At night I just… wait for her in the chair. And then I sleep on her lap. She’s gotten comfortable enough to hold my hand while at it, and it feels warm. And her heartbeat’s nice and… Whatever.
- “Chief!” She hurries to the back of the storeroom, large leather-clad book in hand. “I found it!”
- “Found what?”
- “Look for yourself!” She scoots me over onto her lap, and I’m able to see the book.
- “…Word…Dictionary…Etymological dictionary? This can’t be Chinese, where’d you get this?”
- “I’ve known you for this long, and I still don’t know your name.” I’m baffled, I didn’t even notice, not once have I told her my name, she only knows my surname because of the Captain.
- “It’s… Thiên.”
- “Oh, like uhh… Tiān, right?”
- “Yeah.” She starts to flip across the book, finding a specific page after a while.
- “Here, look.” She lays her index finger across the entry for 天 “I do agree, you’re just like heaven.” A swift nudge to her ribs with my elbow is enough to make her chuckle and ask for mercy.
- “I promised the Captain you wouldn’t do any wrongful things, and this looks like one big wrongful thing.”
- “Yeah, well, he catches us like this we’re done for anyway. In for a penny in for a pound… Or so I believe the saying goes. Something about dropping the bucket and letting go of the chain?”
- “In any case… Why’d you bring this?”
- “Oh, I just thought you’d like to give me a new name. As an assistant the one you gave me was sufficient but… Well, let’s just say I got a little bit needy.” She starts flipping pages. “So, pick a name! Make it a cute one.”
- “…I- I don’t know, I don’t know what’s a good name to give you, I’m sorry.”
- “Aw, don’t be like that…” She nuzzles the back of my head. “It’s okay, don’t worry about it.”
- “But you wanted that name.”
- “Yeah, so I’ll pick it myself, and I’ll make it real cute, so whenever you say it, it sounds out of place and you get embarrassed.” Another nudge makes her laugh. “So, since you’re heavenly… born from the Sky” She remains pensive, holding the weight of her head on top of mine, arms wrapped around me, with that dictionary as a proverbial lock. “Caelus… he had a son, Jupiter.” She squeezes me a little bit tighter, and her voice gets real raspy… Like when you just wake up next to the one person that matters in this world and your throat can’t quite project your voice.
“If you’re Jupiter… then I shall be your dearest wife, Juno.” … She flips through the book, pointing at 珠; “Ju… as in Jewel…” she flips to another page, as if she’s read this book a thousand times, now pointing at 乃; “no… as in, from… I suppose.” She giggles “I guess, I just wanted you to tell me I’m like a precious gem to you… I wouldn’t mind being your necklace.”
- “…You’re too sweet.”
- “I come free with an insulin packet.”
- “God, shut up you dork—” My final elbow nudge, next time I’m poking her eyes. She just laughs and squeezes me tighter.
- “What about you?”
- “What about me?”
- “You’ll call me Juno from now on… What will I call you?”
- “…Pick a name for me… and make it cute too.”
- “I will, on the condition you tell me why you want it to be cute.” I turn around and try to poke her eyes out, but she grasps my wrist.
-“Woah- woah, hold on, just, come on, tell me…” It’s unfair to think she doesn’t know her eyes are prettier than some dinky jewel… In her defense, calling her 'eyes' wouldn’t be very pretty… “Tell me why you want a cute name.” I can’t say no to her when she’s this earnest…
- “I want to feel like you find me cute when you say it.” I see her cheeks and ears move for a microsecond, but she stops herself from smiling.
- “You smiled!”
- “I did not!”
- “You so did!”
- “You’re telling me you don’t smile when you see a cute girl?!”
- “Ggh!” I want to hit her so bad right now but I can’t when she sweet talks me like this. “You’re so unfair…” I just give up and lay my head on her chest.
- “…” She flips around pages for a bit… During her search I think about her, about what it means to be with her. It won’t last, it can’t last. Secrets like these are found out, I don’t want to live in secrecy, in the backrooms of some workshop… But there’s just no one who would accept a mildly high-ranking civilian being in a romantic relationship with an individual deprived of any rights. “Look.” Her raspy voice comes back, and so do my eyes to the dictionary. Her index finger points three hànzì spread across different pages… 絵…理…沙…?
