milk, rated pg-13. kozue-centric (garbage challenge). series-set. 411 words.
(i am lost so i am cruel but i'd be love and sweetness if i had you)
The milk has gone sour and it makes her feel nauseous to have to smell it. It also makes no sense – how can the milk have gone sour? Miki is in charge of this sort of thing, after all – he's the one who drinks the milk. Sweetens it and drinks it and pretends he's back in the garden of eternal summer with the pretty music that never really existed in the first place.
So how the hell can the milk have gone sour?
It's late, and she hasn't turned on any lights since re-entering the house. She knows she doesn't need to, after all. Miki will be lying awake in his bed upstairs next to her empty one, woken as always by the distant sound of her key turning in the lock. It would sound silly to anyone who doesn't understand the bond between twins, but Kozue's perfectly aware that her comings and goings would always awaken her brother even if she was as silent as the timid little mouse she has never been.
No, the only light now is that from the refrigerator as she stands in the kitchen, uniform still dishevelled from her last "date." The carton she holds in her hand holds only sour milk and it's making her dizzy, making her want to run up those stairs and shake it under Miki's nose. Surely he'll understand then…understand as he smells the congealing milk in the carton, sees the fingerprints of that boy all over her skin, hears the musical notes that are all off-key and tuneless at last…
Surely then he'll then understand that the garden is gone and that Kozue only stays out every night because she feels too dirty to crawl into his bed with him when he is so clean.
Oh, yes, the milk has gone sour, but then it's not really surprising that Miki hasn't noticed it at all.
Kozue throws it out. Miki never will, after all. He'd just drink it anyway and smile even as it rotted away inside of him like so much cancer. She can't bear the thought of it, for it makes her as angry as it makes her despair.
Kozue resents her brother's inability to accept harsh reality, sometimes because it is so alien to her own nature that flips the shining coin to find the tarnish underneath. Sometimes, however, she resents it simply because she knows perfectly well that she can never be that way herself.