Archive of Our Own

“N-Nice to meet you! I’m Suletta Mercury!”

The flustered girl standing in front of the blackboard at the head of the room offers her new classmates a deep bow, an even deeper blush on her face. Miorine gives her an abstracted look before returning her eyes to the window to her left.

The teacher goes on about the new student, how she’s a transfer, show her some hospitality, blah blah blah. It’s not worth paying attention to. Her classmates already avoid her; there’s a two-desk radius surrounding Miorine’s own seat. Here is another to do the same. 

When she glances back up to the front of the room, the new girl’s eyes have settled firmly on Miorine.

Miorine can’t keep track of what happens next. It’s a bad habit of hers. Her thoughts are often scattered, prone to wandering or ceasing entirely at the slightest change in scenery or character. Sometime she feels as if she’s in some vast ocean, struggling against rapid currents on all sides. Sometimes she only just manages to surface, choking and gasping, before some invisible force slams into her face, forcing her back down into the depths.

Sometimes, it feels like hands. Two pairs of them.

When she next becomes aware of her surroundings, she can feel the weighty gaze of the new girl from one desk over. It’s almost a tangible thing. She ignores it for as long as she can— longer than she would have thought herself capable of; she’s unusually aware today— before turning her face to the right, annoyed.

“Can I help you?”

The newcomer is seated right beside her. It looks like she’s even scooted the desk closer to Miorine’s, which she finds at once presumptuous and aggravating. If she reaches her hand out, she could touch the other girl’s arm without straining to do so. Their classmates are steadfastly ignoring the both of them, the teacher droning on about past participles in English at the front of the room. Suletta Mercury ignores them just as thoroughly, her eyes rapt on Miorine Rembran’s face. 

“Ms. Miorine!” she cries in a half-whisper, evident delight written clearly on her own face. “I’ve finally found you!”

Finally. Finally what? Miorine gives the girl a once-over, feigning indifference. She has long, thick red hair, which she wears down in soft waves, falling past her waist. Her eyes are a peculiar color— both green and blue at the same time, but not a mix of the two that Miorine has ever seen on anybody else before. They remind her of sea glass. As she watches, those same eyes fill with tears that start cascading down the girl’s cheeks, her lips and chin getting all wobbly.

“Ms. Miorine—!” she blubbers, letting out a very real half-sob.

Oh my God. Reaching quickly into her desk, she pulls out a pack of tissues, almost throwing them at the newcomer. “Don’t cry, dummy,” she mutters under her breath, casting a glance toward the teacher. He doesn’t seem to notice. “Idiot,” she adds, as if the first epithet weren’t enough, not accurate.

“Clean yourself up,” she commands.

The girl— Suletta Mercury— dutifully does as told, blowing her nose very loudly. Miorine typically doesn’t care what others think of her, much less her classmates, but right this moment, she wishes she could fall through the floor. This girl is so noisy, so full of life. Being in her presence feels like the physical manifestation of nails on a chalkboard.

Once she’s mopped up her tears, Suletta returns the pack, now only half-full, and Miorine places it back into her desk, not looking at her.

“Now leave me alone.”

Suletta’s tone is full of sadness when she replies, “Oh, Ms. Miorine. I could never do that.”

-

Somehow, Suletta Mercury winds up accompanying her home.

Suletta spends the walk talking non-stop, commenting on everything from the weather to the school to the shoes Miorine is wearing. Miorine tunes her out and doesn’t immediately notice when they arrive at her house— it’s a little apartment on the outskirts of the city, where the other children without families live. Charity cases. She doesn’t resent it, but the whispers of her classmates follow her wherever she goes. Just another thing to grate on her nerves.

“It’s so hot,” Suletta is complaining as Miorine fishes out her key to unlock the door. If she’s quick enough, she could throw it open and then slam it in Suletta’s face, locking her out. “When are we switching to summer uniforms?”

This catches her attention at last. “…Suletta. It’s only mid-April.”

She doesn’t know what causes her to address the other girl so familiarly, but it feels right. Anything else would be inauthentic. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see that Suletta now looks pleased, and what is that about?

She opens the door, and Suletta quickly makes her way inside before her, not even bothering to hold it open for her, or, more pressingly, even ask if she can come in. Miorine stands in the doorway, a little dumbfounded. 

“Why are you being so rude? It’s not like—”

Miorine stops short. She feels like she’s on the verge of discovery, of unearthing something important, but it’s already gone, snatched from out beneath her fingertips. She grips her schoolbag tightly, trying not to fall to her knees in front of this weird girl who’s in her house. Maybe she’s come to murder her. That might be okay, actually. She feels like she’s being pulled apart in ten different directions at once, the only thing grounding her being the handles on her bag and—

Suletta is crouching in front of her, hand lightly placed on Miorine’s bone-white knuckles. She relaxes her grip slowly, the bag falling to the floor. She doesn’t know how she wound up on her knees. 

“Not like what, Ms. Miorine?”

Miorine shakes her head slightly. She can feel a thin layer of sweat on her brow, her upper lip, and she attempts to discreetly wipe them off. Unfortunately for her, Suletta watches her every action like a hawk.

“Never mind.”

Suletta offers her her hand and Miorine takes it automatically, some sort of muscle memory she didn’t know she had instigating the action without her having to provide any input. Reflex arcs, someone had once told her. She can’t remember who it was now. Somebody who knew a lot about neuroanatomy, she’s sure. They bypass the brain, so they’re completely involuntary. She can’t understand this impulse. She’s never wanted to reach for anybody before. 

“Ms. Miorine,” Suletta says unexpectedly, still holding onto her hand. “Can you do my hair for me?”

-

Miorine stands behind Suletta, staring at their reflections in the mirror. Suletta has wandered over to the vanity on her own, not waiting for an answer, sitting down in front of it. Miorine has followed her after a slight pause, a slight lag, her legs a little stiff. Her eyes rove over Suletta’s features again— there’s no point trying to keep it a secret. Suletta Mercury is equally as fixated on Miorine when she isn’t doing anything else, and now they’re just staring at each other through the medium of the glass. Miorine almost wants to turn her around, swivel the chair so Suletta is face-to-face with her. She’s sure she’s missing something in the mirror— but no, that would be weird. Suletta’s already behaving oddly; Miorine doesn’t need to add to it, bring them to some sort of weirdness nexus.

She reaches to pick up her hairbrush instead, fingers pausing on the handle.

“Ms. Miorine?”

She retracts the hand, instead settling on some bobby pins and hair ties. Brushing Suletta’s hair would ruin it, frizz it up, and she’s not going to do that. She wants to make her look nice. 

Miorine places the bobby pins between her lips, combing her hands gently through Suletta’s hair. She’s not sure what to do with it. Put it up? Braid it? A low ponytail won’t do— it’s too passé. She wants to do something a little different with her.

“Why did you wear your hair down?” Miorine asks. The words come out slightly muffled around the bobby pins. There’s no point in pretending like she’s not interested in Suletta. They’d been boring holes into each other’s faces in the mirror not minutes before. There’s something familiar about her, a little niggling at the back of her brain whenever she looks at her eyes, her face. But something different, too.

Suletta hums a little. “I wasn’t expecting it to be so hot here,” she muses. Her eyes are closed in relaxation now. “And I didn’t want to wear—”

“Wear what?” Miorine prompts when Suletta doesn’t complete her sentence. She seems just as scatterbrained as Miorine herself, leaving things dangling just as often. Or perhaps she’s keeping a secret.

Miorine’s suspicion is strengthened when Suletta says softly, “Never mind. That doesn’t matter, Ms. Miorine.”

Miorine gruffly spits out a bobby pin into her hand so she can get the words out clearly. “Stop calling me that,” she snaps, holding the hair pin between her fingers. “I always hated it.”

Suletta looks at her with wide eyes— but they don’t seem shocked. There’s intrigue there, and maybe… relief? Miorine can’t parse her expressions. They feel so foreign to her. “Did you?” she asks quietly, staring at Miorine's reflection. “You hated it?”

Miorine resists the urge once more to turn the chair around and face Suletta. That familiar buzzing sensation is starting up again, drumming down her spine and spreading to her chest, her fingertips. She’s probably going to lose control of her actions in a minute, and she doesn’t want to send Suletta flying. 

“I—” Miorine takes a deep breath, swallowing. Suletta looks at her with concern, eyes scanning her face. Miorine knows she’s gone several shades paler without needing to look at her reflection. She can feel the nausea stirring in her stomach. She grips the back of the chair, bowing her head over Suletta’s, eyes closing.

“I didn’t hate it,” she qualifies, voice low. She doesn’t even know if Suletta can hear her at this point. “I didn’t like it either, though.” There’s something she really wants to say. It’s just on the tip of her tongue. But when she opens her mouth, the words that come out are, “We’re supposed to be equals. We’re classmates. What are you being so polite for?”

The buzzing feeling passes. Miorine slowly opens her eyes, and Suletta has leaned her head back so she can look Miorine directly in her face. The relief Miorine feels at this is staggering. She hadn’t realized how much she disliked the false image in the mirror until now, even inverted as she is. 

