Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction ❯ In the Dark Room ❯ Third Exposure ( Chapter 12 )

Disclaimer: Neon Genesis Evangelion is a Studio Gainax production, its characters created by Hideaki Anno. They say the word, and this story ceases to exist.

 

 

In the Dark Room: Third Exposure

 

By Midnight_Cereal

 

Last Friday.

 

“Check.”

 

“Check.”

 

Jab step. Pump fake. Dribble drive right. Spin. Leaning floater in the lane…

 

Swish.

 

“Check up.”

 

“Check.”

 

Jab step. Fake left, dribble drive right. Spin. Drive to the lane. Step back. Eighteen foot jumper…

 

Swish.

 

“Check.”

 

“Check up.”

 

Step back. Twenty-seven foot jumper.

 

Swish.

 

“Who the hell are you, Larry Bird's illegitimate daughter? Check!”

 

“Check.”

 

Pump fake. Dribble drive to the left corner, stop. Hesitation left, crossover, drive right. Spin. Fade-away pump fake. Lean-in reverse up and under no-look finger-roll with the left hand what the-

 

“-fuck? How…check-”

 

“No man, it's over-”

 

“No Jin, it's not…the games not over.”

 

“Taro, she's beating you ten to nothing. She's gonna skunk you-”

 

“The game's to thirteen, she only has ten-”

 

“She only has as many as she needs. Quit, dude. It's not embarrassing. Yet.”

 

“The game's not over!”

 

“Dude, quite while you're ahead-”

 

“Quit while I'm ahead?”

 

“-before it's too late. She does this to everybody. She's being easy on you. She's being nice. Trust me, man.”

 

“I…Jin…it's only ten.”

 

“Taro, do you fucking hear yourself? I am telling you -as a friend- let go of your damn pride, `cause it's gonna get you injured…”

 

“Tsch, man, I …alright…game.”

 

“Good call. You hang out here long enough and she's gonna do something that'll make you glad you quit.”

 

“I'm taking your word for it.”

 

“I'm only saying because I care. Your ankles will thank you…*snicker*…she made you fall…”

 

“Man, shut up…she pretty much owns that side of the court. You shootin' around on the other end?”

 

“Can't get tired. Game tonight.”

 

“Oh yeah. Against?”

 

“New Hakone.”

 

“You'll handle them easy, Jin.”

 

“Maybe. I don't know. All I know is I'm just glad they don't have her. Or we would be so incredibly fucked.”

 

“So you're gone?”

 

“Yeah.” And on that note, Jin Takashi, the six-foot black-haired point guard for Municipal Academy's varsity basketball team, rose from his outdoor courtside seat and dusted himself off. He looked back down to his sweating, defeated best friend. “Taro, catch ya later.”

 

“I'll be at the game,” said Taro as he put a hand up to wave Jin off. “Good luck.”

 

Jin's sneakers scuffed the gravel surrounding the court as he distanced himself from it, turning his thoughts from the force of nature that had just utterly ravaged Taro, who was right about New Hakone (their hated rival).

 

Municipal had fourteen wins against only one loss, a buzzer-beating defeat at Tokyo-3 High (their other hated rival), a team that owned 12-3 New Hakone by twenty and sixteen points the two times they had played. All they had to do was run their offense and execute the fast break. N-H didn't have the horses to win a track meet, and no one in Kanagawa Prefecture was faster than Jin with a basketball. They'd wear down faster than a-

 

“Hey!”

 

…down faster than a…um…

 

“Hey! Jin!”

 

Um…faster than a…a…could her shorts get any smaller?

 

Jin was pretty sure his eyes were back in his sockets by the time Mariko slowed and came to a halt a step from him. “Jin, you forgot this,” she breathlessly exhaled, holding out the young man's satchel, readjusting her own over her shoulder.

 

“I thought I felt happier than I usually do at this time of day.” Jin grabbed his bag and swung it onto his back with practiced ease. “Thanks for bringing me my burden.” He started walking again.

