I'm going to need first aid.

“I have to take Mariko home,” Akiri tells me now that the fight was over. Her friend looking like she was in some amount of shock.

Away from the noise of my work and after the rush of the fight is over, I detect a rasping electronic tone to Akiri’s voice I’d never heard before. She picks up on this, saying sorry before she undoes a skin coloured band from around her neck I’d never noticed before that inputs some kind of static into her voice making her sound robotic.

“Yeah of course. Look after your friend. I have to get back to work anyway,” I tell her, glad that her friend is safe and sound now.

“Not like that you’re not,” she says in her real voice as she reaches up and touches the cut on my eyebrow. The blood from the wound obscuring the vision on that side. I wince as she touches it, only really noticing the pain for the first time.

I agree to let her look at it back at Mariko’s house but have to first let my work know what’s happened while I was gone. Wheeling the claimed bike back to The Loft, Trey the doorman I left to look after things while I was gone, takes a look between the bike and then at me before he speaks.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Trey says.

“I just had to sort some shit out but I got a free bike out of it,” I say with a painful chuckle.

“Should have brought back up,” Trey says stating the fucking obvious.

“No shit!” I agree, “hey look I’m messed up and so are the girls. I’m going to take off for the night and make sure they’re looked after.”

“No problems man. We’ll look after things here. You go get yourself patched up.”

Trey gives me a fist bump before I lead the two girls away from the front entrance to The Loft. I wait until they have flagged down a taxi and gotten in before I kick start the motorbike I’ve taken and follow along behind. It may not have been my smartest idea to go riding a stolen motorcycle with no helmet on but I make to Mariko’s house safely without an accident. The wind as I rode drying the blood to my face.

Akiri leads me and Mariko into the tiny little apartment that looks like it would belong in Tokyo. I do as the girls do, without being told, and take my shoes off at the front door in a little square before stepping up a single step into the apartment. Akiri first fetches me an icepack from the freezer, telling me to put this on, before she guides Mariko into the only other room in the apartment to go lay down.

The cold helps with the pain and my cut is starting to feel numb by the time Akiri returns from putting her friend to bed. Akiri has discarded most of her cyberware clothes and only has a complicated black singlet. Her panties, by contrast, are pure white cotton and look completely out of place on this strange goth. She fills a basin with warm water and disinfectant before returning to me to bathe my cut. Akiri slides across my lap, her pale legs held together as she washes all the blood from my face before attaching some butterfly bandaids to my cut.

By the time she has done the water in the basin is dark red with my blood. Before Akiri gets up she asks me, “will you stay the night, please? In case Mariko’s boyfriend turns up.”

“I won’t go anywhere,” I tell her.

“Thank you.”

Akiri then leans down and kisses me once on the lips. A soft gentle kiss so as not to hurt me. Rising up she goes and cleans the basin before heading into Mariko’s room to sleep. I spend the night where I am. Sleeping in the armchair by the front door like a samurai guarding his master's castle.