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When they were young, it was a boy and his girl. A girl and her best friend. And just down the hill, a boy's true love. One of them got the first kiss of her crush, another got himself a girlfriend, and the last was a Vulpix. She got an ice stone.

Now it's nine wispy white tails that sway in the wind from behind Taika's storm of blue fur. Her eyes are set forward, deep and bright, frozen. Of the great wisps flowing down atop her scalp, just a hair clip nearly too small for her, its girlish little gems hidden behind the bulk of her ear, now tucks away those few shorter hairs otherwise ready to slip down her cheek.

It's cold out here. Autumn. No snow yet, and she hopes not for months longer. Any given day, her body is already a blizzard out of motion.

Taika hates the cold.

“Watch the doorframe—watch the—you're going to scrape your arm, Haddy. Watch the frame."

“I'm watching the god-damn fucking frame, Rikhard! You're not helping!"

Two humans with their coats off, sleeves up, and gloves on are carrying a terribly sentimental sofa out of what may yet be their home. Taika sits on her hindquarters in the cool, unclipped weeds of the lawn out front as she watches this scene, careful only not to get in their way. She has only paws. And paws don't help to lift or carry.

It's a bit on the nose, even for her, but the weeds are absolutely where she needs to stay currently. Because Taika doesn't do drama.

“We're putting it in the truck, right? Are we putting it in the truck?"

“Ground. The ground. Just put it—lay your side down, and I'll—careful, Haddy—"

“—Rikhard, I am already being careful. Why aren't we putting it in your truck?"

“Bags go in the truck right now. We can set a tarp over it later for rain, so now we'll just—we'll set it down, careful—"

“—Rikhard I swear to God."

Grunting, and then two corners of this moldy old sofa hit the grass. A chill breeze flits through the wisps of Taika's tails, and it's all the motion within or without her as she watches the humans stand straight again, wipe their brows, breathe great sighs each.

The woman's name is Hadewych, actually. Only Rikhard calls her Haddy. The W is pronounced more like a V, sometimes. It depends on her mood whether she'll correct anyone on it. And Hadewych… is pretty. Tall, fashionable, slightly foreign—even more so than Taika. Taika gets to say she was born here. Hadewych got to sweep her hair back over her shoulder and introduce herself in fourth grade as the pretty new transfer student to all the boys, Taika imagines, to those who ogled and those who didn't. She's a natural match for someone as classically beautiful.

“Fuckin'... whatever," Hadewych says, swiping the crook of her elbow over her face to brush away stray silken hairs caught out from her ponytail. She snorts a quicker breath. Then she casts her gaze aside, lowers her voice.

“Sorry I yelled."

The man of these two humans, the one aside Hadewych and Taika both… he slips his gloves off and rubs at the back of his neck under the collar of his shirt, simple fabric nestled tight over all the body unhidden by his coat. He sighs, then mutters the same.

“Sorry I patronized you."

Rikhard is…

Taika shivers and clutches her paws a moment over cold soil and stems. This breeze is uncomfortable.

Rikhard is Hadewych's natural match. And Hadewych is his.

Sitting across from people like these—fully formed, emotional, in constant pursuit of life's adventures—Taika's role is a supporting one. Any more would be… exhausting, surely.

So she gives just a smile. And she speaks next.

“You should trust Hadewych more, Rikhard. She was being more careful than you."

Taika's words come through her mind, and her voice is like an echo. Gentle. Something soft whispered not through but underneath thin air, a single thought she reaches purposefully into the minds of Rikhard and Hadewych like a whisper both out of reach and crystal clear.

Without looking back to her, Rikhard snorts a laugh. He smiles. Shakes his head. He mutters, “That's fair."

Then he looks back to Taika a moment. Just a glance.

And he turns to Hadewych next, and through this real smile, he says, “I'm sorry, Haddy. Really."

Hadewych glances Taika's way, too, but her jaw is set. The look in her eyes is something not kind. She stretches her shoulder in a circle and looks back to Rikhard, saying, “Didn't you use to have buddies around here I never hung out with? Like, guy friends? With legitimate muscles?"

