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The two of them have a mission deep in the heart of high-up society, so their usual attire won’t do. For Shishiba, that means a nicer, fancier suit. For Osaragi, that calls for a more delicate touch.
In more ways than one, it seems.
“Can you zip up the dress for me please, Shishiba-san?” Osaragi’s voice is soft, and there seems to be a tinge of shyness to it. They’re squirrelling away in a hotel room that isn’t the norm for Order missions. The furnishings are lavish, the lighting a bit intimate for Shishiba’s comfort. Shishiba turns away from the large, polished dresser to look at Osaragi. He’s almost embarrassed at how he freezes at the sight of her bare back laying beyond the open flaps of the dress.
“Oh, sure,” he finds himself saying like he isn’t affected by this at all, which he isn’t. He can’t be. He crosses to where she stands, still facing away from him so he can’t see her expression.
The dress hits just above the back of her knees, hugs her body carefully, giving just a taste to those who may wonder about what lies beneath the fabric.
Not that he wonders.
Osaragi’s hand is already hovering by her neck, sweeping her long hair to the side. It’s free of its veil, and a sheen dances off it like a freshly cleaned raven.
Shishiba reaches down, takes the zipper between his fingers, drags it up. It catches, so Shishiba needs to press one hand against the sections of the dress to bring them closer together so that the zipper can run free. His palm barely grazes over her bare skin. It stings.
Shishiba thinks it before he can stop himself: did Osaragi feel something at that light touch too?
Osaragi doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. Not even a twitch. Shishiba tries to move forward.
The zipper hits the top, and Shishiba drops his hands, but he stays in place. Osaragi lets go of her hair. It falls like a heavy silk curtain, thick but graceful. With a single dart of her eyes over her shoulder, she smooths her fingers down the front of the dress once before spinning round to face him. The scent of floral perfume steals into Shishiba’s lungs.
Here, in this dress weaved out of black silk and lace, without her giant saw in her hands, not a hint of the ghostly bride persona she normally portrays, she looks like just a woman. A simple, elegant woman.
It hasn’t escaped Shishiba’s notice that Osaragi is attractive – beautiful, even. It just doesn’t feel like something he has the right to linger on.
Shishiba doesn’t know why he feels a distant tension lurking in his nerves.
“Thank you,” says Osaragi, oddly bashful. She glances down at the dress, then lifts her eyes to meet his. “How do I look?”
Her eyes give nothing away. At least, that’s how it would look to anyone who doesn’t know her. But Shishiba knows her, has given up on trying not to know her for a long time now. He can see the subtle need for approval – his approval – deep in her dark eyes. He allows himself to flick his gaze over her quickly, from her open hair to her small waist to her long legs. His eyes return to hers, and he swears they feel heavier looking at him now than they did a moment before. Their color seems to escape the light: red in shadow, blood in a river.
“Like you’ll fit right in,” he replies, nodding his head slightly. Osaragi mimics the action, bobbing her chin.
“Good.” She speaks the word firmly, like she’s trying to fill the silence, which isn’t really like her. He hopes she isn’t uncomfortable like this. That’s why he—
“It looks a lot like my usual dress,” Osaragi observes, voice quiet.
It’s true. The sleeves cover her arms down to the wrist, the fabric a shadowy mesh carved with a darker lace pattern of waves and whorls. The top of the dress leaves her shoulders bare, which he hadn’t anticipated, but perhaps the neck had been wide enough for Osaragi to make that decision. He tries not to look at the bared expanse of her chest, the gentle cut of her collarbones. It doesn’t even dive down as deep as some dresses do, but it still curves romantically over—
Shishiba clears his throat. “Yeah, I tried to go for something that looks like it.” He rakes a hand over his hair absentmindedly. “Obviously, it’s nowhere near it, but maybe—”
“No, it’s fine,” Osaragi slides into his rambling easily. He focuses on her face again, and there is nothing but total assurance there. “Your judgement is usually right.” Her eyes lower, then she fidgets with some invisible piece of lint on the silken skirt flowing down from the corseted middle. It seems like she’s trying to cover up how awkward she’s probably feeling about this. He feels like kicking himself.
“I’m sorry. If you don’t want to wear the dress—”
“Shishiba-san.” Once again, she punctuates his sentence before he can finish, ending the doubts just like that. “I’m fine. The dress is lovely. I’m just not used to such things.”
The words leave his mouth before he can stop them. “Me neither.”
Osaragi stares at him. To anyone else, she looks the same. To him, he can detect how her eyes have widened just the barest fraction.
“Like—” Shishiba finds himself floundering. He doesn’t know why he’s trying to hide shit. Yotsumura had no problem dumping overly personal details into his lap. At the end of the day, it kind of helped. “You don’t get to where I am because you had a lot of fancy things growing up.”
“We’re in the same boat then,” she murmurs. He can sense the odd satisfaction lurking in her eyes. "It's nice to see Shishiba-san act like a nice person sometimes.”
“The hell does that mean?”
“You’re very particular with clothes. So finicky.”
“Because you’re always getting blood all over them.”
“I don’t recall that.”
“Convenient,” retorts Shishiba, but for some strange reason, he smiles. Osaragi's eyes rest on him, and he feels his smile sticking. "What?"
"You look different too." Osaragi doesn’t smile often. When she does, it is the most innocent thing on this earth, borne from some type of simplistic sentiment that Shishiba himself had shed years prior. But sometimes, there’s this expression she makes that conceals a smile that seems to access a more secret part of her. Shishiba has managed to decipher and lock away this mysterious look in his translation diary on Osaragi. It's the look she’s giving him right now, lashes low and eyes soft.
Shishiba doesn't get what she means. The suit looks pretty much like his other suits; just a nicer feel to it and a heavier price tag to match. He's tied his hair back though; maybe that's what's she's referring to.
"Just trying to look a bit neater, you know?" he explains with a shrug. Osaragi is still giving him that look of hers. His heart actually jumps.
"You should do it more often," she finally says, and Shishiba makes a mental note of that quicker than he would ever admit. He wonders if Yotsumura would laugh at him if he saw him now.
(Shishiba knows Yotsumura definitely would.)