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“Do you want to go home with me this weekend?” Shisui came into their dorm room and asked immediately.
Maomao was sprawled out on the floor, sort of working on homework, sort of totally asleep. “What?” she asked through closed eyes.
“It’s a holiday. My parents are asking if I’m coming home.” Shisui spoke to her roommate’s slumbering form loudly and clearly as she set down her bags.
Maomao had forgotten about the long weekend, but she certainly did not want to fill that time interacting with Shisui’s parents.
“I’d rather just stay in the dorms…” She turned over on the book she was using as a pillow.
“Then, I’ll stay here with you,” Shisui happily declared. They had a routine with this kind of thing, in the year-or-so they’d lived together. Shisui would look for any excuse to not go home, and Maomao, just by virtue of existing, would provide that excuse.
Shisui chatted without pause as she changed into her homewear from her outside clothes, with Maomao barely listening and continuing to snooze.
“She got a haircut over the weekend, it looks great— I wonder if that style would suit me,” she went on and on. “I saw him notice it, too, I swear he couldn’t keep his eyes off her the entire class. It was so distracting.”
Shisui had some minor obsession with the professor and teaching assistant in one of her classes. Maomao had heard a great deal of speculation and lewd imagery about these two people she’d never seen or met.
“You have such a vivid imagination,” she muttered to her roommate’s ramblings.
“You say that, but if you were there, you would understand what I mean,”
Maomao said something about “... your classmates…” but the rest was unintelligible in her state of half-sleep. She nuzzled her face into the book, crinkling the pages.
“Hey, Mao, you’re messing up your textbook,” Shisui tried to warn her.
Maomao did not heed the warning, she was comfortable in the crumpled paper.
After a moment of silence, Shisui joined her roommate on the ground. She sat down and scooted closer, then slipped the book out from underneath Maomao's head and quickly silenced her grumbling by replacing the book with her lap.
Maomao snuggled into her roommate’s lap and went back to sleep. She was soft, warm, familiar. The musical sounds of Shisui chatting to the air, and her hand lightly stroking her hair, led Maomao to a blissful nap.
At least for a little while. Her napping was interrupted by a tickling sensation on her face. Maomao batted at it, then turned her face, trying to keep her eyes shut and go back to sleep. But there it was again, a feather’s touch dragging across her cheek.
She peeked one eye open.
It wasn’t anything Shisui was doing on purpose. She was just bent over, rummaging through her backpack, and the ends of her loose hair were tracing distracting patterns over Maomao’s face while she did so. Now that she had an eye open, Maomao could also tell there was another part of Shisui looming close to her. Shifting her head, she moved and bit it.
“Oohh!” Shisui moaned exaggeratedly and clutched at her chest where Maomao had bitten. “Waking up frisky, are we?”
“Your hair was tickling me, it woke me up,” Maomao grumbled, ignoring the theatrics.
“Oh, sorry!” Shisui grabbed at her locks, inspecting the ends. “I could use a haircut, probably.”
Maomao shifted again on her roommate’s lap and studied her face. “I wanted to shower tonight, anyway.”
Shisui grinned down at her and moved to inspect Maomao’s hair as well. “Sure, let’s do it. Your bangs could use a trim, too.”
The dorm would be fairly empty, with nearly everyone gone home for the holiday. They wouldn’t be as much of a nuisance in there as they ordinarily were. So they gathered up their barber kit and supplies and set up their station in the communal bathroom.
Maomao unceremoniously sprayed her roommate’s hair with water and got to cutting. She’d had no real experience when they’d started doing this, but Shisui had shown her how she liked it. They stood a breath apart in the bathroom, huddled before the mirror where the light was best. Maomao held the scissors upright, slicing into small groups of strands she grasped between her fingers.
“Just the dead ends?” Maomao asked, realizing she had just gotten started without checking.
“Did you have some vision for something else you’d want to do?” Shisui giggled at Maomao’s sudden realization.
“No, but maybe you do. Maybe you want to get the same haircut as that professor you have a crush on.”
“Maybe next month I’ll be asking for the buzz cut,” she pondered.
So Maomao continued just doing ‘the usual’ around her roommate’s head.
They’d clean up the debris later, but for now, she snipped freely and let the hair fall where it would, some fluttering to the ground, some settling like soft snow on her arms and hands. She circled around Shisui until she came back to her front, where she studied the two sides of her head for symmetricality. After a few small adjustments, she fluffed up Shisui’s hair and declared it complete. She handed over the shears. It wasn’t the most sanitary, that they shared a pair. But since they did just about everything else together, Maomao figured it didn’t make much difference. Shisui didn’t take more than a single glance in the mirror to approve of the haircut, but her smug grin said enough.
