Make yourself Comfortable

A PGSM Live! Fic

By MK

	It’s a lot like sinking into a hot bath in winter. You know, 
when you’ve been outside for too long, and your toes and nose and 
fingers are numb and hardly working and your belly is empty and 
you’re standing naked in the bathroom while the tub fills? It’s hot, 
and the air is thick with steam and when you turn off the taps the 
silence is almost deafening; almost as loud as the sound of your 
feet and then the rest of you slowly sinking into the water, and it 
burns. The burn of harsh frost is replaced with a sudden rush of 
sensation when you sink into a bath, and maybe, when your eyes start 
to fall shut, maybe this wasn’t the best idea you’ve ever had. Because 
you hear stories about people falling asleep and drowning in the 
bath, right? Everyone’s heard that, sure. Especially when it’s minus 
twenty outside and probably a hundred degrees in the water and, like 
before, your limbs go heavy with heat and warmth and wet and all you 
want to do is stay there until the water gets cool and them climb 
into bed.

	It’s like that. It’s like drowning, or knowing you’re going 
to drown, and doing nothing about it because in a way, it’s welcome. 
It’s an ending. Aino Minako hadn’t known forever that she was going 
to die, but the revelation had come to her twice. Once, in a hospital 
in the afternoon, with the sun catching the white washed walls and 
reflecting back so strongly she felt blinded. White walls, white sheets, 
white, white skin. Paler than she’d ever been, and that little clear 
tube disappearing under the tape and into her skin. White everywhere, 
and the slow, heavy knowledge that this wasn’t just a flu, or a bug, or 
something she’d get over. One day, whether she took the surgery or not, 
she was going to die. Sixteen years old, and death knocks at the door.

	Aino Minako invited it inside for tea. “Can you wait a few 
moments? I’ll just put the kettle on.” Please. Make yourself comfortable. 
You and I, we’ll be here for a little while, at least. And Death had 
taken off his shoes in the entrance way, murmured the requisite polite 
words and padded his way into her living room, into her life, and 
settled there. She and Death, they were old friends now.

	The second time, she had already been deeply involved in the 
last dregs of her tea. The black spots were gathering in the bottom of 
her glazed cup, and she swirled them left and right in the last golden 
water left there. Swirl them this way and they look like a cloud, swirl 
them that way and they look like small birds in flight. In this small 
way, she had control of her destiny. In this small way, she could move 
the puzzle pieces as she wanted. It was easy, so easy. And then she took 
a last swallow, and the tea leaves were still, stuck, frozen to the bottom 
of her cup, and she could no longer move them as she pleased. Well, that 
was the way of tea, wasn’t it? Eventually, there is no more water.

	This time, someone stopped by again for tea, and the stole all 
the water away. “Minako... I’m sorry.” He was sorry, yes, and she knew 
that, but it still wasn’t kind to just take all the water away like 
that. Minako was left with an odd-looking clump of tea leaves that she 
didn’t particularly like now, and she had no way to shift them. There 
was no water anymore. She had work to do, and it wasn’t just the work 
she wanted. Slowly, she came to understand just what exactly the words 
“destiny” and “past life” meant. Slowly, she came to look at the remains 
in her tea cup and simply say, “Well, that’s life.” Or death. Whichever. 
It wasn’t like he had ever left in the first place; he had just brought 
over a friend, was all. Hey, the more the merrier, so long as they let 
her finish a few things before it was time to go.

	The only real problem was that after awhile, her new friends kept 
trying to push Death out the door. Death didn’t like that too much, 
really. Rei and Usagi and Makoto kept reading her tea leaves differently, 
poking their fingers into the cup and trying to move the little black 
clumps around. Didn’t they know that was cheating? In the end, they talked 
her into the surgery.

	Was it worth it? She wasn’t sure. It was nice to finally get out 
of the house, but it was strange, too. She hadn’t looked away from that 
tea cup in a long, long time, and the light of the rest of the world was 
bright and strong, overwhelming.

And then she was back. But hadn’t time passed? Wasn’t something different?

Hadn’t she...died?

But Death was no longer in her living room, and something was missing. 
Something was off. Something. Some... one?

Someone. Hadn’t someone died? Hadn’t someone pulled her back, after a 
long time? It was like she was living a movie and someone had hit rewind 
and just written all over the script. Everything was the same, and 
everything was different.

Her tea cup was missing.