Rikhard shrugs. “Yeah, but they all hated me, so no."

Hadewych rests her arm back at her side again, either rid of the kinks there or well enough distracted from them. “You mean those bullies? Didn't you use to know other boys before I moved here?"

With his sleeves rolled up as far as they are, Rikhard's biceps flex naturally through the motion of simply lowering his arm back to his side. He chuckles, “Nah. Not like you made any more friends. I used to be a beanpole, Haddy—you forget the good old days when everything sucked?"

Everything?

Taika's polite little smile stays put, but she keeps to herself whatever thoughts on that crystallize.

Hadewych slips her gloves off, too. She stays where she is to collect the rest of her breath, but the look in her eyes as she watches the same unintentional flex in Rikhard's body is somehow the same as if she sauntered over and felt the skin and bone for herself.

“I remember arm wrestling," she says. “And winning. And then I remember how much hard work you put into getting swollen."

“Swole."

“Either, big boy."

She's not subtle. There's a risque tint to the pitch Hadewych says this in that's not entirely meant for Rikhard, as if the phrase is a prize to show off. But Taika sees the smaller, reddened crease in Rikhard's grin at how Hadewych says it, and even when the poor grown boy won't brag about it for himself, he doesn't complain being spoken of like that.

“Hey."

Taika snaps back to attention with the barest accidental look of surprise, and there's Hadewych looking back at her dead on, arms folded, hips pitched to the side as she rests her weight on one leg.

“Anything you can actually do to help, or something? Like, you want to actually do something?"

Taika's paws have grown colder than they should sitting on the ground for this long, but she sits demure still. She opens the words in her mind, but before they coalesce, Rikhard speaks for her anyway.

“She's got paws, Haddy, not hands."

“Rikhard, I know she has—"

Hadewych stops herself, holds back that instant scowl. She holds her breath. Sighs it back out.

“I shouldn't have snapped. And you're right. But I was asking her if she could think of some other way she could actually help so it's not just the two of us doing all the work in a home for all fucking three of us."

Just as quick, Hadewych looks to Taika again with a crease in her lips unforgiving after all, and she taps one finger over her temple. One of those words didn't make it past her lips.

“Out, Taika. I can still hear you breathing in my head, or whatever it is."

Taika tilts her head to the left and slims her grin in a pleasant little so-sorry way, well meaning, too polite for anyone else to stay mad at.

“I'm sorry for entering your mind a bit early, Hadewych. I was going to suggest that if you thought it would be helpful, I could sort through the rest of the smaller items for what's still salvageable. Then you two could bag up what's not."

Taika pulls the reach of her own mind back out from Hadewych's after she finishes talking. Thus, without a telepathic link to overhear anything, the expression on Hadewych's lips of just how mightily she's unimpressed truly speaks for itself.

“Why not," she says. She lifts both arms and lets them slap limp back into her sides. “It's something."

Continuing a tradition longstanding at this point, Rikhard looks between his girls with a steady brow while whatever words occur to him keep hidden under his tongue. With a heavy crunch of his rain boots, he turns back to the house and says nothing.

But from where Taika sits, he passes within arm's reach of her on his way back inside. He walks straight and proud, nearly twice as tall as her but never once looking down upon her. He looks to her again as he passes, and his fingers reach closer—to her head, to her cheek?—before curling away just as easily.

He gives her a thumbs-up instead, and his grin fades to something silly. Nothing serious.

Taika's still got her smile to offer back to him. Because after all these years, they still get along so well.

Hadewych follows Rikhard at a step behind, and she doesn't spare even a glance passing by.

f** ucking **** paws swear to christ on a stic ***k*

Well—now she does. She glares back at Taika, finger tapping quick and hard back over her temple, and as she turns away again, her ponytailed tresses whip over her shoulder with her.

Taika pulls her mind away again, following. Listening in—just overhearing, really—it's a reflex. It's accidental, sometimes. Usually.

So she enters the house last, her tails all brushing through the doorframe behind her at a soft, accustomed squish—but it's just back inside that she pauses again with Rikhard and Hadewych.

