upon being accepted to columbia, her father’s alumni, kira naturally assumed she’d had a similar knack for what he did —— the classes were brutal, despite having registered as a major that didn’t appear all that frightening to the layman, but the kitsune persevered and would eventually resurface from the trenches of warfare that is an undergrad with a degree in history that made them fit for an open assistant teacher role in forks.
so, for the second time in her life, they packed their rather small new york life up in a carry-on and a backpack and trekked across the country to the comfortable ( if not slightly claustrophobic ) corner of the pacific northwest where her parents still resided.
returning to forks only a year ago had triggered a sudden influx of memories of her youth spent in the quiet town, where she often felt outcast. if it weren’t for people like erica reyes, kira couldn’t say they’d have much of an interest in making a grand comeback after all.
admittedly, they had a crush on the human in their youth, and whenever they stepped off the plane and assumed their position at forks high school, carting along their students to the library and for the first time in years seeing erica again —— she realized that crush never truly fizzled out.
“i know. it’s like pulling teeth, getting these kids down here,” kira joked as she eyed the section that the librarian was stocking. her own sexuality was always a point of contention. they knew that they’d never truly been attracted to boys, but the gradual realization that she was only fond of women’s company still left her a bit befuddled. “‘course, yeah. i’ve got them all reading passages about the revolutionary war, so i’ve got plenty of time. considering i don’t have to break up any fights.”
erica couldn’t help taking kira in once again. theirs wasn’t a face she’d imagined seeing again in person, not once they moved to new york for college anyway. they were destined for bigger and better things than the sleepy little town had to offer, erica had thought, and while she’d taken some time to come to terms with it, eventually she had.
that wasn’t to say that erica was less than thriled to have them. the city, it seemed, had done kira some good. they seemed somehow more at ease with themselves, as if they’d been through more than erica knew while they’d been away. it was entirely possible they had - there wasn’t much privacy to be had in the library, so while erica had wanted to get to know more about the other since their return, there simply wasn’t a lot of opportunity.
the crush had, naturally, been very much reciprocated. the doodles in the margins of erica’s notebooks from high school were evidence of that. hearts around things kira had said that erica had overheard, small drawings of the pair of them, the occasional more detailed portrait of kira... she’d honestly kept the notebooks more for the doodles than any desire to reread her old writings.
“ah, i can imagine.” erica laughed, relaxing a bit and leading the way to the staff room. it was nice, to be alone with them. at least, as alone as the library allowed. “so, what’ll it be? coffee? tea? hot chocolate?” she questioned, pulling a pair of mugs from the cabinet.
