The moment Agatha saw Christie in their room, she couldn’t help but pounce on top of her girlfriend.

  “Woah!” Christie exclaimed as she enveloped the petite girl with her arms. “What is this all about, mock sapphire?”

  “I just missed you,” Agatha said softly as she pressed her forehead against her girlfriend’s bosom.

  “Oh, how silly you can be,” the redhead chuckled and caressed the back of her head, weaving her long fingers between the dirty-blond fibers. “It has only been three hours.”

  “Four too many,” the dirty-blond girl pouted, which earned another chuckle from the tall girl.

  “You really are a mock sapphire…” Christie might say that, but there was nothing Agatha preferred to do more than this. Their shared warmth filled her with a might far more powerful than that of agates. “Is it really only that you missed me?” She finally asked.

  “Yes, dummy doll,” Agatha replied.

  Of course, she couldn’t tell her lovely girlfriend that she had just acted like a madwoman during class. Agatha still didn’t know why she had done that, and she wasn’t convinced by René Dago’s answer. She felt giddy and needed to move, but it certainly wasn’t because she was addicted to action. Perhaps work. No! I’m not addicted to it! I hate it! The fact that I can train for hours without end is not because I enjoy it but because I need it! She loved seeing the result of her hard work, but the process bored her to death. She needed to work more than others if she wanted to achieve the results she needed.

  Is it really abstinence? Agatha wondered. No, it can’t be. I haven’t seen Christie for three hours. I’m not that desperate. Though it was true that she barely acted separately from her girlfriend. This last year, they hadn’t been separated for more than a couple of hours at a time. Maybe I’m too dependent on her… But she couldn’t help herself. All her life, Agatha had felt alone and different, and now that she had someone to be with, she couldn’t help but be there at all times.

  “Christie…” She said softly, still buried in her girlfriend’s chest.

  “Yes, Agatha?” Christie spoke with a melodious voice that sent shivers down her spine. How couldn’t one love her madly?

  “I am not sticky, am I?”

  “Sticky?” The redhead frowned. “No, not at all? But if you have that doubt, then you should take a shower.”

  Agatha groaned and unlatched from the bosom to look at the agate-like eyes of her girlfriend. “Not that type of sticky!”

  “Oh,” Christie mouthed in realization. “Well, some might call you that. But not me. If anything, I am the one who is too sticky.”

  “Christie,” Agatha admonished with squinted eyes, “I am literally the one pressed against your body.”

  “Then we are both sticky,” the nouveau riche smiled. And she dares to call my smile radiant when she’s this gorgeous… “Though I guess they call that magnetism.”

  “So you are saying that we cannot unlatch from each other?”

  “Even if we could, I would not like that,” Christie pressed a hand on Agatha’s cheek.

  The petite girl couldn’t help but press her own head on that soft and big palm. Hands were already as big as heads, but due to their sheer disparity in size, Christie’s almost enveloped her. Everything was superlative around her; Agatha’s small sizes became even more minute, and that wasn’t a bad thing in the slightest.

  “Really?” Agatha asked in animalistic cowardice. Like the scared squirrel her girlfriend made her out to be.

  Christie stood still for a moment, pondering her words. That made Agatha panic a lot. Why was she thinking about it this much? Am I really that sticky? Does she hate me? Many iterations of such questions appeared in her mind in quick succession. Then her girlfriend smiled, and it was so warm, big, lovely, and sweet that all of those doubts were instantly recalled. Agatha couldn’t even believe why she had them in the first place when she looked at that smile.

  Then Christie pressed her against the bed.

  It had happened so fast that even Agatha’s prodigious reflexes failed to capture the whole picture. She only knew that her girlfriend had stood up when she was still on her lap, and then the redhead had thrown herself on the mattress, making Agatha stand between the two.

  And finally, the redhead pressed her lips against the dirty-blond girl.

  If the doubts had been recalled before by that smile, they had been outright inverted with that kiss. Agatha didn’t fight it. As a matter of fact, she was so drunk in love that she didn’t even take action. She let herself be thrown around by her powerful girlfriend. Oh, and action did she take. Christie bit her lips, suckled them, kissed them, and also went for the tongue as she caressed it with her own.

