Chapter 16 - June
New
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Sunday, 1st of June 2003, One Year before the start of Canon A Certain Magical Index
I close the door to my apartment behind me and finally let my exhaustion show after a long week spent dealing with dorm fires, school laboratory fires, actual laboratory fires, warehouse fires, summer festival fires and car fires.
"Ahh! Fire!"
And now I come home to Harumi starting a kitchen fire. Wonderful.
Thankfully House activates as soon as it detects the fire in the kitchen starting to spread and douses the fire, and Harumi, in retardant foam before I can even make it to the kitchen.
"The fire has been safely doused, Dr. Lifeline, Dr. Kiyama." House's artificial voice sounds from the intercom speakers placed around the open plan apartment.
"Thank you House." I say as I turn the corner from my entryway into the kitchen area to see Harumi already stripping out of her foam soaked clothes. Of course she is.
"Harumi. What have we talked about stripping in the kitchen?"
She sighs and stops before following me out of the kitchen area towards the bathroom while House's cleaning robots head into the kitchen to fix her mess.
"Don't do it. It is unhygienic." she grumbles, "This foam is itchy though. And now I'm dragging it all over the floor."
"House will clean it up. It is what I built it for." I reply as I start to run her a bath for after her shower. "I appreciate you trying to make me food for when I get back from work though. Thank you, Harumi."
She blushes and refuses to meet my eyes as she finishes disrobing and starts to shower. I on the other hand try my hardest to only look at her eyes. 2 weeks of good food and restful nights have only made her more attractive and I'm trying my best to avoid taking advantage of her lack of shame about stripping.
"Well you won't let me pay rent."
I click my tongue as I take off my own suit jacket and start helping her clean the foam out of her silky chestnut hair while she scrubs. Though it is only silky now because she keepsstealing borrowing my shampoo and conditioners.
"You are my guest, Harumi. Not my tenant. Speaking of. How is the flat hunting going?"
She groans as I massage her scalp and leans into my touch.
"I don't want to talk about that."
I sigh.
"I understand that you don't feel safe on your own after what happened with poor Toshiro but you can't live on my charity forever, Harumi. You can certainly afford your pick of apartments. I've seen that European sports car you drive. It is an even fancier car than mine and I have to drive a fancy car to keep up appearances."
She opens one eye to give me a gimlet glare.
"It is a brand new 03 Lamborghini Gallardo Coupe with an E-Gear system. One of the first 200 to roll off the factory floor. Not just some 'European sports car'. Don't insult it by comparing it to that amerishit '97 Corvette you drive."
I chuckle at her car mania and just finish washing her hair. Once I am done I stand up and go to leave the bathroom as she continues to clean the rest of her body herself.
"Alright. You can do the rest yourself, you layabout~. I'll go order takeaway and get changed. Please don't forget to get dressed after your bath this time? At least wear a yukata."
"I really don't get the big deal. If I was wearing a bikini instead of underwear no one would care." She mutters to herself as I close the bathroom door and get changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt before walking to the phone. Even after knowing her for a month I can never quite tell if she is serious or pulling a very extended prank on the world when she talks about her compulsive stripping. Hmm? Should we eat Ramen or hamburg tonight? Or maybe Italian? Since Harumi is so enamoured with her Lamborghini.
The Carbonara and Chicken Alfreado arrive just as Harumi is stepping out of the bathroom, thankfully she remembers to wear a yukata this time so she doesn't give this delivery girl an eyeful and the wrong idea like the first one. That had been embarrassing. The kitchen island we normally eat at is still in the process of being cleaned by House's robots so I lay out our meals on the kotatsu instead. Carbonara for myself and Alfredo for Harumi.
We eat mostly in silence apart from a little awkward small talk. Harumi seems distracted by something but I don't have the energy to push today. She's gotten much better since I first let her crash at my place. However, she is still struggling to sleep and prone to overworking herself if I don't step in. None of the other staff at Heaven Canceller's hospital seem willing to stand up to her and the man himself is being as useless as always. Apparently, 'Dr. Kiyama is doing much better after you started your treatment plan. Keep up the good work Dr. Kihara.' was the extent of the help he was willing to offer. Frog-faced Bastard. I'm not a medical doctor damnit! Just because I'm a Kihara and an omnidisciplinary scientist doesn't actually make me equally good at everything. At least Harumi is eating healthily again and hasn't had another breakdown like the day I first took her in.
Aside from my offering of a safe space and a shoulder to cry on, I think the most helpful thing for her has been the good progress we have been making on waking her students up. We confirmed the crystal I brought in that day is Banri's. Combined with the other crystals we managed to recover before that and my own First Sample we should be ready to try waking them up next week. I have a vague sense of unease about it but Kiyama and Heaven Canceller are both set on going ahead so I'm letting myself be outvoted. It isn't as if my intuition is infallible and I don't have any clue what it is that is making me worry about things going wrong.
After we have finished our meal, let House take away the dishes to be washed and cracked open the Sapporo, Harumi finally musters up the courage to ask her question.
"That picture next to the new one with you and your four daughters. The one with a young you, two other kids, a dog and an older man. The older man is Gensei isn't it?"
I take a long pull from my beer to avoid answering right away.
"... yes."
"Why? You hate him at least as much as me. Why keep a picture of him and so close to your family at that?"
I stare at my beer for a second.
"That." I say solemnly, "Is a nihonshu conversation. Not a beer conversation. You sure you want to know?"
"Yes."
I nod and put my beer down on the kotatsu as I use gravity shift to retrieve the chilled summer sake jug from the fridge and two shot glasses.
"So here is how we are going to do this. Every time you ask me a question, I take a shot and then answer it. No matter what. Then I get to ask you a question, you take a shot and answer it. No matter what. Then back and forth. Is that okay with you?" I need the emotional distance of the game if I'm going to talk in detail about the family I have killed and plan to kill. But given I suspect that it was my enemies that killed Toshiro, Harumi deserves answers.
