Work Text:
Verse 1
Minette and Cherry enter a quaint little café hidden in the nook of Fhirdiad’s suburban streets.
Upon entering, the two friends stare up in awe of the myriad blossoms cascading down from the ceiling, moored to pastel pink beams: ivory white camellias, branches of cherry blossoms, fully bloomed orchid shoots, and other flower varieties she cannot name. Pale green ivies and strings of hearts dapple the ceiling to temper the soft pastels, and numerous gilded bird cages and mini chandeliers give the shop a warm golden glow.
Framed paintings with similar colour palettes line the cream walls, but when Minette looks eastward, she finds the mosaic art to be one of the prettiest fixtures of the place. It’s bordered by pine wood and almost extends out to the farthest corners of the wall, depicting a fruit bowl with mint green monstera and beaded pearls on the outskirts.
Cherry looks around still in awe, rustic wind chimes tinkling above their head in the wake of the door closing. “This is a pretty one, Minnie. Good pick!” they praise.
Minette throws a bright grin from over her shoulder. “Thank you! I did some research. It’s not too far off from the campus, but it’s also not as popular because it’s a little hidden from everything else.”
“The reviews so far seemed to be mostly positive, too.”
The pair amble towards the marble countertop, still marvelling at the delightful excess around them. At the opposite sides of the bench are display cases inlaid with gold, desserts placed upon ornate pedestals and ice cream in their chilled metal containers—swirls, peaks and marbling to provide some sort of sensorial intrigue. Then, to the far wall, behind the counter, are tall blackboards with the menu items written in cursive.
Cherry has begun scanning the different desserts shown behind the glass. Meanwhile, Minette tilts her head; the person behind the counter, though their back may be turned, is looking strangely familiar. It’s not often you will see lavender hair in Fhirdiad…
Finally, they turn around. A light bulb flickers alive in her head.
It’s Yuri. The lead vocalist of Dimitri’s band.
Oh.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he greets, recognition in his warm gaze. In his hands are an embossed ceramic teacup and a clean cloth. “Happy to see you outside of the pub. I thought it was already impossible, but you look even lovelier now.”
He smiles. “What can I do for you?”
You look even lovelier now. You look even lovelier now. You look even lovelier now—
“Uhm.” Minette begins to sweat. She’s read about this happening in fiction, fan-made or otherwise. The barista flirts up a storm; the customer flushes red, makes their order, and, maybe, there will be an accidental grazing of hands—static flitting between raised skin; then comes a receipt with a phone number scribbled at the back, and—
Her friend is still oblivious to what’s happening.
“I wonder if they sell bubble tea…” Cherry muses, chin pinched between their thumb and forefinger, “or something sweet…”
“Vanilla? Hot chocolate…”
“Well, while your friend decides on what she wants, how about you?” Yuri asks. He’s already returned the teacup to the shelves, towel neatly folded and hung on a rack with the other cloths besides. His hand hovers above the cash register, ready to take her order.
Honestly, she’s memorised this café’s menu down to its last letter. Minette knows they change the menu every month. Recalls that they are closed every Monday and Tuesday.
But she just cannot remember what she’d resolved to buy.
Thankfully, Cherry has popped back in, waving to Yuri. “Hi, Mr. Yuri! I didn’t know you worked here.”
“Keep it a secret, will you?” Yuri raises a finger to his lips with a grin.
They nod solemnly, as though they have been made the keeper of a secret so grave, and they make a zipping motion above their tight-lipped grimace.
“Uhm,” she says, once again—why has she lost her head, “Ria! Why don’t you go first? Haven’t had the chance to look for what I want yet.”
Cherry lights up, and Minette takes a step back for them to slip through. “Ogie!”
“Mr. Yuri, can I please get a regular iced peach green tea? And a croffle with whipped cream and…”
It’s different seeing him in a setting far removed from the grit of their local pub. Absent-mindedly, she thinks he looks like a painting from this angle: warm lights overhead cast hues of deep, lustrous yellow around the silhouette of his body, gentling and polishing his sharper angles. Deepen the lavender of his gaze and hair to something more akin to lilac. Or periwinkle.