“I’m sorry,” Suletta apologizes. “It—it wasn’t my intention. To make you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t make me uncomfortable,” Miorine mutters. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. She has never met this girl before in her life, but they’re carrying on a conversation fraught with meaning, like they’ve known each other several years. A lifetime, maybe. And she can’t figure out the emotions this girl is invoking in her, either. She has no context for her feelings, just like always.

Miorine chooses to drop the matter, returning to Suletta’s hair. Suletta is silent again, but when Miorine looks up, Suletta’s eyes are moving around the small apartment. It’s a pretty pitiful place— Miorine can barely bring herself to place her trash in bags, much less sort them into burnable and non-burnable, so they remain in her room, piled up high. It’s the best she can do. Her bed remains unmade, and her laundry piles up until she has to wash her school uniforms or go in dirty clothes.

Her fingers work through Suletta’s hair, separating it into different sections and beginning to weave them together. She hasn’t done much braiding before; her own hairstyle doesn’t lend itself to being braided, and she doesn’t interact much with others to be able to practice on them. Her fingers feel clumsy. Several times she has to stop due to fatigue.

Miorine pins up the wispy strands of Suletta’s hair that refuse to go into the braid, pulling a few others forward to frame her face. Suletta watches her actions with interest. Miorine wonders if anybody’s ever done her hair for her like this before. Does she have a mother? An older sister? Anybody else who would take care of her like this?

Miorine produces a small hand mirror from the drawer. “It’s done,” she announces with zero fanfare. 

Suletta inspects her hair carefully, scrutinizing every aspect of it. Miorine leans against the adjacent wall— she feels overtaxed. This is the most energy she’s expended in a while, at least that she can remember. Finally, Suletta sets the mirror down, turning in the chair so she and Miorine are properly face-to-face at last. She’s beaming.

“It looks so good!” she exclaims. In spite of herself, Miorine feels her own mouth twitch in response. “I’d been thinking about hairstyles— how to wear it when we—” she trails off, as if lost in thought.

“Sorry?” Miorine asks when Suletta doesn’t continue. Against her will, she’s found herself interested in what she has to say. Suletta is an enigma, and Miorine finds herself strangely attracted to her, to figuring her out.

“Nothing,” Suletta says, the corners of her mouth quirking up into a somewhat small, very sad smile. Her eyes are somber, too, as if she’s remembering something very painful. She confirms this when she says, “I was just thinking about something else. It was… something I wanted, very much.”

-

Suletta ends up staying the night.

Miorine feels wrong sending her home after dinner— which Suletta insists on cooking, almost setting the kitchen on fire. Miorine douses the flames with a fire extinguisher she keeps under the sink, and the two wind up ordering takeout. Miorine herself can’t cook either.

Suletta sleeps on the couch, and Miorine feels another little niggling in her brain at this— except this time it’s not recognition so much as it is remembrance, and some regret, too. Forcing her to sleep on the couch feels inhospitable, somehow, but she can’t invite a strange girl to share her bed with her. This will have to do.

Suletta, for her part, doesn’t seem to mind. She merely bids Miorine good night when the other girl goes to her bedroom, quietly sliding the door shut behind her.

After a long pause, Miorine reopens the door.

-

The next day, Miorine awakens to the sound of rustling plastic.

She opens her eyes, staring at the ceiling. She doesn’t remember falling asleep, which perhaps isn’t unusual in itself, except that she doesn’t actually remember ever getting into bed in the first place. Unusual, maybe, but not for her. Living for her is to be in a perpetual state of live wire nerves, constantly plucked and transmitting sensations to her nervous system, even when she is at rest, even when there is no impulse at all for that individual synapse to transmit. She has long since accepted it. Typically she’s able to ignore the sensations, the slight humming of electricity through her body as every single synapse fires, over and over again, except for the times when they reach an overwhelming fever pitch and she either blacks out or lies down of her own volition, letting the tidal wave of energy wash over her. It’s like her central nervous system is plugged directly into a generator, herself adrift in a sea of ceaseless, pulsing energy.

Or maybe she herself is the generator.

The sound of ripping plastic catches her attention again.

Miorine rolls out of bed and on to her feet, shuffling toward her bedroom door. Somebody has half shut it— possibly out of politeness, a desire not to disturb her. She scoffs a little at this and slides it all the way open.

Suletta Mercury is sitting in the middle of her living room, surrounded by trash.

Miorine takes in the sight, her face made of stone. Suletta doesn’t notice her at first, so concentrated on her task is she. She’s opened Miorine’s garbage bags, sorting their contents carefully into burnable and non-burnable piles on tarps she’s set out on the floor. One bag has split in half entirely, and Suletta is currently digging through it, trying to get the grossest parts off the floor.

Miorine clears her throat. Suletta’s head snaps up, and Miorine realizes with sudden interest that her hair is still in the braid she’d given her yesterday.

“Ms.—M-Miorine!” she cries, hands flying up in front of her and sending some trash into the air with them. Miorine sighs a little at the sight, and at Suletta’s continuing to refer to her so formally. “Wh-what are you doing up?”

“You woke me,” Miorine says flatly, moving into the kitchen.

“I’m sorry!”

“It’s fine.” Miorine swings the refrigerator open, pulling out a small bottle of juice. “I never sleep very well anyway.”

Suletta perks up at this. “No? Why not?”

Miorine eyes her suspiciously. Suletta is too interested in her, she thinks. And come to think of it, how had she learned her name yesterday? The teacher had never introduced the students individually— that Miorine was aware of. It’s not outside of the realm of possibility that she had simply disregarded it alongside everything else going on before Suletta formally introduced herself. For whatever reason, the sound of her voice had immediately called Miorine’s attention.

Before she knows it, she’s opening her mouth to speak. “It’s not that I can’t sleep. It’s that… it feels like I’m turned off. But when I wake up, I don’t feel rested at all.”

“Turned off? Like a—”

“Like a machine. Yes.”

It’s the only way she can describe it. Awake one second, unconscious the next. Until she awakens again. Miorine turns her focus again to Suletta’s hands, literally full of garbage. It’s very clear what’s going on, but she asks anyway.

“What are you doing?”

Suletta’s eyes are glazed over, her thoughts elsewhere. “Hey,” Miorine says, recalling her attention. Suletta blinks forcefully, her eyes meeting Miorine’s.

“Sorry,” she says sheepishly. “I— um.” 

She says nothing more.

Miorine sighs again, picking up a trash bag. Suletta’s brow furrows. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

“You don’t have to help me, Miorine! I… I wanted to do this for y—”

“I didn’t let you stay over so you could clean my house,” Miorine mutters, shoving some of the trash on the burnable tarpaulin into the bag. It’s gross, and slimy, but at least now she can actually get rid of it without her neighbors being angry at the fact she hadn’t separated it. “I would have done it myself, but I… I get tired easily.”

She doesn’t know why she tells Suletta this, but Suletta just responds gently, “Take breaks when you need to, Miorine. I don’t mind.”

She feels something stir in her chest at this. It’s not the words themselves, although they are sweet, but the tone in which they’re said that gets to her. There’s a strange tenderness to Suletta, in the way she treats her, that makes no sense given their incredibly brief acquaintance. Perhaps she should be put off by it— and she had, at first, found her loud and annoying— but she can feel herself being drawn in instead.

It’s stupid. It’s dangerous.

They sort the trash mostly silently, until Miorine’s sweating so hard that her light sleep clothes are sticking to her back, and Suletta abruptly stops. “I’m beat,” she claims in a completely unbelievable tone, sitting back on her heels. Miorine eyes her warily.

“You’re a poor liar.”

Suletta’s eyes open wide with shock. “I— I’m not lying! Really, I’m tired, this is hard work—”

Miorine turns away, hiding the smile on her face. “I’ll get you something to drink.”

Suletta jumps up before Miorine can even begin to unbend her posture, running off into the kitchen. Miorine watches her go for a minute before calling, “Wash your hands first!”

When Suletta returns, she’s carrying a bowl of water with both of her hands, a towel draped over one arm, and two bottles of juice nestled in the crook of the other. Miorine eyes her, certain she’s going to drop it all and make an even bigger mess, but to her surprise, Suletta sets the bowl of water gently in front of her in one fluid motion.

On her way back up, one of the bottles of juice slips from her hold and falls to the floor.

There it is. Suletta lets out what can only be described as a gack!, bending over to pick it up. Miorine surveys the bowl in front of her. The top is full of suds.

“So you don’t have to get up and— and wash your hands,” Suletta supplies softly. Miorine hesitates for a moment before putting her hands in. The water is warm. She feels suddenly, inexplicably drowsy, and she fights to push her eyelids open again. How long have they been doing this?

She pushes the suds aside and rinses her hands in the cloudy water beneath it. Her reflection stares back up at her. She doesn’t look much better than Miorine feels much of the time. Dark circles under her eyes, skin paler than she can remember it being before—

The thought flies from her head almost as soon as it comes, leaving Miorine staring at herself in the grimy water, rattled. She can’t even remember the substance of the thought, much less where it was going. Suletta offers her the dish towel and she wordlessly dries her hands before turning her back on her reflection.

Suletta is sitting on the floor beside her, knees drawn up to her chest. Her expression brightens when she sees Miorine, but Miorine just catches the look of sorrow before she realizes her eyes are on her.