 

She smiled sardonically as she fell into step. “You're welcome…why are you digging in your bag?”

 

“Towel,” he said simply. He found purchase on the soft cloth, pulling it out and placing it on the young woman's damp hair.

 

“Thank you, Jin,” she said sweetly. “It's not that hot today, so I was just planning on cooling off on the way back home, you know?”

 

He pointed at her exposed thighs. “Well, how the hell could you not?” he exclaimed, “Look at all that surface area. You're hardly wearing anything!”

 

She blinked at him before looking down at her largely bare legs. “You don't like my John Stockton's?” She picked at the elastic band around the waste of her Gonzaga replicas. “These are my assist man shorts. Something about them makes me want to share the ball, or just help people. Isn't that retarded?”

 

“John Stockton's, huh? Whose shorts do you wear when you want to score?”

 

Her expression changed, and suddenly his rangy, sweaty, athletic platonic contemporary turned into a woman. “I'm not wearing any shorts when I want to score,” she huskily breathed, pursing her lips dangerously while pulling up the short sleeve of her shirt.

 

Jin swallowed, and with considerable effort turned away from the smiling, wet girl walking next to him. “Um…I really shouldn't be talking dirty to you while you're wearing those glorified panties. I swear, Yukie can smell when I've been near another girl, and she'd just kill me.”

 

“Jin, I'm just messing with you. I hardly get to flirt at home because Shinji is owned. Besides, Yukie's kinda loud, but she's the understanding type, you know?” She shrugged and Jin saw from his periphery Mariko staring at his temple. “You won't have to worry about Yukie killing you.”

 

“Do you really wear a different pair of shorts depending on your mood?”

 

“Except when I want to score-”

 

“Okay, Mariko, okay. I get it. You're nasty…what?”

 

She titled her head, raising an eyebrow in an almost sour expression. “I'm…just trying to find a way to take that as a compliment.”

 

“Not nearly as nasty as what you did to Taro. How's that?”

 

She nodded. “Much better. And Taro's pretty good.”

 

“Taro's awesome,” Jin corrected her. “And you just…just worked him! I remember you telling me about some Tennessee coach being your foster mom, but I'm tellin' you, I didn't know it was like that.”

 

“She wasn't. A mom.”

 

“What?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

“Oh. So, how'd you get so damned good, really?”

 

“The same way everyone else that's good at anything got good. I didn't have a lot of constants with all that moving around. But all I ever needed was a ball. Just shot and dribbled until I was picture perfect.”

 

He smirked as a sound ahead drew his attention. Maybe two-hundred meters away, a tram slid away from the adjacent elevated platform, its Plexiglas panes glinting in the late afternoon sunlight. “What'd they call you?”

 

She shook her head as she considered his question. “I'm not getting you…”

 

Sighing, he elaborated. “C'mon, Mariko. As good as you are? When you play basketball, what is your nickname? And don't tell me you never had one.”

 

She began hesitantly. “Well…” Jin swore the blush was from embarrassment and not her recent exhaustion. “…back when I was living in Knoxville, I ran with the college kids at the HPER. They-” She broke out in nervous laughter. “They used to call me `Seppuku', `cause going up against me was ritual suicide.” She stuck her tongue out in a silly gesture.

 

“Don't sound so embarrassed,” Jin suggested with genuine kindness. “You earned that nickname, though I always thought `Flower of Carnage' suited you better.”

 

“Why?” she cackled, “I remind you of Meiko Kaji?”

 

“No. Of my mom.”

 

She cackled again, grinning as something touched her face, just for a second creasing her brow, then vanishing. “You shouldn't saaaaaay things like thaaaaaat…”

 

“And why the hell not?” asked Jin, suppressing the urge to be offended by her answer. “It's my dead mother we're talking about. That doesn't imply nice things?”

 

“Why…why do you say that I …” Mariko quietly ventured, looking at her feet as she strolled.

 

“I'm trying to compliment you…and you just do. It just makes sense to me, looking at you; mom was a tomboy. She'd get up real early, but not to cook or anything, but she'd run, like ten kilometers. And fast. And when summer came around and I didn't have school, I'd go with her. My dad played some basketball too, so everyone thinks he taught me.”