  The effort exhausted the lapiloquist before the lithorist and removed her head from the petite girl. It was a sight to behold from Agatha’s eyes. She saw Christie hanging on top of her, heavily breathing and with colored cheeks. The sight was partially dark as the tall girl’s body blocked most of the light, alongside her red mane that acted as a curtain, or better yet, a jail of endless bars that bore the name of Christie.

  Agatha’s heart thrummed at that sight.

  Powerful throbs that made her also gasp in shortness of breath, even if she wasn’t nearly as tired as her girlfriend. Pounding after pounding, never before had she ever felt so excited. So alive.

  “What have I told you about doubting me, mock sapphire?” Christie spoke with the utmost seductive tone ever uttered.

  Unconsciously or instinctively, or perhaps even both, Agatha pressed her legs together. They trembled.

  Agatha didn’t know what was happening to her. She was both scared and happy. She wanted that image of red, beige, green, and even more red to remain in front of her forevermore.

  “I…” She tried to speak, but no words left her mouth. Thrum. Throb. Pound. “Uhm… this… er…” Thrum. Throb. Pound. “I really cannot remember,” she giggled awkwardly as her eyes looked at her girlfriend longingly.

  “I can make you remember~” Those honeyed words had the complete and utter opposite of remembrance as Agatha’s brain became a complete mush, her eyes becoming vitreous alongside.

  Christie kissed her again, and if a bit hesitatingly, Agatha reciprocated. They were just kisses, but they made her go mad. Her head hurt so much that her very sanity was yanked from it forcefully. Not even using ten virtual commands for an hour had hurt her this much. But unlike that hateful pain, she wanted this one to continue.

  Their lips separated.

  They gasped for breath.

  Their lips rejoined.

  It was a constant dance of love, a back-and-forth that made her ache for more. And she could see it in those agate-like eyes with their greens and reds; Christie yearned for more. She always called Agatha fulgurating, but it was now she who was feeling hot.

  Their lips separated.

  They gasped for breath.

  Their lips rejoined.

  It isn’t enough. That was what those fiery agates were screaming. So Christie reached for more; she reached for the button in Agatha’s blouse.

  Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

  And she was incinerated.

  Instantly, her brain went haywire. No longer was she drunk on love, but instead had the worst of hangovers. Agatha felt horrible and couldn’t stop trembling. Unconsciously yet no less violent because of it, Agatha pushed Christie away and undid the kiss. She then stood in the bed and gasped for breath, coughing more than once as she had a hand on the unbuttoned section of her blouse. It trembled too much to button up the shirt.

  “Are you alright?” Christie exclaimed with a worried tone and then grabbed her by the shoulders.

  The same jolt assaulted Agatha and she couldn’t help but jump out of the bed and run backwards until her back inevitably collided against the wall.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she muttered in quick succession as her body collapsed and she started tearing, her village dialect appearing as she lost her composure.

  “I…” The redhead looked at her in utter confusion. “What is wrong, Agatha?”

  “I’m sorry…” The dirty-blond girl couldn’t help but apologize again as she hugged her knees and pressed them against her head. She then heard Christie stand up from the bed and take a step forward. “Do not come any closer!” She blurted out violently.

  “Alright,” Christie raised her open palms and took a step backward to sit on the bed. “I will not approach. But can you tell me what is happening? I am confused.”

  Of course, you are… Agatha thought, yet from her lips only came, “I am sorry…”

  “You do not need to be,” her girlfriend spoke softly. Lovingly. “Just enlighten me. Do not leave me in the dark; that is all I want. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  That’s also what I want… the petite lithorist whimpered on the ground. Why’s this happening to me? Right now, she was hating everything, but above all else, she was hating herself. She knew the symptoms, but not the cause. Or perhaps, it was precisely because she knew the cause that she hated herself so much.

  “I…” She tried to raise her voice, but it died instantly.

  Her throat burned.

