Blurry street lights passed her eyes in rapid succession like a headache manifest. Her forehead cold against the fogged up glass of the car window, the chill of early March creeping under the sleeves of her jacket. Amane felt as if the remnants of the filthy water she'd waded into half an hour ago were beginning to clump between her toes, frozen in a pair of wet socks. Cold, wet locks of hair tickled her neck and cheek, those of her own head, and of Neon's.
Everything else was burning.
"You're a terrible person." she murmured to the figure leaning against her, not ashamed enough to even bother pretending she was asleep. Amane murmured because if her voice hiked up even one note she was going to break down in tears.
Neon heaved a long, pressed sigh, but did not move from her position. "Why don't you leave then?"
This same question phrased in the same way had been asked multiple times before, asked after every mess, every incident, every little prickle and whip.
"I have nowhere else to go."
It wasn't the right answer, not when she thought of it, or when she said it. It wasn't a lie. "But now I'm considering it."
"Amane,"
"What?"
"I'm sorry."
Amane swallowed. "No you're not. You're not sorry." she hated that she had to sniff to hold back the tears. "You were never once sorry in your entire life."
To her surprise, Neon said nothing. Finally she removed her head off Amane's shoulder and scooted left in the backseat of the car, as far away from her as possible. The two of them sat in silence, letting Khalilah take them back home, the air between them shards of glass pieced back together in haste, shrouded in the shadows of never ending tunnels and glaringly damaged in the orange lights of the highway.
In the unassuming, inconspicuous hotel where the small mafia family had took residence, Amane holed herself in her small room. Peeling her wet clothes off her, she listened to Light Nostrade's voice thunder through the dark hallways, and he sounded like an old and sick predator, too weary for admonitions, screaming because he had no wise words to impart, nothing kind to say.
She knew this moment was coming – wanted it to come – the second she trekked madly into the waste stream in fear for Neon's life, but now as it happened, as she heard the man yell, angry and defeated, with no voice shrieking at him in protest, no voice fighting back as was usually the case, she derived no satisfaction from it.
The hotel was a small one, and the family, their few bodyguards and servants, had rented the third and fourth floors for themselves. Using elevators was unadvised, for fear of possible incidents, and despite herself, Amane slinked closer to the door, perking her ears in hopes of hearing Neon's oncoming footsteps on the stairs, returning to her room after a long night of self-destructive playing.
As expected, the footsteps came, accompanied by another pair of sleek shoes clicking on the creaking floorboards, then the soft tapping on the carpeted hallway. Amane held her breath. The sound of footsteps had stopped, one pair, at least. Her room was the closest to the staircase, a sparse cube behind a lime green door at one end of the hallway, Neon's room right next to hers, and she could hear everyone who came and left.
She could hear their conversations, too.
Amane didn't know this desire within her, for Neon to send the other bodyguard to his room and come knocking on hers. Neon didn't knock on people's doors, however, she came barging in, yet too undignified to own the space she wants to claim by disregarding the privacy of others, so it never mattered, the way she chose to reveal herself. Regardless, Amane wanted it, and hated herself for wanting it. Yet the more rational side of her let out a sigh when the footsteps resumed, growing faint, moving away from her room.
Neon wasn't coming.
That was good. Amane knew it was good. There was no reason for them to interact, not tonight, of all times. Every word that passed between them was poisoned, beleaguered by thorns, trudging. She had supposed they were friends, believed it every time the fence between them had bent under a warm flicker of light, wanted it to be the truth, but it wasn't.
Neon wasn't to blame here, no. It was Amane's inability to cultivate any proper boundaries between herself and her employer. She didn't even go about it professionally and gracefully the same way Canary did. The glob of clothes on the floor of her room and the wet shirt still sticking to her torso and the stupid things she felt for the other girl all were proof enough of that.
