FINGERS CROSSED, yuzuha usagi

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Yasuko stayed by Ikehara's side until he stopped breathing and his hand lost all its strength, until she recovered from the sight of his smile fading and his eyes closing. She didn't let his fingers go, even if he looked as if he was just asleep, dreaming of somewhere cozy he had always been in the search of, and perhaps had always seemed too alike the way she sighed and let him rest his head on her back to listen her heartbeats and the vibrations of her voice, the echoes of her snickers and the inevitable rose of a laugh going up her spine.

Something she found nauseous dared to climb up inside her throat as she pulled herself to a sitting position, tears dried on her cheeks and all the blood that had gotten her clothes wet became suddenly cold as it slid down her flesh and kept on staining everywhere she turned towards. Her eyes went back to him, and she thought she may had nowhere else to go, nothing else to let out as she already did; she had cried, and screamed to the point she could barely swallow the pain anymore, and cussed out every single thing on earth she could remember about, whatever that could've fire up the anger that was eating her from the inside out. And then, she quietened.

She didn't say a word, she was so exhausted she didn't even register a pair of hands reaching and wrapping themselves around her neck from behind. Yasuko was about to fight them, bite them to the bone, when a voice whispered desperately in her ear, tightening the hug so she could feel there was no dangerous intentions on their skin meeting.

"It's me," Soft-spoken, Usagi got closer than she already was, "It's me." She repeated as Yasuko relaxed against her, letting herself be embraced by her arms the same way they had done once before, when they trusted each other and they weren't covered in dirt, blood, sweat.

Yasuko often went back to that memory when dreaming, she reminisced about the extra weight on the bed and how they had spoken in fingertips and asking eyes all the night, her breath caressing her neck and the ghost of lips over hers. She had loved her as publicly as a secret was and sank into her gaze whenever she looked back at her. Simply as spelling it with closed eyes, Yasuko allowed the words to be chanted over and over again after forgetting how they sounded, ashamed of their warmth and softness and effervescent effect.

"Listen," Usagi squeezed her shoulder, turning her around, so her attention was back on her voice, "I need you to go somewhere else, yes? Can you do that for me?" Yasuko's eyes followed the movement of her fingers brushing a bloody piece of hair out of her face, "Arisu needs my help for the final game and I need yours right now."

Yasuko felt the tip of her nose tickle again. She pressed her lips in a thin pout, bit them for a bit.

"Okay." She said, voice hoarse and deep, it sounded more like a giggle coming from the first circle of hell, or a heated rock hissing at a wave's caressing freshness, than her own, yet Usagi didn't react to it. She just looked at her eyes, making sure she wasn't lost in thought and actually there, hearing everything that came out of her mouth.

Perhaps if she had blinked, she would've missed it, the second something flashed inside her pupils, like a firework's lighting reflection going deeper and deeper into the origin of her stare. Yasuko leaned towards it, chasing it, until she spoke again and all movement she had made died under the crushing sigh of a vocal calling her out to where reality had her sitting and trembling.

"I was willing to do anything to survive," Usagi nodded to herself before she added, "But now I think I might do anything so you can live too."

"Do I deserve that?" She asked her, sight getting blurry, "Can you tell me? 'Cause I don't know what's the real answer, if yes or no, or maybe."

"You do," Usagi's hands traced an invisible path up to her cheeks, pulling her slightly into her space so their breaths intoxicated the other and their names became a prayer lost in their touches, in the way their foreheads pressed together and Usagi's thumbs explored every corner of her face where the passing of time draw lines by her eyes and the goldmine of love kissed her 'till her skin was blushed and sunburned, like a day spent at the beach. "Will you wait for me?" Yasuko felt her thumb touch the natural curve of her cupid kiss.

"You know I will, you don't have to ask." She watched her lips curl up, and as Usagi separated them, Yasuko felt as if winter had arrived to stay. Noticing her gaze still lingering on her tired eyes, Yasuko looked behind her momentarily to grab the gun next to Ikehara's body for protection. Usagi welcomed her hands and the help they brought to her so she could stand up, guiding them both out of the alley, slowly and cautiously. In the distance, Yasuko thought she saw Arisu walking around, yet something else caught her eye, "Go, you know where I'm at."

"I'll come back." She reassured her before limping as straight as she could in his direction.

Checking she was already a couple meters away and hadn't turned around, Yasuko made the first move. The closer she got to it, the clearer the figures were. Yasuko's mind was empty, she didn't know what to feel, what to say, so she breathed. Air and smoke inundated her lungs as if she had just received a punch, drowning the bitterness that mixed itself up with the blood and saliva foaming on her palate. He's alive, she thought, or mumbled out loud, either way, she repeated it until she heard him speak.

"I'm sorry," He said, his eyes were somewhere else even though it seemed he was talking to Aguni, "That was the only way that I knew how to save you."

The King of Spades' eyes met hers.

It was the connotation on his words what made something click inside her head, something that reverberated the anger biting up her throat; it was him sitting there instead of Ikehara; it was her hands shaking uncontrollably, her jaw tightening and her teeth clattering against each other; it was the sudden weight of the gun hanging from her fingers; it was everything settling down in her mind what made her react.

Yasuko lifted the gun towards him and shot without hesitation, without pity, without missing, aiming every bullet to eat away his face's flesh. Startled, Aguni glanced over his shoulder and stood quietly, waiting for the weapon to empty itself and for her to smash it against the closest car's backseat windshield. In those few seconds, Aguni couldn't help set side by side that sight of her, trembling and conquered by every emotion available to feel, with the one he had met at The Beach; he thought if the pain with which he looked at her then had it been the same with which she had looked at him when she found out the truth about Hatter's death the last night at the hotel. But, opposite of what he expected, her eyes never wandered away from The King of Spades' body, so he did the same, swallowing all he wanted to say to her.

"What am I supposed to do now?" Aguni mumbled.

"Let's go for a drink." She turned around as she had nothing else to say.

If he followed her, she'd be warm enough to welcome the company, and if he didn't, she'd be warm enough to welcome her own.