Calibration
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The thought occurs to her, over the delicate curls of steam rising from her mug: it is, Mireille feels, a little like how someone would be aware of a thorn on a flower stalk.
(Or a live bullet in a gun barrel.)
To be exact: her persistent sensitivity to having Kirika as a flatmate is...jarring.
The point is that Mireille's been alone, for as long as she cares to remember, and having another person sharing her home takes getting used to. To say the least.
That said, it's not unpleasant. Not exactly. It's just - unsettling. Up till now Mireille's passed most of her grown-up existence on her own, since Uncle Claude seldom visits, and her line of work hardly encourages close acquaintances. And really, Kirika isn't much trouble, all said and done. She's quiet; neat; does her share of the housework with tractable willingness; keeps a reasonable distance when Mireille works. Kirika is just - the addition of a new element into the routines of her life. An extraneous note that needs to be fitted into Mireille's circadian rhythm (and will be, she mentally insists, and will be. Eventually.)
It's the way Kirika's presence asserts itself that still disconcerts Mireille even after a few weeks, though it puzzles her why this should be so. Kirika is quiet, a shadow of somatic existence that should have blended into any background. And yet. Mireille finds, beyond obvious things like the extra bed and Kirika herself, a myriad of signs that scream /someone else is here/, and they grate on her nerves like shattered glass if she lets them. Small, small signs (they should, she knows, have been unremarkable. And yet.) A few strands of dark hair caught in the shower drain. The extra set of utensils at mealtimes. The strange, smaller-sized clothes that appear in the laundry pile, especially the blue tops and pale, slightly threadbare underwear - soon, she thinks, she will have to bring Kirika shopping. For both their sakes.
Their arrangement stubbornly retains an edge of the surreal. On bad days Mireille fights the urge to draw her gun, to feel the talismanic weight of steel in her palm. She reminds herself that Kirika is here with her permission; that she is - for the present - safe.
(Safe from what, really? Instinct stops her from probing that conviction, from looking beyond the obvious if remote possibility of physical harm. That, she is prepared for.)
And now jasmine-scented green tea wafts its delicate fragrance into Mireille's nostrils, as her fingers move across her laptop's keyboard. But this too is her own doing, a rare concession to Kirika's tastes. Mireille recalls browsing the green-tea section of her favourite shop one weekend, and feels the faintest bit irked - how silly, she tells herself again; it was your decision. She flatters herself on her kindness, but the truth is that she was aware of something - an indefinable something that had noted Kirika's shadow of a grimace on raising the teacup to her lips. Something that had looked into dark, sad eyes and realised, /well/, with a queer and muted sympathy.
(She still can't decide what to make of it.)
Mireille sips the clear, pale-green liquid, rolling it over her tongue with pleasure. It's the flavour, she thinks: lighter and sharper than the black teas she normally buys. It feels like it could keep her mind clear. So she drinks, observing the small, dark girl move around her domicile with an assassin's subdued grace, and says as little to her as possible. Time; they both need time, and she does not know how much of it they will get. How much of it she wants.
But one morning she watches the light flicker in Kirika's eyes when she gives her a tiny smile of thanks for making breakfast. And within her there surfaces the idea of /perhaps/. Of possibility.
Mireille puts her cup down, idly considering a permanent switch to green tea.