Some post-war EreHisu, “a boundless sky and a new horizon”
This one is kinda a bit more in my style than all the previous ones, dunno if it turned out as well as I wanted, but, meh, guess I really should stop drawing on a small sheets of paper, cuz I’m always end up getting carried away XD
She’s floating. She’s actually floating. Krista keeps the phone between her ear and her shoulder and she listens to the voice of the woman on the other end, humming to show she’s listening. She is, mostly, but part of her is too lit up with happiness to take in a single word.
She can hear Pepperjack meowing on the other side of her apartment door, knowing her steps as always. She scrapes her shoes off on the doormat, a fresh new one for the season with a rainbow and HELLO SUNSHINE in bright big letters.
“Did he really?” She giggles, and blushes at herself for giggling. Her neighbors - the apartment next to hers - don’t seem to be home. Their lights aren’t on, anyway, and she can’t smell the usual blend of patchouli incense and grassy smoke making its way out through the less-than-perfectly sealed walls.
She listens to Meg tell the story, butterflies flipping in her stomach. Meg’s a coworker and she’s pretty sure not only interested in guys, but Krista hasn’t pulled up the courage yet to admit to her absolutely overwhelming crush.
Meg is almost six feet tall and could carry Krista around if she wanted to and does roller derby and Krista might actually faint dead away if Meg flirts with her any harder at work than she does already.
She digs her keys out of her pocket, jangling as she searches for the right one. The grooved metal fits seamlessly into a lock-
Leather smell suddenly floods her nose as a hand is clapped over her mouth, and she’s yanked back with a cry.
Her back thuds into someone’s flat chest as a voice growls low in her ear, “Hang up the fucking phone.”
Krista’s heart stops, and then starts again, racing as dread pools frozen in her stomach and knees. No, no, it’s been more than ten years, it can’t be happening now, it can’t-
She hears Meg, soft and muffled, asking her if she’s okay.
The owner of the voice behind her exhales in annoyance and shoves her. Krista smacks hard into her own front door, dazed, and he grabs the phone from her suddenly limp fingers. “Fuck it, I’ll do it. You’re not fucking bright, are you?”
“N-not-… fucking bright…” Krista echoes. Her fingers fumble with the key and push open the door, trying to get inside and lock it behind her.
She makes it in, Pepperjack winding around her legs, and she trips on him. “Pepper, baby, n-no-”
She spins, trying to slam the door.
When she goes to close it, though, he’s already there. Not tall and not short, he’s got a mask on the lower half of his face and a knit beanie pulled down. Bits of light-colored hair tinged blue by the streetlight down in the parking lot stick out from underneath.
Pepperjack yowls and runs to jump up on the couch, hissing at the man as he stalks inside, slamming the door shut behind him.
The room is dark.
“Pl, please-”
“Shut up.” He kicks her as she tries to get away, knocking her back down. When she crawls, he grabs her by her ponytail and yanks hard enough that she cries out as she feels some hair pulled right from her scalp. Her hands scrabble at him, but his gloves are thick and her fingernails can’t scratch. “I said shut the fuck up!”
“Shit the fuck up, shut the fuck up, shut the fuck up-” Krista’s mouth keeps moving, echoing him as her voice gets breathier. Her ribs ache where he kicked her. Her phone rings, Meg calling back maybe, but he declines the call, kicks her again, listens to her whimper.
He’s smiling under that mask at the sound.
She can tell.
“Jesus.” The guy stares down at her, then looks at her phone. “You keep any guns in this place?”
Krista swallows. Her owner, long ago, had guns all over the house. He used to make Krista put the barrel in her mouth while he counted to ten.
He never pulled the trigger, but-
Hecould have, and they both knew it, and he liked how she looked when she knew he might kill her.
“No,” She breathes. “I don’t have any money, I don’t have anything, I swear-”
Pepperjack is still meowing in the background, and when the guy turns to look at him Krista thinks wildly please don’t hurt my Pepper he’s already old please don’t-
“Don’t worry, kitty,” The guy says, oddly soothing, to the angry, worried animal. His voice changes entirely from threatening to soft. “She’s gonna do one thing for me and then I’m out, all right? Just one thing.”
“One, one thing?” Krista moves to stand, and he doesn’t stop her. She’s not a threat, he knows she isn’t. Maybe it’s a good thing but it burns in her that he doesn’t even think she could defend herself enough to worry about. “Just one thing?”
“Just one. Go sit down at the table.”
She must hesitate too long. He backhands her so hard she goes flying to the side, head smacking into the television, knocking it off its precarious stand. It tips forward onto her foot and she cries out, falling backwards.