Amane sniffed again, chucked her shirt off and tiptoed to the bathroom, already entertaining various scenarios where she quit this job for good. As her underwear lay discarded on the white ceramic of the bathroom floor, she wondered where she could possibly go. She braved her hand under the steamy downpour of the showerhead to test the water temperature, then stepped in with an exhausted sigh.
The only advice given to her about working in a mafia family is that once you quit, you move as far away from the family as possible. That was tricky, not least of all because Amane didn't know where to go, and because she was afraid of change, and wary of a world alien to her. If one was to show her a map and ask her to pinpoint where Mt. Kukuro is, she wouldn't know where to put her finger. She had left that place through little planning and let her feet guide her through sheer instinct.
She'd come to realize that working for an assassin family, learning nen and knowing how to fight didn't make you worldly. She was terribly sheltered, gullible, and lacked whatever thing made people survive in this world. But was she? Hadn't she survived up until now? Wasn't that something noteworthy?
More than a year after leaving the Zoldyck residence, she was still alive. Not in her best shape, but alive.
That was a small comfort she allowed herself to have.
Amane closed her eyes under the hot water, the scent of cheap shampoo sliding down the sides of her face oddly comforting. She wanted an apology, needed it, but suspected she wasn't owed one. They weren't friends. Neon can do whatever she wanted, and Amane will carry her duties as she'd always done. It wasn't her place to demand anything other than a paycheck.
Real, meaningful apologies were heavy things.
Why did the other even need to apologize? For what? Nothing Neon had ever done had anything to do with Amane, it's just that she ends up caught in the sticky nets of the other woman's mess, and it just so happened to be her job to untangle Neon out of it, or, at least, help her calm down long enough to untangle herself.
And Neon could always untangle herself, it was just more fun to drag others into it. Amane had no idea how to decipher that impulse within the other, and perhaps it was time to untie herself from this knotted, fraying rope.
There was nothing for her in here anymore. She wanted to say this to herself a million times. To repeat it until she convinced herself. To seal it on her tongue and mind until she summoned enough courage to pack her stuff and leave. After all, she's done it before.
She heard a knock on the door.
Amane's heart shrunk on itself, and she closed the water tabs before she'd even consciously thought of doing it. She stood frozen, hair dripping, her grip still screwed tightly around the tab, then another knock came and she almost jumped.
Breath suppressed like a growl, she dried herself quickly, wrapped herself in a towel and tiptoed back to the room, uncertain what possibility pushed her further towards the edge: Neon behind her door or an actual threat. Something told her the two weren't mutually exclusive.
"Amane!"
It was Neon.
She swallowed, feeling all the anger which had swept her in the car rush back, and even though the other couldn't see her, she squared her shoulders and let her face settle into a deep frown. "What do you want?"
"Seriously now?" Neon derided. "Open the door."
Amane hated lying. "It looks like I'm going to be sick, I don't want to pass the flu to you or something."
"Khalilah gave me medicine, some pills; she said if we took it we won't be sick tomorrow."
Amane knew that, she had the aforementioned pills right on the counter beside her bed. "I'm just tired, alright?"
"Okay, okay, I understand. Just let me in for a moment, I want to give you something." Neon insisted. "You can't just leave me like this in the hallway, Amane." she sang Amane's name in that warbling, almost whiny way she always used whenever she wanted to drag her into executing a bad idea.
Amane tightened the towel around her chest. "You've interrupted my shower, I'm undressed."
An impatient sigh. "So? I have a pair of boobs too, y'know."
Her heart recoiled, sending a tingle down her spine. She realized Neon wasn't going to be deterred, so she sighed and moved closer to the door, slowly creaking it open, leaving only a small gap for their eyes to meet.
Neon eyed her up and down. "You're not undressed, you're wearing a towel."
Amane hoped the frown was still fresh on her face. "So?"
"Nothing, I'm just a bit disappointed."
Her heart did that annoying thing again. "Why do you say these things?"
