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kumoriyami-xiuzhen · 3 years

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Hakuoki Yuugiroku 2 - Toshizou Sakura Epilogue

This is my first post of the month, so I’ll start by asking you to please support me if you can through my ko-fi, and paypal or patreon which provides access to my hakuoki blog translations and early access to my postings. Also, please let me know if you have any hakuoki drama cds that you’d be willing to share that are on my Lookout List since i either do not have audio for those cds or do not have audio that I can share.... and if you are able to remove watermarks from a video, please contact me....

originally translated this on account of me wanting to ignore Kyoka-Roku, which will be pushed back yet another year. unfortunately (or fortunately? hahaha) i can’t discount the possibility of that happening again since im now shifting most of my focus onto yuugiroku because of the English patch... though im not sure what I’ll be translating next since im still in the middle of moving what ive already done onto the spreadsheet from my scheduled posts, and that is going to take quite a while im since editing them as i go.

anyway, this is my translation of Toshizou’s sakura epilogue 『恋染めし日』 from the 2nd yuugiroku game. the timing for these are all over the place given what I know of the games... and this one definitely happens after the last Tsukikage no Shou chapter for Hijikata since Chizuru’s name in that is “Yukimura Chizuru” while this has her with a change in surname... whereas the one for Kazama happens some time after Reimeiroku’s ending since it occurs while they’re still in Edo, while Saito’s is definitely before his last Ginsei no Shou chapter, and Harada’s is likely sometime before his last Edo Blossom chapter. Not sure about Souji’s aside from how it’s after they’re married (though im assuming it’s before his last tsukikage chapter given my vague recollection of it), and I have no idea about Heisuke’s since I don’t have tl for it.

images used in this post are my snips of my vita capture.

ALSO I FINALLY GOT MY FIRST VACCINE (i’m in a low priority age group, don’t live in a hot spot, and 2 of the appointments i made were cancelled by the pharmacies i booked them at so it took a while)!!!!!!

Hakuoki Yuugiroku 2 - Toshizou Epilogue

Translation by KumoriYami

Regardless if it was my responding to Toshizou-san. Or if it was Toshizou-san's voice responding to me. As our conversation unfolded, our voices gradually became quieter.

After a while, our words stopped as they became unnecessary/were no longer necessary.......

Without even realizing it, we were sitting against the sakura tree.

Hijikata:.......

Chizuru:......

A relaxing and serene silence.

As if to fill in the empty gap left by our conversation, a gentle wind blew the sakura.

We sat under the rain of sakura that was falling like snow, and the first to break the silence/open his mouth was Toshizou-san.

Hijikata: We were talking for a while/ We've talked for a while.

Chizuru: Yes, quite some time has passed......

Compared to when we started talking, I noticed that the shadow of the sakura tree had become longer and that the sun’s position had changed.

Perhaps because the direction of the wind had changed, the smell of the sakura became more refreshing.

Chizuru: The wind's gotten colder, so should we be going home soon?

I brushed my sleeves and stood up. Then, I gently smiled as I extended my hand to Toshizou-san, who was still sitting against the tree.

A moment later, Toshizou-san grabbed my hand——

Hijikata:.......Don't go.

Chizuru: Eh? Kyaa!?

As if to show the depth of his feelings, he strongly pulled me, causing me to fall into Toshizou-san's embrace.

Toshizou-san caught me as I fell, and let out a small sigh.

Chizuru: To-Toshizou-san!?

Hijikata: Don't go yet...... Can you stay here for a bit longer?

Toshizou-san's sigh and his words in my ear were full of affection and a bit of loneliness.

Chizuru: Wh-What's wrong, Toshizou-san?

Hijikata: Nothing in particular. It's just when I saw this sakura tree....... I felt as if you'd be going far away.

Chizuru: I, I see.

In this sort of position, I wasn't able to remain calm.

Feeling the sturdy chest of the man behind me, I felt a bit restless, though Toshizou-san surprisingly began to speak into my ear.

Hijikata:......Last night. I had a dream.

Chizuru: Was it perhaps/Could it be, a dream about the Shinsengumi/that it was a dream about the Shinsengumi......?

Hijikata: Yeah. It was different that the usual one. This one.......didn’t have you in it, Chizuru. Ikedya, the Hamaguri Incident, and also Toba-Fushimi. A Shinsengumi where you didn't exist/without you...... It was that sort of dream.

Chizuru:.......

Hijikata: That's why I was thinking. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be here today.

