Chapter 1: Recompense

Mei had learned a long time ago that her mind was her sanctuary.

It had become important early on in her life that she learn to rely on herself. She was never coddled or hand-held in the way many children were throughout adolescence. Growing up as part of the dynasty that was her family, Mei had always known that she was going to be a little different from most people her age. It was only a matter of time, but she had expected to have ample opportunity to prepare herself for the future.

But then her father had backpacked his way across the world, leaving the responsibility of the school on her thin shoulders. And then her grandfather had his stroke. It was things like that which kept reminding Mei that it was important that she remain capable. If not her, then no one else. That was the fact of the matter; either through her own volition or the indiscriminate hand of fate, she had been given full control of her own future and the future of many others at a very young age. So she had to be responsible and reliable. Certainly that was ample motivation…

Even now, as her mind systematically scanned through her fifth sheaf of official documents that night, Mei was careful not to think about what she would rather be doing. Despite the mythology surrounding her character, she was the same as anyone else; she did not enjoy excessive work in the slightest. The invariable truth was that she hated it. Most people would have a few points in their lives where they would be forced to subject themselves to massive amounts of tedious fact checking, hours of guideline reviewing with only an even larger pile of homework to look forward to. But for those people, these were only occasional inconveniences.

They were only cursory excursions into the world that Mei permanently inhabited.

Sighing quietly, Mei slipped her reading glasses off her face and rubbed tiredly at her burning eyes. The deep mahogany of her desk creaked gently as she drummed her fingers across its smooth surface. The living room was mostly dark around her, as she had been working all these hours by the small lamp near her elbow. The nominal light cast wild shadows on the walls, on the shivering shutters over the windows and onto the crevices of Mei's mind.

"Mei?"

The last of the girl's mental barriers dissolved when she heard her name being whispered from across the room. Yuzu was laying on her side on the couch pillows in her pajamas, looking away from the pale glow of the television and at her younger sister. Something about the way she was positioned told Mei that the blonde had been watching her for quite some time before she decided to speak.

Pursing her lips and straightening a stack of papers against the desk, she said, "Yes?"

Yuzu blinked, making it obvious that she had called the girl's name without a particular inquiry in mind. Flushing slightly, she thought for a moment before saying, "I…I don't know. I was just wondering if you're okay."

"I'm fine, Yuzu," Mei sighed back. The blonde was one of the only people in the world who so regularly asked about Mei's well being. It was true that most people thought that she was somehow invincible, that no amount of work or stress or responsibility or isolation would be enough to break her. It was true that this meant no one really asked her questions like 'are you fine' that often.

So it was also true that when Yuzu did ask those questions, Mei had some difficulty with answering honestly.

Yuzu narrowed her eyes, clutching a pillow to her chest. "I don't believe you."

"I don't care," Mei replied blandly, picking up her sixth sheaf of paper. She made sure to avoid eye contact after she spoke, because she knew from experience how easy it was to lose herself in those emerald eyes. It was past one in the morning and she needed to get this done by tomorrow.

Yuzu shrank back into the couch cushions, crossing her bare feet over each other. It seemed that the blonde was always walking the fine line between trying not to anger Mei while simultaneously attempting to help her.

But the consequence of walking between two extremes was that you never achieved one or the other. Yuzu knew this, but usually lacked the gall to risk either. When it came to meticulous choices, Mei was the indisputable champion. But as she watched her younger sister return broodingly to her work, she could only think that Mei looked even more irritated than usual.

"Mei," Yuzu said again, but more urgently this time. She turned down the volume of the television to emphasis her unspoken point.

"What?" Mei snapped back irritably, not even looking up from her work this time.

"Come here."

Mei stared at her sister in disbelief. "Do you not see what I am trying to do here?" she asked, sweeping her arms wide to indicate the mountains of responsibility littering her desk.

"I don't care," Yuzu said this time, crossing her own arms. "Come here. Please, Mei?" she asked, voice taking a pleading turn. "Just for a minute. You need a break, don't you?"

Mei engaged in a staring war with the blonde for a long moment, then finally sighed and set her pen down.

"Fine. But just a minute."

Yuzu flashed a suddenly bright smile, apparently elated by the small victory. "Okay! Come here, Mei," she said, stretching her arms out like she was coaxing a baby. Mei wanted to scoff at the demeaning gesture, but felt her own smile being tugged out instead. She had been a fool to think she was going to get anything done with Yuzu in the room. The girl was literally the antithesis to productivity.

She reached the side of the couch and made to sit down at the end of it, but Yuzu grabbed her hand and tugged Mei towards her. The younger girl found herself falling on her hands so that she hung over the blonde, who was still grinning sheepishly up at her. Rolling her eyes, Mei went ahead and made herself comfortable on top of Yuzu, crawling up the girl's body so she could rest her head against her chest. There was no point in half-assing her forced break.

Yuzu encircled her arms around Mei and hugged her closer, the pillow forgotten on the floor beside them. "There, isn't this better than your work?" she said, running an absentminded finger through Mei's hair.

