Getting Closer...Too Close!

Midoriko looked at her forehead in the bathroom mirror. It was still a little red and swollen. Ugh…How do I explain this to people? Do I just tell them I tripped and fell?

It had been almost an hour since Ryouma had left to “clean up” her apartment. Why was it taking him so long? Was everything okay?

She was too wound-tight to sleep or really do much of anything. All she’d been doing was pacing around the apartment—periodically checking on the sleeping Itoko. As she stood in front of the mirror, Midoriko heard what sounded like a door opening and jumped.

She poked her head out of the bathroom to see the man she’d just been thinking of stepping back into the apartment through one of his magic doors. On the other side was her apartment, looking slightly cleaner than she’d left it.

“Get what you need from over there.” He nodded his head in the direction of Midoriko’s apartment while he leaned against the doorway connecting the two places. “It’s in your best interest if you stay here for a while.”

“O…kay…”

Midoriko hurried through the portal and found herself back in her old kitchen. She looked over her shoulder to see that the front door of her apartment was the one connected to the Osaka safehouse.

As Midoriko entered the main room of her apartment, she noticed the rug on her floor was slightly askew.

“S-so…What happened to him?” she asked, packing a bag for herself and Itoko.

“Don’t worry about it. I took care of it without making a mess,” Ryouma said, picking up the ugly UFO catcher plushie off the floor near the entrance.

“...If by ‘took care of it,’ do you mean…” Midoriko clamped her mouth shut. She wasn’t going to finish that sentence. She didn’t actually want to know.

“You two left him in quite a state. Should have just let her finish him off–”

“Absolutely not!” she snapped. Midoriko paused her packing for a moment to confront him once more. “Do you understand how much she cried over what she did?! She may be a child, but she fully knows what she is capable of!”

Ryouma looked at the plushie he was holding and sighed. “Sorry. You’re right.”

“She’s supposed to have a normal life now…” Midoriko muttered. She resumed her packing, now grabbing things needed for school and work.

As Midoriko pulled things off her desk, she opened the drawer she’d been hiding the kīla in. It’s gone!

“Looking for this?” Ryouma asked from behind her. She turned around to see him standing in the doorway between the main room and the kitchen, tapping the pommel of the kīla against his chin. He had a mischievous smirk on his face.

“Tch…” Midoriko ignored his provocations. She knew she’d taken it without permission and got caught, so she had nothing to say to that. But still! It was stolen in the first place! Why couldn’t she just take it back?

“I thought you’d be smarter than to keep stolen goods from your workplace inside your own place of residence.”

“I wanted to study it.” Midoriko moved past him with her bags.

“Oh?” He followed her.

She set the bags in the entryway of the other apartment, then crossed back into her own. “If you must know, I thought that if I could figure out how to cleanse it, then it would put us one step closer to lifting your curse.”

In her kitchen, she started loading up a reusable grocery bag with food from her kitchen. If she was going to be away, she didn’t want anything to go bad.

“Hmm…” Ryouma looked at the kīla in his hand. That was something he hadn’t considered. She also did actually seem sincere about it as well…

“Alright. I’ll let you hold onto this then,” he said, holding out the kīla. Midoriko set down the grocery bag and accepted the kīla with both hands. “Just remember to let me know if you find something.”

“I will.” The beginnings of a smile tugged at the corner of her lips.

He’d noticed it all the way back when they first met—Suwa Midoriko shines the brightest when it comes to her research. Diligent, devoted, and full of boundless curiosity. Even though she was doing him a favor, Ryouma couldn’t help but feel like he needed to nurture that part of her.

“Well then, shall we finish up here?” He asked, picking up the grocery bag.

Midoriko clutched the kīla, holding it to her chest. “Yes, let’s.”

After grabbing the last few essentials, they crossed over to the safehouse. Midoriko watched as the door connected to her little two-room apartment shut, not knowing when she’d be able to return.

***

They had just finished putting away the food brought over from the other apartment when Ryouma checked his watch.

“It’s getting late. I should probably go.”

“Huh? Where?” Midoriko followed him to the front door.

“Where else? Back to my house to sleep,” he said with a shrug. “I’m about to become incredibly busy.”

Midoriko touched her forehead where he’d cleaned and bandaged her wound. It felt strange that the person she’d been most afraid of not long ago was now calming her nerves just by being nearby.

“Could you…” She swallowed hard before continuing. “Maybe stay here tonight?”

Ryouma, who was in the process of putting on his shoes, froze.

“Come again?”

Midoriko rubbed her arm and sighed. “I mean…You don’t have to if you don’t want to. But there’s an extra bed here, and I’d feel a lot safer if you stayed…”

He only looked at her with wide eyes, blinking slowly. Midoriko, suddenly feeling self-conscious, turned and went back to the livingroom. “Forget it. I’ll be fine!”

“No, no! I’ll do it! I’ll stay!” Ryouma kicked off the shoe he’d already put on and followed her. As they walked past the kitchen, he took off his suit jacket and threw it over a dining chair. He stretched his arms dramatically. “YAWN! Gosh, I sure am tired! But if you can’t sleep, I don’t mind staying up for a little longer.”

Midoriko sat on the sofa and frowned at him. She looked like she had something to say to him as she sat there staring at him.

