Rikunai: Genesis

Chapter Seven: Special

Tiomoyo crawled out of bed as he took in the sunrise behind him. It had been a couple of days since the exercise, and everyone was given a week to recuperate from the most intense event in their lives thus far. He heard a knock at the door as he slipped on some clothes.

"Who?" Tiomoyo asked himself as he wondered who could be at his apartment, as he knew his limited pool of friends wouldn't be randomly showing up at his residence at this time of the day. Tiomoyo was rarely awake himself. He slowly stretched his limbs as he paced through his hallway and down to the door.

The sun blasted Tiomoyo's eyes as he swung open the door to his apartment three stories off the ground. He tilted his head in confusion and acute shock as he saw the silhouette of a girl with her light-blue hair in a braided ponytail behind her head. Her dark blue eyes were almost indistinguishable from the shadow the rising sun behind her produced. She adjusted her cardigan and brushed her hand against her jeans as she slung a purse over her shoulder.

"Sasame?" Tiomoyo looked down as he leaned against the door.

"Um, yeah, hey... Uh..." Sasame said as she diverted her eyes. "I came to apologize."

"Apologize? For what?" Tiomoyo felt a strong breeze from the cool morning wind as he was reminded it was the middle of autumn. He stepped to the side and motioned for Sasame to walk inside as he noticed her shivering, to which she obliged. Tiomoyo shut the door behind her. She looked around at the incredibly bland and barren apartment. It was furnished, yes, but it had no soul to it, like no one lived here. Sasame chalked it up to that Tiomoyo wasn't much of an interior designer and cared about cleanliness, but it still unnerved her. She swiftly turned around to see Tiomoyo softly smiling as he poured two cups of coffee. He paused, not knowing that she was watching him, and smiled again as he rested his other hand on the mug. It felt good to have someone besides Raja or Gyra in his home. He turned around to see an entranced Sasame staring off into the distance. He set the black coffee in front of her as she took a seat at his table and silently took the coffee. She didn't usually drink it, but now felt like a time to not mention this.

"Would you like some creamer? I... I don't really do that stuff, but I keep some in the fridge for when Raja comes over. I also have sugar, if you'd like some of that." Tiomoyo set his mug down on the table and looked down as he rubbed his eyes.

"Oh, no, I'm..." Sasame looked at Tiomoyo and swallowed her breath as he shook his head full of messy black hair, smiling as he flicked it up to reveal his bright green irises.

"Fine."

"You said you were here to apologize?" Tiomoyo asked, confused, as he sat down and took a sip of the recently brewed coffee. He had set the machine to automatically brew himself some coffee, about four cups, right around when the sun rose so that once he got up the warming plate would still be in effect to keep his morning energy nice and warm. He originally planned on consuming the whole four cups, but he had a very welcomed guest.

"Yeah, I... I wanted to say sorry, because, well..." Sasame seemed like she was gasping for breath. "I'm sorry about everything that happened on Saturday, I didn't think, I jumped, I..."

"You're fine," Tiomoyo said with a grin as he placed a hand on Sasame's, causing her body to freeze up in shock. "People get caught up in the moment when fighting, and we don't think, we have primal instincts to protect what we care about, no matter what happens to us." Tiomoyo wrapped his hand around Sasame's as her heart beat faster. "I have to ask, though... What was it that you care about enough to jump off a cliff for?"

Sasame's eyes fell to the brownish-black, steaming, caffeinated liquid ahead of her. "It was just some silly photograph of someone I knew. It's..."

"If it's none of my business..." Tiomoyo interrupted. "Then I don't have to know."