[Vagueness isn't good enough. It feels at least as unfulfilling as it looks. Akira bites her bottom lip, and then she tells herself not to do that, not to let it play across her face in such a pinch of flesh. She inhales through her nose, slow and deep enough to make her kind of dizzy, vision edging into white just so. It's so common a side effect of stress that she doesn't really register it; she just flutters her eyelashes through the head rush, and squeezes Shindou's hand before she means to. The vague shape of Shindou's mouth isn't good enough for Akira to admit all she has behind her teeth, lying in wait behind the way her teeth press into her lip. If Shindou's mouth held a curve Akira could identify, maybe...
Their hands have fit together in such a way as to be perfect. Akira realized that a while ago. She has felt the ridges of Shindou's knuckles and the sturdiness of her palm. This is what it should be like, to hold somebody's hand. When she shifts out of their shared grasp, it's only so she can rearrange herself and actually clasp their fingers together. Well, she thinks, what do you know. There's quiet but such heavy marvel to the way she squeezes into that interlocking of their fingers. Shindou said, You might as well, but that's not good enough. Surely she can tell, now, just as well as Akira can tell, that the two of them are meant for utter alignment. This is what it should be like, to hold somebody's hand: the shapes of their fingers mingling, overlapping one another, angles all changing but none of them vague. Akira takes another breath. If the room is spinning, a tilt-a-whirl through thick syrup, she'll blame it on all the failings of oxygen.
She bends her knees, then, to lean down, to set down Shindou's pretty heels onto the floor, and then she straightens up again. When she hesitates, she makes sure not to stay still: she's continuously grasping Shindou's hand as if winding deep like tree roots, like weeds. They're only hand to hand, just inches' worth of skin for each of them, but Akira isn't seeking minimalism. Little bits aren't something Akira typically approves of—not little bits of good, not little bits of bad. It's all or nothing and more than that: if she cannot excessively succeed, she will collect her quota of excess in failures. If they were to lie down together—Akira's breast is clenched tight with panic and some other things—what would it mean, a little bit?
She toes off her own shoes.
The most frightening part of Shindou's face, of seeing it like this, is its familiarity. It could have looked just the same under fluorescent lights, awful in their strength and clarity. It could have carried with it a tranquilizing chill, a smell just like the snapping sound of latex gloves. Akira remembers her father lying in his hospital bed, looking thin, looking unnaturally thin, looking thin in the way one looks through the exhaustion of nearly dying. His head was against his pillow and he rolled it so his face turned away from his daughter. The curve of it was poor and sallow. Akira hadn't given her father a kiss or gotten a kiss from him since she was very, very small, but that day in the hospital, she made him let her touch his forehead, his temple...
Shindou's head feels really heavy against her. Unexpectedly heavy. Holding her is another exercise in refusing to buckle. But Akira does refuse, and she does hold Shindou, and in doing so, she realizes Shindou isn't truly all that heavy. It's the affection and the worry together inside Akira that cling like greedy weights. It's an act of measurement, when she sets her lips to Shindou's hair. She isn't—she isn't kissing Shindou, you know, it isn't that. Her mouth is just there; Shindou's soft, sweet hair is just there. She wants to see how much weight Shindou is carrying. Her hand guides up, and she touches the side of Shindou's neck, its tension, a migraine in the making. She smooths her thumb along a line of muscle.] Don't do that. [She's stern and she's soft. Her hand moves around to the back of Shindou's neck, beneath her hair, against her hairline. There's a lot of heat back there.] Look. You're going to make yourself start crying again. You have to stop doing that, or... [And she's so inappropriately right, isn't she, always having to tell a person what's what... Her tongue stalls, and she has respect enough to blush in her own shame, even unseen.] It'll hurt you, [she tries to explain, her voice just a bit of a creak. She doesn't want that. She wants Shindou to know she doesn't want that.
Tomorrow, they're going to have to deal with it. Tonight, Akira wants desperately to keep the headache at bay. She touches carefully behind Shindou's ear.] We could stay like that for a bit, [she says, just as carefully. The enunciation of her tongue is delicate and self-conscious.] Until you're not so tired. I could do that for you, [lying down, lying in bed, just a little bit—she bites the inside of her cheek, and tries:] with you.
