The Other Takino

Not-as-Thrilling-as-Advertised
14. Confessions in the Rain

Rated: M - English - Humor/Drama - Reviews: 77 - Updated: 11-02-10 - Published: 05-09-08 - id:4246838

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Time stopped. Torako didn't know how long they stayed that way, though she knew in some abstract part of her brain that it couldn't have been more than a few moments. She wasn't even sure how to react. The world around them had ceased to exist; there was only the pounding of her heart and the heat of Asagi's body held against hers, the warm press of soft lips. Asagi's hands on her shoulders, her own bloody hands held awkwardly in the air.

It was an eternity before Asagi disengaged. Though she desperately wanted to say something, anything, Torako could only look at her friend in shock. Was this real? Was it actually happening? She'd wanted this for so long, denied wanting this for so long, but she'd never actually expected it to happen. Now the moment of truth that had plagued her thoughts for so long was here, and she was drawing a total blank.

Almost as soon as they were apart Asagi apparently realized just what she'd done, because her face took on a mixture of embarassment and horror. "Oh my god I'm sorry," she spluttered, "I just . . . it . . . I don't know . . ."

Torako shook her head. "No, it's okay," she forced out. Lame, but better than dumbfounded silence.

Asagi stepped back and shook her own head. "No, I'm really sorry, I was just worked up from the attack and the whole situation and I don't know what came over me and I know I shouldn't have done that and-"

"I liked it," Torako interrupted her quietly.

Asagi stopped midsentence, then: ". . . You did?"

Torako looked at the ground and nodded.

There was no sound but the pattering hiss of the rain for several long moments, then Asagi laughed uneasily. "I liked it too," she said. They were quiet again then. "So what does this mean?" she finally asked. "About us?"

Torako sat down on the bench and looked at her hands. "I don't know," she said.

Asagi sat down beside her. "We'll need to work that out."

Torako wanted a cigarette very badly then, and realized that her bag was still hanging at her side after all this time. She immediately reached in and felt for the pack. With a quiet groan she found them and took them out. Crushed in the fight, then soaked in the rain. Ruined.

Asagi saw and immediately stood back up. "I think there's a machine nearby, I'll go get you some, okay?" Before Torako could say anything she'd taken off. "Wait there!" Asagi called back as she ran into the rain, apparently forgetting about the umbrella in her bag.

As Torako waited she looked out at the shifting silvery gray world out beyond the overhang, then down at her bloody hands. Some of it was from those punks, some from her own split knuckles. As the adrenaline wore off and the haze lifted from her mind they were already beginning to hurt, and she knew that soon she'd be in quite a bit of pain. She could already feel the dull ache growing and becoming a sting. She put a hand to her head and it came away covered in blood. Without even thinking she wiped it on her jeans. I must look like hell, she thought. God, my parents are gonna be so pissed. She fought the urge to cry. What was it about her that seemed to attract trouble?

"I'm back!" Asagi said breathlessly, coming in from the rain and holding out a fresh pack of cigarettes. She sat down and unwrapped the cellophane.

"Thanks," Torako said as she greedily tore open the pack and pulled out a cigarette. She leaned back and closed her eyes as the smoke filled her lungs. "My parents are gonna kill me," she said finally.

"You can spend the night at my place," Asagi volunteered. "We need to get you cleaned up anyway."

She laughed and then winced. Yep, definitely starting to hurt now. A lot. "I must look pretty horrible, huh?"

Asagi nodded. "Does it hurt?"

Torako grimaced and took another drag. "Like hell," she said.

"Do you think you can make it home?"

Torako asked. "What choice do we have?"

"Holy shitballs, what the hell happened to you?"

They both turned to the new voice. A green Toyota five-door had stopped in the street, and Okabe was staring at them through the open driver side window. Beyond him a pretty young woman was leaning over to see what was going on.

After they'd thanked Okabe and his girlfriend for the ride and gone inside, Asagi left Torako in the doorway to go run a bath. She was getting painfully to her feet when she heard a surprised yell.

"Torako, what the hell happened?"

She looked at Asagi's mother, then at her soaked clothes and her bloody hands. "I tripped and fell," she said finally. Her words came out sounding funny; she touched her face, and it felt hot and swollen.

". . . Fell into what, a rock crusher?"

"What's going on?" They both turned to see Fuuka coming down the stairs. She froze in her tracks when she saw Torako.

"She fell down, apparently," her mother explained.

"Down some stairs," Asagi added as she returned from the bathroom.

"I'm very clumsy," Torako said.

"Okay, I got the bath ready," Asagi said. "Let's get you cleaned up, okay?"

They both looked at her mother. She obviously wasn't buying their story, not that they really expected her to. "Do I even want to know?" she finally asked.

"Ow!" Torako winced and pulled away from the washcloth in Asagi's hand.

"Hold still!"

"Then stop pressing so hard, it hurts!"

"Well I'm sorry," Asagi said, "but we gotta clean this cut."

"Just spray it out," Torako said.

Asagi sighed and turned on the shower. "Fine, sissy, but don't come whining to me if it gets infected," she said as she held the nozzle over Torako's head.

"It's not gonna get infected," Torako said irritably. She didn't see why she couldn't do this herself.

Asagi held Torako's hair back and looked at the cut on her forehead, now swollen and angry-looking. "Youch, that looks painful. You're probably lucky you don't have a concussion."

Torako flexed her bruised arm before looking down at the towel wrapped around her body.

Asagi sighed. "Why'd you have to go and do that, anyway?"

"Do what?" Torako turned her eyes up at her.