“Um–”

“Why didn’t you come visit?” she asked, scratching her head.

“Oh! Heh…I was really busy closing out the identities for Westbrook and Brodny,” he explained, sitting down next to her. Ryouma leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Did you miss me?”

“No.” Her answer came so quickly that it kinda stung. She pointed to his cursed hand. “But what about your arm? How has that been?”

“Oh? Haha…My arm?” He leaned back on the sofa. “I’ve been managing the pain with the usual…”

“I see…Then I suppose you didn’t need me after all…” Midoriko started to stand up, but Ryouma caught her wrist and pulled her back down.

“Th-that’s not true!” He hastily took off his gloves and threw them on the coffee table. “Our sessions were an immense relief! Smoking for pain relief just isn’t the same!”

“You’re not messing with me, are you?”

Ryouma paused for a moment as he rolled up his sleeve. “Hm? I mean–”

“Because if you are, then this ends now,” she said, crossing her arms.

“Ow! Ohh! It hurts so much! Please help me, Midoriko!” he whined, clutching his arm and writhing around.

Midoriko sighed and held out her hand. “You’re unbelievable…”

Ryouma placed his cursed right hand into hers, feeling the instant warmth of relief. The truth was that he wanted it every day, but suspected the Russians were tracking her down. He needed to exercise self-restraint, or he’d potentially lose another alias.

“Why do you treat me like I’m a patient?” he asked, watching her perform her usual acupressure massage on his hand and forearm.

“Because to me, you’re a research subject,” she answered bluntly.

“Oh, really? And what have you learned?”

“That when I do this…” She bent his pinky finger backward. Ryouma flinched from the pain. “It hurts you.”

“Owowow! Alright! I get it!” It felt like she was trying to break his finger.

She released his pinky then gently massaged the knuckle. “And it only hurts when I do it, right?”

“Yes, so please refrain from torturing me,” he said, wiping his other hand down his face.

Midoriko chuckled. “What’s more torturous for you? Enduring fifteen years of the equivalent of severe nerve damage, or the fleeting pain of being pinched?”

“Alright, alright. I get your point…”

“How old are you anyway?”

“Why do you want to know? Finally taking an interest in me?” He smirked.

“Not really. It’s just that fifteen years is a long time,” she replied, meeting his eyes.

“Would you believe I’m over one hundred years old?” he asked, leaning in close.

“No,” she said flatly with no hesitation, looking back down.

Ryouma flopped back. He wasn’t sure what kind of reaction he was going to get when he said it, but it wasn’t that.

“I just turned thirty this year,” he said with a long, dramatic sigh.

Midoriko momentarily lost her focus on the hand and looked up at him wide-eyed. “That’s surprising…I thought you might have been younger.”

That’s what’s surprising?!

Ryouma felt his eye twitch. Somehow, it felt like she was insulting him, but he could turn it around.

“Why is it surprising to you?” he asked, running his free hand through his hair. “Because I look so young and handsome?”

“No. Because sometimes you act more childish than Xiǎomíng…”

Again with the quick answers. He had to change the subject, or the conversation might continue with blow after blow to his pride.

“To be honest, at one point I thought maybe you two had swapped bodies somehow,” she added.

“That’s…not possible…” Ryouma grumbled.

“I know,” Midoriko said with a chuckle. She looked at him with sympathetic eyes. “I’m sure if it were, you would have discarded this cursed body a long time ago, right?”

Ryouma felt a pang in his chest right as the timer for their ten minutes was up. Midoriko turned it off but continued holding on to his hand.

“Um…The timer…?” he asked, looking at her hands clasping his.

“It’s fine, we can go a little longer tonight,” she said, her attention fully on his arm. Midoriko’s glasses were sliding down her nose as she looked down.

Suddenly, it felt like this wasn’t enough, and he got the uncontrollable urge to touch her. Ryouma swallowed hard, then pushed her glasses up by the bridge. His fingertips gently grazed her nose.

Midoriko looked up at him, eyes wide in surprise. Her face was slightly flushed.

“W-why did you do that?!”

“They were slipping down,” he said, cocking his head to the side and smiling.

“W-well, it’s fine!” she stammered. Midoriko turned her head away from him. “If that happens again, I’ll just push them back up myself!”

Ryouma laced their fingers together as she held his cursed hand. Then, with his other hand, he touched her chin and gently turned her face toward him again. She flushed more deeply than before.

“Is there anything else you want to know about me?” he asked, in a hushed voice.

“Uh…Um…” She tried to move her head away again, but he held her chin firmly in place. Midoriko could only look away with her eyes. “I think maybe…You should tell me…e-exactly how you got this curse?”

“Another time.” Ryouma pressed his thumb to her pink lower lip, lightly caressing it. Her face was completely red now.

As his face moved closer to hers, Midoriko yanked her hand out of his grasp and pushed him away from her.

“I think that’s more than enough for tonight!” she said in a huff as she stormed away from the couch. “You can sleep on the couch or the other bed! I don’t care! I’m sharing with Itoko.”

Ryouma watched as she opened the door to the bedroom where they’d left the sleeping child and closed it softly behind her.

“Haaahh…” He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes as he lay on the couch.

What the hell am I even doing?