“You didn’t sleep with those bobby pins in your hair, did you?”

Suletta looks taken aback. She reaches one hand up to her head feelingly. “Are you not supposed to?”

Miorine makes a noise that could be somewhere between laughter and disgust— no, that’s too strong a word. Sadness, maybe. Or at the very least, the disgust is not directed toward Suletta. “It’ll hurt your head. Hasn’t anybody ever taught you that?”

Suletta’s face freezes for a moment. “I— no. No, nobody’s ever taught me anything like that.” Her voice is almost imperceptible. She runs the bottle of juice between her hands, nervously, over and over again.

“Oh!” she gasps suddenly. “Ms.— I mean, Miorine, here’s yours.” She holds out the other bottle by the cap, and Miorine accepts it, fingers brushing against Suletta’s.

“Thank you.”

-

The two carry on like this for a little while. Miorine has no idea how much time actually passes— this has always been something she’s bad at. Time seems to flow over and around her, as if she were a rock in a stream, constantly fixed in the same place. More often than not, she feels like an outsider peering in at the others around her. 

Suletta picks her up from the stream. If nothing else, she is now an active participant in their life, the one they’re building in her apartment together. Suletta doesn’t seem to have a home of her own; or if she does, she doesn’t wish to return to it. One day, maybe two weeks or so after Suletta first moved in, Miorine asks her about it, and the usually upbeat girl becomes strangely reticent.

“Don’t you have parents?” Miorine prods, watching the other girl get ready for bed, once again on Miorine’s couch. She feels bad about it. Maybe she should buy a pullout, or just a regular futon, actually. It can’t be good for her back.

But Suletta never once complains. She just seems happy to be near Miorine.

Suletta’s hands still on her blankets, her movements becoming slower. Miorine looks at her back curiously. Surely somebody must be waiting for this girl— lively and sweet, if not a little mysterious and pushy— to come home to them.

Miorine gets the sense that Suletta is hoping that she’ll drop it, or forget about asking it— she’s done that before. Sometimes her brain will lose track of entire conversations, entire lessons. But this is a very pressing question for her. She can feel that strange awareness that she sometimes gets, that sense of being present, pulsing through her veins. She’s not going to forget. Suletta has to answer.

Finally Suletta turns around, and her face is solemn. “I… I don’t have any family. Not right now, anyway.” She twists her fingers together, pressing her hands against her chest and looking away from Miorine. Miorine gets the sense this is all she will get out of her.

Some people might argue that everybody has family, has to have a family. You have to come from somewhere. But Miorine understands what Suletta is saying— when there is nobody to claim, or to be claimed by, you might as well not have any.

“Well. I suppose you and I are the same, then,” she says quietly.

Suletta’s face brightens slightly at that. “I’d never thought of it before, but I guess we are, M— Miorine!” Miorine can hear her stumble, trying to avoid adding the “Ms.” It’s something she struggles with periodically, but at least she’s no longer frequently addressing her as such.

You’re a lot noisier, Miorine thinks, but she doesn’t say it out loud. After their first encounter, she’s found herself loath to say anything even mildly hurtful to the other girl. She still calls her idiot, though, and this Suletta does not seem to mind, even seems to consider a term of endearment. 

“It’s okay,” Suletta says softly, pulling Miorine away from her reverie. “We… we have each other, right?”

Miorine regards her silently. Suletta seems more genuine now than that day when she had first visited her apartment, with less bravado and more uncertainty coloring her actions. But there’s still something… off. She can’t place it. Something wrong with her.

Something wrong with their situation?

Miorine turns on her heel and leaves the room.

-

“Miorine, are you a member of any clubs?”

Miorine’s head is propped up on her hand, back toward the rest of their class. She can’t remember any of the current lecture, or the one preceding it, either. Only Suletta’s voice will occasionally be able to claim her attention, but even then, unless it’s something particularly novel, it can only have it for so long.

Suletta seems to implicitly understand this without having to be told. She’s always coming up with something different, something outside of Miorine’s usual monotonous existence. One afternoon they’d walked two kilometers to a Western-style tea shop, “just because,” and eaten there. Suletta had seemed more enthusiastic about Miorine’s reaction to her food than in her own, frequently stealing glances at her from across the table. Miorine had eaten more than she normally does that day.

“Miorine?”

Miorine turns around at last, and is startled to find that the rest of their classmates have left for the day. She turns back to the window. The sun is lower than she remembers it being previously— it has to be near five o’clock. Why haven’t they gone home yet?

When she asks Suletta this, the other girl shrugs. “You didn’t seem ready to leave yet.”

Before Miorine can respond to that, Suletta produces a piece of paper, waving it before her eyes eagerly. “How about we join the gardening club?”

Miorine squints at the flier— it’s a little hard to make out the words with Suletta’s frantic movements— and then frowns. “Why the gardening club?”

Suletta’s face falls. “Don’t— don’t you like plants, Miorine?”

Miorine blinks at her. “No…? I mean, I suppose the way everybody else does. They’re… pretty.” This last part she says lamely. Truthfully, she’s never spent much time thinking about plants. She doesn’t spend much time thinking, period. 

Suletta’s good cheer rebounds quickly as she pulls out another flier from her bag. Miorine is a little amused; she must have gone to club day.

“How about the music club, then? We could—”

“Suletta,” Miorine interrupts. She’s not sure where she’s getting these ideas from, but enough’s enough. “I can’t play any instruments. I can’t even read music.”

“I… I see,” Suletta says quietly. The smile is completely gone from her face again, and she actually looks a little shell-shocked. Miorine feels kind of guilty. She had been so excited, and she knows a large portion of that excitement was due to her thinking they could find a club to join together.

“I think I misunderstood,” Suletta is saying in low tones, so low Miorine can barely make out the words. It sounds like she’s speaking more to herself than to Miorine. “I didn’t realize—”

Miorine looks at her. Suletta has fallen silent, brows knitted in deep thought. She’s wearing her hair in a claw clip today, the long ends spilling out and pouring almost halfway down her back. It’s a cute, sporty look. Miorine thinks it would look nice with the summer uniform she so covets.

“Okay,” Suletta says decisively. She shifts in her chair so they’re facing one another again, and Miorine should maybe feel embarrassed that she’s been staring at her this whole time, but she doesn’t. Suletta doesn’t even seem to notice, clapping her hands together in a business-like way. There’s a new determination to her that Miorine hasn’t seen before. It’s endearing.

“Let’s join the plant club,” Suletta declares without preamble. “Together!”

Miorine doesn’t immediately respond. She’s not sure she can bring herself to go to a club after school every day— just getting to school is becoming more and more difficult for her, and what about her preoccupation this afternoon? What’s the point? she thinks. It’s the same thought she has whenever they clean her room— not nearly as bad as it had been when Suletta first arrived— or when Suletta cajoles her into eating a balanced meal. She knows someday this is all going to end, that one morning she’ll wake up and Suletta will no longer be there, stationed on her couch. 

But after the first time they had cleaned her room, Suletta had told her, “I thought this would help you feel better,” and she has so much fun cooking— her cooking is getting better; she hasn’t set off the fire alarm in a while— for the two of them. Miorine is reluctant to take these things away from her. Even if it is all going to end soon.

Suletta is waiting for an answer. Miorine examines her face, so full of hope and light. But there are times when she catches Suletta off guard, and the other girl looks deep in melancholy, becoming cheerful only when she thinks Miorine is looking at her. Sometimes she can’t stand it— what’s the point in faking it? Might as well show your true emotions.

But Suletta’s gentle demeanor, her care, all of these are real. It’s something else that she’s keeping from Miorine. She wonders if she’ll ever be able to ferret it out.

“…Sure. Let’s join the gardening club.”

-

Their fellow club members seem a little bemused at the first meeting, but Suletta’s good nature is enough to allow her and Miorine entry, and only a few whispers follow them when they enter the room. Miorine doesn’t mind. Part of her resents Suletta’s exclusion, caused by being associated with her, however.

The club president tasks them with choosing a plant to rear for the rest of the year, from seed to adult. The other students begin eagerly whispering to one another about which plants they want to raise. Miorine’s own mind draws a blank, but Suletta already has something in mind.

“How about heirloom tomatoes?”

The specificity of Suletta’s request throws her. “Why tomatoes?”

Suletta shrugs. “I like the way they taste.” But there’s an evasive look in her eyes Miorine has come to recognize. She has some deeper meaning for this, just like she does for most things. She simply chooses not to share it with her.

This has been rankling at her for some time now. Suletta shoved her way into her house and took up residence there without even asking. Miorine thinks she could at least grant her a little of her confidence, if nothing else.

Suletta doesn’t notice the direction Miorine’s thoughts have gone in. “We could plant something else,” she suggests. “A flower.”

“Petunias.”

“Yes!” Suletta looks a little shocked, but the excitement in her voice isn’t an act. “I like petunias too. If you want—” 

“No, that’s fine,” Miorine cuts her off. “Let’s grow tomatoes.”

“Are you sure? I’d rather do something you’re interested in…”

“But you want the tomatoes, right? Even though you won’t tell me the real reason why.”

