AS FAST AS YOU WANT
sequel to SIREN
She is as out of place as a ballerina in a coal pile, but Michiru strides with avid determination toward the garage in the distance, chin lifted in defiance of the gawking stares that follow her progress. It's the dress, she knows. She's spent a rare, peaceful afternoon in Ginza, picking out a new outfit for this weekend's violin recital, and she's dressed the part of the young lady about town—hair framing her face in smooth sea foam waves, dress white as a swan's wing. She likes shopping, and since this end-of-the-world, the-Silence-is-approaching business has started, she's had so little time to indulge in trivial, human things.
Haruka's found time to do what she loves best, too. With only a moment's trepidation, Michiru rounds the corner and peers into the garage bay, seemingly empty save for the elaborately colored racecar and the tools of the trade of maintaining such a powerful machine. Seemingly empty—but there she is, the golden-haired wonder, coming around the corner, dressed in a faded blue jumpsuit, a streak of something dark and viscous on her model-sharp cheekbone. Michiru smiles, despite herself.
"Didn't expect to see you here, so soon," Haruka says by way of greeting, and without further ado leans over the car, peering into the complicated assortment of tubes, wires, and containers therein. With the hood up like that, its insides are open to the world, Michiru notes, and she takes a couple of steps forward, her heels clicking on the scuffed concrete—and roses bloom in her cheeks as she watches Haruka's hands disappear into that complicated mess, tugging a cord here, adjusting a bolt there. Her partner certainly knows her way around the most intimate parts of a car, doesn't she?
She leans over the car, too, careful not to brush against anything that could stain the pristine fabric of her dress. "I had a feeling," she says vaguely, knowing Haruka will interpret the words as a testament to Michiru's subtle, elusive precognitive ability, rather than the truth: I had a feeling I wasn't going to be calm until I was at your side once more, she thinks with a tiny smile.
Haruka's hands are covered in—motor oil? It's beneath her fingernails, smudged over her knuckles, winding up her wrists. She licks her lips; they're dry. It's obscene, the way Haruka's hands plunder and manipulate. Michiru's own fingers twitch in some parody of fascination.
It's easy, Michiru knows, for Haruka to talk about their mission if she's got her mind occupied elsewhere. That's her dear speed demon—one task at a time is never enough to occupy her. It dizzies Michiru, sometimes, the task of keeping up. Easier to talk about her feelings if her fingers are buried in the depths of a car's engine, tinkering with something beloved, easier to talk about something she fears if she's elbow-deep in something as familiar to her as breathing. Michiru doesn't understand—she's a brooder, always has been—but she gets it.
"Tonight?" Haruka asks, voice muffled.
"Tonight," Michiru echoes. Her sensitive nose is assaulted by the smells of oil, lube, rubber, metal, and Haruka's own scent, a cologne whose name escapes her despite its familiarity. She thinks briefly about sneaking into Haruka's bathroom to catch a glimpse of the label; automatically dismisses it. They live together, now, for convenience's sake as well as for peace of mind—there's no need to play the stalker, anymore.
Michiru withdraws from the shadow of the car's hood, and turns to survey the garage, willing the redness in her cheeks to subside. A stack of tires is propped against the far wall; a massive metallic chest, a few drawers gaping open, sits in their shadow. It used to drive Michiru mad, that Haruka never quite managed to close drawers and doors and other things that were meant to be closed when at rest—too busy rushing around, the next task always on her mind, diverting her hands from the task of closing opened things.
She eyes the drawers of the chest, spots screwdrivers and pliers and tools whose names are unknown to her, and sympathizes. In her quietest moments, when the frenzy of battle has left her and the blood in her veins has cooled, her eyes fixed on the silver shine of the impartial moon, when she can finally contemplate, beyond the anguish and the uneasiness, the seconds and the minutes as they pass—she sympathizes. Haruka pulls at her the way the wind pulls at the foam atop the waves, pushes them relentlessly toward the shore, toward which dash themselves because they have no other choice. She is a drawer half-closed, a door carelessly left ajar, poised on a hinge of uncertainty.
Reluctantly, she turns her gaze back toward the car and her partner, expecting to see white hands tangled in the car's interior, but instead she meets Haruka's intense gaze and her breath leaves her in a silent rush. After a moment that sways over a precipice, Haruka looks down, embarrassed, the words rushing out of her mouth. "I, uh..." She dithers, and no clever follow-up comes to mind, so she scratches the back of her neck. "Do you want to take a ride around the track?" she asks, all in a rush. "I've got to take her out anyway, see if she's ready to race. Or maybe you're already tired of my driving…" She trails off into silence, and then gives Michiru's heels and dress an apprehensive look.
Hopelessly charmed, Michiru smiles. "Alright."
Haruka's eyes widen in surprise, but she recovers, dimples flashing. "I'll wash my hands and find you a fire suit." And she's off at a trot, humming under her breath as she disappears into the back. "I'll try not to go too fast," she calls over her shoulder, "but no promises!"
Michiru's smile widens, and then fades into nothing with Haruka's absence. Tonight, they'll fight, bleed, perhaps kill or die. She closes her eyes tightly against the thought. Oh, Haruka, she thinks with a tiny, anxious smile, we don't have the luxury of time. We can go as fast as you want.