Grief
#1 of K and M
Ok, so, I have had ideas for a story like this for a long while, ever since a couple of painful experiences of my own. So, I decided to take all the ideas and memories and do something useful with them instead of letting them stagnate. Turns out, painful memories can be useful after all.
So anyway...I hope you enjoy my little element of catharthis. Let me know what you think.
Michiko Sakai smoothly turned her car off the main drive by the University campus, her stomach fluttering as if it were filled with butterflies. It was a dreary, overcast day, the dark clouds threatening rain since that morning; weather that still had yet to fall, but she, like most of the students of the college, hadn't cared. It was Friday afternoon, the last Friday before Spring Break and the professor teaching her last class had, when only about a quarter of the class had shown up, sent them home early after telling them to sign their names on a class roster he put on the table in front of the lecture hall. The signature, he said, would be good for some extra credit for their dedication, which everyone had almost cheered at. Pausing at a red light, she took a moment to draw a fortifying breath, trying to make her nerves settle down, her long, extra-fluffy tail ringed with crimson and orange, twitching its distinctive white tip in the space between driver and passenger seat. Honestly, she had mixed feelings about being let out early from class. On the one hand, it meant two extra hours of vacation, which no college student in their right mind would complain about. But today was no ordinary day. She had a plan for today, and while she had been looking forward to it, she was also extremely nervous now that it was coming up to it.
Six months ago today, she had been surprised when Andy, the slim lynx in her bio lab, had caught up with her after class and asked her out. At first, she hadn't known what to say, the complete surprise making her miss a beat. But, after a moment or two she had fought through her fluster and said yes. It was only after they had made firm plans for dinner the next night that the old fears had occurred to her again. She had had butterflies that night too, butterflies of the same sort that she had now actually, but she had long ago learned not to let the fears paralyze her. She hadn't had anything to worry about then. The date had gone well, the only awkwardness being from it being a first date, instead of the cruel prank she had been fearing, the kind she had dealt with her entire life. In the time since then, she and Andy had built a relationship that had surprised her, not least how he had reacted when she had explained her...situation. She had told him on their third date, when they were really getting comfortable dating, and, though he had seemed surprised at the time, he had also said that he was glad she had told him, rather than let him find out on his own later and they had had a good time for the rest of the night. It spoke even better for him that he continued their relationship afterward, not hesitating to plan their next date.
_ And yet..._ Yet, there was something about that night that she had never quite been able to shake. At first, she had thought that it was merely the novelty of being in a relationship where 'it' was out in the open, instead of lurking in the background waiting to spring out on her unsuspecting partner, and she had expected the sensation to fade over time. It hadn't though; it was hard to explain what exactly it was that threw her off so much. After nagging the front of her mind for weeks, her subconscious had finally pointed out exactly what it had been that had done it. His expression of surprise at her revelation had come instantly after she had told him. It wasn't much to be honest, hardly anything really, and easy to explain away as just her being too sensitive to details out of place. It certainly wasn't anything worth mentioning to anyone. Except...
Except; with a single, very notable exception, every time she had told anyone that she was...what she was, there had been a moment of hesitation, a couple of beats for the information and what it really meant to go from a person's ears to their brain and then out to their face where the surprise actually registered. She doubted that anyone else would have noticed the lack, or considered it important if they did, but having lived with the unspoken stigma her entire life, she had gotten used to noticing how people reacted. It might have been something as simple as Andy having picked up on her nervousness at telling him and expecting something much worse, so when she had finally gotten the words out of her muzzle, he hadn't actually been as surprised as the others had been. But then, why did he still act surprised?
Pursuing that train of thought almost made Michiko miss her next turn, and she shook her head, her angular vulpine ears flicking back in irritation, trying to return her mind back to the present and what she was supposed to be doing, but it was difficult. It didn't help that she had no actual idea which of her parents she had to thank for being in her lifelong situation. Statistically speaking, it was more likely to be her mother, Yuki, a red panda from whom she had gotten the majority of her traits, but she sort of doubted it, considering the conservative nature of that side of her family. It was very unlikely that they would have tolerated a herm in their blood line before her mother had broken ties with the family for her daughter.
