Work Text:
The first time she saw her was a whirlwind.
✧
The grey gravel crunched under the tires of her bike, as Utahime was coming down the hill. Two turns to the left and she would reach the school grounds, the familiar bike corrals, and a stone path leading to the automatic doors of Edogawa Elementary School.
Earphones in, Utahime was nodding to the beat of the song and quietly humming a blithe tune. The street was almost empty, save for a couple of early runners making their way up and down the street. Passing the local sushi café, she noticed an elderly lady somberly trudging after a cheerful shiba on a leash. The dog’s golden fur reminded her of milk buns her grandmother used to make for her when she was a child, and Utahime couldn’t help but give them a small courteous wave. The lady didn’t see her, but her dog barked back.
When she was about to make the second turn, a sharp sudden screech of braking car wheels overpowered the music in the ears and her eyes flew open, whites glinting in fright. Utahime’s muscles tensed, her head spun up and right, but before she could make anything out, she was plunged into a complete and deafening darkness.
✧
She opened her eyes to a blinding fluorescent light. Utahime struggled to keep them open and she started blinking rapidly, trying to minimize the burning sensation. At first, everything that she laid her eyes on seemed as white as the glistening snow covering the tops of hills in countryside Kyoto. Then, when she adjusted her focus, she saw someone.
A figure, all clad in white, was standing to her left. With a nimb of bright burning hair, the person bent to her and gently touched her arm.
Was she dead?
Her eyes slowly focused on the face, and she could make out blurry features. A gentle slope of the nose, huge amber eyes and long lashes. And a pretty mouth, too. The mouth was moving, gesticulating, closing. Were they talking to her?
Utahime tried her hardest to rise from the thin pillows that did nothing to prop her up, but the familiar gentle hand moved along her arm, right up to where it met her shoulder. The hand pressed her down on the mauve hospital sheets, and she didn’t have any willpower to fight it, not did she want to, so she gave in to her touch with great relief and allowed herself to be sunken unto the pillows.
“…probably knocked you to the road, that’s why…”
The lady, and now she could most definitely say it was a lady, not an angel or any other divine entity welcoming her to the afterlife, was trying to explain something, that’s for sure. The head hurt and Utahime found it hard to concentrate. She tried to bring her right arm behind the back of her head to check if her bow was in place, but before she could reach the hair, her elbow echoed in sharp pain.
“…that there have been seven caused by blunt trauma, but we managed to patch you up. There are also a couple of abrasions and bruises on your thighs and ankles, and...”
The lady in white sat down on the bed and put her other hand on her right arm, frozen midway at an odd angle. Oh, alright. She could definitely do that.
Up close, the lady seemed much younger, definitely not older than Utahime was herself. Her dark brown, almost auburn, hair was tied behind her back, but a couple of stray locks escaped their confinement and now were framing her pale face. The woman’s astute eyes were underlined with dark circles. The poor lady must be feeling awfully tired. She should go home and make herself a hearty dinner. No, someone else should do it for her while she rests.
The woman started talking again, something about “concussion”, precautionary measures and staying over for the rest of the day. She went on and on, but Utahime couldn’t help but stare at the woman’s exhausted face and think about that kitchen catalogue she flipped through at Haibara’s office at school. The catalogue said it had been prepared by a team of skilled designers to help a reader visualize the place they wanted.
Utahime didn’t need a team of designers to help her visualize what she wanted – that woman, sitting at her round kitchen table in her small one room apartment, and eating the tomato soup that Utahime had been cooking according to her mom’s recipe since she was fifteen.
“Are you hungry?”
It took her about fifteen seconds to realize that the scratchy voice she had just heard belonged to her. That was not how she usually sounded, and she had to make sure that the lady doctor knew that, so she gave it another try.
“What kind of woman is your type?”
No, that wasn’t much better either. Utahime groaned and closed her eyes, kicking her head back to the pillow. The lady would think she was some old hag who just found her way out of the forest. She could feel her eyes starting to prickle.
