Shinrabansho: Myriad Souls

Tomoka slowed when she noticed I had stopped completely.

“Do you remember this place?” she asked.

I kept staring at the building, at the vending machine, at the stairwell, at the exact way the light over the entrance flickered.

Then I nodded.

“I do,” I said softly. “I wondered why my memories of this building blend so much with Reiko’s memories. It’s hard to sort through them... but I lived here for a short time.”

Tomoka blinked at me.

“Wow...” She looked from me to the building and back again. “Maybe I didn’t have to show you where it was then.”

I shook my head.

“I had no way of knowing where to go. Thank you for taking me here.”

Tomoka’s expression softened.

“Shall we go inside?”

I turned toward her.

“What’s the apartment number?”

That got the tiniest little frown out of her. It didn’t come across as annoyance. More like she was trying to understand how much of this I knew and how much I only felt.

“You probably already know it,” she said. “You used the number in your accounts.”

“304?”

Tomoka nodded once.

“Mm. I started thinking when I looked at your contact again on the second train and thought harder about the number.”

“Mm...” I murmured, glancing down. “It does look funny.”

“You did say that you were intimate with her.”

“Very.” I blushed. “And one of those times it was here, but not in the real world. It’s very complicated, but I lived a long time in a dream where I spent time with her, falling in love with her all over again.”

Tomoka went quiet for a second.

“All over?”

I looked back at the building, feeling the ache of memory rise so quickly that it took me by surprise.

“I loved her ever since I was small,” I said. “I thought she hated me when I confessed to her and she rejected me, but it turned out that she loved me more than anyone else.”

Tomoka studied my face.

“How young were you?”

“I don’t know... I guess I was around five when we met.”

“Childhood friends.” Tomoka let out a slow breath. “I’m jealous of you. But if she’s really gone, I suppose I should move on and think more about what’s in front of me.”

Then she raised my hand and clasped it firmly between both of hers.

I could not tell whether she had said that more for herself or for me.

“It’s not easy to let go of someone that you loved that deeply,” I said. “I understand.”

“Mm. It’s not.” Her fingers tightened once. “I’ll miss her... but I have you and others that care about me.” Her voice dipped. “I worry most for y... Reiko’s mom.”

I nodded, then turned toward the stairs before I could get stuck there any longer.

“Come on,” I said.

This time I led the way.

I held Tomoka’s hand as we went up the stairs to the third floor, not because I had thought about doing it and decided to, but because my body slipped into the motion out of habit. The apartment had only been home for a short week in the dream, but that had been enough. Every landing felt familiar under my feet. Every turn of the stairs touched something in me that had nothing to do with Reiko’s ordinary life and everything to do with the world Baku built for us.

When we reached the third floor, I stopped in front of the door and put my hand against it.

304.

The number made my chest tighten.

“When we entered this apartment in the dream...” I said quietly, my fingertips resting flat against the door, “Reiko carried me. It embarrassed me, but she treated me like her bride.”

“That sounds exactly like something she would do,” Tomoka said.

Her expression caught my eye. She had a strange impish look in her eyes.

“Tomoka, don’t.”

She ignored me completely.

Before I could step away, one of her arms slid behind my knees and the other wrapped around my back. She lifted me clean off the floor, drawing a shocked little squeak out of me before I could stop it.

“Wha...!”

“There,” she said. “That’s better.”

“Baka! You’re impossible!” I grabbed at her shoulder and neck more out of alarm than trust. “Put me down.”

“You’re kind of pushy,” I added, hearing the weakness in my own protest and hating it.

Tomoka adjusted me in her arms and held me even more securely.

“I want you to know that you’re not alone,” she said. “Neither of us are. Sure, you’ll be living here alone... but who knows what the future holds? Let me treat you like she did for a moment.”

I struggled, but Tomoka held me so firmly that resistance turned useless embarrassingly fast. There was nothing rough in the way she carried me. Nothing uncertain either. Her body felt warm and far too easy to snuggle against once I stopped wasting energy pretending I was going to get free by force.

That made me still at once.

Tomoka noticed me giving up.

Then, with me held quietly against her chest, she fumbled her key into the lock one-handed. The copied key I had did not matter right now. She used the original. The lock clicked, and she nudged the door inward with her hip and carried me inside.

Tomoka kicked the door closed behind us and stepped out of her shoes without putting me down.

The genkan hit me first. The apartment was not exactly the same.

There were more things in it, for one, more dishes, pots and such. The shelves held small practical items that had not existed in the dream, things that Reiko had accumulated over her life. There were pans and bowls and utensils, but most of them looked barely used, the way things looked when someone meant to have a proper domestic life but never found anyone to share it with. Nothing perishable sat out. No smell of recent cooking lingered. There was only clean air, the faint notes of dust, and the quiet of a place that had not been occupied much lately.