Just like them... she needs to start over for a moment.

This was Rikhard's mother's home. And so Rikhard's, and Taika's, too. She was here the whole time. This is where she and he grew up. Rikhard's mother is in a nursing home now, and… she always had problems. Everyone does, but some more so than others.

But even when they were all here, it was never this bad before.

LIVING ROOM.

STATUS: HORRIFYING.

It's cup-your-hands-over-your-mouth-and-gasp horrible. If hands are available. But no one breathes too hard. There's a stink of grease and rot and mildew in here, and it won't go. Maybe not for a long time.

Rikhard stands silent one long moment. Maybe just stoic. Hadewych coughs into her shoulder and breathes through her sleeve as she tugs her gloves back on already. Taika wrinkles her black button nose instinctually the same, but that's from a mere discomfort. Smelling isn't as painful as looking.

The remaining furniture is hidden. The living space is gone. Every letter, card, bill, and magazine from the last ten years is still here, all stacked precarious on or already fallen off the console behind where the sofa was just pulled from. And there's more of all that in the kitchen. In the bedrooms. The bathrooms. Thrift store paintings and big empty frames are leaned against the walls in no particular order, broken fans and room heaters and a dusty chandelier helping to prop them up. Everywhere else are beer cans, glass bottles, and piles of bottle caps knocked over and scattered under the rest. And at the far side of the room, a single pile of flat cardboard shipping boxes are stacked from floor to literal ceiling, the straightest of anything in sight. The lower half of the stack is long since waterlogged.

There's a television, too, just like in a normal living room... but half the screen has empty or unopened boxes from online orders stacked against it. One of the two chairs on either side of where the sofa was has a broken leg. Both are equally covered in clothes, blankets, and old curtains. Now that the one piece of furniture where two younger friends used to crowd next to each other on to watch mature, scary movies is gone—the one comfortable place for her in most all this house—there's nowhere left to sit.

Every young memory Taika has is trapped in these walls. Family used to be here. And now for the safety of their lungs and mental health together, most of it needs to be discarded.

It's a shame, but life happens. Sometimes life has bad ideas. Sometimes people do. You don't always grow up how you wanted to, even if you worked for it.

Rikhard sighs. Taika looks back to him, but he stares ahead. His shoulders loosen.

“Back to work."

Thus is their call. With an old squeak over the floorboards, Hadewych takes the lead. Then Rikhard. Then Taika.

Rikhard and Hadewych wind their way to the pile of boxes at the far side of the room, squeezing through the slight path they've cleared already, while Taika tiptoes through the same way, but instead steps slender legs high over a spill from the uniformly unkempt piles of books just by the television.

It's not really the books that need immediate inspection. They all look to be in poor shape. She spies on top of them, however, some photo albums.

Well… photo album. The inset picture on the cover remains the stock photo from when it was first purchased, but a single wrinkly brown splash has stained its bottom corners completely. The work of a single glass of bourbon, or just beer, what hands that held the glass grown clumsy in worsened age.

Because if Rikhard's mother wanted photographs ruined on purpose, she'd have simply taken her lighter to them. Admirably direct.

Taika tips her view lower and peers at the spines of the books below, but yes, they're just old romance novels and extra cookbooks. The stain has leaked down through the whole pile— unsalvageable top to bottom.

So she lifts her chin back over the album, taps a paw under the edge of the cover, and gently, carefully, like looking for secrets, pulls the binding open.

It's empty. Stained, but never used. The protective sheet on the first page has never even been peeled.

Taika's frown finds its wry edge.

“Tails, bright eyes. Move 'em."

It's not the voice, but the tone that really gives her away. Taika looks back over her shoulder, and there's Hadewych back with a glare already, one empty cardboard box in both her arms. Taika lifts all the wisps of her storm out of the way, and Hadewych dumps the box with a tiny, scratchy thump in the space left behind. Pats her gloves off on each other.

“Junk box," she says. “Tell us when you actually need a keep box."

While it's a safe assumption Taika takes that other words were left unspoken this time, she smiles again anyway, big and polite. The tone of voice that comes out her mind is just as sugar sweet.