Minette shakes her head. Before Cherry could finish ordering, Minette skims through the menu, desperately wishing that any of the words would ring a bell.
Espresso, macchiato, flat white—ah! Iced lychee black tea, that’s right. I wanted a fruity iced tea because it’s really hot out today.
Nodding to herself, the words shared between Yuri and Cherry drift from one ear to the other. Okay, okay.
And then… for dessert… two scoops of ice cream. That one review spoke very highly of their ice cream. Yes.
When she’s finally figured out what she’d wanted before, there’s a patient, almost fond smile on his lips as she turns to face him.
She will not ponder over it. Never let it go beyond a fleeting thought. “I think I’ll get a regular iced lychee black tea.”
“No problem.” Yuri punches it in. “Sugar?”
“... Regular,” she mumbles. Oh no, he’ll find out that she has the biggest sweet tooth ever. Gritting her teeth, she prepares herself for the eventuality that she’ll become an object of ridicule. Glenn and Felix are the biggest offenders of this!
Yuri nods then winks. “A woman of taste. I respect it.”
Huh? Minette blinks.
“Anything else you would like to order for today?”
“... Two scoops of dulce de leche ice cream, please.”
He hums, mildly amused. “Cash or card?”
She brings up her phone and makes sure to avoid his hand when she taps it against the card machine.
“Your orders are coming right up, ladies! Just pick a table, and I’ll bring them to you when they’re done,” he says, getting to work.
Cherry opts for a spot nearer to the windows, as they like letting the natural warmth seep through their skin. It reminds them of Gloucester, they’d said before, where the sun shines and nestles deeper beneath. The skies are clearer, too, like peering into the glassy facets of a diamond, recently unearthed after it had been left to weather into something greater for many years untold.
The velvet of the chairs are soft to the touch. Minette finds herself melting against one of them, the sting of her recent embarrassing behaviour fading with time. Cherry and Minette talk about nothing and everything all at once; it’s just so easy to fall into conversation with them.
Yuri walks towards them with a tray of their orders. Cherry is bouncing in their seat when he slips the plate with the croffle in front of them.
And then, the unthinkable happens—
Cherry accidentally knocks over their glass of iced tea, spilling the drink across the table and on their denim overalls. Cherry freezes, but Minette is quick to take it all in stride; Yuri has disappeared, presumably to gather a few cloths to clean up the mess.
“Ria, go to the toilet and wash up. I’ll clean this up, okay?” she reassures, reaching for the folded tissues at the centre of their table.
They nod. “I swear I’ll make it up to you, Minnie! I’ll be right back!”
Yuri returns with a few towels to dry up the spill. Minette takes one and begins to cover the spots he’s missed.
“I’m so sorry for this, Yuri,” she says.
He smiles gently. “It’s no trouble, at all. Accidents happen.”
She watches him in quiet wonder.
When their eyes meet, they laugh.
—
Inspiration strikes her at exactly midnight. Unable to sleep, she recalls a lovely picture of lavender hair and fond smiles. Words pour out of her heart and stain a page in her notebook.
Pre-chorus
Amid the wild flowers scattered over the meadow, Minette has dipped below to feel the lush grass and the gentle breeze graze against her skin. Now that the summer break has started, she’s returned to her family’s vacation home in the Leicester Alliance. Songwriting comes easier to her here; it has been the case for as long as she remembers.
She recalls herself being eight years old, writing a verse for her first ever song—compelled by flights of fancy that she’ll become the brightest star this world will ever be blessed with. And now, the page in which she’d written the words is tucked in her bedside drawer, with its creases, and smudged ink, and yellowed fragments.
It isn’t because she’s embarrassed of it. In fact, she likes to smooth it out every now and then and reminisce. It’s just that—there are other pieces she’s written since then that are a better testament to her growth as a lyricist. As a person.