Maomao backed against the wall, ready for her turn.
Holding the scissors in one hand, Shisui lightly pushed her back against the wall more firmly with the other. Maomao would wobble around during the haircut if they didn’t do this.
Holding her steady, Shisui leaned in close. She started snipping at Maomao’s bangs quickly. Shisui was quite good at haircuts, somehow, so Maomao always tried to watch her while she did it, learning all she could from Shisui’s deft hands. She gazed out at her concentrated face, how her lips pursed while she handled the scissors. She noticed her calm breathing, through her nose—Shisui didn’t hold her breath while cutting. Enough loose hair sprinkled across Maomao’s cheeks and eyelashes that she had to close her eyes, but she took one last look at the soft smile crinkling around Shisui’s eyes before she did.
Moments later, Shisui announced she was finished, combing out Maomao’s bangs with her fingertips. She brushed some of the hair out of Maomao’s eyes and moved to turn on the shower.
Maomao didn’t bother to glance in the mirror. She could tell just by the feel of her bangs on her forehead that she had no objections to the haircut. After sweeping the hair off the ground, both of them stripped off their clothes and filed into the shower stall.
Face to face in the box together, Shisui teased, “Next time you want to shower together, we don’t need to make a whole event of it, okay?”
Maomao’s face betrayed no reaction, but she squirted Shisui with shampoo. “Be quiet. There’s still a few other people in the dorms.”
Shisui just giggled and started lathering up her hair where Maomao squirted her, then she passed some of the bubbles from herself onto Maomao. Spreading them around, Shisui leaned in closer so their bodies touched, the stream of water aimed between them. Maomao’s hands found Shisui’s skin; she kneaded her roommate’s curves while she spread soap around on her. Sliding the slick bubbles around and prodding every soft curve of Shisui’s body, Maomao was unsurprised when Shisui rested their cheeks together.
Maomao could feel every place they touched, individual hotspots—the tips of their toes overlapping, their slippery hands roaming, the tips of their nipples brushing against each other, their hips and bellies softly bumping. And now, their burning cheeks.
“What do you want to do this weekend?” Shisui breathed into Maomao’s ear.
Maomao paused her lathering of Shisui’s hair. “My sister from Verdigris just had the grand opening of her shop, I wanted to go visit,” she mumbled.
“Oh? What kind of shop?”
Maomao started massaging Shisui’s scalp, then pulled her under the stream of water to have the warm water run over her while she massaged. Shisui’s eyes closed and she rolled her head back, sighing contentedly.
“It’s a tattoo and piercing studio. Joka was always good at artistic things.”
Thoroughly rinsed, Shisui pulled Maomao under the shower’s focus. “How fun!” She looked genuinely giddy hearing about it. “Wow, should I get a tattoo? Or a piercing? What should I get? Are you planning on getting something?”
“I was just going to visit because it’s nearby. She’ll nag me if I don’t come say hi.”
Shisui scrubbed the last of the suds out of Maomao’s hair. “Aww, I was hoping you’d say you wanted to get matching tattoos.”
Maomao rolled her eyes as Shisui laughed and hooked her arms around her, pulling her into a wet embrace.
Shisui went on with a different idea, “I’ve wanted to get my nipples pierced, too. Don’t you think it’d be cute on me?”
Fortunately, Maomao’s well-tuned ears heard the footsteps coming, through Shisui’s chattering, even before the person entered the bathroom. “Be quiet,” she told Shisui, her voice low and urgent.
Shisui dropped into silence instantly, she even managed to extinguish her laughter. Holding each other close in the shower stall, feeling their breaths turn into the same rhythm, mingling into one, they listened to some unknown neighbor brush their teeth.
Minutes passed, and the person ran the sink loudly. Shisui giggled quietly, to which Maomao pinched at the soft skin of her hip. Unfazed, Shisui licked Maomao’s cheek. The other party was still finishing whatever they were doing, unaware of the antics in the stall.
She grazed her nose across Maomao’s face until the sink turned off, when she licked Maomao again, across the lips. Maomao glared stoically ahead and gripped Shisui’s hips tight, trying to hold in any type of reaction, until their neighbor’s footsteps faded beyond the doorframe.
