bakerstreet | hurt / comfort

hurt / comfort

Hurt/comfort is a fan fiction genre that involves the physical pain or emotional distress of one character, who is cared for by another character. The injury, sickness or other kind of hurt allows an exploration of the characters and their relationship.

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1. INJURY. You've been injured. Broken bones or bleeding out or maybe just a tiny little papercut. The choice is yours.
2. SICKNESS. You're sick and laid up in bed, at home or in a hospital. The severity is up to you.
3. FEAR/ANXIETY. Something is happening and you're scared beyond belief.
4. LOSS OF SENSES. Sight, touch, taste, hearing, smell, etc. You've lost some important sense or ability and now you're left to deal with it.
5. DESPAIR. Nothing is good or right anymore and you can't shake the depression. Maybe that friend of yours can help though...
6. BREAKUP. You've been dumped. You need someone to comfort you, possibly by the one who dumped you.
7. MAKE UP. Fight or break up, it's time to makeup.
8. RESCUED. You've just been held captive and/or tortured for however long and finally, someone has come to the rescue.
9. BAD ROMANCE. Fight, cheated on, abused, whatever the case is, someone else can clearly see you need comfort from someone who isn't your terrible lover tonight.
10. LOSS. You've experience a loss of some kind and need help getting through it.
11. INSANITY. You're seeing things that aren't really there, hearing voices, or you're just convinced you're at your wit's end finally and you're going to crack. Maybe someone can give you a helping hand.
12. TIRED. You've had a heard life recently and you're just worn too thin to really care anymore. There's no fight left in you anymore. Can someone help change your mind?
13. ADDICTION. Drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, or any other type of addiction has got you in its grasp. First time or relapse. Will someone be able to save you?
14. INSOMNIA. You can't sleep anymore, no matter how hard you try. Maybe someone can give you company.
15. NIGHTMARES. Or, on the other end of the spectrum, you can't sleep without gruesome, horrible nightmares. Either someone is stuck in your dream with you, witnessing it or they're just waking you up, soothing you out of it.
16. BLACKMAIL. You've been caught doing something you shouldn't and you were blackmailed because of it
17. SEPARATION. You're going to be separated for awhile or were separated for a long time. Either make up for lost time or try to spend every last moment together.
18. VIOLATED. You've been violated in some way. Can include sexual overtones or not. Can someone help you through it?
19. STRANDED. You've been stranded somewhere remote, with no help of anyone finding you for awhile. Can you survive this together?
20. SINS. You're feeling the weight of your sins and guilt clearer than ever. Can someone give you absolution or lessen the ache any?
21. SECRET. It's difficult having to keep that secret of yours, be it a relationship or something you just don't want to share with anybody else. Maybe it's okay to talk about it now though...
22. ADDITION. Babies should be joyous things unless you're in a situation where you know you won't be able to care for them. Either you've adopted or found out you're pregnant.

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It's been... not nagging her, nagging is really too light-hearted a word for it, but bothering her all the same. For a long time now. That no one else knows. That she's the only one - who knows, who holds all the memories and stores all the pictures in those shoe boxes that Tomomin's Hikki CD collection came in. Miu isn't one to overly worry about anything and it isn't that she's worried that Tomomin will ever be forgotten. Tomomin has her parents and she had fans. And she has Miu as well who'll definitely never forget. It's just... The truth of their relationship sometimes seems so fragile with only one person left to guard it, right? That's why. That's why she thinks maybe it's okay now, to tell someone. Someone other than Chiho-chan. Someone who's strong enough to bear it.

Why that someone is Ayako-chan, Miu isn't really sure. It just feels right. The other girl might not like her, but she's a careful person. A strong person. She can bear Miu's secret without dropping it. That's the important part. So, once rehearsals are over and Ueno-sensei has spoken his final words on today's efforts, she sits down next to Ayako-chan on one of the benches lining up the walls. Waits for the girls gathered around them, around Ayako-chan, to disperse.

The girls - her girls - are a lot like over-socialized birds, flocking to her whenever the opportunity strikes. Like now, with rehearsals over and done with, with Ueno-sensei's words of encouragement still lingering on everyone's mind. Rie-chan is the last to leave when the talk dies down, when Ayako's clearly had enough of their chatter and returns her attention to her own things. Collecting everything - her bag, her towels, her water bottle - she very purposefully doesn't look at Kotori Miu. There's no time when she's not aware of the other girl to some extent; even when she leaves for home, there's a certain, unresolved frustration left in her thoughts. Related to that girl in particular, unrelated to the rest. At the moment, however, the sole focus of her attention can't be on Miu-chan just because she's chosen to immerse herself in Ayako's personal space like this. That wouldn't feel right.