 

She did not return the glance he flashed her, opting instead to breath and blink and stare half-lidded at the concrete below her. Regardless of, or perhaps compelled by her silence, he continued.

 

“Dad was always away because he works for Mishima Heavy -he's gone now, actually- but mom was always there. Always. Some years back the Lakers played the Suns in Kobe, she took me to the game, down to the floor after it was over. God I love that woman…she made me a fan that day, got me Amare Stoudamire's autograph. I don't think I even want to know how she got me Steve Nash's jersey. I've been playing and collecting shit ever since, and dad's the same way. I think I'm part pack-rat.”

 

Something flashed when he again turned to look at Mariko. When the spots in his eyes dissolved, he stared ruefully at her. “You could've given me fair warning.”

 

“Okay,” she said, replacing her camera in her bag. “About five seconds ago I'm going to take your picture. Fair enough?” She laughed when his scowl deepened. “Jin, you were smiling. We've probably played thirty hours of basketball together, and that's the first real smile I've seen. Look, if it bothers you that much, don't sweat it. I'll take another of you soon, anyway.”

 

Municipal's star point guard couldn't maintain his false displeasure any longer, and broke out into a wide grin. “You're runnin' outta time. We're at the station, and you go in the opposite direction from here.”

 

She bit her lip. “Well…I don't have to. You got some other basketball stuff?”

 

As they approached the entrance to the station, another tram rumbled into the terminal above them. He mulled. “Have you ever seen KJ Matsui's mixtape?”

 

Her eyes became saucers as she gasped. “KJ Matsui? KJ `The Rising Son' Matsui, playing street ball?” She grabbed his shoulder and squeezed. “I have to see this. Now.”

 

She pulled him to the turn-styles, and when Jin produced his fare card he said, “Dad hated it when mom watched that video. He swore she had the hots for-”

 

----------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------

 

“Wow, Jin. Is your dad trying to buy your love, or what? Look at this place…” Mariko trailed off as she looked back at the path leading from the street entrance to the front door. Her whistle echoed in the expansive green front yard.

 

Jin fumbled with the key as he considered her reaction to his large, large home. Like he could help it if his dad was successful. “I go easy on the guy. All he's trying to do is what mom asked of him before she passed. All in her name and all for me. Sure, he's not here often, but I'm not that dumb a son to think he doesn't care or anything.” With a quick jiggle and a metallic click, his front door opened. “Pop's doing the best he can the only way he knows…”

 

He walked through the threshold with Mariko following closely behind, looking genuinely apologetic as she pulled off her first shoe. “I'm sorry, Jin…that's really not like me. I usually think before I ever say anything-”

 

He waved off her ensuing words as he started towards the kitchen. “Don't be sorry, it's not that big a deal. That's everyone's reaction when they first come here. Can't get mad at human nature, can you?”

 

“You can…but you don't. I'm starting to see why Yukie loves you. You're forgiving. Like Shinji is.”

 

That's the second time she's mentioned him. “You seem to like a lot about Shinji. You like his forgiveness; you want to flirt with him…”

 

“It's not like that,” Mariko countered as Jin crossed the kitchen to the refrigerator. She ran her eyes over the polished marble kitchen island. “I'm not saying it's not a nice thought. I mean, you know what they say about a guy with a big heart.” Her voice was colored with something…not for children.

 

“Please stop talking,” he said simply. “I'm looking through here. Want anything to drink?”

 

“What do you have?”

 

“Some Itoen, orange juice…” Jin grinned as a thought came to him. “Some purple stuff…hey, alright, Sunny-D!” He turned to gauge her reaction, which was nothing more than a blank stare anticipating the arrival of liquid refreshment.

 

“What?” she asked after a vacant moment.

 

He sighed and pulled the O.J. from the appliance. “Nothing.” The young man closed the refrigerator door and ran a hand though his short, black hair. “You are an American, aren't you?”

