Ink Stained

91: hanyou*

半妖怪

Aihara looked ready to set the police on Shin as soon as she realized that Pai and Shin weren't together as mere student-teacher. She was especially tense because she knew that Shin wasn't just a 'teacher'. To her, he was another Ayakashi, a dangerously powerful one she didn't trust at all.

The only reason she didn't do anything was because Pai had to threaten that she'd leave and never speak to Aihara again if she did. She was surprised that her threat worked, and worried about what Aihara could be so desperate to tell her that she forewent her morals and put her cell phone away as she continued to glare suspiciously at Shin.

As Sundays generally were, the day was a quiet and lazy one. People in the street didn't rush about like wraiths were chasing them lest they not get to their destination in time. Not too many people crowded Taiyou Café, but there were enough that it ensured the staff didn't sit around for too long at a time. The spring sun shone down on the world outside, lighting everything up and chasing away lingering shadows.

Aihara was dressed far simpler than Pai was used to seeing, in a pair of blue skinny jeans, heels that wouldn't exactly kill her if she stepped in a pothole (maybe just sprain an ankle), and a pale pink and yellow striped blouse. Her hair was pinned up in a bun, minimal make-up painting her face, and her glasses were perched atop her head. She looked more at ease in her street clothes than she did in the strict office-esque outfit she donned at school.

Though comfortable, Aihara's clothes still hugged her form enough to see that she had a body unlike the usual thin stature that many women had (or forced themselves to have). She had a round bust that wasn't too big or too small, and her legs were long and shapely. A twinge of envy shoot through Pai at that, internally cursing her height. Although, in her defence, she did have long legs as compared to her height. It didn't make her feel any better, especially because Aihara was a grown woman, young and confident in her beauty.

Pai glanced at Shin almost instinctively, to see if he noticed Aihara's body too – only to find Shin give Aihara only a cursory look (the exact same one Pai had pinned as his Security Gaze, because he only ever looked at people like that when he was assessing how much of a physical threat they were, if they had any possible concealed weapons, and so on) before looking right back up at the suspicious, thunderous glare on Aihara's face, the expression on his own face entirely deadpan and bored. Not a flicker of interest to be seen.

The little green snake of envy twisting around in her chest calmed, mollified by his lack of reaction. Even if she was a little confused by it. Men usually liked women who looked like Aihara, right? Sure, women were obsessed with stick-thin bodies, but she also knew that that wasn't always what men liked. Midori used to tell her – in hushed whispers to avoid either of their parents overhearing them – that men liked it when they could feel the body of the woman they held in their hands, and not their bones through skin.

Her heart twisted at the memory of Midori, but not with a green snake of envy. No, this snake was black like militaristic Agent's uniform, with flashing emerald eyes that ran away from her in Kyoto, that glared with disgust at her in her memory-dreams. She blinked those thoughts away, focusing on everything but them.

Pai wore what she usually did when she went out – black tights she loved a little too much, and a baggy grey sweater Shiori kept threatening to burn with how often she wore it. To appease the stormy look on Shiori's face when she was walking out, she had opted for a pair of navy ballet flats (she got the one shoe that was in Yuu's room, thankfully. He'd looked far too amused when she asked him for it) instead her beloved sneakers. She'd left her hair open, the white tresses falling over her shoulders and down her back to her waist.