Ghosts [Day 5, LA, Closed]

[Kuni Koyuki]

"I will need to redo it when I return to the embassy, particular paints," she says, and as she calms her voice becomes less harsh but more weary. "But, if you find something that can accomplish the effect. I would appreciate that," a pause, a breath. Settling of her body with that slowly taken exhale. "Yakumo," she punctuates with a much softer tone.

Heading into the bathroom, Koyuki takes her time within. Staring herself in the face in the mirror and watching herself stare back. There wasn't any more color, and she didn't recognize herself anymore than before. Slowly, and meticulously, she takes a wet washcloth from the bathroom to remove the remainder of the paint-makeup from her face. Clearing away all that red, the white, and everything else together. Leaving herself with a clean face and punctured lip where she'd bitten down on herself.

Looking back in the mirror she looks back at herself again. Standing tall at first, and then leaning forward to look closer. It'd been a long time since she could manage to pick out that little detail, how tired she looks. Like a woman beaten by whatever game she was playing. Sucking in a chest full of air she raises her shoulders up high and repairs her composure. Tending to the wound at her lip first, and then finally exits the washroom to find Yakumo again.

[Susumu Yakumo]

Well fuck. She was no stranger to making some people cry if she wanted to but... not like that. And she felt she didn't want Koyuki to cry - even if she was a Crab, and a Kuni to boot. The Crab had been such terrible people most of the time, but Koyuki had been a singular exceptional exception.

By the time Koyuki came out of the bathroom, Yakumo in the meantime had removed her bathrobe and pulled on some shorts and a sweater, the same she had worn last time Koyuki was over, and was busying herself with hauling out makeup bags. "Nope, no, not that one," she murmured as she read the attached labels on them to check what the contents were. She had worn that traditional type of facepaint yesterday at the party, but she was starting to suspect she had left it at the Spider embassy as she had taken advantage of their driving-services to the event.

"Hmmm... that's a bummer." Still lost in her own thoughts, and concerns, she hadn't yet noticed Koyuki coming out of the bathroom.

[Kuni Koyuki]

Fighting through a brief bit of hesitation, Koyuki wraps her arms around Yakumo's waist and links loosely around her stomach. Having crossed over the room with intention, and direction, leaving no cause to wait around for Yakumo to turn and find her. Koyuki wasn't that patient, at least with this. An action that lodged a knot in her throat like it would completely backfire somehow, like she'd fuck it all up right then and there. Just completely ruin everything that she'd risked, and that might have even been considered built.

Worries that weighed down her mind, and head, to the point that she let her forehead press into the back of Yakumo's and rest buried amid her hair. Not saying anything, just staying closer for the moment. So long as Yakumo allowed it.

[Susumu Yakumo]

Yakumo jumped a little at first, being caught unawares by a gesture she was unusued to, but she soon enough relaxed in Koyuki's arms and her hands clasped gently over Koyuki's. Still some of that awkwardness with her hands that she had earlier.

"Sorry," she murmured after a while. "I knew I had some facepaint, but I must've left it at the embassy..." her voice was warm and gentle as she spoke. And yet, she hadn't turned to look at Koyuki's face yet. A part of her hadn't forgotten how Koyuki said that her paint was her face, and she respected that she might not want others to see her without it.

Like she didn't want to be seen without her gloves.

"You ok?"

[Kuni Koyuki]

You ok?

Tender embrace, Koyuki held herself into that warmth. That of Yakumo's voice, and that of her presence as well. The question she asked too had some of that warmth but it wasn't one she felt ready to contend with yet. Holding the other woman gently she simple stood with that embrace for a little while without answering that all too terrifying question.

You ok?

Soft murmur leaving Koyuki's lips foreshadows the shift of her hands. Moving from under Yakumo's touch to claim one of the hands and move herself, as much as Yakumo, so that they could turn and face one another. Pulling that claimed hand up with the motion of the turn the bottom of Koyuki's bare face was framed momentarily with Yakumo's held hand. Almost like a princess in some extremely old movie they don't even play in most theaters anymore, or perhaps that was the curse of growing up in Crab space.

You ok?

