Coffee Pot

"There's been an accident on the Chuo Expressway," she said. He did not look at her, stuffing his mouth with the remnants of her breakfast and leaning over his bowl of miso to grab the coffeepot. "Kyo, are you listening? You're going to be late if you don't leave in the next five minutes."

The coffee was cold. She'd forgotten to bring out the jam this morning, and he would bet there was no more butter in the refrigerator either. The hunk of bread slouching in the center of the table on the cutting board looked like it had seen better days.

"Kyo, are you listening to me?"

"I can't survive on cold coffee," he said.

He rather thought the fish in the tank against the far wall pricked up their ears at the brittle silence, and she stared at him so hard he felt the bones in his ears start to rattle with the pressure.

"Kyo."

"I just replaced our screen door," he reminded her. Peanut butter would have to do. "It's not like I make a fortune at work or anything."

She seethed.

"There's been an accident on the Chuo Expressway," said the radio cheerfully from behind her, chirping out the morning traffic report around her rigid form like the notes of a cuckoo clock. "Be advised that it will take at least half an hour longer to navigate around this stretch of the road from Kunitachi to Shinjuku. Please be careful!"

"Kyo," she said again. Her eyes were dark, her voice strained. He stared at the hunk of bread in his hands and dropped it back on the plate. The soft thunk as it landed was like the sound of him planting his palms against the tabletop, feeling the solidity, the familiarity of the cool wood against skin as he pushed himself abruptly upwards, feet making almost no sound as he made to brush past her on his way to the narrow staircase.

The radio hummed. "That was Takeuchi Yuko with the morning traffic report. Thank you! And next we have-"

"Your work pants are hanging outside on the balcony," she told his shoulder and he stopped, tiny currents of air nuzzling at the back of his neck where her words hit his skin like invisible sparkles of light. The turn of his head was an awkward, jerky motion. He had forgotten how deep her eyes were, how pale the skin of her face, how cherry-blossom pink the flush of her cheeks when she was angry.

For a moment he stared at her, then crushed one arm against the small of her back and kissed her, hard.

She made a tiny, muffled sound as his tongue brushed against the curve of her lips, jolting electricity against the sleepy gurgle of the radio voices somewhere in the air above their heads. The first time he had kissed her had been in the garden outside the main house, and later she had protested that people could have seen, and he had replied, didn't you want them to see? Theirs was a love built brick by brick against the flow of time, against the grains of history, and sometimes he was so busy pretending that it was otherwise that he would forget that it had been her who had loved him first.

He was barely conscious of the velvet chiffon touch of her hand on his waist creeping up to his shoulder and moving down his arm, brushing bare skin. He hissed, through the kiss, between his teeth, and she pushed up against him, making the sound in her throat again. Fingers playing, creeping downward, brushing the beads on his wrist.

He jerked back, almost stumbling into the stove. She looked a little ridiculous, standing there by the kitchen table, one arm still outstretched, wisps of mussed hair falling out of her careful ponytail. The set of her mouth was a challenge.

"Don't," he said.

The outstretched hand curled into a fist, and he tensed, but there was nothing there, and he watched as it fell back to her side, hanging like a limp, dead fish. The color had drained from her cheeks. She looked pale, gray.

"Kyo, there's been an-"

"-accident on the Chuo Expressway," chimed the radio. "Be advised that it will take-"

Still watching her, he lunged over and turned it off. The curling of her lip as he did so, isolated now in the suddenly silent air, could have been mistaken for a scornful smile.