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Himiko’s eye cracks open, the sun that creeps through the blinds landing upon her eyelid. Her arm slung over the other eye protects it from the light, and she rolls onto her side to escape it. The sun lands upon her neck, instead, warm and comforting. The feeling of it lulls her back into sleepiness, and she sighs into her pillow, her awareness of the world fading away again.
A minute later she snaps out of her half-sleep and lifts her head enough to see her clock, blinking blearily and rubbing at her eyes until they focus enough to read the numbers. The moment her slowed, tired brain processes the time it reads, she scrambles upright, shoving one hand through her tangled mass of hair to push it back from her face and nearly falling out of bed as she swings her legs over the side. At this rate, she’s going to be late, and she doesn’t want to keep Ochako waiting.
The thought of Ochako fills Himiko with a giddy panic, spurring her on to grab her crumpled uniform from its place at the end of her bed. She shakes her head to clear the still-lingering fog of sleep, bringing a bit more clarity to her thoughts, and strips her pajamas off. Kicking out of her shorts, she replaces them with her skirt, which sits crooked on her hips but she doesn’t pause to fix it.
As soon as she straightens up, the sunlight catches her eyes again. She squints, blinks a couple times to let her vision adjust, and through a crack in the curtains she catches flashes of rich green and yellow and sky-blue outside. It’s spring– her favorite season, and it’s only barely starting, with March hardly into its first week.
Himiko’s chest swells, the sun’s brightness infectious, and it’s like hot wax being poured into her limbs, warmth filling every nook in her bones. She rolls her shoulders back, letting the tension and stiffness of sleep ease out of her, and a fuzzy, pleasant feeling spreads its way all the way from her chest to the ends of her fingers. She can’t help smiling, letting the grin spread freely across her face. And the knowledge that Ochako is waiting for her, just outside on the sidewalk, makes that feeling blaze even brighter, settling contentment deep inside her and putting a spring in her steps as she unbuttons her pajama shirt as quickly as her fumbling fingers can handle and replaces it with her uniform.
A few very short minutes later and she’s tying up her hair and spitting toothpaste into the bathroom sink. When she lifts her head, she peers at her canines past her parted lips, and lifts a finger to poke one’s end. Her fingertip comes away indented, and would have been punctured if she’d pressed harder. She could swear they’ve grown sharper, lately, but her mother said it was only her imagination.
They’ve always been sharp, enough that they catch on the insides of her lips or sink into her tongue while she’s eating or sleeping, if she’s not careful, but she’s been waking up with blood in her mouth less often than usual recently. Finding her lips mangled in the morning, bitten in her sleep, or the insides of her mouth chewed up, used to be regular for Himiko since she was little, but ever since meeting Ochako a year ago it’s been getting better by the week.
Himiko shakes away her thoughts. After all, today was one of those mornings without any incident, so it isn’t worth dwelling on. The thin, white scars lining the pink of her lips are starting to fade; so, too, are the puncture marks on her wrists, where as a child she’d sink her canines into her veins, so badly that her mother made her sleep with a mouthguard in for fear of her causing permanent damage. The last time anything so severe happened was two years ago, shortly after her tenth birthday, and since then it’s nothing but surface-level scratches on her lips instead of the bloodshed she used to wake up to. Himiko’s mother insists it’s just because she’s gotten older, and has better control of her urges, but Himiko is adamant that Ochako changed something.
But the how and why of it is irrelevant now. Himiko lets her tongue run along the tips of her teeth, and smiles at herself in the mirror, turning her head side to side to watch how they catch the light and glint. Her eyes shine the same way, yellow and catlike– Ochako said, once, that her eyes made her look like a kitten. Remembering those words, Himiko giggles, and the thought of Ochako brings a pinkish blush to her cheeks.
The thought of her, also, makes her glance at her phone screen’s clock, and with a surprised yelp she races down the hallway and to the door. She pauses barely long enough to wave goodbye to her parents, still at the table with breakfast in hand, and she turns down her mom’s offer to have some.
