In-Between Times
The seat cushion against his back felt like paper dipped in hot black tea, steamy through the back of his jacket, and stuck.
He wondered how long that paper had been dipped in tea, withering from heat in a Karakura winter.
He had black and red headphones that covered his ears, keeping the cool in, under the gray knit of a beanie. Perhaps if he sweated enough on the outside, his heart would breathe in beats of frosty air again.
The girl in front of him, just a table away, made his eyes stick like pasty hands to hospital glass. His pupils like finger tips glossed, unable to look elsewhere, into the curves of Inoue's eyes, the puff of her lower lip.
She didn't seem to be able to look at him at all.
Her chipped red nails shivered apart, unprotected by the warmth of her jacket. Her neck was checkered red, the bite of winter air that leaked inside the store. He wanted someone to offer her their jacket, and their red and black head phones under a knit beanie.
He wanted her to be warm.
Those desires were halted in their fetal stage by the scratching of a chair against the wood floor under his table. He felt sparks on his tongue, and winter hands pull him away from the hospital glass.
The space, from when she walked by, had been planted with strawberry seeds, blooming in student store air only after she sat down. The black of her hair and the light pink of her lips were strawberries covered in snow from home.
"Oi, Ichigo, it's been a while, eh?" she said.
"Not long enough, Rukia. You still smell bad."
"Have I ever told you you'd look better with a mustache?" she asked.
The dip in his upper lip was drenched. Hers looked a little chapped.
Chappy.
"I shaved it just for today."
Her scarf was new, checked with red and white squares, fraying on the ends in tied up string. It covered her chin well. His scarf wasn't long enough to cover the chin.
"Oi, why is that I have to ask you to meet me, huh?! We're supposed to be friends, stupid Ichigo," she said.
"I didn't think you wanted to talk,"
"Well that's never stopped you before," she said.
He felt the tension in the curve of her smirk; she was trying to smile the problem away.
"Rukia, I think we need to talk-"
"Here, have some candy!" she said. He felt rough plastic in his mouth click open, and a little Chappy candy figure hit his throat.
The powder tasted green, like the ones she used to eat out of a rather large bowl while he read for his classes.
He coughed.
"Eh, what the hell Rukia? I'm trying to have a conversation here!"
"I'm the one who texted you, remember? I don't want to have a conversation," she said.
"That makes no sense."
"I don't have to make sense," she said. She leaned back in her chair, with her polished black boots on the table.
Her knees were knobby, sticking out like wooden shapes in a children's geometric game through her brown tights. He thought about her falling over, and how funny that would be.
"Do you remember when we met for the first time, Ichigo?" she asked. She was still tilted back in her chair, the ice of her breath covered by the wraps of her scarf. When he couldn't see her mouth move, he felt her voice on the cusp of his ear.
Don't stop talking.
He couldn't answer her.
"Do you remember the icebox?" she asked.
Her seat moved against the wood under the table. The sound scratched his eyes, blurring the polished black of their table. Swirls of coffee sweat stains from the week blended together.
The skin he felt when she touched his forehead with hers wasn't like the knobs in her knees at all; he remembered feeling the same when he turned on the cold shower in the morning. His eyes jolted open, and he felt frigid air freeze through the layers of jackets he had on. Her breath made his neck sweat, the crystals he recalled turned into waves of summer air.
"I remember that icebox, Ichigo. That's all I know how to say," she whispered.
He felt smooth polish dig into his cheeks; the little black marks left from her fingertips.
"It doesn't make you feel tired, all of that thinking you do, Ichigo?" she asked.
"Not tired enough, I guess."
He felt her breath pass over his face when she let go of him. Sighs were breaks of time he couldn't read. They were in between twisting the faucet and getting into the shower.