FUSION

𝚂𝙷𝙴 𝙷𝙰𝙳 𝙳𝙾𝙽𝙴 𝚂𝙾𝙼𝙴𝚃𝙷𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝚂𝙷𝙴 𝙲𝙾𝚄𝙻𝙳 𝙽𝙾𝚃 𝚃𝙰𝙺𝙴 𝙱𝙰𝙲𝙺.  she could not un-spill the milk, or un-crack the vase, or un-shatter the dishes.  mary, though unwillingly embodied anyway, could not undo her weakness of kissing the savior in his shadowed lonesome space, and therefore left him with the first time for either to feel someone else's lips. but what if she did that on purpose ?  what if she snapped at the sight of her hand being kissed first, the offered comfort within her open palm gliding against the verge of the savior's mouth, his eyes aglow like solar edges spying a glimpse of her reaction. what if she could not take another second of this blurry fondness ?  this unaddressed longing. what if that was her stupid, stupid revenge? asking if she may draw herself near, and upon receiving a yes, giving in to her curiosity for what might happen if she bluntly abandoned all restraint. opposing eyelids already half closed by the time she dared move her weight and loom within but few millimeters betwixt noses left to overcome.  and you had it coming, this impending contact, this accident, this thing thoughtlessly executed. you had it coming.  she had it coming.  the fusion of stars, their nuclei bursting open and setting themselves free  /  the admittance of attraction revealed in its humble placement of love, breath muffled by another’s breath. meekly and delicately. it lasted three seconds, as long as the amount of time needed to realize what she had done and pull back.  gently.  puzzled, too.  “ …  ” and as you contemplated so did she.

oh, you breathed.  an o as hypnotizing as the corona of an eclipse, as saturn’s rings, as a well’s opening.  one could have fallen into it. the heavens were as mighty as they were soundless.  empty space stinging between warm bodies, though there nestled no whole void, but rather the invitation to close the gap again.

as you touched your lips to feel the remnant of her action, so did she touch hers to savor the sensation.  she was scared of how bizarrely nice it tasted.  how good it felt.  she should not have liked kissing someone as sacred as a friend, as pure as someone so ready to melt her heart out of its own winter, pure as sun-rays and dew on grass.  neither was particularly innocent in anything, and even if they once more were, she still broke something, violated this gap never truly defined before.   “  … i ... ”   voice cracked ashamed, it was another broken thing, another spilled thing.  what did she do ?   she did the same you did to her.  selfishly taking nearness for granted.  she had done something she could not take back.  there was no fixing this.   there was only saying sorry or i don’t regret anything.  but she ever so frequently needed to fix her mistakes if they were regrettable. so …  was this regrettable, the deed which neither could have been undone, nor corrected ?

it’s more questionable the more the silence stretched with the same speed by which the distance stretched between stars. ‘ the more space between two objects, the faster they separate. ’ she panicked abruptly in hallucinating this distance, that she pushed you away rather than pull. that you could, would, might have seen her as her grotesque, needy true self.  that you could, would, might have been ...  disappointed.  “ that, uhm, that was silly of me to do, please forg— ”  forgive ?  forget ?  she was denied the opportunity to complete the sentence and finish stringing together her wish by the very pull she thought had long decayed between her and you.  her stature in the prompt, magical seizing of loving hands, the evenness of her jawline cupped.  her head adjusting to the instantaneous inching of a second head.  the shape of hers clashing against yours.  again.  again. these atoms touched, even if the science behind them insisted they would repel.  nothing made sense anyway.  she did not make sense and felt them all seep through, returning  —  but wait ...

oh, she realized then, that she felt her mouth pressed by the careless curiosity of your mouth. 

