. Fighting harder and harder but not going anywhere at all. 

She wasn’t breathing. He could see that clearly. Her chest still. That was expected, just how life goes in Night city. What wasn’t expected was the trauma team converging to his location instead of the Limo’s they were speaking but he doesn't know what about. 

He was screaming and still calling for his mother but she did not move. 

Someone was speaking to him, one of the Trauma Team members but that didn’t make any sense and he wondered how hard he must have hit his head. 

There was a flash of steel. A needle tip. A pinch not felt and then the feel of something cool rushing through his veins. Like a wave crushing him down deeper and deeper into the dark until he was consumed by it. 

Yet, even as he drifted off to sleep and the Trauma Team moved around him securing the area and checking him for injuries he kept screaming, screaming and screaming for his mother. But she never moved, never even twitched. Her figure burned into his eyes until they closed. Burned to his very optic nerves until he couldn’t help but see her in everything.  

“Sir?” The question was eager, always so eager. 

“It is nothing, how are we progressing on the Sapporo Development Project?” 

There is a pusural not obvious, employees that had reached a high enough level to deal with him directly knew how to assess someone without even looking their way. Much less him with something so blatant. Still he had grown up with people in every corner trying to peer into his thoughts and he had picked up on far subtler observations parties. 

The man continued his deep red lips, a clear indicator of his importance in the company. Unlike his father Yorinobu had never favored traditionalism even in dress but the vague impulse to reign in on some of the more extreme physical modifications certainly had struck him a time or two. 

The mans assessing gaze never disappeared but by the end of the evening it shifted to his more relevant competitors. Looking for any hint of weakness. The meeting ended with little said in an hour and half outside of status updates on projects he had already read reports on and subtle maneuvers to undermine everyone else in the room by everyone. 

When the video conference call closed he sighed rubbing at his eyes in a futile attempt to try to avoid the encroaching headache. 

Takemura standing behind him in the large office shifted just slightly, an indication that he wished to ask a question. 

“Yes?” He did not look up, just kept rubbing at his eyes. 

“Sir, your biometric indicator shows that approximately ten minutes ago you experienced a sharp increase in Cortisol and Adrenocorticotropic hormones, should I inform your physician of any matters that trouble you?” 

“No.” Takemura shifted back into place behind him ready to spring into motion at the slightest threat. He just sighed deeper because he knew exactly what the painful feeling in his shoulder meant and he knew that the approaching headache would soon turn into a very real one.  

“My soulbound has received their mark, prepare the appropriate measures.” 

Takemura did not react outside a deep bow and a flicker of light in his optics. 

Yorinobu turned back to his monitor, begin preparations for his next meeting. 

It was not until after that meeting that the notification came in. An update in his personal account drew his eye. So rarely used since his fathers and sisters deaths and his movement into complete management of the company. 

Without even opening the pop up he knew what it was about and he had the impulse to sigh once again but he remained focused and quiet instead flicking his eyes until the report opened up in front of him. 

The report on his soulbound was short but informative. 

It was a boy which was surprising, young maybe seventeen at most. The thought alone is exhausting. Not Japanese, something that he knew would have displeased his father more than anything else. A Night City resident, with an EMT mother but an Arasaka Academy student. A surprise until you looked at the amount of debt the pair were in. Hopeless, the thought that a child not connected to a prominent family succeeding in Arasaka corps was silly but so many strove for the opportunity anyway. He couldn’t help but find the women foolish. 

Good grades, but a few disciplinary notes. Probably partially from the antagonizing he must have received for his family. Handsome but with a young naive face and inexperienced eyes.  

Looking into brown depths and a bright smile he knew that the headache that had finally hit him wouldn’t be near the last. 

It took only a second to send the boy’s personal file to Arasaka Development for investigation with a full report on the boy requested, he marked it as Beta-5 to ensure that the information was not leaked by some inspiring employee. A moment after that the boy was marked down as a personal asset of the Arasaka family within company files and he had placed an urgent request for a retrieval team for the boy to be escorted to Tokyo at the earliest date possible while maintaining confidentiality. 

