The sensation of a hand on his shoulder was comforting for once - typically Ichijou reacted negatively to such attempts at reassurance, but this time he was actually craving the contact of a non-hostile person. With the combined effort of his neck and shoulder, he moved to softly stroke the hand with his cheek. There was a hint of disappointment in his heart when the hand was obviously not as soft as it should have been (what with the armor and all), but this wasn't exactly an appropriate time to be picky.
What made up for it tenfold was the fact that apparently someone really, truly gave a shit about him. That was a bittersweet realization since he knew that it happened very rarely. Certainly some members of Ichijou's staff at the casino genuinely cared for him, but that was pretty much all he got of 'caring' in his entire life before showing up in Luministi. Even-- Especially when horrible things like this happened, it reminded him of why he couldn't go back, ever. Because he knew that there were people here who really cared about what happened to him: Xion, Miss Sophie, Hawk, even Proctor to some extent...
Rather than trying to explain the extent of his injuries, Ichijou opted to show Wash instead. He had gotten pretty good at flipping himself over, and demonstrated this by propping himself onto his side with his arms, then shifting his weight so that he'd fall onto his back. Lying in the pool and rolling into colder-temperature spots ensured that nearly all of Ichijou's skin, clothing, and hair was painted in slick red, but the source of all of that leakage was mostly concentrated in one spot.
Before continuing, Ichijou gazed up at Washington. His pretty face was soaked in blood, making his dull-blue eyes stand out even more than usual. He blinked slowly as he caught his breath and adjusted to the new position, noticing that it was markedly more painful when he removed the pressure from his midsection.
The movement clearly caused him some additional pain. With it came additional whimpers and an even stronger torrent of tears (though they were hardly noticeable since they couldn't travel far without turning red.).
"It hurts," he complained quietly. That was probably the most obvious statement he had ever made. Perhaps slightly more helpful was his follow-up: While the location of his injuries was probably obvious, the blood all over everything could have easily served as a distraction from the main problem. But to prevent such a distraction, one of his hands snaked up and found a resting place right in one of his wounds. Ichijou's abdomen had been sloppily torn open in several places and some of the wounds were deeper than others. The kindest of them had only taken off a bit of skin, while other more ambitious zombies had gone through skin and muscle and even into the tubing of his small intestine.
"Here."
Sticking his hand into his exposed viscera probably wasn't a good idea, but even the lightest weight on it felt better than nothing.
no subject
What made up for it tenfold was the fact that apparently someone really, truly gave a shit about him. That was a bittersweet realization since he knew that it happened very rarely. Certainly some members of Ichijou's staff at the casino genuinely cared for him, but that was pretty much all he got of 'caring' in his entire life before showing up in Luministi. Even-- Especially when horrible things like this happened, it reminded him of why he couldn't go back, ever. Because he knew that there were people here who really cared about what happened to him: Xion, Miss Sophie, Hawk, even Proctor to some extent...
Rather than trying to explain the extent of his injuries, Ichijou opted to show Wash instead. He had gotten pretty good at flipping himself over, and demonstrated this by propping himself onto his side with his arms, then shifting his weight so that he'd fall onto his back. Lying in the pool and rolling into colder-temperature spots ensured that nearly all of Ichijou's skin, clothing, and hair was painted in slick red, but the source of all of that leakage was mostly concentrated in one spot.
Before continuing, Ichijou gazed up at Washington. His pretty face was soaked in blood, making his dull-blue eyes stand out even more than usual. He blinked slowly as he caught his breath and adjusted to the new position, noticing that it was markedly more painful when he removed the pressure from his midsection.
The movement clearly caused him some additional pain. With it came additional whimpers and an even stronger torrent of tears (though they were hardly noticeable since they couldn't travel far without turning red.).
"It hurts," he complained quietly. That was probably the most obvious statement he had ever made. Perhaps slightly more helpful was his follow-up: While the location of his injuries was probably obvious, the blood all over everything could have easily served as a distraction from the main problem. But to prevent such a distraction, one of his hands snaked up and found a resting place right in one of his wounds. Ichijou's abdomen had been sloppily torn open in several places and some of the wounds were deeper than others. The kindest of them had only taken off a bit of skin, while other more ambitious zombies had gone through skin and muscle and even into the tubing of his small intestine.
"Here."
Sticking his hand into his exposed viscera probably wasn't a good idea, but even the lightest weight on it felt better than nothing.