yes we have another chuuya special, except this time it's a finished version of a reactionary piece i've been working on for quinns own birthday characterization. to read or not to read, but i'll take this time to thank everyone whose followed, faved, and reviewed as always. i, too, am looking forward to the update.

Her fingers tap restlessly against the top of her blanket, eyes closed as she adjusts her shoulders in bed. She should be falling asleep any minute now and getting back to the real world where she has a paper due in three days that she neglected to start even conceptually. Quinn opens her eyes and looks back at the clock: 11:57.

She pulls the blanket over her head hoping the darkness would consume her and encourage her mind to fall black as well, but instead she focused on the scent of the fabric softener that was all too close to her nose. She brings the blanket down and looks at the clock again: 11:59.

At this point, she waits, and watches as the digital colons flicker with every passing second. Thirty one, thirty two, thirty three, it's like time actually slows down now despite her keeping track of the increments, until finally the clock changes.

It's midnight, a whole new day from the last. Her birthday.

Quinn decided against falling asleep and instead cleaned every inch of the apartment until the sun rose high enough that it was okay for her to get dressed and head for work. Being that it was so early, she walked to the towers. It wasn't that bad considering the weather was beautiful and the silence of the streets gave her an ease she hadn't had for a long time, and when she got to her office her floor was empty. She was the only one there, able to get an immediate inventory on all the numbers for the day and a good start for work.

She also had the opportunity to go completely berserk. Which was great, because she did.

Though she calmly filled up her coffee mug, grabbed all the necessary papers, and settled herself into her desk without anyone interjecting the process, looking at the Yokohama cityscape didn't fill her with the same peace it did every other day. This had a lot to do with the face in the window she saw, the reflection she tried so hard not to look at all morning from the bathroom mirror to the glistening shine of a car door.

How many times was she going to go through this?

"Hi, I need maintenance in my office please…A broken window."

When they asked her how it was she broke through bullet proof glass she hung up the phone. They got the order, that's all that mattered.

In the still early morning chill, Quinn takes a sip of her coffee, staring out of the hole in the window the size of her face. She sits on top of her overturned filing cabinet now at the center of the room where her desk was, the desk now in pieces against the wall to her right. Papers fly everywhere around her feet but they stick to the offices carpet. Her chair is gone.

Everything is so much clearer without the glass, and taking one final sip from her mug she finally felt the peace of the city again with no one to mock her.

Quinn barred anyone from entering her office when she announced she would leave early for the day. She claimed there were unsafe working conditions created by some kind of gas leak and for them to only let maintenance in when they came up. She apologized for the damage of files but did hand them back to the necessary people. Some were ripped, wrinkled, others had imprints from the soles of her shoes. No one asked questions. She made it to the elevator and no one who got on it spoke to her. She made it to the lobby and no one even gave her a glance. It was the type of invisibility that once terrified her, but how it felt like a hug on Christmas.

She was on the street ready to cross the main road when that hug was ripped from her arms.

"Oi!" she hears the yell behind her but doesn't turn around, still watching the light at the crosswalk, waiting for the final signs that tell her she can go. The sound is repeated but louder, and she realizes the voice is now right behind her.

"Where are you going?" Chuuya asks in a harsh tone, clearly stressed, or maybe just annoyed since he always felt he had to be the one to play babysitter to her. She doesn't turn or validate his presence really, aside from the quiet mutter of the word "home".

"Are you walking?"
"It's a beautiful day."
"They said you didn't take the car this morning."
"It's a beautiful day."

The light changes, and without another word she walks ahead. It's rude, she knows, and it will only get her some kind of lecture (or worse) later, but standing there waiting for him to make conversation was not a better alternative either. Maybe the real better alternative was not breaking her window, or her office furniture, or even going in at all today.

Quinn was coming to terms with all the bad choices she made when she noticed a shadow beside her; Chuuya, only three inches taller than her, blocked any sunlight as he crossed with her to her right. When they make it across the street she stops in her tracks, and it takes him a bit for him to look back and stop too.

"What are you doing?" her eyes narrow, almost twitch like she's the one who was stressed, annoyed that he always felt the need to play babysitter to her.

"I'm going in this direction too." his face is innocent, and she pictures a glowing halo above his head to confirm. "What, you think I'm following you?" the halo is gone while the ends of his lips curl into a smirk. Any other day Quinn would have gone red at the sight alone, said some flustered set of words and walked right in front of traffic, but now she just blinks.

"Yes." she's terse. She doesn't move from her spot, and she wonders how long she'll have to wait for the light to change so she could go back to the other side of the street. Like he knows she's weighing the option, his smile drops, and he shoves his hands into his pockets with a frown.

"There's a convenience store near your apartment, I need a few things."
"From a convenience store?"
"It's convenient."

They stand on their opposite ends of the sidewalk for a few seconds, silent save for the rushing of cars in the street. It's like a stare off, but something about his again irritated tone is more comforting than his earlier teasing one, and with a huff she walks past him. "Don't walk too close to me." she directs. He disobeys, and again he blocks the sun now on her left side.

It's silent most of the way, save for the sounds of people yelling at each other between houses or businesses of all lewd kinds booming. He doesn't ask her any questions again and neither does she, even as they pass the convenience store he supposedly needed a few things from. It's about two blocks from her apartment when they come upon a group of kids all playing in the street, yelling at cars when they come by and laughing amongst themselves when they leave. Seeing them makes Quinn stop her steps, and when he realizes she is no longer beside him Chuuya soon does the same, but like before they're at a distance, opposite ends of the sidewalk.

She's not sure if he's looking at her or the group of kids because she's too focused on the group herself. There's seven of them, and they can't be more than ten years old, all jumping and shoving and yelling a bit incoherently she can't make out all of the words but one—mafia.