Then he was turning back to his monitor, smoothing his expression into one that held no clue to his inner turmoil and prepared for his next meeting. With the thought that he would not have to think of the boy for a few days at least. Yet, within an hour just after his eight meetings of the day concluded he received a notification that the boy was recorded as having somehow corrupted his Arasaka Academy class's virtual environment. 

Due to only Takemura being there to see he  allowed a light frown to cross his face but it took only a minute or two for him to draft an anonymous notice to the manager of the institute that informed the man that the notice was from Japanese upper Arasaka management and that the boy was a important asset for Arasaka and no expense would be spared to maintain him at the Academy. He briefly debated allowing the boy’s expulsion to go through but decided it was easier to transfer him to the Arasaka academy in Tokyo without the additional cover up.

Sending both actions and a full report to Takemura as he did so with an order to create a security plan for the boy. 

He thought he was finally done when a half an hour later he received a notice from Trauma Team that the boy and his mother had gotten into an accident and the boys mother was pronounced deceased on site. 

At the notice he couldn’t help even in the middle of a meeting to let out a little huff. 

He woke to the smell of clean air and the quiet beeping of a biometric monitor. Bright but not painful overhead lights. An ache deep in his skin, deep in his bones. As if some scavengers had taken him for parts. 

He let out a little groan, his hand coming up to rub at his eyes. To get the sleep out of them. 

It took a few moments for him to re-orientate himself but once he had. He pushed himself up, sitting as comfortably as he could. He took  in the room he was in for a moment or two and all he could do was stare. White tiles and white roof. So clean it as if he was in heaven. For fucks sake he thought he heard something he thought might be bird song. He vaguely recognized the chirping sound from the cleaning commercials he used to watch as a kid. When nature themes were popular on the BD’s meant for kids.

Slipped his fingers gently over the blanket covering him, it was nicer than anything he had ever touched and for minutes he just ran his hand over it back and forth experiencing fabric that didn’t catch on his skin or sit a little to snug in the wrong places. There was a window by his bed not the crappy wavy glass one that sat in his shitty little apartment but clear. As if he was lying in the nurse's office or sitting in his classroom at Araska. Everything had an expensive edge to it.

It unsettled him. More than just that it confused him. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that his family was far too poor to ever even step foot in the lobby of a place like this. Still he remembered his mother lying prone and still. He could move, he knew that. It hurt sure but he could move. He had to shift and pull at the sheets covering him. 

But he was able to free himself with a little effort and shaking arms. He hadn’t realized until that moment that he was in hospital attire. The white pristine and untouched against his skin. They were clean in a way he wasn’t used to clothes being. Even smelt new, he hadn’t had new clothes outside his Arasaka uniform in a very long time. While he was getting his feet under him all he could think was that something, something was very wrong about all this. 

That he had no idea where he was or why but that he really shouldn’t be there. 

When he was finally able to get his legs under him stumbling up and out of the bed his biomonitor let out little beeps at the slowly encroaching panic he was feeling. There were slippers by his bed, soft and expensive and the little extra addition for some reason made everything feel very, very real. 

Still without a word he slipped them on shuffling over to the door cold and metallic and white like everything else. 

When it slid open with an efficient silent hiss he expected empty hallways and more white. It was white yes but not empty. Standing, guards with stiff backs and cold eyes were there. Red and black suits, Arasaka, both Japanese with visible expensive chrome wear. 

He froze upon seeing them becoming a corpse in front of a solo. One of them turned, professional and efficient even with the slight shift of movement. Everything told him that this man was dangerous, that he could kill him with the flick of a mantris blade. But his eyes were downcast, almost submissive, the man bowed the formal kind that Arasaka was so fond of.  It was a sharp reminder that everything here was wrong, so very wrong. 

“Mr. Martinez, I am glad to see you are awake, I will inform the physician shortly.” The other man also dressed in formal Arasaka clothes bowed with the first and David just stared at both. 

Without really knowing what was happening he was nodding his head and shuffling back into the white room, the door hissing behind him. Sitting down on the white bed the biomonitor beeping quietly beside him as he stared at the white walls. 

“You called sir?” 