  Yet no matter how much time passed, Christie didn’t push her. For a moment, Agatha thought that Christie had gone away from the abrasive silence reaching her ears and raised her head. No, she was there. Her girlfriend was truly waiting for her to be the one to open up without being pressured at all.

  “I am not ready…” Agatha mustered all of her willpower to utter those words. They sounded pathetic and feeble. Disgusting. Odious. How could she do this to the girl who loved her that much? She wanted to puke.

  She expected to hear the words, but only a single word caressed her ears. “Alright.”

  Agatha almost thought that she had misheard her as she was left agape on the ground. A bit cliché, but she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “I…” She smacked her lips; they were dry. “Really?”

  “Agatha,” Christie chuckled softly, “what did I tell you about doubting me?”

  The dirty-blond girl couldn’t help but chuckle back at that, even if it was a weak and derisive simulacra. Yes, for better or worse, the gorgeous redhead in front of her loved her. That much was immovable. A fact set in stone.

  “I am sorry,” Agatha apologized again. This time, it had more weight to it. She felt veritably regretful for doubting her girlfriend that way.

  “Yet again, you have to apologize for nothing,” the tall lapiloquist smiled at her.

  When she was a sickly and indecisive squirrel, the girl in front of her was a mountain of pure agate. Strong, big, and resplendent.

  “I need a bit more time,” she promised.

  “All you need,” Christie promised back softly. “All the time you need, Agatha.”

  That only made Agatha love her more.

  ***

  To say that Agatha of Malachite hated herself was an understatement. She hated that her brain was this stupid and had to mess up perfection. She hated that no matter how hard she tried to fight against it, she always failed.

  She was tired.

  So tired of herself.

  They had the perfect moment there, everything was set up perfectly, just like one of Christie’s romance novels, and she still had found a way to mess it up. And part of her was scared that there might not be one of those moments ever again.

  So she did the next best logical thing beyond self-destruction and proceeded to tire her brain a bit more.

  “Have you cried?” Terráquea asked as she put the churros away.

  “A bit,” Agatha sniffed and wiped her face with her sleeve. “Does it show that much?”

  “A bit,” the military engineer replied. “And no, I am not going to give you my fractured churros. They are fucking mine.”

  “Whuh…? I mean, that is not in the slightest what I was going to say,” the lithorist spasmed in confusion. She couldn’t quite divine if it was due to the sheer stupidity of the claim or the needless cursing.

  “I do not know. That sounds exactly like what someone who yearns for my churros would say,” the grown ass woman squinted at her in suspicion.

  “Sure, you do you,” Agatha sighed. Terráquea had clearly not done it on purpose, but the moronic theatre they had put on had alleviated her mental anguish. Partially, at least. “I am happy that you are at least eating. When I first met you, you were at door’s deathstep.”

  “Do you mean death’s doorstep?” The no-longer-malnourished woman said.

  “That is exactly what I said?”

  “No, you said ‘door’s deathstep’,” and bit one of the churros. Agatha couldn’t deny they looked tasty.

  “No? Are you stoned?” The dirty-blonde and pathetic girl scowled in annoyance.

  “No, but it seems you had a stroke or something,” Terráquea shrugged. “I cannot blame you; it happens from time to time to the best of us. Especially lithorists. Mostly immune to mental pathologies, though if one hits you, it hits you hard. But that is just survivorship bias.”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  “Of course you do not,” she snickered with superior snide. Terráquea hadn’t cursed there, yet that gesture felt fouler than any other insult.

  Agatha sighed again and stood up. She had come here to be mentally exhausted, but she hadn’t expected to reach her limit so soon.

  “Oh, do not be like that!” Terráquea protested at the girl’s non-verbal statement and extended a hand with churros on it. “Come on, take one. They are going to fix whatever stroke is stroking you.”

  “I guess I can indu…” Agatha reached for the fan of churros, but the hand holding them quickly retracted.

  “Only one! I am watching you!” Grown ass woman, the petite student groaned mentally as she only took one churro.

  “Where did you even get them from?” She gnawed on her single churro to make it last as long as possible. Mmm, not bad at all.

  “The Shining Knight came by and offered all the researchers churros and ensaimadas. Oh, and a leg of ham,” Terráquea said casually and impassively.

