A/N: This chapter is getting broken up into two segments, because the party kind of ate the chapter at about 6k words, so that get's it's own place to be….

Stress Me Out
Week 1: Saturday
Part 1
Chapter 7
(Mai, Natsuki, and Nao's household.)

It was too early to be dealing with Nao and her antics, but deal with them Natsuki was...and her ire was beginning to simmer.

Those emerald eyes, like a hawk, sent Nao a murderous gleam. "Flick those ashes in my bath one more time…"

"Your bath?" The redhead taunted, lingering her hand over the bathtub again. "That a threat?"

Natsuki was tired, clearly agitated, and at her wits end. All of the threats in the world wouldn't keep Nao at bay. She wasn't intimidated by angry looks, and promises of revenge. Sighing, Natsuki just shook her head. At this rate, it was going to be a long day. "Shut up, take your piss, and then get your ass in here…"

Two sets of verdant eyes, one much brighter than the other faced down, but it was the set of emerald that managed to blink first. Nao grinned, flicking her ashes into the water again without missing a beat.

"You're such a bitch." Natsuki immediately splashed them out, and all over Nao. "Damn you."

"Well fuck you too…" Nao sneered as she drew deeply from her cigarette before flushing it down the toilet. "I don't get what's wrong with you…always got a bug up your ass about something…we should probably fix that before you give somebody rabies."

"You're the one acting like a jackass…" Natsuki growled when a very naked Nao settled herself over Natsuki's reclining form. "I don't get it, why do you have to provoke me all the time…can't you be, I don't know…normal, for once?"

Nao thought about this, her hand already copping a good, hard feel of Natsuki's toned ass. The dark haired woman was beautiful, no question, sexy without trying to be. "Hey, look at it this way, nothing about this is normal." She said, realizing for not the first time that she loved the feel of Natsuki's smooth skin against her own. "Don't think too much, it's not worth it."

"Isn't it though?" Natsuki asked, her words vapor to the air, soundless to Nao's as they fell into a heated kiss.

"Don't know," Nao said as she loomed over Natsuki once more. "Don't care, either."

It wasn't like Tate, he was harder around the edges, rougher in the way he spoke and acted…leaving marks on her ass that tingled into the next day. Natsuki was different, more orality fixated…a biter, a kisser, and her nails were damn near perfect…blunt enough to dig in without drawing blood. Their embrace was tighter, the lines between pleasure and pain blurry, but not unwelcome.

In this synergy, there was nothing outside of the act, no emotion clear enough to break the euphoria… That alone, that was a dangerous thing; where strings became attaches, and Nao had no intention of being someone's little puppet.

Maybe it was the way Natsuki moved beneath her, barely breathed curses, sequestered moans, swallowed down and silenced. Maybe that's what felt so damn good about this whole screwed up mess. A bath, the hallway, the bed, three different places, all of them out of place. Even so, it was just sex, and that's all it would ever have to be.

"Nao…"

"You think too much." Nao explained lazily, another cigarette in her mouth as they rested on Natsuki's bed.

"What are we even doing?" Natsuki asked, but her eyes remained on the ceiling, that was for the best.

"Making each other cream." Nao said without any inflection at all. "You got a problem with it suddenly?"

It was a filthy habit really, so why she took a hit off of Nao's recently lit tobacco product was something entirely lost to her common sense. Even so, the smoke came out of her mouth in the same cloud that she expected it might. "I'm not like Tate."

"You sure as hell aren't." Nao said with a smirk. "He can't keep up three rounds...one of these days, you're upping the antae to a fourth. I'm going to make you raw."

Natsuki sat up, her bare breasts on display as she took another long drag. It tasted like shit, burned her throat and lungs, and she couldn't fathom why a person would even want to smoke at all. Pulling up a knee, resting on it, she just smoked quietly, looking at the sheets, at Nao, at the proximity between them. "That's not what I meant."

Nao, already perching a fresh one to her mouth and lighting it, gave Natsuki a hard look. "Fuck me…fine, you wanna play hard ball?"

Emerald eyes, full of fire, met Nao head on. "Yeah, I do."

Nao sat up then, turning to Natsuki. "Batter up then, what the fuck do you want from me?" - A hard and fast pitch.

"A god damn answer…I could ask you the same thing." – Strike.

"The hell makes you think I have to give you one?" – Another fast one.