 

“Yeah,” she confirmed. “Why?”

 

“Never mind.” He placed the container on the island counter. “Help yourself. I'm gonna go find that video. Look around if ya want.”

 

“Hope I don't get lost,” Mariko said as she glanced into an adjacent hallway. “Everything looks so expensive, I'm afraid to touch anything.”

 

“No, on the contrary, touch as much shit as you like,” Jin admitted with easy sincerity. “Really. Dad's such a clean freak. I love it when he comes back and all his collections are all fucked up. I think he likes it, too. It gives him an excuse to go clean.”

 

With that he made his way back to the foyer and bounded up the stairs two at a time. It didn't take him long to find the video. He had no right at all to riff on his father about his organization fetish. There were three sections in his room, and though he would never admit it to any of the guys, they were devoted to the loves of his life.

 

The first section belonged to Yukie, smaller than the other two, but growing by the day. Had it really only been a little more than a year since he had torched New Hakone for thirty-eight points, and when the game was over turned to the girl in the stands who had loudly insinuated why was he was so good at handling large balls? He screamed at her. She screamed back. Then she smiled, the same way she was in the simple picture frame on his desk. That had been a very good day.

 

His second love was basketball, and if Mariko was as big a hoops junkie as she seemed to be, she would walk into his room and just convulse; there were blow-ups of big pasty-looking dudes getting posterized by ridiculously overpowered superstars adorning his walls, rally towels, an autographed Rawlings from teams Lithuania and Argentina, a Lebron James headband…

 

…Steve Nash's Jersey.

 

Mom's section was the largest. It was among her worn-to-the-soul Asics GT 2100's, her right-handed and left-handed baseball gloves and Mizuno ash bat, her medical gown, her crutches, her cane, her quilt, her video will, and her final medical bracelet, that he found the DVD he was looking for. He grabbed it, and the hallway darkened as he turned and left the room, closing the door on the ordered sunlit space and a memory he did not feel like reliving at the moment.

 

“JIN! YOU HAVE ANY NAPKINS?” Mariko yelled up to him.

 

“UH…YEAH! THEY'RE IN-”

 

“NEVER MIND. I FOUND THEM! THANKS!”

 

What did she do? Mariko didn't strike him as the clumsy type.

 

That's what I get for telling her she can touch everything.

 

He waltzed into the kitchen, video case dangling loosely in his fingertips. Besides him, the room's only occupants were a lonely empty plastic cup and a container of orange juice, untouched.

 

“Mariko?” he called, suddenly remembering the direction the green-eyed teen had looked when they talked last. His feet padded soundlessly on the carpeted hallway floor, coming to the end of it and looking across their family's empty den. He mentally shrugged; she probably found the bathroom, and they were going to watch it in here anyw-

 

“Clean and elegant. Without waste.”

 

He spun, barely containing his start at the girl's sudden appearance. “You say the weirdest things, you know that” He looked down and past her. “Watcha go there?”

 

She showed him.

 

Something silver traced a glinting arc through the air that terminated behind Jin's neck. In its stead was a battle-axe, its heavy blade slick with ichor, buried in the wall and framed with crimson splashes.

 

A moment passed.

 

Beads ran together on the undersurface of the annealed steel, collected in bulbous aggregates and trickled down its sloping edge as if the task had caused the blade to perspire. They plummeted and lost definition as their descent brought them closer to the spreading pool below them.

 

The grip through the napkin slackened on the hilt and then entirely dissolved. Her hands fell away. Her arms swung loosely from the shoulders until their momentum ceased. Involuntary blinking was the only indication she was more alive than what she was staring down at now, a cooling quivering heap.

 

Abruptly, she pivoted and followed her measured footfalls back to the kitchen. She stopped at a wooden stool and fished through the satchel sitting on it, producing a black camera she clutched with steady fingers. She adjusted and then hardened her grip. The pink flesh on her thumb deformed from being pulled over the brightening plasma screen. Damp funhouse mirror fingerprints were visible for a bare moment, and when they vanished from her pixilated display she was at the axe again.