She opened her mouth to bite at that pesky tongue, but Shisui avoided the lunge and returned with one of her own. Their lips mashed together hard, and Maomao was content to win the battle this way, instead, wrestling Shisui’s tongue into submission until she pulled back, breathless.
The water suddenly turned from steaming to frigid; the hot water had run out. Rushing to shut it off, they both turned the knob together.
Shisui left the stall first, then Maomao followed behind. Gathering up their things, they returned to their dorm room. It was all a typical night for them, nothing out of the ordinary.
⋆ ˚｡⋆˚𖦹๋࣭ ⭑🦢♡⋆ ˚｡⋆
The morning of their holiday, Shisui was up early, bustling around. Maomao awoke to the sound of the electric kettle running; her roommate presented her with a mug before she’d even sat up.
“You’ve never been up early to go to class,” Maomao mumbled.
This was true; Shisui shrugged and chuckled. “What can I say? This is more exciting.”
“We didn’t even make any big plans…” Maomao finally chose to sit up and sip from the mug. “Also, Joka’s studio doesn’t open until the afternoon.”
“A wide open day to do whatever we want!” Shisui was unwilling to accept anything diminishing her excitement.
So they ended up rolling out of their dorm much earlier than they usually would, even eating breakfast together in the dorm cafeteria, a rare treat. Usually their schedules didn’t align enough—or Shisui slept in past breakfast time.
Shisui hung her arms around Maomao’s shoulders as they stepped out of the dorm and faced the brisk autumn air. “That was so niice,” she nuzzled into Maomao’s scarf. “When was the last time we ate breakfast together? Last finals week?”
“Do you want me to wake you up next time I’m going?” Maomao walked forward with her roommate still clinging on to her.
“Yes, please!”
“You’ll say that now, and then when I’m trying to wake you up next week, you’re going to give me a firm no.”
Shisui laughed. “Maybe I just enjoy saying no to you first thing in the morning.”
Maomao poked Shisui on the face she still rested on her shoulder, as they walked together towards the edge of campus. “I’ll keep that in mind. Would you get off me? You’re weighing down my shoulders.”
Shisui slipped her arms off Maomao’s shoulders; for a moment, she was free. Then, Shisui wrapped her hands around Maomao’s waist instead and hugged her there.
Maomao stopped walking.
“I’m joking, I’m joking. I’ll let you walk now.” Shisui gave her one more squeeze before she let go. She did a little twirl on the path as they kept walking, her mood still chipper. They decided to stop in to a dinky coffee shop on the edge of campus. There was a more popular one a couple blocks away, but they liked the atmosphere of this one. Even if the cost was basically double—not due to the actual price from the restaurant, but from Shisui’s generous tipping (to flirt with the barista).
“Do you think I should just get one nipple pierced, or both of them?” Shisui asked Maomao, conspicuously loud enough for anyone to overhear, while they waited for their beverages.
“How am I supposed to know?”
“You really don’t have an opinion?”
Maomao gave her a blank stare.
“If I do both of them, nobody can lick my nipples for months afterwards,” Shisui said, as loud as ever.
“Here are your drinks,” the barista cut in, smirking.
“Thanks.” Maomao picked them both up and handed Shisui hers. “If it’s going to be such a huge handicap for you, why not just one?”
“Haha! That’s what I thought. You do have an opinion.”
Shisui chuckled as they left the coffee shop. Maomao shrugged.
The day spread out before them; with their hands warm from their drinks, they let their feet carry them to different familiar spots.
They looked at the rack of free paperbacks outside of Maomao’s favorite used bookstore. Shisui found a fantasy romance novel involving impressively large swords, she flipped to a middle page and started reading aloud.
“‘He sliced through the vines wrapping them as fast as he could swing, but they grew faster and faster until they enveloped—’ oooh, think you’d want to read this one? Or your friend might?”
“What is it, magic? Are there monsters or anything?”
The two of them pored over the books, reading excerpts from different ones, chuckling at the purple prose and dramatic author photos. Eventually, Maomao decided to slip the fantasy paperback into her backpack. It was a good find. The story looked intriguing, not too complex, and fast-paced enough. Lately, her classes were a bunch of required courses she had no interest in, even a campy paperback novel was more appealing.
And when she was done with it, she could pass it off to ‘her friend’— another student named Lihua. They’d had a class together once where they’d discovered their common interest.
Maomao waved at the owner of the shop before they moved on, so Shisui joined in.