“I just want you to know, I could make you the best fucking soup you’ve ever had.”
She didn’t get to hear the answer to her kindly offer. The air in the room was too warm and a bit stuffy, and Utahime found herself dozing off, heavy lids shutting on their own accord and brain not registering a voice saying something. She pressed her hand to her chest and fell into oblivion once again.
✧
When she woke up, the sound was back on, and her surroundings finally took quite distinct shapes. There was a nurse checking on another patient in the room. When he was done puffing the elderly woman’s pillow, he turned to Utahime, and she tried muster a smile to assure him she was fine. The man tried to appear sympathetic and returned the sentiment. Utahime wished he hadn’t. The laboured half-grin turned his face into a threatening grimace as he padded to her bad and grumbled something trying to persuade her to not get up.
There was a tattoo on his face. A thin black line that crossed the bridge of his nose. Utahime touched her scar in a similar place on her own face.
He left and a minute later a woman came in. She introduced herself as Doctor Ieiri, a general practitioner. She started talking from afar, but then she approached, carefully lifted a corner of the sheet and sat on the edge of Utahime’s bed.
“Iori-san, do you remember what happened?”
“I guess I was hit by a car. How long has it been? I must have missed all of my classes today,” she tried to rise from the bed, but the doctor motioned her to stay still.
“You will sort that out later, it will be fine. Now we need to make sure your reflexes and balance perception are alright.”
She explained to Utahime that she might have a mild case of concussion, not to mention bruises, one hematoma and a couple of bad cuts on her leg. The woman kept a neutral business-like attitude as she was talking to her, but her jittery foot gave away her uneasiness. Utahime hoped it had to do with the work stress and not her herself. She suddenly became fully aware of how unpresentable she must appear right now, and tried to get her hair in some semblance of order by flattening the locks with both palms of her hands.
“I have this odd feeling we have met before,” Utahime mumbled under her breath, as the doctor held her chin while checking her eye movements with a small penlight.
Doctor Ieiri let go off her jaw and looked at her closely. She tilted her own head, making a few strands of hair fall out of her loose ponytail and join shorter locks by the side of her face. Utahime felt a faint scent of honey and jasmine.
“Alright. I don’t detect any signs of severe concussion. You might feel drowsy and moody for a while, but those are typical. If you don’t feel well or can tell your condition is worsening, don’t wait and come to the hospital immediately, agreed?”
“Oh, but I feel fine now,” Utahime tried to assure her, when the doctor stood up and Utahime felt a gushing presence of cold at her feet, in the place where Shoko had been siting moments ago.
“Definitely better when I alost drowned in a cove a couple of years ago. Or when I met Mai Zenin’s parents for the first time. Or for the second. That was a real concussion.”
✧
After a couple of hours and a checkup, it was concluded that Utahime was ready for a discharge from the hospital. The nurse, Choso, said his badge, filled in the papers and told her to rest for a couple of days, go easy on spending time in front of TV and computer, and drink more water. Well then, she would just have to take out her vintage records collection.
The man said goodbye (clearly, he did know how to be polite sometimes) and turned to the journal to keep scribbling something. When Utahime turned around to leave, he got a call through intercom, and he snarled almost like real dog. Something unpleasant or maybe even tragic must have taken place, but Utahime still giggled at that thought. Shoko, on the other hand, had something cat-like to her, the way she moved and posed reminded her of feline grace. She could tell, those brown eyes of her were hiding some mystery, and discovering it ought to be worthy of a reward.
Outside the hospital, Utahime breathed in fresh air and checked her phone – Mei was about to come get her on her newly acquired car. Utahime nodded to herself and looked around, searching for a place to slump her tired body unto. There was a nice bench, right under a maple tree and Utahime slowly strolled to her destination.