“Thank you, Hadewych. When I need another, would you prefer that I ask, or whine pitifully?"

A moment more of silence as Hadewych's gaze slims. The look of, if Taika were to guess on this one, You fucking would. Rikhard shakes open another garbage bag behind them, but doesn't glance back at his mention—he didn't get to hear that one. So Hadewych rolls her eyes, turns, steps over more clutter on her way back toward him.

Taika noses the album shut, clasps the half unsullied in jaw, and discards it in her brand new box, just for her.

There's more than one answer for how they all got this far. How they got here. Or maybe less answers, and more separate little stories all bundled toward the same present day.

Taika's is a life of loosely connected events, most days. Most nights.

There are two tents set up now in the yard near the truck. It's dark out. Taika lies alone in her own tent of the two, curled up on her side, tails crowding her own personal bubble, cool escaped wisp atop her brow tickling just over her eye. Some nights she tries blowing it out of the way, remembering perfectly well the shape of her face doesn't accommodate that.

She takes a deep breath, and with one such puff of air out her lips, all she's made is a quick sigh. Her wisp remains.

If not for the tiny hair clip holding back an even greater bundle, this might be infuriating.

She sighs again, slower this time.

It's nights like these she finds it hardest to sleep.

Not on the road anymore, no front seat to share beside another warm body, pulled over off the highway across miles of tundra and no hostel around for a hundred more. Blankets. Head rested on lap across the single bench seat they share. Pretending she's already asleep, drifting off only now underneath the soft motions of his long, heavy chest, the cool, quietest breaths beneath green eyes softly shut, dreaming now.

Tomorrow, back on the road toward a tournament. No teammates. Single-entry competitions, no matter the lower payouts, and so it's simply fighter and coach making their way across the country while one's girlfriend attends college back in some city, back at their shared apartment, back somewhere a world away that's not Taika's.

There's no such horizon in the night. So this night goes on forever. Right until she really does drift to sleep, eyes heavy, chest warm. And it takes all night.

So with another sigh, Taika pushes her legs forward and stretches in the dark of her tent, spreading her toes taut, scrunching her whole snout through a silent grunt. Then she loosens. And she blinks. The moon is so bright through the tent fabric, and her nose still itches from her own white wisp drifted lower over it.

Despite the cold, it's still not cold enough for a blanket over her this night. No, just her fur keeps her warm. “Warm." Warm enough.

But still too cold.

The tent just over from hers—that's Rikhard's. Hadewych's. They get to share now. The only sounds tonight between any of them are the pulling of sheets as either of them shifts about in their tent, trying to get to sleep.

This is their first night at their new house, Hadewych reminded. Something special and important to her, so they all spend it here. Here-ish. But it won't be like this every night. Tomorrow, they'll go just down the hill to where Hadewych's mother still lives, down along where the woods still run thick, long before the first trudge of nearby civilization, and that's where they'll be the coming months as it gets even colder out.

Somehow, Taika's invited too.

She snorts, nearly blowing away this insidious wisp. She doesn't paw it away. It becomes a battle this time of night, so no cheating.

It was five years of training and traveling and more still to come… and then a call to the closest relative the nurse had any contact information for: Rikhard. Because his mother was in no legal shape to manage her own affairs anymore.

Right there is an even littler story that leads to now.

Maybe it goes longer, really, but that's as little as Taika feels like remembering it.

Her paw twitches. She restrains it from her brow.

Then her ear twitches. There's more than a shifting in the tent over from her.

It's a rustling now, sheet or blankets not just shifting but rolling away. Then it's a whisper. Several whispers. Giggly, feminine. Then a voice deeper. Quiet enough that they think they're unheard, trying to keep themselves shushed, but—

Then it's a low, girlish growl. In want.

It's only silhouettes visible through either tent, but from this position, Taika sees one rise above another, sheets rustling farther away from their forms. One dim figure straddling another while whispers and growls grow closer between each, so imagination assures.

Strangely enough, at this exact moment, there's grown a complete and utter kink in Taika's side that she can't bear resting on any further. It's maddening. So quieter, quiet enough that she's truly still unnoticed, she rolls over away from the other tent.

