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It's only been an hour since Anran pulled into Freja's driveway, helped Freja out of her coat, and then regrettably knocked back a beer, and Anran already wants to leave.
Freja's home away from home is a luxurious apartment on the mountainside. Tall, tinted windows. A piano in the foyer—Anran's never heard her play. A full kitchen with a bar, and several barstools for Anran to sit on when she fears dirtying any part of the white-glove-inspected place.
It's not what she expected from the rugged detective with the messy, rounded bun, and the bags under her eyes, and it makes her feel like a floundering mess. Among other things.
"That's enough about me," Freja decides. She sits on the far end of a couch with a long runway. Anran sits beside her, because when Freja patted the spot, Anran was on an invisible leash. "What brings you to Canada?"
"Are detectives always having small talk?"
Freja is in the middle of a slow sip from her glass. So slow that Anran becomes aware of her stuck eyes halfway through, and her face fills with a funny sensitivity. Freja swallows quickly with a muffled mm. "It's how we're so successful."
"No, that's just you."
"Flattery is a good look on you."
The white noise on her cheeks finds a fever pitch. She anticipated this however; any blushing Freja catches, she'll blame on the single can she downed.
"So, go on."
"I've already told you. My brother—I didn't want him to be alone."
Freja's eyes roll to the ceiling and flick back down.
"You know something, about detectives?"
"Hm?"
Anran yearns for a greater field of view. Oh, what a gift it'd be, to have eyes on the back of her head. The weight on the couch cushion—they're close enough to share one—puddles in Anran's favor. In her peripheral, she watches Freja lean forward and abandon her wine.
Freja's hands are long and slender, and wrinkled from age and wear. Pale, with defined knuckles.
"I'd like to think," she begins, sudden sincerity in her tone of voice, "that I'm good at reading people."
"You are," Anran interjects. And Freja flashes a rueful smile.
"But, I wouldn't need to be to read you."
Freja's legs cross. Her hands clasp in her elevated lap.
A gawk turns into a scoff on Anran's part, which she can't help. In her family, even amongst extended relatives, Anran is the epitome of an older system. Calm, collected, composed. On the job, she's the perfect firefighter. A good listener, but brave. She knows when to take chances. Appraisal is a drug, and Anran knows how to get it.
Thus she knew Freja wouldn't supply her. She knew she came for Freja's wizened talks and pretty face, perhaps the pretty face alone, and she knows she'll leave with a bruised ego.
But she won't take this.
"Read me, then," she challenges.
She expects what Freja is good at, what Freja knows Freja's good at: a remark best described as witty, partially because of some wordplay Anran doesn't entirely understand, and partially because of how fast Freja comes up with it.
A second passes, and it passes silently.
A joke, perhaps, Anran reasons to herself. Or an insult. She crosses her arms, bracing her chest as if Freja will hit it.
Freja's smile grows. Her eyes flutter closed in a slow blink, and when they open again, Anran finds she's being stared at.
"Well?"
"Well," Freja snorts. "You love your brother. Dearly. You worry about him."
Observations a blind bat could make, but Anran doesn't say anything. As much as her lips itch to part. Her tongue passes over her own teeth, tasting gross beer and a bit of metal.
"You like helping out."
Freja slings an elbow over the back of the couch.
"You like being needed. You like being good at it."
It's Anran's turn to realize she's uncomfortable. The fabric of the cushion is teasing her bare legs, which are covered in dark patches—from the hose hitting her, or a spark landing on her uniform—and already cursed with a baseline itch. Her shoulder sinks into the couch as she turns.
"It's alright. Really." Freja holds up a hand to wave off a nonexistent fear. "Back in the force? That's everyone you meet."
"Wow." Anran snorts. "So reassuring."
"It is. Do you see any of them here?"
Fingertips butterfly against the turn of Anran's cheek.
"No. It's just you, and I."
That hand doesn't return to the couch, or fall to Freja's side, or anything of the sort. It falls through the air instead until it finds Anran's shoulder. Then it glides until it finds a conjuncture more muscle than tendon, where it deems itself at-home. Nails sink into her skin.
Anran eyes the hand until her arm sears with such a great heat, Anran wishes she could cut it off.
"Are you finished?" she stammers.
The shrug that Freja's shoulders give is barely half of one. It's as if her muscles decided not to care halfway through and slumped into nothingness.
"Sure."
And the grip on Anran's bicep falters. And those fingers trickle away like water.
A coil springs loose somewhere in Anran's gut before it ever had the chance to bend down, to gain some traction.
It's only been an hour since Anran got here, and she's already decided that she cannot, under absolutely any circumstances, leave before Freja scrutinizes her like that again.