Neon stuck her tongue out. "I'm just messing with you. C'mon, let me in already." and she took a step closer, her arm already reaching inside the room before Amane almost closed the door over her elbow. Neon stumbled back and glared at her. "The fuck,"
Neon might be taller and bigger, but Amane was the stronger of the two. She held her ground, grabbing the edge of a door like a spear, and pretended not to notice Neon's angry reaction. "What do you want to give me?" she threw a glance at the bundle in Neon's hand.
"Jack shit!" Neon spat out and with no more words, turned around and left the space in front of Amane's door distinctly empty.
Usually she'd call after the fussy boss, hurry after her, attempt to solve any issues as quickly as possible, but she didn't, this time. She didn't even peek her head outside, remained standing behind the cracked door, waiting to hear the loud sound of a door thrown shut, but it didn't come. Instead, Neon came back, stomping on the floor, expression warped in something less than anger, one hand still clutching the white bundle, the other just stretched in the air, as if ready at a moment's notice for defense.
Amane should have known it wasn't easy to ward her off. She sighed. "Ms. Neon, please—"
"I just wanted to give you some dry clothes." Neon said, waving the white bundle in front of Amane's shadowy face behind the door, almost like a gesture of well intentions. "I assumed you didn't have any."
Amane's grip on the door softened, but she didn't let go. She revealed all of her face, however. "Thank you, but I don't need them."
"You don't need them or you don't want them?" Neon challenged, shifting her weight, still holding out the clothes bundle. "I don't want my bodyguard walking around in wet underwear."
"Wet underwear?" Amane echoed, all words in her mouth forming themselves into questions, her heart flipping on itself.
Neon laughed. "I meant dirty, you know, because of the water we were in."
"I know what you meant!" Amane hissed, stomach joining her heart in silly acrobatics.
Neon offered an impish grin that she quickly reformed into something teasing, the kind friends exchanged all the time.
Amane didn't want the two of them to be friends. Which was a lie. She did, but she had discovered that Neon didn't make a good friend, not because of a conscious desire to be intolerable at times, but because she had no idea how to be a good friend. Gestures like these were nice improvements, but they happened infrequently and were rarely done for their own sake. Neon must want something.
That thought itself made Amane stop. Was she starting to think like her boss? That nothing ever was unconditional? When has she started approaching personal situations with suspicions like these?
"Amane, are you going to take the damn underwear or not?" Neon asked, blaring, a purposefully loud complaint.
Amane wanted to shrink on herself, throwing her head outside the door to check if anyone else was also in the hallway, knowing that it didn't matter because Neon's voice had probably reached the receptionist down on ground level. Her eyes shifted back to frown at Neon.
"Please don't say things like these in a place like this." she said, now half her body outside the room.
Neon groaned theatrically. "Then let me in already."
So, that's what she wanted.
Amane sighed. "Fine," she pulled her body upright and pushed the door open, observing Neon as she walked in with a triumphant trot, absentmindedly handing her the bundle of dry clothes.
It's only when she closed her own door that she became aware of the faint throbbing between her legs. It persisted, but Amane ignored it and was about to go back to the bathroom when Neon squealed.
"I love love these heaters!" Neon said, draping herself down with a dramatic swoon at the space heater protruding from the floor and embracing it. "The one in my room is different. They're so cute~" she sang in a low, loving voice.
Amane squinted at the machine, then back at the young woman molesting it. "Yeah, they're very nice."
The heater wouldn't even make the Top 100 list of most disturbing and nonsensical things Neon found cute on a regular day, so Amane let it go, carrying the amusement of it back to the bathroom where she quickly put on the dry underwear. The sensation of warm cotton on clean skin was, perhaps, the best feeling in the world, Amane decided.
She jogged in place in the new underwear, squatting several times, assessing herself front and back in the wide mirror on the wall. When she was satisfied, she grabbed her hairbrush and combed her hair, managing it into a braid, listening to the sounds of Neon's presence in her room. Trotting feet, the balcony door opened then closed then opened again, a sneeze, followed by a sniff, more trotting, then a flop on the bed, phone picked up.