And so she writes, phone a few inches away from her notebook. A recording of her humming the melody she’d come up with playing on loop.
But—perhaps, it’s the soothing whistle of the wind that causes her to fall asleep altogether on the meadow.
She dreams.
Minette is swept into a familiar scene, allows herself to fall deeper into its embrace. She’s sat with her best friends in the pub.
For unknown reasons, she cannot tear her eyes away from the stage. A silhouette takes shape in her mind: a lithe frame, with nicely toned muscles and porcelain skin lit by the ruby red and amethyst lights overhead. Veiny hands with slender fingers wrapped around the mic. T-shirt pulled taut over the broad set of their shoulders.
Then she begins to think deeper. Lilac hair tied in a low ponytail, draped over one shoulder. Pretty bowed lips. Almond eyes.
And eyeshadow that matches his hair and eyes.
His gaze is on her. Tongue curling around a constellation of words she’s heard from friends and family alike but never from him (and yet her heart longs for it, all the same):
I love you—
“Minette.”
She wakes with a start. Felix looms upside-down over her with an unimpressed look on his face.
“What the fuck are you doing, sleeping out here in the sun? You’re gonna get a sunburn,” he growls by way of admonition.
Minette groans, hands pressing against her eyelids.
Slowly, his image crumbles and dissipates, spilling through her fingers like grains of sand. What is left behind are the words she didn’t have the chance to return.
“Leave me alone, Felix. Just for a bit,” she sighs.
He grunts, but she knows the concern is there. “Come back before lunch.”
“Thank you for the reminder.”
He leaves, the vestiges of pearled dew and petrichor to follow after his brushing with the grass.
“I love you, brother!”
“Yeah, I know.” She hears the smile in his voice.
When she’s alone once more, she continues to write. Choruses embody the overarching message; they are succinct and repetitive. What else is there to write but—
I love you, I love you, I love you—
No, this will not do. Whatever this is is not so easily expressed in three simple words.
Glenn has to drag her by the ear when they find out that she isn’t on time for lunch.
Well, at least she’s managed to finish the pre-chorus.
Verse 2
The next time Minette finally musters up the courage to return to the café, she brings Eliane with her. Or, if she’s to be more specific, Eliane had insisted—with a vice grip on her bicep and the largest puppy dog eyes she’s ever seen on a human—on going there. And Minette just has to steel her resolve as she pushes the door open.
Thankfully, it’s Dedue manning the cashier when they arrive at the front. Eliane acknowledges him with a beam and an enthusiastic wave, and orders lavender tea and a slice of strawberry shortcake. It’s her go-to order every time she visits a new café—'first impressions are everything!’
Minette, on the other hand, has chosen to buy hot chocolate with the adorable seal marshmallow topping, and a few gingerbread cookies in the shape of intricately decorated snowmen. Their social media account has recently posted photos of these newest additions to their winter menu, and it took everything within her to not rip the hinges off her bedroom door and sprint out to get her hands on these beautiful, edible pieces of art.
As she glances up to peer past the glass doors, the pair of potted red twig dogwoods at either side provides the backdrop the contrast it very much desired. The idle days of summer have slipped past them within a blink of an eye, autumn to follow after with a murmur, and now Fhirdiad is inundated with a deluge of pure white.
That means finals season is upon them. Frankly, Minette’s ready to succumb to the sweet, sweet jaws of death.
“The primary way scientists differentiate between ducks and geese is based on how many bones they have in their necks,” Eliane mutters to herself, occasionally clicking her pen. “Ducks have 16 or fewer bones in their necks, while geese and swans have between 17 and 24 neck bones. Geese and swans also typically have much longer necks than ducks.”
Minette learns to tune her out when she begins to agonise over the behavioural differences between the two types of waterfowl. She has her own demons to battle: an essay on the history of Escoffier, a luxury fashion brand that had been established nearly a century ago.
“Hey, ladies.” Minette’s hair stands on end.
“Here are your orders,” Yuri says, smoothly sliding plates across the white marble of their table. “Lavender tea and strawberry shortcake for Eliane.”
