The Kagaijin Chronicles: Kentama

She smiled sympathetically at him. "Well, let's try to move past it and forget it ever happened. Thanks to you, he didn't get very far. I only wish you hadn't been so rough with him. I was terrified of him and of what he was about to do to me, but when you came in and threw him across the room like that, I didn't know what to think. I've never seen you so angry. It was shocking and frightening, but at the same time, so very sweet." She covered her mouth with her hand and her eyes widened as she realized that she'd crossed a line. "Oh, I'm sorry," she cried, shaking her head and pushing at her temples with her fists. "That was the wrong thing to say, wasn't it? I can see now how Sanji (or was it Sanjima?) got so confused. I'll bet I said similar things to him too, without realizing it." Although she wanted very much to say it, she didn't tell him that it was much easier to make such slips of the tongue with him, and that it was very difficult to keep silent about her feelings for him.

"Hatoko, I want you to understand something," Kentama urged her, wheeling the chair up alongside the bed and placing a hand on the edge of it. "You did absolutely nothing wrong. The fault in this lies with Sanjima, because you clearly told him to stop. I don't care how aroused a man is; when his partner isn't willing, he shouldn't resort to force to try to change her mind. Any man who listens to reason should know that, and unfortunately, Sanjima chose to ignore reason."

"You... you're always so kind to me," she laughed, becoming increasingly frustrated that her eyes were filling with tears, despite her best efforts to keep the watery nuisances at bay. "I wish I'd met you under different circumstances, Kenji. Sometimes I wonder just how my life might have changed for the better had I met you earlier, you know? Maybe it's out of line for me to say that, but keeping everything inside just hurts so much sometimes." She set a timid hand on his, and as an addition to the bold gesture, she stared into his eyes, her gaze unwavering, even if her bravery was.

Kentama sighed. He wanted to believe that what she was saying meant more than the face value of her words, but he felt certain that she was only feeling vulnerable and frightened from her ordeal. She wanted someone safe to cling to, and he was afraid that if he allowed her to use his strength in that way, he might be unable to let her go when she overcame her shock. Although he hadn't said anything to anyone about it, Sanjima had realized the truth. He had developed very strong feelings for Hatoko in the short time she had been with them, and he was well aware of it. Although he desperately wanted her to feel the same way, he was too afraid of hurting them both by putting too much faith in something that might not really exist.

"I'll get you a fresh change of clothes," he said at last, patting her gently on the hand and getting up. She nodded shakily and placed both her hands in her lap, staring down at them and feeling implicitly rejected. A solitary tear pushed its way out of her left eye, and it slowly rolled down her face, only to drop onto the blanket and soak into the fuzzy cloth, barely altering its dark color. She was finding it very hard to be upbeat and carefree. She wondered if she could ever be that way again.

- - - -

The next week and a half was a very uncomfortable period for Kentama. He avoided making casual conversation with Hatoko, and for the most part, she reciprocated his avoidance with desolate looks and murmurs of thanks for his time. In this short span of time, he saw her begin to change from the spirited, outgoing, and laughing young woman he'd grown to love into a depressed, virtually joyless individual. She was losing sleep and never seemed to have an appetite anymore, and he noted with no small degree of concern that she was beginning to look weak and malnourished all the time. Although he was sure it was his presence that made her so unhappy, he didn't know what he could do to fix the situation, aside from sending her away.

When the thought first occurred to him, he stubbornly brushed it away and ignored it, as the thought of not seeing Hatoko again was the most painful thing he could imagine. However, as he watched her decline in health and look more and more listless and unhappy, he knew that he was being selfish and cruel. He had to think of her more than of himself. It would be for her own good if he sent her back to her family and her own doctor. They could pick up where he had left off by now. Her leg was healing nicely, and her forehead didn't even sport a bruise where she had been struck. In reality, she could have left the clinic over a week ago, but out of sselfishness, he hadn't mentioned it.

Finally, with a heavy heart, he decided it was time to tell her the truth, so he sat down with her and explained that she was well enough now to get around on her own, and she could go back to her family and her career without worry; there was no bill to pay, and no hard feelings about it on his account.