Amane slipped inside her pajama and walked outside, watching Neon sprawled on her bed, speaker held to her ear while she absentmindedly twirled locks of hair around her fingers. She noticed Amane and smiled, and a after a moment of talking, put the speaker down.
"I asked them to take your suit for dry cleaning." Neon said. "Also I ordered food."
The weedy green drapes of her room were swaying with the cold breeze of the night, the door to her balcony open, light seeping warmly out of her room, reflecting black flower patterns on the bland tiles of the suffocating tiny balcony rectangle.
"Thank you, Ms. Neon."
The breeze grew into a chilly gust of wind, and Amane felt the cold air claw down into her skull through wet hair, so she scrambled to the balcony door and drew it shut. For some reason, she remained standing there, her back to the cold glass of the door, hands behind her back, staring at the brown fuzzy carpet that seemed to stretch on forever between them.
Amane tilted her head up and turned around to look through the glass at the world outside, glimpsing nothing but towering palm trees barely ruffled by the wind, the distant blue and orange flickers dotting the city hills, the muffled sounds of the streets below bubbling up to her room.
A feeling like guilt branched out inside her. Guilt for rebuking Neon's apology earlier and guilt for almost mangling her arm in the doorway, guilt for refusing to let her in the moment she'd knocked.
Neon was right there on her bed but Amane envisioned another Neon, from a month ago, resting her elbows on the railing and tapping her foot on the floor to whatever song played in her head at that moment. Neon on the balcony in the tight yellow shorts and summer sandals she insisted on wearing every season and hair color of the month – that time it was a muted pink fading at the edges – and cheap colorful rubber bracelets she buys in tons from wrinkly street vendors. Neon hardly if ever wore winter clothes; the whole season was beneath her. "I don't get cold." she'd say, shivering in the chilly wind, hands clutching at her exposed pale arms, almost in constant battle with her pride, her legs long and adorned with hundreds of tiny goosebumps, cleavage pushed up and down as she crossed then uncrossed her arms under it in a futile attempt to preserve heat.
Amane closed her eyes, and had this sudden urge to giggle. They were so close she could just take a few steps and be beside her. Why was the idea of that Neon more appealing? The Neon who wasn't close, too close, in the same room, on her bed. That Neon idling on the balcony was safer, somehow, Amane could handle her from a distance, could manage it with as little harm as possible.
She rested a hand on her stomach, tuning in to the jittery ebbing of her chest, to the tiny heat bubbles bursting between her legs; her heart struggled to beat at a regular rate.
Chaos was dangerous, but Amane was thrilled nonetheless. Neon's chaos specifically was of a saccharine type, the sort that lost flavor once one chewed for too long but not the type one could swallow. Neon's chaos happened at rapid speeds but that's where Amane functioned best; she was bred for crossing long distances in the blink of an eye.
The room was so still Amane wondered if Neon was still even there, and a part of her was glad for the interruption of the silence when the door knocked, room service here to take her dirty clothes. The food will be here in less than twenty minutes.
The brief interaction ended and the two were once again left in the dim silent haze of the room, but Neon didn't let it be for long.
"Did you really mean what you said?" she addressed Amane with seriousness, an unusual thing for her. "That you're considering resignation?"
Amane had completely forgotten about that, and even when she nodded in affirmation, she didn't know if it was true or not. She wanted it to be. She will make it true.
"Why?" Neon wondered, glancing at the ceiling, her voice casual. "You're tired of me?"
Amane spoke before she even thought her words through. "I'm tired of the job."
"It's the same thing." Neon snickered. "I am your job."
"Right," Amane murmured, hands limp at her sides.
Neon glanced back at her, but Amane wanted to look away. Even in the dim light of the room, Neon's eyes gleamed like two shallow water ponds.
"You know," Neon started, her arms crossed, leaving enough silent space before what she wanted to say next, enough space for Amane to look back at her. "Nobody ever spoke to me like that. In the car, I mean."
