A/N:
Hello, Author here. Long time, no type. Rating changed to reflect some updates to this story.
Mai-Hime belongs to Sunrise.
1. Denial
Natsuki knew many things were her fault.
But she refused, at first. She refused to admit her fault in things that went beyond her reasoning. Feelings were not concrete. They shifted and merged and split into millions of strange fragments that defied definition. Was it possible that what she felt wasn't love, or something that masqueraded as love? Was it actually love?
Did she lose her love?
Or was it something else, fuzzy and out of focus?
Her head hurt.
Maybe she should lay off the drinking.
There wasn't enough time to think it through, though. And it was impolite, after all—Mai had taken so much time trying to arrange an outing for her new friends plus Natsuki. So she sat, drinking her fifth vodka and club soda in the crowded booth, silently taking in the uproarious laughter beside her. She took a moment to study Mai's new friends. They were good. Easy smiles, free laughs. So much better than her silence.
Her eyes traveled over to the dance floor, scanning the crowded depths before she settled on someone in particular. This someone was dancing by herself, a young woman fresh with confidence and the knowledge that her body could drive anyone wild with desire. Mai caught her gaze and bit her lip in a contemplative motion. By this time her friends had exited the booth in favor of the dance floor, which left the two of them nursing their drinks.
"She looks like a good dancer," Mai half-yelled over the pounding music.
Natsuki offered a curt nod, her eyes never leaving the dancing woman. The dancer locked eyes with her for a split second, but the gaze held no disgust or embarrassment. Natsuki raised an eyebrow but did not break her gaze.
Mai noted the exchange with a mute sense of surprise.
Of course, two years had passed. She bet anything and everything could have happened to Natsuki when she went abroad. Stranger things tended to happen, she mused. She always held the idea that Natsuki had no qualms with dealing with the fairer sex. That did not trouble her. The past troubled her.
But, Mai reasoned, two years had passed.
"Hey, I'm going to go dance!" Mai slapped Natsuki on the shoulder. "Come on!"
"What..." Natsuki tore her gaze from the dancing woman and shot Mai an unappreciative glare. "You can dance just fine with yourself."
"Come on!" Mai snaked her hand around Natsuki's arm in an attempt to hoist her up. "I missed you!"
Natsuki allowed a smile to creep to her lips as she allowed herself to be pulled up.
They made their way to the dance floor, feeling the beat take them over. It was impossibly loud as the beat reverberated in their hearts and took hold of them. Mai laughed at the delirium of it and threw her hands up, letting her stress free as her friends spotted her and made their way towards her to join in on some serious dancing.
Natsuki offered a laugh as her friend proceeded to make a happy fool of herself to some ridiculously hardcore music, but the laugh faded as she felt someone bump into her. She turned, suddenly eye-to-eye with the woman she had been eying earlier.
"Hey," the dancer said, her voice drifting to her ears despite the aural bedlam unleashed around them.
"H-Hey," Natsuki offered.
Smooth, she thought.
"I noticed you looking at me, earlier," the dancer continued, seemingly ignoring the stutter. She offered a coy smile. "Like what you see?"
Natsuki would have been a fool to answer either way. But she chanced a nod and was somewhat pleased to see the girl lighten up. The woman's lips curled into more of a seductive turn as she draped her arms on Natsuki's shoulders, drawing them closer.
"Dance with me?"
Natsuki knew the tone. She knew the words.
She nodded again.
It wasn't much of a stretch, to dance from the middle of the dance floor to mysteriously backing up towards the edge. They stayed close, breaths puffing out in the suffocating atmosphere, but the focus was only on each other.
Natsuki wasn't a stranger to this level of contact. They were close, too close.
Not close enough.
She wondered if it was the alcohol in her system that caused the sudden wave of nausea to occur when the dancer's lips locked onto her own. No, it couldn't be the case. She returned the kiss with fervor, their lips mashing together in some strange dance of dominance. The dancer moaned in response, first in disappointment when Natsuki unlatched from her, then again in pleasure when she pressed her lips on the skin of her neck, tracing a line with her tongue in the process.
She wasn't sure just how long they stood, entwined in each other's arms. The dancer mutters something about a bathroom and they detach, only to hurriedly make their way to an empty stall.
There is a burning need deep within Natsuki as she slammed the dancer's back onto one of the walls, nearly lifting her up. They resumed their fevered ministrations, even as the woman pulled up Natsuki's shirt and raked her fingernails against the bare skin underneath.
Something strange whined in the back of her mind, but Natsuki ignored it. Panting, she slid her fingers up the length of the dancer's thigh, slipping past the miniskirt and fumbling towards the strings of her thong. She paused, only for a moment. The dancer threw her leg around Natsuki, giving her the only sign she needed.
There was nothing gentle about it. The heavy bass rocked the stalls, covering their activities. She kept a frenzied pace with no complaints, and remained standing even as the woman in her arms shuddered and cried out in release. Natsuki rested her head on the wall, her pants continuing even as the woman slid from her arms and began the task of readjusting herself. She took one more shuddering breath before sniffing once, then unlocking the stall.
Water and soap provided only a temporary reprieve. Natsuki felt the strange whining again in the back of her mind. Regret began to flood her system, faster than she could handle. She grasped the sides of the sink. She didn't even know that woman's name. The dancer in question gave her a coy smirk through the mirror and patted her arm as if thanking her before slinking away.
Back to the dance, Natsuki supposed.
She stared at herself in the mirror.
The doors to the bathroom rocked back once more, revealing a frazzled-looking Mai. She spotted Natsuki staring at the mirror and paused for a brief second, taking in her friend's rumpled t-shirt and what looked like lipstick stains on her lips and neck.
"… Fun night?" Mai asked, sidling up to the sink beside Natsuki's.
Natsuki failed to acknowledge her.
Mai quietly began to wash her hands, taking out a handkerchief from the pocket of her skirt. She wet it thoroughly before slapping it on Natsuki's bare arm.
"Hey!"
"Hey yourself." Mai flicked a spot close to one of the lipstick stains. "Might want to get that cleaned up."
Natsuki looked at the mirror, now registering the stains. With a brief groan she set to work, wiping down the lipstick. Mai studied her with a bemused frown on her face.
"Honestly, Natsuki-chan. What is going on?"
Natsuki rolled her eyes and glared at her friend. It was such an open-ended question.
"I don't even know if I can begin to answer," Natsuki growled, scrubbing at her hands once more.
"Well if you actually talked about it—"
Before she could ask Mai to elaborate, the doors to the bathroom opened once more.
"Oh."
It sounded incredibly dumb in retrospect, to simply look up and say "oh." Natsuki dimly registered that she was the one who uttered it.
A shock of red hair bobbed into view.
Lime-green eyes blinked once, twice.
Should have seen this coming.
A/N:
Thank you for reading. The next update will not take years, I promise.