Utahime collapsed into the seat and called her mom, not to disturb her by telling her she had got into an accident, of course, just to say she loved her. She has to call the school, too, to inform them she’d be out of commission for a couple of days, her disappearance might have already wreaked enough havoc. She dialed a familiar number and waited until the man on the other end of the line picked up the phone. It was Kusakabe, their teacher assistant.
Apparently, Miwa had cried all day because Utahime hadn’t turned up, so she decided their teacher had died, or worse – left them and transferred to another school. Kamo had a break down and chewed on Momo’s hair again, Mai had gone through all the assigned tasks diligently but then, at the end of the school day, joined sniffling Miwa in her mourning over Utahime.
Oh dear, that girl did have some abandonment issues. Next time she should take it up with their resident psychologist. Haibara wasn’t new to the Zenin problems.
There were a lot of people on the street, some, in office attire and suits in hands, were going home from work, others were running late on meetings, a few children being led by their parents home from school or day-care centers. The world outside the hospital territory was loud and livid, and Utahime could only sit and watch from afar.
Then, she caught a gleam of her. Standing outside the fence was Doctor Ieiri. No, Shoko. A cigarette between her teeth, she was hugging herself from cold, because, apparently, her light jacket was not enough protection from the cold March wind.
Suddenly, a matte black car slid past the gates and smoothly pulled up to where Shoko was shivering. The door opened and, with instantaneous agility, a tall man leapt out of the driver’s seat. He promptly moved to the back seat door and opened it, all while beaming at the woman standing by the fence.
Shoko put out her cigarette and strutted to the car. Apparently, they exchanged some words as she was getting into her seat. He closed the door (still smiling!) and enthusiastically jumped into his seat – and the car was gone as quickly as it came.
If Shoko was a cat, Utahime must have been a silly mouse caught in a trap oh her sharp claws.
She felt sick and dizzy again. Clearly, the symptoms of her concussion weren’t going away so easily.
✧
After her bike turned into an exemplary exhibit, worthy of being displayed at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Kiba Park, Utahime started taking a bus. That meant she had to wake up at an earlier hour to be at the bus stop on time or those save extra ten minutes could come in handy in case if it was late.
Either way, it gave her more time to think, whether she was waiting under the canopy or sitting at her desk preparing for the classes to start. That was very unfortunate, since she had to remember how she met Doctor Ieiri. Not when she came to her senses and could properly talk like a sane person, but before that. Oh, dear god.
Raindrops were beating on the tent roof of the bus stop, and Utahime was silently cringing under it. The cringe came from the cold that brought the rain and from her own stupidity. She took out her phone, checked the connection and tapped in the search box to type in “anesthetic effects on the brain”. She definitely would get to the core of her momentarily insanity, that caused her to embarrass herself in front of a complete stranger. A stranger that could have potentially seen her without her clothes on.
Well, that was to assume Shoko had been the one stitching her wounds and applying antibiotic gel to her scratches.
Not that Utahime wanted her to be. That would have added even more embarrassment to the situation.
She wondered, if Doctor Shoko thought her to be embarrassing. Maybe she forgot about her and hadn’t thought about her even once since she left the hospital after her long and exhausting shift.
What kind of woman is your type?
That was an odd question to ask, even if your conscience had been under the influence.
Besides, Utahime did not believe people could so easily fall into categories defined by specific features or character traits. Human nature was not so homogeneous and trivial as to believe that you could assign someone to a group of people you ought to avoid or approach, all depending on a superficial impression.
She had her first boyfriend when she had been in high school. That hadn’t been very serious and hadn’t lasted very long, since she’d entered university and moved into a different prefecture. She had been hoping they could remain friends but the truth was that she hadn’t known how to break it to him that she’d never cared enough to keep the relationship work, constantly sacrificing something to nurture a relationship. If there was anything to nurture in the first place.
She had been good with people and could be considered mildly popular, so it bothered her for a while that people around her started going out, entered relationships, had their heart broken and then over again. So, she’d almost let herself be cajoled into another luckless relationship at the beginning of her second year at university, when a boy from her philosophy class wouldn’t stop asking her out. But she hadn’t really wanted him, just like the first one.