She did not take me into the kitchen.

Instead she carried me straight to the living room.

The low table was there.

The same kind of television sat in the same place.

The room was arranged so similarly to the dream version that my breath caught in my throat.

Memory rushed through me before I could brace for it.

…Cream stew.

I had made it for Reiko here the first day I moved in with her. I remembered stirring the pot, remembering her coming up behind me and flirting without mercy until I could barely think straight, remembering eating together at this very table and the way one look became another and another while eating until I ended up in her lap with both of us burning.

My face turned hot all at once.

Tomoka carried me to the edge of the table and lowered me gently to the floor beside it, watching my expression with obvious curiosity.

“How was that?” she asked.

I was still flushed enough that I could feel heat in my ears.

“Not bad...”

Tomoka tipped her head.

“You didn’t like it?”

“I didn’t not like it,” I muttered, fidgeting with my skirt.

That double negative made her smile.

“You’re really cute when you’re like that.”

“Ahm...” I looked around the room again, trying to save myself by focusing on the apartment. “This place is a lot like it was. Things feel a little different and...”

“And?” Tomoka prompted.

“Things couldn’t be completely the same...” I said softly. “But that’s fine. This apartment feels like home to me.”

Tomoka’s expression changed in a small and hard to define way at hearing that.

“I know what you mean,” she said. “I hung out here for a while when I needed some space. I live in the dorms at my college with a roommate. She’s great, but sometimes she gets on my nerves. Whenever that happened, I’d come here.”

“Sounds rough.”

“Not really.” Tomoka gave a little shrug. “People just sometimes have problems. Like when one of us eats the other’s pudding or whichever.” She glanced around the room too. “It was nice having a place to run to sometimes, but this place is yours now.”

My heart jumped.

“...W-well... don’t let me chase you out or anything,” I said quickly. “I mean... this place is still a sanctuary for you. It’s only fair since you helped me so much.”

I set my bag down by the table, still feeling strange about claiming any of this for myself.

Tomoka stood there looking at me for a second.

Then she came up behind me and wrapped both arms around me.

I turned red immediately.

“Well... if you want me to spend time with you that much, I definitely won’t turn that down,” she said.

“Tomoka...”

“Don’t worry. I won’t push myself on you.” Her voice softened near my ear. “After all, we just met... but I hope you don’t mind being held.”

I did notice that Tomoka is holding Sumire inside the table here, but with generation I choose my battles to fight. XD

That only made me more aware of everything. Her chest against my back. Her arms around my waist. The warmth of her breath. The fact that if she wanted, she could absolutely make me melt again without much effort.

“No one else really treated me like this except for Reiko,” I said before I could stop myself. “She...”

“Mm...” Tomoka held me a little more closely. “She was really strong. I wonder if I could have resisted her if she’d been more interested in me and I wasn’t looking at her the wrong way back then. Maybe she’d have changed my mind with just a kiss.”

“Maybe...” I said quietly. “A kiss can change a lot of things.”

“Mm... yeah...” Tomoka’s arms loosened just enough for her to turn me. “Would you like another, like back at Akiba?”

“Wha...”

I fidgeted.

I didn’t…

But then I didn’t not.

Tomoka saw every bit of that pass through my face.

She nodded once as if I had given a very clear answer.

Then she pulled me against her and kissed me again.

This one was slower than the first at the arcade, but no less dangerous. Tomoka kissed me as though she had been thinking about doing it again the entire way here. Her mouth took mine firmly. Her tongue coaxed mine into moving with hers, and when my knees weakened under me she caught me without even breaking the kiss.

DOKI-DOKI

It was humiliating how easily my body reacted to her.

No one but Aoi… no Reiko, had ever made me feel this way. No one but her. She was strong enough to fight me. Strong enough to hold me upright when I forgot how to keep my balance. Strong enough to kiss me until my thoughts blurred and my chest ached with the effort of containing all the things I suddenly felt.

Tomoka held me through the whole thing, one hand firm at my waist, the other behind my back, keeping me from collapsing entirely while she kissed me until both of us had to come up for air.

When she finally drew back, we were both breathing hard.

“Kami...” she said, her forehead nearly touching mine. “This is like a dream come true.” Her laugh came out soft and a little broken. “If you really were Reiko, I couldn’t treat you like this. I don’t know who would’ve been on top if it had been her, but...” She closed her eyes for a second and smiled with helpless honesty. “I’m very happy.”

My face burned hotter.

Then she kissed me again, not as hard, but enough to make me sink with her toward the floor by the table.

As we lowered together, another memory rose up and overlaid the room.

It was a rooftop with the sun beating down on us, baking the concrete.

A private corner hidden just enough from sight.

The wind moving through our hair.

Aoi kissing me until all I could do was hold on and tremble in her arms.