It wasn't known how the first viable herms had come into being. Some people, especially the highly religious ones, said either it was a gift from god, a blending of both genders in a single form to bridge the gap between, or else a curse, brought about by some horrible transgression against the will of whatever deity the believer followed. Most scientists believed that it was originally a genetic accident, the right combination of the wrong genes (or right genes, depending on one's viewpoint), carrying over into a single cell to provide a blending of gender traits. What was known, however, was that, in just about every single case since it had first been examined, for someone to be born with the capability for both siring and bearing children, they had to have had a viable herm as an ancestor, sometime in the last ten generations or so. Michiko knew her mother blamed her father for how they had had to live (and not without reason), so that might have colored her opinion of the subject, but she would probably never actually know, so she personally blamed him for this too, for good measure. She could only barely remember him, but the red fox called Leonard who had sired her had certainly left his mark. A loud honk from the car behind her made her realize that the light had turned green some time ago and she stepped on the accelerator, waving an apology to the person behind her.
Focus, Michiko. She admonished herself, making the last turn onto the side street where Andy's apartment was. It was doing her no good to brood on this, not when she thought she had a solution to it all. Pulling up to a stop in the visitor parking for the complex, she put the car in park and turned it off, forcing herself to go over it again, her nerves flaring up so bad she fumbled her keys right out of her hand when she pulled them from the ignition, inadvertently tossing them into the passenger side foot well.
"Oh come on," She said, clenching her crimson furred fists and closing her eyes. "You are being ridiculous." She drew another calming breath, forcing her hands to unclench, willing her ears to go back to their normal orientation. Leaning over to get her keys, she jumped nervously when she heard the first heavy rain drops smacking into the roof of her car. They were the heavy sort of drops that presaged one of the really dense rainstorms that happened around this time of year, the sort that tended to cause flooding in some areas. Having fetched the keys and straightened back up, she returned her mind back to her plan, going over it again while the few drops became a steady, loud pattering above her.
She was being silly, she knew. Why was she reacting like tonight was going to be the first time? She and Andy had had sex before, plenty of times. He wasn't even her first lover. And every time their dates had ended in the bedroom, it had been passionate. But that was part of it too. It wasn't that it wasn't fun, because it was, but...it wasn't quite like she thought it should be. Maybe it was silly teenaged expectations still lingering as she reached her twenties, and she had no actual idea what it was supposed to be like, but then again... Maybe it was just her imagination, but it always seemed to her that Andy was holding back, that he wasn't putting the kind of effort into it that she had sort of expected from a steady boyfriend.
She had tried to tell herself that she was expecting too much, and that that was a lot of unconscious pressure to be putting on him, to expect him to meet all her fantasy expectations. But at the same time, it couldn't be normal for sex to be somehow less than satisfying every single time. Maybe the feeling was simply that he treated her like a girl in the bedroom, ignoring the parts of her that weren't, and that was fine, really. She understood. It was hard enough for someone to accept that their partner wasn't wholly one gender. Heck, it wasn't even a male ego thing. Her first time had been with a girl friend of hers in high school, a friendly mouse named Naomi, and she had reacted the same way. Well, sort of the opposite way actually, almost ignoring her female attributes in favor of her male parts, but it came down to the same thing.
That experience had been an awkward, late-night-curiosity-leading-somewhere-it-shouldn't sort of thing, and though they had both enjoyed it, they had never done it again. Naomi was still her friend, and the experience had led them to be closer than before, but she had hoped that a real relationship would be better. She had hoped, honestly, that it wouldn't make her feel like less than she was, as ridiculous as that sounded even to her ears. But there it was; there was always hesitation on his part, and, after a while, a possibility had occurred to her. Maybe, it was simply that as ok with her gender as he seemed to be, he wasn't really comfortable with her, and maybe, therefore, what they needed was to spend some time really getting used to each other.
She thought that maybe, if they spent time getting to know what really stimulated the other, it would fix it, and he would understand how she felt. And that was the reason for her making her plans. She knew his roommates would be out of town this weekend, enjoying their Spring Break, so she had suggested they spend at least part of the weekend together, to which Andy agreed. What she hadn't told him, and intended to be a surprise, was that she intended to spend their time working through it, finding what would satisfy them both. It was something that every book she could find on relationships, and every internet blog had agreed upon as being something a couple should do when they were together a while. The extra two hours of freedom today were thus welcome to her, giving them more time to explore. And besides, to be frank, who was going to pass up the chance at a night spent having sex with their girlfriend?