“And for you, sweetheart,” Yuri pauses, his full, undivided attention on Minette, “your hot chocolate with the seal marshmallow. And gingerbread cookies.”
When he stoops low to place the mug as well as the plate of cookies in front of her, the inflection of his voice naturally rising and falling more than the regular man (it’s kind of charming), he whispers into her ear, “Check the right side of your sweater pockets later when your friend’s no longer with you. We don’t want her accusing me of favouritism, hm?”
Ah? AH?
And just as with the quiet and nimble departure of autumn, he, too, is gone before his warmth against her could ever truly sink in.
Eliane is none the wiser about their exchange when she shakes herself out of the stupor.
—
“Goodbye, Eliane!” Minette cries over the sea of people in the subway station.
Briefly, she sees the familiar soft white lace of her friend’s sleeve breaking through the surface. “See you tomorrow!” her melodious voice is clearer.
After a few minutes of standing idly by, it’s only after her friend has hopped on her carriage that she finally finds the bravery to look into her pockets. The crinkle is strange, the thinness of paper cardboard recognisable.
She takes it out. It’s a chocolate bar made in-house by the café Yuri works at. Her heart flutters.
Minette recalls contemplating buying it, hands pressed against the display case and eyes glimmering with such reverence.
Was he there to see it?
Nonetheless, she walks home with the brightest smile upon her lips.
In the sanctuary of her bedroom, the second verse occurs to her as easily as he’s come into her life.
Chorus
Minette dreams of him again.
She has returned to the meadow a little ways away from her family’s vacation home. Although this time, she’s not alone. Looking down, she finds herself accompanied by the man who has consumed every waking thought she’s had upon meeting him in the café for the first time.
Wildflowers surround them, colourful blooms stippling the emerald sea: marguerite daisies, the thistle-like lesser knapweed, both simple and branching yellow rattles, drops of sunshine in the meadow buttercups and the perennial bird’s-foot-trefoil. There are many more of them, of course. When this plot of land was purchased before she was even born, the meadow had already existed for perhaps centuries. Her mother didn’t have the heart to reduce it to any sort of ersatz garden.
Yuri’s head is on her lap, lavender tresses furled around the curve of her thighs. His eyes are closed, lolling on the knitted picnic blanket with a contented smile upon his lips and fingers intertwined with hers.
It’s impossible to miss the glare of light bouncing off the rings around their fingers.
“What are you thinking about, sweetheart?” he asks, eyelashes still, as though he knows her just as well as he knows the back of his hand.
Idly, she wonders if this moment will ever transcend the borders of dreams. Where she’ll be able to feel the heat of his hand against her own, the transient chill of his ring pressed into her skin. Where she’ll know him so intimately that she will never remember a life without him in it.
“You,” she says, fingers carding through his soft and silky hair.
“Hm?”
“How I love you so,” she murmurs.
He laughs, bright and carefree. Opening his eyes, the fond look he’s always given her since then, once again, is fixated at her. She will never tire of it.
“I love you, too. So much,” he whispers, getting up to meet her lips for a kiss.
Before they could, however—
Minette rises from her bed without getting the resolution she’s fiercely wished for all this time. Hand shaking and throat closing in on her heart, she stumbles out of it to reach for the notebook on her nightstand.
If she sees tear stains on the pages, she tries not to think about why they’re there.
Bridge
Lorelei is a tough nut to crack, Minette is certain. If she didn’t have almost two decades of experience under her belt, divining whatever oscillated within that brain, she would’ve not known where to start. Once she had begun to have a feel for it, however, she found that her childhood friend is as easy to read as the fairy tale books she still likes to read.
For instance, she has just responded with a simple and firm ‘no’ to her request of visiting the café, and no excuse or justification to back up the rebuff.
“Their green tea ice cream leans more bitter, y’know,” Minette says with a coaxing tone. Her hands are wrapped around her friend’s larger one, tugging lightly.
Face impassive, Lorelei eyes her. She does not budge.