"You really think you can outdrink me? I graduated from UTokyo." Harumi says with a stupidly kissable smirk and a deadpan voice, "I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself trying to keep up." I don't know if she understands why I'm making it a game but I'm thankful she's not pushing me on it regardless.
"There is no party," I say with fake seriousness, "Like an Academy City Grad Student party." and down my first shot of nihonshu.
"My mother died in childbirth. My biological father died when I was 2 in a lab accident. Gensei and Noukan were the only father figures I ever really knew. I do hate him. He was just as if not more of an abusive shit to me as he is to the child errors of the city. I know I should cut him out of my life. I. I just can't. Not completely. I don't talk to him. I don't see him. But I can't make myself destroy or hide the memories of my childhood under him like that photo. In his own twisted way he really does care about me. I know that is what all abuse survivors say but it's true."
We are silent for a moment.
"Who is Noukan?" Harumi asks eventually.
"Ah. ah. Ah!" I wag my finger. "It's my turn, remember? Hmm. Did you ever have any pets growing up?"
Harumi scoffs and takes her shot.
"Why the soft ball? No. I always hated the idea of looking after another living being until I got my class to look after. Now. Who is Noukan?"
I take another shot.
"Kihara Noukan is the dog in that photograph."
"..."
"Really."
"Bullshit."
"It's true."
"Your other father figure was a dog?"
"Stop breaking the rules Harumi~!" Despite my teasing I just take another shot and answer her, "Yes. He's still alive actually. He's the Chairman's personal enforcer and assassin within the city."
"..."
"Also he can talk."
Harumi just downs her second shot and grumbles.
"Ask your damn question already."
"Why did you come to Academy City?"
"Another soft ball? I came for the same reason any bright eyed young scientist from outside comes. I wanted to be on the forefront of scientific discovery. I wanted to know all I could about espers. I wanted to write my name in the stars as the one who would finally reach SYSTEM."
She stares at the picture again.
"Who are the other kids in the picture?"
I smile wistfully as I take my fourth shot.
"Kihara Byouri and Kihara Kagun. My blood cousins technically. Byouri by my uncle and Kagun by my aunt. Their parents also died in infancy so really we were raised more like siblings by Gensei and Noukan. That is the last picture I have of all of us smiling together, we were just about to leave Matsuume Elementary for Middle School. Byouri and I went to Tokiwadai and Kagun to Nagatenjouki. It's a bigger reason I keep it out than my complicated feelings about Gensei. What about you, Harurin~? Any family?"
Harurin takes her third shot.
"No. My father jumped in front of a train when I was 12. Overwork at his office supposedly. My mother never recovered. She drank herself to death when I was at university. I'm an only child. No cousins."
I look at the nihonsu on the table.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. For all my bad habits I've never been an alcoholic and I drink socially just fine. Byouri… The same Byouri you killed the day I first asked you for help?"
I nod and take my fifth shot.
"She was my best friend as a kid. We pinned insects into books together. She was the only one happy for me when my esper power changed after the first crystalised esper essence experiment. She didn't mind that the first Therestina died. She had always been attached to the concept of Giving Up. She thought that having given up one sister for another one was the best thing ever. Even after everything. I still miss her. She was my first friend and she could be such a dork. Completely obsessed with cryptozooology." Harurin looks shocked, "I know right? Who would expect a Kihara to love something so unscientific? Gensei tried so hard to break her of it. Disproving the field, electroshocks, aversion therapy, the works. For all her talk of Giving Up though, Byouri really loved the idea of mysterious animals hidden out there in the world who she would be the first one to discover. We used to talk about going on expeditions to the Amazon or the Canadian deep forests to find Bigfoot. Until she lost the use of her legs. She was a fellow subject of the early ability body crystal research. It destroyed the section of her brain that moved her lower limbs. She just smiled and said she was happy to give up something so precious as her dreams." I reach out and down the rest of my Sapporo rather than take another shot and wipe my eyes. I'm not sure when I started crying.
Harurin reaches out to take my hand, "I'm sorry for as-"
I jerk my hand away and shake my head, "Nothing to feel bad about Harurin. It's how the game works. Why the stripping?" I ask her to distract myself.
Harurin takes her fourth shot.
"I told you the first time you asked. No one would be attracted to this ugly body of mine. My mum made sure I knew that. Whenever I tried to dress up or style my hair she'd destroy the clothes or chop my hair off. Call me a slut for trying to entice men with my body. She hated that I went into the sciences. It wasn't 'proper' apparently." Harurin snorts indelicately, "She would probably have had a heart attack if she knew I was bi. All she wanted was for me to stay home and marry the man she chose for me. Then pop out kids and support her with his income. That was the real reason I dedicated myself to coming here I think. I do love science, don't get me wrong, but I chose to come to Academy City and naturalise as a citizen years before I grew to love my field. I've never wanted to leave Japan but here is an independent city-state that speaks Japanese as its primary language and full gender equality. Right next door to home in Tokyo. All I had to do was be the best I could be in my field and I could be free to live my life how I wanted. Of course, then she died before I even had my undergrad degree. Fucking bitch wouldn't even give me the satisfaction of escaping her on my own merits." She throws the bottle cap of her Sapporo across the room, "What do you mean by 'the first Therestina'?"
I slam back my sixth shot.
"Gah. Well you're an expert on AIM fields and personal realities right? How else do you explain a level 0 clairvoyant becoming a Level 1 Gravity Hand after an experimentally induced coma that messed with her brain and wiped her memories? I am categorically a different person with a different personal reality and a different AIM field. I can show you the readings if you like. 6 year old Therestina died on that bed and I woke up in her body."
Harurin takes two more shots after I say that before she responds.
"Shit."
"Yeah."
"... Do you really think I'm attractive?"
I take my seventh shot and look Harurin in her pretty brown eyes.