 

She raised the camera, aimed at the floor, and looked though the portal. She flicked a thumb and the image became incrementally smaller as she pulled the walls in to frame the portrait. She flicked it again. Again, wider. Wider. She looked up. The joint in her ankle creaked as she stepped back, pulling her other foot back to join its sister, away from the crimson spread that expanded in radius with a saturating, glacial creep. Once more she raised the camera, and this time, both the head and body were visible…

 

Click.

 

She lowered the camera.

 

Mariko Buick began to shake. One unseen force moved her lips to speak words no one could hear, another buckled her legs. She sank like a crippled freighter, and when her knees touched the floor she trapped her head with her hands. Mariko knelt and drew ragged breaths, her eyes tracking upward from her lap to the rim of gore, to the twitching husk, and finally to the head behind it blinking…

 

Her green, dampening eyes shot wide as she lurched forward, and one hand came from her damp black hair to clasp her mouth. Swallowing, she wearily stood, the words she spoke gaining volume with each rubbery step.

 

“You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't say things like that. You shouldn't-”

 

----------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------

 

Monday.

 

Asuka tried not to think as she rummaged through a small box in her closet. She had put it in here somewhere, beneath musty textbooks and shrouded by her shadow and an old FC Bayern München sweatshirt.

 

She had almost forgotten about it, did forget about it. She had wanted to forget. Now, the memory of that thing -a `gift' from her grandmother- what it represented, shot upwards from the depths of her past, buoyed by necessity. She needed this, and as much pain she knew finding that thing would cause her, she deserved it. Because she liked Mariko. Because she waited too long.

 

Because it was her fault as much as it was Mariko's that Yukie had that look on her face…NO, NO, STOP THINKING ABOUT IT. JUST KEEP LOOKING. Just-

 

no one deserves to ever have that-

 

look.

 

Coward.

 

She found it.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------

 

“So you got everything?”

 

“Yeah, Maya.”

 

“Okay…you have your SDAT?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Okay…I think I saw one of your shirts in the bathroom. Was that your shirt?”

 

“Yeah. I got it. I zipped it up with everything else. I have everything, Maya.”

 

“Is that textbook on the counter yours or mine?”

 

“I don't even know what a `Crank-Nicholson Implicit' is. I'm pretty sure it's yours.”

 

“Okay. Make sure you have your cell phone. I don't know when I'll see you next.”

 

“I have my phone. I remembered everything, Maya.”

 

“I could give you a ride. It wouldn't be a problem.”

 

“I'm not in that big of a rush to get back. I don't want to put you out.”

 

“I just said it's no biggie. I'll get my keys-”

 

“No, it's okay. Really. I like taking the bus.”

 

“This…creep that killed your classmate's boyfriend is out there, somewhere. We just finished catching someone that wanted you dead.”

 

“I'll be fine, Maya. I'll call you when I get in.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Sure?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“…Okay.”

 

“Bye, Maya…thank you for this.”

 

“You're welcome. Make sure to take your SDAT, now.”

 

“You're starting to remind me of Asuka, you know that?”

 

“Who knows, maybe if I was younger I would've been…”

 

“Huh?”

 

“What bus are you catching?”

 

“T-17, eastbound. I made some waffles for you in case you got hungry. They're in the fridge, next to the cheesecake.”

 

“That's so sweet of you, Shinji.”

 

“Hey, what are bitches for?”

 

“I think right now's a good time for me to start wishing I had never told you that story. It just makes me sound…”

 

“Crazy?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Crazy's just fine. I love crazy…it's waiting at home for me. Right now.”

 

“Okay…”

 

Shinji disappeared on the other side of her front door with a wave. Maya stopped smiling back immediately, but a number of seconds passed before she unfroze her bare feet at the entrance. They noisily slapped the floor as she proceeded to the kitchen table and sat down heavily in the first chair she could grab. The points of her elbows protested as she propped them on the surface and held her head between her dry palms.

