Log: Nori and Julio

[x-kaminari.livejournal.com]

What was a low-key afternoon becomes rather more fraught when Julio asks a simple question.



It was a lazy afternoon in the room that Julio shared with Kyle. Kyle had gone "out" somewhere, and Julio had invited Nori over. He trailed his fingers lazily down Nori's back, skipping over her brastrap and down to her lower back, circling the flower tattooed there. He frowned slightly, he'd always wondered where she'd gotten it.

"Hey, Nori? Can I ask you something?" he said.

Nori had her head pillowed on her arms, eyes half closed as she relished actually being still for a while. "He?" she murmered, turning her head slightly to get a better look at Julio. "Yes, is ok."

"Where did you get this?" he tapped the tattoo on her back. Most of the people he had known with tattoos back home had had some sort of religious signifgance, or familial. He wasn't sure if Nori was the type to get a tattoo because it signified something, or that it just looked cool.

Nori went from totally relaxed to completely tense faster than Julio could blink. Her first reaction was to run, roll away from him so he couldn't see the mark, steal his shirt which would cover the other on her arm, and just run. All of that mental energy, though, just translated into a tiny flinch away from his hand. "Is nothing," she said, head turning so she was more talking to her own arms than to him.

Julio blinked, and then rested his hand on her upper back. That was not quite the reaction he had been expecting. "I'm sorry, mieja," he said. "Is it an embarssing story?"

She took a deep breath then rolled over, catching his hand and pulling it back to her. Nori's face was blank as she considered him. Embarrassing... she knew that word. That would be easier; just take the story he came up with... "No," she said after a moment. "Is not... Is... difficult."

"I'm listening," he said quietly. "If you want to tell me."

Nori shook her head, not meeting his eyes. "Is very not want to," she said. "Kedo, is maybe... suru beki... should."

Julio brushed a piece of hair away from her forehead and tried to phrase his words carefully. "Nori, I won't judge you if it is bad, ok? I ... I feel that anything you or I did before we got together is--. it does not matter. I made mistakes too." Big fire-y ones that could have ended in his potential death by firing squad. And that was not an exageration.

There was a long, quiet pause before Noriko finally said, "I am don't remember. Was very drink. Very... other thing. Before boyfriend is do. Did."

There was an even longer pause from Julio. "Your boyfriend gave those to you?"

"Hai." It was little more than a whisper.

Julio exhaled slowly, tucking a piece of Nori's hair behind her ear. "Why?" he said quietly.

She curled slightly into his hand. "Is not know," she said, finally meeting his eyes. "Nori is never ask." Which was true, although not the whole truth. But even after telling him this much she didn't think she could explain about Takeshi and his kumi, and what the rose symbol meant to them. Even if she could have figured out how to say it in English.

Julio pursed his lips and thought for a few long moments. He quietly vowing that the next time he was in Japan, he was finding this man and quietly and unobtrusively beating him within and inch of his life before tossing him off the nearest building. As for Nori, he didn't quite know what to say. It was obviously something that had hurt her, and his first instinct was to make it better, but he was woefully unskilled in that department. Instead he smiled dryly. "My past may have you beat. I knocked up the wife of my father's boss."

Nori tilted her head at him curiously. She knew 'wife', and 'father', of course. 'Boss' she was pretty sure she knew... "What is 'knocked up'?" she asked, willing to make a bet but wanting confirmation, although she couldn't help a tiny little echoing smile.

"I got her pregnant," Julio deadpanned.

Heh, she'd been right. "Sou ka..." Nori said, doing her best to rein in the smile; it undoubtedly had not been at all funny for him at the time. But she couldn't quite resist adding, "Oops?"

"Yeah, oops," Julio sighed. "She was crazy, wanted me to run away with her, so her husband wouldn't kill us both. She was also much older than me. She ah... she died, though. Car accident. When I first manifested. Supposedly it's not my fault, but I was out of it, so..." he shrugged, his shoulders uncomfortable and tight. Many people knew that he'd gone and done his father's boss's wife, but few knew that she'd died when he manifested fully, and as of now, only Nori knew she'd been pregnant.

"Aa, gomen," Nori said, sitting up and reaching out to wrap her arms around Julio, pillowing her head on his shoulder. Much, much more comfortable to try and be there for Julio than to talk about her own past.

Julio exhaled and rested his cheek on top of Nori's head. "So that is why the past is the past, yes?"

"Un," Nori said, although she skipped the firm nod which normally accompanied this exclamation in favor of not disturbing Julio. "Now is very better."