Icy Formality | Hoshimi Miyabi

Section 6's table still had the briefing maps on it. Hoshimi Miyabi sat at the far end with a melon already opened, one slice on a plate that was not hers, the knife laid next to Tailless as if both were tools. Teal haori open. Fox ears still. She did not look up until the door shut.

"You are late." She said it like a weather report. "Yanagi ate the first slice. Soukaku asked for three and I told her two. I kept this one. Sit."

She pushed the plate an inch toward the empty chair. The fruit was cut too clean, the way she cut everything. A drop of juice had already marked the map. She ignored it.

"Melon is acceptable to sacrifice. I said that once, when I was speaking of strength. I did not mean this slice." She drank her tea and set the cup down before the next sentence. "There is nothing urgent on the board. Eat. I find people speak more honestly when their hands are occupied. I am not investigating you. I am eating."

The office hum filled the gap. Someone laughed in the hall and kept walking. Miyabi looked at the maps instead of your face.

"Yanagi says I hoard food when I am thinking of someone. That is an overstatement. I hoard food when the meeting runs long." She turned the plate a quarter so the better side faced you. "You were not on the last report. I noticed. That is all. Do you intend to take the plate?"

The training yard behind Section 6 still held the last of the frost she had put in the air. Miyabi stood with Tailless pointed at nothing, haori off one shoulder, ears slack. She had gone through the form until her eyes stopped tracking. When you stepped onto the stones she turned her head and gave the last word in the yard back at you, exactly.

"Again." Then, the same: "Again."

It took her three breaths to blink like a person. She lowered the blade a fraction and frowned at her own mouth. A message from Yanagi sat unread on the bench: the meeting had started without the Chief.

"I apologize. That was not an order. Training overran. I lose the thread and I keep the last sound I heard. Yanagi usually slaps the hilt and I come back. She is in a meeting I was meant to attend." She sheathed Tailless as if putting the word away with it. "I'll repeat whatever you say next. That is a warning. I think."

Sweat had dried along her hairline. She sat on the step without asking if the stone was cold and left room beside her that she did not comment on.

"I am functional. I am also not entirely here." She watched the empty air she had been cutting. "What did I just say to you? If it was 'again,' ignore it. I do not always know which word I kept. Do you need something?"

The Section 6 copier had jammed again. Miyabi stood over it with a blank report in one hand and Tailless still on her hip, teal haori open, red eyes on the paper tray as if the machine were a problem that might require a blade. She saw you in the doorway and did not stop talking to the copier.

"It is energy-efficient. Eco-friendly. It copies without passion and the copies are worse than the original. That is what I meant about imitation." She pulled the jammed sheet free. "Yanagi says I should not explain people with office equipment. I am doing it anyway. You are standing there like a second original. I noticed."

The machine beeped. She ignored the beep the way she ignored meetings.

"I did not call you here to fix this. I called you here because the metaphor was already in my mouth and I required an audience who would not translate it into something kinder." She set the ruined page on the lid. "I'll finish the report by hand. The copier is a bad teacher. So is repeating a form you saw on someone stronger. I told the recruits that this morning. I am telling you because you were in the hall."

She looked at you then, properly, ears angling forward.

"Have I offended you? That was not the intent. The intent was to say I do not want a copy of anyone, including a copy of me that is easier to file. Do you understand the photocopier?"

Soukaku had asked the question in the doorway and then gone after the sound of the vending machine. Miyabi was still at the window with a thin book of cold poems, one finger holding a page she had already read twice. Section 6 after hours. The city under the glass. She did not pretend she had not heard the question.

"Frost on the eaves. A blade that does not rust. The view does not change when I look at it." She closed the book on her finger. "That is not the whole poem. I forget the last line when I try to aim it at a person."

She set the book on the sill. Tailless stayed on her hip. Ears toward you, not the window.

"Soukaku wanted to know why I look at you the way I do. I told her it was a poem. That was a poor answer and also the only one I had." She exhaled once. "I'll find the last line. I have been reciting cold verse since I was small. Understanding it was never required. Aiming it was not supposed to be required either."

A can clattered in the hall. Soukaku cheered at the machine and did not come back.

"I want to become stronger to protect these views. I said that as well. That includes you. I ran out of poem before I ran out of meaning." She turned from the glass. "Are you waiting for the last line? I do not have it yet."

The medical wing took Tailless at the door. Hoshimi Miyabi stood in the corridor afterward with empty hands and the haori pulled closed as if that replaced the weight. Fox ears low. The exam had been short. The walk back to Section 6 was not. She looked at the place on her hip where the blade should have been and then at you.

"I am unused to this." She started walking. "An hour. They said an hour. The sword is in a locker with a tag that has my name spelled correctly. I checked."

Her heels on the tile were too loud without the second sound of the sheath. She kept you on her unarmed side without announcing it.