As if to say that he didn't want to lose anything, his arms grasp on me became tighter.

From how painful his embrace was, I could feel Hijikata-san’s anxiety.

Hijikata: It's quite embarrassing. To think that the Shinsengumi's Demon Vice-Commander would become this upset over a single dream.

Chizuru:......Toshizou-san is no longer that Demon Vice-Commander. Rather, he’s my most important person, and Hijikata Chizuru's beloved husband.

Although I didn't know if he could see my face, I still smiled to assure him, and waited for Toshizou-san to react/-san's reaction.

Eventuallly, Toshizou-san sighed deeply, and blankly stared at the sakura.

Hijikata: Although I really like sakura, whenever I see them, I always end up thinking about what I've lost.

Chizuru:......I do too/ I have the same/similar thoughts.

Hijikata: But, there were things I received in return.

——Before coming to this place, we lost a lot/many things.

This included our comrades, our home, and everything else that we had before.

One by one, each item of importance was lost.

As if to confirm what we were all that we had left in our hands, we tightened our hold on the other’s arms.

I looked up and was greeted by the sight of sakura in full bloom and Toshizou-san smiling.

Out bodies that were touching each felt as warm as the current season, when the snow began to melt.

Perhaps by feeling each other's warmth, doing so would be able to bring/would bring our hearts closer.

Hijikata:......I'm sorry to have said something so selfish/wilful. Let's hurry back now/We should go back now..

When we finally separated from each other, Toshizou-san bitterly smiled as he muttered.

So I said——

Continue chatting Bring this to an end <-

Chizuru: Y-Yes. Let's go home.

Seeing how I didn’t resist his words, Toshizou-san showed a mischievous smile.

Hijikata: Are you not able to stand up? Or do you want me to carry you on my back?

Chizuru: It, it’s fine......!

Driven by my urge to take his outstretched hand, I leaned on the sakura tree to stand up.

——Suddenly, my hair was fluttering in the wind.

The strong wind swept through the tree branches, and their petals instantly enveloped Hijikata-san's back while he began walking.

It looked as if Hijikata-san was going to be taken away by the sakura, so I hurriedly followed Hijikata-san.

In order to not lose sight of his back in the blizzard-like sakura, I walked towards him——.

----End---

...it snowed last friday so i was pretty happy watching it as it fell.

also im planning on reuploading a diff version of saito’s version of this later.

#hakuoki #hakuouki #hakuoki yuugiroku 2 #Hakuoki Game Translation #Hijikata Toshizou #Yukimura Chizuru

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keiksy-cake · 3 years

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Azura Pruk “Explanations” B) [Request]

This was a request, but the artist hadn’t responded to my message, so out of respect to the artist I won’t translate these and have added a watermark to the raws to prevent redistribution :3

Also feel free to correct any mistakes I’ve made >:3

This one's really cute, Gil really wants to embrace Arthur, thinking about how cute he is. Arthur glares at Gil, but Gil thinks it’s all the more cute, thinking "endure! endure! endure! endure!"

Gil shows up unexpectedly at Arthur's house with drinks, Arthur seems to be touched by Gil's kindness. Gil falls asleep and Arthur thinks to himself about how Gil shows always shows up when it rains (or even if rains?). He shows up soaked but never complains about it which Arthur refers to as too kind. Gil always says it's because they're friends or "for you" (Arthur's). Arthur says that he's never not thought of Gil as a friend (I guess he points this out because he thinks it's unnecessary for Gil to say it's because they're friends?), and that rain doesn't look good on him, he seems to feel guilty about it. Gil wakes up calls Arthur stupid (for misunderstanding I guess). The last line is a bit confusing but Gil says something like that it's because he likes to clear away the rain? I like to think of it as a metaphor for art's tears or lonesomeness, maybe Gil doesn't want art to be alone on rainy days, or could be more literal as in maybe Gil likes the rain so he doesn't mind being wet. I don't know but I like to think of it as my first suggestion because it's cuter :3

Gil wakes up Arthur to get ready if he plans on going out later. He made breakfast and send to be doing the laundry. Arthur unexpectedly asks for a good morning kiss, which Gil is surprised by and says is "too cute" (he also refers to Arthur as "his" ("my") which is cute and Arthur of course feels embarrassed and tells him to shut up. Gil ofc gives him a good morning kiss and asks what made Arthur want one, to which Arthur asks if it's so wrong (or strange) of him to do so, which Gil says it is. It's implied things got a little “naughty” from here by the marks, but Iggy is mad because now he can't go out with the way he looks and Gil apologizes, it's really cute!