Their path veered through a large park next, one they came to often. Usually, they’d run around in the nature path area looking at wildlife, or lay around in the grass doing homework, or gather by the tables and chairs, eating lunch, or sneakily drinking and smoking. This afternoon, there was some kind of concert setting up in the open-air auditorium in the park.
Shisui caught one of the production assistants as they were strolling by, ignoring a stream of gibberish coming from their walkie talkie. “What’s this event?” she asked.
“Uhh, something with an orchestra. They play pop songs or something,” the worker shrugged and walked off.
This didn’t catch their attention, so Shisui and Maomao moved on.
They took their favorite loop through the nature area, which hugged a small pond. It had been a wet few weeks, and life abounded, even in the tepid autumn weather. A snake skittered under the loose leaves, turtles sunned themselves on felled logs. Dragonflies and mosquitoes hovered in the air. New fungi had sprouted in the damp since their last visit, and Maomao was quite excited to point out each patch she saw.
Shisui jumped right into checking Maomao for ticks after they rounded back to the start of the path.
“Hey, do you want to try the swan boats today?” Shisui chuckled as she asked. Nearly every time they came to this park, one of them jokingly suggested they ride the swan boats.
Maomao looked out over the water. It was a mild day, not too windy. The landscape looked washed out in the bright clear sun. No one was out in the boats, they all floated cutely together in a group by the docks.
“Maybe,” Maomao shrugged, noncommittal.
“Yeah… we should try the swan boats.” Shisui seemed to have convinced herself. “Today’s the day. We have to.”
Maomao waited for her to wander off to some other location anyway, but Shisui indeed marched right over to the swan boat rental area, where a middle-aged man dozed behind a desk. She watched in shock as her roommate animatedly woke the man up and went through the entire process of paying for a rental. Her shock continued as Shisui took her hand and guided her to the docks. The man prepared their boat and helped them in.
Maomao and Shisui were bundled up in their swan, side by side, floating in the water, before Maomao really processed what was happening.
“What the hell are we doing…” she muttered.
“Come on, we haven’t even started moving yet. Pedal!” Shisui poked Maomao and started moving her feet before Maomao joined in.
With no small effort, they made it out to the middle of the lake, then both gave up pedalling.
“Maybe we should start exercising…” Shisui panted.
“I think you’re right,” Maomao agreed. It would be beneficial to build up stamina.
Catching their breaths, they both looked around, taking in a view of the park they’d never seen before.
“Oh, you can see a good view of that nest from here,” Maomao pointed out a bird’s nest they’d noticed before in the wilderness area. From the path there it was tucked away, hard to see. They could never tell who exactly resided there. Now, the nest was empty, but it was there, clear and out in the open.
“Bird gets a good view for hunting stuff around the water,” Shisui pointed out, and relaxed in the swan, cuddling up into Maomao’s shoulder. “Next nesting season, we’ll come back with binoculars.”
Maomao nodded. Their swan boat barely moved in the tranquil pool of water. Shisui petted her hair a few times as she snuggled into it.
“I did a good job on this haircut.”
“Yeah, you did,” Maomao agreed blankly, automatically. Shisui always did a good job cutting Maomao’s hair. The same couldn’t be said for the reverse, but they persisted in doing this anyway.
The two of them sat on the water, bundled together. The water lapped at the edge of their swan, the insects buzzed in the air. Maomao adjusted herself to relax more. She looked up at the soft streaks of grey in the bright blue sky. A cacophony of birds started squawking, then the wind picked up and drowned it out.
Eventually, she found herself being softly jostled. “Hey, don’t fall asleep on me,” Shisui murmured.
The world was suddenly bright again as Maomao opened her eyes. “You were on me,” she grumbled.
After they rubbed the drowsiness from their eyes, the two of them began the work of pedalling around the swan again. They’d figured out how to maneuver in the water, the main hurdle was simply their lack of stamina. At least, until they took a turn away from the turtle log, then heard a scraping sound, a thud, and were no longer able to move.
“What was that?” Maomao peered over the edge of the water. It was too murky to see anything.
“Have we been punctured? Are we going to sink?” Shisui sounded excited, rather than worried.
“Let’s try pedalling together as hard as we can,” Maomao suggested. So both of them tried furiously pushing, making grunts of complaint and effort, huffing and puffing, and beginning to sweat—but it all amounted to nothing. The boat was wedged against something in the water.
