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Chihiro did not particularly like it when anyone touched her scar; it was something personal, the mark of the great tragedy that had taken everything from her — her father, her cozy old life, even her humanity — but she allowed the people she considered close to touch it. Shiba-san had been her father’s friend and her mentor; he (back then, in the past) regularly tended to the wound, making sure nothing became infected, changing the bandages, and then telling her about ointments and creams so that the skin would not pull too much… He, of all people, was sure to understand something about things like that. Char was young, and her touch brought peace, too. She often sat on Chihiro’s lap, telling her about something incredible that had happened to her that day — a cat she had seen in the window, the neighbors’ quarrel, a balloon that had flown past the window — and sometimes her little hands would touch the scar; then Char’s face would take on a serious expression, but she never asked Chihiro whether her big sister wanted the scar to disappear. Char was a clever girl.
The third person was Ichiko.
With Ichiko, it had not been voluntary; it was simply that, at one point, while they were talking about something detached and unrelated, her fingers — thin fingers with short nails, because she fought like a wolf — first touched Chihiro’s chin (this was already a familiar and acceptable gesture of closeness between them), and then moved upward. The sensation of touching the scar always reminded Chihiro of a brief electric shock that made the hair on her body stand on end, and Chihiro froze in that moment, holding her breath, because the old wound threatened to answer with pain. But nothing happened, and Ichiko had apparently not done it intentionally, because her fingers continued upward…
Maybe Ichiko’s lack of interest was what calmed Chihiro, too.
Pity over the scar irritated her. What was she supposed to do with it? What was she supposed to do with those sympathetic looks? Ichiko at least did not care; she did not give a damn about many things, and that range was broad. She was not a good person, that much was certain, and there was no point in even trying to justify her somehow. Ichiko understood that herself, and there was something good and comforting about the thought. Sometimes Chihiro wanted someone like that beside her, someone who did not root for morality and all the other good things. Someone who was bad and told her, you’re a villain too, but it’s all right, these things happen, this world is shit, so we have no reason to be good people.
And that was true.
But sometimes Ichiko would be overcome by romantic moods (she wanted to drink, smoke, and probably fuck), and Chihiro had to play along, although those moments never ended in anything worthwhile; by the end, Ichiko simply launched into her incredible musings about how, basically, everything around them sucked. The complaints sometimes repeated themselves, but Chihiro rarely said anything about that, because she liked the way Ichiko talked about impossible things, about the future and the past, and the way unfamiliar lights appeared in her pitch-black eyes.
In the room of one of her numerous apartments somewhere in the backstreets of the capital, where she usually hid or licked her wounds, the two of them lay together on her luxurious fur rug, which seemed to Chihiro like a horrible display of bad taste. Unfortunately, Ichiko had this penchant for cheap chic, probably because she had not had enough of it as a child; Chihiro found it genuinely strange. She herself was lying on her stomach, kicking her feet idly, completely naked, her hazy gaze wandering over her surroundings; Chihiro sat beside her. Usually, she did not like overly exposed intimacy, it embarrassed her, but today she had given in to persuasion faster than usual; she was wearing nothing but underwear.
It was so plain that Ichiko laughed when she saw it.
"What a bore. Damn, it looks like the shit a guy buys when he doesn’t know how not to be too forward with his girlie. Your cute blondie bought this for you, didn’t he? Bet he did, like a good… who is he, your guardian?"
Chihiro wanted to yank Ichiko by her long, messy hair then.
But she did not, and that was the right choice, because soon she was distracted by yet another one of Ichiko’s long monologues…
The cigarette between her fingers smoked, and through half-closed lashes Chihiro watched the thin trail of smoke rise toward the ceiling. Ichiko’s room was stuffy and hot, smelling of something sweet; Chihiro wanted to open the window, but she really did not feel like getting up… She simply breathed in the cacophony of scents through her nose, and then watched Ichiko. At first, she kept chattering about unimportant things, but then her fingers reached toward Chihiro again.
They slid over the old scars on her thighs, tracing them not with a fingernail but with the pad of a finger.
"Hmm, such soft, delicate skin, and it’s covered in scars… Doesn’t it bother you?"
Chihiro raised her eyes to Ichiko. At her black tattoos, at her own scars.
"No. I don’t care."
"Really?.. That's a shame," Ichiko drew herself up like a cat and then moved closer. The sight of the naked figure embarrassed Chihiro, but she did not turn away or close her eyes, although she wanted to. It was time to overcome her embarrassment, especially since there was not really anything she had not seen before. Nudity could be innocent. "Something more interesting would suit you than the most boring underwear in the world. Hmm… Something…"
Ichiko did not finish, sinking deep into her thoughts.
She was well-built. Pleasant to look at. Slender, but with a beautiful figure. Lean, like a hound, with muscles moving beneath her skin, but not so pronounced that it seemed excessive. Ichiko’s complexion was painfully pale, her entire body radiating that whiteness bordering on death, but against the black tattoo it looked good. Beside her, Chihiro felt plain. Then again, it was not as though she had time to make herself look pretty. The revenge had yet to be carried out, the swords had not been returned.
She wanted things to be as they were before. Let her hair down, wear something beautiful, stop pretending to be a faceless shadow. Just live for herself.
"Oh, you’ve got that expression again, like you’re thinking way too much about all sorts of pointless shit."