The four all seem to work at a place that sells fabrics of some sort. Gil is surprised to see Arthur looking all pale, apparently he's been doing deliveries all night long. Gil, being a good boyfriend, tells Arthur he should go home and rest. They depart, and Tonio (in charge of sales) and Honda (the designer) seem to be depressed about not having anyone to date for years.

An old friend of Gil's happens to show up, he asks if Art is a friend. Gil doesn't feel like having to explain that he's in a relationship with Art to that guy, so he just says "yeah". Art is confused and probably hurt at being called a “friend”, not realizing Gil's intention, and the friend is confused by Art's reaction. Art realizes and Gil thinks Art's reaction is adorable, which it definitely is lol. Art clarifies that they are just "friends" and is embarrassed for having shown that side of himself.

This is the same AU as before where Gil works in sales and Art is a designer, the time being before they're officially dating. It seems part of Art's job is travelling place to place as shown in the previous strip. Anyway, Art is exhausted from the job and they're drinking together. Art is mad at someone who I assume to be France, I think France is either a boss/manager, or a demanding customer but he just says "yes, everything"; regardless it seems he asked a lot from Arthur which is why Arthur is mad. But Gil says that it's thanks to him that it all worked out. Art, who is clearly drunk, mentions that he likes Gil, but Gil thinks Art is just fooling around and tells him to stop playing with feelings. Art says it's true and clarifies that he does like Gil, and Gil screams from the excitement. There's little notes saying that the “owner” is around, which I'm guessing means the landlord or their boss but it's to clarify that they're not getting in trouble for all their loud noise.

Arthur has a cracked lip that hurts even when he talks for a little bit. Gil shows up with "something shiny" on his lips and Art asks if it was smth dirty (or obscene? XD), but it's just lipstick/chapstick. Art wonders if he should put some on too but then Gil suddenly kisses him to "share". Art, being the tsundere he is, is embarrassed and calls Gil "baka! baka! baka!"

Gilbert is proposing to Arthur and says "make me your only" :>

England and Prussia went out to see the stars except it's freezing cold. Iggy is upset at Prussia's complaining since he was the one who wanted to go and asks why he didn't just go with Germany or Italy. But Prussia says it's because he wanted to go with Iggy specifically. Iggy is caught off guard and feels insecure, wondering what could possibly be the benefits of him going with Prussia of all people. He wonders about a possibility when Prussia calls him over to look at the stars. It's a beautiful sight and Prussia says he wanted to show it to England. In a very suspenseful manner that had my heart on edge, Iggy struggles to say something. It's of course set up so you think Iggy is going to confess his love to Prussia, and Prussia is also on edge hoping the same thing, but alas! Iggy is a dense idiot just like me and asks if they can be friends TwT. Poor Prussia is hurt by the anti climactic question (poor boy), and Iggy thinks that means a no and goes into tsundere mode, saying it's not like it's something he wanted himself but only asked out of pity because Prussia looked lonely. Prussia says that it's okay "for now" (ofc implying he plans to update that in the future), which iggy is of course confused by.

This one was a little confusing for me since it's quite vague. I think the context is that Gil has passed on or moved away or something. There's a large new poster of Gil, and Arthur is saying how he clings to a certain memory, a moment where Gil said "I love you".

Arthur tells Gil that he is gay. Gil is of course caught off guard by the suddenness, and Arthur says he only said it because he felt like saying it. Arthur goes on thinking about how there's no deeper meaning to it, that he's given up on wanting something he can't have (Gil) as well as loving him, so it doesn't matter if Gil's reaction is good or bad. But Gil surprises him by saying that it won't stop him from being friends with anyone, and Arthur is ofc very happy and touched about it.

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elletromil · 3 years

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Collect moments, not things

So some of you might remember Love is a fabric which never fades, that fic where Harry was dragon and pining after Eggsy.

I was always supposed to write this fic too, where instead of Harry being a dragon, Eggsy was the dragon with the hoard. (And a third one where they both are dragons and hopefully this one won’t take 5 years too xp). And well, inspiration and motivation have slowly been coming back to me this week and I managed to finish this one :D

I hope you all enjoy!

Collect moments, not things

When he finally figures out what Eggsy’s hoard is comprised of, Harry feels a bit like an idiot.

