Chapter 206 | Cause of Death: Mortification
Chapter 206: 206 | Cause of Death: Mortification
Chloe’s response came in three seconds. because I know you. go to sleep kumi
i can’t. he’s right here. he’s SLEEPING and i’m watching him sleep and i know that sounds creepy but chloe-chan he’s so pretty when he sleeps. his eyelashes are really long. did you know that? seventeen on the left eye
you counted his eyelashes
only the left ones. i’ll do the right side in the morning when there’s more light
A pause. Then: you absolute weirdo
i know
is he okay?
Kumiko glanced at Jordan’s sleeping face. His expression held the slack peacefulness of someone who had nothing left to worry about tonight.
he’s perfect. he’s literally perfect and he’s in the bed and i’m in the bed and we’re in the same bed chloe. THE SAME BED
yeah that’s generally how sleepovers work
not a sleepover. a girlfriend sleepover. a REAL one. with my BOYFRIEND who i just
She deleted the message and retyped it four times before settling on:
things happened
i figured. the wall between our apartments isn’t that thick
Kumiko’s face went nuclear. She could feel the heat radiating from her cheeks in waves that probably registered on weather satellite imagery.
YOU HEARD
kumi. i live twelve feet away. i heard everything.
everything everything?
the part where you screamed his name loud enough to wake up miss valentine three doors down? yes. that part specifically.
Kumiko covered her face with Jordan’s pillow and produced a sound like a tea kettle being strangled. She bit the fabric to muffle herself, but the embarrassment was already coursing through her bloodstream at lethal concentrations.
i’m going to die. i’m going to die right here in his bed and they’ll find my body and the coroner will write "cause of death: mortification" on the report
dramatic
I’M DRAMATIC? I JUST HAD SEX WITH OUR BOYFRIEND AND YOU COULD HEAR IT THROUGH THE WALL
The word "our" sat in the message like a grenade with the pin pulled. Kumiko stared at it. She hadn’t planned to type it. The possessive pronoun had simply emerged from her thumbs as a fact of reality rather than a conscious choice.
Our boyfriend.
Chloe didn’t correct her.
was he good to you?
The question landed soft and genuine beneath all the teasing.
Kumiko looked at Jordan. At the marks on his chest that her teeth had made. At the arm around her waist that hadn’t loosened once in three hours. At the strand of dirty blonde hair across his forehead that she still hadn’t brushed away because she liked the way it fell.
chloe
yeah
i think i understand now. why you said yes to sharing him. why you chose me
...
it’s because you knew. you already knew what he could do. how he could make someone feel. and you wanted someone else to feel it too because keeping it to yourself felt selfish somehow. right?
The typing indicator appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
something like that. go to sleep kumi
chloe-chan
what
thank you. for giving me this. for trusting me with him. i know what this costs you and i swear on everything i have that i will never make you regret it
The pause lasted longer this time. Thirty seconds of the typing indicator flickering before Chloe’s response arrived.
if you make me cry at 3am through a text message i will come over there and smother you with a pillow
i love you
go to SLEEP
i love you and i love him and i love jellyfish and i love this stupid henley that smells like boy and i love that you can hear me through the wall because it means you’re close
kumiko yamanaka if you do not close your eyes in the next thirty seconds
okay okay i’m closing them
are they closed
yes
liar
they’re MOSTLY closed
Kumiko locked her phone and set it down. The screen went dark, and the loft returned to its amber-tinted silence. The hum of the refrigerator downstairs provided a low baseline. A car horn sounded somewhere in the distance, brief and far away.
She pressed closer to Jordan.
His arm tightened again. His face turned toward her, his nose brushing against her hair, and he inhaled deeply in his sleep. The exhale came warm against her scalp.
Kumiko placed her hand flat against his chest, directly over his heart.
Sixty-two beats per minute.
She closed her eyes.
She opened them again immediately and retrieved her phone.
one more thing
oh my god
the scar on his right knee. do you know how he got it?
GO. TO. SLEEP.
okay but do you
fell off his bike when he was nine. his mom told me at dinner. NOW SLEEP
Kumiko added the information to her note file. right knee scar: bike fall, age 9. source: susan mcknight via chloe.
She locked the phone. Put it down. Rolled onto her side. Pressed her forehead against Jordan’s collarbone. Felt his heartbeat through skin and bone and muscle.
Sixty-two beats per minute.
She matched her breathing to the rhythm. Four counts in. Five counts out. The tiny hitch between the third and fourth exhale that only happened when he was deeply, completely asleep.
Kumiko’s eyes stayed open for seventeen more minutes.
She counted.
She watched the amber light shift across his face as clouds moved past the moon outside the factory windows. She felt his arm around her waist and his breath in her hair and his heartbeat against her palm. She stored every sensation in the same part of her brain that held stitch patterns and fabric weights and the exact RGB values of every color she’d ever used in a cosplay.
Permanent memory. Uncorruptible storage. Backed up twice.
At 3:24 AM, Kumiko Yamanaka fell asleep in Jordan McKnight’s bed with her hand on his heart and his arm around her waist and a seven-page document on her phone that described him in the kind of detail usually reserved for architectural blueprints.
She dreamed about jellyfish.
They glowed in the dark water of the aquarium tank, pulsing gold and white like tiny lanterns drifting through an ocean that existed only for her. Jordan stood beside her at the glass, his reflection overlapping with the jellies so that the bioluminescent light seemed to come from inside his chest. He placed his hand on her head between her twin tails, and the warmth traveled down through her skull and spine and into the floor and through the foundation of the building and into the bedrock of the earth itself.
In the dream, Kumiko wrapped her arms around his waist and held on.
She did not let go.