She stared miserably at him for a few moments before turning away and heaving a long, shaky sigh. "Why did it have to turn out this way?" she laughed quietly. "I always said I'd never make the same mistake again, and now I've gone and fallen in love with you, but you can't even stand to be near me. I knew all the time that I shouldn't give in to the feelings that came over me when you were here with me, but I just couldn't help it. I'm just a weak, feeble-minded dummy." She laughed again, and as she turned to face him, she saw the hurt and awkwardness on his face and it pushed her over the edge. She buried her face in her hands and wept miserably. "I'm so sorry," she sobbed. "I can't seem to even manage to control my own emotions now, when it might be the last time we see each other. God, I'm so pathetic!"

Kentama was a composed man, well in control over his own impulses and desires. However, when she broke down like that it was more than he could bear. He rushed to her side and wrapped his arms about her in a protective, fierce embrace. Burying his face in her hair, he laughed awkwardly. "You're not the pathetic one," he admitted in a choking voice. "I am. In your own way, you've been honest with me about your feelings since the beginning, but I've been avoiding my own under the guise of protecting yours. Part of me knew - or at least suspected - that you felt the same way about me as I did for you, but I was afraid - afraid that if I put too much of myself on that hope, that I'd lose myself forever when it failed. I'm not a confident man, Hatoko. It seems I've failed you when you needed me most."

"Oh Kenji," she sobbed, gripping the lapels of his medical coat and burying her face in his chest. "Please don't send me away! I don't think I could survive without you... I don't even remember what life was LIKE without you! I don't want to remember. Please, just let me stay with you, and I'll do anything you want! I'll work for you; I'll cook and clean for you! Anything, as long as I can be with you!"

"I want to believe that you really feel that way about me," he groaned, shuddering with emotion. "I want to believe it so badly, but Hatoko, you don't know everything about me. I'm not the man you think I am."

"I don't care!" she yelled, her hysterical voice muffled by his clothing. "I love you! Why should I care about anything else? Nothing you could say to me will ever change that! Don't you see? I'll do anything to be with you! Why can't you trust me? Why... why can't you love me?" She lifted her head and looked up at him, imploring him with her reddened eyes. "Please don't push me away, Kenji. I'm yours if you want me; I know I don't deserve you, but I promise to do my best to make you happy."

Kentama saw the pleading, intense longing in her eyes, and it filled him with the most powerful sensations he'd ever experienced. He wanted her. How could he not want her? She was everything that had been missing from his life, and then some. Pushing her away from him was like pushing away his own soul. He couldn't stand it anymore; he was overflowing with emotion. In his desperate, conflicted state of mind, he did what his instincts told him to do. He gripped her shoulders, tilted her head back, and he kissed her with a ferocity that would have surprised anyone who knew him well. He shuddered again as he struggled to maintain his human form as she kissed him back, her tongue eagerly caressing and tickling his. She pulled her arms up around his neck and grasped the back of his head, gripping his scalp firmly with a tender, earnest need.

She was guiding him, begging him to continue, and never in his life had he wanted anything so much. Groaning in anguished desire, he slid one hand up behind her head while he dropped the other to her upper body, gently pressing and rubbing against one of her breasts through the flimsy fabric of the smock. She made a kind of whining sound into his mouth as she grasped his lowered hand with one of hers and held it tightly, alerting him to her approval of his actions.

She pulled her head away, and he released her from their kiss, breathing heavily and holding her spellbound in his smoldering, green eyes. "Make love to me," she breathed, touching his cheek with the tips of her fingers and pleading with her eyes. "Please, Kenji. I want you so much."

"Oh Hatoko," he groaned, shutting his eyes tightly and gritting his teeth as she gently began to unbutton his shirt, kissing his chest as little by little, she exposed more of the skin. "I want to... you have no idea how much I do. I don't know what to do anymore."

"Then let me make love to you," she urged him, nuzzling one of his now exposed nipples with her cheek. "I love you so much, Kenji. I want to make you happy. Won't you let me?"

