1 More Chance!

Here's one that is actually a dump. I wrote this originally to take place after the protagonists spend their first night together, but I decided that it took them in a direction I didn't want to go, and too quickly. So, it got set aside.

Junes was oddly quiet, a fact for which Chie was actually grateful. She and Yousuke walked through the store together, sometimes stopping to look at this or that trinket or amenity, during which time he would step close to her and peer over her shoulder in a surreptitious embrace, or she would unobtrusively hold his hand. She was careful not to be too obvious, taking delight in even these simple acts of affection. There were still boundaries that neither of them had quite dared to cross, yet.

Their first night spent together – last night – had been without sex, mostly because neither one of them had been prepared with any protection. Yousuke had told her that he hadn't wanted her to think he was assuming they would get busy, and Chie had told him that she hadn't wanted him to think that she was easy. So instead they had stayed up late watching random television, that really just served the purpose of background noise while they kissed and cuddled and humped and ground. Eventually, they had fallen to sleep (Yousuke in just his shorts and Chie in a tee-shirt and panties) on her hastily-made futon, her back pressed to his front in a spooning position. And when she had woken up that morning, she had felt nothing less than sheer joy to know that he was beside her.

She had had precious little in her kitchen that was suitable for breakfast (Yousuke pointed this out as more evidence that she wasn't really living in her apartment so much as just sleeping and showering there, an observation that rankled her), so they had decided to get dressed and find something to forage in town. The obvious place to start was Junes, because he knew its ins and outs like the back of his hand...and because he always kept a set of extra clothes in his desk.

Chie followed him up a flight of stairs and then down a blank hallway to the Junes management offices, passing by empty cubicles and closed doors. It felt very much like any other office, except that it was noticeably quiet.

“It's like a tomb in here,” she muttered.

Yousuke shrugged as he unlocked one of the office doors. “It's Sunday. Tsubaru-san's here today, but he never gets in this early.” He opened the door and ushered her inside. “Come on in.”

She looked around the large office space, silently impressed by the state-of-the-art technology on each of the four shared desks. At the police station, they had to share computers between officers (detectives like Dojima had their own), and there were more or less communal printers and copy machines. But here, each station had its own computer (sometimes more than one), its own printer, some sort of photo scanner-thing, as well as the more common items like phones and drafting areas.

“Wow,” she said softly.

He reached into one of the desk drawers and pulled out a clean red-and-white tee-shirt. “What's that?”

She trailed her fingers along the top of one of the other desks. “There's a lot of expensive stuff in here.”

“If we don't promote, people don't buy,” he said, his voice muffled while he slipped out of his old shirt and into the new one. He shook his head free of the collar, and she was reminded of the way he used to do that same move after a fight. He had had a singular way of moving back then, a kind of preoccupied, don't-bother-me stance, tapping his foot to the music in his ears even while facing down Shadowy monsters.

She chuckled at the memory of those bygone days.

He tossed the old shirt into the drawer and closed it with his foot, then looked up at her. “What's so funny?”

She shrugged. “For a minute, I felt like we were back in Mayonaka.” At his puzzled look, she explained: “You used to shake your head like that, whenever you'd take your headphones off.” She noticed with no little interest that he wasn't at this moment wearing his headphones. Now that she thought about it, he hadn't been wearing them since the last time they had gone into Okina.

He smirked when she asked him about it. “I still use 'em, but....” He shrugged, noncommittal. “I've got other things to think about lately.”