Her face hurts and her head hurts and her ribs hurt and her foot is probably broken and the TV sparked and that’s not good-
“Fuck. Sorry about that.”
She looks up at him, eyebrows furrowed. Incredulous anger overtakes fear, just for a second. “Sorry about that?”
“Yeah. Didn’t think you’d just turn into a soccer ball.”
He grabs her by the arm and drags her back to her feet. The right one, the foot the television landed on, spikes sudden agony and she whimpers as he yanks her across the room, limping as much as she can.
He drops her into one of her own kitchen chairs and she stares at the little centerpiece there. “Am, am I going to d-die?” She asks, voice trembling, her hands gripped to the sides of the hard wooden kitchen seat. “Are you going to kill me?”
Am I going to die staring at a little paper flower bouquet and ceramic figures of dogs playing fetch?
“Wasn’t my plan, no. Just need you to make a phone call. I’ll tell you what to say.”
“… Tell me what to say,” Krista echoes. Her heart is beating so hard she’s worried it might break itself apart against her breastbone.
He drops her phone, then - on the other side of the table, too far for her to easily reach. He stands behind her, and she hitches in weak gasps as his hands pull out her ponytail holder and run through her hair.
“You’d look good as a romantic lead,” He murmurs, thoughtfully. Then he takes out his own phone, pulls some kind of program up - it’s not a phone call, not exactly. It’s video, and he leans over, pressing the side of his face against her temple.
She wants to throw up.
He tells her what to say.
The phone rings and rings. Her breath stutters and the world spins in her terror as his leather-tipped fingers play with the hair along the nape of her neck, graze along the line of her jaw.
Someone picks up.
She realizes who the guy is calling as soon as she hears the cheerful deep voice say, “Hey, Krista, what’s up?”
His face appears when the video portion connects. Wild black curls and wide blue eyes that narrow and then wide again as he sees her sitting in the dark lit only by the light of her phone - and then sees that she’s not alone.
“Krista?”
Her lips are trembling, and she can’t speak - not until he presses the palm of his hand against her neck, closes fingers and thumb, starts to squeeze.
“Kauri,” She says, tears running down her cheeks. The man’s face is so close. His cologne is making her sick. “It’s time to come home, b-baby ”
Kauri stills. Even in the slightly fuzzy video, she can see him freeze. “What?”
The man’s hand leaves her neck, and he tips his head to pull his mask down, yanks off the beanie. His hair mingles with Krista’s. He needs a shave.
“Come on, Kor-Bore, even you can’t be that stupid.”
Krista watches Kauri shatter right in front of her, a tiny face on a small screen. “Owen.”
“Owen,” Krista echoes.
“That’s right, baby,” Owen says. He twines a finger around a lock of Krista’s hair. She shudders, her knuckles white where she holds herself still. “Look who I ran into.”
Kauri is silent, eyes searching Krista’s, then he snorts with feigned disinterest. “Owen, you don’t even like women. Don’t act like you’ll do that shit to her, we both know you won’t. This isn’t ab-… about her. It’s about us, it always was. Just tell me what you fuh-fucking want.”
He sounds so brave. Krista loves Kauri for his bravery, when he needs to be brave, as she has loved him for every other part of him, too, even when it hurt.
Owen shoves her off the chair, and she hits the ground with a thump as Owen sits down where she was. Krista crawls and then throws herself to the couch, grabbing Pepperjack and holding him so tightly he yells in protest.
“I want you,” Owen says, as simple as that. “And I want you to know that I can get to anyone you care about, whenever I want, until you come back to me. I can be everywhere at once. I’m being nice right now, but I can start hurting them if I have to.”
“Owen-… Please, Krista didn’t do anything to you-”
“I know. And she’s just fine. But she doesn’t have to be. I don’t give a fuck about broken fucking pets, baby, you know that. You want to keep her safe? You have my number. And you and I both know if you go to the cops they’ll give you right back to me.”
“But-… Everyone knows, now-”
“You’re still my fucking property, Kor-Bore. I’ve got friends that are cops these days. And I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“Owen-!”
“Comehome, Kauri. And it’s Mr. Owen, remember? Call me when you decide to come home where you belong.”
Owen hangs up the call and walks right out Krista’s front door, leaving her on the couch, Pepperjack’s claws digging into her arm through her shirt.
“Sorry about your TV,” He throws over his shoulder, and then he’s gone.
When her neighbors get home five minutes later, they find Krista’s front door wide open and their usually shy, cheerful neighbor crying on the couch, whispering to herself, “Kauri come home, Kauri come home,” again and again.