"I can't stand it anymore," he groaned. "I want this. I need it. Hatoko, please don't hate me for this." He seized her in his powerful arms and hastily bore her out of the recovery room toward his own bedroom, which was down past the foyer on the other side of the building. Thankfully, she had been taken off of antibiotic drip long ago, or he might have yanked an IV out of her wrist in his zeal. He had never been so aroused in his life. He wanted her. God, he wanted her. What could it hurt to give in to their desires? How could something that felt so right be wrong? In his dazed, lust-driven state of mind, he had begun to forget all his prior misgivings, and he stared hungrily at the beautiful woman that clung to him so tenderly and gazed at him with such longing. She had to be his. He could deny himself satisfaction no longer. No woman could ever push him so far beyond the edge.

As they entered the spacious, quiet room in which he had spent so many of his long, lonely nights, they began to kiss again, and he gently laid her upon his bed and began to remove his clothing. Removing her lips from his, she helped him by unfastening the rest of the buttons on his shirt, and she breathed more quickly when he hastily yanked his arms out of it and tossed it aside. He helped her remove her smock, and while she shyly averted her eyes as he stared hungrily at her breasts, he used a gentle, tugging motion to pull her delicate underwear from her, taking care not to catch it on her wrappings as he lifted her feet and slid it off of them. He had moved his hands to his own trousers, but she sat up and gently pushed his hands down to his sides.

"Please," she said with a husky tone, pressing her hands against his warm chest and shivering at the pleasant tingle of her own arousal. "Let me." He stared down at her with unyielding awe as she tugged open the button on his slacks and then slowly unzipped them. Reaching her arms around behind him, she carefully gripped the dark-colored fabric and slid it down gently, lightly brushing his buttocks with her fingertips as she let his trousers drop noiselessly at his feet. She stared hungrily at the bulge in his briefs and she set a hand against it and pressed lightly, feeling its warmth and pulse. She pressed her cheek against his belly and gently caressed his covered, straining organ, relaxing her shoulders as he gripped them with shaking hands.

"Hatoko," he said with a shudder. "I don't think I'll be able to stop myself if we go much further."

"Then let's keep going," she sighed, sliding his briefs down to his ankles and grasping his hips as she shivered with pleasure at the sight of the rigid evidence of his arousal. "Please, let's never stop."

"Hatoko, I can't continue like this," he persisted. "I'm afraid I'll lose control if I don't stop you now. I have to tell you something before we go any further."

"Why do you hesitate?" she asked with an unhappy sigh. "Don't you trust me?"

"It's not that simple," he sighed dejectedly, taking a step back so that he was out of her reach. "I... I don't know how to tell you this. If we go any further it will happen anyway, so I might as well just stop before it does."

"Kenji, why are you acting so strangely?" she asked him, beginning to feel very confused. "What are you afraid of?"

"Afraid of?" he laughed, shaking his head. "I'm afraid of a lot of things. Right now, I'm afraid of myself the most, I think. But just as much, I'm afraid of you. I'm afraid of what's going to happen when you find out."

"Find out what? Kenji, I'm getting scared. What are you talking about? Why are you acting like this?"

"Because I'm not the man you think you know," he muttered, shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head. "I couldn't hide this from you anyway if we kept going, so I might as well let you see me now. And my name is Kentama, Hatoko. Not Kenji."

He allowed his human form to melt away, and Hatoko stared in wonder as he grew in size and his skin began to pale. Within seconds, he had reverted completely to his kagaijin form, and as he stood there uncomfortably, watching her and waiting for the scream that he knew was coming, she stared back at him with a puzzled expression on her face.

"How... how did you do that?" she murmured, pulling her legs around in front of her and swinging them over the side of the bed. She pushed herself upright, wobbling unsteadily on her one good foot, and she carefully began half-hopping, half-hobbling toward him.

"Hatoko, you mustn't!" he cried. "You could damage your leg!"

"I'll be all right," she replied absentmindedly, too fixated on the odd vision before her eyes to pay heed to the dull ache in her leg. She slowly made her way toward him, reaching a hand out to touch him, as though she didn't believe what she was seeing, and wanted to touch it to assure herself it was real. His first instinct was to back away, but he was afraid she'd trip and fall, and he was mortified by the thought. He helplessly stood his ground as she grabbed onto his waist to steady herself, and once she had managed to regain her balance, she began to touch his skin with her both hands, gazing at it with wonder.

