Chapter 3: Not Into Romance or Somethin'?
Kyoko was stretched out on Homura's couch when she came home from school. There was an open bag of ramen-flavored chips on the table, a box of Pocky propped up against her side, and a convenience store bag on the floor below her. She waved hello when Homura walked in, mouth too full to greet her verbally.
"You'd better not be getting crumbs everywhere." It was hard keeping her apartment so clean, and Kyoko wasn't going to turn it into a personal pigpen.
She swallowed and pushed herself up on her elbows before answering. "Nah, it's fine."
"I'm not convinced." She wasn't close, but she could still see bits of chip peppering her couch cushion.
"No, really, Mami pays me to clean her apartment when she's at school. I'll make sure it's clean." If that was true it was impressive. Kyoko let her mess stay where it fell, but Mami's apartment couldn't be more spotless.
"Is that how you paid for this?" She always had a seemingly-endless supply of snacks.
"Yep! Did you think I was just stealing everything?"
"I never thought about it." She knew she stole in the past and assumed this was the same.
"Nope, I'm a straight-laced good girl now." Kyoko gave a sarcastic grin.
"Good for you." She kept all enthusiasm out of her voice.
"That's the only thing about me that's straight if you catch my drift." Kyoko laughed off the glare she shot at her. "You arguin'?"
"I never said I was." Kyoko's double entendres were annoying at worst. At least this one was true.
"So how was your day?" After brushing the crumbs to the floor, and ignoring another distasteful glare, she pushed herself to her elbows.
"It was just school." She dropped her bag on the floor against the couch and sat next to her. "You should try it some time."
"Been there done that." Kyoko pulled out a pair of Pocky sticks and kept one in her mouth. "Don't need it, life's pretty good without. I'm a magical girl, got a job with Mami, and I got a girlfriend, even if you ain't perfect."
"As long as you aren't making a mess of things when we're gone." Mami and Sayaka frequently bothered her to register, but she agreed with Kyoko that it wasn't worth the trouble. She was technically a homeless orphan who hadn't been to school in years, and none of them would have a good explanation.
"If you mean the couch I'll clean that when you're not sitting on it." Another stick went between her teeth. "And I stocked up the fridge with some stuff, that's pretty responsible."
"Is that supposed to be a subtle hint?" That was convenient at least, she had planned on shopping over the weekend.
"Ya don't hafta cook tonight, I'm just sayin' if ya do I'll help." She spoke around mouthful of Pocky.
"Maybe." Neither of them had plans other than hunting down witches, it was just a regular weeknight.
"Here." Kyoko took out yet another one, but then instead of eating it, she held it in front of Homura's mouth.
"No thanks." She tilted her head away, but Kyoko's hand followed.
"I already pulled it out for you, you gotta eat it now." She forced it between her lips and rubbed it across against her teeth.
"Kyoko-" The warning was interrupted when Kyoko shot forward and pushed it towards the back of her mouth.
With a proud grin, she said, "Now you gotta."
Homura kept it carefully balanced in her teeth as she spoke. "I don't want it."
"Alright, my turn." Kyoko leaned forward and bit the opposite end; Homura wasted no time in biting her end off and backing away.
"What are you doing?" It was hard to give an unimpressed glare while eating a chocolate-dipped cookie.
"Pocky game." She pouted as she ate the rest. "I even gave you the good end."
"Don't, I have homework." Not a lot of it, but she didn't want to rush through the early morning making up for time lost to fighting.
"Not into romance or somethin'?" Kyoko jabbed her in the side lightly with her elbow. "Afraid of cooties?"
Without warning, Homura moved in and pressed a quick kiss to the corner of Kyoko's mouth. She froze, just for a second, and hastily composed herself. "Ya did it wrong." In retaliation, she put her hands against her shoulders and swept in close.
It was over as soon as Homura's brain registered what was going on, the feeling of her lips pressed into hers too hard as her jaw quivered. She pulled back, flushed lightly red but still managing a cocky grin. "Your turn."
Homura found her voice after several seconds of settling her breath. "I told you I have homework."
"Yer no fun." Kyoko let her go, and she could swear she looked a little relieved to be sitting away. "What subject?"
"Most of them." She had been putting off anything that was strictly memorization, such as history and English. Years after the event, she could still remember every fact and formula for that one month of school, which distracted her from learning anything new.
"Need help?" Kyoko barely got out that question when Homura dropped an English notebook on her lap.
"Write these sentences. We can make dinner sooner if you do." It was just rewriting sentences in English, nothing she considered necessary.
"You didn't seem the type to cheat." She opened the folder with a knowing smirk. "The straight-A student can't do her own homework?"
"That's getting old." Kyoko teased her about a secret she promised to keep from the others, especially Madoka. While Mami preached how easy it was to balance excellent grades and wraith hunting, none of them adapted to it as easily as her. On test days, Kyoko would sit outside with a journal full of class notes and telepathically feed her answers.
"Still funny." Their handwriting wasn't too dissimilar when writing English, ridiculously messy and just legible enough to be graded. "You trip up trying to be so perfect to impress Madoka, and it's just a dumb act."
"I'm not doing that anymore if I'm with you." It was a habit she still hadn't broken, but it would be impossible to let go of the past if Kyoko wouldn't.
"Ah, yeah." She looked away from the paper and tapped her pencil against the table. "I guess I can't tease you about that anymore. I'll find something else."
"I'm sure you will." Kyoko found humor in everything, losing one topic wasn't going to change anything.
"Yeah, you're pretty easy to poke fun at."
It was still pretty early in the evening, but Kyoko had nowhere else to be this time of day. Mami wasn't strict with her house rules, but it could get boring. Homura's place was just as empty, but she was cool under the kind of pressure she exuded.
