For WIXOSS Flash 011 - character: Piriluk/Kiyoi Mizushima


Amika is almost tolerable today.

(She's more than tolerable each and every day but Kiyoi can't say that, her best friend (the girl she loves most) will get a big head if Kiyoi dares to bring it up.)

They're wandering the cool air conditioning of the department store, rather than braving the outdoors where children near her door are spraying each other with the garden hose the old lady used for her plants and weeds. Amika holds her hand, soft and careless and easy like the world was always kind to her rather than peppering little respites once in a while.

Like terrible things couldn't happen.

Kiyoi squeezes her hand, revelling in the way that no one looked, or seemed not to look. They seemed to care, she was sure but she didn't. She cared about Amika and the ugly shirts she kept finding and insisting were good and that Kiyoi would look adorable with them on. Adorable to her maybe.

But surely, that was enough.

Amika gestures with a tug after squeezing in return. "They've got a new card set downstairs."

"Maybe later," Kiyoi replies. And Amika smiles and it is dazzling and loving and hurting all at once on that face and all Kiyoi wants is more of it.

Ayumi would be proud.