Author: Kiki (Hey-Diddle-Diddle)

Genre: Drama/Tragedy

Rating: PG

Summary: Platonic Yuuko/Kimihiro? She bends like a dancer and Kimihiro can hear the wind cry.

Windbreaker

There is a wind in Yuuko's garden. It blows at night, when the shop is dark, and slips through window and door, slithering through the hallways. It scratches at the doors and calls Kimihiro's name, then curls like a sleeping thing, waiting for him to open his door.

Kimihiro lies awake at night, listening to the wind whisper Kimihiro, Kimihiro, son, our son. When the wind curls with a dry rasp, it sounds like a woman sobbing, and Kimihiro covers his ears with his hands, clenches his eyes shut, and waits for the weeping in the hallways to end.

"You haven't been sleeping," Yuuko says in the early afternoon, when Kimihiro is pulling on his apron. She reaches out, fingers nearly touching beneath his eyes, then pulls back. "There are shadows under your eyes."

"I can't sleep," Kimihiro says sharply. "The shop's too loud."

"The shop hasn't slept for a very long time," Yuuko says, and then she's leaving in a flutter of silk and laughter, calling for sake and Mokona as she flicks her fingertips in Kimihiro's direction. Kimihiro seethes as he slams the door shut, closing out Mokona's voice, and the faint wisp of wind from the garden.

x

Yuuko slides the door shut with her fingers, lace dripping from her wrists. Her face is still, lips thin, and Kimihiro sits up.

"What--" he begins to ask, but Yuuko is already running her fingertips along the seam of the door, bending like a dancer. She straightens, brushes her hair over her shoulder, and turns to Kimihiro, lips thinner.

"You should sleep," she says. Kimihiro stares at her fingers, where they rest against her hips, then says, "I can't."

She kneels next to Kimihiro's futon, lace spilling across the floor, and she smiles when he leans closer, nearly close enough to feel her heat. Her fingers hesitate near his skin, then she touches him, cool fingers light on his skin.

"The wind," Kimihiro says, "keeps me awake." Yuuko's fingers feel colder, but they're firmer against his skin, brushing up to his temples, nearly running through his hair.

"You shouldn't open the door." Yuuko's hair is slipping over her shoulder, strands brushing past Kimihiro, and he's not sure how he ends up lying with his head on her knee, her hair a curtain. He blinks, wonders why he's so tired. "The shop hasn't slept for a very long time."

Yuuko's fingers grow firmer, her voice murmuring what sounds like nonsense, and Kimihiro nearly can't hear the wind in the hallway. It feels like there's sand in his eyes, and he wants to rub at his eyes, but his hands are too heavy to move. Yuuko's hair is casting out the light, and then there's just a candle flickering, and Kimihiro can't remember lighting a candle, or seeing Yuuko light a candle.

"My mom," he tries to say, because it's very important, somehow. "The wind, it sounds like my mom."

Yuuko's fingers pause in his hair, and then she is leaning close, too close, and he has to close his eyes, hold his breath.

"Never," she says, and he doesn't understand why she sounds so sad, "open that door." Her lips are warm on his temple, but they're awkward, like Yuuko hasn't kissed someone for a very long time. "Sleep," she says again, and Kimihiro lets out his breath, curtained by her hair.