"Get her to attack you," Asagi said. "I had her distracted."

"No, you had her ready to kick your ass," Torako corrected her. "What were you thinking?"

"I was trying to protect you, stupid!" Asagi smacked the top of her head lightly. "And besides, it was my stupid prank that caused all this in the first place."

Torako looked at the shower control knob. "You should've just let her come after me," she said. "You wouldn't have stood a chance anyway."

"Oh, you wanna bet?" Asagi brushed her wet hair behind her back. "I'll have you know I'm tougher than I look."

"Okay, how many fights have you been in?" Torako asked her. "Smacking Fuuka around doesn't count." When Asagi didn't answer she nodded. "Exactly."

"I just didn't want you to get hurt," Asagi said quietly.

"Well I wasn't about to just lay there and let you get beat."

"Even if I had it coming?"

"That's never stopped me before."

Asagi sighed and shut off the water.

Torako lay back on the futon and flexed her bandaged hand experimentally. It hurt like hell and it was hard to move her fingers with two of them taped together, but she could still use it. She put a hand to her head and felt the gauze pad taped over the cut on her forehead. She was lucky she didn't need stitches for that one. She wondered if it might leave a scar, but it was pretty close to the hairline anyway. Nobody would see it unless she decided to drastically change her hairstyle.

"I have to admit that was pretty amazing, today," Asagi said from where she lay in her bed. "I mean I'd heard about how you were always beating people up in middle school, but seeing it is something else."

Torako shook her head. "Most of those stories are exaggerated. Besides, I've never had to fight three people at once before."

"I was really scared, though." Asagi's voice turned serious, and her face appeared over the edge of the bed. "When she started hitting you . . ."

Torako shrugged and tried to look unconcerned. "Well, it wouldn't be the first time anyone's hit me."

Asagi lay back down. After a long and slightly uncomfortable silence, Asagi finally brought up what they'd both been wanting to discuss but had been too nervous to mention. "Do you . . . remember what we talked about earlier? At the food court?"

Torako took a moment to answer. "About liking someone?"

Asagi nodded at the ceiling. "Yeah." It took her a while to continue. "I . . . was talking about you," she finally said.

"I kind of gathered that," Torako said.

"You knew?"

Torako shook her head. "Not at first, but when you kissed me . . ."

Asagi laughed. "Right." A deep breath. "Do you feel the same way?"

Torako nodded, though she couldn't see it. "I think so," she said quietly.

The bed creaked, and Asagi got down next to her. "So what do we do now?"

Torako sat up. "I don't know," she said. She didn't have a lot of experience at this sort of thing. "Just go with it and hope it works, I guess."

Asagi nodded. They were quiet, listening to the rain pattering on the window. "I suppose we don't want to take things too fast and risk ruining it, huh?"

Torako hugged her knees to her chest and shook her head.

"If I kissed you again," Asagi asked, "would it be moving too fast?"

Torako was quiet for a long minute. "I don't think so," she finally said.

Asagi moved in and took her head in her hands. She kissed her gently at first, then pressed in harder as her passions flamed. She could feel Torako's pulse racing under her skin and felt her hands finally come to rest on her shoulders. Asagi pressed closer, and Torako let herself be pushed back onto the futon. As she closed her eyes and felt Asagi's weight on top of her, Torako found herself hoping this moment would never end.

Asagi rolled onto her side and looked over the edge of her bed at where Torako was sleeping on her futon. It was funny, she thought, how small and vulnerable she looked with her bruises and her bandaged hand and forehead. And of course the fact that she was wearing a set of Asagi's typically girly pajamas couldn't help but add to the effect. Lightning flashed, and in the split second invasion of light into the darkness she thought she saw Torako flinch in her sleep. Was it real, or just the movement of shadows?

So the secret's finally out, she thought. Not that she'd been doing a very good job of keeping her feelings a secret up till now anyway. In a way she was surprised that Torako hadn't caught on long ago, but then she didn't strike her as the most savvy person when it came to romance. She felt relief that she'd been able to tell Torako how she felt, and happiness that those feelings were reciprocated, but she couldn't help but feel uncertainty as well. As she watched her friend (girlfriend now? Lover? Tonsil-hockey partner?) sleep and listened to the rain outside, she thought Do I really love you? She couldn't shake the feeling that maybe she only wanted Torako around her because she knew she'd do whatever she asked her to, and that thought scared her. Could I really be that bad a person?

No. No, that couldn't be it. As incongruent as their personalities were there was something about Torako that Asagi couldn't resist. She didn't know if it was the way she could always be depended on to get something done or give an honest answer, or her dry as dust sense of humor, or just the way she gave Asagi's personality something to bounce off of, but there was definitely something there that she found attractive. As painfully cliche as it sounded, she could only chalk it up to the old saying that opposites attract.

Only wanting her as a doormat couldn't explain Asagi's attempt to draw Ohzawa's wrath, either. While it was true that she'd spoken without thinking and hadn't really considered the consequences, she liked to think that she still would have done it if she had. Somehow she found the thought of seeing Torako beaten like that more frightening than taking the beating herself.

She moved onto her back. So this is love, huh? She rolled the idea around in her mind a few times. I love her. I love Torako. I love you, Torako. I, Asagi Ayase, love Torako Takino. It felt weird to actually put it into words, and the more she used it the more bizarre the word "love" sounded. She supposed she'd get used to it after a while; she was fairly new to this, after all.

Just for kicks, she tried putting words to a new idea: I want to have sex with Torako. She suddenly felt dirty.