The boys, the girls, they all like Carmen
She gives them butterflies, bats her cartoon eyes
She laughs like God, her mind's like a diamond
Buy her tonight, she's still shining
Like lightning, whoa, like lightning
Carmen, Carmen, staying up til morning
Only seventeen, but she walks the streets so mean
It's alarming truly how disarming you can be
Eating soft ice cream, Coney Island queen
She says you don't want to be like me
Looking for fun, getting high for free
I'm dying, I'm dying
She says you don't want to get this way
Street walking at night, and a star by day
It's tiring, tiring
...
Put your red dress on, put your lipstick on
Lies come out of her mouth like wasp come out of their nests when provoked, but Yuki does not deceive herself. She keeps her own mind a clean one where any type of fabrication is outlawed. Forbidden. After all, her mind is the only thing that truly and solely belongs to herself and herself alone.
In this, Yuki cannot lie to herself: she is in a constant state of pre-combustion.
She's animated—she's sunny disposition in human form when she feels like it. She can stand like a flower, she can laugh like God. Can be red for you, can be blue for you, can be, can be, can be.
Grinning, she'll be triggered. Triggers come often. She wears her smiles like armor, lips red as the tie the rich Mr. Abe forever wears when he visits her bar and makes the girls giggle, his long-fingered hands placed on their thighs. No one knows how bad she can get at night, curled up in bed, the covers wrapped over her head, smothering. How everything creeps up on her eventually.
Except Shiina. He knows, he experiences.
The water trailing down the bedroom windows looks black, like tar, but the thunder comforts Yuki. She feels him slip into bed beside her, one of his feet rubbing against her leg as he does. Cigarettes and aftershave, sometimes spearmint gum or coffee, these are the scents of Shiina. His breath comes hot across her face, on her nose, her mouth, through the bed sheet. Her eyes water. She makes a noise. Rakes her fingernails, lightly enough, across his forearm.
"Ow," is all he can say. He peels the sheet away from her face and she feels naked and vulnerable to him.
"My brother called today," she says, voice coming without emotion. Quiet.
"And?"
"His wife's pregnant. They're having a baby."
Shiina's thumb rubs under her left eye and she wonders if she has bags, if they're purple like bruises. "That's not a good thing?"
"I mean, it's a whatever type of situation," Yuki says. "Am I going to be a part of this kid's life? Probably not. Is there a point in wishful thinking? Shii, I won't be there at the hospital when the baby's born. The moment would be ruined by my dad giving me another disappointed, red-faced lecture and my mom looking at the wall, looking at the floor, looking at everything, but me."
"Yuki—"
"No." She makes a shield of the bed sheets again. It's her natural environment, she thinks, she becomes one with the darkness, the sense of being hidden. Only fitting for a degenerate.
Shiina's hand cups her shoulder and then smooths it onto her back, rubbing, massaging. He pulls her closer to him, his chest pressed against her nose, mouth open she can taste the cigarette scent on her tongue.
"What are you doing?" Her voice comes out muffled under the covers.
"Comforting you."
"You know that's not how I like to be comforted."
Yuki trades her fabric cave for a spot on Shiina's hips, straddling, enclosing him with her exposed lightly tanned thighs. She bends down when his fingers press into her own hips, when his warm hands run across her breasts. His lips taste surprisingly like salt and she becomes greedy, wanting to eat the taste like a meal.
She lifts her head up, straying soft hair over his face, and moves her mouth along his jaw. Gasps as a finger slides between her legs.
She laughs against his throat.