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Nijika looks at the creature, its eyes gleaming with curiosity. Clearly she looks palatable enough for the wolf (if she could call it a wolf) to start circling her, and they are in a deadlock, for reasons she doesn’t quite know. Light shines where she has just floated in, an ellipse the size of a winged angel. It’s the only place where greens grow, tendrils reaching outwards and towards the sky.
In a distance she spies what remains of the last person to unfortunately stumble into this cave, ash white bones coated with grime, flesh and sinew made into a meal that is at least a few weeks ago. Isn’t that the reason why she’s here?
“You look so much like Ryo,” Nijika says, an arm reaching out almost unconsciously. She wants to touch her again, the jet blue fur is messy and out of place, and she does Ryo’s hair every morning. The creature backpedals, limbs unsteady as the paws hit the ground softly. She is reminded of Ryo’s fingers as she drums them on her floor toms, that gentle rhythm that she finds so casually annoying.
“Don’t you feel like devouring me?” Nijika asks, wondering if it is recognition flicking in those yellow eyes. “You’re about to die from hunger, no?”
“Hunger will consume me in approximately ten minutes,” Yamada Ryo declares. She falls face first into Nijika’s bed, scores thrown away and bass abandoned. “I’m in dire need of Nijika’s curry.”
“Ryo, I have to cook,” Nijika chides, before letting out the biggest sigh ever. “And you’re not letting me go.”
Their arms are still linked, and Ryo is playing with her fingers again, as if there is music to be found in them. She lets her caress her calluses, touches so soft as if she is handling porcelain.
“You’re the source of my inspiration, so.”
“And the source of your food apparently.”
“And you’re right again.” Ryo laughs, a gentle mellow tune. It echoes in her head and Nijika wants to smile, despite everything.
“I’m going to have to make you pay for the ingredients next time,” Nijika says, and lies down with her. She looks Ryo in the eyes, a beautiful yellow the colour of canaries. It goes so deep that she wonders what goes on in that mind of her bassist, they flicker to her occasionally, as if willing her to read her eyes.
“When I get enough royalties I could take care of you,” Ryo says, almost a little too serious.
“Yeah yeah, and for now I need to cook the curry before you pass out.” Nijika replies, as she readies herself to get out of bed. They are having too many curry meals in summer, but there is something about the way Ryo’s face lights up when she gets them.
“Nijika.”
There is a tug on her sleeves however, and Nijika finds herself tumbling back in bed, right back into Ryo’s arms.
“You forgot something.”
The kiss on her cheeks is gone as soon as she feels the slightest bit of warmth from Ryo’s breath, and Nijika gasps.
“Payment. For the food.”
“I don’t bite,” Nijika tries again. She takes off her green jacket and lays it on the ground next to her. May the plants be safe from her blood splatter.
Eyes the colour of canaries are looking at her as if willing her to read them, but she always had trouble doing it.
“Come here Ryo,” Nijika calls again, and the creature finally trots towards her in quick steps, as if a dog returning home.
“It’s okay to have me.” She reaches for the mane, fur hardened with dried blood. And then the ears next, flattening them and pushing the hair back. “You know that right?”
There is a muted growl, and then she reaches for the snout. The mouth opens itself to her when her thumb hits, and she sees the canines that will tear her into pieces, if Ryo has not already done so.
For as long as she loves, the same thing will break it.
“Remember your payment?”
She wants to laugh when the teeth first sinks into her cheeks, it gets harder to smile after, even if she gets reincarnated almost immediately when she dies.
“Ah, you probably don’t.” Nijika wipes the blood off the snout with her sleeves. It is sickening that Ryo is complying, and she spares not a single moment hating what has become of them.
There is a whine that accompanies it, it almost feels like Ryo is crying.
“Well, the sooner you do it the sooner you’ll forget,” Nijika rubs the wolf’s ears, “And I hope you don’t remember.” She pulls down her shirt and draws the gaze to her neck. They could just do what they used to do.
There is a bite there right after, something she had to cover up when they were so young and so in love. She could feel her skin splitting, warmth overspilling onto her shirt, dying it a brilliant red. Ah, so angels still bleed.
A paw is on her chest, claws sharp enough to open her heart to her love.
And so she lets her.
“Do you sing like this for everyone else?”
A guitar is being played, and Ryo has shades on in her brightly lit room.
“I’m serenading, serenading.” Ryo gives it another strum. She bends over and tries to look at Nijika without them. “I got these shades from Bocchi.”
Nijika laughs, and throws a pillow at her.
“Is it not working?” Ryo is smiling, and she thinks she is oh so handsome. “She says I should sing.”
“You didn’t answer my question yet.”
“Hmm. What do you want the answer to be?”
“Ryo!”
“Only you.” Ryo says, before adding. “For now.”
Her wings don’t do well in water, apparently. There will be a time she’ll raise a complaint to God, because how else is she supposed to save drowning people in these?
There was a knowing look from her sister angels when Nijika was dispatched, and the bad feeling sitting in her stomach only grows the closer she gets to the sea.
It’s a song that she’ll recognise across space and time, or at least, the tune is hauntingly familiar.
A siren sits, perched on a singular seamount so huge in the middle of the sea that it is almost bizarre. The scales are blue the colour of deep ocean, and sun doesn’t reflect off them, but it takes it all in. Sharp teeth is exposed when she opens her mouth to sing, a siren’s calling.
“What a tune you’re humming,” Nijika smiles, fluttering her wings. “Tell me, did you sing for anyone else?”
The lack of bodies on the seamount or the surrounding areas tells her as much. This has to be the skinniest siren she has seen this decade, one that doesn’t do a very good job apparently.
“You’re not supposed to remember, you know.” The reunion brings her to tears, as always, and she wonders when she will stop breaking.
The song hits an octave lower, they come like waves, they come like Ryo’s songs.
“I’m sorry for keeping you waiting for so long.”
She reaches her fingers out, and they disappear in the siren’s mouth. The teeth are no longer pearly white, but stained with all of her suffering.
“You can have everything in return.”
“Does being the backup vocal count then?”
They are lying on her bed, and she, on Ryo’s stomach. It rises and falls, almost drawing her to sleep if not for Ryo’s question.
“Well,” Nijika furrows her brows, “I guess that can’t be helped.” She has to look at the bigger picture as the leader after all. Her chest aches just a tiny bit. Strange how things work when its about Ryo.
“Nijika.”
She stares at the ceiling fan swirling above them, feeling her mind overflowing with sentences that are broken.
“I like you.”
Ryo says, and Nijika thinks she is doomed forever.
There is something romantic about falling into the sea together.
Hair coils around her legs, her wings and her waist. Her wings are the first to go, crushed and broken in the death grip. And then comes her ribcage, Ryo must have broken at least three ribs.
She is falling and falling, dragged into the depths of the ocean where it barely shines.
Eyes the colour of canaries are looking at her; she doesn’t know if it is sorrow, but if it is she wants to tell her it is fine.
“It’s okay.” She tries saying, but all that comes out are bubbles. The siren is still singing, a minor scale now, so full of grief that she has always carried.
“You can have me.”
She thinks about the one time they went to the beach, legs deep in the sea. She had asked Ryo if she thinks there are monsters in the sea, and she finds herself laughing a little at the memory.
The monster in the sea has to be her.