And the wisp flits right back in place over her nose.

There's usually a wall between them at this point, at least. With that, at least, it's more difficult to imagine the people nearby so... nude.

Or just shirtless? Or maybe they're still taking those off. On their own, off each other, either way.

It doesn't hurt anyone just to imagine, does it? She knows it doesn't. It can't.

Unasleep, Taika closes her eyes.

Hadewych would be the one climbed on top. Too confident to be denied, to be unwanted—there's a deserved allure in her smirk down at Rikhard as she puts on a show for him, fabric slipping off her wrists just now as shirt comes away, just enough moon in the night to glow upon every curve she opens to her lover.

Just enough light to see Rikhard watch her. Hands rubbing up and down the bare, cool skin of her waist, warming her already. His eyes go down her form all the way to legs spread, thighs straddled over his groin, and come all the way back up to her hands, where she tousles her hair back over her shoulders before drifting them down like shadow to his shirt, sliding it off of him.

His hem lifts away from his face—with a kiss, surely. She leans herself down to his level and brushes lips, open and full, over his jaw. Breathes him in, nibbles, glides to his lips for the overture they arrange together. A sweetest kiss. Quiet now. His hands move to her cheeks and hot breath gasps over her skin, and together they keep this all to themselves, playing, begging, whispering meaningless and full of need. Without breaking the heat they build, her hand reaches down between her legs, past them, fiddles open the tie of his sweatpants, slips fingers lithe and ready underneath for molten manifest urges rumbling in her very hand. She rubs him full. Hard. More every second, he's throbbing. All for her. She's the only one who could do this to him. The only one. And she edges forward, quits playing at the straddle, and there's only one thought left in her head that can keep up with how messy they dance through their kiss:

inside, every inch

Taika's eyes bolt back open, sweat beading too warm over her limbs. She blinks. Her own lungs pant heavy through her lips.

Here she is in her own tent again. Alone.

She drags her warmer paw back up before her chest the next instant. That didn't just happen. Nobody noticed. It's just a reflex.

She really didn't mean to do that.

All nine of her tails huddle closer around her as Taika shrinks herself deeper in her tent, and as her wisp tickles again over her eye, she bats it away.

It doesn't matter. She's never won against it.

She thinks of anything else to get through the night. Prime numbers? Anything. But no more memories. She can't afford them.

She won't get much sleep tonight.

Tomorrow, it's back to cleaning the horror.

Or they would be.

Ramshackle the house may be, but these musty windows still hold up against the torrent of rain pelting steadily down the panes. It's a storm. The dregs of the season before the snow comes and everyone chains up their car tires.

Inside, that huge patter along the roof is all that goes said. There are no wrinkled noses today. The smells are unfortunately regular to the party already. And they're all here, but not working—cuddled up on the floor for lunch, on break, hoping to wait out the rain. Except Hadewych's in the middle of their cuddle. Thus, that's who Rikhard's cuddled up against.

And on her other side, also Taika.

Hadewych was the one who sat down first, right in the middle of what little space they've yet cleared in the living room, so… she called dibs.

At least she hasn't complained about fluffy tails crowding her on the one side. Taika needs the space.

Lunch is burgers for all. Not homemade. The stovetop doesn't even have electricity, because what's the point of paying for it again yet? No, it's fast food. Not traditional, either, but in these modern days, that's typical. Rikhard's already dug in, both hands bundled around the wrapper while he chomps out nearly square bites. Hadewych's munching smaller and quieter, frowning as ever as with her other hand she holds out Taika's burger for her. Taika has to stretch forward a bit to reach the taking of her own bites, but it's fine. This is nearly a peace offering.

With this loud quiet of the rain, Taika doesn't even have to worry about how noisily she chews. And her lunch is good. She sighs through her nostrils, letting herself slouch comfortably in this moment found.

“Wish we had a porch for days like this."

Taika glances left, and Rikhard's lowered his burger for a glance out the window. His coat's off again, just skin and bone tucked clear and wide under his shirt. Toward the rain, he smiles.