And then she’d met her. Yuki had been confident, brilliant, and had a bike. They’d been introduced to each other at a party and a week later she’d taken her on a ride to the countryside. To admire the landscape, watch birds and wet the feet at the creek and kiss and kiss and kiss.
Later, when Utahime had been lying on Yuki’s leather jacket amidst nanohana flowers in a vast golden field and watching the sun set, she’d thought about chances and how easy it was to miss them had fate not been there to intervene.
It hadn’t worked out with Yuki, but she was close. They’d remained good friend ever since. After her, Utahime stopped feeling a house without a roof or doors pulled off by tornado. Slowly but surely, she was getting a clearer view of what she might actually want in life.
✧
Then Utahime got herself into the hospital for the second time.
✧
The conflict broke out on a fine Tuesday afternoon. Utahime took the first years on a pre-lunch stroll to the nearest park. Aoi Todo, a sweet, yet sometimes admittingly troubling boy, was kicked out from the class by teacher Kusakabe. She wouldn’t rush to question his teaching methods, since recently the boy had been getting on everyone’s nerves.
On their way back, they had to stop, since Muta appeared to have a problem walking. The shoelaces somehow ended up tied to each other. No one wanted to take the blame, but Utahime suspected it had something to do with giddy Mai and Momo, covering their mouths with tiny hands and whispering something in each other’s ear. Apparently, conversations with Haibara helped, and Mai was no longer prone to depressive and self-destructive thoughts, instead channeling her negative energy out into the world. That was another win for Haibara.
As Utahime kneeled down to fix the mess, she saw Wasuke Itadori out of the corner of her eye; he was passing by but he seemed as formidable as usual. The dog on his leash, no less fearsome than the old man himself, was proudly strutting onwards. When the menacing duo lined up with the class, the dog sniffed and turned its short snout in their direction.
Utahime vehemently believed all dogs were pretty, but there was something seriously wrong with this one. Short and hairless, except for the tufts of hair on the head and the ankles, it made it look like a miniature version of a monster crawling out of a small kid’s nightmare. Not only was the creature undeniably ugly, it had quite a nasty character, too, and no amount of cooing and good boy-ing would be enough to tame the disastrous temper of that beast.
Possibly, if Itadori hadn’t given in to his grandson’s pleas and hadn’t brought that creature into their household, Utahime wouldn’t have to play the role of a mediator between a furious dog and Todo, who were violently discussing something, known only to them, in their own barking language. Aoi was getting out of control, and Utahime would have to speak with Yuki, but right now she needed to make sure they didn’t rip each other to shreds.
“No, Sukuna, stop it, you damned animal! I’m so sorry, Iori-san.”
She was about to reply, when she felt sharp teeth sink into the soft flesh of her forearm. She let out a tiny wheeze, trying hard to contain her reaction to the sensation. It was the middle of a school day and she didn’t have an anti-rabies vaccine. She grabbed the horrible creature to get it away from her, but instead of long and thin crest fur she felt short and thick hairs that rather evidently belonged to a human person.
The boy was larger than his peers — so were his jaws. The mark on her forearm resembled a vampire bite. By gods, this could not be happening.
She had to call in Kusakabe again and leave the children in his care as she rushed to the hospital.
✧
She was lucky to see a familiar face as she stepped inside the hospital hall. The nurse on duty was the same dark-haired man she’d met here the last time. She swore there was a glint of recognition in his eyes, when, instead of wasting precious time on greetings, he opened the register and started filling in the form.
“What are we here for today?” Unfazed, he asked while putting down the time.
Before Utahime could answer, she felt a sweet scent rising to her nose, a smell that she was acquainted with.
“I would say, fancy seeing you here, but being honest, I’d rather not meet on the hospital grounds for there is always a chance you got yourself in some travesty. Still, I hope it’s nothing serious?”