"Harurin. You are so hot. Your legs go on forever and they are so fucking slender. Your hair is like a waterfall of chocolate. Sure you've lost some weight since we first met but your boobs are still amazing. I envy your hourglass figure and how you keep it without any exercise at all or eating well. I just want to kiss you and not stop. Do you have any idea the torture of living with a compulsive stripper like you who I want to fuck so bad? I have to take cold showers every day."
I pause and Harurin can't meet my eyes. What the hell. I'm too drunk to feel embarrassed about this.
"Do you find me attractive, Harurin?"
Harurin doesn't bother with the shot glass this time, she just takes a swig of the bottle straight up before passing it to me.
"I do. You're exotic ya'know? I'd never seen blonde hair and blue eyes outside of anime and foreign news before I moved here. Never on someone who otherwise looked Japanese before I met you. You have such amazing hair. I have no idea how you manage to keep it so well maintained when it's so long. You can lift and carry me without even using your powers. You give the best massages and you are such a painfully good person. You help people every day while I'm just selfish. Why do you do it?"
I take a swig of my own. The middle school girl in me who read shojou manga and wanted the heroines to hook up is excited about the indirect kiss. The adult woman is busy realising she might get more than just that tonight if she is lucky.
"From when I first woke up, 6 years old lying in hospital, I knew that how my family acted was wrong. You already know Byouri and Gensei, Kagun was just as bad in his own way. He loved to kill things and resuscitate them, just to see how difficult he could make it for himself. He never left any permanent harm on anything or anyone but he toyed with life so many times. More than any of the rest of us. However," I stare at the jug for a moment before taking another swig, "for the longest time I tried my best to ignore that and be a 'good' Kihara. I was a good little child soldier of Academy City's dark side all through my teenage years. I ran experiments with Byouri and Kagun. Please don't ask me about them. I don't want to think about what I did. I knew all of that was wrong. I did it anyway. It wasn't even fear for my life that kept me in line. I just. I suppose I wanted to be loved and I thought that what we had was love."
Harurin reaches across the table and boops my nose.
"That's interesting and sad but it didn't answer my question."
"Okay okay!" I chuckle, "This still requires even more backstory so bare with me. The original Therestina was a level 0 clairvoyant, remember? Well when I woke up I had these ridiculous memories. Impossible ones. About a future where the first Therestina grew up as a perfect Kihara. I wrote them off as just a symptom of her power going haywire in her final moments. Precognition is notoriously unreliable now and was even sketchier then. Until I actually met someone she would have had no way of knowing about. When I was 13 I was given command of Judgement branch 000, ah that is the extrajudicial assassination squad that judgement has." Harurin spit takes her Sapporo all over my kotatsu at that. I just nod, "Really. Anyway when I was given command I met Misaka Tabigake."
"Dolly and Minori's biological father."
"The same. He was part of the team before I joined and stayed under my command for a few years until he aged out of Judgment. That was when I understood that Therestina's final vision had been accurate. When I knew that Gensei planned to industrially grow 20,000 clones of Tabigake's daughter and then have Accelerator murder them 1 by 1 until he eventually reached Level 6." That stuns Harurin into silence. She just stares into the distance for a while. "That was when I realised that I couldn't sit back and settle for being a Kihara anymore. I had to do something, be better. Even the industrial production of body crystals pales in comparison to the monstrosity of project Level 6 Shift. All the other altruistic things I do? In service to that goal. Stopping Level 6 Shift. My turn to ask a question. Why do you call yourself selfish?"
"Because it's what I am." she says as she swipes the bottle back and takes another pull. I am momentarily distracted by a drop which escapes the corner of her mouth and trails down her throat and collar bone before disappearing beneath her yukata. "I willfully ignored all the warning signs until it was my kids who suffered. Even now I'm only working to save them and to hell with the rest of the city."
I snort and take another pull from the bottle, moving closer to her so we don't have to pass it back and forth across the table.
"Do you think that makes you special? I'm the same. The first thing I tried was to infiltrate Gensei's operations and gain his trust but like you I couldn't stand it. When I was 21 his lab security gunned down an escaping victim. I had the same crisis of conscience as you did with your students. Then I threw myself into a foolish attempt to kill Accelerator. All that got me was more nightmares and an even guiltier conscience. Then I just fell back into a holding pattern and hoped that some miracle would give me an opportunity. The first Therestina predicted that she, I , we would command MAR when we grew up. So I took it over from the inside. However, I didn't actually have a plan for how to leverage that into saving the sisters or getting revenge on Gensei. It wasn't until I saved Dolly, and through her met Misaki, Mitori, Tabigake, Misuzu and Mikoto that I finally could see a path to accomplishing my goals. Along the way, raising them and finally having friends aside from Ruri. I let myself start living again. If you are selfish I am too, because I'm not doing this out of pure altruism to save the sisters. Not really. Before I wanted to redeem myself for my years as a Kihara. Now I also don't want to let my daughters down. They think I'm a hero. So I want to be one for them."
Harurin drops the bottle, spilling expensive sake all over my carpet, as she goes to drink again. She picks it up and hands it to me.
"It's is really 20,000 clones?"
"Really," I say and take a long draw from the jug.
She starts giggling and I can't help but join her. It's so stupid and monstrous and pointless I can't help but laugh.
"Th-the worst part is that I think the back of the napkin maths works out." she slurs out between drunken giggles, "I would probably have proposed it myself before Banri made me connect with someone outside high minded esper studies for the first time. I wouldn't have even considered the clones as people. Or the first ranked for that matter."
"But. You. Wouldn't. Now." I tell Harurin, punctuating my words by tapping her nose, or close to her nose anyway. In my drunkenness I miss and end up poking her eyes and lips mostly, "You didn't know better and now you do. You're a good person Harurin. Gensei isn't. He knows it's wrong and that they are people and he is going to do it anyway." I rest my head on her shoulder and hold her hand in mine. We just sit there enjoying each other's presence. Eventually we fall asleep on the spot.