Amane wasn't going to feel guilty about that. She wanted to talk back. "Maybe that's why you're such a terrible person."
Neon chuckled for a moment. "Yeah, maybe." she said, barely above a whisper, voice so uncharacteristically faint it lingered.
They settled back into silence, the same one Amane had sensed in the car, the cold, fractured glass, oddly holding itself together, admirably, even, too stubborn to fall apart. It appeared like the silence between them functioned as protection, as peace, even, that after every damage, it maintained itself to preserve the good things strewn wildly between them.
Yet, Amane desperately wanted it to come apart.
"I don't know if I really meant my apology." Neon said, turning away while sitting cross-legged on the bed, her face contorted in an expression of confusion and frustration, as if she was digging within herself for some truth and came up with something deformed and mangled. But weren't those her favorites?
Amane remained silent.
"But it hurt, what you said, you know." Neon continued, her fingers fumbling with the frilly edges of her nightgown pockets. "And it hurts, because I don't know if it's not true." she raised her head, looking at Amane. "It sounded true, when you said it." she shrugged. "Maybe I really never felt sorry in my life. Maybe there's nothing to feel sorry about, or maybe I looked away, as I've always done, because I never thought any of it mattered."
The guilt plant within her branched out even farther, and Amane felt like she'd been too harsh on Neon, like she had judged her in a moment of hurt and anger, had implicitly accused her of something terrible, accused her of lacking a conscience.
But she didn't want to apologize. She had a habit of apologizing too much, for everything. She wasn't the one who ought to apologize, she reminded herself of that. Amane might have been harsh but it wasn't even half as harsh as her grandma was with her at times, and here it made Neon think, and the young boss didn't give any indications of needing an apology. It appeared gestures like these weren't part of the language Neon spoke.
"Amane?"
"Yes?"
"You will leave no matter what I do or say?"
"Yes." Amane considered adding 'I'm sorry', but refrained. Feelings of guilt still crept on her like a single, persistent ant, but she brushed them aside.
I'm not the one who ought to apologize.
"Okay," Neon sighed, then offered Amane a wide smile. It was too sincere for comfort. "Then this night will be like, our farewell party?"
Amane's eyes widened. "You're not going to demand I stay?"
Neon shook her head.
"Or fire me?"
"Fine," Neon shrugged. "As your boss, I hereby fire you, Amane!" she yelled it with dramatic vigor, pointing a finger at her, then laughed.
Amane laughed as well, and to her surprise, the damaged wall between them ever so slowly fell apart. She didn't know if Neon felt it too, how suddenly, the air between them moved more freely, how a middle ground just sprung out, not steady or solid by any means, but not fragile, either. Sturdy enough for both of them to stand on.
"Amane?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm sorry for what happened today." Neon said, staring at her, taking her off guard. "I'm sorry, I've always caused you so much trouble."
Amane stared back, but despite her surprise, she felt relaxed, like their laughter had ended all possibilities for conflict.
"I forgive you."
It was Neon's turn to be surprised. "Just like that?"
Amane shrugged. "I forgive you, I just do." she offered Neon a smile. "We helped keep each other alive up until now, right? Without you I don't think I'd be alive right now." she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "I suppose what I owe in return is not an apology, but thanks, so, thank you."
Knocking on the door ran a swift knife through the possibility of another prolonged moment of silence, and Neon hopped off the bed, leaving Amane to watch as she handled the whole thing with brisk efficiency, bringing the food in and saying something to the maid before she closed the door and turned around to look at Amane.
She knew then that the matter was settled.
"What are we now?"
Neon tilted her head to the side. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," Amane crossed her arms and thought of how she'd word her question. "Now that I no longer work for you, what does that make us, you and me?"
Neon shrugged. "We can be friends."
"You're not very good at that."
Neon winked, no indication she took offense. "How about girlfriends?"
Amane spluttered, exhaling unnaturally. "I don't know about that either!"
