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- Akito doesn’t have a favorite yet, but she likes Kureno a lot. He lies when she wants to him to, when she needs to hear comforting words instead of the semi-truths Shigure and Hatori often soften with their words or voices. Kureno’s false comfort is pure, stemming from an honest desire to never see her hurt, coiling out from a sweet something inside him that runs deeper than the Juunishi bond. But no matter what he says, his true feelings always seem to bleed out of his wine-dark eyes, running down his face until sadness and love infuse all his features, and she knows somehow that she can see her bleak future reflected in his eyes, the future that she doesn’t want to touch her, the future she knows he’ll shield her from. Even if it kills him.
- He shows her the moon sitting in its cold sky, tells her how beautiful it is, and though Akito has never given the moon much thought before, the way Kureno describes it makes it seem like the loveliest thing in the whole world. Her tears ebb at the sight of his smile, and he says that they can look at the moon together. But even as he turns his face back up to the moonlight, Akito is content to let her eyes rove over his serene features, twin images of the celestial sphere reflected in his eyes.
- But his eyes hurt the worst, so distant, just like the day his curse broke. She hasn’t felt the Bird resonate inside him for years, and for some reason, Kureno feels emptier than ever. She screams inside him and only hears echoes of her pain because he’s locked his own agony down in a place that he doesn’t want her to see, that even he refuses to look at. In the back of her mind, she knows he’s trying to save himself from her, trying to deny his own pain in order to stop himself from wanting to leave her, and she can’t bear the thought that she’s done this to him; she refuses to even contemplate such a thing.
- She thinks too often these days, and her mind can’t take it. Akito’s always had too much of an imagination but very little motivation to do anything. Like a car spinning its wheels in the mud, she ruminates, and ponders, and tortures herself with bleak thoughts, but in the end, she doesn’t try to change herself. Kureno’s always in her vision but hardly in her thoughts. She tries not to dwell on him after she looks at him one day and sees a stranger she’s slept with for years but never took the time to really get to know. When was the last time they had a conversation that didn’t involve Akito saying something cruel to him? She knows Kureno accepts whatever she throws at him, but a growing whisper in the back of her mind tells her that she’s wrong to treat him that way. Now, when he speaks, she says nothing.
- She doesn’t move, fully at his mercy, a fragile sort of trust having bloomed in her bones long ago. He’ll crush it one day, she knows, but he doesn’t now.
- She just wants him back. Wants him to fill all the voids in her, make her forget what empty feels like. A head clouded with him, a heart leaking, spilling over with wanting him, lungs full of the scent of sweat and boy and luxury cologne.
- They weren’t going out, per se. How could they be in any new relationship when all their lives they were already bound in a God–Zodiac relationship? They didn’t talk about it and perhaps that was Shigure’s first carelessness.
- Most of all he was angry at how his feeling for her didn’t recede in the slightest despite this new hurt and bitterness. How Shigure was pretty much still in the game, like a stupid boomerang who came back after being thrown away. Like a loyal dog he was cursed with despite the Spirit having nothing to do with it. Always thinking of her, always wanting her, always waiting. Unwaveringly. Foolishly, hopelessly in love. ... It was the worst kind of curse, wasn’t it?
- But even deeper than that vulnerability was a flutter of a dark something that looked like fear. Fear of his desire. Fear that she had no power over him when the primal urges of humanity were upon him. And Kureno was human, human like she was not. Akito may have been able to control her Juunishi, but she couldn't control him. ... He pushed his hair back and turned to face her. Every once in a while he caught glimpses of her raw desire for him. He sometimes wondered if lust was truly the depth of her feelings for him.
- *She's a child herself,* he tells himself, in precisely the same way that he tells himself she is not a child when she takes him into her bed. A more honest voice whispers, *and he belongs to her. I don't.* He tells himself that he prefers the way Akito touches him--not as an equal, but not quite as a possession.
- The banquet ends shortly before dawn. Akito leans wearily on Kureno's arm as he walks her back to her private rooms. "Stay?" she asks at the door, the first thing she has said to him in hours. He wonders if she knows what it means to him when she asks him for anything, rather than assuming he'll do exactly as she tells him. ... He wonders what it does mean to him, as he follows her to the window. She slumps against him, and he leans down to inhale the scent of her hair, as if taking in even that small part of her will bind them together.
- Hatori turns further than he should have to when he addresses Ayame. He switches places with Mayu so he doesn't have to swivel to avoid the blind spot. The knife that has taken up permanent residence in Akito's gut twists. She wants to debone herself like a fish, then put herself back together again. Regenerate. Again, but as someone better. Again, but as someone who can’t be left. Again, but as someone who could let them if they wanted to go anyway. Shigure holds her hand under the table.
