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Harukawa’s face is softer when she sleeps.
Of course, it hadn’t been Amami’s intention to watch her sleep - that would be weird, obviously. It also hadn’t been his intention to pick the most boring movie in the AV room pile. Perhaps their captors had really garbage taste in film, or maybe Amami was really just that unlucky when choosing titles he didn’t recognize. Regardless, things happened outside of his control - the movie stunk, and he hadn’t noticed that she’d knocked since she was usually on the quiet side anyway. Not until her head hit his shoulder. And one would look down when that happens, right?
The movie’s boring. It’s hardly his fault that she’s a more interesting view.
When she’s awake, Harukawa seems to be in a constant state of scowling, her blood red eyes boring into anything that annoyed her with every ounce of intimidation in her soul, and many things often did. The more time they spend together, the softer the lines seem to get, sure, but the natural furrow of her brows and the stagnant frown on her lips remain as they were, if only slightly less harsh - in itself a success and testament to their growing friendship. She looks at him more as opposed to down , speaks more than a handful of words with less venom in the syllables, and roundabout admits to finding him at least more tolerable than the others, if only ever through targeted insults. But even still, her face is never like this, relaxed at every muscle and teetering on the edge of contentment. There’s no weight to her visage, no scrunching at the eyes, just a blank slate of eased muscles and slightly parted lips.
She shifts and eases into his shoulder a bit more, cheek rubbing against the sleeve of his shirt to get more comfortable unconsciously. Her hair is sandwiched between the two of them, sticking to her skin and poking upwards, to where her eyes are shut and lashes are lightly dusting her cheeks. He finds himself leaning into it, and reasons that he’s just trying to help his friend get comfortable, obviously, because who knows how much she sleeps? She’d spent so much time guarding her lab, and even though she was out of it more often now, what would stop her from maintaining the paranoia? It wasn’t like certain folks weren’t open about being able to pick locks. It was a miracle when he made it through the night, honestly, so it was probably the same for her, right?
One of her pigtails is also between the two of them, and some of it strayed over to him when she first leaned onto his arm, and his eyes trail past her face and down to her hair. He’d always found it odd that she keeps her hair long due to her profession, but never had the heart to ask why; it didn’t look bad on her, so if it makes her happy, then that matters more to him in the end. It’s cute that her scrunchies match her uniform, too - did it come with the ensemble? Was that something she had personally asked for? Regardless, it was something she commits to, and that seems out of character enough for it to be amusing. No matter how hard she tries to pretend she’s above these things, her actions speak louder than her words.
Amami catches himself fiddling gently with her hair and stops in his tracks.
The movie drags on. Each second feels like a millenia, and he’s far enough removed from the plot at this point that it’s impossible to follow. Still, he tries with all of his might to focus on the film, and not at his friend on his shoulder, breathing softly as she nearly snuggled up against him. His very pretty friend that he liked quite a lot. As a friend.
His arm starts to ache. It’s a very awkward position, after all. And the movie’s nowhere close to being done.
Amami grimaces, and considers shifting away to ease the pain, but he makes the mistake of looking down at her again and seeing her face, that face, so relaxed and comfortable and at peace with him, and his brain stutters to a stop and that option is tossed off the table.
He looks back to the movie - so dreadfully bad, so dreadfully long, so dreadfully not over and nowhere close to it.
Suddenly, he finds his arm shifting just enough to not wake Harukawa up, but to also make the position more comfortable for him, by snaking it around her shoulder. Part of him nearly recoils at the notion when his thoughts reach his actions, but his logic quells it quick enough - the movie is long, she’s asleep, he shouldn’t wake her up, the position is comfortable for both of them, and he can just move at the end when she wakes up.
It’s only weird if he makes it weird, after all. They’re just friends. So it’s fine.
Amami chooses to ignore the way his heart is racing, chooses to ignore how his face is burning, and chooses to ignore the way it feels when he finally rests his arm against her opposite shoulder. He also pointedly ignores how easily sleeping Harukawa bends to it, head lolling more towards his neck and chest. He ignores how easy it would be for him to lean his head over just a bit to rest against her, how nice that would probably feel, how much he really wants to do that, eyes instead trained at the movie. He has no idea what’s happening on the screen and can’t hear a word they’re saying. But it’s fine.
He can’t stop the yawn before it happens, and he can’t help the drowsy feeling that follows when it ends. Harukawa had the right idea, honestly. The movie was nothing but background noise at this point, anyway. He leans his head back against the couch and closes his eyes.
A few moments pass. Harukawa’s breathing is even and rhythmic and right against his chest. He cracks them open again.
It’s harder to see her face at this angle with the way she’s curled against him. The room is dark aside from the movie, so the lights from the TV flash against her skin, changing the contour of her face with each shifting shot. She looks so small here, and it’s a harsh reminder that she is small. She never feels small when she’s spitting barbs and holding weapons and choking those certain folks out, but she is small, no weight on her outside of muscle, and he knows that she rarely eats, let alone regularly. He’s taller than her, he’s larger than her, he’s got a hand around her shoulder and she’s snug in his embrace and it’s bizarre, it’s different than what he’s used to. He hugged his sisters all of the time. He’s hugged friends before, too, if only sparingly. Hugging Harukawa isn’t like that.
Amami’s too tired to put words to it. Amami doesn’t want to put words to it, because putting words to it changes things, and it doesn’t have to be a thing that has to be changed if it’s never a thing after this anyway. Amami chooses to ignore it, and instead pulls Harukawa just a little closer, and leans in just a little bit more. His head rests against hers. It’s better than he expected.
Harukawa will probably hate him for it when he wakes up, but he can pretend it was an accident, right? That they just fell asleep like this.
And besides, Amami thinks as he begins to fade out of consciousness, the best lies are half-truths anyway.