Shisui tried standing up in the boat, wobbling slightly. Maomao clutched onto the side of the swan, and grabbed at Shisui’s hand to help steady her.
“Don’t you dare get in that water,” Maomao warned.
Shisui grinned over her shoulder. “Did I really look like I was about to jump in?”
“Yes, you did.” Maomao sighed. “I can’t even tell how deep it is.”
“It can’t be that deep, it’s just a little pond in the park. What do you suggest we do?”
Maomao turned and squinted towards the quiet dock with the rest of the swan boats bobbing, unused.
“HEY,” she shouted at the top of her lungs. “WE’RE STUCK!”
Everything was quiet for a few moments after, her voice seemed to still not only the birds and bugs, but also the wind. There was no movement from the boathouse at first, but the worker eventually emerged, squinted at them, and waved sheepishly. Maomao breathed a sigh of relief.
“Oh, don’t worry. It would have been fine,” Shisui consoled her.
“You would be covered in mud and algae.”
“We could’ve made a stop by the thrift store around the corner.”
“They wouldn’t let you in, covered in mud and algae.”
Shisui barked out a laugh as Maomao continued, “And then it would be unsanitary to go into Joka’s shop.”
“Okay, I hear you, I hear you!” She plopped back into the seat beside Maomao and pulled her into an embrace again. “Look, I didn’t get in the water. You’re safe. I’m totally dry and not muddy at all.”
Maomao prodded her, but Shisui held tighter. Their attention turned back to their rescuer, as the dock worker emerged once more to rummage through an outdoor cabinet. He pulled a pair of long waders out, then moved to sit on the edge of the dock and pull them on.
“Oh, he’s really getting in.”
They found it hard not to chuckle as the man lowered himself into the water and slowly tread towards them. Apparently, it wasn’t as deep as Maomao feared. The water was barely above waist height for the worker. He held a large stick above the water and walked with slow, serious determination. As he drew closer to them, they elbowed each other to try to stop from laughing in his face. Shisui loosened her embrace on Maomao and returned to just leaning against her.
“We need to dredge this area,” the man huffed out when he got close to the boat. “Shoulda told you two before you set off.”
Shisui’s lip was quivering again, so Maomao headbutted her to silence her. While the man used the tool he’d so valiantly carried to poke around at the bottom of the boat, they nearly held their breath.
There was an odd popping sound that bubbled up from beneath them and the boat suddenly rocked, jolting them. The impact rattled Shisui off of Maomao’s shoulder; Maomao caught her against her chest.
“It’s our Titanic moment,” Shisui whispered. “The swan will sink here.”
“So melodramatic,” Maomao muttered back, poking her roommate’s cheek.
The man made another prod at something below the water, and the boat rocked again. It still wasn’t free, but things were swirling beneath them. Some force seemed to vibrate through the swan for a few seconds. He slowly waded to the other side of the boat and made a few more brushes around beneath the boat. Without any warning, just as suddenly as they were stuck, they were free. The boat began to drift, and the man told them triumphantly, “You’re out of there!” Then, he quickly grew stern. “Now get on back to the dock.”
They hadn’t planned to keep exploring the little pond any further, anyway.
Maomao and Shisui peeled away in the boat, pedaling as fast as their legs would take them, and made a direct path to their destination. They easily beat the dock worker there. He was still slowly wading back as they attempted to clamber out of the swan on their own. With a shout, he tried to urge them to wait until he was back, but Maomao was already standing on the dock before the words left his mouth.
She helped Shisui out of the boat, and they nearly ran off right away, but Shisui caught her arm. She was already laughing at something.
“Wait, look.”
Maomao turned to look, and was immediately taken aback. There was a screen on the side of the boathouse with pictures of people out in the lake in the swans.
“There must be some kind of motion-capture camera on the dock,” Maomao considered.
“Yeah, yeah. But look, it’s us!” Shisui pointed out.
Indeed, there was a photo of the two of them. More than one, actually—a whole spread of images of them puttering around the lake, then getting stuck, even images of the man slowly wading into the water.
Shisui was laughing so hard she could barely breathe. The page of photos flipped to reveal another page. More pictures of them. The man, left alone in the water as they zoomed off towards the lake. Tears streamed down Shisui’s face and she doubled over. Her laughter had gone beyond sound, and could only be expressed by falling to the ground.
Maomao’s own chuckles were extinguished when the worker, still squishing around in his galoshes, appeared next to them. Shisui managed to collect herself, just barely.
