Swiftly

Sometimes the voices would get so bad, she'd just stay in bed.

Sometimes the voices got so bad, she would just stay in bed. 

Minnie would come over with the work she missed that day. She'd set them on the table beside the bed, and then sit herself in the desk chair on the other side of the room until Kaeja would wake up. 

Not necessarily out of the kindness of her heart, but more out of expectation than anything.

It would take a couple minutes to several hours, but Kaeja would stir under the covers, stretching her arms above her head, then sit up, rubbing her eyes in the way a small child would. Their eyes would meet for a few seconds. Kaeja would then reach over to skim through the assignments and notes that she'd have to make up before she returned to school if she didn't want to fall behind. 

"When are you planning to come back?" 

Kaeja turned over the back of a Chemistry worksheet, barely absorbing the information. 

"There's a lab with that you're going to have to make up," Minnie told her.

"Oh." 

"And we have another lab tomorrow," she continued to speak. "So you're going to be two labs behind. "

Her friend in bed nodded, and moved on to another sheet of paper. 

"So when are you planning to come back?" Minnie repeated the question, in some sort of attempt to get a response from her again. 

She had to come back to school. It was pointless to have her lying in bed all day, wallowing in her own self misery.

Kaeja had the annoying habit of not responding at all when everything was on her mind. 

"What were the voices saying this time?"

The thin, pale fingers wrapped around the stack of papers tightened. Wide eyes stared at the papers through a long silence, and then the fingers decided to set the papers back on the table beside Kaeja's bed. Words formed out of Kaeja's mouth, but they were at such a low octave that not even the best ears--and Minnie had pretty good ears herself--could make out what she said. 

"Sorry?" She felt the tone of annoyance in her words, but at that moment they weren't important to her. What was important to her was carrying on a comprehensible conversation with Kaeja with what would be the first time in a week. 

Kaeja raised her voice, but it sounded hoarse when she spoke. Her left hand went up by her ear, tucking a bit of pale, badly dyed orange hair behind it. "They're just talking." 

"Talking means they're saying something," she countered. 

"I know." 

"Then what are they saying?" 

Another thing Kaeja had the habit of was for the dramatic. It couldn't be certain that she meant it, or even realized she was doing it, and the voices were probably a large enough contributing factor, but it was something that annoyed Minnie the most about her friend (and, reluctantly, the person she was assigned to protect). So it was no surprise when Kaeja placed both hands over her ears and drew her knees up to her chest, staring straight ahead of her. 

This was a cue in the scene that had been played out numerous times before, and Minnie rose from her chair several paces away and sat herself down at the edge of the bed, reaching out in an attempt to take Kaeja's hand. 

The girl's eyes squeezed shut at this action while shaking her head forcefully. 

"Okay," Minnie retracted her hand. "Fine. But I'm going to stay here until you tell me what the voices are saying." 

The mix of fake voices and real ones, a complicated concoction that Minnie had to decipher. 

Kaeja nodded her head, and the two became quiet again. 

"You know, at school today, that guy that sits behind us in English asked me where you were," Minnie began. It was a lie, and probably not a very good one, but Kaeja's spirits always seemed to be uplifted when there was someone showing concern for her. Especially someone she barely even knew. 

A lifetime of loneliness would do that to any person. 

"And I said you were sick, and he said he hoped you'd get better soon, and I think you should talk to him when you come back. You've liked him for awhile, right?" 

It was a safe bet that Kaeja wouldn't attempt to talk to him. It was a safe bet to make those lies to try and force her back to school. 

"But…" Kaeja trailed off the sentence she began, opening her eyes again, watery. "Minnie, when the voices in my own head don't like--?"

"Bullshit," she cut across. "Complete and utter bullshit, Kaeja, and don't let yourself think otherwise." 

This time, Kaeja let out one of her pitiful sobs. The kind that would make most people wince and rush to comfort, but Minnie just remained where she was, staring at her cry for only a few seconds. The tears were wiped and the hands went up over Kaeja's ears again, and the eyes focused on Minnie's. 

"They say no one will ever love me," Kaeja told her. 

"Well," Minnie began, then reconsidered was she was going to say. "Your parents love you. I love you." 

"That's as a friend." A surprising sense of finality and flatness to Kaeja's words were accompanied with that statement. "It's just as a friend." 

"Are you saying you want more from me?" the edges of Minnie's mouth turned upwards and her eyebrows rose. 

It was not a safe bet to say that.

"No, but--"

There's times when a person's brain isn't completely connected to the body, and sometimes the body acts on it's own accord. This had to have been one of those moments, a moment where Minnie found her lips slammed against Kaeja's chapped, thin ones and her hands reaching forward to grab her wrists. She kept her eyes open trying to gage the orange haired girl's response, but Kaeja remained still with eyes slammed shut.

With no reaction, it could have only been taken as a sign that it was okay. 

She hadn't been necessarily wanting this for a long time. There was some sort of relief involved, though, with kissing Kaeja. She tried to increase the intensity of the kiss, moving her hands away from Kaeja's wrists to somewhere more logical, like to support her friend's neck and to graze against the side of her face. Her tongue pressed up between Kaeja's lips, forcing an opening in which she slipped in her tongue against Kaeja's-- 

A whimper brought Minnie back to reality. 

It made her realize what she was doing, but she continued anyways. She tried to move her body to be closer, to share her warmth.

This time, Kaeja's hands reacted with a shove to Minnie's shoulders.

It made her pull away, to let go of Kaeja, and to stare at the girl who was staring back at her in confusion. 

Kaeja's shoulders shook. 

Minnie's chest was tightening. 

And she fled, in the swift, silent way only a fox could.

Author's Note

Kaeja is pronounced 'Kaya'.

Part of a larger project that ties various characters together.