“Meeting Ochako before school, I’m gonna be late!” she calls back over her shoulder, bracing against the wall for balance as she lifted one foot to tuck her heel into her shoe. Her mom’s call of “Have fun!” is cut off by the slam of the front door behind Himiko, and the moment she hops down the steps, she catches sight of Ochako waiting for her on the sidewalk.
Since ending up in the same junior high school, after being neighbors the year prior, Ochako and Himiko’s routine is to walk to school together every morning. Like clockwork, Ochako will be outside Himiko’s home, waiting patiently on the sidewalk for Himiko to make it out and meet her, even if Himiko was late. Prone to oversleeping as she was, she’d always tell Ochako to go ahead without her when that happens instead of making them both late, but Ochako is stubborn, and won’t leave her behind even if she has to wait in Himiko’s yard for an hour.
“Hi,” Himiko says, breathless and giddy, and Ochako greets her with the same. Morning after morning, they do this, the same routine, but Himiko’s heart does flips in her chest every time she sees Ochako just like it’s the first time.
And Ochako, like she does every morning, leans in and wraps her arms around Himiko’s waist in a warm, comforting hug, and yet it still makes Himiko’s cheeks feel like they’ve been set on fire with the blush that rages across them. Himiko’s face settles into the curve between Ochako’s neck and shoulder, lips brushing just barely across her skin, and with a jolt that runs straight to her tongue she can sense Ochako’s blood, running through her veins just beneath the surface. Lost in the hug, Ochako doesn’t notice Himiko’s lips parting, those sharp canines hovering right above her skin, centimeters away from the blood underneath.
Himiko’s mouth is dry. Every time, every morning, this temptation rises up in her, like a crashing wave overtaking her senses and filling them with need, with hunger; gone unsatiated for so many years now. She inhales, Ochako’s smell rushing into her lungs– the scent of her skin, her hair, her clothes, and the faint copper tang of her blood, the one smell Himiko is attuned to above all else.
Like she has all the mornings before, though, she settles only for letting her lips brush a little more solidly against Ochako’s skin, enough that it can only sort of be passed off as unintentional. The brief contact makes her lips buzz with electricity, the warmth of Ochako’s body lingering tangibly on hers, and that feeling is enough; her longing for blood is dulled at the edges, and when she pulls away, Ochako beams at her brightly and unknowingly, and that too is satisfying enough that Himiko’s thoughts of copper sweetness staining her teeth are gone.
Ochako’s fingers find Himiko’s, and intertwine. “Let’s go!” she says, more out of habit than anything else, because she says the same line every morning just before they start walking. The consistency of it makes Himiko giggle, and she tightens her grip on Ochako’s hand, their palms nestling perfectly together. She feels Ochako’s pulse, her heartbeat in the pads of her fingertips, but rather than it sharpening Himiko’s thirst, it calms it. Grounds her, to just the feeling of Ochako’s hand, without the desire for anything else.
The sun beats down on them both, shining heat onto Himiko’s neck, and spreading warm tendrils down her spine. Ochako’s eyes glow a honeyed tone under the light, more amber than brown, and Himiko’s too catch the light and shine golden. Her free hand holds her backpack’s strap solid on her shoulder, and Ochako’s points at flowers lining the sidewalk on their well-worn path to school, their joined hands swinging idly between their bodies as they walk.
Himiko, for the hundredth time, thinks about how lucky she was to have met Ochako when she did, and she can’t tamp down her grin.
“You’ve got such a cute smile,” Ochako says, midway through pointing out a bird flying above them.
Himiko blushes darker. “You really think so?”
“I do.” Ochako squeezes Himiko’s hand. “I think you’re the cutest girl I’ve ever seen.”
And Himiko’s chest explodes with a feeling so vibrant and giddy she can’t hold in her laugh, tilting her face up to the sun and letting the joy run rampant through her.