Mei's eye's fluttered shut at the sudden feeling, curling her thin fingers against the blonde's shirt. Yuzu's body was warm, so much warmer than her own. It made her wonder if her sister was a warm person or if she was just cold by comparison. Either way, she seemed to fall short. The girl's simple, subtle scent, the one Mei could never accurately analogize but always recognized on the spot, wreathed around them and assaulted her defenses. With every stroke of Yuzu's fingers through Mei's air and each rise and fall of her warm chest, she could feel the work on the table drifting farther and farther away…

Yuzu coughed gently above her head, wrenching Mei back to the coarse fabric of reality. Suddenly she felt something very akin to panic; if she gave in here, fell asleep or indulged in Yuzu's affections for any longer, she wasn't going to finish that pile of paper on the table. And she couldn't have that. The way Yuzu had slowly tangled their legs together on the couch, so softly and discreetly that Mei had failed to notice it until now, suddenly felt suffocating and entrapping. It wasn't that Mei hated this; no, she loved the tenderness of moments like this, even if she would never admit it; the bewitching smoothness of Yuzu's skin, the loving sighs she made when Mei kissed her, the ethereal way the world seemed to shrink around them when they were alone together like this, as if nothing else mattered but this girl and the feelings that resided between them.

But her work.

"Yuzu," she whispered, pulling one hand free and putting against the blonde's chest. Pushing lightly, she raised her head until it hovered above her sister's.

Yuzu, perhaps misunderstanding her intention, blushed deeply and reached up to caress Mei's face in a timid attempt at initiating something between them.

"Mei…"

She closed her eyes, shuddering when Yuzu's fingers stroked the curve of her ear, tucking a strand of black hair behind the lobe. The blonde's hand slid past her ear and to the nape of her neck, and now she was pulling Mei towards her, those enchanting green eyes fixed on the region below Mei's nose…

Mei put a finger between them at the very last moment, and Yuzu end up kissing her nail instead. The older girl blinked up at her, confusion evident on her face.

"I'm sorry. But we can't," Mei said softly, her heart thumping wildly in her chest and making her ears throb. "I…I have work to do. You know that."

Yuzu's eyes narrowed, and it occurred to Mei that they were still close enough for their noses to bump. She saw something very akin to anger in those irises.

"Why do you always do this, Mei? I know your work is important to you. Really, I do. I mean, I see you do it literally all the time. I admire that part about you." she paused, searching for the right words. "But I also think you push yourself too hard. You're really strong, Mei. I know that better than anyone. But…even you can break."

Mei blinked in muted surprise, at last lifting her head away from the blonde's. It was unlike Yuzu to say something so direct. Usually the girl fumbled around her own words until Mei gave her a stern look to cut her off, and that was the end of it.

"That may be true," she murmured back, voice hushed despite the fact that they were alone in the house tonight. "But even still, I have to fulfill my responsibilities."

"Why?" Yuzu asked again, sounding genuinely exasperated with her. Her manicured fingers tightened around Mei's waist. "Why do you insist on doing this to yourself? As reliant as the school is on you, they can't justify running you into the ground for the sake of some stupid papers…you're too valuable to them, to me, for that to happen. Mei, why do you like suffering so much?"

Mei closed her eyes, trying to shut it all out. Yuzu was being strangely assertive tonight, it was late, and she was exhausted. She wanted nothing more than to return to her desk and get those damned papers over with…

Maybe that was exactly what Yuzu was talking about. She hated her work in her own way, hated it so much, but in the end she always came back to it, ran back to it either because it was a comfort zone or because of obligation. It was almost darkly masochistic in a way, how her responsibilities so completely encompassed her existence. It sat on her shoulder like an accursed imp from the moment she got out of bed to the second she returned to it.

"I promised my grandfather that I would succeed the school from him one day," Mei said back. It didn't come out as strong as she intended. "I'm the president of the student council. I have an image to protect, both the school's and my own."

"But it's more than just that, isn't it?" Yuzu wondered aloud. The television flickered quietly beside them. "That can't be enough to drive this kind of motivation. As reliable as you are, Mei…I know you aren't happy when you're working all the time. There's something more to it, isn't there?"

Was there? In all honesty, Mei didn't know. She had been running on autopilot for so long that she had lost sight of the original reasons for a lot of her actions. She knew that she hadn't always been like this, cold and brooding and stuffy and whatever negative adjective Harumi could pull out of a dictionary during an angry rant. But she had always known she would be bound to the school, one way or another.

"Maybe I'm just used to taking shit from life," Mei muttered at last. She felt Yuzu stiffen momentarily at the rare use of a swear word. She knew it was very unlike her, but she was too tired to care. And she could trust Yuzu to keep it a secret.

So much for self reliance.

"That isn't something you should have to get used to," The blonde murmured, pressing Mei's head to her chest and burying her nose in the girl's midnight locks.

