Disclaimer: I don't own Mai HiME.
Chapter 21: Aftertaste
She frowned. It wasn't particularly deep, but still prominent. People steered clear from her, shifting eyes never wishing confrontation.
She didn't want to remember. Yesterday didn't happen and neither had the past two years—no, the past six. She was still the immature middleschooler who never smiled.
Obscenities filled her tongue, but she swallowed them down, the bad taste lingering. She needed a drink.
Her eyes flicked up to find the glowing Rorschach sign, and she quickly walked in, not bothering to think of how she ended up here. Just as she sat down at the counter, the bartender greeted her loosely.
"Long time no see, Kuga-chan."
Her eye twitched.
"Shut the hell up and give me a water."
Laughter shone briefly in black eyes before being snuffed out by a piercing glare.
"Kuga-ch–"
A growl.
"–saaan...how have you been?"
A slightly shaking hand set down a glass in front of her. Her fingertips brushed along its smooth side not yet slick from condensation.
She wasn't going to answer that question.
She didn't want the water anymore.
"Thanks."
She muttered the word, slipping out of the stool and out the door.
-.-
Fuck.
She sat in the middle of a bed in some hotel room in some city. She'd forgotten where she was. It didn't matter.
She buried her head in her hands, wanting only to rub out all the emotion as if were just dirt sullying her face. But her palms were wet. Her breaths were haggard. And she wished she hadn't had a heart.
Fuck. Fuck.
She hadn't learned anything. Love was useless, so utterly and completely useless.
FuckfuckfuckFUCK.
She tore out of her position, standing rigid on the bed, fists clenched and shaking.
This wasn't happening.
It was.
That didn't happen.
It did.
With a half-suppressed growl, she leapt off the bed, landing with a resounding THUMP that shook her to her bones. An intense energy constricted her muscles; it begged to be released. But she couldn't move.
Why?
-.-
She couldn't remember how the relationship had started. It just sort of happened.
There had been no words to paint the superfluous picture of her feelings. Yet, she had used her lips to speak, though pressed directly to skin, acting on something purely instinctual and carnal.
She remembered hearing a breathless confession—something that had sent her heart to her throat.
She hadn't remembered responding.
But she had woken up to a smile that following morning, and that seemed to be all that mattered.
-.-
A/N: I am deeply sorry for the late update, but I have never edited a chapter so much in my life. Nothing would come out right. Grr. Anyway, if all things go as planned, this should be done in four more chapters. Finally.
And much thanks to Naolin for beta-ing. This chapter needed it. Desperately.