“How much for a print? Please, I’ll take all of them,” Shisui asked. Maomao wanted to pull her away before the exchange could materialize, but it was too late. Apparently the photos print out automatically. Shisui was proudly holding a stack of glossy photos in the blink of an eye.
On their walk out of the park, Shisui went through the pictures one by one. And then they had to pause while she doubled over with laughter at each new detail. She was particularly tickled by their determined faces while setting off compared to how stunned they looked when they were stuck. The worker standing on the dock staring at them also got a round of chuckles out of her.
Laughter struck both of them when Shisui found another picture snuck into the stack—from the timestamp, it had been printed early that morning, before they were at the park. It was a portrait of one lone bird swooping above the water, unknowingly setting off the motion sensing camera.
While they were looking at the photos and strolling out of the park, out of muscle memory, their feet carried them to that thrift store around the corner. After some show of saying they didn’t really need anything, they went in anyway. Maomao browsed the racks idly while Shisui held up different outlandish objects for her consideration.
A leopard print bodycon dress complete with both lace paneling and sequins. “Don’t you think this would be perfect with some nipple piercings?” Shisui grinned.
Maomao gave her a blank stare. “Don’t you think they’d go fine with anything?”
Shisui agreed merrily and hung the garment back on the stuffed rack.
Next she held up a vest with a crayon print pattern, with actual crayons sewn in. Maomao had never gained the ability to tell whether Shisui would go home with anything she held up at the thrift store. The times she occasionally bought something, she’d do the same routine—picking out some odd object, laughing at it. There was no way to determine at any step of the process. Luckily, it seemed like she was putting back that vest with the real crayons sewn in.
Later, she held up a graphic t-shirt with a long paragraph of text Maomao refused to read. Shisui carried this around for a little bit while they browsed in the store, her shopping security blanket, but eventually discarded it to show off a mug shaped like a bell pepper. She seemed to have nearly convinced herself with that one, but after Maomao reminded her of the large number of mugs they already had stashed in their dorm room, she left it behind, too.
They spent far too long in the store doing this charade. When they stumbled out, neither had bought anything, and the afternoon light had dimmed into the edge of autumn twilight.
“When did you want to head over to your sister’s place?”
“Let’s go now. And grab some food on the way there,” Maomao strategized. The path from the thrift store to the area where Joka’s shop was located passed through an area with a lot of street vendors. Even from blocks away, they could smell a mix of aromas, sweet and savory and aromatic and toasty.
“Any preference?” Shisui asked when they got close. “I’m sure you want to stop by the fish jerky place.”
Maomao glanced over her shoulder. “Don’t tempt me, you need to eat more than that if you’re going to get a piercing.”
Shisui hooked her arm into Maomao’s and agreed emphatically. “Of course, please, give me all your wisdom. I need to be fully prepared.”
“You need something more balanced, with carbs, fats, and proteins… Ah, let’s go to the taco stand.”
Shisui needed no further convincing; she led the way. They ordered a platter of tacos to split. While they waited, Maomao also brought up the importance of proper hydration for a piercing, so she diligently drank cup after little cup from the taco stand’s water dispenser. Both of them pounced on the tacos when they arrived, Shisui squeezing lime wedges over the whole platter, Maomao drizzling cups of salsa. Their taco preparation was a practiced and graceful dance they could manage to do without spilling juice or salsa on the other.
All that elegance came to an abrupt end when they started digging into the food. Sauce dripped everywhere, bits of onion flung into the air like confetti, pieces of cilantro stuck to their faces and hands. They didn’t say a word while they ate, they simply devoured.
Afterwards, Shisui was not satiated. She returned to the taco stand and fetched a boli for them to share. They passed the ice pop back and forth as they walked. Shisui would take a few licks off it until she began to shiver holding it, then she’d hand it off and Maomao would mirror the same actions, handing the popsicle back to her when her own teeth chattered. Joka’s shop was close to the area with the food stands, they’d barely finished their shared boli before they made it to the door.
It wasn’t a large shop. It might be easy to miss, tucked away into a corner of the plaza. But an old neon sign Joka had liberated from Verdigris hung in the window; this was Maomao’s beacon in the autumn evening. There was a temporary sign hanging in the door. No other identifiers marked the shop.
The door slammed into a wind chime as they entered. After the chaotic ringing faded, there was quiet music. Maomao could only detect a thumping bassline and some tinny whispers. After a beat, Joka’s head peeked out from a back room.