“You can order your coffee black there, too.”
Still unresponsive.
“I’m sure I can persuade Yuri to give you a few pieces of their roasted coffee beans…”
A twinkle blinks into Lorelei’s eyes.
And a few minutes later, there’s a spring in Minette’s steps as they walk from campus grounds to the café.
Lorelei is partial to bitter tastes, and she’s always harboured this preconception that Faerghan cafés cater to sweeter palates. Minette has become a regular customer at this point, even without the company of her best friends, and also an unofficial sampler of sorts for Dedue. Their desserts and drinks are everything to write home about, and she is absolutely sure that the ingredients they use are perfection. Of the highest quality. Top-notch stuff without the glut of sweetness that Lorelei isn’t too fond of.
Her friend also prefers to work on her mixes where there is minimal interruption; Minette quickly offered that it’s in a peripheral area of the capital. Lorelei had nothing to say to that.
She’s had her suspicions, but she carefully brings up the fact that Ashe is their newest employee, too. She doesn’t miss the very finite moment of Lorelei’s lips quirking up.
Ah.
Yuri’s there to receive their orders upon arriving. She isn’t so jittery whenever he’s in her vicinity anymore, which is a huge relief; she’s able to requite his flirtatious remarks with some of her own—to his initial surprise, and later, utter delight.
Minette gets strawberry lemonade and a custard cream donut. Lorelei, as expected, chooses espresso and tiramisu as a treat for their afternoon hangout. Or is it a ‘productivity assembly’? After a few bats of Minette’s eyelashes, Lorelei also gets the roasted coffee beans from him.
The bewildered look upon his face is priceless.
They settle on the tall stools by the windows which overlook the front garden. The snow is starting to melt off the hedges and garden arch trellis, and the winter hardy peonies wreathed around the golden beams of the gazebo, she notices for the first time, are dried to preserve its colour all year round. Dianthus and wallflowers are still within their budding stages near the gates, priming themselves for late spring.
Lorelei takes her laptop and headphones out of her messenger bag then continues to work on the rough mix the two of them have started.
She likes to do this whenever Minette’s still finalising the lyrics. ‘It helps with the overall vision,’ she’d said.
Whatever that means. It’s an arrangement that has worked for them for years. She’ll just… let her cook.
The recording sessions had taken place over the course of a few days. Minette was the first to record, taking over responsibility for the lead and peripheral guitar parts. Cherry had attended the session to cover the synth role. Spathi’s the only saxophone player she would trust with her magnum opus, so they were immediately invited over; it was a no-brainer, really. Lorelei would’ve had a quick in-and-out visit, but she’d stayed back to give pointers to Eliane.
Eliane's session alone was almost a ten-hour affair.
There’s no one else but the two of them in the cafe at the moment, so she hears Yuri’s voice flow through the air. He croons to the song that’s playing in her ear; they’ve taken to sharing Bluetooth earphones after they’ve made a ‘Spotify Blend’ together and realised that they almost have a ninety percent match.
There’s… a strange sort of intimacy to it. It makes her a little giddy.
Soon after the song finishes, the next one plays and is immediately skipped after she hears a sigh and small, disappointed ‘no’. She cannot help but giggle. Lorelei pays no heed to her, chewing on a coffee bean.
Yuri walks up to them with their order. He likes to give her friend’s order first before giving hers, and she’d eventually recognised it as an attempt to talk to her more.
To be honest, she doesn’t know what they are. No one between them has uttered a word about it. It’s frustrating. The lingering touches and gazes, the suggestion beneath unassuming words—should she just take them at face value? Does he feel the same way?
When will you ever stop hiding?
Another R&B classic plays in her ear.
“I like what you did with your hair today, sweetheart,” he says, gently pressing onto the lavender velvet bow clipped to her hair with his fingers.
She smiles. “Wore them for you. It reminds me of your eyes.”
She means it. However, she also means a lot more than what she is willing to breathe into life. Ironic, isn’t it? To be insinuating that Yuri’s a coward for bringing them to this stalemate; it really takes one to know one.