"Miu-chan did her best again today. I think you came very close."

Edited 2013-06-08 13:29 (UTC)

"Mmn." It's her usual sound of agreement. It rarely stands alone, but this time there's a long pause between her uttering of it and what follows next. She could thank Ayako-chan for her kind words with their stinging edge, but it always leads to the same kind of conversation. The same words spoken over and over and although Miu usually doesn't mind, today she wants... relief, yeah, that's it. Not more tension. Not more tension to walk away from, smiling. "Hey, Ayako-chan. I've been wondering about something, but it's really personal, so I didn't know how to ask without seeming too straight-forward."

While speaking, Miu crosses and uncrosses her legs. Watches the movements of her own limbs against the immobile expanses of surface beneath them - the bench and the floor. Some things are dead and some are alive. Just like people.

Well, that is odd. It's so typical for Miu-chan, to draw your attention in this manner even when you're trying not to care about her too much. About what she has to say or what she might be thinking. But it is a funny request all the same, something that requires the typical discourse between them to be different, somehow and Ayako can't help feeling curious about it. This sudden change and why it's happening. They're never very personal with each other. Not because Ayako is withdrawn, not as such. However. Reluctant? Yeah, kind of. When it comes to Miu-chan, she is both reluctant and harsh in equal measures.

"Just ask, I guess." She zips up her bag and stretches out her legs. Her ankles hurt a lot today but that's only fair. "If I don't want to answer, you'll know."

Ayako-chan is always like this. So direct. It isn't that Miu is ever necessarily trying to avoid anything in their relation - in any relation, really - but it seems such a harsh approach in comparison to her own. When all comes down to it, it may simply be a clash of personality types and that could easily be resolved by keeping your distance. Except Miu doesn't like to keep something in that state, leave the negatives to breed with each other. It's not healthy. It's really not! Grabbing her own bag, she places it on her lap. Rests her elbows on it. And her chin in her hands. When she speaks, her voice is carefully neutral. Not passing judgement of any kind. There can be a thousand reasons. She just... wants to know whether Ayako-chan's might be the same as her own.

"Why don't you have a boyfriend, Ayako-chan?"

Okay. Ayako can't help it, that she's once again humouring Miu-chan - she turns and stares at her, hands freezing a few inches above the closed bag. People rarely ask her anything like this, not because it's too personal (at her age, it is a even a sensible question) but because... because her friends have long since decided that Ayako-chan is too preoccupied with her shining career to bother with boys. Or perhaps too preoccupied all in all. In either case, she turns her gaze away after a long moment of silence, wondering why this information would even matter to Miu-chan. Oh-so-perfect, adorable Miu-chan.

"Yeah, that's pretty personal." Her hands feel too idle now, despite the calmness of her voice. And she's packed away everything already so there's nothing left for them to do. She clasps them together in her lap instead. "What's with such a question anyway?"

Miu glances at Ayako-chan's clasped hands in her lap. It's such a demure gesture, one she's used to from the feminine roles of Takarazuka and one she thinks of mostly in those terms, so it seems foreign now. Here. In this context, especially with Ayako-chan as the actor. Tall, brass Ayako-chan. Who's nothing like a musumeyaku, not even in style of dancing.

What's with such a question anyway? Well. It was never really about the question in the first place. It was about the answer and since she isn't getting one, she can make her own assumptions much more freely, right? And tell Ayako-chan what needs to be told on those grounds. Those same grounds - why Miu didn't have a boyfriend either, before she met Tomomin again.

That's how she'd like to think about it, because it's safer.

She reaches out slowly, anyway. And pushes her hand in between Ayako-chan's two clasped ones. In order to take one hand, the left, with her own. Not interlacing their fingers or anything, just... holding it. "I'm not pointing fingers or anything," Miu says. "It's not like I have someone special either."

Anymore.

Someone special. She glances down, at Miu's hand holding her own. It's a warm touch, light and unassuming - like everything about Kotori Miu, honestly. She leaves an impression but it doesn't feel like it's truly meant to settle with you in any fashion. Here's my magic, more amazing than most; it's useless to us both. And this conversation is the same, she thinks, though she doesn't pull her hand away.

