@snxkehips cont from here
Makoto hadn't been away a full week, but she'd asked Majima to keep an eye on her place, just in case. She'd been noticing long shadows around Higashi-Nakano of late - and they weren't just those of the sumo wrestlers from the local stable on their way to the shops. As much as she liked to pretend that the work she did was not at all dangerous, she had to admit that sometimes she worried that she might've bitten off more than she could chew with some of the victims she had helped. By leaving her apartment unattended, she was risking not just her own home, but those of the people with whom she shared the three-floor building of tiny living spaces, and that just wasn't fair.
Returning home, however, it didn't take long for her to notice that things were awry. The apartment was very small - a compact kitchen beside the front door which opened out into the single-room living space with a wet-room next door, and a small set of steps which led up to the narrow balcony which she used as a bedroom and wardrobe. Whilst kicking her shoes off, she could already smell the leftovers of something burning.
Now she stood opposite Majima, her arms folded and forehead creased - increasingly dismayed by the tale of woe as it went on.
"Wh-." Every time she was about to voice a question, the older woman had another, more horrifying answer. "Wh. B-. Majima." She found she couldn't say anything at all, just gaping at the story of the one-eyed woman's misadventures -- though she had to admit, she was somewhat relieved that the problem had been caused by her itinerant house-sitter, and not something worse. "Y- how does one person make such a mess??"
Makoto looked from the frosted glass bathroom door and around the small sitting room, dumbfounded - scorchmarks on the still-squelchy rug underfoot, the tatty edges of what had been her leaf-print bedsheet flung hastily over the low coffee table. Failing anything else to do, she squeezed Majima's hands when they clasped her own, and after a long silence, shook her head and blinked vacantly.
"I. You could've burned the whole building down! And- why are you smoking in my apartment??" Taking a deep breath, Makoto pried her hands gently loose from Majima's and reached for the other woman's face, pushing herself up on her tiptoes to plant a soft kiss in the middle of her forehead, just above the line of the patch across her eye. "But I'm glad you're okay. And the building's still standing, so, um. There's that." With that said, she looked around at her apartment again, brow furrowed as if totally stumped. "Goodness me......"