 

Maya tried not to be upset. Why should she be? Her home was the cleanest it had ever been. She had helped her charges, however tangentially, alleviate the strain between the two of them, uh, three of them. Her protégé had vindicated herself and Maya by uncovering the plot to murder the Third Child, and helping to identify all eleven Nerv officers that had conspired to do so. She had real food in the fridge for a change, all lovingly made by the first and last male Eva pilot, and now her whole place smelled like him…

 

Trapped between positive reflection and a familiar advancing depression, Maya escaped by rising from her seat with a soft groan and trudging toward her refrigerator.

 

Everything was okay…

 

----------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------

 

In the heart of Tokyo-3's Third Impact Memorial Cemetery, Yukie Utsumi looked up from the ground as if she sensed something. Upon turning her head left and squinting down an aisle of black markers that intersected adjacent rows at a vanishing point, she spotted something. The object changed perceptibly, barely, but it was clear it had noticed her, too. When it waved, Yukie walked towards it.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------

 

“Would…you think I'm sick if I said that I liked being here, that this place was beautiful?” Mariko asked with quiet hesitation.

 

Yukie shook her head. “No. It is beautiful. But that's not why I'm here, though.”

 

“Asuka told me. Sorry I wasn't in school today. I'm just…going through some things, you know? Not that I have a right to complain to you-”

 

“Don't pity me,” Yukie said with polite abruptness. “Our problems are important to each of us. So complain, Mariko. I don't mind if you don't mind me bitching.”

 

“I don't.”

 

“You're dealing. So am I...” Yukie's mask very nearly crumbled. “It's just…right now I can't really stand to be anywhere else. Because people are smiling and laughing everywhere else.”

 

Mariko adjusted the strap on her light bag, looking uncomfortable in her own body. “I understand you. I really do.”

 

“You know anyone here, Curly?”

 

“Look down.” Yukie did so. “I…kinda know her. Shinji and Asuka's former guardian, before Ms. Ibuki. That's what Shinji told me. Misato, Yukie. Yukie, Misato.”

 

Yukie mouthed the name. “Misato…hi, Misato. I wonder…how she died.”

 

“She was shot in the back.”

 

“What'd she look like?”

 

Mariko's hand found Yukie's shoulder and gently pulled the brunette into an identical crouch. “Touch her name on the marker,” the young American said. Yukie complied, her outstretched fingers scanning the chiseled inscription. Below her reaching palm a distinguishable shape seemed to rise to the surface of the cold black stone. The shape too was black, but less reflective, so that the resulting contrast produced…a face. It was framed by long shimmering locks of hair, on top of which sat a Nerv-issue beret.

 

“She's smiling,” Yukie said.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“She…she was beautiful,” Yukie said.

 

“I know. I said the same thing.”

 

“She was only thirty,” Yukie said.

 

“I said that, too.”

 

“Mariko, it's weird,” Yukie confided. “I'm here, talking about how sad it is a woman I didn't even know died at thirty.” She brushed at her lap as she knelt, a sickly smile scrawled onto her exhausted face. “Jin had just turned eighteen, and…I feel like shit, sure enough. Like something is pressing on me from all sides. Why aren't I crying, though? I didn't even cry when I found him.”

 

“You…you were the one that…” Mariko paused as her mouth turned downwards. She swallowed something, naked despair terminating the final vestiges of mirth etched into her brow, itself furrowing to match her tortured green irises. Those twin pools welled with tears. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry…”

 

If the brunette had noticed Mariko's deteriorating composure, she gave no sign. “Even though I saw him, it doesn't feel real. None of it does. It hasn't really hit me yet, because I can imagine him calling me. Any moment now. He's going to ask me to come over. When it hits me -really hits me- it's going to crush my heart. I just know it. I'm going to fold like a house of cards… and it's going to be ugly…”

 

Yukie paused just long enough to remove her hand from the obelisk and watch Misato Katsuragi's tempered grin fade back into the black façade. She looked at the black-haired girl, only to find herself staring at the crown of the teenager's bowed head as she fished through the bag at her hip.