"I don't care about that. About having someone, I mean." She looks away, feeling weirdly self-conscious. Like her swollen legs are visible to the entire world right now, her bad technique and her ceaseless attempts to improve. "But Miu-chan is a different type of person." She smiles, effortlessly, her voice turning less restricted by habit while she turns the subject away from herself again; after all, there's literally nothing to tell. "So there's a story here, I bet. For you."

There's no letting go. No pulling away angrily. There's nothing of the sort at all. From Ayako-chan. Miu feels a sense of relief which is as foreign to her as the musumeyaku style seems to be to the other girl. Because regret ranks amongst the emotions that she doesn't generally bother with, doesn't it? It's much too troublesome, built on all the negative relations that she doesn't nurse, but still - it's natural that without regret there's no catalyst for relief either. No need for it. Therefore, it's a totally new feeling. One that she doesn't know how best to handle.

"I had someone..." she begins. Falters. Wriggling her fingers against Ayako-chan's palm. "But they died. A year ago."

It's definitely different, this talk. This atmosphere. Months ago, Rie-chan came to her apartment in the middle of the night, crying about her parents, about her Relative and his wandering hands. Such news are hard to take and react to, but with Rie-chan it was a natural reaction; to comfort quietly and to wait for the mood to pass. With Miu-chan, Ayako doesn't have a lot of compassion prepared in advance. She can't react to this confession in her usual manner. Though Miu-chan has always struck her as a girl with many secrets, it has been hard to imagine sympathy in relation to her. To feel sorry for a girl who is always so bright and who can't bear the thought of difficult feelings.

So it takes Ayako a long time to reply, searching for alternatives that aren't readily available. Miu's fingers tickle the inside of her palm and she draws her hand away slowly, calmly, the movement devoid of any real emotion. Straightens up a bit on the bench as she watches the shadows play on the far end of the training room wall. "It makes sense, I guess. For Miu-chan to carry such a dark story around like this." And finally, she looks at the other girl, her expression close enough to blankness to seem almost cold. "I'm very sorry."

"Mmn." Another non-verbal confirmation. Miu meets Ayako-chan's eyes directly when the other girl looks at her, withdrawing her hand equally slowly and stretching out her legs in front of her. Her sweatpants clinging to her shins, clammy from hours of hard work. Ayako-chan was right before, no matter if she meant it or not - Miu had come very close today. To getting it perfect. The kind of perfection Tomomin had danced... "They were a dancer with the Tokyo Ballet. That special someone."

Even if Ayako-chan has her reasons not to have a boyfriend, Miu doesn't reveal it yet. Her own reasons for not having dated men. Along with the fact that Tomomin was a girl. The two are mutually dependent, right? One can't exist without the other. So she keeps both of them secret still, saying only that she was seeing a dancer and that her dancer died. If Ayako-chan has been following the news of the dance scene, she might guess anyway and Miu won't have to actually say the words.

A dancer with the... She freezes again, mind suddenly confused between the rational conclusion and the memories conjured up by that simple sentence. Of course, many dancers could have died within the year - and if they were unknown, no one unrelated would be aware of it. So maybe she doesn't know. This person. Miu-chan carries her secrets, though, how could she not? And this is a secret worth keeping from others.

Mixed with this realisation - maybe, maybe not - is a very simple image of Michan's couch, of a late night in October when the bags were all packed and no one tried to stop the front door from falling shut. A life left behind, surely, completely unconnected to Miu-chan. With all her secrets and lies and false facades. Yet the connection springs clear anyway and Ayako's tone of voice turns harder with it, with what's beneath it.

"Miu-chan. Tell me what you're really saying." There is one conversation here that she can have. A secret that she'll definitely keep. The other one... The other one, she can't be sure about.

What she's really saying? But that's an, if not impossible, then really difficult demand to make! Because what Miu is really saying is that she was dating one of the Tokyo Ballet's greatest star children at the time without anyone knowing anything about it and that star child was a girl, so she has Sumire Code to consider as well and -- In the end, it’s her own choice, then. To say the words out loud. Call Tomomin by name and relation. Without consideration for the consequences. She just really needs to talk about it to someone, someone who’s there unlike Chiho-chan, even if Chiho-chan definitely does her best. She’s just elsewhere engaged, that’s all. Miu understands. She really does. She’s been there herself, after all – having to prioritise Takarazuka first.