Meeting Yakumo's eyes with her own, she didn't smile so much as exude some warmth in the returned gaze. Koyuki's features were notably marked with the telltale signs of emotional exhaustion, and to some extent physical as well. Still, she looked at her with all the heart she could muster to bear it all. Breathing, letting the tension flow out with the breath only for a bit more to seep in to claim the space left behind. Gaze shifting onto Yakumo's lips the thought lingered there for a moment, and with a small smile she raised Yakumo's hand. Leaned down to meet it mid-rise, kissing her across the affected parts of her fingers.

You ok?

Small smile, she asks, "How are your hands doing; do they hurt at all?"

No, and she hasn't been for a long time.

[Susumu Yakumo]

Those violet eyes narrowed slightly it what seemed to be concern, but at least she did not shy away from Koyuki's caresses, even if it did seem to take some effort of her to do not do so as the Kuni's now bare lips touched her fingers.

"It's fine, Koyuki," she assured her, "you on the other hand do not seem fine. Goodness, when did you last sleep? Or get some good rest at all?"

It wasn't the usual you look tired comment women would makeup sometimes would hear, but rather that she saw how something weighed down the poor woman.

[Kuni Koyuki]

Taking Yakumo's hand, much like she had prior, Koyuki hides the tension building in her shoulders through action. Massaging gently the joints of Yakumo's fingers as she had been doing before right from where she left off last. Slow and deliberate. Easing out every bit of tension she could in the act of care.

"I sleep often enough," she says. Pausing for a breath, Koyuki closed her eyes shut tight. Holding onto Yakumo's hand she had a slight shake to her own. "I.. fell in love with a woman before, and five years ago we parted ways. She's in Scorpion territory, and so this is the closest I have ever been. I-" she swallows hard.

Seeking distraction, she starts massaging her fingers slowly once again.

[Susumu Yakumo]

Oh... oh dear.

Yakumo slowly, but firmly, moved her hands free of Koyuki's grasp. So she could embrace the other woman tightly. The deep sigh she drew could be felt against Koyuki's body. "It's ok, dear." She said soothingly, wanting her to find some comfort in those words and her voice.

"It's ok." The words repeated, in the same comforting and reassuring tone. Yakumo gave her another tight squeeze, and loosened up to be able to step back, and look into her ice blue eyes. "Let me know what I can do to help you."

[Kuni Koyuki]

Yakumo's arms wrapping around her brought an impossible stiffness, feeling that deep sigh move her slightly in a truly mechanical fashion. Mouth feeling like she'd taken a bite of ash that soothing voice was like a dagger in the heart. It was everything she could have hoped for, everything she needed, and nothing could have been worse. Letting Yakumo step back Koyuki's own arms came up, crossing over her midsection as shetakes a half-step away, turning a quarter so she didn't face Yakumo directly.

"You can't. You don't.." she chokes on the word, swallows hard. Turning back she doesn't look her in the eye, just leans up to stand on her toes as she pulls Yakumo in by the shoulder. Kissing the other woman on the top of her head. Feeling the warmth of her scalp, the texture of her hair, and smelling the scent she wore strongly.

"Just have a good night with your date, Yakumo. I just have to find her, and then.." she turns away from Yakumo, and starts to walk.

But what then?

[Susumu Yakumo]

Yakumo's hand lingered mid-air where Koyuki had been, seeing her turn to leave. Should she let her go? Was this something she might push too hard on, if she tried to stop her?

Koyuki was getting closer to the door. This was the last chance to do something.

"Koyuki... wait," the singer stepped forward, her hand still outstretched for Koyuki. "You... you don't have to---to do this alone."

[Kuni Koyuki]

With Koyuki's gait she hit the door just as Yakumo's voice hit her ear, but she stops. Hand leaning against the frame as she takes the moment. Vision almost getting blurry as she feels the pit, that anxious pit, how it balled up and traveled up her throat cutting off the ability to speak. Then came the flame, the heat the tickled the skin on her forearms and emboldened that feeling in her chest. Tension growing in her upper cheeks just below her eyes Koyuki turns back to Yakumo and looks across to her, looks at her hand.

