mezzanine
Marisa had never needed to know why it was she clung so fiercely to Alice. She had, of course, asked herself about it once or twice, but when she did the answer came to her as easily as her smile always did – she just wanted to see her face.
In truth, it was a little more complicated than that. Marisa found herself looking at Alice often, and had the pleasure of observing her in several different circumstances and surroundings. In this, she had begun to discover that, whoever she was with and whatever she was doing (even with Marisa herself, who was probably closest to her), Alice always wore the same face. She always dealt with others with the same apathy, always kept the same rigid, polite disposition, always regarded her surroundings with eyes whose colour were a pretty but solid blue trained to hinder one early on the pathway to her heart. Soon, Marisa found herself looking for an expression from Alice – one of some, any feeling, be it anger or tenderness; even (and this was being hopeful) looking to create it herself. Time quickly made it her second nature to pursue this, and the fire in her eyes forever looked to melt the ice in those of the mysterious seven-coloured puppeteer.
Needless to say, to someone like Marisa, this didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary. Curiosity was in the nature of any man, was it not? Curiosity was all it was – and curiosity may have killed the cat, but she was damn well willing to die if her last memory was a glimpse into what the dollmaker truly felt. Again – simple minded as she was – Marisa never thought to ask herself why in the world she was so willing.
"I'll tell you why we're here if you tell me why you've been becoming so progressively clingy."
Alice regarded Marisa's reaction to this with interest. The black-white felt a warmth rise to her cheeks, and she breathed in deeply; but then she breathed out, and the heat felt less dreadful and stuffy and became more pleasant a sensation.
"What?" Alice frowned. "It's a fair exchange, I think."
Marisa nodded, her shoulders hunched forward slightly in her embarrassment. She smiled, though; unlike most in her position she hadn't managed to attach a label to her feelings, but she knew them with certainty, and they rolled like a barrel down a hill from her tongue into the air.
"I don't really know. I just want to see your face, ze!"
Marisa turned to Alice to catch sight of something stirring in her eyes. Her countenance was not a bit changed from its previous state, but her blue eyes were no longer a solid colour. Marisa felt her chest constrict, and her entire being was drunk with joy at the notion that she had just sparked something in Alice that she had never felt before.
"Is that so?"
Marisa nodded, her head moving in a disarray of gaiety. She watched the seven-coloured puppeteer get to her feet then, and watched her watch the sky with a mysterious sort of look.
"This is why I'm here," she murmured.
Immediately – and yet gradually – Marisa began to feel an energy fill her that was not too strong; energising as the sunlight, without all the disadvantages that came attached to that heat. Suddenly the moon turned red, and Marisa's smile widened.
"A lunar eclipse?"
Alice nodded solemnly. She turned to Marisa, who was sprawled out on the grass looking like a fool who had never been happier, and the black-white saw something in her change.
"If it's not too often, you can still come and see it sometimes."
She smiled.
"My face, that is."
And Marisa thought that maybe she was in love.