Hajime has nice hands.
Utsutsu thinks about saying things. Things like, "you're so creative", or "you're so skilled with your hands". Everything she touches, it seems, withers at her fingertips.
Paper flowers, though, they're already dead; folded from the pulp of dead trees. Those ones, she has no fear of killing. She can hold them in her hands, the angular orchids and lilies; dahlias with loose, looping folds that unravel as soon as she releases them, and crepe-paper daisies. When she catches Hajime watching from across the aisle of the train she reddens and stares down at her hands. How small they look, just like a child's. Untouchable. She's no child of this earth. She'll never belong in this world; she's galaxies away from them, an observer through star-strewn space.
"Whatcha making?" Hajime prompts, her voice close to Utsutsu's ear; the seat next to her compresses, slightly, as Hajime leans in for a closer look. Utsutsu flinches; she can feel the tips of her ears burning. There is colourful tape on Hajime's wrist, bright pink tartan against her skin. It suits her.
"Nothing," Utsutsu mumbles. The paper crinkles and bends under her hand. A white crane, squashed against her palm.
"Oooh, that looks very nice!" Hajime exclaims and holds out a sheaf of origami paper. The train's passing through a tunnel; the gold vinepatterns on the paper wink at Utsutsu under the artificial lights. "D'you like flowers? Here, hang on to these, I'll teach you how to fold some more!"
.
Hajime teaches her many things.
To make lotuses with triangular petals and sharp creases; Kawasaki roses with spiralling petals and balls of Kusudama cherry blossoms, glued together.
To live.
It's nice, Utsutsu thinks, to not be transient; to not be aimless fragments scattered by the wind. Real flowers may wilt, but paper ones won't; they'll just fade, a little, in the sun.
.
"Wow, you did really good on the lotuses!" Hajime says when she visits after dinner. Utautau's made a row of them, large to small, a line of flowers fading from pink to white. "I've got just the thing, after you worked so hard on them!"
Hajime presents her with pastel-pretty bows and watches as she ties them in her hair, smiling all the while. "You're really good at this, you should keep making things," she says, and pokes her index fingers into the dimples of her cheeks. "They're just as cute as you are! And, ooh, the ribbons look so cute on you, I can see why you like them, you make them look so nice!"
Utsutsu stares down at her fingers and runs her thumbnail over a crease.
"Whatcha making?" Hajime asks, and Utsutsu thinks of that afternoon, in the train at the scrapbooking gathering. She hadn't known how to reply, then. "A present," she says, and turns the paper over. Hajime cups her chin in her hands and rocks her heels back and forth in the carpet. "For who?"
"You," Utsutsu says, and carefully checks her folds. Hajime's eyes widen when Utsutsu leans towards her, and places the paper in her hair.
"Woah! What is-oh!" she says, when Utsutsu holds the mirror up towards her. "You made me a bow too?"
Utsutsu can feel the heat rising to her cheeks. "Yes," she says, very quietly. "Do you like it?"
For a moment, Hajime falls silent and Utsutsu wants to bury her face in her hands. What did she do. What did she do, maybe she was too forward with this? Oh, god.
"Wow!" Instead, Hajime throws her arms around Utsutsu's shoulders and laughs into her hair. "Now we match! At this rate, the world can't stop us, the pretty ribbon rangers, right?"
"Y-yes," Utsutsu replies, and trails off when Hajime kisses her on the cheek. "I ... I ..., um ..."
"Thank you! I love this! I love you! Now I'm as cute as you are, Utsutsu!" Hajime says, and finally lets her go. Oh, she can breathe again. Utsutsu didn't know she was holding her breath.
.
Thank you. She's never really heard those words applied to her, because all she's been doing is stealing from this world, draining it of its vibrance.
She'll fold those words into her heart, into halves and then quarters and eights, for safekeeping.