your persistence in partitioning his anatomyâsclera cocooning his sight, angelâs kisses languishing his nape, digital nerves branching his handsâmartyred as weather-resistant: sketches of the parts you observed of him slid under shuâs door every by-noon while he played dormancyâs seeding bow with a deathly sobriety. the textures your choice in media expendedâpencil for limbs, paint for veins and arteries, watercolour for the loose way you reimagined his capture of the worldâperhaps explained why you would not speak, though he made ill effort to discern it. shu told you it was pointless, but still your witching subduingsâcurses that mark all unrequited and respired giftingsâwaxed and waned with an apple blossomâs seasonal phoenix in spring.
whatever your troublesome nature, shu made sure to crease the corners where his thumb gripped the paper before slipping it back for youâshould you wishâto collect the return of his retinasâ half-hearted labours weighing upon it. sometimes you met his expectation of it, like a reaper with the recently-dead. at other times, you left it as he did for you until he inevitablyâlike a yellowed bellowingâwould shove it into his nightstand before any of his brothers could seize your offerings. at such times, shu mused that even soul collectors must take vacation from such miserly business and made no mess of measuring the pattern in whether you would or wouldnât take back your confections.
how many cones of colour does the human eye lack versus the slumbering creature of salt, shu wrote once on the back of the paper you slipped him yesterdayâs noon after three weeks of you taking leave of his returns. curious was no word to describe his mood, nor irksome bore reiji remarked upon a few nights before with a recuse that sired the black sea. perhaps coquettish captured it thusly, but he preferred habit, if only for the mealy texture of it on his tongue. in any case, you collected this time and wrote back on your next sketch: more than three. shu tried at a laid-about rasp of laughter upon reading itâyou were not wrongâbut his lips stayed blunt: the lost shade of blue in your soaked dollops of his eyes was a lucky discovery for someone like you, working only from a tried wheel of colours. you most likely had no clue of it. he wrote back the number fiveâfor the senses commonly known, leaving the rest to your imaginationâbefore slipping it back under the door along with a violin score, the first he had written in centuries and taut, titled after you: rue.
when his kneesâsoft in the ignorance of polishing cold tileâstill had room to sprout into something green, edgar told him his favourite fairy tale: jack and the magic beanstalk. his worn boots stomped the ground, an imitation of a giantâs insatiable rumouring, while his smileâthough different in petal-plateâburst with a reminiscence akin to yours in todayâs aching: a crisp fruit that oneâs stomach, even a childâs, would sour upon if indulged without lingering. shu offered no protest to his lack of agency; playing the role of jack suited his bony limbs better regardless, though edgar always insisted a nobleâs easy access to sugar ought to make climbing trees, in place of beanstalks, a manageable habit of adventure. but shuâa nocturnal animal wearing sun-rays for a chance to learn the plump grip of a friendly hand at sundownâinstead pressed his motherâs bitter truffles into edgarâs palm during their brief, illicit incursions into the mansionâs furthest woods.
though he ought to have questioned why any boy would trade a cow for a handful of beansâafter all, god was a tepid explanation for why high things like the sky age in tempo with gravityâs covalenceâshu never did. not even when their irregular spats got the better of him, resulting in months of absence from their meeting stump where they had carved their initials into the meat of it with edgarâs pocket knife. magic, like him, was a stubborn imp with ludicrous promises for the pick and chewâeven now, as shu holds your hand which carries edgarâs gaze in union of skeleton and diatomic illocution while guiding you to the rotted stump, rings peeled and cooled in the late summerâs breeze. he tells you to carve your initial, but your finger only draws into his palm: i have nothing to give in return. yes, that is true too, shu supposes. he peppers your neck with a waxy kiss before letting you settle instead upon the open stump.
one day when shu entered your room, he noticed how still you were.
he felt his heart collapseâor maybe it was his bodyâon the bed. he pulled you close and rocked you, as he had always done when nightmares frightened you enough to mouth his name like tautonym: one pursed syllable for shu, two stretched syllables for ririe. the latter, he found, took root in your features and osculations far better under candlelightâs diaphoric lushness.
your fingersâanchors ultimately too mortal to retire dead seasâwould no longer yield sketches to slip under his door or words to paint into his palm. no word left him, nor sound. not even when he uncurled the crumbled note from the rictus of your hand: spread my ashes.
he waited for time to assuage youânow only flesh, bone, and hairâimmortal as calcium, before making good on your request to feed your nitrates back into the mansionâs soils. all these decades and their sweet dews, he could never overcome his fear of the infernoâs appetite, not even to release what was left of you.Â
afterwards, he surrendered his violin to reiji and told him to do as he pleased with it before returning to his room. reiji considered smashing the frame to feed a bonfire on the roof, but instead he polished the wood, placing it on display within his laboratory. perhaps he could accept the absence of their stiff duets as children, though the audience no longer lived to be sated by them. perhaps not yet. for now, he decided: let the future make omen and dance of it.
the taste of whisky, husky and warm, drew caustic on shuâs breathâalighting pleasant mouthing of a hum in his matrix marrow. he smiled at the storming ceiling, cracks in the plaster stumbling over themselves like insects.
a stiff black suit sighed, though to shu he looked like an ink-blotted swarm:
âmust you track the sofa with those shoes? a good-for-nothing is only useful in the way a dog is: bringing the outside soil into the foyer.â
shuâs words slipped, sodden with boyish strands and present tense:
 âthere is something⌠i need to confessâŚ.â
âoh? do tell.â
âevery night when⌠when she thought i slept, she would speak⌠to me.â
âhow droll. however, i have no desire to hear of your former indiscretions.â
âher⌠her voice was like⌠hah, i donât remember. but she always asked the same thing: to⌠help her die. i pretended i didnât hear her.â
âtypical. you were slovenly then, and you are slovenly now. if youâre finished with this frankly tiresome rambling, would you mind vacating the sofa?â
perhaps it was the dry rye colouring reijiâs tone or the strawberry tint of the moon, but shu complied. he swayed upon rising, falling toward the hardwoodâonly for reiji to ensnare him in a sudden, rigid entombing of limbs:
âyou thoughtless fool! hold stillââ
âmaybe⌠maybe i just wasnât as desperate for her. but if⌠if you had seen the look on her face⌠when she mouthed my name, reiji, you would not be able to⌠judge me either way.â
ââŚif it will help cease your being overly familiar, it hardly matters what i think of it: she is dead.â
shu laughed, shifting in the fabricâs holdâwanting to pull awayâbut deciding it was too much energy to expend: better i just lie here. the suit breathedâa phantom bud tickling shuâs ear: a reminder that it was some time, some day, but he could not be bothered with the arithmetic of it.
âiâm going to sleep now. be a good pillow and stop yapping.â
silence painted shuâs eyes with dreams of you in winterâs fineries, carving your initialâat lastâinto the meat of the stump he shared with edgar.
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