Title: Orbiting
Spoilers: Entire series
Featured Characters: Fujino Shizuru, Kuga Natsuki
Disclaimer: SUNRISE's. Not mine.
Orbiting
One day, catching a scent of Natsuki that lingered in her couch pillows and pressing her nose against them to inhale her fragrance, Shizuru wondered if someone, seeing her in that moment, would think that she needed therapy. And thinking that—and of the way her gaze had been riveted earlier on Natsuki's lips as she sipped tea, how the ceramic had later been cold under her fingertips where those lips had been—Shizuru knew that therapy was probably too little, too late.
--
Being with Natsuki could be like going insane. Once, she had gone insane.
Natsuki was the only one that could make her feel that way.
--
Natsuki was the first girl Shizuru kissed. Professor Nakamura was the first woman Shizuru slept with.
She was everything Natsuki wasn't: confident, comfortable, flirtatious, with an air of surety and knowledge that made Shizuru tremble when the older woman slipped her hand between the collar of her blouse and shoulder, brushing aside the garment to reveal her pale flesh, soon flushed under a trail of exploring kisses.
What ensued between them had been something like worship and had left Shizuru elated and then sad.
"I've seen that look before," Professor Nakamura had said while they had each dressed.
"What look?" Shizuru had asked, puzzled by the buttons of her blouse—done up incorrectly, she realized.
Professor Nakamura had touched her face and made Shizuru look at her, buttons right or wrong. "You're a lovely girl and I enjoyed tonight, Fujino, but we probably shouldn't do this again."
"Why not? Because you're a teacher and I'm a student?"
Professor Nakamura had smiled and shook her head. "Because you don't want to be with me and I'm too old to want to play these games anymore."
She ended their one night together with a kiss and the words, "Oh, and Fujino? Never take one of my classes."
The next time they met, Shizuru sitting in Professor Tanaka's office, Nakamura pausing in the door to say hello, she was able to meet the older woman's eye and wish her a good day without looking away or blushing. There was warmth, yes, of remembered desire, but Nakamura had been right: Shizuru didn't want to be with her.
She never took one of Nakamura's classes.
--
The problem wasn't that Shizuru wanted women. The problem was that Shizuru wanted a woman.
Natsuki.
--
In the periods when Natsuki had trouble looking Shizuru in the eye, Shizuru found flirting made things easier. After Professor Nakamura, she never intended to take things farther than smiles or a pretty word. The objects of her flirting, though, sometimes had other ideas.
The love letters were flattering, as they'd been in high school, if now a bit less innocent than before. Still, Shizuru had no trouble ignoring them or letting them pile up.
One girl, though, started trying to see her more and more. At last she tried to kiss Shizuru but Shizuru gently pushed her away. Things got out of hand after that. The girl burst into tears and the words came rolling out of her on the force of her sobs, about how much she loved Shizuru, about how she wanted to be with her, about how much it hurt that Shizuru didn't want to be with her. Shizuru stared at her, shocked, and then so full of pity she took the poor woman in her arms and held her until the tears stopped.
Shizuru managed to calm her down and get her to go home, but that broken, hopeless woman never really left her apartment. Shizuru found it hard to look in a mirror for a long time afterwards.
--
Shizuru never came out. She didn't see the need to. The person who needed to know knew.
--
It was her father who understood. Her mother never said a word about it, though she must have known after her father found out. He had visited her and was going to take her out to dinner. She had left him in her small living room to get dressed and when she had emerged from her bedroom, there he was, sitting on her couch, reading one of the love letters she had received.
All words had died in her throat. But he had only looked up, carefully folded the letter, put it back in its envelope, and stood up.
"Let's go," he had said.
During dinner they had pretended nothing had happened. But then, saying goodbye, he had simply said, "Okay. Do you still plan to marry?"
Shizuru had stared at him.
"I don't know," she had answered. "Let me think about it."
He had nodded and then he left.
Years later, going through her deceased father's possessions confirmed her suspicion that he had had lovers. But not all of them had been women.
She and her mother never discussed it.
--
Shizuru wasn't ever really aware that she was waiting for Natsuki. To make the first move. To make a decision. It wasn't really waiting when you simply couldn't move.
--
"What're you thinking about?" Natsuki asked her the night of her last final in her second year at university.
Up until that moment, Shizuru hadn't really been thinking about anything, but what she said was, "How much I'd like to kiss you right now."
"Oh."
Shizuru didn't kiss her after that and Natsuki didn't kiss her, but when Natsuki left that night, she'd taken Shizuru's hand and squeezed it, just a little.
"See you next week?" Natsuki asked, staring at her shoes.
Shizuru smiled. "Yes."
Natsuki left but her scent lingered like a surprise throughout her apartment. Shizuru inhaled deeply, assured that Natsuki had been there and that she would be coming back.
Fin
Afternotes: I owe a debt to Alison Bechdel's excellent memoir Fun Home for the sympathetic Fujino father-daughter relationship here.
This fanfic is a repost from my LJ account.