Yorinobu glanced up at Sandayu Oda, a calculative glint in his eyes. 

“It has been a long time, have you enjoyed your new role?” Oda's lips pursed, obviously displeased with the reminder of his failure. But he was far too trained to do much else. 

“Of course, sir.” 

Still Yorinobu was not a cruel man and he knew the dislike Oda had for him despite his loyalty to his family.

 “I have a new position for you. My soulbound has been found, he will need a guard.” 

Oda stiffened his spine going so straight it could make steel beams jealous. 

He hesitates for just a second and then bows at the waist. “Of course, 荒坂様 ” 

He dismissed him with a curt nod sending the report written up about the boy to Oda and turned back to his monitor preparing for yet another meeting.

Still, he couldn’t help but think that despite him not being a cruel man giving Oda the job of caring for the boy may have been cold of him. The man will be desperate to make sure that his failure with his sister would not occur again. He put it out of his mind, after all that desperation is what will ensure that the boy is so well guarded in the first place. 

It’s why he chose him, no matter how cruel such a decision might have been.

He was still sitting on the white bed in the white room when the door slid open and a man and a woman walked into the hospital room. 

Both were Japanese and the woman was noticeably more nervous than the man, who was wearing the same expensive Araska uniform as the two guards outside his room but had an even more dangerous edge to him. Still the women smiled professionally at him and she was so pretty that without any real thought he smiled back just slightly. 

He blushed a moment later from the faux pas and hunched his shoulders up deeply uncomfortable and confused. 

The man moved to stand by his bed a silent sentinel and he hunched over even more at the proximity. The women though stopped a few feet away with a bright monitor in hand. Intentionally standing a few feet away from him as if she wouldn’t dare get any closer. He was so unsettled by the whole situation that he made no comment on either the man's hovering nor the woman's anxiety. 

“Hello Mr. Martinez” she spoke and there wasn’t a trace of an accent in her voice.

 “Hello” He responded back dumbly. 

She smiled at him again and brought her monitor closer to her face as if to hide behind it.

“I am Dr. Aikawa, your attending physician, how are you feeling today?” She glanced up again, smiling that same professional smile that seemed to have gotten stuck on her face. 

“I’m good, where's my mom?” 

At his words though her face fell, the smile falling away and pity entering her eyes. 

At that a cold feeling slithered through him, something that told him that something outside of his strange situation was wrong too. 

“I apologies Mr. Martinez but your mother died in the accident.” She continued speaking but he didn’t hear a word, the world falling away at her words. 

The gentle white lights suddenly became far too bright, the white became galling and all he could hear was the thump, thump, thump of his heart. 

There was a ringing in his ears and without really noticing one tear drop fell and then another. 

Without really seeing the woman went to move closer to try to comfort him but the man shifted slightly and she stopped. A moment later the woman was gone and he was left in the white room with its white lights with a man with cyberware so expensive a single piece could probably buy a house in Beaverville. 

The man did not speak, just stood next to him and let him cry first quietly and still but then with big wracking sobs that shook his entire body as he screamed into the pillow. Hitting the soft expensive object over and over again until he had exhausted himself. Until he had no tears left to shed. Breathing in and out heavily, his panting, the only sound in the room. 

He glances up at the silent figure unsure and scared and tired.

“Where is she?” 

He does not even glance over as he answers. “Her body is currently undergoing processing in Night City.” His voice has a thick Japanese accent but his pronunciation is perfect. 

He licks his lips as he stares out at the skyline so different from what he was used to. Something he was avoiding thinking about too much. “And where are we?” 

“Tokyo general hospitable.” 

He would have been shocked but in that moment he was too emotionally numb to feel anything at all. “Why the fuck was I brought to Tokyo General Hospital?” 

“It was at your soulbound’s request.” 

He just glanced up at the man looking away from the white wall for a moment until his eyes flicked back at the wide white expanse. 

“I see, who the fuck is that?” 

“Yorinobu Arasaka.”

For just a second shock leaks in but then it is smoothered by the all consuming grief that had started to take root in his chest. 

“I see” At that he turns on his back curling into a little ball on the bed and stares at the wall with unseeing eyes. 