Utahime whipped her head and hid her forearm behind her back. She didn’t know why and couldn’t explain these newly appearing abnormal irregularities in her behavior, so she told herself to stop acting like a fool and promptly extended the hand to show it to Doctor Ieiri. It felt weird calling her by the personal name when she was facing her, even if she did it in her head.
“Oh my, what beast could do that to you?” Ieiri drawled the words and carefully took her wrist, turning her arm so she could take a better look at the wound.
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of that.”
Take care she did. Utahime couldn’t remember half of what happened afterwards. Doctor Ieiri (“I already told you, call me Shoko!”) asked if she had a tetanus vaccine and advised to call the boy’s parents or guardians.
Utahime nodded and stared at the long fingers dabbing at her bloodied bite with a cotton swab.
She wanted to ask if doctors always took time to treat every small and insignificant case like hers, but stopped herself in time. She didn’t want to curse her luck. Who knows, maybe she would never wound up in this hospital again and that was the last time she was being indulged with Doctor Shoko Ieiri’s attention and with her soft hands.
The woman appeared less tired than she had looked the last time they saw each other. Although, the embarrassment didn’t let Utahime dwell too much on the scenes arising in her head from that dreadful first meeting (Utahime saw herself as a cause of dread in this case, of course), every time she took a look at her form and shape (and a shape it was!), she found herself drowned.
She wasn’t quiet by nature, when strangers struggled to keep up the conversation, she could always find a word or two to fill in the gaps. Always responsive, never negligent or spaced out. Like the night that drew its cloak over a city, the woman covered her in her presence from tip to toe, shrouded her in that dulcet scent of jasmine.
As she was doing her magic, the woman talked to her. Utahime pulled herself together and tried to focus on the words coming out of the doctor’s mouth.
“…half of them won’t even to look inside their mail, of course they don’t expect to see a wedding invitation sandwiched between water bills and Thai massage ads…”
She didn’t have a concussion this time, but she felt close to what she experienced the first time she had woken up in this hospital. The head was fizzy and the thoughts were turning into mashed potatoes, but not the sloppy kind, no, the one that’s pampered with butter and had enough salt and paper, with parsley decorating the top of the golden swirl. Beautiful mashed potatoes, but not as beautiful as the way Doctor Ieiri’s wrist moved in a graceful sway when she shook a bottle with hydrogen peroxide or when she cut the edges of the gauze.
Oh, right. The mail and the wedding.
The wedding?
“So, I told him, move the date to the beginning of May. All sensible people get married when it’s warm enough and the flowers are in the bloom, but he’s so mad in love right now, because, to be honest, I don’t think he actually expected that his proposal would be accepted. He’s so ridiculous sometimes.”
Ah. The black car and the tall blond man so diligently opening the door for her. She could imagine him kissing the tips of her fingers right after helping her get into the car.
Stunning, hot, and honey smelling young doctors didn’t chase after clumsy elementary school teachers. They accepted marriage proposals from obnoxious men who drove Tesla, and sent out wedding invitations in thick white envelopes embellished with cherry blossoms. It was time to come back down to earth and remember how unjust real life actually was.
Fuck, Utahime thought.
This didn’t happen to her often, but when it did, she had to collect the shards of her broken heart and retreat like a wounded animal back to her cage.
“Doctor Ieiri, I’ll be waiting downstairs,” someone was standing in the doorway and peeking inside the room. If peeking could be used to refer to a tall adult man and apparently a doctor. He was blond too, Utahime noted with resent.
Blond people were devilish creatures of this universe. No, not people. Men, specifically. Maybe Yuki had broken her heart a long time ago, but she had proven to be a good friend, who would never steal pretty strangers right from under Utahime’s nose.
✧
The days went by, but Utahime found it hard to register them. There were ideas swarming her mind, but each one was more ridiculous than the last. She had already discarded getting a q-tip stuck in her ear, falling off a chair while fixing a lightbulb, or getting her feet scrambled in the lotus pose during a self-improvised yoga class. She was not sure about the last one, but she had heard her neighbour complain about it, so that must be not out of the realm of possibility.