- She wonders if he can ever forgive her. Her new curse is that she can't ask him to. Her notebook doesn't care about curses or etiquette or contracts or expectations. There, she can beg, stark black against the crisp white pages, please could you find it in your heart to free me, please I'm so sorry I was cruel to you, please and the worst part was that I meant it but I don't anymore, I don't anymore. Please. She presses apologies in between her pages like so many camellias, preserving them, protecting them. The notebook becomes a confessional, a storehouse for her sins.
- Like a child she never got to be. Like a real child, not a block of wood waiting to be carved into a real boy.
- Akito clung to Kureno, her little bird who'd never left his cage, despite the door hanging wide open. Maybe she was right to love him the most.
- "Is laying down when you're miserable really the right call?" Shigure asked, that supercilious smile as ever quirking his face. "It's like you want to wallow. Such a coddled princess."
- Her kisses soon grew in intensity, in hunger, in need. She always loved too hard, wanted too much, believed too wholeheartedly in things that were easily washed away.
- He thought he could fix everything others had broken inside of her, but they had built her wrong from the moment of her birth, molded her into something she shouldn't have been, something that grew more monstrous and tragic as time went by.
- But she does not only take. It took him years to realize she has always given him something, something that flows from her so readily that he never saw it clearly. Not material items, sweet words, or comforting arms, but bare, raw glimpses into her naked soul. He sees her pain running like a river of salt through a landscape stained with the blood of passion-crimes, the once-rich soil falling into dust, love slowly turning bitter, foul.
- Last summer, he thought he lost one of his shirts, only to discover it in her drawer, carefully buried underneath rarely-worn kimonos. He wonders if she uses it for anything, or if she just likes to have it there. He wonders if she even knows why she kept it.
- Maybe if she wanted all of him, he wouldn't feel so incomplete. He remembers when they used to do this for pleasure, when she would place her hand on his face afterwards, fingers tracing the curve of his cheekbone, slipping in the sweat left over from spent passions. He still wants her to want him, but at the same time, he knows there's a barrier between them that can no longer be breached, even with all the force behind the singular thought they both whisper in the darkness of their own minds: If only I could make you mine.
- They fight back and forth - or rather, she does - with a long strand of I hate you 's and why are you so mean. He looks at her with cold and calculated eyes. She looks back viciously. In the back of her mind, she thinks if the curse breaks that he'll be the first one to go. ... Every time he parts with harsh words, words that cut right through her and leave her feeling sick. Hatori checks on her when Shigure leaves; he hands her water and pills and tells her to get some sleep. She tells him to fuck off. Kureno comes in and she wants to say the same thing but she doesn't. She wraps her hand around his and pulls him into the space besides her. Most of the time they just fuck, but on the rare side she presses her back against him, saying that she wants to be held without words. He buries his face in her hair, kisses the back of her neck, and holds her until he feels her breath steady into sleep. ... In another world, with a less bleak life, she wonders if Shigure would ever hold her like this.
- Although Kureno had come to accept Akito’s silence as the way she showed her love to him. The way she’d cling to him after Shigure would leave again, or come sobbing after Ren and her exchanged a mantra of hatred at each other. All things he had come to associate Akito’s version of love with. If Kureno believed that Akito loved him then he loved her. Kureno did believe that. He did love Akito.
- He wonders if Akito thinks the same. If she’s scared of her thoughts the same way that he is. He muses on a thought that she pictures him drowning in her thoughts. He ponders about why his thoughts are even scary. Daydream about something else, people say. Just distract yourself, you hear. It’s impossible to run from your own mind. You sprint and sprint, but it just lingers. Even sitting and talking with his friends, he hears them. “Akito really hates you.” “Aya and Hatori just feel sorry for you.” “Kureno’s love isn’t just pity.” “Stop talking. People don’t want to hear you anymore.” “Don’t you feel dirty sleeping with Ren?” “You can’t even save her, just stop trying.”
- Even now he can’t find himself pitying Akito in the same way. He loves Akito, he pities God. That’s why he’s cruel. He can’t find himself praising a God that he’s sorry for. He won’t cling to their bond. He won’t, he can’t. He’ll love Akito for Akito. At least, he tells himself that. Their bonds run deep. As deep as crimson blood. It traces his veins and clouds his vision. The bonds will be there until there is no curse. Without the curse, does it really feel like death?
- She’s wide awake and her eyes are glued watching Kureno dream next to her. His mouth slightly parted open. Tufts of his hair scattered across his face. His right arm thrown across his chest. He looked like he slept so soundly. So soft. He was a quiet sleeper. No snoring. No excessive tossing and turning. She guessed he didn’t dream, that somehow, not dreaming in the night was easier. Dreams knew people, knew secrets. Desires. Wishes you had a child. Wished you had right now. Frightening things. So, Akito hoped Kureno didn’t dream. She wished somehow, his dreams, his wishes, weren’t what she thought they were. Especially since she hated her own dreams. Akito dreams too much. Dreams about her mother. Her father. Hatori. Yuki. She dreams of Shigure often. Mostly his voice. His eyes. His hands. Sometimes, she dreams of Kureno. And his hair. His skin. His soul.