"It feels different," she breathed, rubbing her face against it to make sure. "It's harder, and rougher in places. But... but it still smells like you. You've gotten bigger," she gasped, realizing all at once that he had grown a full two feet taller than she was. "Everything is bigger," she added with wide eyes as she glanced slightly downward and noticed something else that had grown. She stared incredulously up at his tortured face, and she squinted. "I can barely look up into your eyes like this! But your eyes... they're the same. You... you are the same man, aren't you?"

"I... well, I suppose I am the same man, even if I don't look the same," he said at last, faltering over the words. "But Hatoko, aren't you afraid of me? Aren't you repulsed by my appearance?"

"Afraid? I don't understand. Kenji, what's happened to you? Why do you look so strange?"

All at once he understood. Either she'd never heard of the kagaijin, or she had never been told what one looked like. He sighed and shook his head. "Hatoko, I am not human," he said quietly. "I'm a kagaijin. I only pretended to be human so that I wouldn't frighten you. I knew that you'd never be willing to allow a kagaijin doctor to heal your injury, but no human doctor could have done what I could."

"Ka... kagaijin?" she gasped, backing away suddenly. In her haste, she slipped on his clothing and tripped, falling backwards. He saw the danger just in time and grabbed her arms, catching them in his tentacled hands and pulling her upright again. She stared at him with wide eyes as he hastily let go of her and backed away, for fear of frightening her further.

"I'm sorry," he said shakily. "I knew that if you knew what I was, there was no way that you'd ever feel for me even half of what I feel for you. I didn't want to hurt you, but I also didn't want to be hurt. Now you understand why I was afraid... not that it matters, of course. I'm sure you're not thinking about such things at the moment. Your only thought right now must be finding a means of escaping this monster before you."

"K-Kenji," she stammered, stepping back and holding onto the wooden bedpost at the foot of his bed to steady herself. "I don't believe it. How can you be a kagaijin when you're so kind and gentle? I mean, if anyone around here even comes close to what I've been told about them, it's Sanjima, not you!"

"He's one too," Kentama chuckled wryly. "If I hadn't stopped him you would have been forced to mate with one without even knowing what we look like. How ironically tragic." He gripped his forehead with one hand and laughed mirthlessly. "Ah, what a mess I've made! The king will have my hide for this."

"King? Hide? Wh-what are you talking about, Kenji?"

"I'm saying that I'm about to break one of our kind's most steadfast rules," he sighed. "No human who learns of the kagaijin can be allowed to leave this place to tell others where it is. If they do, our people will be in danger, and it is nigh impossible to move everyone in this city to anywhere, much less someplace safe."

"So... so I can't leave?" she asked, feeling a trifle dizzy by the shock of so many terrifying revelations. "I'm to be a prisoner of the kagaijin?"

"No," he replied fiercely. "I won't allow it! Hatoko, I know you must despise me now that you know what I am, but I don't care! I still love you, and to see you unhappy or in pain is the worst torture I could ever endure. I promise you; I will sneak you away from this place and never tell a soul that you learned my identity. But... but in return, you have to promise me something."

"Huh?" she mumbled, unable to cope with such a sudden shift in her fate.

"You must promise me that, either you never tell a soul about me or about being with the kagaijin," he urged her, "or you must kill me so that I don't have to live with the shame of betraying my people. I'm begging you. A life without you isn't much of a life anyway, but if I add the shame of bringing doom upon my race because of my love for you, I don't deserve to live."

"Oh Kenji," she cried weakly, sinking to the floor and holding her head with one hand. "Kenji, no!"

"Please," he begged her, rushing forward and kneeling next to her, seizing her hand in his. "I know I don't deserve to ask anything of you, but I'm begging you! Please grant me my one request!"

"Don't deserve?" she laughed at him, raising her head and smiling broadly at him despite the fresh tears in her eyes. "Kenji, how on earth can you say such a thing? Don't you realize that you deserve more than I could ever give you? You've risked your safety for me; you ignored your own instincts and desires, and now you're willing to risk your life and your own people just to protect my feelings! What you've given me entitles you to anything your beautiful heart desires. Even if you are a kagaijin, I know it in my heart that you're no monster. My people tell girls like me that kagaijin are ruthless, sex-crazy maniacs bent on enslaving the human race. How could I believe such claims ever again when the very one they're talking about is the most kind, wonderful, gentle man I've ever known? How can I believe that, when I love him so dearly?"