Yuri blinks, but he returns the smile. He's looking a little bashful now. The flush in his cheeks is lovely.
“Anyways, I whipped something up last night before closing. Nothing too serious, though.”
He sets the tray down on the nearest table, in his hand a plate of what seems to be… a slice of cherry blossom cheesecake?
The uppermost layer of the cake has both budding and fully bloomed cherry blossoms encased in translucent pink jelly, the middle and bottom layers a cheesecake supported by a perfectly thin biscuit crust.
“We’ve yet to decide if we want to put it on the spring menu, but will you do the honours of trying it out for me?” he asks.
“It would be my pleasure,” Minette says, swivelling her stool around to fully face him.
She expects him to lay the plate down on the table or beckon her over to the counter, but he’s already digging into the cheesecake with a fork that he’s carried with him.
HUH?
“Say ‘ah’,” he lilts. The tip of the fork presses on her bottom lip.
Absolutely bamboozled by whatever is going on, she still cannot help the way her body seems to bend to his will. Minette parts her lips and lets him feed her.
Sort of an embarrassing situation notwithstanding, this is—actually pretty amazing. She hums delightfully, closing her eyes to savour it.
The cherry blossoms give the cheesecake a mild floral flavour with a hint of bitterness; it almost tastes like it’s been infused with tea. Rich and creamy with a sweet and slightly tangy finish, the cheesecake melts on her tongue. Its texture is also perfectly smooth and dense, and the crust crumbly and buttery.
Minette opens her eyes to see Yuri staring at her. More specifically, her lips. Heat blooms in her cheeks.
“Is—is there something on my face?” she asks.
A hand reaches out to slip a lock of mint green hair behind her ear. Eyes half-lidded, he inches closer; his breath warms her face.
?!
Her eyelids slip shut in anticipation.
Then she feels a stroke so ephemeral—and a little wet?—upon the corner of her mouth that she thinks she might have imagined it. Once more, her eyes flutter open, and she sees Yuri licking his lips.
“Tastes good,” he teases.
Minette explodes.
—
She falls asleep on her desk at 3:00 AM with myriad versions of the bridge crumpled up at her feet. Only one remains in her notebook.
Outro
This is the moment of truth.
After blowing out a slow, measured breath, Minette plucks on the strings of her electric guitar and sets the signature sound. Soon, Cherry follows with their synth, layering with sustained chords in a higher range. Agnes jumps in as the secondary guitarist to fill out the soundscape.
Okay, good…
Lorelei joins with a hit of the bass drum, followed by the grand crash of a cymbal and the short, bright sound of the snare. It’s a smooth entry; though, of course, she expects nothing less from the prodigy. Eliane, on the other hand—Minette has to bite her bottom lip to hide her amused smile—comes in a beat late with the bass before she tries to correct herself a bar after.
All good, Eliane!
Two bars after the two came in (supposed to, anyway), Spathi’s saxophone sweeps over them all. Minette cranes her neck to the left to throw her friend a bright, appreciative grin; Spathi responds with a raise of their eyebrows and a quick nod.
Once everything has come together, the soundscape full and well established, Minette parts her lips and sings.
There’s no greater feeling than placing your absolute trust on your bandmates—and well, she thinks it’s time that she finally lets go.
Nothing else matters now. Only him.
Him, who has leaned his back against the farthest wall of the room, all by himself. Who returns her steady gaze with one of dawning realisation and awe.
You know now, don’t you? That this is about you.
Minette pours her soul out and strings the fragments into an intricate weaving of words. Words that she’s sung over, and over, and over again—to herself, in the café; over the sunlit meadow; within the downy embrace of her dreams; and finally, inside the recording studio. In some of these places, he’s heard them.
And now, in this dingy and unnecessarily hot place that is their local pub, he finally gets to hear them. Loud and clear. Beyond a shadow of a doubt.
The ball’s in your court. What will you do now?