“Well, look who it is. Didn’t think I’d ever see you here.”
Maomao scoffed. “Please, forgive me that I was in class at the time of your grand opening event.”
Joka chuckled and gave Maomao an affectionate squeeze. “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. And who is this distinguished guest?”
“My roommate, Shisui. Shisui, this is Joka.” The barest of introductions.
Nevertheless, Shisui was chipper. “It’s great to meet you, I’ve heard so much!”
“Can’t say the same for you. Maomao doesn’t tell me shit.” Joka shook Shisui’s hand gallantly as Maomao shrugged. “Is it bad out there? You two look freezing.”
They each half-explained that it was not, in fact, very cold outside, and that their shivering state was just due to a popsicle, while Joka turned on the kettle. She presented them each with a small cup of hot water and showed them around the shop, which was pristine inside and fully assembled. There were already massage tables set up, metal cabinets lining the walls, large spotless mirrors, decorations everywhere, even a few potted plants clustered by the window. There was another area separate from the main work space, as well.
“Right now I’m the only tattooer and piercer working here, but I’d really like to get some apprentices,” Joka explained about the multiple rooms. “I’d like to make this a place where I’m mentoring different artists.”
Maomao stared up at her sister, itchy, unsettled, while she and Shisui chatted.
For years, Joka had been holed up working at Verdigris, disillusioned about her place in the world. At first, tattooing had just been a creative outlet for her. She’d been clear in the beginning—she expected to make no money from it and depend on the brothel financially. Yet here she was, owning her own shop, even hoping to mentor others. Joka had changed somewhere, when Maomao wasn’t looking. The sister she grew up with and knew well wasn’t the sister that stood before her.
“I love your art, I could stare at these all day,” Shisui was saying.
“I started out doodling things I saw at the brothel, pinups of the people, still lifes with the flowers and foods and beauty tools that were laying around there. But even now that I’m out, I still draw a lot of the same things.”
Maomao's eyes moved to the walls. There were framed pieces from other artists, but mostly it was sheet after sheet of Joka’s flash drawings, giving patrons options and ideas on what she offered. Surveying these sheets, some were nostalgic for Maomao. She might have seen her drawing some of these very pages before, back when they lived together. But a lot of the wall was a developed style. Still recognizable to her as Joka’s, but… evolved. Even someone like Maomao, who didn't know much about art, could trace the changes through the drawings.
“You’re gonna choose something off the wall, Maomao?” Joka called out to her, breaking her concentration.
Maomao looked over her shoulder as casually as she could muster. “I wasn’t planning on it.”
“You weren’t planning on it, but now that you’re here…” Joka prodded her.
Shisui immediately joined in. “It’s showing all over your face how much you want to…”
Surely that wasn’t the case—Maomao took a side glance at herself in one of the mirrors hanging nearby.
But somehow, she saw what Shisui meant. Her reflection stared back at her, alert and curious about something. She swept her eyes along the wall of flash art again and tried to locate her feelings inside of her. When Maomao thought about the possibility of getting one of these drawings tattooed on her right now, it was complicated. Her heart raced, but also ached. Maybe it was excitement. Perhaps some pride? Fear? Of what, she couldn’t tell. Maomao scratched her chin.
“I have time today, right now,” Joka prodded again. “Choose anything, my treat. Both of you.”
They were beautiful options, all of them. But the wall of art seemed so tall, so full.
“This rose would look great on you, Maomao. Or this flower over here,” Shisui stepped in where Maomao hesitated.
She couldn’t pick out where Shisui was pointing at all. Maomao’s eyes rested in a little corner. There was nothing special about this particular sheet of flash art, no meaning that called to her. But pointing her gaze there granted her a reprieve, so she kept herself fixed to the spot until the world melted back into place.
“You like that sheet, Mao?” Shisui asked quietly.
Blinking a few times, Maomao glanced at her. “Maybe.” She looked back up at the sheet of flash art, finally processing it. It was just fillers, a page of different vines and leaves, confetti, petals, hearts, that could be added between tattoos. “I might prefer something small to start with.”
“Is there a spot you’re thinking about putting it?” Joka was ready with her professional script.
Of course Maomao, who hadn’t considered getting a tattoo until this very moment, had not thought about it. She let her eyes lose focus on patterns on the filler page in front of her and considered her body, where she wanted to feel it, where she wanted to heal, and then, she knew. She shrugged off her coat. “Yeah. I figured it out. Should we get started?”
