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Mai's face appears in the mirror, and Maki's heart shoots so far up her throat that it passes out her lips, past her teeth, til it smacks onto the bathroom floor, still writhing.
Not yet. She keeps her composure despite the phantoms in her skin, looks again. Examined closer, in the full-length mirror beside the sink, the image is wrong—she could never be her sister (she's who her sister never could be). Her hair's just getting too long—or cropped wrong, or just pushed by the abhorrent rays of her shower into an effigy's shape.
It's disgusting. The image is wrong—she should cut her hair, be done with this, remember the thousand scars that set her so apart. But the truth behind it's gone. This is the best she's got. Her fingers trace along the body in the mirror, almost gazing with Mai's eyes. It's different, of course—rougher, more warped by muscle. Slightly, imperceptibly taller. It's wrong. A sign of growth where Mai's only had absence.
The contours are different now—she never could forget caressing them, pulling squirming sounds out of Mai that she denied she was making—every month and year without her driving their resemblance further apart. They couldn't go on, the years couldn't—shouldn't, should've been dead long ago. At least before her. At least together.
Warm water runs, shoves it into her face. Just stop. This body's just a stranger, too cold, too big, god, she sounds like a fucking child. Isn't now, never was. It could never be Mai's. It's barely hers.
Vapor coats the mirror's surface, cloaking her jaw down to her chest. Distorting her edges, scars hidden beneath the water's shroud. Like this, she could almost—no. Shouldn't. But every minute furthers their severance. Shouldn't. Every step is to a lonely grave. Shouldn't.
Eyes that might be Mai's watch Maki's fingers drift below the vapor. Circle her breast. Just a little. Body in the mirror twitches a little, could almost be Mai. Should. Almost is enough, almost is what's left. Maki starts teasing Mai's nipple, watches her shift in the glass. While one hand rubs, drawing out a familiar, foreign warmth (the kind Mai would radiate, back when they made mistakes under their covers together. The kind a corpse like Maki could never feel herself), the other moves down to her thigh, drifting up its inside. Already wet there—from the shower, surely. She's not that weak.
The twin in the mirror faces her down like she's pathetic, like she's disgusting. Really? You're the pathetic one, always have been. The one who let herself be left behind. In the mirror, she's trembling, desperate. Always is. Desperate to lean in and shut her up, to press her lips against Maki's (against Mai's? which is she, again?) and feel their softness. Maki brought down to Mai's level, just for a moment, just to connect again. Just to taste her, just to remember. Just a little. Just once.
She stops right before her mouth presses against cold glass, and the illusion nearly breaks. Gross, what she's doing is gross, improper, contemptible. There's nothing, no one to kiss. No breathing but her own—the memory of lips breaking apart, only one of them exhaling, the panic, the instant, infinite whiplash of it sinking in—stop it. There's only absence, should only be absence.
But Mai's eyes stare from the mirror, hazy with arousal, full with want. She can keep pretending for a little longer. Something in her feels sick; she buries it.
Her hands have been at work; Mai's sunken halfway to her knees, thighs parted, hot and heavy. Maki's hand massages Mai's clit, feels the heat in waves, Mai leans into it, needs it, half-bucks her hips against it. Maki obliges; applies more pressure as Mai's moisture drips down her fingers, as her legs collapse, splayed across the floor, riding Maki's touch. Needy, mewling, more, have to have more. Can't use tongue for—reasons which didn't quite reach her heat-fogged head, but—her need (Mai's need, Mai's easy, Maki would never—get like this.)
For the first time since she started, Maki looks away from the mirror, to the sword resting on the other side of the sink. The one Mai left for her, in the bathroom for reasons she forgot or doesn't care for. Her memento, her requiem. She could be closer. Right against her. No, Maki couldn't, not with a sword that's been soaked in the blood of her whole family. She wouldn't. But what did family even matter, except Mai? A sword soaked in. Mai.
Fuck.
It's in her hands, in her thighs, then she's rutting against it and can't stop herself, just anything to get closer, anything to lick up the very last fragments of that residual warmth. In the mirror, Mai grinds against it, against Maki's sword, against the simulacra of her sister. Yeah, that was why. That was why she, why Mai, wanted it so fucking badly. Why she couldn't help it, fucking herself on the hilt and edging closer and closer to the blade. She could destroy herself. She could end this right now. She could make good on her promise, make good on her worthlessness, take herself to a place where the tides would reunite them.
Doesn't. Keeps shoving herself to the sword, Mai against Maki, Maki against Mai. Keeps panting like a mutt in heat—Mai does, in the mirror. Skin's burning, pleading for release. She removes the sword—hips thrusting, begging, against thin air for a second—and readjusts it. Flips it, hilt to her face, the flat of the blade pressing into her cunt.
She runs her tongue against the metal's base, then presses her mouth to the hilt. Makes out with the sword, with Mai, its surface warm and sticky from Mai's fluids—god, she's filthy. But it's what's left, this lips-to-lips by proxy, so she savors it, savors the taste, closes her eyes and pictures Mai, flush and wet and whining. Imagines Mai grinding, writhing, while her legs press the blade into her, so, so close; everything bursts, rocks—Maki comes, and in the mirror, Mai does too.
It's overstimulating—double the pleasure, each twin feeling each other's, and it hits like a tidal wave. Like a memory, something that's been out of reach for so long. In the mirror, Mai folds, and then Maki can't see what next because she does too, and she's collapsed onto the tiles, pulsing, thick with sweat.
"I—hate you." says one of them.
And Maki wants to teach her a lesson, again. Wants—again. Could. Gets back up, looks into the mirror, where the vapor's clearing. Right into her face full of scars.
Clarity hits then. The disease comes unearthed, the sickness of her being; she pulls herself to the sink and throws up into it. It stings, burns, doesn't stop, can't purge herself of the disdain, can't decontaminate. Lasts until she's hollow, 'til just emptiness remains, nothing left but what she should be. Nothing human left at all.
She wipes the bathroom down, gets dressed, and leaves to cut her hair.