Before You Go
Disclaimer: don't own
She works on Sundays at the campus library; it doesn't open until the early afternoon but she has to get there a while (too long) before that to help set the place up—how much can there be to do when they leave the computers on and the books are all shelved at the end of the day? She says it's mostly her supervisors ordering everyone about and helping find books requested at the last minute by procrastinators before the library fills with student.
Nishiki has always hated procrastinators, damn lazy bastards who think everything's going to come just fine even if they don't work hard and if they just spend their time at leisure, always relaxing and never having to worry about anything other than what they bring upon themselves (and then if they were really worried they'd actually work hard for more than a day or two the next time but somehow they never do). This makes him hate them even more, for cutting in on what little time he has with Kimi—it's already not enough, already getting harder and harder as they work more on the weekdays and take more classes. She doesn't even like the job that much but it pays decently and Sundays aside the hours aren't that bad.
The apartment still smells like coffee; she puts extra sugar in his on the weekends and he is already sick of the saccharine taste but he drinks it anyway and they finish their cups in bed and then go back under the covers and feel each other up sleepily under the fluorescent light with the blinds drawn and some weeks they get to sex but most weeks their time runs out too early and they finish fast and sloppy and rarely together and then she rushes off to the bathroom to clean herself off and he watches her retreating back through half-lidded eyes and not paying close enough attention until she returns, hair combed and blouse on. She puts on her stockings for him, though, sits on the edge of the bed and lets him watch as she slides the sheer material all the way up her thighs (and he thinks about his thumbs pushing against them again to the point where it's enough to make him almost start getting hard as she stands up and pulls them over her ass). She puts on her bangles and waves before she goes and he falls asleep soon after, still half reaching out pathetically for the her that's already not there.
He studies when he wakes up properly; the coffee's gone cold but he drinks it anyway and puts a sugar cube in anyway even though it won't dissolve and will stick to the bottom of the cup so he has to scrape it out with his finger and it feels clammy and disgusting but it's still better than the alternative and he's still a little bit hungry but it's worlds better than where he's been and with his glasses he can still see clearly. He carefully removes one of the packages from the refrigerator and consumes its contents—that's the good thing about these afternoons (well, if there is one), that he can eat in the open (she tells him not to be ashamed and he knows she wouldn't turn away but that's not the point and he has been hiding it for so long that even the sugar cubes were difficult and even mentioning the parts of him that aren't so human is difficult, especially because she knows and especially because she's seen the kind of creature he can become with her own eyes). The words on the page hit his mind like they're water and it's a glass wall, dripping down and falling away until the barest traces remain and he has to reread the paragraphs over again and hope the facts pierce through this time.
She always comes home with more books and they read together for a few hours until she insists he should get out of the house (somehow she always knows that even if he's dressed and ready he hasn't gone anywhere and he really has nowhere to go and a hell of a lot of studying to do so why should he?) and drags him out the door, fingers firmly locked in his and boots clacking on the dirty hall tiles that the landlord hasn't bothered to pay to clean in what looks like fifteen years at least. It's usually getting dark by now and she doesn't really want to go anywhere in particular but even when they go two or three blocks away he clutches her arm more tightly, just in case something should happen.
"Are you more scared for me or yourself?" she's asked him on multiple occasions, hair swishing by her ears in the breeze and he can never answer.
She takes his silence for something but whatever that something may be she's satisfied, leans her head on his shoulder and starts leading him back before it gets completely dark and kisses him in the vestibule (even though she tells him not to get a swelled head). He watches her make herself dinner, a sandwich from the cold cuts she keeps in the refrigerator or sometimes soup, the way her deft fingers measure out pinches of seasonings and spread and serve with utensils. He tries not to look fascinated but it doesn't always work; she meets him with lashes lowered and smiles in the way that makes him feel like she's hooked a coat hanger deep into his chest and it's about to come out on the other side.
She bares her shoulder to him, the mark from his teeth, holds his hand and traces over it with his finger and gently kisses his knuckles, sinks her own teeth into his thumb, not deep enough to leave any sort of mark but it makes him feel a little bit (a tiny, miniscule bit, okay?) better. She is halfway a blur without his glasses as he falls asleep but their fingers are locked again and her thumb brushes across the heel of his hand and all is close to well.