Hanabi

Chapter 15: Something new

Tomomi opened her eyes slowly, and noticed there was light coming in from the window. The next thing she noticed was the girl that she was holding against herself. Mami was still asleep.

She felt happy and warm all of a sudden, remembering how Mami went looking for her when she couldn’t sleep the night before. Somehow that was pushing away the bad feelings about what happened, even if just a little bit.

The brunette slowly moved her hands over Mami’s back, closing her eyes for a moment and sighing. She couldn’t believe she actually made Mami feel that comfortable around her, the blonde was still lying with her face on the brunette’s chest and her arms around her body. But she was still quite cold, despite having spent the night in Tomomi’s arms. The brunette could only hope that this cold wouldn’t last much longer.

As she caressed Mami’s back, she noticed something else. When Mami removed those bandages the night before, it seemed like she didn’t have the time or willpower to put on new ones. Instead of feeling the thick bandages under the blonde’s shirt, Tomomi was feeling her back. Then she thought she could understand why Mami felt the need of doing all of that, because she could feel a huge scar under her shirt.

Tomomi wouldn’t dare looking or placing her hands under Mami’s shirt, but she honestly wouldn’t have to. It felt horrible enough that way, it was a very large scar. She traced it softly with her fingers over the grey shirt, and it really cut Mami’s back from the left shoulder, the one that was wounded again now, to the right side of her waist. It felt like someone tried to cut her in half or something close to that. It broke Tomomi’s heart all over again.

She sighed, and Mami moved. At first she thought the blonde was waking up, but she was still asleep. Tomomi was now seeing her face, and moved one of her hands to her blond hair, placing a few strands behind her ear. She would do her best not to wake her up, the blonde deserved to rest after that horrible night. Mami looked so peaceful on her sleep, that made Tomomi smile.

But it was more than that. Mami didn’t look just peaceful, she looked gorgeous. Tomomi wanted to caress her face again, but she refrained herself so she wouldn’t run the risk of waking Mami up. It was hard though, the blonde was so adorable right now that Tomomi would really love to touch her cheeks, her nose, her chin. Soon Tomomi’s eyes moved to Mami’s lips, and though they weren’t their normal rosy color because of the coldness on Mami’s body, they were still really attractive to the brunette.

She shut her eyes. She had to stop thinking about those things.

Tomomi had to admit it to herself though, her feelings were getting a bit out of control. She didn’t want to feel romantically attracted to Mami, she just wanted to be her friend, but it had been happening slowly and silently, until she couldn’t do anything to stop those feelings from existing.

Maybe that was bound to happen, in the end. After a certain age Tomomi couldn’t have a real friend who would stick around, not until she met someone who could understand how she saw things. Her first really good friend was Haruna, so she had expected that if she was going to develop more than friendly feelings for someone again someday, that person would have to be like Haruna. That person would have to be someone who could understand.

Her past attempts at love had failed so miserably that she didn’t even like to think about it. After meeting Haruna though, she understood how things would have to work in her life, and stopped trying to be with people like everyone else was doing. She would wait until she met someone who she thought was comprehensive and kind enough.

She wasn’t exactly expecting that person to be Mami, though. She shouldn’t have those feelings for her. Rina said Mami never had any friends at all before, Tomomi was her first one, so she felt like that would be a bit too much.