Once her song was finished, Maya made her way back over to their booth and in her haste to return she stumbled a little but managed to regain her balance with a minimum of embarrassment, though she did get her left buttock pinched by a middle aged businessman on her way back but rather than blushing, she turned around and winked at him, sashaying her hips a little. Unfortunately her slightly staggering gait betrayed her attempt at seductiveness. She barely even blushed when she saw Ritsuko. "That was wonderful Maya, you're really talented!" That raised a red hue in Maya's cheeks. "Thanks Dr Akagi." She smiled slightly, almost flirtatiously. "Please, it's Ritsuko!" She turned back to Misato upon feeling a nudge in the ribs and had to bite her tongue to keep herself from laughing. A young man who looked to be barely over the legal drinking age, quite obviously drunk and suffering from an over-inflated ego, was trying to put the moves on Misato and failing miserably. "I'm sure you DO have the biggest cock of all the men in here like you claim, but I'm afraid I like girls." She smiled condescendingly at him as she placed a hand on Ritsuko's thigh. "And I don't think my girlfriend here would be very happy with you trying to chat me up whilst she's within earshot." Still trying not to laugh, Ritsuko placed an arm around Misato's shoulder and kissed her cheek. "Is this dick giving you trouble, sweetie?" She played with a lock of Misato's hair whilst shooting contemptuous glares at her would-be suitor. Unfortunately Misato's claim of homosexuality hadn't deterred him as much as she had hoped. "Rug munchers eh? I bet you both just need a good, hard fuck from a guy like me to win you back from the dark side." He raised an eyebrow suggestively at Ritsuko. "How about you let me show you both how good guys can be." Misato managed to keep a straight face and reply airily. "No, we're perfectly happy with each other thankyou all the same. We don't want or need a man, but hey, if we change our minds." She winked at him. He was beginning to show signs of defeat but still wasn't prepared to go out without a fight. "So you two really are lovers? Prove it. I wanna see you kiss each other." Ritsuko nuzzled at Misato's neck, managing to look deadly serious. "Will it make the weird hetero go away?" Misato nodded. "I think so." Ritsuko allowed Misato to initiate their kiss. She was surprised by how much she enjoyed it and they both got fairly heavily into it, caressing each other's legs and breasts, carrying on for over a minute. The young man said nothing more but his gaping mouth and suspiciously bulging trousers gave them more than enough information as he slowly departed, casting a disbelieving glance back at them every couple of seconds. Once he was safely out of range, the pair of them burst out laughing. "Did you see the look on his face? He's going to be having sweet dreams tonight!" "That's for damn sure, dammit you were good, 'will it make the weird hetero go away' I thought I was gonna giggle and blow the whole thing! Aw, you don't think I was too hard on him do ya? He was only a kid." Ritsuko raised an eyebrow. "Nah, I didn't think ya would. Thanks for doing that though, it's been a while since we had to do that to get rid of a creep like him." "Mmmhmm, if I recall correctly last time we tried that Kaji was just more insistent than ever that he was going to win you over. But I guess there's no accounting for taste." Misato glared at her. "Okay, I'm kidding. How about some more margueritas? On me this time, but you can go and get them, they always serve the slutty ones first." They both laughed. "Oh, if I was sober you would be SO dead!" Misato climbed over her to get out of the booth with a distinct lack of dignity, giving Hyuga an image of fan service he wasn't going to forget for a long time. Ritsuko hoped for Misato's sake that she was wearing underwear with a skirt that short. As she watched Misato go, Maya was made conspicuous by her absence. "Where did Ibuki-chan go?" She hiccupped and Aoba shrugged. "Said she was going for some air, she only left about a minute ago." Something seemed to occur to Shigeru. He gave Ritsuko a very odd, almost searching look as he stood up. "I'm going to go and see how she is." He headed out of the bar. A look of concern played across Ritsuko's face. Hyuga gestured after them with his head/ "Guess some people just can't hold their liquor like us, huh?" She gave him a false smile. "I guess not." ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ "Maya?" "What do you want?" "I just wanted to see how you are, you left pretty quickly then, just checking you're not throwing up or anything." "I'm fine, I'll be back inside in a minute." "You're crying." "No, it's just very smoky in there. Leave me, please, I'm fine." There was a pause. The young man sat down on the curb next to her. "I said I'm okay, I'll go back inside in a second." "You like her, don't you?" "Who?" "Ritsuko." Maya said nothing. He sighed at her silence. "Look, it's just an educated guess, and I'm sorry if I'm wro-" "What made you think so?" He smiled vaguely. "I saw you looking at her in there, it's not hard to recognise adoration like that, then when she kissed Misato, that was pure envy in your eyes." Maya seemed to take offence at this but before she could object, he continued. "It's okay, I think we've all had it like that for someone at some point, but it hurts, doesn't it?" Maya turned her face away from him, impressed at his perceptive power but unsettled by the accuracy of his observations. They sat in silence for a while, until she turned back to him once more. "Does anyone else know?" He shook his head. "Hyuga is the only one in with a chance of guessing and he couldn't pick up on something like this after three beers if he had training. I only just guessed myself." He allowed a few seconds to elapse. "So are you going to tell her?" Maya stared at him as if he'd just suggested she take Ritsuko's life. "Are you insane? How the hell would she react to that, do you want me to get fired?" Aoba shrugged. "She wouldn't fire you for telling her this, what do you have to lose after all? It's not like she's your best friend or anything." "What do I have to lose? What do I have to fucking lose? How about the respect of everybody who finds out? How well do you think that would go down with her, what it would do to my reputation?" "Maya, calm down, I'm sorry OK, but this isn-" "Calm down?" She had now risen to her feet as she yelled at him. "Do you have any idea how hard this is for me? I'm living under her roof for God's sake, do you really think she'd keep me as a house guest if she found out how disgusting and sick I am?" "Maya, Dr Akagi wouldn't judge you for something like this, I'm sure she's not like that, and what if she has feelings like this too?" She laughed hysterically at his idealistic suggestion. "Yes, because life really is that fair, Shigeru. Maybe in your fairytale pansy little world everything works out like that and boys love boys and girls love girls and everything is fine, but my life isn't like that, God knows that I wish it was, do you know how hard it's been for me? Do you have any idea what I gave up to be with my last girlfriend when I found out the way I was, how important that was to me, and how I stayed with her, when it all went sour because I didn't want to lose that security, the feeling of loving someone and having a roof over my hea-" "Maya! Stop this, you're drunk and you'll onl-" "Don't tell me to shut up!" She was now sobbing hysterically, though her voice was not as loud. "You have no idea what it's like for me right now, how hard it is to see her with another woman. Ritsuko will never know what I feel, because it's wrong, my parents were right to throw me out, girls shouldn't love girls. Yoshimi tried to teach me otherwise and what happened? She kicked me out too, I lost that, and I can't put my feelings on the line like that again, I love her too much to risk being rejected by her as well and yes it hurts, it can be agony at times but we all have crosses to bear. I can hide this, I can keep my feelings at bay and I would much rather have to live with that than have Ritsuko hate me for being some screwed up dyke who's bordering on obsessed with her. Dammit Aoba, she's all I can think about and you can't sit there and tell me she's going to take that well. She doesn't deserve all my bullshit, and she could do so much better than me anyway." She finished, sobbing convulsively, but Aoba was no longer looking at her, he was staring at the doorway of the bar behind her with an extremely odd expression, almost half wincing, half nauseated. Maya shook her head and whispered, almost inaudibly "No, she's not, please, she can't be." She turned around, as if she didn't know what she would see there, and was met with a pair of very familiar, very shocked, green eyes. "Shit."
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