Rekindled (Ch. 01: The Smirk)

I. The Smirk (Present)

Oh fuck! Is it? Could it be... her? Mari thinks to herself, doing her best to glance inconspicuously up from her bus stop bench.

She observes for a moment: it looks a lot like she looked in her latest pics and videos. Long, curly, raven black hair. It was her, she was about 80% sure.

Mari realized her gaze didn't have the inconspicuous vibe she was going for, as the woman she had been staring at turned around. After a short pause, she looked right into Mari's eyes and smirked.

That smirk removed any remaining doubt.

Mari looked away quickly, turning her eyes away.

That's it. I'm going to die of embarrassment. At the drugstore bus stop. Of course that's how I go Mari thought to herself, what a fucking day. New city. New apartment. New pharmacy. I fucked up the bus schedule, stranding myself. Now this.

This, of course, meant Emma. Emma was a prolific content creator, and gooning to Emma's content had become a daily part of Mari's routine, as regular as brushing her teeth. Except Mari had known Emma before she was Emma, before Emma transitioned into Emma. Mari and Emma had a history, back when Mari was doing cam work and would pretend to be into dudes, which she hadn't realized then Emma was definitely not.

It was just supposed to be a quick collab, streaming with pre-transition Emma. But Emma, she (Mari was sure to get the pronouns right in her head, even though it sometimes took her a second to amend the time difference) had been so kind to Mari, letting her stay at her place for a couple months. Of course it was the same time period where Mari did the deep work of reflecting and realizing she was a lesiban, and she had no idea Emma was, well, Emma.

If the timing hadn't been so fucked, Mari thought to herself, it could have been perfect. Those nights were some of the safest, most fun nights of Mari's life. She felt so close to Emma. They loved to read or watch yuris. They had a whole bit, where Emma had a penchant for being hard on herself and her life choices, and Mari would joke her poor life choices started with Charmander as her Pokemon starter, which always made Emma stop spiraling and smirk a bit. Gods that smirk, Mari thought, about the time they spent together and about her penchant for Emma's content, feeling her body temperature rise a degree or two.

And, even though they were just roommates, Emma was the most caring person Mari ever knew. Mari grew up eating PBJs and whatever was in the pantry she could mix with tuna packets, she wasn't used to the way Emma would care for her, would make her home cooked meals. Who even knew a fucking Midwest Casserole--dishes Emma had learned to make from her Grandma as a teenager on a North Dakota farm--could be so satisfying? She missed the casseroles. But she missed even more feeling safe, cared for. She missed Emma's smirk and the way they would cuddle--just as friends, they insisted--on the couch.

And the sex was so damn good. They only fucked on cam. But Mari found herself getting genuinely really into it, to the point where it started to mess with her head. She found herself daydreaming about Emma. And, as Emma was still living as a him--and Mari had no idea Emma might be anything otherwise--it was complicated. Especially as Mari was processing that she might be--and was, in fact--a lesbian. And then, Mari thought, I fucked everything up.

She wasn't sure if their previous relationship made it more or less creepy that she gooned to Emma so often, that she daydreamed of her. It was all harmless, Mari thought, convinced she'd never see Emma again. Especially after her stint overseas and then moving to the other side of the goddamn country. But yet, Emma was here.

Mari looked back. Emma was gone. She took a deep breath. As she was pretty sure she missed the last bus, she went back into the drugstore to buy the cheapest phone charger she could and try to make a plan to get back to her crappy sublet apartment. She turned into the drugstore and accidentally full on body checked the person walking out, knocking each other to the ground.

"Mari?" Emma asked from the tiled drugstore floor, her feminine trained voice saying her name exactly as she had imagined it would sound every time Emma gooned to her videos.