Suletta’s face flushes. Miorine eyes her baldly. Maybe she should feel bad, bullying her like this, but she just wants to know what’s really going on. She wishes Suletta would tell her. They’re supposed to be friends.

“…I really do like the way they taste,” Suletta says quietly.

“But there’s something else, isn’t there?” Miorine presses. “Something you don’t want to tell me.”

Suletta tugs on the ends of her hair. Miorine has long since learned that this is one of her nervous habits, something she does to calm herself. Her heart sinks. She doesn’t want to make her feel bad.

“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you.” Suletta looks up at last. “I… I can’t.”

Miorine makes an impatient noise. “Why not? Why are you so secretive?”

Suletta’s face is pained. “I-I don’t want to hurt you, Miorine—” 

What a bizarre thing to say. “You’re not hurting me, you’re annoying me,” Miorine snaps. “Aren’t I always honest with you?” One of the girls sitting at the next desk looks up, but Miorine cows her with a severe look. When she turns back around, it’s to find Suletta staring at the desk between them.

“No. You’re not always honest with me, Miorine.”

Miorine’s lungs deflate. Is that how Suletta views their relationship? Aside from Suletta’s… eccentricities, she had thought they were on equal footing. What does Suletta think she’s keeping from her?

Why does she get the feeling Suletta’s right?

Miorine stands, slowly shoving the chair back from the desk. She’s not sure she wants to be here anymore.

Suletta’s eyes widen in panic. “Wait, Miorine, I’m sorry—” 

Miorine ignores her. “I’m going home. You go ahead and finish up here.”

Then she turns around and flees.

-

Miorine lies curled up on her bed, thoughts dark. What is Suletta keeping from her? Why does she insist on speaking in half-sentences, cutting herself off when she begins to say something important?

Why doesn’t she trust Miorine?

She’s overstimulated. She can feel that ever-familiar hum of electricity in her body yet again, but her mind is just as active— a rarity. Usually she shuts down when her body gets away from her like this, but more and more often lately she’s been able to remain somewhat coherent through it. She almost wishes that weren’t the case. She wouldn’t mind shutting down right about now.

There’s a knock on the door.

Miorine pinches the bridge of her nose between her fingers. There’s no point in telling her to go away. “Come in.”

Suletta hesitantly slides the door open. Miorine keeps her back facing her. She’s being petulant, a child. Neither of them speaks.

“I… I’m sorry, Miorine. If you want me to leave, I’ll go.”

Miorine sits up so fast her head spins.

“Who said anything about you leaving? Where are you going to go?”

Suletta offers her a very disingenuous smile. “It’s okay. I can find somewhere else to stay. I don’t want to bother you anymore.”

Miorine grimaces. Suletta is bothering her, but not in the ways she thinks, and not enough for her to want her to move out. She’s grown to enjoy her company. She can’t imagine living alone again. “Don’t go, idiot. I don’t want you to leave. I just want you to tell me what you’re actually thinking.” Suletta doesn’t respond. She tries a different tack. “You can’t… just run away whenever we get into an argument.” Her own hypocrisy here does not escape her. 

Suletta’s throat works. “Sometimes… sometimes, I’m afraid you hate me.”

Miorine’s heart constricts. She doesn’t want Suletta to be afraid of her. “I don’t hate you,” she says. “I just don’t understand you.”

Suletta gives her another very small, very sad smile. “I feel the same way about you.”

Miorine chews on the inside of her cheek. She’s never wanted to let anybody in enough to be able to understand her. But she wouldn’t mind letting Suletta that far in. She wants it, even. “Then tell me what you’re really thinking. That’s what bothers me. We can’t understand each other if we can’t even do that.” She scoots to one side of the bed to make room for Suletta. Suletta hesitates briefly before sitting on the edge of the bed beside her. Very slowly, Miorine reaches for her hand. 

“Miorine.”

“Yes?”

“I can’t… I can’t always tell you what I’m thinking.” Miorine huffs. Of course she can’t. “But I’m not trying to hurt you! Please, believe that.”

“I believe you.” For all her other faults, Suletta has a quality to her that makes other people want to instill their faith in her. Or maybe Miorine just wants to believe her, more desperately than she’s ever wanted anything else. Maybe she needs to give Suletta something to believe in in return.

“And I… I’m sorry.” Suletta turns to her in surprise. Miorine clarifies, “For running out on you. I wanted to be alone. But I don’t want you to go.”

Suletta’s eyes search her face. “I won’t. If you want me to stay, I’ll stay with you.”

“Then stay,” Miorine says quietly.

Suletta’s hand twitches beneath hers. Miorine releases her hold, and Suletta flips her hand over so they can lock their fingers together. Miorine’s hand makes contact with a small, rectangular object. She wrinkles her nose.

“What is that?”

Suletta smiles a little. Miorine draws her hand back again, taking what Suletta presses into her palm.

Tomato seeds.

-

They’re walking through the hallway one day when Suletta stops dead, refusing to move any farther. Miorine hasn’t been paying attention to her at all— she is lost in her own thoughts, or rather the sensations, trying to school her features and keep herself from revealing what is going on within her own body. She’s been able to keep one foot moving forward, one after the other, and as such leaves Suletta clean behind her. It’s only when the humming feeling passes that she realizes she’s all alone outside their homeroom, Suletta several meters behind her. 

She retraces her steps reluctantly, the crowd of students parting around her like the sea. This is something she is used to as well. None of them wish to interact with her, and in truth, the feeling is more than mutual on her side.

Miorine reaches Suletta and follows her gaze, trying to figure out what has transfixed her so. Her eyes scan the school store’s shelves before alighting on the object of Suletta’s attention.

It’s a pair of keychains— it’s some sort of animal, a tanuki maybe, wearing… cold-weather parkas in matching blue and red. Miorine lets out a little sigh when she sees them. Stupid chintz. Who would waste their money on something like that?

Suletta turns to her with wide-eyed wonder, pointing at the keychains. “Miorine, look!”

“I am looking,” Miorine deadpans.

“Aren’t they cute?” Suletta asks, picking one up and rubbing it between her fingers. She actually places one hand against her cheek in her enthusiasm, and Miorine almost smiles at this. “And they’re a matching set! We could each get one—”

Her voice trails off. Miorine can’t tell if it’s the no doubt disdainful look on her own face, or something else, but suddenly Suletta’s sunny expression has clouded over, and she’s replacing the keychains. The cashier watches them curiously, until Miorine makes eye contact with her. The girl snaps her gum and looks away.

“Never mind,” Suletta mumbles, turning her back on the keychains. “Let’s get to class. The teacher will be mad at us if we’re late again.”

Whose fault was that? Miorine wants to ask. Suletta had gotten distracted in the street one morning petting a cat, and Miorine had been— unwilling to make her leave. It had been sweet, watching her play with the little animal, which clearly enjoyed her doting on it. The cat had rolled around on the street as Suletta alternately took pictures of it and petted it. Miorine had to fight the urge to take her own pictures of the two of them. As a result, they’d been half an hour late for school and had to make up the time afterward.

Suletta walks to class, unusually silent, and Miorine catches up to her, looking at her sidelong. She doesn’t understand the emotion the keychains evoked in her, or in herself, either. Her throat had closed up a little upon seeing them, a cold fist squeezing her heart. And it’s not because of how ugly they are.

Suletta remains quiet until the end of the day, when she turns to Miorine with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I think I need to go home. I can’t go to club today.”

Miorine attends the plant club by herself. Or she tries to, but it feels strange without Suletta there. She feels out of her body, unable to concentrate on anything at all. Upon discovering that she’s added the wrong solution to their fertilizer mix for the third time in a row, she gives up entirely, deciding to head home herself.

She passes by the school shop on her way out of the school, and her eyes are drawn to the keychains. Almost against her will, she slows, before stopping entirely.

She sighs, digging out her wallet. The girl at the register looks up. 

“How much are these?” Miorine asks, picking the pair up in one hand.

The girl rattles off a price, looking at her expectantly.

“I’ll take them,” Miorine says, going to set them down on the counter before her.

Her hand suddenly clenches around the keychains, refusing to let go. Miorine unconsciously bows her head forward, clenching her teeth. The girl at the register looks at her with alarm.

“Hey, are you okay?”

She feels like she could pass out. The frequency of the buzzing increased substantially as soon as she had made up her mind to purchase the keychains, and when she actually put her hand on them, it was like touching a voltage source. There’s nowhere else for the current to go but through her.

“Should I go get a teacher?” the girl asks anxiously.

Miorine shakes her head. As quickly as it had come, it’s stopped. She has half a mind to throw the keychains as far away from her as possible, but the look of disappointment on Suletta’s face stops her. “No, I’m fine. I just need to… get home.”

The girl nods her own head quickly, taking Miorine’s cash and exchanging it with change in the drawer just as fast. “Here,” she says, offering Miorine the bills and keychains. Miorine pockets them with a thanks and moves to continue on down the hall.

“Be careful on your way home!” a voice calls out behind her.

When she arrives at her apartment— at this point she should probably just consider it Suletta’s as well as hers— she opens the door to find Suletta huddled on the couch, her makeshift bed, knees pulled up to her chest. Her eyes are red-rimmed, but she hastily wipes them upon seeing Miorine, sitting up straight.

