Supremacy, Sonority, Tranquility [Makoto, Shishiyuki]

She knew that it was a stupid thing to ask and yet she asked it anyway which made her head fall in defeat. It wasn't even the fact she had rejected the request but the fact that she had asked it in the first place because she was impatient and let her emotions get the better of her which she put so much work into trying to suppress.

"When I was young.. a woman from nobility hurt me. She had long dark hair, she was very pretty, she had viscious bloodlust and yet she could seem a monster in one second and a kind woman in the next. She's the woman I said you remind me of and she kissed me at the end of it despite the horrible things I watched her do to people she kissed me at the end reassuringly like nothing bad had happened at all."

Makoto looked down in her lap the whole time that she said it, though it was hard to not be specific for Shishiyuki. It still left her upset to share the experience with her on nothing except blind faith.

"...I see. And you wish to know if I am that woman, if my kiss is the same as hers."

Shishiyuki felt faintly insulted, but ultimately, she could not blame Makoto for feeling the way that she did. It was a difficult position that Shishiyuki had been put into, but ultimately, she understood that Makoto had put a great deal of faith into her. After all, if she were this woman from Makoto's past, it would be all too easy now to handle the matter. She thought for a moment, hand on one temple, before looking to Makoto with a certain degree of intensity.

"I would ask that you close your eyes if I am to do this for you. Even if this would never leave this room, for the sake of my own principles I still must know that none have ever laid eyes on it. Do you understand?"

She respected Makoto, trusted her. Shishiyuki put no particular value on the idea of the sanctity of a first kiss, had no sense that she was somehow to be sullied by this action or that it carried any deeper emotional meaning between the two. It was a method of making her identity clear to Makoto, and nothing else.

"I'm sorry. I want to trust you but whenever I am around you it feels like you are only genuine sometimes and other times you're not and I don't know what to think. I have no right to judge you for any of it when I'm not honest and fake so much to people."

She blushed at the intensity of the explanation and felt awful. Makoto didn't want Shishiyuki doing this, were she blonde she wondered if it would even occur to her with the striking resemblance that lingered in her mind and festered to create the tension she felt around her when she should feel relaxed and at ease.

"Did you mean what you said, about this being your first?"

That was striking to her, the idea that this was her first and while Shishiyuki didn't have those sentimentalities about one's first time for these things, she did. Even though her love life soured and turned into years of abuse Makoto still remembered her first kiss and how it was before that time. So she stood up and walked around to sit next to her teacher and sigh in disappointment while trying not to cry for a number of reasons. The worst part about bottling it up for her is that eventually it pops.

"I don't think I can do it, Shishiyuki. Not with you. Not because of this."

"Honesty is not, in itself, a virtue. We must sometimes lie for the sake of others, so that they are not harmed by unfortunate truths we carry with us."

What a difficult position she had been put into, whether Makoto intended it or not. Her principles, and her own love for her family, clashed rather handily with her own fondness for her student at the moment. Shishiyuki was not the sort to have some sort of earth-shattering revelation from something such as this, of course. She would not suddenly shift on a stance she had held for over a thousand years on account of one emotional conversation.

But, she would at least contemplate this exchange for a long while.

"I did, yes. I have never shared myself in any capacity with another. It is the duty of a noblewoman to remain pure until they marry, and while there are many within the Seireitei who feel content to abandon this principle for the sake of idle hedonistic pleasure, I am not among them."

It was strange to her, to have Makoto come around and sit beside her. It shifted the entirety of the dynamic, she found, and made her consider the situation more immediately.

"Are you certain, Makoto? If it would put your mind at ease, I am not opposed to it."

"Right, but when you lie so much. No one believes you when you tell the truth."

The clarification of how it was in fact that special first time made those seeds of doubt grow and sigh. How could she be expected to do it now, that her stupid wish to put all that doubt and uncertainty to rest would take something so important, as far as she was concerned, from here. Makoto's mouth opened to try and respond, if she said yes she was just as selfish as people. The way they prioritised others over themselves and didn't care about how their actions affected everyone else.

"I.. I don't know."

Her years of bottled up emotions poured out when she felt herself crying, Makoto hated that she was putting this burden on Shishiyuki. It wasn't her place to treat her Hakuda instructor like a therapist or as someone to burden with her problems. She hated it, she hated scenarios like this where she looked weak and emotional or seeking pity from people.

"I don't know what to do."

The words pushed their way out while she sat there with closed eyes. Looking for guidance and to be told what to do, how to make it better and be handheld through it. Years ago she'd been told she'd never be able to make it on her own, that she'd die in some alley without anyone or maybe she'd get someone take pity on her and give her a worse life than she already had. That's why she should accept the situation for what it was.

Regardless of whether she had succeeded in living without him or not Makoto still wanted that guidance, because Makoto always has been a weak person herself.

"That much is true, I suppose. It is important that we do tell the truth whenever we are able."