  “Really?” Agatha’s eyes shone slightly.

  “Gullible is written on the ceiling,” the military engineer spoke as she munched on more churros.

  The worst part was that Agatha almost looked at the ceiling. “Come on, throw me an agate. Where did you get them?”

  Terráquea groaned in exhaustion. “Flour surplus that was going to go bad, and it was that or making fucking dust explosions. Though now that I think about it…”

  “You can cook?” Agatha almost choked on her churro, even through the squirrel-sized bites.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” the tall woman rolled her eyes. “And that is exactly why I did not want to say anything.”

  “Well, I guess I should not be surprised. Churros are easy to make.”

  “Got to say, girl, I love your logic. Of course this failure of a woman cannot cook, but because this one meal is easy to make. Fucking shellshit...” She muttered at the end.

  “A bit of an overestimation calling churros a meal.”

  “They are basically bread,” she shrugged. “But enough talking about me. Let us talk about you. Any changes in your Strata?”

  “Are you really going to ignore the fact that I came here with tears in my eyes?” Agatha squinted at her for what felt the umpteenth time in five minutes.

  “Yes,” Terráquea said unapologetically. Agatha squinted harder at her. “Fucking fractured girl. Alright, dear Agatha, would you please enlighten me on the occasion that made your lacrimal glands function?”

  Honestly, I think I prefer this bitchiness over real concern, the dirty-blond girl chuckled softly. Sometimes the worst choice is the best option.

  “I am very private with my body, so when my roommate saw it, I got a bit overzealous and hounded her,” Agatha spoke a totally invented scenario that couldn’t even be extrapolated from reality with the same ease as she breathed.

  “Cry me a river,” she squinted at the grown woman again, which made her groan. Again. “So let me get this straight, you are not crying because you got eyed, but because you hate yourself for acting so aggressively in response to the event?”

  “Exactly,” the student nodded.

  “Cry me a fucking river,” the military engineer reiterated, only that with more emphasis.

  “Terráquea!” Agatha howled in an outcry.

  “No Terráquea and no anything, girl. I am not your… confidant,” she spat the word as if it were venom. “The issue is clearly you and only you, so only you can fix it. Life is a dance, and sometimes the floor offers you no partners. I cannot give you any guidelines, nor do I want to. And now if we actually get to the subject at hand… Wait,” she pressed a finger against her lips. “If you are protective of your body, how do you survive in the changing rooms?”

  “I think we have had this conversation before,” though I guess it’s my fault for thinking you might even remember what we have spoken about. Agatha had partially come here because Terráquea couldn’t care less about it, nor would she divulge it. She said that she wasn’t a confidant, but those were the exact best characteristics for one. Perhaps even coming out to her wouldn’t result in anything, but she didn’t want to risk it on a supposition. “Anyhow, I rush to the changing rooms before anyone, and I have also modified my uniforms so they are faster to change into and out of them.”

  “Ah, yes. You are a seamstress, right?” Agatha almost corrected her by adding ‘in-training’, but she was too tired to do so. “Well, there is the whole spiel. If you hate being seen, hide yourself. Do not share a fractured room.”

  “And what if I want…”

  “No what ifs!” Terráquea interjected. “If you come to my laboratory is to talk about my stuff. Now, any change in Strata?”

  “Yes,” Agatha sighed and summoned her big sapphire on her palm. “Fifth Stratum.”

  “Attagirl, that is what I like to see…”

  Terráquea quickly lost herself on the lithic wonder that was the perfect sphere of an agate, yet Agatha felt oddly comforted. Perhaps it was because she hated herself, but this kind of derision and poor treatment was exactly what she needed. Or even outright deserved.

  But no, what comforted her were those crude words. They told the truth. This problem was hers alone, and she had to solve it. And she wanted to. Perhaps she hated herself and her brain for being so stupid, but she didn’t want to remain afraid of being seen. She truly, truly wanted Christie, her gorgeous and stupendous girlfriend, to see her. For on this floor of a dance of life, she wasn’t without a partner.

  Patreon to support me and read 20 chapters ahead of time!