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Monday, 9th of June 2003, One Year before the start of Canon A Certain Magical Index
I open the door to the lab where we tried to wake up Harumi's students. Harumi and Heaven Canceller are furiously looking over the data from the failed attempt trying to see what went wrong.
"-ook here. You see how their AIM fields and brainwaves synchronise? I think they entered RSPK Syndrome." Harumi says.
"But if that is the case why didn't we see any Poltergeist incidents?" the frog-faced doctor replies.
"I can answer that." I interject. "There was a Poltergeist incident, just not here. It was in School District 13."
Harumi frowns in that cute way she does when she's about to figure out the answer on her own.
"Even with all 9 of them synchronising they shouldn't have been able to reach that far. You're absolutely sure it is connected?"
"The earthquake was recorded as starting at the exact same time as the awakening attempt. Down to the centisecond." I don't know why I am so sure of my next statement. It is just my Kihara intuition I suppose, "The most likely cause is that there is a child or children of an age with your students that is synchronising with them for some reason."
"Well it is a bit of a logical leap but I've learned that a Kihara's logical leaps are usually correct." I resist the urge to flip Heaven Canceller the bird over insisting on calling me a Kihara and look at Harumi.
"Did any of your students ever mention an old friend or sibling to you, Harumi?"
She bites her lip and shakes her head.
"If we repeat the process now that we know what to look for we can probably track your hypothetical persons down Dr. Kihara." I've asked you not to call me that frog-faced bastard.
"You cannot be serious." I reply, "That would almost certainly cause another earthquake. It is a miracle that there were no fatalities this time, half of an elementary school collapsed and dozens of students and teachers were hospitalised. Yes that was because it wasn't up to building code standards and I will be raking the contractors involved over the coals but it is still an unacceptable risk."
"We can just make sure we do it outside of school hours."
This rat bastard.
"Absolutely no-"
"Can we track down the person they are synchronising with any other way Tina?"
Harumi looks desperate. She is refusing to meet my eyes and gripping the table so hard I'm worried that she might hurt herself. I should lie and say yes. Before she does something she will regret.
"Maybe," I stick with the truth instead. She deserves my trust. I meant what I said last Sunday about trusting her to be a good person, "We can localise the region based on the Poltergeist incident. I can't promise that it will be quick or that it will work. We'd need to bring all the people who were in that region of the District at the time in and run scans to match their AIM fields with your students. It is possible that the connection is with an undocumented or missing person however."
"Whereas if we simply run the procedure again we can find them right away now we know what to look for. I'm sure Commander Kihara can prevent any fatalities if she has pre-warning to put MAR on alert."
"That's not how rescue work works you old hypoc-" I start to yell at him.
"TINA!" Harumi shouts me down. Please don't side with him, Harumi. She walks over to banri's bed while Heaven Canceller and I glare at each other. Please make the right choice, Harumi. She takes Banri's hand and whispers something to her but I can't make it out. Eventually she turns back to us.
"We will go with Tina's idea. If we can't find anything that way then we will work on another way to wake them up. Banri wouldn't want me to kill other kids to save her. None of them would." Harumi says, refusing to look either of us in the eye.
Over Heaven Canceller's grumbling we set ourselves to organising bringing in the uninjured victims to be tested. It will take most of a week to test everyone in the most likely cohort, the better part of a month to exhaust all of our potential synchronisers. Just sorting the paper work out takes the rest of the day so testing will have to wait until tomorrow. As we are walking home Harumi reaches out and takes my hand, pulling us to a stop about half way back toour my apartment.
"Thank you." she says.
"You're welcome. Though I'm not sure what for."
"For all your help with this. You didn't have to do anything." I open my mouth to assure her I did but she puts her finger to my lips to silence me, "Let me finish please." I nod, "Also thank you for our talk last week. About selfishness. It was because of that talk that I have been thinking about the difference between waking my kids up just to make me feel better and doing it to save them. If we had tried to wake them up a week ago I would have gone with Heaven Canceller's idea. Waking them up would have been more important to me than ensuring they were happy and healthy. I'm still selfish, I don't care about those other kids in District 13 really, but Banri and the others would. The victims of my rushing might have been their friends. I want those kids to keep looking up to me, like you do with your daughters. So thank you, Tina. For helping me." she finishes and withdraws her finger keeping me silent.
I smile at her and take her free hand in mine.
"You are very welcome, Harumi."
We both stand there in the middle of the street for a while, too scared to take the next step. When Harumi starts to pull away I blurt out.
"Can I kiss you?"
Oh no I came on too strong I should have asked her to dinner first what is wrong with me she's going to think I'm a creep
Oh.
Harumi is kissing me.
I should kiss back.
My arms wrap around her waist as hers wrap around the back of my neck. We get some wolfwhistles as we come up for air but we ignore them. They aren't important. We rest our foreheads against each other and my tongue flicks out to taste my own lips. Chocolate.
"You stole my lip gloss." I accuse jokingly.
"Borrowed." Harumi reposites.
We keep giggling in between stealing kisses all the way to our apartment. We probably look ridiculous, two grown women acting like schoolgirls, but I don't care. I haven't been this happy since I was a schoolgirl. It isn't really a magical evening or anything like that. We are both out of practice and our initial attempts to please each other are clumsy. Our giddiness and enthusiasm keeps us going long enough to find a good rhythm though. After a long and satisfying shower, interrupted half way through by more sex, we settle into bed. Just cuddling and enjoying each other's presence as we plan out our first official date. Maybe we did this all out of order, certainly this isn't like when I dated in highschool or at university, but this feels nice. We drift off to sleep in each other's arms. This hasn't been the fairytale romance I read about as a girl but in its own way, it is even better.
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AN: Repeating the warning from last chapter that neither Tina or Harumi make use of healthy coping mechanisms this chapter. Please do not copy them.