One afternoon, she called Yuki, who was at the moment on the other side of the country, to provide insight into what a hazard to society her nephew was, but ended up spilling everything that had taken place in the past month.
“Princess, you’ve always gotten yourself into more trouble you could carry on your miniature shoulders,” Yuki sighed into the phone.
“If you want her so bad, I can stop by that hospital when I come back and charm the pants off of everyone there. Then I will befriend your woman… No, I will be-best friend her, and we will organize a get-together lunch. And then you will pop out of nowhere in a brand-new designer outfit that I just bought for you. She will have no choice but to dump her loser boyfriend and spend the rest of her life with you in a cottage somewhere in the Tokyo countryside. Would you like that?”
Yes, please, she would like that very much. Yuki was generous but her aid was always heavy artillery. She didn’t want to mess with the fate’s plan. If she was born to suffer through the rest of her life Shoko-less, then so be it.
She heard a saying, every day, and in every way, I am getting better and better. Well, Utahime certainly envied whoever came up with that, because she, every day, and in every way, was getting only worse. By the end of the month, it was clear that she was down bad, and there was no ending to it.
✧
The third time didn’t really happen. Well, technically it almost did, but not the way it had gone before and without any immediate danger to Utahime’s health. Although, it did mess with her heart a bit.
✧
Having nothing better to do between classes, she started thinking about how the first time she got into all that trouble. First, a cute dog diverted her attention and she almost died. Then, poor old Sukuna riled Todo up so badly, poor boy started biting people. If the dogs were a key to her happiness, maybe she should lend a detection dog from the police and it’d lead the way to the heart of one very much unattainable and yet so good-smelling and pretty-looking doctor with nice soft hands and big warm eyes.
And then, she got a call from an unknown number.
“Utahime Iori?” a rough voice asked.
“This is Choso Kamo, from the hospital. You need to see Doctor Ieiri, and I’m afraid, quite it should be arranged quite soon.”
“Oh, hello. Do I need to come for another checkup? Is something wrong?”
“Well, yes. No,” the man went silent.
“Just do it, for the sake of us all,” Utahime wasn’t sure who he was referring to. “Or, there might be fatal consequences. Nanami and I and the rest of the wing are dead tired of… you know what? Deal with it on your own. Tuesday afternoon, six o’clock sharp.”
And then he just hung up on her. No “hello” and no “goodbye”, that was his style. Utahime had never received calls from a hospital before and wasn’t quite sure if she should be concerned and elevated right now. Did they find her blood test results that made them conclude she had a tumor or a deadly virus?
In any case, she’d see her doctor again and maybe even spend her last days being tended to by her. The prospect of imminent suffering and death was shaping up to be delightful.
✧
She was there, in her black coat and purple neckerchief around her long pale neck. With her back to the fence and eyes on the road, she was holding a lighter with both her hands, incessantly clicking the cigarette lighter. Finally, the flame appeared and she bent a little to catch it with the end of the cigarette, crushed between her lips.
“Doctor Ieiri! I thought you already left,” Utahime screamed from the distance.
The woman looked up and the surprise in her eyes was soon replaced with content crinkling at the corner of her eyes.
“How many times have I told you to call me Shoko?” the woman chided her, but there was no heat to her words. The heat was sitting withing Utahime, coiled up at the bottom of her stomach. Dangerous. Sweet.
“Yes, of course, sorry,” Utahime approached her, brain still roiling with mild uneasiness and just a small subtlety of eager impatience.
“Sho-ko,” she added, just to feel how it tastes on the tip of her tongue. The anxious beast inside her purred and subsided. It liked the sound of it, too.
“I usually take the bus,” Shoko started. “But today I couldn’t be assed to. I decided to treat myself to a taxi ride. It’ll be here in five.”
Utahime hummed under her breath, and Shoko regarded her, taking time to look at her face. They stood there in silence for a while, watching the cars pass by. Utahime dared a glance at her companion.
