...The cigarettes are always there. SPINEL ones, in the blue and grey cellophane packaging, from the vending machine upstairs.
"Don't you start…" he mutters, burying his face into the pillow.
Akane ignores him, and reaches across him, fumbling in the streaks of cold blue holo light for his lighter and ashtray. She doesn't think until she takes a drag— oh, how it burns in her throat; makes her gag.
"It's stupid, isn't it," she begins, tapping ash into the tray. It's difficult to speak about this; always has been, and so they avoid the topic. "I started because… I thought it would help me think like him."
She turns back to him; a humourless smile quirks up the shadow of his lips. "Me too. Not that it ever worked, but..."
Nobuchika trails off and Akane takes another drag; swallows down a cough, the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.
"...I miss him." she says, because this is the closest they'll ever get to mentioning the damn man. "And I miss them. I miss them, and I'm angry and—"
Akane stops herself; quashes the cigarette into the tray. Nobuchika wordlessly moves it back to the table for her. Cigarettes aren't good for her Hue. Shion says as much, not that she's ever followed her own advice.
She looks at him again; worries at her lip. "I'm sorry."
He exhales. "Not your fault."
"Not yours either," she answers, a little too quickly.
Nobuchika doesn't say anything to that, so she just settles back into his touch; his smell. Light incense and a faint, oaky, muskiness. Seems he's still allowed such creature comforts.
Akane shifts just a little; looks up at him. His beautiful eyes — green, not deep blue like his — are downcast, as usual. She reaches out; runs her fingers through the thick dark strands of hair. She wonders what he'd look like if he grew it out.
Then she sighs and relaxes; feels Nobuchika wrap his arm — she doesn't flinch at the cold metal anymore — around her. His fingers trace circles in her bare skin, down to her bony hips, and just for a moment Akane wonders if she could get used to this.
Wonders if this plastic beautiful world ever makes exceptions.
And sometimes, she knows:
Sibyl does make exceptions.