Categories > Anime/Manga > Saiyuki
the lover tells
0 reviewsanachronism (as defined by the dream-fighter and fighting dreamer).
0Unrated
the lover tells of the rose in his heart
by Neo-rin
He says, “Lighter,” and Gojyo remembers a story told in flame-crackles and coal.
Jeep bustles and rustles, and chirrups if he trips, and dozes smilingly when Gojyo stands atop the hood and casts his gaze far and wonders how far and how long. The farther west they get, the longer the winters become, and the flatter the horizon, until, eventually, he stops contemplating what it would be like to see masonry, rising tall and vengeful like a sun god over the horizon; sometimes, he thinks he is and remains the only one who ever has any imagination.
What Gojyo remembers: glass-work. The kiln radiated burning heat that made his toes curl inwards, and he reached out, curled his fingers around something—vase or shot glass, he can never remember which—and his skin vanished, just like that, reddish sheen like melted scabs blossoming on the flat of his palm like roses in winter and springtime. They did remind him of flowers, and he had gawked at them, not yet fourteen and still willing to give honest work a try. He thought of it raining poppies instead of cherry blossoms to the east, in Japan, and wondered if his mother’s favorite flower was the sort planted in thick shrubberies on his lifeline, and decided not to like roses, not after quitting his job because he was better at cards.
And because he dreamt in shades of red, but sometimes it was blue, and he had seen himself gazing out his brother’s window with rosebushes that were never there glistening with morning dew. He was younger in those dreams, and the roses would metamorphose to eyes that never, ever escaped him. The Gojyo in his dreams eventually stopped walking outside with garden shears, and eventually stared right back.
When he /is/, at last, fourteen, he breathes out of habit and the insides of his lungs are coated in frost, and none of it means a thing.
He does not look at Sanzo. He does not hear Sanzo’s voice, insistent, except when he does, and then he says, “I have a /name/,” and realizes Sanzo is yards ahead, miles perhaps, or perhaps just inches, gazing back at him with a quiet intensity that reminds him of the wash of glasspaint on his wrists. “I have a /name/,” he repeats, without knowing that he is repeating it.
Sanzo steps forward. Gojyo steps forward with him. Sanzo’s fingers remind Gojyo of the legs of albino spiders, blood crosshatched with poison, white and pure as snow in contrast to the vaguely tanned hue of the underside of his chin. Sanzo takes his face gently in leather-bound hands and kisses him, and he feels Sanzo enunciate two syllables with huffy, warm breath and tongue in the inside of his mouth, and this is just Sanzo’s way of affirming that he knows.
by Neo-rin
He says, “Lighter,” and Gojyo remembers a story told in flame-crackles and coal.
Jeep bustles and rustles, and chirrups if he trips, and dozes smilingly when Gojyo stands atop the hood and casts his gaze far and wonders how far and how long. The farther west they get, the longer the winters become, and the flatter the horizon, until, eventually, he stops contemplating what it would be like to see masonry, rising tall and vengeful like a sun god over the horizon; sometimes, he thinks he is and remains the only one who ever has any imagination.
What Gojyo remembers: glass-work. The kiln radiated burning heat that made his toes curl inwards, and he reached out, curled his fingers around something—vase or shot glass, he can never remember which—and his skin vanished, just like that, reddish sheen like melted scabs blossoming on the flat of his palm like roses in winter and springtime. They did remind him of flowers, and he had gawked at them, not yet fourteen and still willing to give honest work a try. He thought of it raining poppies instead of cherry blossoms to the east, in Japan, and wondered if his mother’s favorite flower was the sort planted in thick shrubberies on his lifeline, and decided not to like roses, not after quitting his job because he was better at cards.
And because he dreamt in shades of red, but sometimes it was blue, and he had seen himself gazing out his brother’s window with rosebushes that were never there glistening with morning dew. He was younger in those dreams, and the roses would metamorphose to eyes that never, ever escaped him. The Gojyo in his dreams eventually stopped walking outside with garden shears, and eventually stared right back.
When he /is/, at last, fourteen, he breathes out of habit and the insides of his lungs are coated in frost, and none of it means a thing.
He does not look at Sanzo. He does not hear Sanzo’s voice, insistent, except when he does, and then he says, “I have a /name/,” and realizes Sanzo is yards ahead, miles perhaps, or perhaps just inches, gazing back at him with a quiet intensity that reminds him of the wash of glasspaint on his wrists. “I have a /name/,” he repeats, without knowing that he is repeating it.
Sanzo steps forward. Gojyo steps forward with him. Sanzo’s fingers remind Gojyo of the legs of albino spiders, blood crosshatched with poison, white and pure as snow in contrast to the vaguely tanned hue of the underside of his chin. Sanzo takes his face gently in leather-bound hands and kisses him, and he feels Sanzo enunciate two syllables with huffy, warm breath and tongue in the inside of his mouth, and this is just Sanzo’s way of affirming that he knows.
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