"Well, don't say I didn't ask."
"Y-yeah."
Neon had this thing where she loved to eat laying on the ground, so the food was bared on the floor between them, which made it seem like they were on a picnic in some park, but they were just in a hotel room, the space heater buzzing, a comforting background noise as they ate and talked.
To her surprise, they talked a lot in a way they'd never done before. It almost seemed like they were never in each other's presence long enough to hold any meaningful conversation, which was factually untrue since Amane couldn't remember a moment they hadn't spent together since she was hired. Amane didn't know if any of their talking was 'meaningful' – and she didn't know how to define 'meaningful' anyway – but it came about so easy, like they've done it a hundred times before, and she quickly realized how hungry she was for conversation.
They spoke of past things. Amane told her about her adolescence, entirely spent working for the Zoldycks, about her grandmother, Canary, the Zoldycks' odd personalities, and a plethora of other things she was delighted to discover had not been forgotten. At times, she had thought back, trying so hard to claw her way into her past, and saw nothing but hazy scenes and half-formed dialogue, but once she was using her voice outwardly to bring them back from the dim corners of her memory, once she wanted them back to share them, they sprang out, clear and untarnished.
Neon talked, too, about things that hurt, about things that didn't, and things she'd taught herself to heal from before they even happened, but mostly she spoke of her 'humble' career – taking offense when Amane thought of it as a mere hobby – collecting the oddities that so utterly fascinated her since a terribly young age, admitting that it was the only thing she was ever passionate about.
Talking at length about human flesh and its qualities made Amane realize she was desensitized to the implied horrors of it all. Working for the Zoldycks had its perks, definitely. More so, Neon's own fascination and enthusiasm infected her; something about the mechanics of the whole thing was so outlandish and grotesque as to come off fictional, but Amane had experienced weirder things. It was the thrill of the unfamiliar experienced from a safe distance.
It became clear Neon was an excellent storyteller. Her way of narrating events was brilliant and charming; she jumped from one topic to the other, forgot things and remembered them just as quickly, one only needed to show her the frayed end of a thread for her to grab it and weave a tale about yet another rare object she'd managed to get her hands on, always armed with lengthy answers to any of Amane's many questions. The undercurrent of darkness coursing through the myriad of stories wasn't lost on Amane, but she listened intently, her body relaxed as she lay on the fuzzy carpet, munching on cold french fries, trying to imagine the events as Neon narrated them to her.
The last story was sealed with a struggling giggle as Neon choked on a breadcrumb and hunched over, trying to cough it out. Amane helped her with a glass of water, banging on Neon's back, bringing out breathless snickers until her heaving chest settled and she sighed.
"So, yeah, that's pretty much it." Neon announced after emptying the water glass in one gulp. Her slightly protruding eyes were red at the edges, which made the dark blue of her irises stand out, lips glistening from the water and the tongue that glided over them.
The back of Amane's mind was aware that Neon was looking at her as she stared, but she suddenly felt tired, and something about sharing food and memories with someone made your inhibitions crack ever so slightly, so Amane kept staring, her vision unfocused.
Her eyes wandered over Neon's face, eating away at the heavy, wispy eyelids, adorned by the particular appeal of remnant mascara after a shower. They moved down to follow the curves of her face, the rough, square chin, the small, almost nonexistent dent of her upper lip, the marks from several scratched pimples, the long nose, the cheeks Amane knew were the type to grow hollower with age regardless of health.
Neon suddenly chuckled, unusually self-conscious. "Not a magazine beauty, surely."
Amane looked up as Neon went on. "I'm one of those 'reverse ugly duckling' people. You know, instead of starting ugly and growing beautiful, it's the opposite. My nose keeps getting bigger and my eyes bulgier.
Amane blinked, straightening up, speaking honestly of what she'd always thought. "Your eyes and nose are very prominent, I like the way they make you look."