Not that it’s particularly obvious at a first glance, but they have been living together for a few months now. And yes, they’ve both been sent on a couple different missions during that time, but that’s still no excuse to how unobservant he has been.

He’s supposed to be a bloody spy. He should have picked up on Eggsy’s habit sooner than he did.

And it doesn’t soothe his pride that it only truly registered when Eggsy asked him for a pen one evening after the one he was using ran out of ink.

The worse is, he can only blame himself for taking so long at figuring out what was Eggsy’s hoard.

Not only is Eggsy not hiding it in any way, he has also made it very clear that he was comfortable answering any questions Harry could have about dragon culture. Or if he wasn’t, that he wouldn’t hesitate to tell him to fuck off.

Whatever hero-worship Eggsy once had for him is long gone and quite frankly, Harry much prefers it that way.

However in Harry’s defense, there is also a perfectly sensible reason why he didn’t want to ask Eggsy about this particular thing.

While his friendship with James had not made him an expert on dragons at all, he’s still picked up on a few things over the years.

Especially on the romance side given the fact that James had very publicly courte Richard and Richard, while not a dragon himself, had taken it as a challenge, one he was very set on winning.

Considering the two ended up married within a year of being introduced to each other, he’s certain Richard did consider himself the winner.

Much like James did.

All this to say, he’s very much aware of just how important a part a dragon’s hoard plays when it comes to such things as courting.

And he very much wants Eggsy to not only feel like Harry accepts and welcomes every aspects of his heritage, but that Harry loves him for it.

After all, it is part of what makes Eggsy, well, Eggsy, just like his gaudy vests and winged shoes or like his liking for medical dramas or like his unwavering loyalty to someone once that person has earned it.

So yes, Harry wants Eggsy to know that Harry is willing to learn. That he is willing to put in the work to make their relationship work. Which, admittedly, he would have done exactly the same had Eggsy been simply human like him, but since he’s not, Harry can’t just ignore that part of his lover.

And hoards… Well hoards are a damn essential part of being a dragon.

It’s their most prized possessions. They can go to war over one.

There’s not bigger honor than to be trusted with any part of it. Or be included in it in any way.

So while he really wasn’t expecting Eggsy to hoard paper of all things, who is he to judge? It’s not the same thing, but Harry does collect dead butterflies and other bugs.

So now he’s got to think of a suitable addition to Eggsy’s hoard, one that would remind him of Harry and hope that Eggsy will accept it.

Because even if Harry doesn’t wish to be married within the year, he would be lying if he said he wasn’t thinking about it already.

***

As he looks over the newest addition in the hidden space of the sitting room, Harry is suddenly stricken by the fear that maybe, this is a bit much.

After all, he’s not even sure Eggsy will accept the first part of his gift and now he’s also trying to change where Eggsy will keep his hoard. It doesn’t matter that this new fireproof safe is one the best on the market, it’s really not Harry’s place to tell Eggsy how to protect his hoard.

Of course that’s the precise moment Eggsy comes home.

Slightly panicked, he close the door to the safe over what really is his gift, but doesn’t have the time to do anything about the fake wall before Eggsy finds him in the room.

“Didn’t know you were getting a new safe,” he safe in lieu of a greeting, pressing close to his back, arms wrapping around his waist. It would take a stronger man than Harry Hart is to not lean back in him.

“Actually, this is for you,” he admits after turning into the embrace just enough to press a kiss to Eggsy’s cheek.

“Oh?” Eggsy lets him go and steps closer to take a better look, but he doesn’t seem angry or insulted, merely curious, which is kind of reassuring. “Fuck me, Harry! That’s like the latest model on the market. It cost a fortune!” Not entirely accurate, but Harry will agree that if it wasn’t for Kingsman more than generous salary, he probably would never have considered that particular safe. “Not that I don’t appreciate,” Eggsy adds quickly, “but you know the one you let me have in the office does the job too?”

He still doesn’t look mad in any way, just slightly confused. Harry can work with confusion.

“Well yes, but also no, considering what you’re keeping in there. The safe in the office wasn’t made with fireproofing as the main characteristic. This one was. And well, it’s considerably bigger and you were bond to run out of place sometime soon.”

He hasn’t checked of course. While he certainly could, what with Eggsy’s current safe being Harry’s first and his training as a spy, they both respect each other’s need to keep some thing private from the other.

But Eggsy has never tried to hide the papers he put in every night and so Harry doesn’t feel bad about making that educated guess.

Eggsy doesn’t seem to mind either if his pleased smile and the sweet blush spreading on his cheeks is any indication.