Then Ichiko sat down in front of her and cupped Chihiro’s face in her hands. Despite the impression that her fingers would be cold, they instead radiated heat.
The moment she touched the scar again, Chihiro froze like a little soldier standing at attention, but Ichiko did not even notice; she continued examining the scar at her temple, while Chihiro’s eyes could not tear themselves away from the thin line across Ichiko’s chest, stretching from her shoulder, across her breast, down to her very thigh. That wound… she had left it. That wound…
But Ichiko was not angry anyway. She forgot things like that quickly, as though she simply grew tired of them.
"Shame you’ve got a scar here. Look, it almost got your eye… or did it even cross over it? But it didn’t damage it? Lucky," Chihiro thought, no, it wasn’t luck, but a gift from my father, eyes that cannot be destroyed. His last gift, the one that saved me. "But some of your eyelashes still don’t grow, and there’s this little bald patch… Damn, you cut your hair so carelessly, aren’t you tired of it? I mean, I get it, I’m too lazy to pay much attention to mine either, but… Don’t tell me you just cut it with a knife."
"Sometimes."
There was true agony on Ichiko’s face. And what did she even care?
“You’re just something else, you know that? Seriously. Crazy. Hilarious!”
“I don’t want to hear anything from an idiot who walks around in men’s clothes and without a bra.”
“Well, I do work in that kind of environment,” Ichiko replied lazily, and Chihiro snapped back:
“Really? How surprising, because so do I.”
“Boobs are a business asset. My own little path to success. And you’ve got everything hidden so well you can’t even tell whether you’re a boy or a girl. There!” Ichiko wagged a finger. “That’s the reason! Only our circumstances are different, so don’t even compare us. I’ve lived like this my whole life, but you?.. It wasn’t like this three years ago, was it?”
The crooked smile on Ichiko’s face angered Chihiro so much that she wanted to hit her and break her nose. But she held herself back. There had already been enough violence between them, and adding more would not help. So she simply shook her head, not knowing what else to say. It would have been nice to change something in her life, but circumstances… They could be different, but the outcome was always the same. She had to look stronger, and that did not go hand in hand with what she wanted. Beauty… a sign of weakness. Dad loved beauty, but where had that gotten him?
She turned away. When something heavy settled over her shoulders and Ichiko, so warm, pressed against her back, Chihiro did not turn toward her, simply closing her eyes. Even so, she could feel Ichiko drape her head over her shoulder and peer into her face. Her breath was warm, almost scorching. She was always so shamelessly forward… but paradoxically, it felt good. Because Chihiro understood what she had meant when she had casually remarked, I’ve lived like this my whole life. Beside her father, beside Shiba-san. In that small locked box she called home, there had been no sense of a woman’s touch.
But here… Ichiko was the same. She had a broad stride, hunched her shoulders, and the way she spoke was rather… peculiar, marked by the kind of environment she was accustomed to. Not like something Chihiro could have imagined after watching movies, where she had gotten all her information as a child. But her touches were still different, a little softer, not like Shiba’s when he patted her on the shoulder. There was something in those touches… some kind of attachment, much closer than anything she had ever known. And this paradox of the familiar and unfamiliar… In some ways, it was even very pleasant.
"Are you sad again?"
Chihiro shrugged.
"I don’t know. It’s all just… complicated."
"That’s because you’re a dumbass. I can’t believe Rokuhira Kunishige really has a daughter like you. You’re embarrassing my love for your family line." When Chihiro jabbed Ichiko in the stomach with her elbow, she groaned and giggled like a hyena. "Ow. Look at how mean we are! Come here."
She cupped Chihiro’s face again, then leaned forward for a gentle, deep kiss. Chihiro liked her insistence; she was like a mountain river — an uncontrollable current that was difficult to look away from. Dangerous, but so captivating. When Ichiko broke the kiss, she ran her tongue over her pale lips, and Chihiro wanted to kiss those lips again and again… But she did not know whether that was normal, and she did not want to test the boundaries of what was acceptable. Being with Ichiko felt so good… If only this could last forever.
"You need to pick up some kind of bad habit, so when it hits you, you can do that. Smoking or… alcohol. I don’t know. Cigarettes help me," Ichiko mused. "Or reading technical literature. But that’s a very specific kind of love."
"You actually like that?"
Unable to hold back, Chihiro laughed, and Ichiko gave her a disapproving look.
"She’s laughing too… Of course I like it. It helps clear my mind. And now I also know a bunch of really specific shit. You’re talking to some guys, something drives past, and you go, ‘Yeah, that’s diesel-powered crap!’ Their eyes immediately go as wide as coins."
"Then I don’t need to do anything else."
Ichiko raised an eyebrow. Her face became just like it had been when they first met, when she had rolled her eyes and called Chihiro the most boring moralist in the world.
"Seriously? And what kind of bad habit do you have, if I may ask? And don’t answer that you’re a villain. That’s not a fucking habit, and I know you don’t exactly enjoy it."
Chihiro felt the corners of her lips twitch upward into a smile.
She moved closer to Ichiko, placed her hands on her bony shoulders, and then pressed herself against her chest. She closed her eyes, and Ichiko froze, holding herself still, not knowing what to do. Somewhere behind that cage of ribs, a heart was beating rapidly, keeping a rhythm known only to itself. This was a hymn to life, a melody she loved listening to so much, because three years ago… but that was unimportant now.
"Of course," she smiled without opening her eyes. "My bad habit is you."