"...and that is why Japan is my favourite thing of all," finished the young girl right behind her, and sat down with an uncomfortable scraping of metal.
"Well, that was very...patriotic. Thank you."
Here it was. The moment Yomi had been dreading for the last twenty-four hours. That imperious gaze turned to her.
"Next. Takanashi?"
Blue cotton sheets on her naked back rubbed Yomi's sensitive skin disagreeably as she writhed in place on the bed. Strangely, the slight roughness of the fabric, the uncomfortable hint of moisture, the clammy texture felt better than the smooth and perfect sheets of her own bed. It reminded her that they were all real, and not just a fanciful dream.
"You said you'd change these." She barely managed a whisper, still gasping for breath after a truly breathtaking experience at the hands of the girl with the raven hair. Not that she was really complaining anyway.
Mato didn't reply, beyond a slight colouring in her cheeks. She distracted herself by putting her lips to the fine ivory skin of Yomi's belly, for not the first time that evening, and the sudden heat of her tongue dancing over sweat-soaked flesh brought the taller girl to another breathless climax.
That was number four, Yomi decided. An almost instinctive understanding shared between them, an intuitive, intimate knowledge. There was never a need for words; Mato simply knew what to do. Like she was psychic or something. Like she could just see into the very depths of Yomi's heart with those dark, soulful eyes of hers. When the sweet little kisses they often shared became more urgent, and that feeling of tension hummed between them, she just seemed to know exactly what to do. Yomi could almost predict exactly when it would happen, and the anticipation only made the act itself all the more intense.
It was as if they were bound at the soul.
Then Mato was suddenly lying on top of her, body to body, that cute yet elegant face of hers a breath away from Yomi's lips. The contact of bare skin was thrilling, hot and cold all at the same time, and her arms found themselves around her love's agile waist.
"Three," she corrected herself. "Definitely three."
Mato, in that way that she sometimes did, jarred her out of the passion of the moment with a suddenly curious look.
"Three what?"
Yuu just stared at her.
"I think you're crazy," she said bluntly.
"I suppose it is...kind of..." Yomi faltered. She wasn't used to stammering like this, and it just made things worse. Now she felt even more self-conscious. And now Yuu was staring at her like a hawk after a mouse, and she just felt ridiculous.
"You can't sum up Mato of all people in ten words. No one could."
Yomi blinked.
"I..."
There was really no way she could argue. Now that she thought about it, the half-pint basketball manager was right. Mato was just one of those people who defied explanation. She simply...was.
"I can try."
That got Yuu's attention, even if she was too busy sipping something unidentifiable from a juice box to look the much taller girl in the eye.
"Why?"
"Because I have to."
That gave both girls pause. Yomi certainly hadn't expected such a thing to come from her own mouth. It was just so...meaningless.
"Because I want people to know. I want other people to understand how I feel about her. I don't want to just hide it away all the time."
Yomi's face was probably bright red by the time she finally got her tongue to stop wagging, but the manager just looked up at her, slowly, with the most infuriating grin on her face.
"You know, I was almost worried about you two."
"That's silly."
Yomi sighed, which was a lot more difficult than usual with the raven-haired girl lying naked on top of her. A vision of beauty Mato might be, but she was still quite heavy.
"I know it's stupid of me to do something like that, especially in front of the whole class, but-"
Mato interrupted her the same way Mato usually interrupted her. The taste of the shorter girl's lips lingered for many long, heavenly moments.
"I didn't mean it like that," she explained at last, with her nose still pressed against Yomi's. "I just think...it's not really what love is, is it?"
That wasn't what she had expected. Not at all.
"What do you mean," Yomi did not ask, knowing that it would only upset the flow of the moment. She let the sensation of lying in bed with her lover draped across her, staring at her so intently, just soak into her and make her warm from head to toe.
"Do you really need an excuse to say that you love me?"
That hurt. From the dark something shimmering in Mato's eyes, that must have hurt quite a bit more than she had expected. Yomi tried not to let her face ruin the mood.
"Then...why?"
"Because."
Yomi raised an eyebrow.
"Because?"
"Because," the shorter girl repeated, with a most definite tone in her voice. A naive sort of single-mindedness.
"I shouldn't need a reason to love you, Yomi, and I don't want one. Otherwise it's just..."
"Otherwise, you're just fooling yourself," Yomi finished the thought for her, as things seemed to just click into place in her head. "Right?"
Mato answered, again, with her lips.
"When I kiss you," she sighed as their mouths came apart once again so many seconds later, "Everything stops. It's like nothing else I've ever felt. You make me tingle all over. I can't stand going a single day without that feeling, without the feeling of holding you in my arms again. Just thinking about it..."
Yomi found the edge of a well-kept fingernail tracing over the ever so faint mark just below Mato's left breast. She couldn't look away, even as coal black locks cascaded over both naked bodies, and the darkness of her lover's eyes fluoresced to a hypnotizing opalescent blue.
"When I think about what my life would be like without you in it...it hurts. It hurts so much."
She'd never heard her athletic young bedmate sound so frightened. Before Mato could even continue, the taller girl had thrown her arms around that deceptively slight figure and was clinging tight, so tight that her nails pressed uncomfortably into the supple flesh of Mato's shoulder blades.
"I love you." It came out as a shuddered breath. "I just wish I could put this feeling into words."
"Words just get in the way."
"I won't forgive you, no matter how many times you beg."
"I don't want your forgiveness."
"You don't even know how I feel. You have no idea what this is about."
"I don't care."
"I hate you. I hate you for making me fall in love with you without even realising it. I hate you for not seeing how I felt about you. I hate the way you made me hate myself for not having the courage to say it."
"None of that matters."
"You can't save me."
"I don't want to."
"Then what do you want, Kuroi Mato?"
Black Rock Shooter held out her hand, silently. Those icy blue eyes bored deep into the facade that called itself 'Dead Master'.
"I want to be with you."
The silence was broken, but not with words. Breathless and insensate cries filled the darkness of Mato's bedroom, a symphony of lustful affection, punctuated by the most obscene sounds of furious, physical passion.
Mato clung to her lover, desperately, shattering the shell around the reclusive young heiress with the exotic curls of hair and the dark, misty eyes. The contact of skin on skin, the sensation of another body against her, overwhelmed Yomi's mind for the thousandth time.
The yearning deep within Yomi's heart glowed, and the warm hand of her love's love soothed her soul.
"I want to be with you. Forever."