 

“Mariko, it's just that…did he have to be smiling when I found him? Like the ghoul that left him like that did him a favor? I mean, goddamn, we've been dating for just a year, yeah, but I loved him. I LOVED him, and he left me. Was he really that fucking happy that we wouldn't see each other again?”

 

“Of course he wasn't,” Mariko whispered.

 

“Then why was he smiling? Dead people shouldn't smile like that. Ever.”

 

“You're right.” Mariko's hand reemerged from her bag, pinching something between her fingers, holding it out to the other young woman after briefly hesitating. Mariko was still looking at the ground when Yukie took it with both hands…

 

…and sucked in a razor-sharp breath.

 

“W-when,” Yukie started, licking her trembling lip. “You took this…WHEN did you take this?”

 

“About…a week ago. You know we played ball together? He was good, even put me on my butt a few times. We were friends. But I don't need that picture. He's smiling here, Yukie-”

 

“He's alive here…” were Yukie Utsumi's last intelligible words before she folded over, physically crumbling into Mariko and crushing the photograph to her heaving chest.

 

“I'm sorry, Yukie. God, I'm…I didn't…I'm sorry.”

 

And then it got ugly.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------

 

When Mariko stepped over the threshold into her apartment she immediately fingered the heel of one sneaker, then the other. They clattered to the floor while Mariko sank to it against a wall, the back of her white shirt bunching in thin folds. Instead of bowing her head, she held it up as if listening.

 

“Asuka,” she called. “Asuka, are you here? We…we need to talk. I'm ready to talk!”

 

No answer, and before she spoke again the only disturbances were her own unsteady inhalation and the rustle of her top as her shoulders lurched of their own volition.

 

“Asuka…I know you're here! I can feel it. Please don't be like this. I know you know what happened. Help me. Please?”

 

“I'm about to. Get out here. I want you to see something.”

 

Mariko immediately stood, but crept through the entry hallway as if it were a mine field. When she successfully navigated the dimly lit corridor she turned into the main living space, wringing her hands like a guilty child. The advancing dusk streamed into the room and drowned its only occupant, standing…

 

“What the hell is up with your chest, Mariko? You're lactating?”

 

…and holding something.

 

“I-I saw Yukie today. We had a talk and…and she opened up. Why do you have my camera?”

 

“I guess it's like you said. Everybody has to tell somebody.”

 

“I'm glad I got to talk to her, see her. This isn't the first time I've ever met someone after I hurt them like that. But…I just got this empty feeling when she started crying, you know?” She swallowed. “Can I have it back?”

 

“Empty, huh? Then you should have plenty of space left for a little session I prepared. Right?”

 

“Right. I want my camera back. Now.”

 

Asuka just smiled. Camera perched in one upturned hand, she slightly knelt forward and grabbed something on the couch with the other. A remote.

 

“Asuka…” Mariko said in a low voice while stepping forward for the first time-

 

“If I said to you that you move like bowels on ExLax but you're no Flo-Jo, you wouldn't have any idea what the hell I'm talking about, would you?”

 

“No.”

 

“I didn't think so,” Asuka admitted. “If I said that I'll smash this bloodthirsty piece of shit if you come at me, would you understand that?”

 

Mariko came to a halt.

 

Asuka's smile broadened in width and cruelty. “Have a seat.”

 

End of Third Exposure

 

A/N: God, I wanted to kill Yukie.

 

Mariko offing Yukie would've made much more of an impact, but alas, I couldn't do it. Yukie and Mariko have a good relationship, but are they friends? Do they have anything in common? Is there any reason why Yukie would feel comfortable talking about family matters with Mariko?

 

Besides…I like how Yukie turned out. Do I want to waste her on a quick hack n' slash?

 

All in all, this was a risky chapter. This is the first and only chapter (aside from the omake) that has ACC's interacting exclusively with ACC's. But hey, at least I decapitated one of them, right?

 

Thank you for reading and your criticism. Ja.

 

Next Chapter: Fourth Exposure