So unfair...

The second kiss took its time. It left me dazed in a different way when it ended, feeling much softer and somehow even more dangerous because of that softness.

Tomoka rested her forehead against mine once more before pulling back fully.

Then she said, “Um… sorry to kiss and run, but I’m short on time today. I need to get back to college.”

That made me blink.

“If I stay,” she went on, glancing at my mouth and then away, “we’ll probably end up going the whole way with this kind of mood. I’ll let you think rationally over what happened and I’ll do the same. Message me if you want me to come over and I’ll let you know when I’m free.”

Something in me sunk.

I had not realized until that moment how much I wanted her to stay.

Not because I thought we should go further… not exactly. But because the apartment still felt weirdly new and extremely familiar at the same time, and Tomoka’s presence had made the weird overlap easier to deal with.

She saw it on my face immediately.

“You’re totally disappointed,” she said.

I looked away at once.

Tomoka’s expression twisted into something openly tortured.

“I get it. If I wasn’t being honest, that face would make me stay.” She put a hand over her eyes for a second and laughed helplessly. “I want to stay... but all my work is at the dorm. I have classes tomorrow too.”

I nodded and forced myself to smile.

“I... I understand. I’ll be fine here. I’m sure that I’ll have to go shopping if I want to eat tonight.”

“Mm.” Tomoka straightened and rubbed the back of her neck. “Reiko hadn’t used this apartment for a while, so there’s nothing perishable in the refrigerator. There are some cookies and other snacks, as well as tea. You’re welcome to enjoy them.”

“Thanks for everything, Tomoka.”

Tomoka looked at me for a long second.

Then she said, “Message me sometimes.”

“It’s not like we’re girlfriends or anything.”

“Mm... not yet...” Tomoka said, her answer so immediate it made me flush again. “But I wouldn’t mind it if we were. You can still message me and get to know me better, right?”

“...R-right. I will,” I mumbled.

“Don’t forget.”

Tomoka grabbed her bag. I walked her to the genkan because it felt wrong not to.

At the door she paused, leaned forward, and brushed her lips against mine one more time, brief and warm and shamelessly unfair.

“Sorry about this,” she murmured.

Then she touched my split lip lightly with one fingertip.

“But I hope we can spar sometime soon too.”

“I’d like that,” I said. “There’s something coming up in just five days. An exam that I want to pass. So if you have one or two days to spar with me, that might help me sharpen my skills in time.” I hesitated. “But there’s something I have to do first, I think tomorrow or the day after. I’m going to visit my old apartment and see if I can move a few things.”

“Good luck with moving your stuff.” Tomoka stepped into her shoes. “I’d help you with that, but I’ll probably be too busy. When I have some free time, though, I might drop by.” Her eyes lifted to mine with a very meaningful look. “We can find a good place to spar where no one would bother us... plus...”

I blushed immediately.

Tomoka smiled at that like the idea pleased her far too much.

“You’re so different from Reiko...” she said. “And I love it.”

Then she raised my hand, intertwined our fingers, and pressed our joined hands lightly between her lips.

“Oh...” Her eyes widened slightly. “I blurted it, didn’t I?”

She laughed, flushing at her admission.

“I guess I confessed. I’ll use the time when we’re apart to put things into perspective, so I don’t jump into anything.”

I nodded, too flustered to do much else.

“Um... I like you too...” I admitted. “But it’s not strong yet.”

That was the most dishonest thing I could have said, but I had reasons to say it.

If I jumped into something with someone else right away, Rui would probably kill me. And even beyond Rui, I still had feelings tangled everywhere. Ume. Natalia-sama. Akuchi and now Tomoka. And then there was Reiko, who was gone, except not completely, except maybe forever, except maybe not.

How was I supposed to sort through any of that?

Reiko had pushed me to accept other people’s love because she could not stand the thought of me ending up alone.

That only made all of this harder.

Tomoka squeezed my hand once.

“That’s fine,” she said. “You don’t have to decide anything yet.”

I followed her from the front door to the top of the stairs and watched her go.

Tomoka looked back at me once halfway down, then again at the landing below, smiling and lifting a hand each time. I waved back, still standing there like an idiot. By the time she reached the courtyard and stepped out into the street, the day still had plenty of light left in it. It was around half past sixteen, maybe, not yet evening.

She looked back twice more before the street finally swallowed her.

I stayed there a moment longer with one hand on the frame of apartment 304, feeling too full and too empty at the same time.

Damn it... it’s so weird how attached I’ve become to such a pushy girl. She punched me all over and then kissed me into oblivion. What am I supposed to do with these feelings?

The only answer I had was the apartment at my back, the daylight still open ahead of me, and five days left before the exams.

Special thanks to PrincessArylin, ShinjiHinako, Assurbanipal II (Achan) for beta reading book three!