That said this is my first time writing a serious adult romance so I'd appreciate any feedback! Was it too fast? Was there actually any chemistry there? etc.
I close the door to my apartment behind me and finally let my exhaustion show after a long week spent dealing with dorm fires, school laboratory fires, actual laboratory fires, warehouse fires, summer festival fires and car fires.
"Ahh! Fire!"
And now I come home to Harumi starting a kitchen fire. Wonderful.
Thankfully House activates as soon as it detects the fire in the kitchen starting to spread and douses the fire, and Harumi, in retardant foam before I can even make it to the kitchen.
"The fire has been safely doused, Dr. Lifeline, Dr. Kiyama." House's artificial voice sounds from the intercom speakers placed around the open plan apartment.
"Thank you House." I say as I turn the corner from my entryway into the kitchen area to see Harumi already stripping out of her foam soaked clothes. Of course she is.
"Harumi. What have we talked about stripping in the kitchen?"
She sighs and stops before following me out of the kitchen area towards the bathroom while House's cleaning robots head into the kitchen to fix her mess.
"Don't do it. It is unhygienic." she grumbles, "This foam is itchy though. And now I'm dragging it all over the floor."
"House will clean it up. It is what I built it for." I reply as I start to run her a bath for after her shower. "I appreciate you trying to make me food for when I get back from work though. Thank you, Harumi."
She blushes and refuses to meet my eyes as she finishes disrobing and starts to shower. I on the other hand try my hardest to only look at her eyes. 2 weeks of good food and restful nights have only made her more attractive and I'm trying my best to avoid taking advantage of her lack of shame about stripping.
"Well you won't let me pay rent."
I click my tongue as I take off my own suit jacket and start helping her clean the foam out of her silky chestnut hair while she scrubs. Though it is only silky now because she keeps
"You are my guest, Harumi. Not my tenant. Speaking of. How is the flat hunting going?"
She groans as I massage her scalp and leans into my touch.
"I don't want to talk about that."
I sigh.
"I understand that you don't feel safe on your own after what happened with poor Toshiro but you can't live on my charity forever, Harumi. You can certainly afford your pick of apartments. I've seen that European sports car you drive. It is an even fancier car than mine and I have to drive a fancy car to keep up appearances."
She opens one eye to give me a gimlet glare.
"It is a brand new 03 Lamborghini Gallardo Coupe with an E-Gear system. One of the first 200 to roll off the factory floor. Not just some 'European sports car'. Don't insult it by comparing it to that amerishit '97 Corvette you drive."
I chuckle at her car mania and just finish washing her hair. Once I am done I stand up and go to leave the bathroom as she continues to clean the rest of her body herself.
"Alright. You can do the rest yourself, you layabout~. I'll go order takeaway and get changed. Please don't forget to get dressed after your bath this time? At least wear a yukata."
"I really don't get the big deal. If I was wearing a bikini instead of underwear no one would care." She mutters to herself as I close the bathroom door and get changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt before walking to the phone. Even after knowing her for a month I can never quite tell if she is serious or pulling a very extended prank on the world when she talks about her compulsive stripping. Hmm? Should we eat Ramen or hamburg tonight? Or maybe Italian? Since Harumi is so enamoured with her Lamborghini.
The Carbonara and Chicken Alfreado arrive just as Harumi is stepping out of the bathroom, thankfully she remembers to wear a yukata this time so she doesn't give this delivery girl an eyeful and the wrong idea like the first one. That had been embarrassing. The kitchen island we normally eat at is still in the process of being cleaned by House's robots so I lay out our meals on the kotatsu instead. Carbonara for myself and Alfredo for Harumi.
We eat mostly in silence apart from a little awkward small talk. Harumi seems distracted by something but I don't have the energy to push today. She's gotten much better since I first let her crash at my place. However, she is still struggling to sleep and prone to overworking herself if I don't step in. None of the other staff at Heaven Canceller's hospital seem willing to stand up to her and the man himself is being as useless as always. Apparently, 'Dr. Kiyama is doing much better after you started your treatment plan. Keep up the good work Dr. Kihara.' was the extent of the help he was willing to offer. Frog-faced Bastard. I'm not a medical doctor damnit! Just because I'm a Kihara and an omnidisciplinary scientist doesn't actually make me equally good at everything. At least Harumi is eating healthily again and hasn't had another breakdown like the day I first took her in.
Aside from my offering of a safe space and a shoulder to cry on, I think the most helpful thing for her has been the good progress we have been making on waking her students up. We confirmed the crystal I brought in that day is Banri's. Combined with the other crystals we managed to recover before that and my own First Sample we should be ready to try waking them up next week. I have a vague sense of unease about it but Kiyama and Heaven Canceller are both set on going ahead so I'm letting myself be outvoted. It isn't as if my intuition is infallible and I don't have any clue what it is that is making me worry about things going wrong.
After we have finished our meal, let House take away the dishes to be washed and cracked open the Sapporo, Harumi finally musters up the courage to ask her question.
"That picture next to the new one with you and your four daughters. The one with a young you, two other kids, a dog and an older man. The older man is Gensei isn't it?"
I take a long pull from my beer to avoid answering right away.
"... yes."
"Why? You hate him at least as much as me. Why keep a picture of him and so close to your family at that?"
I stare at my beer for a second.
"That." I say solemnly, "Is a nihonshu conversation. Not a beer conversation. You sure you want to know?"
"Yes."
I nod and put my beer down on the kotatsu as I use gravity shift to retrieve the chilled summer sake jug from the fridge and two shot glasses.
"So here is how we are going to do this. Every time you ask me a question, I take a shot and then answer it. No matter what. Then I get to ask you a question, you take a shot and answer it. No matter what. Then back and forth. Is that okay with you?" I need the emotional distance of the game if I'm going to talk in detail about the family I have killed and plan to kill. But given I suspect that it was my enemies that killed Toshiro, Harumi deserves answers.