𝚂𝙾𝙵𝚃𝙻𝚈 𝙱𝙾𝚄𝙽𝙲𝙴𝙳 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚂𝙷𝙴𝙴𝙽 𝙾𝙵𝙵 𝙾𝙵 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙽𝙴𝙰𝚁𝙱𝚈 𝙱𝚁𝙸𝙳𝙶𝙴 𝚃𝙾 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙷𝙰𝚁𝙱𝙾𝚁.  time froze still between lingering and saying goodbye, although it was not even eight in the evening.  dusk shed its vermilion crudely and darkness waited to yawn at nightfall.  cheeks flushed with the most stubborn hue of the hour that fell upon the pair which ought to not have been  ——  a mirrored warmth, a beauty unendurable and worsening the closer you pulled her in by only looking with this lovely cinnamon tint, with the vivid remembrance of  ‘ i'm grateful for many things now, i'm grateful for you ’  the tune of mutual forgiveness, the almost wreckage of it.  the scenery of this island looked suddenly better when reflected upon those comforting colors, the world mingling within your gaze, the universe stored in you.  she could have drowned in them and it would have been the sweetest death.  if she were to stay, her heart might have crawled out of her mouth to embarrass her with secret, unforgivable things coming along with its emergence  ( i'm in love with you, i’m sorry, it's my fault. )  and thus did she halfheartedly declare her departure before her blue boots took a step towards her matching blue home, towards tormenting distance.  ( i don't want to go, i don't want you to go either. )  by the second step she already fantasized about the probability that tomorrow she could hide her heart as sneakily as she hid it today, and you did not quite allow her to live in that fantasy.  

but now that he stopped, it was your turn to look away / your turn to leave and not look back. the barb wires wrapped in tarp did not belong in his narrative, it was yours. trapped and restrained, until you are left suffocating — how could he not have known the price of his carelessness always resulted in your hidden tears and pained smile. forgive him, he knows : you value privacy above all else and he — alien and otherworldly peered within the glimpses of your heartbeat. you had always been like this, gold flash within diluted irises and he resisted the urge to pull you into a tight embrace. instead, he offers you this : his heart laid bare, distant and reserve, but still undeniably sincere and true. ❝ — yeah i am the absolute worst. look at me talking nonsense again. ❞ he confesses without a skipping a beat. dancing to your witty words, countering against your clever riposte, tempo after tempo : his darkness surrenders to your splendour. just like before, just like how it will be. ❝ but you know, since your kidding and all ... it might not be such a bad idea. ❞ he continues on, almost bantering / almost lighthearted and warm with a familiar gentleness reflected onto his gaze.

𝙸𝙽 𝚂𝚃𝙸𝙻𝙻𝙽𝙴𝚂𝚂 , 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚂𝚄𝙽 𝚂𝙴𝚃 𝚃𝙾 𝙱𝙸𝚁𝚃𝙷 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙵𝙸𝙽𝙰𝙻 𝙽𝙸𝙶𝙷𝚃 —— the final night would not be the last, of course, but tonight, cloaked in the harmonious composition of this epilogue, those youths, who had outgrown their childhoods, shall be absolved of their current selves.  and they would emerge tomorrow and forge their second chances  /  their new beginnings  /  anything they dreamed of by the sea as they watched the whales migrate.  they were not quite there.  one more promise was left to fulfill, one more step to not leave these half-salvaged ruins as unfinished business, but to claim this celebration as theirs and tell each other it’ll be alright, we’ll be alright.  therefore, inside starkly marbled castle-halls filled with chatter, among the blue and yellow blazers, waited salvation for you.  the haven.  a visual whistle signaled through the contrasts.  to be spotted by you, she wore red at the other end of the connecting thread.  the color to ward off evils and a vow to infinitely cherish you.  you and your heavy, collapsed heart brimming with every person you’ve ever been.

but would you look at the time, the self-proclaimed hero was forty minutes too late, as per usual, evidently not well-versed in this ‘changing’. this transformation. the maturing that hurt within these grown bones and the nostalgia they absorbed like rings in a tree.  reality was a tale with its merging ups and downs ;  as was this love in her, this uncertainty in you.  she trusted you when you proclaimed your presence at the festivities, stumbling along with her into recovery from all the damages done, and after she danced with every person in her life who impressed their memories into the films of her photographs, she figured it rewarded her.  the believing.  hope had its ups and downs as much as reality, but the men who were her older brothers reminded her to nurse hers akin to a wound in need of bandages.  in another whimsical cosmos, you would have left.  in this one, you arrived through the middle of the open gates, greeted by every spectator and every ghost returning in the flesh, all their laughter shrill and alive.

