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AibouShe takes me at my word, moving with uncertain wobbling steps through the kitchen and picking through the destruction Soldats' dogs left behind. She finds the teakettle in the corner, by the refrigerator, and stoops to pick it up.
(gunfire splinters the door, our only warning as men with masks as serene as a buddha's smile burst into the only refuge we have known in the past months. they make a mockery of words hardly out of my mouth, but there is no time for that. two men – three men – four men fall in the first exchange of bullets as Kirika and i dodge and weave for cover, and i would spare a second to mourn the devastation of my apartment if only i could catch a moment, or catch my breath. soldats' dogs crash through the kitchen to the sound of breaking china and gunshots.)
She grunts as she stands, pressing a hand to her side – the only acknowledgement of a trying day. You might call me cold for not moving to help her, but this is her ritual and her domain. I never used to drink so much tea. I preferred coffee.
(from the laptop i eye Kirika's movements in the kitchen. they are exploratory, methodical as she moves from cabinet to cabinet. i do not know what to think of this woman-child yet, and i am not certain that i like that she is handling my food supplies, possibly tampering with them. Kirika turns to me, the furrow of a frown between her eyebrows and asks me where i keep my tea.)
She glances at me as she fills the teakettle from the tap. I usually do not observe while she makes tea, and take this hint. My muscles are stiff from the ride back from the Manor, and I move like an old woman into the ruins of the living room.
(i knock my chair over as i roll across the billiard table, taking shelter behind its bulk; bullets trace my path and splatter into my laptop. the computer gives a final, anguished beep as it dies. i drop another of the men. Kirika kills two more, one bullet apiece and no wasted motion. five more take their place, and we fall back.)
The place is a mess, and the thought of cleaning it up only exhausts me more than I already am. Behind me, I hear the clatter of the teakettle as she sets it on the stove to heat, and her as she shuffles to the cabinets.
(in the market, Kirika stares at the bewildering array of tins and boxes and bags for a long time before making her selection. i am learning to identify her expressions, and call this her thoughtful face. 'you'll like this one,' Kirika tells me, picking a red box from the group, and for some reason i don't tell her that i'd rather have a good colombian blend. compromises must be made when one must share her home with a roommate, after all.)
I hobble across the room to the row of shattered windows, where moonlight spills across the floor and reaches to touch the wash of light from the kitchen. As I cross the threshold from lamplight to moonlight, my foot strikes something, sending it spinning into the shadows. The noises she is making in the kitchen follow me as I hunt through the darkness for it. I find it lying among broken glass from the window, and pick it up. It is a wad of paper. I hold it in one hand, thinking.
(Kirika's precise shots cover me as i sprint for a window, and i kick at the latch, smashing it. i scramble out the window, and it is a testament to Kirika's skills that no one kills me while i'm in the clumsy threshold between indoors and out. escape plan a requires me to cover her retreat now, but gunshots ricochet off the fire escape i'm standing on, and i switch to escape plan b, which is the one that provides for assailants on the roof and nearby roofs.)
The teakettle begins to sing in the kitchen. I hobble to the billiard table and hoist myself up to sit on its scarred surface, choosing the moonlit half for my perch. I smooth the crumpled ball out against my uninjured thigh as china chinks against china in the kitchen.
(although i keep my head bent over my computer work, i do not miss a single move of Kirika's as she moves around the kitchen, and when a plate with sliced cake and a cup of tea appear at my elbow, i feign unconcern. 'what's this?'
Kirika's expression is the one i have yet to classify – the one that she wears so often when she looks at me. 'tea and cake,' she tells me.
it is more than that. Kirika is a better assassin that I will ever be, as she has proved on several missions already, and until now i have only eaten food i have prepared or purchased with my own hands. i do not fear the cake; i bought it this morning.
i meet Kirika's gaze and lift the teacup in a toast, and sip the brew. this is where it begins.)
The moonlight is too dim to let me read the words on the paper, but I don't need to read them again. She shuffles out of the kitchen, carrying the two cups of tea. I take one from her, and we don't speak as she settles herself beside me on the table.
