Lipstick
|five times Chrome Dokuro tasted different women on her lips.|
—Maiko
Nagi is freshly ten years old when Maiko leans over to press her lips firmly against Nagi's .
Does it like there are no other lips she'd kiss rather than Nagi's. Maiko swallows the softness of Nagi's lips between hers, taking in along the way the faint lingering sentiment of Nagi grieving over her grandmother's funeral.
For a moment then, everything is forgotten. The world has stopped and everything is still—the pocket book lies pushed aside, chopstick frozen against the bento box, the insistent whispering of sadness and loneliness fades.
Maiko has only kissed her for a few seconds and no less than minute but it feels like it's for eternity.
Tea and parfaits and sweet, sour candies; violet eyes blinks; Maiko affectionately pushes aside the growing side-fringe and cute light bronze eyes stare's deeply into Nagi's.
"I'll be Nagi-chan's friend even if no one wants to be."
—Lady
Fourteen and illegally sitting inside a bar, Chrome's butt is aching and her skin itches.
It is decided for that moment and time that Chrome doesn't feel like she belongs in this type of setting: wild bodies' strewn around and dancing, alcohols spilled everywhere and lingering anywhere, loud pounding music threatening to bust her eardrums.
Chrome grumbles to herself mentally—can't really complain to anyoneso she deals with the suffocating and itchy suit, the ache in her butt and phantom gazes of people boring straight through her.
Storm-san and Rain-san is taking too long and Chrome is feeling more uncomfortable by the minute. She shifts in her seat just as someone's taps her shoulder.
The kiss was quickly initiated, the foreign tongue working quickly inside her mouth before the stranger pulls away with asatisfied last suck on her lower lip.
For moment they both look stunned, especially the lady who had kissed Chrome before her surprise turns into a gratified smirk.
Chrome is still in shock as her eye follows the lady's exit (but not before waving farewell to Storm-san and Rain-san with a "pleasure doing business with you.")
—M.M
Chrome is almost twenty when M.M has dragged her inside a classic bar in fit of blind heartbreak and bitchy fit.
M.M is still having a bitchy fit even after knocking down three glasses of rum and three of firewater. Chrome merely lends an open ear, while nursing herself some coke, knowing that she was entirely dragged here by coincidence and the heat of the moment when you need to save some dignity and randomly pulls someone's hand and declare you two are leaving to have some girl time.
Later inside the M.M's designated suite for tonight—she rants and complains endlessly to Chrome just before she leaves:
"M.M-san if you're so tired of men, why don't you go try and test some things you've never tested before?"
M.M scoffs, clumsily lifts herself from the bed and stares at Chrome who is shrugging on her blazer.
"What? You mean namely you."
M.M forgets that some people change or mature over time as she is taken aback with blunt shrug of Chrome's shoulder.
"Why not?"
There is tense silence before Chrome decides to help her out and stays longer than necessary.
—Eli
At age twenty-three, Chrome has been and seen many things yet somehow she is both unstable and stable about herself.
Chrome is certain she likes men but it doesn't stop her from trailing kisses on the Hierero's Storm Guardian's dark skin.
She's also certain that the Storm Guardian above her likes men (more than she does) but it doesn't stop her from kissing Eli like she has kissed a hundred women before.
And it certainly doesn't stop Eli from trailing her long fingers across Chrome's thighs, teasing and testing the waters of Chrome's reactions.
"We should do this again sometime—after the next meeting." There is a smile on Eli's lips as she rolls her stockings on. Chrome merely hums as she buttons her blouse close.
They share a lingering dry open kiss before Eli pulls on her white shirt, adjust her suspenders and gives one last peck on Chrome's lips outside the room they have used.
(Chrome knows there is a zero chance of them—but she likes Eli's kisses, it's the near the taste of the first one. Eternity.
Almost.)
—
Twenty-six and Chrome's looks like she twenty-three even after discovering an eighty out of a thousand parallels.
Everything is distorting her belief in her own self. Meshing and pulling things apart—and it's almost like she is finding, repeating stuff over and over again until she is familiar and then everything is distorted again.
Horribly and impossible to pull apart each time and gives Chrome a challenged she has never really considered taking on.
The place is clean and dark even after a long time of abandonment and in the middle of it all is a(n all too familiar) black coffin.
Chrome has seen a lot of things and they all blur into myriad of colors until for the moment they are needed to stand out, brighter than anything else. For clarity.
Without preamble the lid is lifted and pushed carefully to the side. The body is carefully swathed in a clothing of white and light lavender, mist colored rose stuffed into every available space left inside the coffin.
The face is all too familiar; purple hair loose and carefully arranged like a halo, pale skin, eyes closed, hands clasped together. The strings in Chrome's heart pulls a little, the eyepatch was missing.
Chrome leans in close to the body frozen, stock-still at fifteen. Fingers weaving through the hair, her own purple strands brushes against the smooth pale cheeks: she has found and lost herself among her traveling to eighty parallels.
She wonders if she'll remain both stable and unstable.
The lips are cold against hers and she lingers a little bit longer.
(a little reminder for when she journeys long way back to home)
_
AN: Enjoy, reviews are appreciated.