“ judai … ”  soft timbre rising between the silhouettes called upon you as she knew you in recognition of your physique, your vibrancy, your essence. yuki judai ; you came, after all.  no bruises, no blood staining your teeth, nothing else that was red aside from your jacket matching her gown in its saturation.  you were here, and she was here, and you caught her in the powerful gravity of your orbit as well as the beauty of your apologetic grin. ‘ i didn’t know what to wear so i went with the uniform, for one last time. ’ ( it’s your favorite possession, this wouldn’t be the last time. )  for the thousandth instance, she fell in love with your smile's curvature.  with your warm eyes, the charm imbued in them.  she could not help it.  she embarrassingly never could.  it was as natural as breathing.  she accepted it as such, and the confession of this crime urged to leave the place below her tongue pressing against the roof of her starving mouth.  it needed a distraction.  a distraction which would fail at distracting.

“ i take you’re not one to …  dance, right ? ”  but you insisted on trying for her, like many other things you tried for her.  like healing.  like being less afraid of all the things you feared.  like being as close as bodies could have been in a needy embrace.  child's play, you cockily estimated that challenge to have been, but one preferably accepted alone. ‘ i just want a moment with you. ’  you hushed your idea with an index finger lifted against your whisper.  she eagerly agreed to follow said idea just as her own slender digits curled around your nearest palm.  always finding eternity in your hands.  always a promise.  “ let’s go outside then, by the lake is nice.  it’s not too far from the dorm-lights. ”  and there the scarlet suns went, sneaking around the assembly's boundaries, past the doors, settling beneath the moon-glow, in bright darkness, by the glittering patterns of the water. she had taken off her heeled shoes, she did not need that glass-slipper story.  it was alright with her bare feet in the grass.  these complementary regals found each other free enough, their bird-cages wide open as were the cages of their ribs.  

𝙰 𝚃𝚁𝙰𝙽𝚂𝙵𝙾𝚁𝙼𝙰𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽 𝙰𝚂 𝙹𝙰𝚁𝚁𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙰𝚂 𝙸𝚃 𝚆𝙰𝚂 𝙸𝚁𝚁𝙴𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚂𝙸𝙱𝙻𝙴 ;  you insisted as much with your vocal-cords dampened by choked-down dolor, wet with tears and dried by cinders of a wildfire of a wrathful blaze of a sin too large for your hands to carry, too large for you.  inside-out, the grief turned.  morphed into a face too thin, cheekbones too sharp, eyes too narrow, this solemn shape distorting the softness of a youth who died along with his heart and his soul.  your hands, too clean for the number of empty graves you’ve dug.  your nails, too devoid of the soil you buried yourself in.  there was something wrong with you, a wrong becoming the new right ; half-ravishing, half-obscured by the suppression of your hidden demons.  the heavens smirked at how little she'd testify to any of it, to the blessings and curses of entire worlds planted in you, how strange a growing man she exhumed till her fingertips pricked on the edges of shed irons. 

and in the process of exhuming, she was, of course, too much to bear.  too forgiving, too willing to extend her hand, too willing to continuously love, too willing to be weak.  but what no one could have ever imagined was that she wanted it.  for once, for once, to be weak and hold a hand, to be touched just to feel her own existence pressed against yours, to forgive because something could be found among the brokenness and the strain.  thus, she embraced being too much  — —  pathetic, wanting, and doting.  whenever she found your ceiling lights dimmed to not devour all sullen senses, she split the curtains, and let the daylight in.  she challenged your isolation and quietly asked a provoking question :  don’t you think it’s too easy to be miserable alone ?  so in that same room, two half-dead beings innocently learned how to live with warmth around their limbs again.  speaking sweet nothings and heavy everythings, ghostly wounds vaguely bandaged by messy togetherness, enmeshed in each other's arms.  at least, that was the routine it turned into. 

