(Mireille/Kirika)
Read Black Thread and Red Sheets
Disclaimer: All things Noir belong to Bee Train and probably others, perhaps even to Raimi/Tapert by now, but at any rate I’m borrowing the girls for a bit.
Black Thread and Red Sheets
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by Carola “Ryûchan” Eriksson
I am watching her sleep. I don’t know why I do it and that tears me up, but still tonight like many nights before, I lay awake watching her sleep.
She looks so innocent while sleeping.
So pure, almost like a child in that regard. Like the child she was supposed to be, had things been different. So young, so untainted by darkness.
It is appealing. It is mesmerizing. It pulls me in.
It is also a lie, and I know this better than anyone.
That face, so angelically sweet, does hold purity while awake as well, a purity that defies all sanity, but not innocence. No, not that. Not in our world, not in our line of work.
But still, purity she has. I don’t know how she can or why, neither does she really, when she stands on a field of corpses all felled by her hand. The blood may stain her hands but somehow not her essence, and I can’t figure out how. She shrugs the lives taken off unconsciously, without a care other than to grieve for the guilt she does not feel – another oddity of hers – yet her eyes show me the bottomless pain and sorrow she carries.
She may look childlike in sleep, but she is anything but. I can’t afford to forget that.
All she has to tell her who she might be is a card filled with lies, and as right as the number that indicates age on it feels, it could be just another lie among many.
Some lies become truth though.
Such as her name. Although surely as false as the card upon which it is printed, she has made that name her own now. I can think of no other more fitting, not even the moniker that still chills me slightly to think of for all that I chose it to represent us both.
There is a touch of something beautiful in that name, although I no more than think it than I scoff at myself for this silly sentimentality. What am I now, a schoolgirl like she was supposed to be?
No, certainly not.
It would not do for me to become... attached. This dark and twisted path that we are both on, I know where it leads. Death will be the outcome. This is a given.
And yet... I watch her while she sleeps.
My partner. My companion. The one that will and has gone through the deepest pits of Hell for my sake. My protector, even, as well as my charge.
There is something beautiful about her face when sleeping like this, something a bit angelic. Objectively speaking, of course.
That and that strange kind of charisma she has, with her trusting eyes and tiny smiles and so quiet voice with those little grunts she makes... it is easy to see how someone could get obsessed with her.
Like that green-robed ghost of ours.
Obsessed. Completely head over heels, in the most annoying and pathetically obvious way. She really sets my teeth on edge.
Ignore me, will you? Ogle my partner with those dirty, hungry eyes will you? I’ll put a bullet in your head next time, consequences be damned.
But... I guess I can understand the appeal. The pull.
A little.
Because I’m watching her too, right now while she sleeps. And I am having all kinds of uncomfortable and nagging feelings that perhaps my eyes aren’t the purest either.
As I’ve told her before we are bound together with a thread stained deep black in colour. It is true, and it is a bond no-one can touch. It is true and I won’t deny it, but I can’t help but wonder... why did I use the symbol for lovers to describe us? I’m not sure and I’m even less sure why thinking of it makes me feel embarrassed.
She looks so young.
She looks so young but she is not, not really. And the bond between us may be black but it is true.
Yes... our thread is black in colour indeed.
But the sheets on our bed are red, and her skin looks so soft as she is bundled up in them.
My thoughts confuse me but the heat that accompanies them confuse me more. No longer knowing what I am doing I lean forward, lean in, lean over her.
Her eyes flutter and open.
She does not have that moment of disorientation, when sleep still clings to the mind, clouding it, in our profession it is a luxury we can’t afford. Her big dark brown eyes simply open to look at me, no alarm and no question. They are soft and filled with absolute trust.
Then another expression accompanies the trust. It is that expression.
That look.
That look she has sometimes when our eyes meet. That look she has only for me.
I know not what it means, and I can’t figure it out. I don’t know why it makes my breath hitch and my heart speed up for just a moment, or why sometimes there is a pressure over my chest when she looks at me like that.
All of that doesn’t matter.
What matters is that it is mine. That look is mine, and mine alone.
Possessiveness swells within me, strong and fierce. I want to sneer at that burgundy-haired interloper that can keep her flirty eyes to herself, for this is mine.
She is mine.
And I’m not sharing.
She says my name, once, in her quiet voice. Nothing else, but it is still a question. I come to myself enough to realize that I have my arms propped on either side of her head now, leaning in, leaning down, far closer than I should and for no reason I can really give.
It doesn’t matter.
She smiles at me, that tiny but sweet smile of hers, and suddenly there is acceptance. My heart nearly pounds out of my chest to see it.
I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, I don’t know anything at all, but when she shifts slightly to face me better and those small but oh so very lethal hands move to slide up my bare arms something in me snaps, and I can feel it go almost as if it was a physical thing.
Oh no, I’m leaning down that final little bit of space towards her, and I can’t be, but oh god I am, and she is letting me...
Oh.
Soft.
Her lips are so soft.
Softer than the red silk sheets on my bed, our bed, and their touch sweeter than anything I could have imagined. She moves with me and I should break away, back away, but I can’t, I want more. So much more.
She is warm, so warm, and it is as if I have been frozen forever and now try to burrow into her skin or at least as close as I possibly can. I taste her heartbeat with my lips while a tiny noise she makes tickle my ear with her breath, and my hands are everywhere.
There are reasons why I shouldn’t do this. I know there are, but I can’t think of a single one now. A last confused thought of black thread and red sheets cross my mind before being washed away by her embrace.
Her lips part for me and it feels like heaven to this tainted sinner. I lose myself in her and in reward feel more complete than I ever have. I can’t stop but she is just as eager, welcoming my touch.
The world outside melts away, leaving only us in the moonlight. Nothing else matters.
This is right. This is how it should be. And I am finally beginning to understand.
Tomorrow I will try to find the words to tell her, for tonight though... we are both occupied with other things.