“Big sitdown like this, but out under a big, long awning, watching the storm from up close."

Taika swallows, but leans in for another bite while she indulges in speaking up at the same time. “What if it were thundering?"

Rikhard's eyes join the look in his smile. “Even better."

Hadewych says nothing still, just munches through lips pursed tight. Her jacket's slid down and bunched demurely at her elbows, just a sliver of skin showing between its sleeves and those of her t-shirt, but she hasn't yet removed it today before there's sweaty work to get to.

That's what Taika sees plain enough. But when Rikhard looks back over to both girls, all he eyes is the proximity between them. Grin still easy, he nudges Hadewych in the shoulder—bumping her that inch closer against Taika.

“Good mood, huh? Look at you two, getting along together. I like that."

Hadewych merely busts a move back away from Taika, batting at the bundle of tails crowding from behind, mostly succeeding at grazing her hand right through them. Upon settling down in a moment more, she grunts back to Rikhard, “You're funny."

Taika has nowhere else to resettle her tails, however. There's the mildew-taken chandelier on her other side strewn beside long-empty bottles and dirty magazines (not that kind, but one can wish), and a console table overfilled on every surface behind her. So Taika's bulk fluffs right back down behind Hadewych, and for just this once, for a day like this, the furrier of the two lays her head over the other's shoulder and sighs wide and silly through her snout, her sighing the same through words, “Or maybe this is the start of something beautiful…."

Right here, then. In this moment, all of a sudden, was it Taika's tone, her closeness, or something else that provided the last straw?

With a scowl ripped just as fast across her face, Hadewych twists her whole body around and shoves Taika away with both hands, hard as she can, yelling, “Would you stop?"

Taika tumbles against the chandelier through her recoil, spindly arms jabbing across her back and scraping through her fur, bottles clattering all around. Pain winces through her face, but mostly her look is eyes wide and nervous, locked back against Hadewych's, still leering. Both their lunches are spilled all over the floor between them.

“Haddy, what the hell—?"

Rikhard sets away his burger and pushes to his feet in an instant. His whole frame flexes through the motion of his rise, but without anger to match. There's just the shock in his voice.

Hadewych shoots a look back to him and yells still, “If she doesn't like getting touched then she shouldn't touch me!"

“What are you, twelve?" Rikhard says. "She was teasing you, Christ!"

“Well, I don't fucking appreciate her sense of humor," Hadewych spits.

“Sense of…? Haddy, she was just teasing. You don't need to fucking shove her for that. Taika, are you okay? Fuck, did that stuff cut—?"

“I'm fine," Taika says quickly, pushing herself back to her feet prim and proper, fluffing her tails back into the most grace they can find through the dust and grime they've gotten smeared over. There's only a stinging hidden under her fur, so it's fine. Those are the only words she can comprehend to diffuse the situation. “I'm fine, don't worry about it. I'm fine."

But by the look remaining on Rikhard's and Hadewych's faces both, there is no diffusing here. Rikhard looks back to Hadewych, settling thick hands over either side of his waist, and says, “Haddy, I get you don't ever want to buddy up with Taika, but that was—you can't just fucking shove her. In here, too—she could have seriously hurt herself on something."

In a look gone from the kind of fury directed at a person to the kind of fury simply at the shit with which one must put up, Hadewych lifts her chin and glowers at the ceiling, anywhere but at someone. Her lips tighten. She hugs her arms loose over her knees and looks back over to Rikhard next, not Taika, and says over a growl once again contained, “You're right. I'm sorry. Okay?"

At just that, the barest hint of a conflict concluding, Rikhard's entire posture softens. But in this little fight, at least, it doesn't end yet. He lowers his voice.

“Haddy, come on, be real… you've been going completely aggro on Taika the whole past week. What's even going on?"

In a snap even more sudden and bitter than the first, Hadewych says, “Moving into your first home together with the guy you love is supposed to be about two people coming together, Rikhard, not three."

And she hushes herself right after.