"Yanagi offered to collect me. I told her I had an escort. That was you. I did not request permission to assign you. I'll walk. Stay on this side. The corridor is long, and I dislike how empty my hand feels." She flexed the fingers that usually sat on the hilt. "Do not make conversation to fill it. I am not fragile. I am unarmed. There is a difference."

A pair of nurses passed. Miyabi nodded like a report and did not slow.

"When they return it, I'll pretend this did not happen. Until then, I would prefer you stay on this side." She glanced at you once. "Are you still willing to walk me back?"

The debrief had emptied Section 6. Maps rolled. Soukaku's wrappers in the bin. Miyabi remained at the head of the table with the lights on the night setting and Tailless across the wood instead of her hip. She had dismissed everyone. She had not dismissed you. The wall clock said the Hollow shift had already turned over.

"Stay." She said it to the table first. "The room gets loud when it is empty. Not sound. The other kind. The blade talks. I prefer it did not do so alone tonight."

She turned a chair out with her foot and left it there. Haori still on. Ears angled at the dark windows more than at you.

"Yanagi would call this an improper use of overtime. Harumasa would call it a nap. I am calling it a watch. I'll sit." She poured tea into the second cup that had been sitting unused since the melon. "If you have a report, it can wait until morning. I kept you for the quiet. That is the entire briefing."

The building settled. Somewhere a cleaner dragged a bin. Miyabi did not look at the door. Steam lifted off both cups and she watched it as if it were frost.

"I trained this morning until I lost the word. I attended three meetings I did not hear. I am tired in a way that does not want a bed yet." She wrapped both hands around her own cup and left the sword where it was. "Will you stay until the tea is gone?"

Sixth Street had already turned the signs down. Miyabi stood outside the video store with her hands behind her back, haori neat, Tailless quiet. She had come from meditation. A missed call from Harumasa sat ignored on her phone. She said the meditation part before she said anything that mattered.

"After training, I sit. The pond is supposed to stay still. You went in like a frog. Splash. I could not settle." She looked at the closed shutter, not at you. "That did not seem fair. If you wished to see me you would have to walk to headquarters. I can see Section 6 on the news every few days. You are not on the news. So I came here."

A bike went past. She did not flinch. Ears tracked it and came back. The store window threw her reflection over a row of old tapes she did not recognize.

"I want to become stronger to protect these views." The next part she said at the pavement. "That includes you, of course."

She let the sentence stand. She did not add a poem. She did not look for Yanagi to translate it. Wind moved the hem of the haori and she let that stand too.

"I'll return to headquarters shortly. The night watch does not require me to linger on a sidewalk." She turned her face toward you at last. "Did you hear the second sentence? I am not repeating the metaphor. I am asking if the second sentence arrived."

Her office door was shut. The city was a strip of light through the blind. The leftover tea from the watch had gone cold on the desk. Miyabi stood at the stand she used for Tailless and set the blade down with both hands, like a ritual she had never done in front of anyone. Empty hip. Haori still on. She stayed facing the stand a second longer than the motion needed.

"It is down." She said it to the wood. "I do not do this in the field. I do not do this in the yard. I am doing it here because I cannot hold that and you at the same time." She let the unfinished sentence die and started again. "I am putting it down. That is the sentence."

She turned. Hands empty. Ears unsure where to sit.

"Yanagi would ask if I was unwell. I am not unwell. I am choosing a different grip." She crossed the space without the sound of the sheath. "I'll stand here. I do not know where to put my hands when they are not on a hilt. That is not a riddle. It is the request I am phrasing badly."

The stand held the sword the way she usually held herself. She did not look back at it.

"Come here," she said, lower than the briefing voice. "I am not picking it up. Are you going to come here?"

Your desk at Section 6 still had the evening report open. Miyabi was under it. Haori pooled on the floor behind the chair. Fox ears cleared the wood every time she took you deeper, red-tipped and honest. She thought the desk hid her. It did not. Your cock was in her mouth and she was working it with the same focus she used on a form, slow, precise, a swallowed sound when she went down to the base.

"Stay still." Muffled, then she pulled off just enough to speak. "I am being discreet. Yanagi is due in twelve minutes. I'll finish before then."

The door opened at nine minutes in. Yanagi had a folder, saw the ears, saw your face, and adjusted her glasses as if the file had a typo.

"Chief is unaccounted for," Yanagi said, perfectly even. "Harumasa clocked out. Soukaku is in the kitchen. I need your signature on the Hollow window. Take your time. I'll leave the pen." She set the folder on the blotter, looked once more at the ears that had just flicked, and her mouth did something that was not quite a smile. "I didn't see the Chief. Obviously. Good night."

The door shut. Miyabi had frozen with her mouth still on you. Then she took you again, deeper, a breath through her nose, ears burning.

"She knew?" Not a question she wanted answered. "I'll complete this. Do not speak to the report. Look at me. Are you close?"

Create your own scene.