The doctor’s long fingers were holding the cigarette with utmost grace. It was still quite cold in the afternoon, and Shoko’s knuckles started to get red. Her hand moved and brought the cigarette to her lips, eyes cast down, her dark lashes fluttering like the wings of a small delicate bird.
“What kind of woman is you type?” Shoko suddenly asked, still not looking at her.
When Utahime didn’t say anything, Shoko raised her gaze to her. She tilted her head and ran her eyes over her face.
“That’s what you asked me when we first met.”
“Oh no, please,” Utahime begged. “I was probably still high on propofol, or some other thing that you guys use as an anesthetic.”
“A what?” Shoko looked at her quizzingly. “I don’t recall using anesthetics on you. You had a couple of bad cuts, but we pulled them together without stitching you up, you know, with sterile strips.”
“Uh,” Utahime felt her mind fogging. Quick, she had to come up with something. “I was concussed, maybe?”
“Maybe you were… You know, forget about it. That was a mistake.”
She dropped the butt of her cigarette and before it could start smoldering on the pavement, she stepped over it with the heel of her shoe.
Utahime looked at the remains of Shoko’s cigarette on the ground and thought about delicate white blossoms of jasmine. She felt a little dizzy, as if she had just downed a can of beer in one go and tried to stand up, but she hadn’t seen, smelt, nor tasted any alcohol in weeks, and here she was.
“Just for the record,” Shoko turned to face her again. “Before I get in the taxi and disappear into the night. My type is pretty teachers who casually get bitten by children and love making soup.”
Utahime experienced something akin to that feeling when she’d realized Aoi Todo mistook her arm for a tempura chicken tender. She could barely feel the tips of her fingers, but she jammed them hard into her palm just to feel something.
“I didn’t… I thought you were a tall-blond-men sort of a girl.”
Shoko frowned at her, confusion written in the creases of her eyebrows and corners of her mouth pulled downwards. Then, when a glint of realization flashed in her eyes, she folded in half and burst into laughter. She had to grab the fence rail not to lose her balance.
“That was my old classmate. He picked me up from the hospital so I could go and help him check out options for his wedding cake. He’s a little shit, but he’s a good friend. And I’m happy for him.”
Shoko let her head lie on where her hand was gripping the iron picket. With her head turned like that, she looked peaceful, almost cozy, as if she was resting on a sofa after a long stressful day.
“Actually, I thought I told you all this during one of your visits here.”
Utahime peered her eyes trying to summon the remains of her last braincells to come up with a good response, but the bastards refused to cooperate, “I probably missed it.”
“Oh, so you didn’t like to hear me complain about my life?”
Utahime did want hear it, she wanted to hear everything Shoko had to share, anything that she wanted to get off her chest. A very impressive chest, to note, and Utahime would be there to listen and to adore.
She looked around only then she started to notice how bright evening city lights were. That’s when a taxi appeared from out of the corner and slowly pulled up. Shoko looked at her.
“I want you to come home with me.”
“Oh?” Utahime started forward and opened her mouth. A dozen of thoughts raced past her not leaving anything in the wake making her completely dumbfounded and empty-headed. She blinked at Shoko.
“Oh. Ah…” she continued her attempt at trying to muster something.
“Wow,” Utahime concluded.
“Or I could just catch my taxi and go home by myself, and pretend that this conversation was just a result of my own little concussion and…”
Utahime couldn’t agree to any of that, so she grabbed the lapels of Shoko’s damn expensive coat and pressed herself flush against her. Despite the force of her pull, the kiss itself was soft and brushing. She could hear her speeding heartbeat thrumming through her veins and resonating in her ears.
That was their first one.
Utahime let go off her and stepped to the curb where the taxi had stopped. She grabbed the door handle and pulled it, inviting Shoko in. She felt herself grinning. Shoko, still looking soft and dreamy after the kiss, grinned back at her.
There would be many others.