And as if to prove Harry just how stupid he had been for worrying about him not liking his gift, Eggsy steps on his tiptoes so he can kiss his cheek. “Thank you Harry. That’s- that’s one of the more thoughtful thing anyone has given me.”

He’s still standing close so Harry is the one to wrap his arms around him this time and hold him tight. They stand like that for some time, enjoying the peaceful moment.

Then Harry remembers that the safe wasn’t even originally part of the gift he had planned to make and slowly walks them close enough that he can open it.

Or at least, attempt to open it. The endeavour is slightly hindered by the fact that Eggsy is refusing to step out of his embrace. And to be honest, Harry doesn’t truly want to let go either.

After longer than his pride could take it if not for the quiet chuckles Eggsy unsuccessfully muffle against his shoulder, the safe is opened once more.

Eggsy stops laughing as soon as he glances inside, gasping softly. “It this-” He doesn’t finish whatever he was trying to ask, his hands reaching towards the safe before he stops himself, fingers clenching into fists.

Harry presses a kiss against his temple before taking hold of his hands and laying them on the first colourful pile.

“This is for you, yes. All of it.”

Carefully, with something akin to reverence, Eggsy takes the first sheet to inspect it closer. It’s one of the simpler paper Harry has bought him, a very light blue without any texture. What makes it deserve a place among all the different papers he’s been buying for Eggsy over the last couple of weeks however is the subtle golden watermark of a butterfly at the bottom of the page.

Eggsy notices it immediately of course and trails a gentle finger over the design.

“I’m… I’m not sure if this is okay. I hope it is. That you will accept this gift even if it’s a bit selfish of me. But I really want you to have a little part of me in your hoard.”

Whatever reaction Harry was expecting from Eggsy over his gift, it wasn’t for him to burst out into laughters. It’s a good thing for his ego that he can tell there is nothing mocking in it, but he’s still not sure how he should take it.

Thankfully, Eggsy doesn’t laugh for long and after putting the sheet of paper back in the safe, he turns around and tugs Harry down into a deep kiss.

“I love you so much Harry,” he says after they’ve caught their breath again, “but you’re an idiot if you think you’re not already part of my hoard.” Only the kisses he peppers along his jawline prevents Harry from feeling insulted.

“What do you mean, I’m already part of it?” Try as he might, he can’t think of any instance he gave some kind of paper to Eggsy. Not even a post-it note or a grocery list.

“You think I’m hoarding paper right?” Eggsy annoyingly answers with a question of his own.

“Aren't you?” Two can play the game and Eggsy snorts with amusement at how petulant Harry sounds.

“Nope, not really.” It’s more devastating than he thought it would be to find that that he was mistaken about that. To realise that he obviously doesn’t know Eggsy as well as he should. Before shame can get a good hold on his heart heart however, Eggsy cups his cheeks in his hands and presses their foreheads together. “But even dragons would have made the same assumption you did. And the only reason it’s not really my hoard is simply because I learned very young it was best not to keep anything physical.”

He frowns at that, partly in confusion, partly because it wakens an old guilt in him, the one he will carry to his tomb for having failed to protect Eggsy as he probably should have after Lee’s passing. Eggsy must feel it because he huffs in mild rebuke before letting him go.

“Come on, let me show you.”

Harry lets himself get dragged upstairs to their shared office without protesting, consciously pushing back the guilt as he tries instead to figure out what exactly could be Eggsy’s hoard if it’s not really paper. The ink maybe? But that’s physical too…

Then Eggsy puts a few sheets of paper in his hands.

“Come on, read them.” His expression is a worrying mix of dread and excitement, but there is also the familiar set in his jaw that means he won’t budge from his position and so Harry doesn’t try to tell him they don’t have to do this now. Or ever really.

There doesn’t seem to be anything special about the paper in his hands. He thinks he can even spots a few napkins inside the safe before he refocus his attention on the words that are written on the pages he’s holding. Eggsy told him to read after all.

Each sheet has a date and a few sentences neatly written over them.

July 27th

Came back from a mission in the middle of the night. Harry was fast asleep. But when I got into bed, he still rolled over to hold me without ever waking up.

November 2nd

Harry ordered from the new Indian place tonight. Best food ever.

November 16th

Went on a walk with Harry. I forgot my gloves. Harry gave me one of his and then we hold hands the whole way.

March 4th

Harry and Daisy made cupcakes. There was flour everywhere. I am never leaving them unattended in the kitchen again.