Nodding at her own reasoning, the panda-fox steeled herself for the rain and opened the door, darting out and pushing it shut behind her. The heavy rain seemed to instantly soak her fur the second she stepped into it, even her water resistant jacket providing little protection. By the time she had dashed to the stairs and up to the second floor landing outside of Andy's apartment, she was dripping with water and shivering from the cold. Resolute, she raised a hand to the door to knock, tapping on the wooden surface hard enough for anyone in the living room beyond to hear her. She waited, flexing her fingers to work out the nerves that were becoming way too active, as if her subconscious was working up to a fever pitch. Nothing happened, and she tried again, knocking harder, but even as she tried, the storm clouds above her let out a peal of thunder, drowning out her knocking. This, She reflected, a heavy shiver running the length of her spine as cold water worked its way beneath the collar of her shirt and down her back, This is just stupid. She couldn't stand out there getting soaked, waiting for Andy to hear her knocking over the storm.
Shivering harder, she reached out and tried the knob, knowing that Andy and his roommates tended to leave the door unlocked when they were home. To her relief, the metal knob turned smoothly in her hand and she pushed it open gratefully, moving with it to get out of the rain quickly. She was drawing in a breath to call out a greeting, but she froze in the threshold, an instinct flashing through her brain.
Michiko spent a moment or two sorting through the information coming from her keyed up senses, seeking the thing that was warning her off. Her ears scanned in a circle, flicking this way and that to find the thing that was out of place, her nose twitching as she quietly scented the air. Over in the corner of the living room, a stereo was thumping away loudly with a techno beat from a group she knew Andy liked, which, coupled with the rain, explained the lack of reaction to her knock. She shook her head; That wasn't it. Then, her sharp sense of smell, one of the few things she had inherited from her fox father, tweaked at her subconscious, seeking attention. There it was. Two sharp, distinct scents, fresh and clear; one that belonged, one that didn't, standing out amid the usual scents of habitation she associated with the apartment.
One was definitely Andy's, the lynx 's musky, feline aroma so distinct and familiar she had almost discarded it immediately, the earthy tones forming a backdrop to the scent picture of the apartment. The other was foreign, but half familiar, something she had encountered before. Breathing another breath, she concentrated, further defining it. Definitely feline, definitely male, but definitely not another lynx, the male overtones edged with a slightly sour note, like citrus. That tracks. Michiko thought, Most of Andy's friends are feline. Her ears twitched slightly, and finally, above the music, she picked out voices from the kitchen, raised loud enough that she could hear it despite the storm and the electronica. She should call out, she knew. The way the apartment was set up, the kitchen was around a corner from the front door, and neither person would know she was there unless she said something. It was rude and wrong to eavesdrop on a conversation between anyone you knew and one of their friends, especially someone you were dating. The longer she waited before announcing herself, the worse it was going to be; she knew that. But something, and she didn't know quite what, kept her silent and still, kept her listening. The techno and the storm made it hard to hear, but they were not trying to be quiet, talking loudly and carelessly.
"...should be getting rolling before too long." Andy was saying, accompanied by the metallic sound of soda cans rolling across one another. "Michiko is coming over tonight. Said she wanted to spend part of the weekend together." Michiko frowned, digesting what she was hearing. That didn't sound like the way someone should be talking about spending time with his girlfriend. The tone in his voice was almost careless, as if spending time with her was a chore he wasn't looking forward to. That thought hurt, but she pushed it away. Surely that wasn't how he felt about her. Dating had been his idea, after all.
"Oh, don't worry. I'll be out of your way long before she gets out of class." The other voice stated, and she could almost hear his smug grin, accompanied by the hissing pop of poptops living up to their name. She thought it might be Darren, a puma friend of Andy's she had only met a couple of times. She didn't like him much if she was honest, tolerating him only because he was Andy's friend. He always seemed to be bragging about his supposed sexual prowess, always talking about the girl he had been with the night before. He also seemed to regard the fact that he hadn't had a relationship that lasted longer than a few weeks as some sort of badge of honor. "How is that going, by the way?"
"Its going ok, I guess." Andy said and Michiko's frown deepened. That wasn't a good sign, if he thought things were merely 'ok'. Maybe her plan was more necessary than she thought... "Its a lot harder than I thought it would be. I'll be glad when this whole thing is over." That statement made the tingling of her nerves turn suddenly into a freezing chill, a solid block of ice coalescing in her guts. What? What on earth did that mean?
