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Her domesticity is her own, she never thought to share it with anyone. And now Kirika is here and she's everywhere - in her space, in her bed, across the table. In her eye-line when she wakes up or turns around. By her side. At her back.
It's become too comfortable, too quickly, and deliberately she holds herself back, jealously hoarding her feelings away. Kirika hasn't earned them yet, and Mireille won't give her the chance.
*
Graphite smudging her fingers, Kirika sits in the window to draw. She's been leaving dark marks all over the flat and a month ago - a week, even - Mireille would have seen the symbolism and been amused.
Now Chloe haunts the edges of her vision, she can feel her there just out of sight.
She's afraid of where this is going, and she doesn't know where that is, and she wants to know more than anything. She wants Kirika there with her at the end, but there's no guarantees, not in this life or any other.
Sitting at the table watching Kirika, sketchpad balanced on her knees, she finds something new to fear.
*
Kirika's back presses warm and sure against her own, every muscle taut as piano wire, and every movement unthinking, measured, together. It's satisfying, comforting, like the click of a new ammunition clip sliding into place.
She wants to take Kirika home. She wants this to be over, with the answers in hand, and she wants peace and safety for the first time in memory.
Kirika has done this to her - Kirika, at her back, at her side. It's almost all she needs and she can accept that, now.
She must remember to thank her sometime.