Instrumentals fading out, they herald the conclusion of the song. Her own catharsis. The saxophone sings out a solo line, veiling the room with waxing billows of nostalgia. Of idyllic days spent in each other’s lives without having a name for it and having little to show for it. Beneath the saxophone, the bass is warm and full; its simple slides create a sense of wistful affection for days long gone, and Agnes fills in the gaps with short lines.
This is somewhat of an irresolute farewell, too, now that she thinks about it—if destiny is cruel to them. To her.
Then the drums re-enter, starting off slow and quiet before the crash of the cymbals rewrites the melancholy in the conclusion into blitheness. It writes of the same memories but imbues them with a warmer, more joyful light:
I’m glad that I met you. I will never regret meeting you.
Yet, within a few bars, it is gone. A fleeting moment.
As the instruments hold their last notes, and finally—finally, as the last line lingers in the air, something close to a vulnerable smile curls upon her lips.
“That will be the last song for tonight. Thank you so much for listening to Berry Blitz,” Minette says into the mic. “Take care, everyone! And good night.”
Her bandmates and their guests have started chattering to each other about their plans for the rest of the night. Try as she might, Minette herself cannot bring herself to immerse in this state of carefree idleness. Her mind frets. Annoyingly so.
The band slowly begins to remove their things from the stage. Minette, even more so. She’s a fast packer by default, but her left hand is—shaking. From adrenaline or nervousness, she can’t tell. Her fingers can barely pinch around the volume knobs to lower them completely down to zero. For every switch flicked off and cable disconnected from different sources, she steals glances at the man towards the end of the room.
He’s still there.
This is just delaying the inevitable, isn’t it?
As soon as the rest of the musicians have stepped off the stage, all equipment cleared out, she does the same. The guitar case on her shoulders weighs heavy. Heavier than it should.
Sending him a meaningful glance, Minette turns to the backdoor of the pub; in the corner of her eye, Yuri hounds after her footfall like the shadow beneath her heel. She steps out into the night and lingers by the door. The object of all her agonising affections is there to meet her soon after.
Beneath the glowing exit sign, he looks a little differently this time, too: a man of a million-and-one facets.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he murmurs. The awestruck wonder in his eyes has not left—a look on him that she’s never seen before; it’s as though he’s at the feet of a convocation of ancient sacred deities, but none of them will ever hold a candle to her.
“Hi,” she says in response, breathless. How long had she been holding her breath before this?
“Congrats on your new song.” He steps closer, and Minette takes a step back. The carbon fibre shell of her guitar case bumps against the brick wall with a muted ‘thump’.
He presses a finger beneath her chin and tilts her head up. “It’s about me, isn’t it?”
Yuri towers over her, and she is cast in a thick shroud of darkness. Their lips are so close now.
“It is.”
Lavender eyes erode with her admission. There it is again—the rare bashfulness, a revelation of weakness she covets to keep all to herself. “For what it’s worth, I like you, too.”
He lets his words wash over her for a moment before asking, “... May I?”
Minette nods. Yuri smiles before dipping his head to press his mouth to hers. It starts off with light caresses across her bottom lip, gentling the tempest within her, pacifying and softening, and she sighs into the kiss when she learns to drift with the ebb and flow. Her hands react in the only way they know how: for him, they—yearn. For skin yielding beneath her palms and her fingertips.
And he knows her—Goddess, he knows her.
So he takes her right hand with all the tenderness imparted to mankind at the world’s very first light. Slides off the glove that had hidden her quiet shame. He brings both hands—flesh and solid titanium—to his cheeks then tilts his head to capture her lips again.
She will never know the feeling of pressing the palm of her right hand against anything again. It’s a deficiency that she’d thought can never be reconciled, an urge for wholeness that will never learn how to be assuaged. However, as he draws her slighter frame closer, she finds that she is nearer whole.
In the fullness of time, everything that she knew will be upended and disrupted. Then she will begin to believe that, despite all her lack, she is complete.
Parting for air, she laughs against his mouth. She hopes that he will be there for all of it.
The ‘I love you’ can wait.