[It shouldn't feel like she's baring herself, to lead Shindou, by the hand, to the edge of the sterile bed.]
no subject
Their hands have fit together in such a way as to be perfect. Akira realized that a while ago. She has felt the ridges of Shindou's knuckles and the sturdiness of her palm. This is what it should be like, to hold somebody's hand. When she shifts out of their shared grasp, it's only so she can rearrange herself and actually clasp their fingers together. Well, she thinks, what do you know. There's quiet but such heavy marvel to the way she squeezes into that interlocking of their fingers. Shindou said, You might as well, but that's not good enough. Surely she can tell, now, just as well as Akira can tell, that the two of them are meant for utter alignment. This is what it should be like, to hold somebody's hand: the shapes of their fingers mingling, overlapping one another, angles all changing but none of them vague. Akira takes another breath. If the room is spinning, a tilt-a-whirl through thick syrup, she'll blame it on all the failings of oxygen.
She bends her knees, then, to lean down, to set down Shindou's pretty heels onto the floor, and then she straightens up again. When she hesitates, she makes sure not to stay still: she's continuously grasping Shindou's hand as if winding deep like tree roots, like weeds. They're only hand to hand, just inches' worth of skin for each of them, but Akira isn't seeking minimalism. Little bits aren't something Akira typically approves of—not little bits of good, not little bits of bad. It's all or nothing and more than that: if she cannot excessively succeed, she will collect her quota of excess in failures. If they were to lie down together—Akira's breast is clenched tight with panic and some other things—what would it mean, a little bit?
She toes off her own shoes.
The most frightening part of Shindou's face, of seeing it like this, is its familiarity. It could have looked just the same under fluorescent lights, awful in their strength and clarity. It could have carried with it a tranquilizing chill, a smell just like the snapping sound of latex gloves. Akira remembers her father lying in his hospital bed, looking thin, looking unnaturally thin, looking thin in the way one looks through the exhaustion of nearly dying. His head was against his pillow and he rolled it so his face turned away from his daughter. The curve of it was poor and sallow. Akira hadn't given her father a kiss or gotten a kiss from him since she was very, very small, but that day in the hospital, she made him let her touch his forehead, his temple...
Shindou's head feels really heavy against her. Unexpectedly heavy. Holding her is another exercise in refusing to buckle. But Akira does refuse, and she does hold Shindou, and in doing so, she realizes Shindou isn't truly all that heavy. It's the affection and the worry together inside Akira that cling like greedy weights. It's an act of measurement, when she sets her lips to Shindou's hair. She isn't—she isn't kissing Shindou, you know, it isn't that. Her mouth is just there; Shindou's soft, sweet hair is just there. She wants to see how much weight Shindou is carrying. Her hand guides up, and she touches the side of Shindou's neck, its tension, a migraine in the making. She smooths her thumb along a line of muscle.] Don't do that. [She's stern and she's soft. Her hand moves around to the back of Shindou's neck, beneath her hair, against her hairline. There's a lot of heat back there.] Look. You're going to make yourself start crying again. You have to stop doing that, or... [And she's so inappropriately right, isn't she, always having to tell a person what's what... Her tongue stalls, and she has respect enough to blush in her own shame, even unseen.] It'll hurt you, [she tries to explain, her voice just a bit of a creak. She doesn't want that. She wants Shindou to know she doesn't want that.
Tomorrow, they're going to have to deal with it. Tonight, Akira wants desperately to keep the headache at bay. She touches carefully behind Shindou's ear.] We could stay like that for a bit, [she says, just as carefully. The enunciation of her tongue is delicate and self-conscious.] Until you're not so tired. I could do that for you, [lying down, lying in bed, just a little bit—she bites the inside of her cheek, and tries:] with you.
[It shouldn't feel like she's baring herself, to lead Shindou, by the hand, to the edge of the sterile bed.]