“Her name was Ishii Tomomi, maybe Ayako-chan has heard about her?” She’s looking away now. Not in shame. She’ll never be ashamed of her relationship to Tomomin! Never… It’s just that if such an idea makes Ayako-chan uncomfortable, she wants her to have the freedom to react to it naturally. Miu just won’t have to see. To face it.

For her age, Ayako has actually seen a lot. Heard a lot, too. By being Emi Suzuki's closest acquaintance for many years, she's more than aware of the many ways people get by in life to avoid loneliness. Some choose one boy forever, others choose several per week. And others, again, choose differently all together. Perhaps Ayako would have been a tolerant person, had she ever forced herself to care about sexuality in any shape or form. But now, here, with Miu-chan looking away from her and asking for something she can't quite understand, she feels like a foreigner; like she's landed herself in a country way beyond her own borders.

"Sure. I remember reading about it. About her death." Not about that other thing. Stuff like that doesn't go on the obituary of a famous ballerina, it's neutral phrases and little else, a total avoidance of anything even approaching gutter talk or gossip. Apropos... Her eyes widen as she turns more fully towards Miu-chan. "But - you were in Takarazuka at the time! You couldn't just..."

She can't finish. There are too many implications, too much hidden beneath the surface and she can't be the person to pull Miu-chan up and beyond it. If she's drowning in her secrets at this point, it's got to be her own responsibility. Finding a way to breathe.

Miu leans forward a bit, bending her legs before wrapping her arms around her knees. It's a comfortable position, resting her chin on one arm - when compared to the uncomfortable topic they're touching upon. But she does want to talk about it. She's wanted to talk about it for so long, but all those negative emotions have been in the way. Now she's calm and collected, right? It's the right time. And Ayako-chan is the right person. Because Miu can't imagine anyone else, can't imagine telling Ren-san who would pity her something awful. Definitely... not Ren-san.

So, in response to Ayako-chan's observation, Miu just shrugs lightly. "No one knew, which was a good thing for my career," she says. The words, not her tone of voice, resigned. "It just meant something bad had to take place, too." Because - since no one knew and she couldn't tell anybody - she couldn't just leave the performances of The Soft Brushstrokes of a Dreamer without a heroine. In order to attend Tomomin's funeral that she wasn't even invited to in the first place. No, she couldn't just do something like that... not to the others, to Yaya-san... Although she'd really have liked to be able to do so to herself. For her own sake.

Miu-chan looks very small like this. Very vulnerable, which is... not a contrast, exactly, to her usual style but revealing, like two and two being put together in a thoroughly logical fashion. With Rie-chan, Ayako could have put an arm around her; pulled her close, patted her hair. But now, all she can do is watch as Miu-chan seemingly crawls in on herself, her own fingers folded together so tightly her wrists are feeling wrought up and heated. If she were to tell someone... anyone...

"Something bad?"

Her voice sounds distant to her own ears. The question is almost neutral, like she's asking Miu-chan to elaborate on something less dramatic, like the weather or her weekend plans. There's no other way to respond right now with so many pieces missing. Still.

Something bad. Something really bad. Something Miu hasn't been able to leave behind along with all the rest, because Tomomin's grave is far enough away in Sapporo as is. It isn't guilt she's carrying with her, not something so bothersome, but it's definitely something heavy like a shadow. Even if a shadow is supposed to weigh nothing at all. Frowning lightly, not an expression that would otherwise mar her features, Miu knows that she should say B. Now that she's said A. It's just that somehow this seems so much worse than being a lesbian. Because it's her... failing to be a girlfriend.

"After Tomomin's death, I didn't attend her funeral. We were at the beginning of a run! And I wasn't invited either!" A brief pause for breath. "So it's not as horrible as it sounds. It's really not, Ayako-chan."

The words seem to almost rush out of Miu-chan, like she's been holding them back for so long that there's no other way for them to be expressed. Only this - something close to a ramble. Ayako can't sympathise, not exactly, though in this case she would love to do so. She's not a terrible person and this is harsh; harsh not to be invited and harsher still, to stand back and stay away. But all she can think is - stupid, selfish Kotori Miu. To have something valuable like that, something precious and to treat it so carelessly. Her voice turns hard now, hard like the streets that her mind hasn't quite forgotten.

"What, all the trains suddenly stopped working that day? Or something? Why wouldn't you go?"

She doesn't even care that she's being merciless. With Miu-chan, there is no other way for her to act, especially not when she knows the other girl refuses to fight back with anything but sugar. It's too natural, to get angry and mean and horrible; to fight that shell of hers, that thing she keeps presenting to the world like it's a good thing. Ayako knows it isn't. It just means that Miu-chan is tiny like the rest of them.