- “Huì… lǐ… shā… Huìlǐshā? What sort of name is that? And why are you calling me sand picture administrator? That’s not cute at all!” …Juno laughs at this.
- “God, you’re adorable… No, sorry— it’s read as Erisa. As for the characters… Look at this last one, ‘sa’… It’s just a way of making your name sound more feminine and cute… The way I see it, your name is a picture of a girly administrator.”
Something deep inside of me compels me to feel things I’d never felt before. My throat, it just locks up, my nasal cavity gets blocked, my vision gets blurry, I can feel my heartrate beat faster and the sudden urge to grip onto Juno like I never did before, the most pathetic whimpers exude from my vocal cords. I sniff, I don’t want to just grip anymore, I want to envelop myself around her, I want my arms to reach around her, I want to hug and I want to be hugged, I want to hold her like she holds me, gently, deeply, tenderly.
- “I love you.” I’m unsure if my voice gets through, the words in my head don’t translate well through my throat.
Before she can say anything, I peck her lips— Mostly just to see her reaction, which seems to be that of confusion. She doesn’t say anything, but instead her eyes mellow out and she just stares at me, her pupils dizzyingly dilated until the color in her iris can no longer be distinguished.
I take this as a sign of invitation— and creep my way onto her lips.
Their embrace is soft, really soft, like sleeping on the softest of beds after a long, stressful day. I’d only known harsh materials, rough chemicals, pungent smells and metallic timbres. I’d never known such sweetness, such palpable sweetness. I believe the flowers I’d only seen in botany manuals would smell and feel like this. I’m intoxicated by this feeling, thoroughly so. Entranced as if nothing else outside of this chair exists, just her and I.
Her lips suffocate me and I forget to breathe— and in the desperation of requesting oxygen, we pull out for less than a second just to pant. The hypoxia can wait, I want to take my time crumbling in her arms. With all resources spent, and no way to supply my brain with the oxygen it requires, it feels as if my very body breathes through its muscles and out my skin. A tingling sensation reverberating across my entire self in a rippling wave. If good breathing helps my brain concentrate, this must be helping my body concentrate. It’s only through this hypothesis that I could possibly explain how her touch is so discernible against all other stimuli in this world, as if I could feel each individual millimeter of skin on her hands sliding past my cheek, onto my nape— or her other hand firmly gripped against my waist.
Oh, how desperate I’ve become for you. When she pulls out I feel so selfish and greedy, I immediately chase after her lips once more. I don’t need to stare to feel her, but the few moments I open my eyes, I can see her skin from its very adjacency, her porcelain-like features, the small mole under her eye, her long eyelashes. To think I’d finally examine you like this, so up close.
My mind is a mess in this vicious circle of kissing, trying to breathe, huffing her scent, and soon thereafter realizing it just wasn’t enough, I want to suffocate in you would be the words I’d say, if not for the inability to do so at this very moment.
- “Wait…” She finally pushes me away, and this time I can’t pursue. But in her love-drunk stupor, she likely forgot whichever it was she was going to say “I-…” is all I hear, before her eyes slowly lock onto my lips once more. The wrong body part to lock them with, really.
When I push against her, she yields and closes her eyes. Her lips ever so slightly open… She acts soft and pure, but I know deep down she’s just as desperate as me. I feel her gently bite onto my lips whenever she yearns for the love she already owns, but she stops herself right before it’s too much, it’s painful for her, since amongst the movements of her caressing hands, they stiffen up when she’s incapable of fulfilling her wish.
- “…You can bite… I— Love me more, please…” I see her eyes light up like never before, like I’d just pulled her heart straight out of her chest.
It’s this next kiss that truly hurt, she’s rougher, she nibbles on my lower lip to a noticeable degree… But the pain is thrilling, my entire nervous system gets shocked every time she does it, my entire spine compresses and I twitch and squirm erratically as now I’m the one pulling out to breathe, having my lips chased after by Juno… And in her arms I crumble and tremble, like a fractured moon across the sea.
Just for tonight, I feel immortal.