"You're in my bed, for one." Natsuki said pointedly. "We can't keep going on like this, for two. Three, I don't want to be jerked around like I'm a plaything. Need any more reasons?" – Another strike.

"No…" A long draw from a cigarette. "You're right. You're the one that keeps bringing it up, you figure it out." – A curveball.

"It's a two way street! Besides, you're the one who keeps starting it first!" – Another strike…

She was out.

Another deep intake of breath, and the ashes fall onto the white sheets like black snow, the butt-end nearly gone as Nao handed Natsuki the ash tray. "Not to get all preachy or anything, but, you do realize the kind of shit coming out of your mouth, right? Listen, I know I'm demented, but you're a pretty fucked up person too."

"Jesus...thanks Nao, makes me feel real good to hear you say that."

"Don't get all pissy about it." Nao said, this time a bit more gently. "Not going to lie to your face about it. Hell, no reason to lie about it at all. We both know why you are the way you are...but I'm not some kind of shrink that can slap you back together in one cohesive piece."

Now it was Natsuki's turn to push back, and she did with a sharp bite in her words. "When did I ever say I wanted that?"

"You didn't." Nao shot back, the air between them tense. "I'm saying it now so you get it. I can't help you. I can't fix your shit, and frankly...I don't want to. I like you the way you are, and, if you need some reassurance know this. I don't just think of you as a cheep piece of ass, it's just, I get what I want out of this...I don't need anything more. "

"Yeah," Natsuki sighed with a shake of her head, "maybe your right."

"Know I'm right." Nao said with a laugh, flipping her hair out of her eyes. "I don't have time for this sentimental bullshit, I have to haul my happy ass into work. Chill out to some music or something...we'll get smashed tonight, forget this conversation ever happened."

"Yeah..." Natsuki agreed weakly. "Yeah, sounds good."

…
(A little hole in the wall diner)

"You know, Akane, you really shouldn't be lifting that…"

The woman in question took a breath, her left hand reaching around to rest on her lower back. Mai was probably right, but she had her pride as a waitress, and as an able-bodied woman. "It's just a tray of soup, it's not that heavy." Even while very pregnant and showing, she could still manage it one handed. "I've been working here just as long as you, if I didn't have the stamina to keep up, my reputation would be ruined."

"I don't care if it's as light as a feather. It's probably not very easy with another along for the ride." Mai chided, taking the try from her. "Go be a greeter or something, but leave the heavy lifting for us."

"That just makes the day go by slow." Akane protested, sending a puff of hot air upwards towards her bangs. "I need to be doing something."

"Then go sit by the cash register and count the drawer or something..."

"Are you always such a nag?"

"When you look like you're on the verge of popping like a balloon? Yeah, I'll bitch and moan at you all day if it gets you to be careful." Mai supposed she could be a bit pushy. This was one situation that she wasn't going to back down on. "You're a few weeks away, you should be taking it easy."

"You have yourself a bet. I can keep pace with you, Mai Tokiha. Lord knows it, but if it's proof you need, proof you'll get." Akane grabbed another table's tray, winked, and headed out the kitchen door with a renewed sense of vigor.

"Akane!" Mai rolled her eyes, about to chase after the woman before remembering she was still waiting on a parfait to be finished.

"I don't think she's going to listen to reason." Kazuya said with a laugh, elbow deep in dirty dishes. Most of them were heavy pans, he had his work cut out for him. "I think she should start taking her leave now, but what do I know?"

"Clearly about as much as me." Mai took the parfait that was put up on the order line. "She wants a competition, I'll give her a competition."

Kazuya laughed to himself, their little game was nothing new. "Never a dull moment."

It was mostly teenagers on Saturday, they always showed up, a reminder of the simplicities of youth. It was stereotypical, and maybe a little silly, but there was something amusing in watching the people come and go. It was a long standing tradition to sit in the two corner seats at the far end of the diner for lunch. Pointing out all of the regulars, and chatting about days gone by.

"They've been coming here for weeks…" Akane said, nodding towards two young teens. "They can't be older than fifteen. They're always alone."

Mai noticed that they came sometimes. "Just the two of them, never as a big group."

"Never." Akane said then, her lips twitching upwards good-naturedly.

Mai grinned at that. "Two hamburgers, one with cheese, one without. One order of fries, one shake, two straws. Pretty telling, I'd say. Do you think they're an item?"