The man shifts away and he can hear the rustling of his clothes as he walks toward the door and the hiss of it as it opens. 

“Mr. Martinez, I would recommend not using such vulgar language. It is distasteful.” 

The door hiss a moment later as it closes. 

“Your thoughts?” Yorinobu glances up briefly from the document he is studying. 

“Emotional, high-strung, naive.” Oda answers him. 

He glances back down. “I see.” 

With a flicker of light he looks over his Calendar.

 “I will see him tomorrow during my lunch hour.” Takemura bowed in acknowledgement of his words. While he  turned back to his monitor, preparing for another meeting within a few minutes. 

The women came back to check on him a few times. Always with at least one or two men in dark red and black Arasaka Suits trailing after her with ever present eyes. He did not react, just stared and stared at the white wall. He knew he should get up, find out more about what was going on but for a little while longer he just couldn't. He couldn’t do anything but sleep and stare blankly at the white walls. 

He drifted in and out of sleep throughout the day, barely ate, barely did anything. It wasn’t until the next day when the man came back that he was forced to get up.

The man was gentle but firm, dragging him out of bed and half carrying him to an attached bathroom he hadn’t seen before. He did not speak a word as he helped him wash his face and brush his teeth and comb his hair out of his eyes. Did not say a word as he laid out a new set of white hospital wear for him and gave him a few minutes to change. 

Did not say a word until David was sitting back down on the white bed sheets that had been changed while he was washing up. 

“Arasaka-sama is to come and meet you.” 

He didn’t glance up, just kept staring at the white walls. “Ok.”

“Once he has and the Physician declares you healthy you will be moved to the Arasaka compound.” 

“Ok. When will I get to see my mother again?”

“Once her body finishes processing.’”

“Ok, the uhm… funeral?” 

“Arasaka-sama shall take care of such things.”

He opens his mouth for a second a flash of rage shooting through clearing his mind from the ever present grief but when he meets those cold cold eyes it fizzles out and dies. His eyes dropping back to stare at the white walls. 

“Ok.” 

The man does not leave this time just stands next to him as David curls back into a little ball. Hours pass like that until he hears the hiss of the door and three sets of footsteps against the clean white tile of the room. 

He can hear the man's clothes crinkle as he bows. He doesn't look up. The shuffling of a visitors chair being moved and one set of footsteps leaving. Someone sitting down. Still he doesn't turn around, not until he hears his name in an unfamiliar voice with a heavy Japanese accent does he turn around and look into the face of his soulbound.

“Hello David.” Taking him in for the first time he gets the impression that he is rich if that was ever in doubt. With classical Japanese features, not handsome but aged like fine wine. Clothes that probably cost more than a house adorn him and his eyes are cold and assessing. Almost immediately the man unsettles him. Not the man, Yorinobu, he knows that at least without a shadow of doubt. There is another man much like the first he met gleaming chroom and a focused deadly look on his face. He is standing behind Yorinobu and he assumes he must be his guard. 

He doesn't respond. 

After a beat Yorinobu continues.

“It is a pleasure to finally meet you. My name is Yorinobu. I am your soulbound.” 

David just stares at him silently.

“I have heard of your recent loss and you have my condolences but I have also heard that you have become rather unreactive to the world and I think it best that we go for a walk.” 

It is an order phrased thinly as a question and he just continues to stare. Yet, Yorinobu just continues to watch him waiting for his answer. When he gives none Yorinobu sighs and then stands grasping David's arms as he does, forcing him up with little effort. He doesn't fight, he just lets himself be manhandled until he is on his feet. 

Once he is standing Yorinobu glances over him still so assessing then he takes his arm grasping it gently until he is beside him. He starts walking his grip on David's arm like steel forcing David to join him. They exit the white room into the white hallway, the two Arasaka men in the room with them falling into step behind them and a second later six more join them. 

As he is dragged along through empty corridors that smell like antiseptic with people that bow when they pass by and toward the outside world the thought pops into his head. 

The way Yorinobu is leading him almost feels like a husband leading his wife. 

It almost feels like an owner leading their pet. 

It feels like a chain and he doesn’t even try to fight it.