“Miorine!” she exclaims. “You’re home ear—”

The red keychain sails through the air, landing on her lap with a soft thump. Suletta is evidently struck dumb by it, lifting the keychain up close to her face to stare at it as if she can’t believe what she’s seeing. She wraps her fingers around it and pulls it close to her chest, her eyes welling up with tears once again. Miorine fancies that they’re tears of happiness this time.

“Don’t say I never gave you anything,” she says brusquely. But she doesn’t hide the slight smile on her face as she turns away, and she makes a show of swinging the hand holding her phone around with the rest of her body, the matching blue keychain attached to it flying through the air as well.

-

Miorine awakens in the middle of the night with one arm slung over the side of the bed, her ring finger and pinky tangled in the corresponding digits of Suletta’s hand, stretched toward her from where she’s lying on the floor.

Miorine had finally bought her a futon after— how long have they been living together? She can’t remember. She doesn’t remember much from her life before Suletta wormed her way into it and her apartment.

She flexes her fingers a little. Their current position can’t be comfortable for Suletta. She peers over the mattress at the girl resting on her floor in a nest of blankets. It hadn’t bothered her when Suletta asked if she could keep her futon in Miorine’s room— where else would it go? So the two had gotten ready for bed together last night, Suletta keeping a running commentary on their school day, eventually crawling into her futon while Miorine lingered at the door. She turned off the overhead light and only felt slightly self-conscious when she slid underneath her own blankets and whispered good night to Suletta.

This has never happened before. Usually she sleeps straight through the night, never dreaming or tossing and turning. It’s like somebody flips the switch of her consciousness on and off for her.

Miorine frowns at the wall opposite her. She can feel that familiar heaviness on her chest again, the bobbing of waves beneath her. She hasn’t thought about this in a long time. Not since she’d first met Suletta. It was like the ocean disappeared all around her, the tide rushing out before a tsunami, leaving just the two of them in their own little bubble.

The waves threaten to engulf her. The pressure on her chest gets tighter, almost as if somebody— it’s not something; she’s always been reasonably certain it is, in fact, another person— were trying to push her under. She resists.

She doesn’t realize she’s assumed a more secure hold on Suletta’s hand until it’s over, her body hot and hair slick with sweat where it rests on the pillowcase. Looking down, she can see Suletta’s hand caught in the iron grip of her own, skin starting to lose its normal color as Miorine cuts off her circulation. Miorine relaxes, untwining her fingers from Suletta’s. She wonders who reached for whom first. She supposes it doesn’t matter. She carefully rearranges their hands so she’s holding on to Suletta’s wrist, her thumb brushing up against her pulse point. A strong wave of relief washes over her at the feeling.

Miorine gently lowers Suletta’s hand to the floor, squeezing it briefly before retracting her own. It’s stupid, and sentimental, but she can’t stop herself from doing it. Mission accomplished, she starts to roll over, just catching sight of Suletta’s open eyes.

She rolls back over with a sigh, but there’s some mirth behind it. “Suletta.”

“…Miorine?” Her voice is still thick with sleep, but there’s a sort of affected nonchalance to it, like she’s trying to pretend she just woke up. Miorine props her chin on her hand, gazing down at her.

“How long have you been awake?”

“A while,” Suletta sheepishly admits. She clasps her hands together, resting across her stomach. “You didn’t wake me up, though. I’m having trouble sleeping tonight.”

“What are you thinking about?”

Suletta turns to her in surprise. “How did you know?”

“…You think too much,” Miorine comments at last. “It’s just how you are.” Despite how flippant Suletta seems— or tries to seem— Miorine knows she’s constantly agonizing over every word, every action, afraid of— something. Not measuring up? Not having enough time.

She puzzles over this, almost forgetting about her roommate. But when she remembers her, Suletta looks satisfied. 

“I was just thinking about… what are you planning on doing after graduation?”

Miorine arches her eyebrows. She hadn’t been expecting that question— she’s not sure what she had anticipated. Something a little more serious than teenage dreams for the future.

“I’ve never really thought about it before,” she hedges.

“Never? You don’t have any plans after school?”

Miorine doesn’t like the direction this conversation is going. She doesn’t know how to tell her that she has never expected to live past her seventeenth birthday, that she has relegated herself to an observer in her own life as a result of this belief. It’s only been this school year that she’s begun doing things outside of the norm for herself— “just because,” as Suletta would put it— and not based on what has been expected of her: go to school. Go home. Rinse, repeat. She hasn’t even looked into university options. What’s the point?

“What about you?” She decides to evade the question entirely. Besides, she doesn’t actually know what Suletta’s goals or dreams are. She so rarely talks about her life before she transferred into Miorine’s school. When she does, more often than not she’ll censor herself.

“I… I think I’d like to become a teacher.”

Miorine tilts her head. Interesting. “I didn’t know that. That would be a good job for you. Are you planning on staying around here for university?”

Her words are met with silence. Miorine frowns. Usually Suletta would launch into an excited explanation of all that she planned to do, but this time, there’s nothing. She leans forward to get a better look at her; Suletta’s face is stricken.

“Miorine, do you really not remember me?” Suletta whispers.

Miorine shakes her head, trying to clear the cobwebs out. What is that supposed to mean? She knows who Suletta Mercury is— at least, of late. What else is there to remember beyond their initial introduction?

She half expects that by the time she reopens her eyes, Suletta will have pulled her usual act of dropping a poignant line and then reverting to her normally cheerful self, but instead, she sees her with her knees pulled up to her chest, resting her head in her hands. Her shoulders are slumped, a defeated posture that she so rarely allows Miorine to get a glimpse at.

Miorine slides carefully out of the bed. Her legs feel like jelly beneath her, and she doesn’t trust them to be able to bear her weight. She crawls over to Suletta’s futon, something she would ordinarily find degrading, and rests at the foot of it. Even this simple act has winded her. Suletta looks up from within the cage of her hands. Her face is wet.

“Tell me about yourself,” Miorine says. She ought to take Suletta’s hands, but she feels like she’s not ready for that yet. Talking might cheer her up.

“What is there to say?” Suletta mutters. “You already know everything about me.”

Miorine snorts.”No, I don’t. It’s difficult to get to know somebody who won’t tell you about themself.”

Suletta’s eyes flash at that. “You never told me anything about yourself, Miorine! Only— only the things everybody else knew. You never really confided in me at all. You never let me in on your plans, and— and— you went behind my back and did things without consulting me. Things that affected me, too.”

By this point the tears are flowing freely. Miorine stares at her, mouth agape. What is she talking about? Why is she speaking in the past tense? Better yet, why have her words struck a chord deep within Miorine? 

“If I did,” Miorine says slowly, “I only ever did it for your benefit.” This feels like the right thing to say. It feels like the truth. She feels a burning sense of shame all the same.

This only proves to reduce Suletta to outright sobbing, and Miorine feels like she’s missed a step going down the stairs. It’s the truth. She had, at one point, wanted to protect Suletta from… from what?

Miorine casts her mind back, deep, deep into her memory banks, but she can’t retrieve it. Just the outline of a memory. Somebody was going to hurt Suletta, had been doing so for a long time actually, was using and abusing her, and she had to put a stop to it. And to do that, she had to—

Suletta opens her mouth again before Miorine can arrive at her conclusion, and out of habit, she turns her meager attention span to her. “You didn’t ask me. You didn’t ask me what I wanted. You just assumed— And you left me all alone, all three of you—” Her sobs renew in full force, cutting her off.

Miorine inches closer to her across the futon, until they’re sitting hip to hip. She doesn’t know what’s going on, if she and Suletta are suffering from some sort of shared hallucination or what, but she knows it’s not a manipulation tactic. Everything Suletta says, her emotions, the way she treats Miorine, feel very real and earnest. She’s not lying to her.

Miorine leans her head against Suletta’s shoulder, wrapping her arms around her body. Suletta stiffens within her embrace. Miorine flushes and attempts to withdraw her arms. Of course Suletta wouldn’t want to be held by her. What was she thinking?

But Suletta’s just turned around to fully face her, her own arms going around Miorine’s waist and drawing her close. She buries her face in Miorine’s neck and sobs stormily. 

Miorine gingerly wraps her arms back around Suletta, leaning into her. There’s nowhere else to rest her face but her chest, and she does so, listening to Suletta’s lungs and heart beneath her, the sound almost surrounding her. They sit there for a long time, Miorine’s legs slowly going numb beneath her in her crouching position. She’s surprised she’s even able to register it. She debates her next action fully before deciding to commit to it. What does she have to lose? 

Miorine turns, shifting her weight until she’s sitting in the space formed by Suletta’s crossed legs. She swings her own legs up over one of Suletta’s, knees bent, and now she’s well and truly in her lap. The other girl’s breath hitches as Miorine slides her arms back around her torso, lacing her fingers together.

“M-M-Miorine—” 

Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“No— no, you’re not.” Suletta’s arms hesitantly go around her waist, and Miorine relaxes against her chest.

“Then shh. Just be still.”

Suletta falls silent, the only sound coming from her being the occasional sniffle. Miorine listens to the cavernous echoes of it within her ribcage, mind spinning for the first time in perhaps forever. She can’t remember the last time she was so present.

