Psycho-Pass: Coping Mechanisms

Part 15 : Stigma (lemon)

PART 15 - Stigma

Warning: The following chapter features sexual themes. Read at your own discretion.

"How do you feel about her?" Kogami asked after they were done with the preparation for her next exam. They were headed to their homes, so Kogami decided it was high time they discussed some things in private.

Ginoza glared at Kogami. "Why do you ask?"

"Because anyone could tell how she feels about you," Kogami was crossing the street. "And you can't be that naive to pretend you don't see it too."

Ginoza followed along. They were strolling down, next to the nearby stream, with hands in their pockets.

"It's childish affinity, nothing more," Ginoza stated. "She will get over it."

"Maybe she won't. That aside, she is not a child, Gino," Kogami turned to face him. "She is a girl."

"You don't say," Gino's sarcastic remark didn't bother Kogami.

"She is also quite mature for her age. I don't think she is deluding herself, or that she is confused about how she feels about you. Maybe it's vice versa."

"And you've known her about... what? A year?" Ginoza asked. Kogami disregarded that argument.

"I will ask again, and I would like if you told me honestly. How do you feel about her?"

Ginoza was thinking about his response. And how to phrase it.

"She is just a friend," he ultimately retorted, annoyed with Kogami's topic of choice. Kou wasn't really satisfied with his answer.

"She could be more. All you need to do... is let her be. You keep distancing yourself like you are doing her a favor," Kogami remarked calmly.

Ginoza was doing her a favor, actually.

"And just how does this concern you?" he wanted to know.

"You know how," Kogami didn't look away. He endured Ginoza's sharp glance, facing him openly and directly.

"Then, why aren't you doing anything?" his best friend asked. "Why are you here, giving me heads up instead?"

Kogami sighed. "Isn't it obvious? She still prefers you."

"You don't know that," Ginoza said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I am pretty sure about it," Kogami expressed. "But, let me be honest, Gino. If you reject her... I won't idly stand by. However slim... I will take my chance."

Ginoza didn't respond anything to that. He didn't know what to say.

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In his current residence, which seemed more like some nearly abandoned storage and an archaic cage rather than an actual apartment... she felt she was more at home than at her own place. Essentially, home was a person - not just some location.

Her 'home' was with him. She'd find it between those strong, yet reassuring and gentle arms. In his heart... beating evenly under her cheek. It was also in his lips, which were now hungrily kissing her to compensate for all the time they've been (involuntarily and voluntarily) separated... and those lips tasted just as good as the first time she felt them on her own.

It was almost like he never left. Almost like he never hurt her. And like she didn't hurt him back.

Even before now - his scent, his hair, his whole body - were carved deeply into her very existence. It's what made her imagine him so well in her escapist-induced episodes. It was like phantom touch. She could feel his hair between her fingers; soft layer of his skin over those toned muscles. Her fingertips remembered what it felt like to trace all sensitive parts on his body. The way he'd react once she touched them. Even his scent was somehow present with her whenever she was longing for him in depressing absence.