"But I do," she says, stepping forward. Her voice a mix of anger and sorrow, "I do have to do this alone Yakumo, because you don't understand. If I told you- if I told you I don't even know what would be worse, if you chose to or if you didn't because if you could understand me then that would mean.." she steps forward again, there's a fury in the movement that never seems directed but present.

[Susumu Yakumo]

Anger. And some of it mirrored back, as Yakumo curled up her hand, balling it into a fist, and dropping it to her side. "No, you're right. I don't understand." A touch of hurt creeped into the words.

"Because you don't share anything. And you don't want to."

How stupid. Maybe she had misunderstood Koyuki all this time now. "... I'm sorry. Don't let me keep you," she murmured, crossing her arms over her stomach as she looked to the side.

[Kuni Koyuki]

Just like you'd always expected, isn't it? That dagger you feared so much digging deep into your heart? She's finally given up on you, you pathetic little samurai. Can't even make up your mind, what do you want to do? One last thing, one last thing in your whole like that's all you have to do and you don't even have the gut to do it? You haven't even bothered searching for her, cause you're scared of finding her right? You're always so pathetic.

It stung, watching what she felt like betrayal happening before her eyes again. Yakumo gave up on her. Why wouldn't she have though? Koyuki stares incredulously until that lump in her throat turns into a rock and falls to the pit of her stomach. Like a drop of oil in a flame her anger rises.

"Because the only woman I thought I would ever love left me to die," she shouts, her voice tearing a little as it came out unexpectedly loud. Stepping forward toward Yakumo she looks at her, tears pouring down in two angry streaks over her cheeks. "We were family. Koyuki, Moriko, Rikako, Tatsunosuke, Toma," she rattles off the names like a rap sheet. Arms raising angrily but only half balling into fists like angry claws as she spoke. "I love her. I trusted her. And she still left, when we needed her most she was a coward and abandoned us, she left me to die on some foreign world and didn't even have the decency to wait around and check the bodies. The love of my life is a fucking coward who ran, ran when our family, our squad, needed her most. She left me to die, and I think I did," her voice dropped off, like a deflated balloon.

[Susumu Yakumo]

That had not been the reaction she had expected, and the rawness of Koyuki's words tore through her. It stirred something in her at least, raging voices in her head screeching against what she decided to do as she took a hold of Koyuki by the shoulders.

"You're alive, Koyuki. Listen to me. You're alive!" she hissed in return - her voice carrying an almost strange almost unperceptable echo. Something frustrated her over seeing this woman berate herself like that. "Nothing anyone else does is not your fault, do you hear me? Nothing."

A chill passed through her, and Yakumo visibly fought against something in her thoughts for a brief second as she forced herself to calm down. Her voice returning to its usual smoothness as she spoke again, "You don't owe anyone anything if they treat you like that; leaving you to die. Especially not your life."

[Kuni Koyuki]

Wincing at the hold of her shoulders, the care involved more frightening than either of their raised voices. Being forced practically to meet Yakumo close, eye to eye. Looking at her while the storm brewed inside her head and tossed about her stomach like a ragdoll. Yakumo's words fell over her like sharp stings and paper cuts.

"Don't," her voice trembles with the exhaustion Yakumo had found on Koyuki's features. A defeated despair she carried with her. "Don't talk to me like that. Don't show me you care, cause-" she bites her lip but winces and stops as the freshly healing wound causes more pain than she'd expected. A small break, a time for her and Yakumo to breath a moment. Koyuki's hands come up between Yakumo's own outstretched arms, each resting along Yakumo's neck and underside of her jaw, supporting her head while Koyuki met her gaze. "Cause if you do, I might fall in love with you and I can't do that. I can't. Not again I- I just can't. Not if I'm going to do what needs to be done, what Rikako, Tats, and Toma deserve. Not if I'm going to finish this."

[Susumu Yakumo]

Her own breath was heavy as their feelings weighed down the room. "Then let me help you..." her voice was lower, weaker, and yet also frustrated, "because..."