No, it wasn't…but Mei didn't take shit from anybody. Or did she? Thinking back, she could recall several occasions where she could have made her workload at least a little bit easier to handle. All the times Himeko had offered to take a small part of it home with her. Or whenever the teachers expressed guilt at unloading so much on her, or whenever Yuzu asked if she was okay. If she had accepted all those offers of help maybe she wouldn't be so stressed all the time. In fact, the more she thought about the more likely it felt to her.

But she still recoiled at the idea of it.

Why was that, really? To be fair, it wasn't as if anyone was forcing her to do all this. It wasn't that she took shit, she threw herself at it. Suffering was something she embraced regularly without hesitation or self remorse. She subjected herself to long hours of loneliness and monotony, toiling endlessly in hopes of getting…what? What was this all for?

"I think," Mei spoke suddenly, voice muffled against the fabric of Yuzu's shirt, "That I'm addicted to inconvenience."

The blonde frowned. "What do you mean?"

Mei mulled that over. What did it mean? She had just said it instinctively, but now that she had it felt right to her. She chased the things most people avoided. Responsibility, work, obligation.

"I'm not trying to complain or anything," Mei said slowly, pinching Yuzu's collar between two fingers. "But I know I've been through more than most people my age. I suppose most would have felt some sort of entitlement from that suffering, and demanded sympathy or special treatment in recompense…but I never did that. I wasn't raised in a way for that to happen. When they started training me to take over the academy I accepted it. When my father left no one around me was complaining, so I accepted it. And from then on whenever I found something displeasurable or inconvenient I automatically tried to accept it."

Yuzu stayed quiet, allowing Mei the rare chance to ramble.

"When I was young, I always thought, 'I just have to get through this, and then it'll get better. When my father left I thought the same thing. Now I think it every day. Everyone feels that for all the misfortune you suffer the world owes you some kind of reward in return. So maybe I thought that if I subjected myself to as much inconvenience as possible, the payoff would keep getting bigger."

"But it has to end at some point, doesn't it?" Yuzu said suddenly, sitting up and pushing Mei into an upright position. She put her face right in front of her sister's and looked the girl straight in the eye. "You can save your karma as much as you want, but you've got to spend it all at some point. You've waited long enough, Mei. At this point your payoff is bigger than anyone's. You deserve to be happy."

Mei gazed back into Yuzu's eyes, her own irises smoldering with some begrudging light.

"Make me happy, then," she whispered.

Closing her eyes, Yuzu leaned forward and kissed her.

Mei's own eyelids fluttered closed immediately as she gave herself into the kiss, for once letting go and allowing Yuzu to take the lead. The kiss was soft, chaste even, as the blonde tried to handle the unfamiliarity of being in charge. They parted for a brief moment, but Yuzu quickly kissed Mei again, pushing the younger girl onto her back on the couch. There the blonde tilted her head and went deeper, holding Mei's lower lip between her teeth as she tried to translate her feelings into actions.

Mei moaned softly at the sensation, her head swimming with a weird combination of pleasure and exhaustion. Yuzu let go of her lip to graze Mei's chin with her teeth, lips ghosting across the girl's jaw and sending goosebumps erupting across her skin. It was apparent that Yuzu was putting an honest effort into this, and the thought made Mei's stomach clench in excitement.

She tried to lift her head and recapture her sister's lips and tongue, but failed when Yuzu pulled herself out of reach. Looking up, Mei blinked when Yuzu leaned forward and spoke slowly into her ear instead.

"First, I want you to promise me," she whispered, "That you'll think of yourself more often."

Mei closed her eyes, not wanting to lie just to initiating anything further. Could she really do that? Could she really break free of the endless cycle of mindless subjugation she had been part of for so long?

But then she thought of the girl she held in her arms, and realized that as long as she had Yuzu to distract her, it was possible.

Turning her head, she pressed a kiss to the side of Yuzu's head and whispered back,

"I promise."

She couldn't see it, but Mei knew a wide smile had just broken out across Yuzu's face. It made her feel a little better, inside. In the end, no amount of work was going to make either of them happy. And there was no guarantee that every amount of grief was met with an equal share of fortune. Instead of playing the tragic victim, maybe it was time for her to start chasing brighter things.

Like Yuzu.

Giggling, the blonde in question tugged at Mei's ear lobe with both her lips and teeth, making the girl gasp softly. Her warm breath tickled Mei's skin.

"Good girl," Yuzu murmured. Mei had to check herself from gulping loudly. There was something undeniably attractive about a confident Yuzu.

Maybe she would start letting her sister take the lead more often.

After all, Mei couldn't do everything herself.

Hey guys, Banshee here. Some of you might know me from the Madoka fandom, in which case, welcome! This one shot kind of arose out of nowhere, since I wasn't exactly planning to write it. As such I think it's a little muddy when it comes to purpose, but some wrinkles are permanent.

This is my first attempt at anything Citrus, so I'm still learning the characters and how I want to write them. Overall this was mainly something I did to make sure I don't get rusty until college apps are over. I'll probably write more oneshots in the future, but I don't know when or what about. It depends on what you guys think and how I feel.

Thanks for reading!

~Banshee