Shishiyuki had certainly not expected Makoto to become so emotional, but given the circumstance, she could not say that she blamed the young woman for her response. If she had experienced trauma, and spoken of it so little, then it was to follow that all of this would be quite painful for her. She wanted quite a great deal to help, but she did not quite know now.

"I will help you, however I may. I do not wish to cause you any grief, to push you in one way or another. There are always those times when our direction is unclear, when it is not easy to know what we must do."

There was, ultimately, only one way Shishiyuki could offer the help she wished to. It was a matter of principle, something she could not forsake. There were truths she could not share to an outsider, no matter how much she cared for Makoto's well-being, and words she could not speak to one who was not part of her family. But she was not entirely certain if offering such a thing to Makoto was prudent, if it was a correct decision or one merely seeming appropriate in the moment. For all of Shishiyuki's self-control, she was not one particularly adept at these sorts of moments, and she could do little but give Makoto a warm, if faintly awkward, embrace, the sort that made it clear Shishiyuki did not show such affection often.

"In those times, the most important thing is that we do not force ourselves to walk alone. That we remember the presence of our friends, our family. Those who have supported us, and who will support us. It is not easy to put one's trust in others, I know. I am rather poor at it as well. But you and I may work on that together, if you wish."

If it were someone else, Shishiyuki might well have simply offered to marry her. A situation which would make Makoto her family, and where she could offer a kiss without any sense of guilt. But that would be manipulative in its own way, and she suspected that, if Makoto had been made unsure merely at the thought of taking a first kiss, to outright take her marriage would only make her feel all the worse. Such a difficult situation.

Shishiyuki's words were like relief even if she wasn't good at comforting another person. For a dehydrated person even the faintest drops might be comparable to a litre of water, for a person who didn't have faith in people even the smallest gesture might be worth a million more to another person. So an embrace, as awkward as it might have been, that she hadn't felt in years was reassuring and blissful.

Friends. Family. They were things she had taken for granted as a child that now felt alien to her ever since she gave up on them and pursued her career. She knew it was wrong to have lost faith in people, expect the worst from them and regard them as such. Where people could suffer and she'd smile without any remorse like they deserved it. In some way, shape or form those people deserved to suffer for being people and she enjoyed it.

"I.. Don't have anyone like that."

The closest she thought she had was Abalia but she was different from people. That lack of emotion and a commitment to others that wasn't natural, she was a person that will never hurt others more so than anyone else. There was no selfish desire to take advantage of people for personal gain or reasons.

Her arms wrapped around Shishiyuki and stayed there in thought. This was nice though, even if she felt like she was as bad as the people she loathed for forcing all this weight onto her even if she was taking advantage of her for comfort.

"I'm sorry for this. Please forgive me."

"If you have had no one such as that before, then you may at least rest assured that you have one person who will support you now."

Shishiyuki felt as though she may honestly have been a bit condescending, but she wasn't entirely sure how else to approach this situation beyond offering these sorts of affirmations. She did not mind the situation, though she knew that she likely would have were it anyone else.

"You do not need to apologize, Makoto. Our emotions are something we cannot decide, simply by their nature. Even if we control them, we will still feel them, and they will still weigh on us. We must sometimes let our emotions out, or they will only harm us all the more."

What else was there to say on the matter? She could have offered sayings and platitudes on the matter of emotion, but those would not be the things which helped Makoto in the moment, she felt.

Squeezing her tighter, while she was emotional she was still aware of her own strength and restrained herself from squeezing too hard that it might hurt. Makoto nodded into Shishiyuki at the words, it was nice having someone even if it felt like she didn't know her. It occured to her that she was giving a lot to this woman without much in return, all these feelings and other things that she hadn't handed over to anyone else.

"I do though because regardless of how I feel, I shouldn't have asked you for something like that."

There was a smile on her face though which was hidden from her hug. There was something that still bugged her though and while leaning there she smiled.

"Thank you, Shishiyuki."

It was rude for her to not thank her for all this, she let go and tried to pull away to shyly look up at her with watery eyes. A small awkward smile to show her appreciation while she tried to get her composure back again to not look like a broken mess, she was meant to be a grown woman after all and not some sobbing kid that needed to be handheld through life. If she stayed too long then she didn't want to seem like she was fishing for pity or anything.

"I still can't say I know if you're that woman or not but.. I trust you if you say that you're not her."

"It is not an unreasonable request, when it is something that is so important to you."

There was something about Makoto's trust in her that simultaneously reassured Shishiyuki and caused her a degree of pain. Such trust was placed in a woman who, by necessity, could not ever give to her the full truth. It reminded Shishiyuki all the more of her disdain for the entire system of the noble families.

"I will do my utmost to ensure that your trust in me is well-placed, Makoto."

It would be pointless to simply reiterate that she was not this woman from Makoto's past. After all, what good would it do to state something established through trust? Better to simply make it clear through action. Giving her a smile in return, Shishiyuki wiped Makoto's stray tears away, something of her instinct as an elder sister coming to the surface for a moment.