Chapter Text
Ouro Kronii dreamed of a black flower unfurling its pedals languidly, the tips of them lazily wriggling in the air. She felt hot. Her skin stuck to the petals when she touched them, peeling off when she pulled away. She tried to scream but nothing came out. Instead, with every silent burst of pain, the flower grew.
When she awoke, she realized the heat had likely been Mumei, who clung to her in her bed. This had been going on ever since. Kronii would unlatch her window before bed and soon, the brown haired girl would silently slip through the window and into her bed. A gentle kiss, eyelashes that tickled her own, and breath that became the same as hers. Whispers that caressed her ear, a knee in between her legs.
She stared at Mumei, her lashes low and drooped, lips slightly parted as she dreamed. She wondered what Mumei dreamt about. Was there a black flower there as well? The same that she’d seen in Mumei’s past? Kronii didn’t want to know. She leaned in close and pressed her lips softly to Mumei’s, who opened her eyes calmly and stately, the core of her gaze immediately driven into Kronii’s eyes. Their lips didn’t separate.
Maybe the dreams about the flower didn’t matter. The only flower that mattered to her was right in front of her. A flower she wanted by her side always, never wilting, never changing.
They picked away at each other’s petals with sincerity, cherishing and savoring every scent and sensation. It made Kronii’s eyes cloud over, made her pupils expand and darken, eclipsing everything. She wanted it to continue past her eyes, spreading darkness until she was in full bloom, expansive and quivering in her own might, growing.
She wanted to become the celestial body that aligned with Nanashi Mumei, the girl with a curse. She wanted to share in it; become a part of it.
“Hey…”
Kronii shivered, breaking out of her trance. “Yeah?”
Mumei crawled back up from Kronii’s thighs, her eyes never leaving Kronii’s. She found herself a spot across Kronii’s warm body, laying her head against Kronii’s breast. Kronii ran her fingers through Mumei’s hair as Mumei found herself nearly cooing, feeling like a child. Warm and secure, cradled against plush skin and under the gentle touch of someone who loved her. She smiled before the words filled her mouth like bile, nearly tumbling out from her lips. She swallowed them down.
Maybe then, they wouldn’t become real.
“Do you need to eat?” Kronii stroked the soft skin of Mumei’s back, her nails gently dragging along the edge of her spine.
Mumei shook her head, humming softly and kissing Kronii’s chest. Ever since they’d become intimate, Mumei had felt her hunger lessen. Perhaps it was truly sated. The curse within did feed on emotions, after all, not just flesh. Perhaps this new feeling in her was a bountiful feast for it; filling it’s gullet until it was stuffed to mountainous proportions. It wasn’t something she could feel or see. There was no orb of lust or love floating above her, following her through the woods where she hunted.
She consumed the flesh of lesser-intelligent beings when Kronii was indisposed with her schoolwork or dinners with her mother. She did it as a manner of insurance. The more instinctual and hard-coded a creature’s brain was, the less there was to feed off of along with it’s flesh. She’d do her best though, chasing a deer manically until it had tangled itself in vines, succumbing to her rampage. These animals gave in so fast, lowering their chins to the forest floor and breathing softly and slowly as she fed. They died with a quiet resignation. She wasn’t sure how it was enough, but she’d wipe the blood from her mouth and sit, waiting for Kronii’s window to open. To return to Kronii’s arms.
It struck her that this was becoming a routine. There was no wild hunt or dangerous game. There was her daily routine; going to school with Kronii, hunting in the woods, and then her evenings and mornings. Nights full of sticky heat and the exchange of everything.
She found herself closer than she ever was to a new kind of life. Closer to the mounds where everyone else played from. She nearly felt that if a ball was sent flying, it would be far over her head at this point, lost to the outfield.
Is it okay to just be this way?
She shrugs to herself and hooks her arms around Kronii, pulling her onto her side. This way she could more easily wrap herself around this love of hers, this greater interest that had become more.
She didn’t need interest anymore; she needed peace.
