Together

The love Shino always wanted would have been warm and soft, melting spun-sugar sweet on the tongue. What she's got is this clawing thing, jagged with broken-mirror edges, and she's going to hold it close all the way down.

It's going to break her open, spill her out like a jar of preserves smashed on the counter.

She doesn't much mind, anymore.

†

If Shino reaches back like she's trying to scratch an itch, she can just touch the port between her shoulder blades. It does itch, sometimes. She can't sleep nude anymore, either, she's got to wear a t-shirt or else her long hair makes the skin around it tickle.

She could cut her hair, but it's one of the things she likes about this body, her third in the last five years. Nao picked it out for her after the last one got ruined.

What was that like, anyway? Flipping through the vessel files in the director's office together, her datachip on a lanyard around Nao’s neck, skin-warmed. She would have walked down to the lab, nodding, pointing, that one.

Shino knows what it's like. She did it too for Nao, once. She's just making conversation.

†

You're not big enough for both of us.

It's her thought and Nao's at the same time now—all boundaries between them eroded. They're blended together like a sick sweet smoothie, have been from the moment Shino decided she wouldn't wait any longer for Nao's next body. Choosing was the easy part; the nightmare of procedure, of paperwork, of payouts and checkups and sign here please before she was allowed to restore from backup had been the loneliest year of her life. She couldn't face it twice.

Now they'll reload together, every time.

I never asked you for this, I never wanted this, I never, I never—

Yeah, but Nao? No matter what happens now, I'll never have to live a single day without you.

She wraps her arms around herself, nails digging into her biceps, and she doesn't know if she's trying to rip herself open or stroke herself calm.

© 2022 Iori Kusano

About the Author

Iori Kusano is a queer Asian American writer and Extremely Ordinary Office Gremlin living in Tokyo. They are a graduate of Clarion West 2017 and their fiction has previously appeared in Apex Magazine and Frozen Wavelets. Find them on Twitter @IoriKusano and Instagram as iori_stagram, or at kusanoiori.com.