She knows her. Somehow, she knows Suletta Mercury. That much is obvious at this point. They’ve done this before, a variation of it, just like they’ve done— other things before. Hadn’t they held each other like this, once before? Under similar circumstances? And the keychains had been familiar, hadn’t they? And Suletta was a late transfer back then as well, wasn’t she—

Miorine’s brain seems to halt at this. It’s like there’s a wall that she can’t overcome, buried deep within her psyche. Every time she approaches it, or tries to get around it, she finds it higher than she can see over and longer than she can walk around, stretching far out of her sight on either side.

But at least now she knows it’s there.

“This is familiar,” Miorine notes, briefly turning her face to the side so she can be heard. She presses herself closer to Suletta, burying her face into her night shirt. Now that she’s holding her, she doesn’t want to let go. Suletta in turn places her head over top of Miorine’s, enveloping her in all her red hair. Miorine blows a strand out of her face and Suletta giggles slightly. Miorine smiles in response.

They stay like that while Suletta gets her breathing under control. Then, Miorine says shrewdly, “Were we dating?”

Suletta’s heart seems to stop beneath her ear. “Um—” 

A pause.

“So that’s a yes, then.”

Suletta shakes her head. “It’s a— it’s a no. We weren’t dating, Miorine.”

“But we were in love,” Miorine deduces.

The silence that follows is even more protracted than the first. Miorine pulls back to look her in the face. Suletta avoids her eyes at first, but the force of Miorine’s gaze eventually compels her to return it.

“I… I was,” she says in a small voice. “But you… I don’t know… I don’t think you were.” Suletta’s voice cracks. “You told me you weren’t, anyway.”

Miorine listens to this in silence. She has to wonder about her past self. Had she truly not loved Suletta? Or was it a lie? Something to further her agenda of protecting her, no matter the cost?

What was she protecting her from?

Suletta sniffles again. Miorine winds her arms around her neck, pulling her close. Regardless of how she may have felt in the past, she knows what she feels now. 

“You should go to sleep,” she says after a while. She scrambles out of Suletta’s lap. Suletta looks at her mistrustfully. Maybe that’s the real reason she hasn’t told her anything so far. Maybe she’s earned it.

“What about you?”

Miorine shrugs before pulling her pillow and blanket clear off the mattress. “I probably won’t be able to sleep now. But I’ll stay with you.” She places her pillow next to Suletta’s own, on the edge of the futon. They’re going to be practically on top of each other, but seeing as she’s just been sitting in Suletta’s lap, she doesn’t think that will be a problem. Suletta slowly lies back down, reaching one hand out. Miorine takes it in her own.

“I won’t leave you.”

-

Suletta falls into a fitful sleep. Just as Miorine had predicted, she herself has been unable to fall back asleep, but that doesn’t matter. It gives her more time to think.

She’s tired. Not in the normal way for her, but in the way she thinks most people experience it. Lack of sleep, too many thoughts. Her head is resting on Suletta’s shoulder— somehow, Suletta had wound up on her back with her arms around her, and Miorine had been much too content to change positions. She’s worried this might be too much for Suletta, though, after what she’d told her. 

I finally found you, Suletta had said, heart trembling on her lips. Miorine hadn’t noticed it at the time, but even then, it was obvious why she had come for her.

Had her past self really not loved her at all?

Miorine gazes at her profile. That can’t be right. She had to have been lying. For what purpose? 

You left me all alone. Suletta hadn’t been alone, though. They had had friends— she thinks. People Miorine could trust to look after her and help her through what came next. She had wanted Suletta to stop relying so much on… someone else. To think for herself. To stop doing as somebody else bid her.

All three of you.

Who were the other two people?

-

The next day, the two still attend school. Suletta is unusually subdued, barely saying anything to anybody all day. It’s like she’s finally crumbled under the great weight she’s been carrying on her back since she first arrived, the weight Miorine was unaware even existed until the night before. That’s okay. She can take it from here. 

At one point, Suletta turns to her to apologize, but Miorine just shakes her head. 

“I know you’re sad. You don’t have to pretend anymore.”

Suletta’s eyes fill with tears, and Miorine feels a strange sense of déjà vu. Hadn’t she wanted that at one point? For Suletta to acknowledge her real feelings, instead of pasting on a smile and burying her negative emotions within herself? Who had taught her to do that?

Miorine rests her chin on her hands. She has a headache from thinking so hard. The buzzing feeling is more insistent today, practically enveloping her, but she shakes it off as best she can. This is more important.

Before Miorine knows it, they’re getting ready for bed again. Without hesitation, she slips into Suletta’s futon next to her. Suletta’s cheeks burn.

“Am I bothering you?”

“N-no, it’s just—” Suletta stares at the ceiling. Miorine thinks she knows what it is. Suletta had as good as told her that she loves her— or had, once. She’s probably afraid her admission had made Miorine uncomfortable. 

Miorine wonders if she still loves her. She hopes that’s the case.

Suletta reaches her hands out, and Miorine enfolds them within her own. Suletta’s face lights up in genuine happiness for the first time in the last twenty-four hours, but there’s still an undercurrent of sadness to it. Miorine stares into her eyes, wondering how to give her an uncomplicated happiness.

Is it even possible?

“I don’t suppose you can tell me now what’s going on.”

Suletta draws her shoulders up toward her ears. “I’m not— I can’t. I’m sorry, Miorine.”

“That’s okay. Can you tell me what you’re trying to do, at least?”

Silence.

“I guess you’re trying to make me remember the past.” That would explain Suletta’s assumptions about her interest in clubs, anyway. Some other things don’t quite add up, though.

“For the most part,” Suletta says quietly. “But I was afraid— of you remembering other things. And— and shutting me out. Making me leave. And they said if it goes too fast… you might get lost.”

This is a riddle, but Miorine’s gotten used to Suletta’s half-answers by this point. She knows now that she’s not doing it to be annoying, or to mess with her head, but because she legitimately believes there are certain things she can’t, or shouldn’t, tell her. Miorine has decided to trust that her judgment is sound.

“Well, that’s okay. I’ll figure it out.”

Suletta casts her a hopeful look. “Do you think you can? They said it would be too hard, that you’re in too deep—” She stops herself.

Miorine very much wants to know who they are, and why they thought she wouldn’t be able to remember her past with Suletta. Maybe they expected that her brain would be fried at this point. Sometimes she’s amazed she’s able to still think at all. Her recent liveliness has exhausted her in a way she hadn’t thought possible before. Just forcing herself to be present, to think, is taking whatever leftover energy she had when she was just drifting along. She understands now why it had been so much easier for her to just shut down, check out of everything. She’d been anticipating a lifetime of just drifting, ignoring everything else around her before she finally just came to a complete stop. She had even looked forward to the cessation of the overwhelming sensations. At least she’d finally have some peace.

She looks at their hands, resting between their bodies. She’s glad she didn’t check out, in the end.

-

“I have an idea.”

They’re sitting in the classroom after school. Club didn’t meet today, and Miorine was so deep in thought that they had simply remained behind while all their classmates trickled out. Suletta stayed with her, alternately watching her think and playing with her phone. At one point she had tied her long hair back into a low ponytail. At the sound of Miorine’s voice now, she looks up.

“What is it?”

Miorine stands back from her desk and begins pacing in a tight circle, hands clasped behind her back. Suletta watches her anxiously.

She’s nervous herself. She’s afraid— of rejection, of being wrong, of toying with Suletta’s feelings beyond what she gets the feeling she already has. It’s a foolish idea, born of fairy tales and no real logic, but it’s the only thing she can think of at this point. Maybe if she’d give herself more time— but she’s always been impatient, eager to move to the next thing. Waiting is not her strong suit.

“I’m a liar,” she admits bluntly. Suletta starts. “I know I am. And I think… I’m sure… I lied to you earlier. You said I told you I didn’t love you, but I think— no, I know— that was a lie.” She swallows. She has butterflies in her stomach. She’s paced back to her origin point, so she’s standing behind her own desk and next to Suletta’s. Suletta’s eyes are wide, splotches of color high on her cheeks. She’s grasping her hands firmly in her lap.

“And I’m sorry for lying to you. I must have had a good reason, or told myself I did, but that’s no excuse. I still hurt you, more than you’ve allowed me to see the whole time you’ve been here.” She takes a deep breath.

Suletta stands beside her. She’s never realized just how tall the other girl is before now, but she keeps her head bowed toward Miorine’s. Her long hair is loose again. Miorine thinks this is how she likes it best. “I lied to you too, Miorine. Now, and back then— I didn’t always tell you the truth.” She twists her hands together. “I didn’t tell myself the truth most of the time.”

Miorine takes Suletta’s hands in her own. Suletta’s are feverishly warm, while her own are cool, but Suletta doesn’t seem put off by this. She wraps her fingers around Miorine’s, rubbing her thumbs across the backs of her hands.

“I have an idea,” Miorine repeats. “It’s stupid—”

Suletta lets out a choked laugh at this. Miorine flashes a brief smile in response. Her heart is in her throat, her nerves giddy. She’s never felt like this before.

“What is it?”

“It’s— I want to make sure you’re okay with it before we do it—”

“I trust you, Miorine,” Suletta says quietly.