"You really think you can outdrink me? I graduated from UTokyo." Harumi says with a stupidly kissable smirk and a deadpan voice, "I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself trying to keep up." I don't know if she understands why I'm making it a game but I'm thankful she's not pushing me on it regardless.
"There is no party," I say with fake seriousness, "Like an Academy City Grad Student party." and down my first shot of nihonshu.
"My mother died in childbirth. My biological father died when I was 2 in a lab accident. Gensei and Noukan were the only father figures I ever really knew. I do hate him. He was just as if not more of an abusive shit to me as he is to the child errors of the city. I know I should cut him out of my life. I. I just can't. Not completely. I don't talk to him. I don't see him. But I can't make myself destroy or hide the memories of my childhood under him like that photo. In his own twisted way he really does care about me. I know that is what all abuse survivors say but it's true."
We are silent for a moment.
"Who is Noukan?" Harumi asks eventually.
"Ah. ah. Ah!" I wag my finger. "It's my turn, remember? Hmm. Did you ever have any pets growing up?"
Harumi scoffs and takes her shot.
"Why the soft ball? No. I always hated the idea of looking after another living being until I got my class to look after. Now. Who is Noukan?"
I take another shot.
"Kihara Noukan is the dog in that photograph."
"..."
"Really."
"Bullshit."
"It's true."
"Your other father figure was a dog?"
"Stop breaking the rules Harumi~!" Despite my teasing I just take another shot and answer her, "Yes. He's still alive actually. He's the Chairman's personal enforcer and assassin within the city."
"..."
"Also he can talk."
Harumi just downs her second shot and grumbles.
"Ask your damn question already."
"Why did you come to Academy City?"
"Another soft ball? I came for the same reason any bright eyed young scientist from outside comes. I wanted to be on the forefront of scientific discovery. I wanted to know all I could about espers. I wanted to write my name in the stars as the one who would finally reach SYSTEM."
She stares at the picture again.
"Who are the other kids in the picture?"
I smile wistfully as I take my fourth shot.
"Kihara Byouri and Kihara Kagun. My blood cousins technically. Byouri by my uncle and Kagun by my aunt. Their parents also died in infancy so really we were raised more like siblings by Gensei and Noukan. That is the last picture I have of all of us smiling together, we were just about to leave Matsuume Elementary for Middle School. Byouri and I went to Tokiwadai and Kagun to Nagatenjouki. It's a bigger reason I keep it out than my complicated feelings about Gensei. What about you, Harurin~? Any family?"
Harurin takes her third shot.
"No. My father jumped in front of a train when I was 12. Overwork at his office supposedly. My mother never recovered. She drank herself to death when I was at university. I'm an only child. No cousins."
I look at the nihonsu on the table.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. For all my bad habits I've never been an alcoholic and I drink socially just fine. Byouri… The same Byouri you killed the day I first asked you for help?"
I nod and take my fifth shot.
"She was my best friend as a kid. We pinned insects into books together. She was the only one happy for me when my esper power changed after the first crystalised esper essence experiment. She didn't mind that the first Therestina died. She had always been attached to the concept of Giving Up. She thought that having given up one sister for another one was the best thing ever. Even after everything. I still miss her. She was my first friend and she could be such a dork. Completely obsessed with cryptozooology." Harurin looks shocked, "I know right? Who would expect a Kihara to love something so unscientific? Gensei tried so hard to break her of it. Disproving the field, electroshocks, aversion therapy, the works. For all her talk of Giving Up though, Byouri really loved the idea of mysterious animals hidden out there in the world who she would be the first one to discover. We used to talk about going on expeditions to the Amazon or the Canadian deep forests to find Bigfoot. Until she lost the use of her legs. She was a fellow subject of the early ability body crystal research. It destroyed the section of her brain that moved her lower limbs. She just smiled and said she was happy to give up something so precious as her dreams." I reach out and down the rest of my Sapporo rather than take another shot and wipe my eyes. I'm not sure when I started crying.
Harurin reaches out to take my hand, "I'm sorry for as-"
I jerk my hand away and shake my head, "Nothing to feel bad about Harurin. It's how the game works. Why the stripping?" I ask her to distract myself.
Harurin takes her fourth shot.
"I told you the first time you asked. No one would be attracted to this ugly body of mine. My mum made sure I knew that. Whenever I tried to dress up or style my hair she'd destroy the clothes or chop my hair off. Call me a slut for trying to entice men with my body. She hated that I went into the sciences. It wasn't 'proper' apparently." Harurin snorts indelicately, "She would probably have had a heart attack if she knew I was bi. All she wanted was for me to stay home and marry the man she chose for me. Then pop out kids and support her with his income. That was the real reason I dedicated myself to coming here I think. I do love science, don't get me wrong, but I chose to come to Academy City and naturalise as a citizen years before I grew to love my field. I've never wanted to leave Japan but here is an independent city-state that speaks Japanese as its primary language and full gender equality. Right next door to home in Tokyo. All I had to do was be the best I could be in my field and I could be free to live my life how I wanted. Of course, then she died before I even had my undergrad degree. Fucking bitch wouldn't even give me the satisfaction of escaping her on my own merits." She throws the bottle cap of her Sapporo across the room, "What do you mean by 'the first Therestina'?"
I slam back my sixth shot.
"Gah. Well you're an expert on AIM fields and personal realities right? How else do you explain a level 0 clairvoyant becoming a Level 1 Gravity Hand after an experimentally induced coma that messed with her brain and wiped her memories? I am categorically a different person with a different personal reality and a different AIM field. I can show you the readings if you like. 6 year old Therestina died on that bed and I woke up in her body."
Harurin takes two more shots after I say that before she responds.
"Shit."
"Yeah."
"... Do you really think I'm attractive?"
I take my seventh shot and look Harurin in her pretty brown eyes.
