Chapter Text
ii)
Agott needs to calm down.
Her fingers are clammy and her breathing is getting faster and faster and she really needs to stop sweating.
Taking deep breaths isn't helping, she can feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing. It’s been progressively getting worse and she would think she was dying if this were the first time.
Really, she should be over this by now.
Her clothes feel too heavy and the air is hot and humid and the sounds are getting louder and all-encompassing. She feels small, smaller than she has felt in a long time and her breaths are too big for it and she's struggling to grasp it.
“Agott?”
Her own name feels strange to her, like a character in a book that shows up thirty chapters too late.
“Agott”
Someone’s hand is hovering just over hers. She feels like she’s run a kilometre, her lungs struggling to keep up. Every breath is half of what she needs and she feels so irrationally annoyed at own respiratory system.
“Agott, can you try breathing with me?”
Agott would scoff if the very act wouldn’t choke her. What do you think I’m trying to do??
Still, if anything, Agott is stubborn. So she tries again. One second it feels like a rubber band snapping and the next she’s hacking up her lungs.
Her eyes are stinging and her chest hurts and she can’t—
“Oookay, that’s obviously what you’re trying to do, my bad!”
Agott would throttle the person who’s saying all this if it weren't for the fact she was not in throttling condition.
“Oh! Um– right– I’m here with you. Uh–Coco. Coco is here with you. And I won’t leave until you’re okay. Uhhh let’s try playing a game? Can you tell me five things you see?”
Right. Agott would throttle Coco if it she didn't feel like a dish rag hung out to dry. Agott would yell out that she was okay! if she could speak. Agott would be studying! if her mind wasn’t vibrating from inside her skull.
She pulls on an invisible string in her head to regain some semblance of control, putting all her effort into raising her neck— her bones feel like they're slowly being unstuck from each other.
Right. She’s outside.
Agott breathes, taking in a little more air than before. She grits her teeth. “Sky. Grass. Tree.”
Coco and her stupid game she thinks.
And somehow the clarity of this thought, of Coco and her voice and her being stupid, the unease and worry lacing it— grounds her.
“Your hands.”
Agott slowly turns to look at her, the effort sending tingles down her spine. Coco's smiling at her, for her really. Agott can recognize the underlying tension in her eyes.
“Your face.”
“You’re doing great!"—she says doing a (corny) fist pump in the air— "Okay, how about four things you can touch?”
Agott huffs and takes it as a good sign.
“The grass."
Agott feels like a deflating balloon. Her palms are sweaty and her body feels like it’s recovering from a fever, somehow hollow on the inside. She leans back, the stone walls uneven and cool through the fabric of her dress.
"Mud. My clothes.”
And in a spurt of fear or bravery, Agott will dissect later, she reaches out to grab Coco's hand, the pads of her fingers grazing hers.
"Your hand" she says through gritted teeth.
Coco's hands are rough, just like hers. She focuses on that, using it as a tether.
Coco interlaces her fingers with hers and squeezes. Her voice comes out quieter now.
“Three things you can feel?”
Agott takes a deep breath. It’s a beautiful day, she reminds herself. The green hills of Naakiwan Downs stretch out before her, as far as her eyes can see. She is here, she is not dying. There is no one to impress, no show to put on.
“The walls. Your hand." The wind chills her skin, the sweat sticking like ice to her.
She takes a deep breath, letting it fill up her lungs. "The breeze.”
Agott will feel embarrassed about this. Will spasm in her bed as she thinks back on the hundred different ways she could have handled this.
For now though, she squeezes Coco’s hand back.
Coco’s face softens and she starts tracing circles on Agott’s palm with her thumb.
“Two things you can hear?”
Agott leans her head back and closes her eyes. There’s a bone-deep tiredness that seeps into her.
“The wind-chimes by the kitchen window. Your voice.”
The world shifts back into focus. Coco follows Agott’s lead and leans on the wall, shoulders touching.
“One meal you want for dinner today.”
Agott croaks out a laugh that sounds like a cough. “You’re going to make it for me?”
“I might” she shrugs, smiling.
Agott doesn't know how long they sit in silence for after that. She still hasn’t let go of Coco’s hand. She tries to guess the shapes Coco’s tracing on her palm but soon gives up.
Mercifully, Coco does not ask her if she’s okay or what happened.
After what feels like forever, Coco speaks up.
“Hey Agott?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I hug you?”
Agott feels her neck crick with how fast she whips her head. Coco is looking at her, guilelessly and without judgment and Agott involuntarily relaxes.
“Why would you want to do that?”
Coco sheepishly scratches her cheek.“I just kinda need one, right now.”
Sneaky.
And well. If Coco had said something like you need one Agott would have hemmed and hawed and probably launched herself twenty feet in the air and flown away.
Still. Agott manages to make a show of it all– for a grand two seconds, before she pulls Coco close to her and hugs her tight.
“I hate hugs. But I’ll make an exception this time” she mutters into Coco’s shoulder to no one’s benefit.
Coco laughs, the sound bright and flowing, like the wind itself and Agott feels herself sag in relief against her. No one points out anything after that.