this noon, you sat cowered against the walls and she knelt in front of the sight.  once more she had been too much to bear.  curtains opened, palm on cheek, arms loosely curling around your outlines, your head against her chest.  so you clung to her as though you wanted to hold her bones longer than you were permitted to.  you clung as though this room was a confessional as you breathed your prayer against her heart and apologized for demons she shall never see, not sparing yourself a glimpse of her :  the girl still shifted to a ghost, the ghost still shifted to the girl ; a haunting memory of gold dissolving into a whisper, an ancient plea :  don’t go— don’t leave.  

yet, you almost left.  yet, you almost did not let her stay.  ironic, then, that she couldn’t shift another inch.  you let her just so keep her fingers in your strands.  your skull in the mercy of her affectionate hold, a cradling of the blessings and curses looming and lurking behind a pair of soft eyes wanting nothing but to see her shine.  she was silent in her guidance to make you look at her, your maelstrom of memories between her hands finding quietude when your gaze met hers.  her thumb brushed your lower lip, your eyelids again shut to the spell of it.  she sighed a deep exhale before reiterating a reconciliation for the end of your estrangement. 

𝙷𝙾𝚆 𝙾𝙱𝙻𝙸𝚅𝙸𝙾𝚄𝚂𝙻𝚈 𝚈𝙾𝚄 𝚃𝙾𝚁𝙼𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙴𝙳 𝙷𝙴𝚁 ;  how gently you tugged on the heart strings. how she could not let it end by sunset when the whales escaped.  keep the strings for longer, here at the rocky edges over the ocean where the path set out its rocky road.  tug on them more ;  she offered her adoration vulnerably on a silver-platter, broken pieces the deep shade of your favorite color.  it was as liquor dripping down your arms, it was as dyed leather.  it was dusk, it was the end and the beginning and where they kissed each other’s doom.  she’d sunken, always sunken, into your loving clutches without restraint.  arms lassoed around what could slip away a second time, and she did not ever mean to break free, the overtly spoiled icon who otherwise rejected mountains of roses.  was she, in any shape or form, deserving of sincerely sweet gestures as candied treats ?  probably not.  not like this. guilty and due for the admittance of desiring them.  she was no ideal, but a lighthouse that flickered on and off and you did not care that she lacked perfection, you did not care that the lights didn’t work properly.  you came crushing against the cliffs, damaged shipwreck and damaged goods, but you came home, lulled closer by pear-aroma applied below the edge of her jaw, to her pulse and the sinew in the same spot where a growing clot applied its pressure.  

and right against the same pulse buried your nose, nudged without warning, brush of skinship shaking off her ruminations. she gasped and shrieked :  “ eek !!  judai, that tickles ! ”  and had she hoarded any more shame, she would have muffled the squeals as they rose above the trees, but she laughed and she laughed till she fell victim to shortness of breath, to trembling, to weakness in her knees.  she presumed this was your way to return tenfold what you received.  to have your smile spitefully tickled upon your mouth as glooms had possessed you, as she stood by you as if she never fell apart to dust.  regrettably, she both spoiled and starved herself to the verge of destroying the harmony by almost letting the scary bits leak.  layering the sugar-coating too sweet, twisting the good to distasteful degrees. ( she loved you painfully, sorry to break it to you. ) as a substitute for committing such hasty mistake she rather suffocated what was inevitable to confess and let it simmer in the rush of her blood shooting to the vessels across her cheeks.  “ strange.  i haven’t changed my perfume.  thought you were ‘allergic’ ? or was that a lie, hmm ? ”