Title: sometimes better
Rating: G
Fandom: Judgment
Relationship: Fujii Mafuyu/Shirosaki Saori
Wordcount: 465
Short summary: Saori and Mafuyu are out at a cafe again, and Saori thinks back...
This has happened before. Many times.
Saori is sitting across from Mafuyu, nursing a cup of hot chocolate. There’s a piece of cake sitting between them, half-eaten. Mafuyu is talking about her latest case but Saori is only following the way her lips are moving, those smooth red moist lips…
Saori blinks. She swears she sees a black uniform. She feels air catch in her throat, her heart beating rapidly in her chest. They’re laughing at her again, right? But Mafuyu keeps talking like nothing is happening…?
“Saori?”
Saori blinks again. There aren’t any black uniforms. There aren’t other kids pointing and laughing; there aren’t any kids at all. It’s the two of them, well past school age, sitting in a café together sharing drinks and sweets, along with a few other adult patrons.
“Is everything okay?” Mafuyu asks with a frown.
Saori smiles sheepishly. “Sorry. I got lost in my thoughts for a moment.” There is a guy in a black suit outside the café who might have been looking at them, at Mafuyu. Because even from the back, Mafuyu is attractive.
“Anything in particular?” Mafuyu reaches a hand out, touches Saori’s hand gently. Saori responds by curling her fingers around Mafuyu’s.
“Just thinking how you were beautifully distracting even when we were kids.”
“Saori?” Mafuyu blushes at Saori’s honest compliment.
An awkward silence passes before Saori picks up her fork.
“I think… I need more sugar.” Saori’s starting to feel embarrassed after saying what she said out loud. “To stay awake.”
Mafuyu laughs. “You’ve always loved sweets.” She pushes the plate of half-eaten cake towards Saori. “We’ve come here how many times now? 100? 200?”
“Who knows,” Saori replies as she digs into the cake with her fork. “It’s another thing that hasn’t changed.”
“Yes.”
Saori has never been weak but she hasn’t been strong either. She likes when things are reliable and they don’t change. She probably could have been content admiring and respecting Mafuyu as a friend… “But some things are better.”
Like the fact that Mafuyu is still holding her hand now and will hold it again later, when they are at home together. This is a definite improvement over the past.
Mafuyu smiles. “Absolutely.”
They’ll sit together at this café well after the cake is finished, until one of them is summoned back to work. At that point Mafuyu will have returned to talking about her case, Saori giving input here and there. Maybe Saori will have splurged on another piece of cake. This entire event will probably happen again in the future, in another week, in another month.
Although the past is full of precious memories, the future certainly looks better, Saori thinks as she tastes the sweetness of the cake once more, accompanied by Mafuyu’s sweet smile.