"I gotta say, we all thought you would fold when it came to bedding her." Darren said, letting out a belch and laughing. The cold flooding through Michiko turned subzero, her fingers going numb as a horrible suspicion crawled its way into her mind, rooted somewhere in the old fears that had tormented her since childhood. "Nobody thought you would actually be able to do it." Andy laughed at that, and Darren continued. "Sean and Pat went double or nothing that you were going to hurl over it."
"Serves them right, betting against me." Andy said, a note of challenge and annoyance in his voice, despite the joking tone. "I've got a stronger stomach than that."
Pressure was building in her head, making everything spin around her and Michiko reflexively clutched the edge of the door with her free hand, holding herself up, the crimson glove of her fur clashing against the white paint of the wood. No. No, Darren is just an asshole, and Andy is trying not to piss him off. It doesn't mean anything. _Swallowing against the harsh suspicions that were all fighting their way into the front of her mind, Michiko struggled to stay focused against the rising tide, the things she had tried so hard to put behind her. Despite her efforts, horror was gnawing its way forward into her mind, all the puzzling pieces she had made her plans to deal with fitting themselves into a cruel picture that she was struggling to shatter. Resolutely refusing to sag against the door like she wanted to, the hybrid girl focused all her attention on listening. _Surely, it wasn't like it seemed, it couldn't be. Andy wasn't like that...
"In all seriousness Andy," Darren said, and she could imagine the mock serious look on his tan face. Even though she could only see it in her mind's eye, it made her want to either throw up, or punch him in the face. Maybe both. "How is it in bed with someone like her?"
"It's not so bad, actually." Andy said, his tone conversational. "If you don't think about it, it comes naturally enough. You can almost make yourself believe that you are in bed with a real chick, not a freak like her." Michiko bit back a gasp at his use of the word. She had been struggling against that perception for as long as she had been old enough to understand what it meant, and he knew that. He knew how much it hurt her to be called that. And then, when she felt like he had said the worst thing he could, it got even worse. "Every now and then though, you catch a glimpse and it's a struggle to keep going. But just you wait, I'll win the bet yet, and you can all bask in my glory."
Far from being shattered by his words, the picture was suddenly as clear as fine crystal. Michiko staggered as the truth broke over her, the door no longer enough to support her. The edges of her vision were graying, the cold spreading through her arms, coming close to a faint as the shock rolled through her. She felt gutted, like everything inside her had been torn out. Hot, bitter tears welled up in her eyes, tracing their way down the orange stripes of fur that broke the white mask around her bright green eyes and muzzle. No longer caring if they heard her or not, she let out a sob of grief and betrayal, turning and running back out into the frigid rain. Half blind, she only just managed to negotiate the stairs and make it to her car. With fingers that only barely felt the contact with the door handle, she flung it open and slipped behind the wheel on automatic. Once inside, the drumming of the rain on the roof cutting off all sound, she clenched her shaking hands into fists, fighting against the sobs that threatened to break from her throat.
Only knowing she had to run, had to get away from here, she fumbled with her keys once more, not really seeing the ignition. Miraculously, her hand slid the key in on her first try, the still warmed engine turning over instantly. She wiped her eyes in relief, clearing her gaze enough to drive, and, as she turned around to look out the back, she briefly saw a familiar head come to the door on the second floor landing, peering out in surprise. She saw Andy do a double take at the sight of her car, saw him start out into the rain towards her and suddenly, it was like something exploded behind her eyes. Red hot anger flared to life in her, driving away the cold, and she snarled. There was a moment, just a moment, where she seriously considered putting the car in drive and heading straight for him, but instead, she slammed the car into reverse. Resolutely turning her back on the sodden lynx, she drove out of the parking space, ignoring the yells she could only barely hear over the rain. Slamming the shifter into drive without looking in his direction, she sped out of the parking lot and into the street, spraying the lynx with water from her wheels as she drove past him, making him duck backward.
So that was it. That was the answer to the mysteries she had been dealing with. This whole thing, the whole relationship and everything to do with it had been some sort of sick wager on the part of Andy and his asshole friends. She couldn't know exactly what the terms of the bet were, but the source was all too obvious from their talk. Somehow, one of them had found out about her, long before Andy asked her out, and that was why he had done it in the first place. Not because he found her pretty, or interesting or kind, but because they had wagered that he couldn't do it. She could picture him now, telling his friends everything, every moment they had shared. The idea of them laughing at her starry-eyed affection for Andy made her feel sick, nausea rising up to eclipse the rage. And then, like the explosion it had been, the anger faded and the sorrow returned, the tears clouding her eyes once more. Shaking her head, she bit back the tears, swallowing against the lump in her throat. She wasn't going to cry anymore. Not now. She would cry later, when she was somewhere else, somewhere safe.