She unlocked the door, announcing her presence as she opened it. "Yo, you- woah!" Kyoko spun on her heel and slammed the door shut. "Sorry about that."
It was only a blur, but she caught sight of Homura in the living room, soaking wet in nothing but a towel and a glass of water in hand. "You could have knocked first."
"Figured you'd be…I dunno, dressed." She rubbed the back of her neck, ashamed.
"I'm alone in my own home." Homura didn't sound nearly as embarrassed as she was. "I wasn't expecting your company until later."
"Yeah, I guess I'm real early." Her mind trailed back. "Hey, I think I saw somethin'."
"I don't care what you saw, I'm going to get dressed."
"No, wait! I mean, hang on that's not what it sounds like." She was turned away, but still flailed her arms to clear it. "On your chest. Wait that still sounds wrong I'm just trying to ask if you're hurt." It was only for a glance, but she thought she saw a dark scar running down her breastbone.
"I'm fine." She could hear her turning to leave.
"Then what was that scar? If it didn't heal, it had to be really bad." She unzipped her jacket and held it out behind her. "You can put this on to show me if you want."
The weight of the jacket left her hand, and soon after she heard it zipping again. "You can turn around."
Homura was in front of her still, towel around her waist, jacket zipped up most of the way. She got a good look at it for the first time, a neat, faded red line running from her collar bones almost all the way to her ribcage. "This is from several years ago, it was already set so I couldn't heal it after I became a magical girl."
"You live a dangerous life even as a kid or something?" It looked bad, even years later. She couldn't imagine taking a hit to the chest like that and surviving when she was younger.
"It was from surgery, I had a heart condition as a child." She must have looked concerned, because Homura coolly brushed it off with, "It's fine now, I could heal that much with magic."
"Yeah, alright." That was heavy information, she didn't have anything to share that she didn't already know and the conversation felt uneven. "Is that why you made the contract?"
"No, that was unrelated, I only realized I could do that afterwards." Kyoko was hoping she could finally learn something about her secret wish, but she kept quiet about it. When she didn't follow that up with anything, Homura asked, "Was there anything else?"
"I, uh…." It was still awkward having someone tell you a secret while nonchalantly wearing nothing but a towel and an open jacket. She said the first thing that came to mind to break the ice. "Microtits."
She would have regretted saying that if she had the time to. The hard plastic cup made contact with her forehead, and her face was drenched with water. By the time she brushed her dripping-wet bangs out of her eyes, Homura had already slammed her bedroom door shut behind her.
"Hey, at least give me my jacket back!" She wiped her face off on her shirt to dry it and waited on the couch for Homura to be done. That was a stupid thing to say, but it was funnier than she could have hoped. Maybe she'd apologize after harping on it a bit longer.
Kyoko sprawled herself out across Homura's bed, taking up as much room as possible. Sleeping on couches wasn't uncomfortable, but sometimes it felt nice to have that much room without falling off. She promised to help Homura clean out her room before dinner, but was distracted when asked to put the newly-washed sheets on the mattress.
"If you don't get that done, we're going to be late for dinner." Homura emptied out a desk drawer mostly full of crumpled paper and broken pens into the trash.
"But this is gonna take forever, you've got so much crap in here." She pretended Homura didn't shoot her a nasty glare. "When did you last clean like this?"
"Middle school probably." She shrugged and moved onto the next drawer.
"What the hell, it's been years since middle school. For as perfect as you act, your life is a mess." Kyoko stretched across the bed and opened the top drawer of the nightstand. "This too?"
"Some of the stuff in there might be important, don't throw it all away." It was hard to tell what was and wasn't important given that Homura was putting basically everything in the trash. She threw away anything broken or crumpled beyond recognition, leaving the rest in the drawer.
"I didn't know you wear glasses." There was a pair of cherry red glasses in the lower drawer, and some purple hair ribbons. She'd never once seen her in glasses, and she only ever wore a headband.
"I don't, I thought I got rid of those." She only glanced over her shoulder briefly to look. "You can throw those away."
"Don't need them anymore?" Kyoko held them up to her face and the world blurred. "Damn, your eyes were awful. You don't wanna keep these just for the memories or nothin'?"
"No, there aren't any good memories associated with them." She busied herself again with working, but Kyoko slid the glasses up the bridge of her nose.
"Hey, look." She lowered her voice to imitate her. "I'm Homura Akemi, I'm embarrassed because I used to look like a dumb nerd."
"Don't do that." She glared again and Kyoko tried to imagine her pulling that look with those thick red frames.
"I'm always mad because my life is really hard, but I'm actually just a crybaby. Don't talk to Madoka or I'll get jealous." Homura lunged forward and tried to snatch them off her face, but she dropped backwards and kept her at bay with her knee.
"Cut that- Kyoko stop!" She reached out, but Kyoko batted her arms away with no trouble.
It was hard to keep up the impression while laughing so hard, but she continued. "I'm a weak-ass baby, can't even take glasses away from someone." Homura grunted as Kyoko's knee dug into her chest. She dropped the flat tone in her voice. "Alright, you can have them back."
"Kyoko!" She took them off her face and tried to push them onto Homura's, but she pulled away.
"Come on, wear them once and I'll stop." It was hard to try and push them to her nose without jabbing her in the eye. Sure it would heal, but it was still a dick move to do that for a joke.
"I'm not- get off of me." Homura got a grip on the glasses and snapped one of the arms off. "There, now throw them away."
"Nah, you could still get these on." She put then back on, and they tilted to the side but didn't fall off.
"If you throw them out right now you can be done here and we'll leave early."
Initially she didn't plan on stopping until she could see her in them, but that offer was too tempting. Tossing both pieces into the garbage bin with perfect aim, she agreed. "Alright, only 'cause ya asked nicely."