It's a game they play, something like who will survive when the big bad mafia comes around; four of them were assigned to be in the mafia and the other three are the commoners, the "shit people" one of the kids seem to scream as they jump another to the ground and pretend to use a machine gun to keep him that way. They all laugh, though, acting like their guts are being spilled out, and even in their characters dying breath one kid cries out "tell my family I love them!" before dramatically sticking his tongue out with his eyes closed. He's dead for about two seconds before he gets up and insists it is his turn to be mafia now, telling his friend he doesn't want to be a loser again. They all begin to scream over each other about how thats not how the game is supposed to work, and it seems like they're about to fight each other for real before a woman yells a series of names down the block. They turn, a bit afraid they were caught, then all yell "coming!" as they rush down the street.

Quinn stares at the pavement where the one kid lied, tongue out, eyes closed, asking his killer to tell his family he loved them one last time.

"When did did you stop feeling like you were someone else's vessel?" the question, given the context, is random, and she's sure Chuuya wasn't happy with it or her connotations. When he didn't say anything, she quickly turned to him and continued speaking. "The hat," when she points to the fabric on his head he reaches to take it off "what made you realize you were a hat person and he—… He wasn't." she nearly swallows the last of her words back but she's made it too far.

It's silent again, and Chuuya still stands a couple feet from her staring into abyss of the hat. She suspects he's trying to keep himself composed, but his hands aren't exactly balled into fists the way they normally are when he's holding in anger. Actually, nothing about him is defensive, and that concerns her the most.

She opens her mouth to add something light to ease them out of the dead end she led them to and hopefully give her a straight shot home until he takes the few steps closer to her and puts the hat on her head. It's light, at first, until he taps the top to make sure it's snug around her hair. At this, she whispers a superlative and raises her arms to take the hat off and push him away, but her hands are soon caught in his. She holds her breath at the contact alone, but takes a sharp inhale as Chuuya takes off his gloves and puts them on her own hands.

The motion is slow to her when the first glove comes off and she sees his bare hand up close. Was this the first time? Maybe there were other instances she can't remember, which seems odd because thats something she would definitely file away for a rainy day.

When you first look at Chuuya's hands you know you're looking at a gem, something as precious as a diamond kept in a vault for a hundred years, and though she's imagined them both spotless and calloused, nothing prepares her for the velvet feel that was softer than the inside of his gloves. His long fingers weren't even manicured yet they were cleaner and glossier than Quinn's own. If he had scars, it was something that healed leaving a visible tint on his skin rather than a texture she could feel. His other hand was the same, but she couldn't take her eyes off the way his fingers would delicately wrap themselves around her wrists, or the way his thumbs would lightly press into her skin as he pulled the wrist of the glove closer to her own. If she was looking, she would have realized they were a bit baggy and tight at the palms; her own hand, though bigger in width, smaller where the fingers were concerned, and she wondered if he had them specially made for him rather than picking them up at a haberdashery.

"Who do you feel like?" Chuuya's voice is the last thing she would expect after her questions; it's soft, and reminiscent of the innocent tone she heard before even if she can't feel the glow of a halo behind him. With the question he lets go of her hands and pushes his back into his pockets, bare skin tucked away from the world.

For a while she merely blinks, looking between her miserably covered hands with the shadow casted from the hat now on her head. Seconds pass and she refrains from attempting to pull the gloves off her hands and toss back his precious hat. Who does she feel like?

"I feel like you?" her voice is a question, lingering amongst the wind, her mind now away from her own and that of the student she hates to be as she assesses the situation. To no luck, though, does she understand it.

"But you don't look like me."
"Chuuya, this is dumb—,"
"You look a lot like you."

She takes the hat off and sighs, his efforts lost as she pushes it into his chest, but Chuuya doesn't take his hands out of his pockets to reach for it. "I look a lot like Juno." she lightly pushes him again, a silent ask for him to take his things and let her be, but he refuses to budge.

"Do you feel like Juno?"

There's a lump in her throat as she swallows, unable to look him in the eye.

That's a loaded question. Juno obviously still exists, she keeps herself locked away for rainy days and troubled nights, only showing herself when she sees fit. So Quinn has to wait, feign control, wonder how much of the things in her head are actually her own and not misplaced daydreams or another. Quinn is really just a consciousness, a fleeting existence of a person who doesn't even belong in this universe. It's why takes in her ceiling with detail every night so she can sign if she wakes up to a change, it's why she's anticipated this day for months hoping it could be somewhere else yet still fearful of being plucked from a reality she's just become accustomed to, but most of all it's why she cant stand her slightest reflection, the reminder that none of this world is hers, a reminder that she doesn't belong.

"I always knew my body was me, but everything inside…" Chuuya continues as though the existential gears in her head haven't started to move "It took a while to realize that was me too. The only thing I have left of… Of him… Is his power. But this," his hands finally come around her own gloved ones to drop his hat back on his head, and as he does she finally looks up at him again, his expression holding the smallest sense of price "this is all me."

She inhales, holding the breath in for a few seconds before dropping her forehead against the still gloved hands at her chest. Time goes by and he lets her stay there, hands coming around to slowly slip off the gloves and put them back over his own skin. When he does her hands reflexively come around his waist, and with the final tug on of his gloves he finds himself doing the same. As they stand in the embrace life around them goes on; cars pass on the street, children come back out to play, but they remain contained in their own moment of security.

"So," Chuuya eventually breaks the silence when he drops his chin at the top of her head "are you ready to talk?"

Quinn frowns against the fabric of his vest before pulling herself back and giving him a chance to see her furrowed eyebrows, hands still at his waist needing to tether herself to this world. "About what?"

"About the chair you threw out of your office window this morning."