"I don't know…whenever I ring them up, it seems like they share the bill." Akane reported despondently.

"Okay, and that changes the game, how, exactly?"

"Well, Mai, it's not very romantic."

"You're just old fashioned." Mai laughed then. "You and Kazuya…"

"Hey, it's good to know that you don't have to worry about a thing. There's something amazing about a man insisting to pay for everything, maybe because it's rare." Akane said, coming to her husband's defense. "I offered to pay for Kazuya a few times in the past, but I finally just accepted that he wanted to look after me. It was incredibly sweet, really. Who wouldn't fall for a man like him?"

"And see, I think that's the thing that bothers me."

"But why?"

"That particular way of thinking, Akane, is why you two work so well…why it would never work for a person like me." Mai couldn't help it as she let her spoon toy with the vanilla and strawberry ice cream in her bowl. "You wanted to be taken care of, and he wanted to take care of you. It was a nearly perfect match to begin with. Of course you two would end up together. It wasn't even a question in my mind."

"Doesn't everybody want to be taken care of sometimes?" Akane asked, but she noticed that Mai's eyes had wandered to a far different table. "I look after Kazuya in my own ways too. Especially after we got married, and I was able to keep him from eating chip bags for dinner. I keep his house, warm his bed...I'll raise our children as a full time mother, and I'll make sure he has a warm home to come home to. Is that a bad thing to think that way?"

"Hmm, well from one woman to another, I can say with the wrong guy, that's a dangerous way to think...but, Kazuya is the right kind of guy...so...oh, I don't know, it's complicated." The carrot topped woman replied with an uncertain little shrug. "On the one hand, it's nice sometimes. Knowing that somebody cares enough to want to take me out to dinner, buy me flowers...things like that…"

"I'm sensing a 'but' somewhere…" Akane murmured as she sipped on some whole milk before regarding her roast beef sandwich.

"On the other hand, I think it's conceited to expect to be the only provider of those things." Mai took a bite of her ice-cream, gathering her thoughts, twirling the metal around in circles once more. "If the person I'm with doesn't let me do things for them, I feel like I'm being looked after…I don't want to be some kept woman. I'm all about equal opportunity relationships, and I need that independence."

"What do you see then, when you look at kids like them?" Akane asked, but she was sure that the answer was something fragile.

"See," Mai said a little bit bitterly. "You think I'm going to say Reito, but you'd be dead wrong."

"Well you certainly didn't date Tate for very long." Akane shot back, but her voice was soft. "What was it, one date, or two?"

"Four, actually…I just don't talk about the last two." Mai remembered them well. "It's kind of funny really. We were sixteen, and neither one of us really knew anything about dating back then. Tate's a good guy, but we went together like oil and water…and you're right. I don't see him in that scene over there."

Akane wordlessly rested her chin in her palm, her other hand resting over her belly under the table. Her child was fussing around, it always seemed to do that around this time in the afternoon. She had no idea if it was a boy or a girl, they didn't want to know. It didn't matter either way. She smiled at the thought of that. "The first time Kazuya leaned in to kiss me, I was so nervous I actually filched…we butted foreheads instead, not the best first kiss in the world."

"But typical…"

"True, true...still embarrassing though."

"It's alright, my first kiss got interrupted because my homeroom teacher came out to see where I was. when she caught Reito and I in an amazing lip-lock, she totally freaked out. I had detention for a whole month for that stunt." Mai said with a smirk. "…but that's ancient history. Back to your question, when I look at those two over there, I think of Natsuki."

"...it what?"

"Reminds me of Natsuki...is that somehow strange, Akane?"

"No...no... I guess not." That, Akane had to admit, was mildly surprising. "I just wasn't expecting it, that's all. I kind of want to ask though, why would that boy remind you of Natsuki of all people?"

Mai smiled. "It's the way he twiddles with his potato. He's trying to look at everywhere else, except that girl, and the poor guy, he looks as nervous as hell. Natsuki was the same way. When she was shy, or nervous, she used to fumble around with her french-fry. Sometimes, she'd get so distracted that she'd drench it in mayonnaise and ketchup to the point that even she couldn't eat it."

"We've all come a long way since then, haven't we?" Akane asked slowly.

Mai wasn't really sure. In some ways, she still felt like a teenager occasionally. In other ways, she felt old...too old. "Some more than others, I suppose...if you really want to look at it that way. We've all got a long way to go."