Miorine swallows. Her lips and throat are dry. “Okay.” She leans forward, transferring her weight to the balls of her feet, like a diver does before launching themself into the churning waters below. She’s dangerously close to tipping directly into Suletta, but her firm grip on Miorine’s hands keeps her balanced. She takes a deep breath and then takes the plunge.

Suletta catches her. She must instinctively realize what she’s after, because just before Miorine closes her eyes, she can see her angling her head toward hers. A second later, their lips meet, and Miorine feels a vague sense of relief that she didn’t miss entirely, that her course was on target.

They stand there like that for a moment that seems to stretch on infinitely, and Miorine knows that if somebody were to walk in on them right now, it would be very obvious neither has experience doing this. She doesn’t know what to do with her nose, or Suletta’s— but then Suletta angles her head slightly differently, one of her hands releasing Miorine’s to cup her arm instead, and that’s better. It feels more like an actual kiss and less like a mashing together of their lips. She feels a swooping sensation in her stomach and squeezes the hand she still has a hold of.

Whatever Miorine expected to happen doesn’t. The wall in her mind isn’t knocked down. Neither of them suddenly transforms in a shower of light. Her head is spinning, but that’s more from the effects of the kiss itself and not because she’s regaining her memories. She’s disappointed— she knew this was stupid. But at least it feels nice. At one point Suletta breaks apart from her and lets out a breathless little laugh, and Miorine laughs too before placing her lips on Suletta’s once more. She should have done this a long time ago.

And then she feels it.

One second she’s there in the classroom, and the next she’s underwater, being tossed about. This is the furthest below sea level she’s ever been. She doesn’t think she can resurface.

“Miorine?”

She can’t see. She’s on the verge of blacking out. She grips Suletta’s hands tightly in her own, trying to remain upright. Suletta lets go of her hands entirely and slides one arm around her back, throwing the other under her legs.

Suddenly she’s face down on the shore, the tide receding behind her. She lets out a spluttering cough, raising her head from the sand. She stares blearily at everything around her.

Suletta has placed her back in her desk chair, kneeling anxiously on the floor beside her. One hand is resting on her knee, the other arm half-wrapped around her waist in an attempt to catch her if she falls again. Miorine stares at her. Her face, her clothes, her hair, the look in her eyes. She looks so different, yet still the same. She looks older. Her eyes fill with tears. Suletta’s face becomes blurry.

“Suletta,” she gasps. It feels like her lungs are finally free, no longer full of seawater. She’s taking in deep breaths for the first time in— forever. Possibly her whole life.

“I remember you,” she says, before her voice is broken with sobs. Suletta’s face has rapidly morphed from anxiety to panic. “You were my— my groom. Suletta, Suletta.”

She rests her head on her arms, crying. How could she forget her? She hadn’t wanted to. It had all been for her, after all.

“M—Miorine,” Suletta says, touching her shoulder. Miorine peers up at her. Suletta is on her feet once more. Their faces are close together now, Suletta’s gradually taking on an elated expression. How long has she waited for this?

“You’re not supposed to be here,” Miorine admonishes, her voice turning urgent. I only wanted you to be happy. You weren’t supposed to come. “Please, you have to leave.”

“I can’t leave, Ms. Miorine,” Suletta whispers. “I came to find you. I don’t want you to go away again.”

“I thought I told you to stop calling me that.” There’s no ire in her tone; only a deep weariness. Now’s not the time to be splitting hairs, but it had been nice of Suletta to drop the honorific, even if she hadn’t known at the time why she liked it.

Suletta offers her an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. It’s an old habit. I’ll work on it.”

Fresh tears prick at Miorine’s eyes when she says this. She grips Suletta’s hands in between hers, dragging her closer. They’re practically nose-to-nose now, and although startled, Suletta doesn’t pull away. She’s changed so much. How long has Miorine been gone?

“No, I’m sorry,” Miorine says, voice hitching. She has to get these words out before she becomes incomprehensible, sobbing all over Suletta. The last words she ever said to her— the cruelest words she could summon— course through her veins, filling her body with poison and making her feel ashamed again. She hated herself as she had prepared them, as she had said them, and still more after leaving her, sobbing, behind. “I didn’t mean it— I’m so sorry. I don’t care where you come from. It doesn’t matter to me. I only wanted to push you away. I didn’t want to get you involved. You were never just a shield to me. I wanted to be with you, too.” She’s babbling, but she feels the need to address each horrible word, point by point, like a business proposal.

She wants to tell her, I did love you. I still love you, but what can Suletta do with that information if they’re going to part ways again?

Suletta’s face has become invisible through the thickening tears, but then she’s wiping them with her thumbs, and Miorine can see the tenderest smile anybody has ever given her resting on Suletta’s lips. This proves to be her undoing, and she sobs, bowing her head again.

Suletta places both arms around her shoulders. “I know that now,” she whispers in Miorine’s ear. She wouldn’t otherwise be able to hear her, as noisy as she’s become in her anguish. “But it— it makes me happy to hear you say that.” She rests her head against Miorine’s and lets her cry.

When she’s more composed, Suletta wipes her face gently with one of the tissues she keeps in her desk. Miorine feels a deep pang at the gesture. She had done all this to take care of Suletta— for once, in their entire relationship, she would protect her— but now Suletta is once again the one taking care of her. 

Had it all been for nothing?

“You need to leave,” she reiterates. Her voice is still thick with the previously shed tears, and hoarse from the wracking sobs. “Please. I just want you to be happy, and alive.” How much longer can she last? She can feel her energy draining already, that ever-present buzzing sensation beginning again. Evidently leaving the ocean is not enough to sever the link between her and the rest of the system.

“I can’t be happy if you’re stuck here, Miorine. Not really. Not… not the way I want to be.” She looks down at their hands, which have somehow found each other yet again. “And… I’m sorry for being so sneaky all this time. I wasn’t very honest with you. I thought… I thought you wouldn’t want to see me again.”

Miorine lets out a noise that starts as a laugh and ends as a sob. “You’re the last person here who should be apologizing for using underhanded tactics.”

“And you’re not alive here, yourself,” Suletta continues. She doesn’t seem interested in Miorine’s apologies. Probably she’s already forgiven her completely. “You’re not really living here. You’re just… existing.”

“Is that how things were for you, on Mercury?” Miorine murmurs. Suletta freezes, and she instantly regrets it. Prospera is already a specter cast over their relationship; she doesn’t know why she has to invoke her presence now.

“I—” Suletta looks down. “I’d never thought of it that way. But I guess… yes.” She looks up, her eyes, the set of her jaw more determined now. “Which is why I have to get you out of here! I can’t leave you behind. I won’t.”

“Suletta—”

“I don’t want you sacrificing your life for mine. That won’t make me happy.”

“You don’t understand! I don’t have a body to go back to anymore!” Suletta opens her mouth, but Miorine presses on. “There was— another girl. The same thing happened to her. That’s why she’s doing this.”

She understands Prospera’s game now. Of course her father had been the object of her vengeance— and Miorine just another pawn caught in the crosshairs. Prospera probably hadn’t even been thinking of her as her own person at all; she was an extension of her father. She was an object to be used against him, to cause him pain. All her life, she’s only been looked at as a thing to be moved around in power plays.

“I know that.”

Suletta’s voice is very, very quiet. “My mom, she— she told me everything.” Miorine feels the hairs raise up on her arms at the way she says everything. Likely it’s far more than Miorine herself knows or could guess. 

“Everything?”

Suletta’s smile is the most heartbreaking thing she’s ever seen.

“So you must know— there’s no hope.”

Suletta shakes her head. “Your body is still there, Miorine—”

“In no condition for someone to live in—”

“But it is. I don’t understand it… I think, what happened to you… it’s different from the first time. With… with Aerial.” Miorine tenses at the name. Suletta looks down at her hands. “You’re not as integrated into the system as she is… I… I couldn’t help her. I don’t think Aerial knows any other way to live at this point. That’s what I’ve been trying to prevent, all this time. You can come back. I know you can. But you have to want to.”

Miorine offers her a watery smile. “You’ve always given me too much credit. I’m not as brave as you think I am.”

“But you are. Please,” Suletta whispers. “Don’t leave me behind again.”

Miorine blinks tears away. “Suletta, I’m so sorry—”

Suletta shakes her head. There are tears standing in her eyes as well. “I— I should be apologizing to you, Miorine. I didn’t realize— I didn’t know—” Suddenly, she bows low at the waist in repentance. “I didn’t know about my mother’s plans! I’m so sorry for what she did to you. I wish I’d never come to Asticassia— that was the only reason she let me go to school, and I— I know that now. I understand if you— if you never want to see me again.”

Miorine touches her cheek gently, wiping away a few of the tears there. Suletta looks up at her in surprise. “If you hadn’t come to Asticassia, we never would have met, right?” she whispers.

She wishes it hadn’t happened this way. That they had been able to meet somewhere else. She can imagine herself scouting out a new school on Mercury for up-and-coming scientists or business gurus, just happening to come across the young woman serving as a teacher there. Or maybe they could have met on Earth, removed their parents from the equation entirely and found happiness there. But there are too many variables, too many what-ifs. If she pulls one strand out, the whole web will collapse.