"They don't bother me," Neon said, scrunching her nose as if to further her point. "They kinda fit my personality, don't you think?"
Amane smiled. "True, your features pack a lot of character."
Neon laughed. "I think you're very beautiful."
At that, Amane felt her breath frosting.
"You're so much softer, like in everything." Neon continued. "Your facial features, your entire body frame." she grinned and winked at her. "If you get any prettier people would think I'm the bodyguard."
Amane snorted to hide her embarrassment, glancing away as if it was enough to conceal her flushed cheeks. "I'm not your bodyguard anymore, Neon."
"Right, right." Neon nodded.
They lapsed into silence, Neon glancing up at the ceiling, Amane's eyes trying to find anything interesting outside the balcony, and when it seemed the other person was the most fascinating presence in the room, they looked back at each other.
Tongue passed over wide lips, fingers clenched, legs shuffled, hair locks removed out of the way.
"Do you want to make out?"
The question rolled between them like a glass of water rolling off a table, tumbling down, no one moving to stop it.
Amane's mouth hung open.
"Now?" she whispered. That wasn't the right thing to say, but her mind wasn't entirely her own at that moment.
"Now," Neon shrugged, eyes shifting from Amane's face to the carpet and back to Amane again. "Generally,"
Amane wanted to shriek. She didn't know what to say. Her heartbeats did not become faster but, somehow, more pronounced, that every pulse left a faint ache that was quickly replaced by more ache. The hot pulsing spread everywhere, behind her eyes, her temples, the tips of her fingers, between her legs.
She wished Neon hadn't asked. She wished Neon had just leaned over and took her lips in a kiss.
Now, generally.
Amane pushed what was left of the food aside, and crawled forward, snaking her hand to the back of Neon's head to pull her closer, and smashed their lips together, almost missing for Neon's nose. Neon chuckled, but received her with similar enthusiasm, one hand grabbing Amane's braid, the other brushing softly up and down her arm, chancing her tongue out to roll it over Amane's lower lip.
Amane inhaled sharply, then sighed into the kiss, wanting to be closer, closer so that there's no gap between them. She scooted between Neon's legs, parting her own to wrap them around the other's waist, her knee grazing Neon's side, arms coiled around her neck, locking their bodies together, her ability to breathe normally disintegrating further with every sensation brought on by the friction between their legs.
Neon moaned into her mouth, the hand on her arm sliding down to brush against the back of her hand, drifting to her waist and under her t-shirt, cold against Amane's hot skin, icicles descending soundlessly into boiling water. Amane arched her back when a thumb brushed against her nipple, and had to break the kiss to take a much needed breath.
She stared down at Neon who looked up to meet her eyes, eyelashes fluttering, lips pouting, hand still cupping her small breast, the other drawing wide circles on her back. Amane brushed the pink bangs away from Neon's forehead, her fingers stroking Neon's neck, the space behind her ear, the curve of her jawline and the bridge of her nose.
Neon smiled, too tenderly, perhaps, because Amane's heart contracted and expanded almost simultaneously. A delicious spasm tore through her leg, causing her body to draw even closer to Neon's chest. She bent her head down and bit on Neon's lower lip, skidding her teeth against the soft skin, letting go when she tasted blood on her tongue.
She received no indications of pain, instead one of Neon's hands pulled at her braid, the other grew firmer around Amane's breast, pressing on the soft flesh, drawing her back for another kiss, this one languid, meandering, for pleasurable bonding rather than the thrill of first tastes.
Neon broke the kiss, leaving a wet trail of kisses down Amane's jaw and neck and back to her lips.
"You'd be so pretty in pieces, immortalized, preserved forever." Neon whispered, their mouths inches apart, her voice all cotton candy laden with sharp needles. "I could take you apart but I want you whole."
Amane inhaled, her lungs feeling too small, too incapable of holding enough air. Words trickled out of her mouth, excess water out of a fountain. "Now, generally?"
The smile that had almost died on Neon's lips returned.
"Now, generally."