Joka gathered the sterile supplies and set up the tattooing station while Shisui flitted around and asked about a hundred questions at every step of the process. Once the preparations were complete and all of Shisui’s questions were answered, Maomao showed Joka the spot her body told her. Joka reacted with a low whistle.
“It’s going to be painful there. I know you’ll be able to handle it, I’m only saying this so you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Maomao shrugged. She could accept this. She looked back up at the sheet. “I like the little stars.” No meaning behind the choice. They simply looked good in Joka’s style.
“Stars, it is, then.” Joka drew the small flourishes on Maomao’s skin freehand, in permanent marker, then pushed her in front of the mirror again for her to approve the placement.
While Maomao glanced at the spot in the mirror, Shisui appeared over her shoulder, smiling, looking faraway, wistful. Her words seemed to have run out after asking Joka so many questions, but she wrapped an arm around Maomao’s waist, snuggled into her back, and whispered something unintelligible.
Maomao took this to mean she liked the tattoo idea.
So they got started. Shisui had no need to sit beside Maomao and hold her hand the whole time. As Joka said, Maomao could handle the pain. But she did it anyway, gazing at Maomao, who kept her eyes closed and just focused on breathing. Joka wasn’t talkative while working, either, so only the buzzing of the tattoo machine and the quiet music echoed through the shop.
It did hurt, a lot. At first, Maomao focused only on keeping her breathing regular while the vibrations from the needles rattled her. As Joka moved around, though, she was able to relax her clenched muscles, settling into the feeling. Her breath became automatic again, flowing through her, as she got lost into the ink. In just the spot she’d wanted to feel it. It still hurt, but it felt good .
Shisui, holding and stroking Maomao’s hand in hers, didn’t complain at all about the crushing forces she’d been applying. Maomao, hovering on the edge of a precipice, let herself fall into it, and found herself floating. No tension remained in her. Peaceful in her dark pool, the tattoo vibrations just rippled the surface of her awareness.
But the tattoo was small, and Joka was fast. Just when Maomao settled into her bliss, the buzzing stopped. She felt a cool, wet towel make contact and wipe the wounds down. Then, she slowly opened her eyes.
“You’re done,” Joka told her, straightforward. Maomao didn’t want it to be over.
Shisui squeezed her hand again.
It took her a moment. When she found her legs, Maomao swung over the edge of the table to look at Joka’s work in the mirror. The tattoo was just stinging now, a pleasant warmth.
Maomao studied her first tattoo in the mirror—subtle stars, sprinkled across her pectoral muscles on the left side of her body. The area was inflamed; Maomao’s gears turned considering different ways she could soothe freshly tattooed skin.
“She likes it,” Shisui determined.
“She does.” Joka agreed. “Do I need to give you the whole legally-required speech about caring for your open wound, Maomao?”
“I will not let this tattoo get infected,” Maomao assured her sister. If there was something she could be totally confident about, it was this.
“You know what to do,” Joka shrugged. She helped Maomao bandage it up nevertheless, before turning to Shisui. “And what about you? Offer’s still open, anything you want.”
With a chuckle Shisui met, then avoided Maomao’s gaze. “I might come back another day.”
“Suit yourself. Friends of Maomao are welcome any time. During business hours.” Joka was unbothered as she cleaned up the tattoo station.
Maomao, still in a blissful stupor from her tattoo, watched Shisui putter around the shop, admire the flash art on the walls, and glance out the window outside.
Was it worth it to wonder why she wasn’t going through with the piercing?
She continued staring at her. Shisui touched the chime hanging by the door, making it ring out again, then turned away. She adjusted a trinket on a shelf, moving it out from behind another object. Her fingers found one of the potted plants next, grasping around a leaf.
“Mind if I take a cutting off this?” she called out.
“Go ahead.” Joka didn’t care.
Shisui broke a stem off the plant and slipped it into her pocket, shooting Maomao a sly smile. “Our room could use some greenery, right?”
Maomao just looked back at her and suggested they go home. After gathering their things and trading a few more jabs with Joka, they headed out.
“Friends of Maomao,” Shisui repeated with a laugh after they left the shop.
“I have nothing to say to that,” Maomao said, and Shisui’s laugh turned into a cackle. They walked back, arms linked, hands tucked into their coats.
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They put the little plant from Joka's shop into an old bottle on the windowsill in their room. There it lived until it didn’t.