(we trade shots with masked men across the steeply pitched roofs, and though i dance with lady death more closely than i would like, this trial ends as the last of soldats' dogs topples over. nothing has really changed, i decide, even though chloe has claimed that she and Kirika are the true noir and Kirika is going along with this claim. Kirika and i are still a team, are still noir, and i go on thinking this until chloe appears again to deliver the final instruction, the final bombshell, and i learn why my family died and by whose hand.)
"Good tea," I say, and mean it. It tastes all the better for being a shred of normalcy after the madness of the past week or two.
"There wasn't anything to eat with it," she says. "We need to go to the market."
"Tomorrow," I agree. "Or the day after. I'm tired enough to sleep all day tomorrow."
She makes a sound of agreement. "You found my letter."
(it is the morning after i walked away from my promise, and i sit in a cafe, lost in thought, and i spend a long time staring at the dregs of my cup before i realize that what i ordered to drink is Kirika's favorite oolong blend.)
I run my hand over the wrinkled paper again, her written permission for me to keep my promise, and her final words – words that she wrote down, for fear that she would not be able to say them when the proper time arrived. "Yes," I say. "I found it."
(i walk away from Kirika as she begs me to kill her.)
"I thought that would be a good place to leave it," she tells me.
(three female killers sit in the moonlight, drinking tea and chatting. only alice may have attended a stranger tea party.)
I tell her that it was an excellent place to leave a letter. I do not need to see her face to know that she is wearing the pleased expression – the slight quirk of the lips and the gentling of the eyes.
(i walk away.)
"I wonder what Soldats will decide to do with us," she ventures after a while.
"One faction will want us dead. Another will want to forge us back into the True Noir. Another group will want to use us as a tool, but only if we can be controlled." I shrug, and wince as the wounds on my arm pull. "I doubt that things will change too much."
"For Soldats, no," she agrees. "And for us?"
(i frown at the mission details on my computer screen, and hardly notice the cup that has appeared at my elbow, save that it is something to sip while i relay the information to Kirika.)
"Us?" I touch the absolution in my lap again.
(the music of my father's watch plays, and Kirika's eyes widen – this is an unfamiliar expression. i decide that it is uncertainty, or perhaps anguish. my hand is already wavering, and i know that i will walk away from my promise again even before chloe's knife knocks the weapon from my hand.)
"From a certain point of view, we are the True Noir." Her voice is quiet. I wait, and after a time she continues. "Two women who understand each other perfectly."
"Yes, but I will not be Soldats' tool, not for the world. Not for what they did to my family."
She stiffens beside me. "Mireille..."
(i sit in a cafe, Kirika across the table from me, and as she sips her tea, i discover that coffee no longer tastes as good as i remember.)
I half turn before she can say any more, sloshing tea across the green felt of the tabletop as I set my cup down, and I place my fingers across her lips. "Shh."
(her face is tranquil as she instructs me to shoot her. Kirika closes her eyes, lifts her chin, and waits for me to fulfill my promise. my finger rests on the trigger, ready to avenge the long years of grief. and yet – and yet i lower my gun. i walk away.)
This is the confused expression, with the furrowed brow and the pursed lips. I leave my fingers where they are, and speak. "We both have our sins and our pasts, and we understand each other. I want you to understand this: Yumura Kirika is not the person who killed my family. Do you see?"
She shakes her head, but my fingers over her lips keep her from saying anything, yet.
"Yumura Kirika is my partner. She is the one who guards my back and whose back I guard. She is the one who makes me tea even when she is bone-tired and wounded. She is the one who put herself between a bullet and me. She is the only person I have ever broken my word to. Yumura Kirika is you, and none of Soldats' plotting can change that for me. Now, do you see?"
(a cup of tea. it is a strange beginning for trust.)
The confused expression becomes the strange expression that I still can't decipher. I remove my fingers, and she says, "You are breaking your promise?"
"For once and for all. We make a good team, you and I."
(my promise to kill Kirika. it is a strange beginning for a partnership.)
"And what will we do?" she asks.
"Whatever we like.... partner?" I look at her and wait.
She takes my hand and laces her fingers with mine, the calluses on our palms corresponding well. "Partner."
I pick up my cup and drain what's left of my tea, and we sit together in the mingled moon and lamplight.
Morning will bring a host of problems, but for now I'm content to sit here in the moonlight with my hand clasped in hers. Let the morning come. We will be ready for it.
-end
Comments? Criticism? Reasons why I've got it completely wrong?