Chapter 476 | Now They’re Illegal Hands

Chapter 476: 476 | Now They’re Illegal Hands

Kumiko made pancakes the shape of Mochi the koi fish, or the shape she insisted was Mochi, though Jordan privately thought the third one resembled a deflated thumb with a raisin for an eye. She stood at the stove on her tiptoes in his grey henley, flipping each one while narrating its emotional state to the pan.

"This one is nervous because it’s his first time being breakfast," she informed the spatula. "This one is brave. This one fell apart, but that’s okay, because Dr. Nakamura says falling apart is data."

"Falling apart is a burnt pancake," Chloe said from the island.

"Falling apart is a burnt pancake with feelings, Chloe-chan."

Jordan leaned against the fridge and drank his coffee, watching two girls argue about the inner life of batter at seven forty in the morning, and decided this was the best thing he had ever paid rent for. Three months ago his kitchen had produced nothing except a smell. Now it produced koi fish and a pregnant girlfriend eating her fifteenth bite of omelet while pretending she wasn’t keeping count herself.

The cat onesie came out at nine. Kumiko held it up against Chloe’s chest like a tailor measuring a corpse, tilted her head, and announced that Chloe was a medium in body and an extra large in spirit.

"I’m not wearing that," Chloe said.

"It has a hood with ears, and the ears have little pink insides, and I lined the pink insides with flannel so they’d be cozy against your hair."

"I’m still not wearing it."

Twenty minutes later Chloe sat on the grey sectional wearing the cat onesie with the hood down, her blue streak spilling across the flannel collar, scrolling Netflix with the remote while her face dared Jordan to say anything. He kept his mouth shut out of pure self-preservation and sat beside her, and Kumiko crawled onto the floor between his legs with her notebook in her lap and Mr. Snuggles under her arm.

"Howl’s Moving Castle," Chloe said. "Final answer, no appeals."

"I love Howl," Kumiko breathed. "Howl is a disaster who’s pretty, and that’s my type."

Jordan looked down at the top of her head. Kumiko looked up at him, realized what she’d said, and turned an impressive shade of crimson before burying her face in Mr. Snuggles.

"I didn’t mean you’re a disaster," she mumbled into the plush.

"You meant I’m pretty."

"I meant you’re a very handsome man who used to be a disaster and is now a functional adult with nice forearms, and I’m going to stop talking forever, starting now."

She did not stop talking forever. She made it eleven minutes into the movie before narrating Calcifer’s emotional arc in a whisper only Jordan could hear, her head resting against his inner knee while her pen scratched stick figures in the margins of page thirty-five. Chloe made it twenty-six minutes before her head dropped onto his shoulder, heavy and warm through the flannel. Her breathing went slow. Her hand slid off the remote and settled on her stomach, and the movie kept playing for nobody but Jordan.

He didn’t move. His shoulder started to ache around the hour mark, and his left foot fell asleep at seventy minutes, and he still didn’t move, because Chloe’s mouth had gone soft and slack against his collarbone, and he hadn’t seen her face look this unguarded since the night she whispered love you while ninety percent asleep.

Kumiko twisted around at the credits and saw Chloe sleeping. Her eyes went glassy. She didn’t say anything, which for Kumiko was the loudest thing in the world, and instead she pressed her cheek against his knee and laid her small hand on top of Chloe’s ankle where it peeked out from the onesie.

"She’s so tired," Kumiko whispered.

"She’s building a person."

"She’s building a person and an empire and a Twitch channel, and she still made you eat breakfast."

"She ate fifteen bites."

"I know, I counted from the stove." Kumiko’s thumb moved in a small circle on Chloe’s ankle bone. "Jordan-kun, can I tell you something without you doing the hand thing?"

"No promises."

"My shoulders hurt again. From the Sally hem. I sewed it four times because the first three were wrong, and you can’t tell from the camera, but I could tell, and I couldn’t sleep until it was right." She tilted her head back to look at him upside down, her twin tails pooling on his thigh. "I’m not asking for anything. I’m just reporting."

Jordan rolled his eyes so hard he felt it in his molars. "You’re the worst liar in Orange County, Kumi."

"I’m not lying, I’m reporting with intent."

He slid his hand off the couch arm and set his palm flat between her shoulder blades through the henley. The Master Massage skill woke up on contact, heat pouring out of his hand like someone had opened a valve behind his wrist, and the knots under his palm lit up in his head as clearly as if Kumiko had labeled them in pink marker. There was a fat one under her right shoulder blade from bending over the machine. There was a tight band at the base of her neck where she held her chin tucked for hours.

He pressed his thumb into the first knot and pushed heat through it in a slow circle.

"Hnnnngh." Kumiko’s whole spine folded forward over Mr. Snuggles. "Oh. Oh no. Jordan-kun, that’s the spot, that’s the exact spot, how do you know the spot."

"I have hands now."

"You’ve always had hands! Now they’re illegal hands!"

The knot gave under his thumb with a soft pop, and Kumiko made a sound like a teakettle that had been told it was pretty. Her fingers curled into the plush’s ears. Jordan dragged his thumbs up the sides of her neck, slow, letting the heat sink into the tight cords there, and her head dropped back against his thigh with her mouth falling open.

"Ahh... ahhh... Jordan-kun... my bones are leaving."

"Keep it down. Chloe’s sleeping."

"I can’t keep it down, you’re doing it on purpose, you’re doing the slow thing." Her voice cracked into a whimper. "Mmmnh, don’t stop doing the slow thing."

Chloe shifted against his shoulder. Her eyes stayed closed, but her voice came out thick and dry against his collarbone.

"I’ve been awake for four minutes."