Of course Ayako-chan is harsh on her. She should have expected it. She did expect! These are the words she has wanted to hear all along; those questions. Because she holds the answers, right? She knows exactly what to say in response, because she did the right thing. Straightening up again, Miu moves her bag down on the floor. Slowly, but restlessly. Returns to an upright position, her head held high. She honoured Tomomin's family. She honoured her troupe mates and the Takarazuka management. She honoured everyone, everyone but Tomomin... Which is what Ayako-chan is telling her. Why didn't you? Why, oh why, didn't you go?

Miu has all the answers, yes, but the one she presents is meek, although her voice isn't. It's neutral, but strong still. "I had to fulfill my obligations to Takarazuka and also show respect for Tomomin's family. Tomomin would have understood." Then, an afterthought. "Mmn, I'm sure she would."

Obligations. That word. She uses that word, does Miu-chan, with such a casual attitude, like she's the only person in the world who's ever had to justify failure. She sounds too neutral, too unaffected; like explaining it away and making it sound pretty is enough to make it bearable. Feeling truly angry now, she rises from her seat quickly, movements jerky with emotion. She doesn't care about Kotori Miu's unacceptable love life. She doesn't care that her lover died. But this crazy compensation she's aiming for, this fake mask she keeps wearing, fooling everyone, making herself look better...

"What a stupid thing to say, Miu-chan." She stands with her back to the other girl, voice calm but her words slower than usual. It's a thing that happens when she's angry; her mind slows down, walks more carefully. She glances at herself in the full-body mirrors on the wall. Her hair has slipped out in strands, black tracking down her cheeks. Wow. Miu-chan really is insufferable. "Who would have cared? If they didn't even know! You would have been a stranger in the crowd, that's it."

"But it's about respect! About showing the right attitude!" The words rush out of her in one cohesive stream, like one word couldn't live without the other which is true, in some ways. With those words she has just spoken. Because she was trying to show respect for everybody involved, not to just live by her own wishes and desires. Maybe Ayako-chan is right, that she could have called in sick for a few days, gone to Hokkaido and no one would know her there, but it wouldn't be in accordance with how they'd lived their life together, Tomomin and her. She can't... know whether Tomomin would have liked it. No, rather play it safe, be respectful of what she knows for sure already and go from there. Definitely.

So as Ayako-chan stands up and turns her back on her, Miu gets to her feet as well - clutching her bag between both hands. For some reason, one thought remains a strong presence in her mind and she can't just dismiss it. Not with Ayako-chan looking and talking like that.

"I understand if Ayako-chan thinks I'm a coward, though."

A coward? Ayako takes a moment to let the silence around them spread enough to leave the word hollow, her own anger turning into a lesser sort of frustration; it's another faulty conclusion and she won't bother breathing any life into it. As she turns towards Miu-chan slowly, her hands still balled into fists, she looks the other girl over. Miu-chan really is very persistent. Truly that's an aspect of Kotori Miu that seems oddly genuine, amidst all those creepy, fake-looking smiles of hers. You don't have to be all that smart to realise that she's driven. No, it's just that... Sometimes, you have to hate how she seems to be driving around in circles.

"I don't think that." She takes a small step closer, trying to relax her stance and failing. She's not afraid of this - of talking to Miu-chan and telling her that she's wrong. Again. But there's something about it that feels out of place anyway. Yes. Because normally, putting other girls down doesn't hurt. "I just think you're missing out. And if she liked you, she wouldn't have wanted that. Respect or not."

Miu can honestly say she both knows and refutes the notion that she's missing out. Simultaneously. She knows, of course, that there are plenty of things she won't get to experience as long as she approaches her surroundings this way, but at the same time - are any of those things really so important? When they can so easily disappear again, between your hands like water or sand. She had everything back then, too, and she lost it in a heartbeat. It's true that she has just as much now, things and important people, but losing all of that... It might be cold to say, but it's the truth! It wouldn't be unbearable in the same manner, to lose it. Because she hasn't attached herself. That's her reason.

Stepping forward as well - closer, closer - Miu looks at Ayako-chan intently. She doesn't mind begging, but it isn't necessary at this point when everything has already been said in clearer terms. A smile forming on her lips again, a genuine one, she says: "But like this, I can't lose. Everyone strives for that in their own way, right? Winning."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

hurt / comfort

Ayako Ito | OC

21 |

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