Yakumo was usually not at a loss for words, but she wasn't sure how her words would hit Koyuki. For all her strength, the Kuni seemed even more fragile than her in some ways. "Because... these emotions, this time we have here; it will only be a moment in time. Neither of us can stay with eachother, unless either of us completely renounce what we are - who we are a part of. But," she stressed the word with urgency, to prevent any chance of cutting her off, "that doesn't mean it isn't real. Or that it didn't, or doesn't, mean something."

Sighing, she let herself lean into Koyuki's supportive hands.

[Kuni Koyuki]

Everything prior was like a rollercoaster racing toward its zenith. All building toward something explosive, like the whole coaster might just explode in a fiery death at the very top. Instead, the rollercoaster flew off the rails with reckless abandon. All that building which built a pit in her stomach disappeared in a flash of heat that left Koyuki feeling sweaty, weak, and almost weightless. Yakumo's head rested in her hands and it felt like she was holding an impossible weight she couldn't afford to drop.

"If it's real," she says, like someone carefully setting up the last piece of a jenga-tower, "losing it, you, might well kill me. I don't know if I can survive another heartbreak. Yet... I can't just walk away now. I'm- " she looks away from her, giving enough time certainly for the trembling of her shoulders to become noticeable.

Those tears hadn't stopped falling until recently, the wells finally gone dry, silently having cut their path down across Koyuki's features. Turning back she leans in, her lips close to Yakumo's but she doesn't seal it. Soft warm breaths escaping onto Yakumo's lips, with one final statement, "I'll let you help me kill the woman I love."

[Susumu Yakumo]

Seeing Koyuki this upset - this stoic woman with such a hard shell - it made Yakumo grateful that she had never experience such a deep heartbreak. Heartbreak wasn't unfamiliar to anyone. Everyone experienced it to some degree at some point... she had felt it when her father died, but even she had to acknowledge that it was more grief over the things she wanted that she lost, not the person himself. And then there was the heartbreak of the teen years, which all teens went through.

This seemed to be something truly deeper on the other hand. The kind she only heard about in songs, or saw in movies.

Looking into those blue eyes of hers again, her miscolored hands gently cupped the face that was no longer cast in white. Those strange-looking thumbs brushing away the tears. "I'll help you how I can, Koyuki. You have my word." Yakumo whispered those promises, before sealing them and Koyuki's lips with a tender kiss.

[Kuni Koyuki]

Tenderness, of a like that hasn't been felt in a long time. A like that she's avoided for a long time. Looking back at Yakumo were those eyes lost in an ocean of their own making, a veritable storm of chaos. Yet, was that not better than the dead stare of times past? Leaning into that kiss for what could have been hours by feeling alone eventually Koyuki is the one to break it. Meeting Yakumo's eyes with an intensity to her focus, careful not to ruin her makeup she just stares back into Yakumo's pools of violet and holds it.

"I'm afraid of what that means," she says, but leans in to kiss her again. Meeting that same tenderness with a mindful care not to disturb Yakumo's makeup, for she had places to be.

Pulling away once more, catching breath and settling down the reality of the world came rushing back like stepping out of a closet into a world filled with water. Limbs feeling heavy to move or push through the emotional exhaustion hit her like a freight train and left her hopeless. Still, Koyuki was as strong as any Kuni before her and so she found herself a seat. Collecting herself up she looks back to Yakumo, a hand extended in her direction but not much.

"Bayushi Moriko, that's likely her name. I knew her as Hiruma Moriko. I.. I don't know if she's even here, but it's the closest I've ever been," she says, looking to her. That question sitting on her brow being one she scarcely wanted to ask for fear it might ruin everything she'd suddenly gained. Yet, wasn't that the whole point? If she was in this deep, she might as well push further. "Bayushi Mineichi might.. might know her if she's here. Maybe, she'd be.." she shakes her head. "He might know," she says simply, as that was all she knew. Trusting Yakumo was capable of taking that idea from there.

[Susumu Yakumo]

The extended hand was taken in her own, and Yakumo gave Koyuki's hand a gentle and reassuring squeeze.

"I'll ask him," she confirmed, her head nodding as well in confirmation. That it was a big world and that he probably might not know, she wouldn't say, as she figured that Koyuki had already considered all the possibilites and how slim the chances were...

"Anything in particular I should ask about her, or mention? If she's dangerous, or something along those lines?"