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The first time Kotoko casually laid her hand on Fuuta’s arm to get his attention, he full-body flinched away from her. The way he swiveled his head to look at her over his shoulder, doe-eyed and terrified just for a split second, wormed its way into her brain in that moment and it never left her, even as they continued to live their lives together. That scared little fragment of him, small and brittle, is seared into her retinas forever. Even as she pretended not to care as he shrugged her hand off of him, she felt a caustic sting she’d never felt before. It doesn’t help that it’s her fault, at least a little bit; Fuuta’s timidity rose and spiraled out of control after she’d taken him and broken him bit by agonizing bit in his cell, steel-enforced boot pressing down into his orbital, persisting on even in the face of his shaky whimpers.
… She could’ve been a little nicer back then, she supposes, looking down at the ginger mop of hair in her lap. Fuuta can really curl up tiny, can’t he. She didn’t think he could get any smaller, but Fuuta is one of the people in her life that always figures out a way to surprise her. Kotoko lifts her hand and gently cards it through his red locks, rousing the sleepy creature in her lap, who makes a disconcerted noise and tilts his head to lean into her palm. She ruffles him a bit. He snorts at her.
“Wake up,” Kotoko mutters, deadpan. “My legs are falling asleep.” She pauses for a second. “Idiot,” she adds after another moment of careful consideration.
“Mmgh,” Fuuta groans, very intelligently.
He slowly rises, unfurling his body from the tiny little ball he’d managed to compress himself into. Kotoko reaches out to adjust his hoodie without even realizing it, pulling the hood out of the back of his shirt and patting it down. Fuuta swats her hand away, dazed, before rubbing his bleary eyes with the back of his arm.
“Don’t fuss,” he grumbles at her.
She huffs, hackles rising. “Not fussing. Why would I fuss over you?”
The two stare at each other for a heartbeat before Kotoko breaks line of sight first, rolling her eyes and leaning into the couch cushion behind her. She picks up the law book she’d left on the side table, pretending she hadn’t put it down an hour ago just to watch Fuuta’s face soften up and relax against the warmth of her thighs. There are some things better left unsaid to him. As Fuuta very conspicuously sidles up to her, leaning into her side like a needy animal, Kotoko has to stifle a quiet chuckle—maybe she isn’t quite as embarrassing as he is about it, after all.
“How’s your headache?” Kotoko asks after a few minutes of comfortable silence, trying not to sound that interested in Fuuta’s plight.
Fuuta startles a little—had he really dozed back off that fast? She turns her head to peer at him curiously, and Fuuta is indeed blinking sleep out of his eyes again.
“S’fine,” Fuuta mumbles noncommittally, clearly suppressing a yawn.
As his gaze flicks up to her, Kotoko can’t help but notice the way his intact pupil dilates. God, she wants to ruffle his stupid hair again so bad. The way he’s resting his chin on her shoulder kind of makes her want to smack him, in a good way.
She wouldn’t do that, though, not nowadays.
“You wouldn’t get so many headaches if you weren’t always on your phone,” Kotoko reminds him, instantly triggering a long, exasperated sigh from her roommate.
Fuuta narrows his eyes at her, and Kotoko can’t help but find the slightly off color of his prosthetic iris a little endearing next to his remaining hazel eye.
“Yeah, actually, speaking of that, can I have it back now?”
Kotoko glances quickly at the drawer of the side table next to the couch, where she’d stashed Fuuta’s confiscated iPhone. Maybe she wants to be a little selfish today. Maybe it’s okay to be a little selfish once in a while.
“No,” Kotoko says simply, and before Fuuta has a chance to protest, she cups both of his cheeks in her hands and squeezes him like she’s squishing a kitten. ‘He looks just as grumpy as one too.’
Though, once she stops fooling around and starts stroking her thumbs under Fuuta’s eyes, affectionately exploring his face, he melts quicker than a popsicle in dead summer heat. As she watches his eyelids flutter closed, she thinks about how far Fuuta has come in trusting her to touch him like this. A few years ago, this scenario never would have even crossed her mind. Her, the bloody-mawed hunter, voluntarily touching someone. Him, the wing-clipped victim, lazily accepting that touch. It’s asinine—it’s happening right now, as farfetched as it should be. Fuuta clambers into her lap again, and she lets him. His weight on her legs doesn’t send her into a frenzied scramble to get away, because he doesn’t mean to do anything but to get at more of that warmth she’s so kindly offering him—and she doesn’t mean to do anything but give more of that warmth. … It’s nice. That’s all she can say about it.
In the back of Kotoko’s mind, she crunches her heel into Fuuta’s face, hardly even reacting to the subsequent snap and horrible squeal, unblinking as blood pours into his sclera from something popped and mutilated within. In front of Kotoko’s face, Fuuta sighs, low and comfortable, as he makes himself at home in her lap, eventually settling and going limp against her chest. There’s someone on top of her and it’s fine; she’s touching him, and it’s fine. Finally, Kotoko can experience moments where the thought of violence is just a pulsating, oozing ulcer in the back of her brain, not an all-encompassing compulsion to seize power in any way her shaking hands could manage.
“You helped with that,” Kotoko mumbles into Fuuta’s neck absentmindedly. He smells like the ocean.
“Whuh?” Fuuta rouses again, but at his attempt to look at her, Kotoko just pushes his head back down against her shoulder.
“Nothing. Go back to sleep.”