She just has to make do with what she has. 

Miorine stands from the desk and wraps her arms around Suletta in a long embrace. “You don’t have to apologize for your mother,” she murmurs. “Her sins are not your burdens to bear.”

It feels like the world around them is beginning to fall away and dissolve. The noises from outside have faded into a soft humming noise. Her feet no longer feel like they’re touching the floor. She holds on to Suletta tightly. She’s not sure what’s going to happen next, but if they’re together, she’s sure it’ll be okay.

Just before her consciousness fades out completely, she can make out the low response:

“Neither are your father’s.”

-

Miorine can’t open her eyes. Her limbs feel like lead. Her mind is a blank landscape, nothing but fog stretching from horizon to horizon.

Through the haze, she can hear something murmuring inarticulately. At some point, the indistinct humming resolves into a pair of voices: 

“—might take some time for full reintegration of her senses—”

“—surprised we were even able to do it—”

“I thought she was going to die in there, honestly—”

“They should just destroy those things. This isn’t what the Vanadis Institute wanted.”

“Who’s to say that? Were you there?”

“No, but I read their research as it came out. Absolutely this was not their end design…” 

The squabbling scientists’ voices are getting farther and farther away. Her brain gets lost in the fog again.

She sleeps.

-

At one point, there’s a light pressure on her hand.

“Don’t bother her,” says a strident voice. She recognizes it, can almost conjure the image of the person to whom it belongs in her mind.

“Are we sure she’s going to wake up?” says another voice, a soft, sweet one, that’s familiar as well. There’s a touch of doubt in it that isn’t usually there. “I don’t want to be a pessimist, but Suletta has already woken up—”

“Don’t go borrowing trouble, Lilique,” and this belongs to a voice she had feared she might never hear again. A calm, reasonable one, that sounds more worldweary than Miorine remembers. It feels like every nerve within her vibrates upon hearing it, but not in the way she had grown accustomed to in her previous life. “Suletta wasn’t in there for nearly as long as Miorine. I’m sure she’ll wake up soon.”

The room is quiet for a moment before the second voice— Lilique— says, “Well, I’ll leave these flowers in the vase here.”

“She’ll like those,” the first voice murmurs. She feels another hand touch her arm.

“Wake up soon, alright?”

-

When Miorine can finally open her eyes, the dim light nearly blinds her.

Somebody has turned it down low, either in deference to her situation or because the sleep-wake cycle of the station has shifted to nighttime. She can feel the weight of something resting on her right hand, and she can just barely muster the energy to turn her head toward it.

Suletta Mercury is holding her hand, arms crossed beside it on the mattress. Her left cheek is resting on her arms, eyes closed in slumber. Her shoulders move slightly with each breath she takes, the blanket spread across them moving in time. Probably somebody hadn’t had the heart to wake her. In her periphery, she can make out the vase full of flowers Lilique brought her. They’re white lilies.

Miorine’s mouth twitches upward. She falls unconscious once more.

-

When she awakens fully, Miorine’s the only person in her room.

She flexes her right hand experimentally. She can move the fingers— just barely. Her body feels numb, either due to lack of use or because she’s still not fully in control of her motor functions. An intravenous line is fed into the back of her right hand, and when she turns her head the other way, she can see another line, this one of a larger diameter, feeding into her upper left arm. She turns her head back around and stares listlessly at her bedside table. A basket of red tulips has joined the vase of lilies.

She might doze a little— it’s hard for her to keep track of time, and her body still feels so heavy, like rocks have been tied to her wrists and ankles. At least she can’t feel the bobbing of the ocean waves beneath her.

One minute she’s staring at the door, eyes half-lidded, and the next it slides open, revealing Suletta Mercury carrying a tray of food.

She must not notice Miorine; she turns to the bedside table and hesitates with the tray, reluctant to move the flowers aside. After some deliberation, she moves out of Miorine’s line of sight and returns empty-handed. She sits in the low chair next to the bed, resting her head in her hands.

“Suletta.”

Suletta nearly jumps out of her skin at the sound of her voice, narrowly avoiding falling out of her seat. She pops back up just as quickly, pulling the seat closer to her bed. That’s good. Miorine’s not sure she can reach out for her right now.

“M-M-Miorine?” she whispers. “Are you awake?”

Her tongue feels a little heavy in her mouth, but she’s able to give her a raspy “yes” in response.

Suletta’s eyes fill with tears, and Miorine’s own vision becomes cloudy in response. “Thank goodness,” Suletta murmurs, bowing her head. Her hands wrap around Miorine’s right, holding it to her forehead. For a very long time, she doesn’t say anything.

Finally, Suletta returns her hand to the mattress, still within her own. She wipes Miorine’s tears away with her free hand. The feeling of Suletta’s fingertips across her cheek is like a jolt to her system. She hadn’t realized how dulled her senses had been within the false reality until this very moment.

“I was worried… you were never going to wake up. That I ruined everything.”

Miorine shakes her head an inch or two in each direction. It’s the best she can do. “You saved me,” she rasps. She clears her throat noisily. Suletta casts around for something.

“Would you like something to drink? Oh— but they said you weren’t supposed to eat or drink anything when you first wake up.” Her face falls. She must truly feel like she’s depriving Miorine of something. “I’m sorry.”

Miorine clears her throat again. “I’m not hungry,” she says, and her voice sounds less like her airway is full of gravel this time. Hopefully she can now say what she’s wanted to tell Suletta since the final duel.

But Suletta jolts upright again, this time twisting toward the IV pole on Miorine’s right. “They told me to call the nurse when you come to! Hold on, I know the buzzer’s somewhere… here…” She looks at the IV pump quizzically before turning her gaze to the side of the bed. “Wait, I think it’s on this remote—”

“Suletta.” Miorine puts as much urgency as she can in her voice. “Don’t call the nurse.”

Suletta’s hand stills on the remote, index finger just millimeters from pressing the red call button. “They need to see you, Miorine,” she says gently. “The doctors have to take a look at you, too. I think there are tests they want to run, now that you’re awake.”

Miorine’s mouth twists into a scowl. It’s probably not as impressive as it would ordinarily be. “That can wait. I want…” She swallows. “I want to talk to you first.”

Suletta’s eyes become cautious, but she puts the remote back into the pocket on the side of Miorine’s bed. She folds her hands, one on top of the other, on the mattress.

“Suletta, I’m sorry,” she breathes. She can’t speak at a much louder volume, but she’s sure Suletta can hear her over the beeping of the machines around her. 

Suletta’s face softens. “I thought we talked about that before, Miorine.”

“But—”

“I don’t want to cut you off,” Suletta says, even as she does so. “But… you don’t have to keep apologizing. I don’t want you to. I know why you did it… even if it hurt.”

The tears are trailing down Miorine’s face, rolling down her neck and soaking into her hospital gown. All she had wanted was to free Suletta of Prospera’s manipulation— even if they had to be separated because of it. It was the only path forward that had seemed reasonable at the time, beset on all sides as they were by terrorists and the Benerit Group and Prospera herself. She had hated every second of it.

“And it’s okay,” Suletta goes on. Her eyes are very soft. “I… I want to move forward with you.” She bends her head forward humbly. “If you’ll have me.”

Idiot, she could say. Of course I’ll have you. But she knows why Suletta’s so insecure, despite her newfound confidence in other areas. They can work on that. They have time.

“You’re the only one I ever wanted,” Miorine confesses. It’s stupid, and cheesy, but it’s true. She only wants to tell her the truth from now on. Suletta’s eyes widen a fraction before she looks down, a small smile on her lips and a dusky blush on her cheeks. Miorine wiggles her hand until it comes into contact with hers, hooking her pinky around Suletta’s. 

They sit like that for a spell. Miorine can feel the energy slowly seeping from her body again, but Suletta is perfectly content to sit in silence with her. Her mind is working in fits and starts. There are so many loose ends to handle. Where are the members of Earth House? How long has she been out? She wonders who’s been managing the Benerit Group in her absence. Hopefully Guel. That way she can more easily transfer power over to him—

“Oh!” Suletta turns once again toward the call bell. “I should call the nurse now—”

“Wait.”

Suletta peers at her curiously. “Come here,” Miorine mutters.

Suletta leans over the bed awkwardly, eyes wide and earnest. “Closer.”

Suletta brings her head within six inches of Miorine’s, offering her ear. She really doesn’t get it. “Suletta.” She raises an eyebrow. She can feel the strain of something suctioned to her forehead as she does so. Do they have her hooked up to an electroencephalogram? The situation must have been more dire than she initially assumed.

If she could, she’d lean forward herself and meet Suletta’s lips with her own. But she’s too unsteady, her body too heavy. Probably she’d just ram her head into Suletta’s like she had the first day they met.

“What? I— oh!” She lets out an awkward laugh before leaning in closer. Suddenly her face is all Miorine can see before she kisses her.

It’s a very brief kiss, just a brush of the lips. Suletta pulls away and then presses a soft kiss to her temple, around the electrodes there. 

“Go ahead and call the nurse,” she says quietly, eyes closing. She might sleep through the whole thing. “But…”

“But?”

“Will you stay?”

Suletta intertwines their fingers together. “Of course, Miorine.”