"Harurin. You are so hot. Your legs go on forever and they are so fucking slender. Your hair is like a waterfall of chocolate. Sure you've lost some weight since we first met but your boobs are still amazing. I envy your hourglass figure and how you keep it without any exercise at all or eating well. I just want to kiss you and not stop. Do you have any idea the torture of living with a compulsive stripper like you who I want to fuck so bad? I have to take cold showers every day."
I pause and Harurin can't meet my eyes. What the hell. I'm too drunk to feel embarrassed about this.
"Do you find me attractive, Harurin?"
Harurin doesn't bother with the shot glass this time, she just takes a swig of the bottle straight up before passing it to me.
"I do. You're exotic ya'know? I'd never seen blonde hair and blue eyes outside of anime and foreign news before I moved here. Never on someone who otherwise looked Japanese before I met you. You have such amazing hair. I have no idea how you manage to keep it so well maintained when it's so long. You can lift and carry me without even using your powers. You give the best massages and you are such a painfully good person. You help people every day while I'm just selfish. Why do you do it?"
I take a swig of my own. The middle school girl in me who read shojou manga and wanted the heroines to hook up is excited about the indirect kiss. The adult woman is busy realising she might get more than just that tonight if she is lucky.
"From when I first woke up, 6 years old lying in hospital, I knew that how my family acted was wrong. You already know Byouri and Gensei, Kagun was just as bad in his own way. He loved to kill things and resuscitate them, just to see how difficult he could make it for himself. He never left any permanent harm on anything or anyone but he toyed with life so many times. More than any of the rest of us. However," I stare at the jug for a moment before taking another swig, "for the longest time I tried my best to ignore that and be a 'good' Kihara. I was a good little child soldier of Academy City's dark side all through my teenage years. I ran experiments with Byouri and Kagun. Please don't ask me about them. I don't want to think about what I did. I knew all of that was wrong. I did it anyway. It wasn't even fear for my life that kept me in line. I just. I suppose I wanted to be loved and I thought that what we had was love."
Harurin reaches across the table and boops my nose.
"That's interesting and sad but it didn't answer my question."
"Okay okay!" I chuckle, "This still requires even more backstory so bare with me. The original Therestina was a level 0 clairvoyant, remember? Well when I woke up I had these ridiculous memories. Impossible ones. About a future where the first Therestina grew up as a perfect Kihara. I wrote them off as just a symptom of her power going haywire in her final moments. Precognition is notoriously unreliable now and was even sketchier then. Until I actually met someone she would have had no way of knowing about. When I was 13 I was given command of Judgement branch 000, ah that is the extrajudicial assassination squad that judgement has." Harurin spit takes her Sapporo all over my kotatsu at that. I just nod, "Really. Anyway when I was given command I met Misaka Tabigake."
"Dolly and Minori's biological father."
"The same. He was part of the team before I joined and stayed under my command for a few years until he aged out of Judgment. That was when I understood that Therestina's final vision had been accurate. When I knew that Gensei planned to industrially grow 20,000 clones of Tabigake's daughter and then have Accelerator murder them 1 by 1 until he eventually reached Level 6." That stuns Harurin into silence. She just stares into the distance for a while. "That was when I realised that I couldn't sit back and settle for being a Kihara anymore. I had to do something, be better. Even the industrial production of body crystals pales in comparison to the monstrosity of project Level 6 Shift. All the other altruistic things I do? In service to that goal. Stopping Level 6 Shift. My turn to ask a question. Why do you call yourself selfish?"
"Because it's what I am." she says as she swipes the bottle back and takes another pull. I am momentarily distracted by a drop which escapes the corner of her mouth and trails down her throat and collar bone before disappearing beneath her yukata. "I willfully ignored all the warning signs until it was my kids who suffered. Even now I'm only working to save them and to hell with the rest of the city."
I snort and take another pull from the bottle, moving closer to her so we don't have to pass it back and forth across the table.
"Do you think that makes you special? I'm the same. The first thing I tried was to infiltrate Gensei's operations and gain his trust but like you I couldn't stand it. When I was 21 his lab security gunned down an escaping victim. I had the same crisis of conscience as you did with your students. Then I threw myself into a foolish attempt to kill Accelerator. All that got me was more nightmares and an even guiltier conscience. Then I just fell back into a holding pattern and hoped that some miracle would give me an opportunity. The first Therestina predicted that she, I , we would command MAR when we grew up. So I took it over from the inside. However, I didn't actually have a plan for how to leverage that into saving the sisters or getting revenge on Gensei. It wasn't until I saved Dolly, and through her met Misaki, Mitori, Tabigake, Misuzu and Mikoto that I finally could see a path to accomplishing my goals. Along the way, raising them and finally having friends aside from Ruri. I let myself start living again. If you are selfish I am too, because I'm not doing this out of pure altruism to save the sisters. Not really. Before I wanted to redeem myself for my years as a Kihara. Now I also don't want to let my daughters down. They think I'm a hero. So I want to be one for them."
Harurin drops the bottle, spilling expensive sake all over my carpet, as she goes to drink again. She picks it up and hands it to me.
"It's is really 20,000 clones?"
"Really," I say and take a long draw from the jug.
She starts giggling and I can't help but join her. It's so stupid and monstrous and pointless I can't help but laugh.
"Th-the worst part is that I think the back of the napkin maths works out." she slurs out between drunken giggles, "I would probably have proposed it myself before Banri made me connect with someone outside high minded esper studies for the first time. I wouldn't have even considered the clones as people. Or the first ranked for that matter."
"But. You. Wouldn't. Now." I tell Harurin, punctuating my words by tapping her nose, or close to her nose anyway. In my drunkenness I miss and end up poking her eyes and lips mostly, "You didn't know better and now you do. You're a good person Harurin. Gensei isn't. He knows it's wrong and that they are people and he is going to do it anyway." I rest my head on her shoulder and hold her hand in mine. We just sit there enjoying each other's presence. Eventually we fall asleep on the spot.