“Hey, killer. You spacing out on me?” Kronii smirks, moving in close to Mumei. Mumei silently gasps when Kronii presses her tongue to Mumei’s neck. Mumei can feel her own carotid artery pulse under the wet muscle, and Kronii can feel it too, by her reaction. She moves in tandem with the pulse, sending Mumei down a dizzying river. Her destination is a frantic splash of heat and a moan into Kronii’s breast, and when she arrives there, she finds her thoughts have slipped away. There was nothing but the warm afterglow of a cold night in the arms of the girl she loved.
Kronii kisses Mumei’s forehead, pausing to sniff her hairline. To press her nose to Mumei’s ear; her neck. Her chest… her heart.
Kronii licks her lips.
•
Fauna nearly had to jog to keep up.
“H-hey! My goodness. Okay, miss legs!”
“Hey, I’m not just legs. I’m attitude as well. C’mon, keep up, Princess.”
“Oh my. Not used to being called that.”
Fauna had taken to walking with Kronii to school. It seemed that every day, she was struggling more and more to keep up. Was this really the same sullen girl she’d nursed?
Kronii turns around, walking backwards. “No? I think you could’ve been one, in another time.”
Fauna blushes, straightening her bangs. “Stop it.”
Kronii chuckles, slowing down to walk beside Fauna.
“Fine, fine. Well, what should I call you then? I’m escorting you every day to school; you’re not a princess?”
Fauna rolls her eyes. “Guess that makes you the knight, huh?”
“So she admits it.”
“She admits nothing, and you can call her Fauna. She likes using her given name, she finds it pretty.”
Kronii smiles. “Well, she’d be right, I guess.”
Fauna’s nose wrinkles. There was something about Kronii. Her smell? It wasn’t anything she’d remembered from hanging out with her before. It was…
“Smells like rain coming.”
Fauna’s thoughts were interrupted. “Sorry? It’s sunny though, isn’t it? Are you okay?” She chuckles.
Kronii looks up and around.
Huh.
There really wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was windy, sure, but other than that, it was one of the few days they’d had since the advent of fall.
“Alright, I might be losing it. Just kind of… ahh, nevermind.”
Kronii falls behind Fauna, looking up to the sky. It definitely smelled like it would rain. Or at least… it did. That wet, almost foresty odor. It was like she could smell the burning of molecules as tiny torrents of static electricity zipped through them. The damp heat of plants and seeds regaining bits of moisture from the rising humidity… the tiniest elements of life that reacted to changes only slight enough to affect them alone…
Kronii shuts her eyes and rubs the bridge of her nose. When she opens them, she sees Fauna walking ahead, turning around to check if she was still there.
“Sorry, coming.”
“You’re a real wildcard today. First I can’t keep up, now I’m waiting for you…”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m never on the same page as you, huh?”
Fauna’s lips twitch. She shakes her head, nudging Kronii’s arm with her elbow. “I think I’m just too one-note. I need to get more like you.”
“Not sure we’re on the same page there.”
“Aw, c’mon.”
Fauna was the very image of a perfect schoolgirl, with her pleated skirt and perfectly clean cardigan, not a hair or stain in sight. She even walked in an organized fashion, with one dress shoe landing routinely and perfectly in front of the next. She watched as Fauna walked just a foot or two ahead of her, the ends of her hair bouncing with each measured step. It drove Kronii slightly mad in a way she couldn’t express even to herself on the inside.
There’s nothing wrong with some disorder within order.
She finds herself slowly reaching up towards the collar of Fauna’s cardigan. Staring at the few stray hairs at the nape of Fauna’s neck. Her skin was so…
Ba-dump.
Fauna gasps slightly and Kronii’s hand falls from its midair perch, swinging loosely by her side.
“Hey, what? Are you good?”
Fauna stands there, breathing slightly faster than usual. Her eyes dart over to Kronii and then down to her feet. She closes her eyes and inhales slowly.
“Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Sorry, I just had a weird feeling.”
Kronii’s eyebrows twitch slightly as she stares.
“Weird feeling?”
Fauna shakes her head, smiling. “Don’t worry. It was like an invasive thought or something.”
She begins to walk again, tailed by Kronii, who now purposefully walked slower. She carefully observed Fauna.
“What was the thought?”