Much harder to push away was the weight of the soul-crushing sorrow, the pain of her fears being confirmed by the one person who should have taken them away. She was just sick of it all, of being cruelly treated for no other reason than being born. It had happened again and again when she was a child, starting all the way back when her father had been in her life. He had been the first one to call her a freak, the first one to be cruel to her, always after he had been out drinking. Her mother had been the one to stand up to him, refusing to allow him to treat her that way. The fights had gotten more and more heated, until finally, she had taken Michiko and left him. That hadn't been the end of it though.
They had moved around a lot after that; they had to. At first, it had been because her father had kept coming after them, finding them somehow. But after a while, they hadn't seen him again, but they kept on moving. She hadn't understood at the time, she was too young, but looking back later, she had finally understood. They had moved because of her, because someone had found out about her. Her mother had been trying to shield her from it, to keep her from being tormented. Yuki Sakai had picked up her life and moved so many times for her daughter that Michiko couldn't even count them. She had never complained, never said a word about it, and she was always going to be grateful for that. More than anything else right then, she wanted to be there, to feel the comfort of home. But there was no running home now. Home was more than a thousand miles away. That thought finally gave her pause and she pulled over into a random parking lot outside a shopping center. Wiping her eyes again, she took a deep breath, trying to think. There was a thought brewing behind the sorrow and pain, something that fled every single time she had tried to reach for it, so she let it go, focusing once more on the problem.
Running home might not have been an option this time, but she could at least call her mother, talk it out with her. Reaching over for her purse, she dug around inside, bringing out her phone. It was only when she had woken it up out of sleep mode that she realized she had been so distracted after class today, she had forgotten to take it off silent. She was a little surprised to see no less than six calls in the last few minutes, all from Andy, as well as a dozen text messages. The sight of his name on her phone screen sent such a massive jet of anger and loathing through her that she was more than half tempted to throw the phone out the window. Resisting the urge, she dismissed the notifications, tapping her mother's name on her contacts list instead. She was about to hit 'call' when the notification for a seventh call from Andy came up and she growled, switching her phone off completely instead. Apparently, calling home for comfort wasn't an option either, not if she was going to be interrupted by that prick every few seconds. Forcing herself to take another deep breath, she tried to think, despite the elusive thought dancing just on the edge of her mind. Calling home wouldn't solve the problem either. Ok, so now what?
She couldn't go back to her apartment, not feeling like this. Sasha, her roommate, had been out for break since the day before, the hawk girl having skipped out on her last day of classes, and the idea of sitting in her apartment, alone with her thoughts held zero appeal. Naomi might understand what she was going through, but the mouse girl had had similar plans with her boyfriend to those that Michiko had made with Andy, though they had both been aware of the plan, and looking forward to it. By now, they were probably already lost in each other. That thought didn't make her feel any better and she forced her mind away, putting that out of her head. And besides, Michiko thought, that would have been all kinds of awkward, considering their history. Hardly helpful. She ran down her list of friends in her head and began to discard them, one by one. None of her other friends were close enough to understand what she was feeling, and those were all people who knew what she was. And that was a short enough list as it was. It had often bothered her that she had spent ten years living in her home town and she had managed to make so few friends. And right as that thought hit her, the elusive thought finally came close enough for her to see part of it.
For three years after she and her mother had split from her father, they had moved around so much, so many times. And then, one day, they had finally settled in the place she thought of as home. It had been that day that had changed the way they lived. It had been that day that she had first felt the hope that her life didn't have to be lived on the move, though she hadn't realized it at the time. That day, she had finally thought that things were going to be different. That had been the day when she had met...Him. His name was the only one that stood out in her mind on her list of friends that knew about her. He alone would understand; he always had. The moment he entered her mind, she couldn't believe she hadn't thought of him first; it was so obvious. Peering through the falling rain, Michiko looked up at the nearby intersection, squinting to see through the rain. Steele and McAlister... She thought to herself, matching up the street signs with the map of the college town in her head. The result surprised her. Without consciously making the decision, she had already been heading in the right direction. As resolved as she had a moment before been uncertain, Michiko pulled out of the parking lot and back onto the road, now driving with a destination in mind. Now, thoughts of the horrible way she had been treated were replaced, the memory of those wonderful days coming back to her, as fresh and clear as if she were there again...