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Monday, 9th of June 2003, One Year before the start of Canon A Certain Magical Index
I open the door to the lab where we tried to wake up Harumi's students. Harumi and Heaven Canceller are furiously looking over the data from the failed attempt trying to see what went wrong.
"-ook here. You see how their AIM fields and brainwaves synchronise? I think they entered RSPK Syndrome." Harumi says.
"But if that is the case why didn't we see any Poltergeist incidents?" the frog-faced doctor replies.
"I can answer that." I interject. "There was a Poltergeist incident, just not here. It was in School District 13."
Harumi frowns in that cute way she does when she's about to figure out the answer on her own.
"Even with all 9 of them synchronising they shouldn't have been able to reach that far. You're absolutely sure it is connected?"
"The earthquake was recorded as starting at the exact same time as the awakening attempt. Down to the centisecond." I don't know why I am so sure of my next statement. It is just my Kihara intuition I suppose, "The most likely cause is that there is a child or children of an age with your students that is synchronising with them for some reason."
"Well it is a bit of a logical leap but I've learned that a Kihara's logical leaps are usually correct." I resist the urge to flip Heaven Canceller the bird over insisting on calling me a Kihara and look at Harumi.
"Did any of your students ever mention an old friend or sibling to you, Harumi?"
She bites her lip and shakes her head.
"If we repeat the process now that we know what to look for we can probably track your hypothetical persons down Dr. Kihara." I've asked you not to call me that frog-faced bastard.
"You cannot be serious." I reply, "That would almost certainly cause another earthquake. It is a miracle that there were no fatalities this time, half of an elementary school collapsed and dozens of students and teachers were hospitalised. Yes that was because it wasn't up to building code standards and I will be raking the contractors involved over the coals but it is still an unacceptable risk."
"We can just make sure we do it outside of school hours."
This rat bastard.
"Absolutely no-"
"Can we track down the person they are synchronising with any other way Tina?"
Harumi looks desperate. She is refusing to meet my eyes and gripping the table so hard I'm worried that she might hurt herself. I should lie and say yes. Before she does something she will regret.
"Maybe," I stick with the truth instead. She deserves my trust. I meant what I said last Sunday about trusting her to be a good person, "We can localise the region based on the Poltergeist incident. I can't promise that it will be quick or that it will work. We'd need to bring all the people who were in that region of the District at the time in and run scans to match their AIM fields with your students. It is possible that the connection is with an undocumented or missing person however."
"Whereas if we simply run the procedure again we can find them right away now we know what to look for. I'm sure Commander Kihara can prevent any fatalities if she has pre-warning to put MAR on alert."
"That's not how rescue work works you old hypoc-" I start to yell at him.
"TINA!" Harumi shouts me down. Please don't side with him, Harumi. She walks over to banri's bed while Heaven Canceller and I glare at each other. Please make the right choice, Harumi. She takes Banri's hand and whispers something to her but I can't make it out. Eventually she turns back to us.
"We will go with Tina's idea. If we can't find anything that way then we will work on another way to wake them up. Banri wouldn't want me to kill other kids to save her. None of them would." Harumi says, refusing to look either of us in the eye.
Over Heaven Canceller's grumbling we set ourselves to organising bringing in the uninjured victims to be tested. It will take most of a week to test everyone in the most likely cohort, the better part of a month to exhaust all of our potential synchronisers. Just sorting the paper work out takes the rest of the day so testing will have to wait until tomorrow. As we are walking home Harumi reaches out and takes my hand, pulling us to a stop about half way back to
"Thank you." she says.
"You're welcome. Though I'm not sure what for."
"For all your help with this. You didn't have to do anything." I open my mouth to assure her I did but she puts her finger to my lips to silence me, "Let me finish please." I nod, "Also thank you for our talk last week. About selfishness. It was because of that talk that I have been thinking about the difference between waking my kids up just to make me feel better and doing it to save them. If we had tried to wake them up a week ago I would have gone with Heaven Canceller's idea. Waking them up would have been more important to me than ensuring they were happy and healthy. I'm still selfish, I don't care about those other kids in District 13 really, but Banri and the others would. The victims of my rushing might have been their friends. I want those kids to keep looking up to me, like you do with your daughters. So thank you, Tina. For helping me." she finishes and withdraws her finger keeping me silent.
I smile at her and take her free hand in mine.
"You are very welcome, Harumi."
We both stand there in the middle of the street for a while, too scared to take the next step. When Harumi starts to pull away I blurt out.
"Can I kiss you?"
Oh no I came on too strong I should have asked her to dinner first what is wrong with me she's going to think I'm a creep
Oh.
Harumi is kissing me.
I should kiss back.
My arms wrap around her waist as hers wrap around the back of my neck. We get some wolfwhistles as we come up for air but we ignore them. They aren't important. We rest our foreheads against each other and my tongue flicks out to taste my own lips. Chocolate.
"You stole my lip gloss." I accuse jokingly.
"Borrowed." Harumi reposites.
We keep giggling in between stealing kisses all the way to our apartment. We probably look ridiculous, two grown women acting like schoolgirls, but I don't care. I haven't been this happy since I was a schoolgirl. It isn't really a magical evening or anything like that. We are both out of practice and our initial attempts to please each other are clumsy. Our giddiness and enthusiasm keeps us going long enough to find a good rhythm though. After a long and satisfying shower, interrupted half way through by more sex, we settle into bed. Just cuddling and enjoying each other's presence as we plan out our first official date. Maybe we did this all out of order, certainly this isn't like when I dated in highschool or at university, but this feels nice. We drift off to sleep in each other's arms. This hasn't been the fairytale romance I read about as a girl but in its own way, it is even better.
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AN: Repeating the warning from last chapter that neither Tina or Harumi make use of healthy coping mechanisms this chapter. Please do not copy them.
That said this is my first time writing a serious adult romance so I'd appreciate any feedback! Was it too fast? Was there actually any chemistry there? etc.
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