Fauna shivers as the breeze picks up. “Nothing. It’s silly.”
“Dude. If you knew the last few days I’ve had, you wouldn’t think any kind of thought was silly ever again. I definitely don’t. What was it?”
Fauna’s hands ball into fists at her sides for a moment. She digs her peach colored nails into her palms.
“Just a weird feeling. I felt… like I was being touched on my neck.”
A strange, foreign feeling races through Kronii’s entire body, almost causing her muscles to lock up. It was only for a split second, but it felt like the air around her flashed. Her eyes swam for a second. It was dizzying.
“O-oh…”
Kronii walks in silence. Fauna notices and changes the subject.
“Hey, what were you doing that other day? When you didn’t come to school?”l
Kronii nearly stops in her tracks. Her legs feel like there were wires running through them, wrapped around every ligament. Her own anxiety pushed them forward.
I… was…
“I was…”
Searching for her…
“Just walking through the woods…”
Swimming through the black, liquid dream of something horrible.
“And then I met up and talked with Mumei…”
I watched her become engulfed by a curse and kill…
“And then um… we hung out for a while.”
And then we engulfed each other…
“She shared some secrets…”
She confessed…
“And I did too…”
Fauna smiles, eyes slightly wide as she turns around. “Secrets? So you both played hooky to gossip? I hope you weren’t talking about me… just kidding. There’s nothing to talk about there.”
Fauna grows quiet, her gaze lowering as her smile fades. She turns back around.
Kronii stares at Fauna’s back.
“Hey… that’s not true. I think you’re pretty special.”
Fauna giggles. “That’s cute of you to say, but I don’t think so. I think I’m maybe the most ordinary person here.” She sighs. “I have a nice, boring family who loves me. I study constantly and get A’s like a good girl and I’m told “good job” every year. Next year I’ll go to university and probably find a nice guy to date… maybe have a family. Give my mom some grandkids… yeah…”
Fauna walks rigidly, her fingers unconsciously flexing.
“Fauna… I think that’s special to me, though. I mean, I’m none of that. The fact that you even talk and hang out with someone like me…”
“Someone like you?”
“A freak like me.”
Fauna turns around and marches up to Kronii, hugging her. It takes Kronii aback, but she doesn’t step away.
“You’re not a freak. You’re a really cool, interesting person. And you’re my friend. I love you.”
Ahhh…
Kronii holds Fauna, noting how small her frame was through the cardigan. She smelled nice too. Like cherry blossom and mint. There was her natural scent too, underneath it. The smell of her skin…
“Thanks fauna… I… love… you… toooo…”
“Hey, you don’t have to say it. I just wanted to tell my friend I loved her. You’ve already changed my life, so…”
“H…how did I do that?”
Fauna takes a step back, holding Kronii’s hands.
“By giving me somebody other than myself to care about. And by being brave when you were scared.”
Kronii’s heart stops for a moment.
“When was that?”
“The speech you gave in class.”
“O-oh! That one… yeah. I was brave?”
Fauna nods, squeezing Kronii’s hands before turning back around, leaving one of them tightly clutched in hers still.
“The bravest.”
Kronii smiles, feeling her heart swell. It made her want to…
I want to…
Kronii shakes her head, catching up to Fauna’s side.
“Hey. I’m glad we’re friends too. You know, we should do something fun together. I mean… you know, whatever you think is fun.”
Fauna giggles. “What I think is fun? Hmmm…”
Kronii can feel Fauna’s palm grow sweaty. It was clammy and she tried to pull it away, realizing this. Kronii unconsciously gave it a squeeze and held onto it. Fauna pouts.
“I don’t.. I don’t know. What is fun?”
“Iunno. I just have fun talking to you.”
Fauna lights up. “Yeah??”
Kronii laughs, smiling. “Yeah man.”
“Well, we’ll figure it out. Wanna maybe have dinner at my place after school today?”
“Lemme check my itinerary.”
Fauna knocks her shoe into Kronii’s ankle.
“Alright, buster…”
Kronii smirks, nudging Fauna back with her shoe. “Alright.”
Fauna beams. “Yeah??”
“Yeah.”
•
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