- She’s scared to sleep tonight. Terrified. Just last night she dreamed of the curse. The bonds. The story of Zodiac falling apart before her eyes. That was already happening, wasn’t it? She couldn’t face that again. She couldn’t face her other dreams either. Would she dream of Kureno leaving again? Every single room empty except for a piece of his clothing. Shigure’s betrayal with Ren? The smell of her perfume resting in the crook of Shigure’s neck. Or her father’s death? A pale lifeless body. A missing face. That dream was the most awful.
- Lying smothered in a nighttime sweat, she wonders if anyone else is hopelessly awake. Shigure might be, she thinks, he’s up and desperately thinking about her. Then in an instant, she went back to hating him again. He’s cruel to me. He denies our bond when he has no right to. He slept with her. The last one hurts the worst. Mostly because the last one is a true amalgamation of the others. Sleeping with Ren is cruel. Sleeping with Ren denied their bond. Right? She tries to think of some rhyme or reason that he would do it. It wasn’t making sense.
- Shigure loves her. He always has. It’s what she remembers and what she so desperately clings on to. Shigure can’t not love her. She loves Shigure too. At least she thinks she does. She loves his voice. His demeanor. The way he laughs at his own jokes. The taste of lips on hers. Those things also petrify her. She’s worried that someone like him can even make God tremble. She loves Shigure, the man, anyway. She loves everything that’s so human about him. At the same time, she hates Shigure, the dog spirit. The loyal dog who left at the first word.
- Where Shigure is so cold-hearted, she can’t help but to think of how kind Kureno is. The way he smiles. The way he listens to her complain. The way he stays. Although, that causes to be so much in its own right. She loves the parts of Kureno that are tangible. Kureno’s bond is gone. Broken. It dissolved into his blood and faded his clouded vision.
- Akito wonders how deeply pitiful he must be to do what he does. Or how wretched she must be that he stays so close. She wants him gone, then wants him by her side. Is the Kureno asleep next to her even Kureno? She’s not sure. Kureno is the rooster. Does she even know anything about him out of that fact? He likes black coffee with sugar. His favorite season is summer. His skin is soft like porcelain. He uses the same cologne as Hatori. He loves her.
- She’s torn between Shigure and Kureno. It’s not that she wants them both, but she wants parts, tiny parts of each of them. Shigure’s voice. Kureno’s kindness. Shigure’s freedom. Kureno’s eyes. She wants Shigure to love her like Kureno does. She wants Kureno to love her like Shigure does. She can’t find herself siding with one or the other. She can’t find the sacrifice between the two of them. She’s horrified by the ways she feels about both of them. She wants some smoking gun, some real, true fact to leave one for the other, but right now there isn't. There may never be one. So much kindness. So much cruelty. She falls asleep on such things.
- His feelings for Akito are difficult. He loves her just as much as he rejects her. Part of him, a saddened, sullied part, stays. ... That’s how his love for Akito felt. Forever. A cycle of love, lying, pity, betrayal. That’s how he thinks it will stay. Akito won’t ever love him in the same way he loves her. Her heart was promised to another. And he promised he wouldn’t leave, promised he’d stay forever. In this unnatural pitiful sense, he wishes he’d go back on his word. Maybe in some way, some shape or form, Shigure was the brave one for leaving. Maybe Kureno was the coward for staying. At least he tries to rationalize it that way.
- He was sitting up in bed, eyeing the crutch warily, when he felt, rather than heard, someone outside the door. There was no knock; Akito never knocked, just slid the door partially open and peeked inside, only one dark eye and a sliver of her body visible through the crack. He should have felt surprised, but somehow he'd known he would see her today. There was an ache inside him that didn't have a name, but when he saw her, he almost breathed a sigh of relief.
- Akito had taken some of his mobility, true, but he'd been her crutch for years, when he should have made her walk on her own. For the first time in a long time, she was asking for the truth, and he owed her that much.
- She didn't wipe them away; she'd never hidden her tears from him, and the fact that she wasn't doing so even now made him hope that maybe one day, they could stand on solid ground together instead of clinging to each other as they both sunk deeper...
- "No," he said instead. "I think everyone needed to be free." "From me." "No, from the curse..." he said softly, voice trailing off towards the end. He wanted to touch her so badly, to let her know that he wasn't trying to hurt her, but he couldn't force himself to reach for her. She didn't look away, just kept staring at him with eyes haunted with the pain of losing the things she'd clung to since the day of her birth. But he knew she was healing, old wounds scabbing over after festering with poison for years. He didn't want to disrupt what he'd prayed so long for her to achieve, but her eyes would accept no lies, not anymore, and he no longer wanted to give them.
- "I haven't changed," he told her. "My devotion was never to the God. It wasn't God that I had feelings for." It sounded like a love confession, but Kureno had thought he could love her like that, once upon a time.
apr 24 2024 ∞
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