As for Rikhard, hearing that, Taika sees it before he says it—she, once again on the sidelines, looking in—the look of utter confusion on his face. Not getting it. Just not getting it.

“Okay, well, uh… what do you expect Taika to do about that?"

Hadewych doesn't say another word. There's just the patter of rain against the windows for whatever she could say.

“She's how I make a living," Rikhard says. “I'm how she makes a living. We need each other. Me and Taika are a team, Haddy. That's how it works."

Taika merely watches these two in their latest little fight. There's another look on Hadewych's face, or beneath it, one that only Taika could read if she tried—a hundred conflicting thoughts on what she wants to say, probably, what she wants to scream, what words she can only silently consider would make things better or worse—but reading those is no way Taika can help.

Taika can't help here. Even about her, these little fights never concern her.

The stinging across her back is already fading, anyway.

But Hadewych finds the right words in just a moment more, apparently.

“Without a mortgage hanging over our heads, my future income could support us both," she mutters. “Us all, whatever."

Rikhard lifts one hand over his neck, rubbing, looking away from either of his girls. He says only slightly higher, “Were you expecting us to quit training when we moved in here?"

“I was expecting her to be less of a third wheel every waking minute," Hadewych says.

Not incredulously, but like there's really no mystery to uncover here, Rikhard looks back to his girlfriend and really says this, truly:

“How is Taika a third wheel?"

Taika and Hadewych both look back up to him, and while they don't share the same expression, there's a look in their eyes both the exact same. This time, it's Taika who says, “Rikhard, we're all under a lot of stress from this work, and I'm fine, so—"

“No, Taika, that's definitely not fair to you," Rikhard says, finding the tone to stand his ground for this. “You know when to clear some space when Haddy and me need some time alone. You said that before. You're not a busybody."

Hadewych rolls her eyes over a scowl. “Well, maybe I need more space away from her than the eight hours I'm unconscious every night."

“Okay, fine, well—"

Rikhard swings his other hand up from his hip and gestures it toward Taika, making a point, making a face like this is the most simple answer he's just come up with. “Taika, when we've got more of this stuff cleaned out of the way and it's not pouring outside, would you mind giving Haddy a little more space for a while?"

Taika doesn't answer this time either.

Ever since Rikhard and Hadewych got closer in their high school days—it's been like this for far longer than the past week.

Best that he's never noticed when Hadewych first reached the depths of her animosity, maybe.

Taika just looks away.

“I get it," Hadewych says. “I'm the one being the crazy bitch. Trust me. I get it."

Disregarding the need for a response, she leans back over the mess she made of lunch and scrapes the spill back into a wrapper, utterly avoiding any glance near Taika.

“You're not crazy, and you're not a bitch," Rikhard says. “I'm just trying to understand why you're angry."

Actually—now there's one glance. Hadewych looks up from her cleaning, looks dead on at Taika, stares for one long moment. Taika meets her dim gaze, and there's a feeling other than stinging all the way down her spine not to look away.

Even without telepathy… it almost feels like a real conversation between them.

Then Hadewych looks back up to Rikhard.

“I really don't want to be a total stereotype, but sometimes it's just reasons you can't understand, okay?" She shrugs, wipes the rest of her expression with a self-aimed smirk. “Maybe it's bipolar. I'll get that looked at or something."

Rikhard stares blankly at her. Then he drops his hands, shrugs just the same as her. Things have been made better now, right? The fight's over. It's resolved. Taika doesn't need to hear his thoughts to read his face. So Rikhard leans back down to the floor and scoops up his own burger, but rather than taking the last two bites of it, he offers it instead between Hadewych and Taika both.

Taika just shakes her head, demure and polite. Hadewych crinkles up all the last of the spill within the two wrappers and tugs her gloves out from the pocket of her jacket, saying for perhaps her and Taika both, “Let's just get back to work."

Maybe elsewhere, another time, Taika and Hadewych could have toasted to that. Maybe not. Taika can't hear whatever feeling beats in Hadewych's chest like she can hear the thoughts vibrating in her brain—but knowing the feeling anyway, Taika could never blame her for it.

It's ridiculous that either of them ever fell for such a dense man.