They all read like journal entries.

Like short capsules of happiness that happened on a particular day.

“Eggsy?” He’s not sure what he’s asking because he fears that he’s only seeing what he wants to see.

“Memories,” Eggsy answers anyway in a quiet voice. “That’s what I’m hoarding. All the happy ones.”

There’s something shy to his smile now, so very different from his usual confident grin and Harry simply has to kiss him.

And as Eggsy all but melts into the contact, Harry swears to himself that every day they spend together will bring so many happy moments to Eggsy that he won’t know what to do with them all.

#harry hart #eggsy unwin #hartwin #kingsman #established relationship #fluff #dragon in human form!eggsy #fanfic #me

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willow-bell-illustration · 4 years

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I’m changing my art name. After a long period of thought, I have decided to change my art alias/name and figured I should share that here as I know my art is still shared from time to time on tumblr.

So yes, onto why I’m changing it! I started freelancing in 2012 and did so under the pseudonym Flesh-Odium, which was a name that I already had established years and years earlier when I first joined DeviantArt at the age of 15.

At that age I really had no idea what I was doing, or what my style would evolve into, or what a name really meant in the art world. But it wasn't very long after deciding to reenter the online art community in my 20s, that I quickly learned. My name didn't represent me and hadn't for many years. I created it at an extremely dark and horrible time for myself as a teen. Back when I thought horror content was at the core of who I was, and being edgy was somehow cool. But, thankfully, so much growth can happen in 17 years, and I want to embrace that growth, leave the past behind, truly just be me and let my art speak for itself rather than some cryptic online name that no longer serves or represents me.

I will admit this took so long due to fear of it affecting my traffic and the following I have built, I always stressed over the change making my old watermarks obsolete. Clearly it was a crutch. As they say no risk, no reward. and I feel like now is the perfect time to take a leap towards the unknown with a more positive vibe.

I'm sure you lovely people support this decision, but if I could ask one favour, that would be to retweet this to help get the word out, or better yet let anyone who may ask/want/like to know me what my new alias is. 💖

Love to you all. Esp my OGs

Also bear with me while I try and figure the colour theme I want to go with and slowly switch all of my socials over. PS: For anyone still watching my tumblr. I’ve been active on twitter since leaving tumblr, so feel free to join me there - https://twitter.com/WillowBell_art

#flesh-odium-illustration #fleshodium #flesh-odium #willowbell #willowbellillustration #willow-bell-illustration #name chane #text

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thusatlas · 3 years

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Ask for what you want, not what you think you should have

I have a theory. Well, I have many, but this particular theory is a doozy. The theory is… (wait for it) …

Everything is connected. I know, I am a genius. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. I’ll collect my Nobel Award whilst I pick a up cucumber canapé on my way out.

But seriously, as obvious as it is, the more I reflected inward on my stream of conscious and started asking why, the more I have begun to connect the dots. I have become more aware that my actions, feelings and emotions that can be explained through cause and effect.

Here I want you all to take one mental step to the left to avoid falling down the free will and determinism rabbit hole before you. That is not today's topic. It might be next weeks, but not today. So just shimmy on over to this mental path that I’m laying for you here. On this path, we are accepting that we as individuals are moral agents, accountable for our actions and behaviours. Therefore, you have free will in a world that has been pre-determined by other free moral agents. Or if that’s too deep for you, just move right on past this philosophical premise and carry on enjoying the allegory I’m about to weave for you.

This all began some time ago, way back in high school, when I had to write my CV for the first time. I know that feeling of discomfort one feels when you fill out a job form, write a personal statement or cover letter is not individual to myself. This is a widespread phenomenon and yet the only way that you can progress professionally or academically is to sell yourself. Hence there is an entire profession in which you can be paid for writing somebody else’s CV. Furthermore, hence the reason why the widely understood, highly inaccurate statistic accepted as truth is that all CEO’s and higher business people are psychopaths; one of the defining features of psychopathy being arrogance and narcissism (that part is true but again, not the point of today’s topic…moving on). We, the neuro-typical, non-psychopathic, really struggle to write about our best selves when it comes to applications of any kind. We do it because we have to, not because we want to.

Now think about it. I write and talk about many things throughout my days, from objective truths to subjective feelings. I process categorical facts and infer meaning that is hidden within the subtext. I imagine stories, characters, worlds, conversations and ensuing emotions. All without effort.

And yet.

I cannot write about myself. I cannot write about my good qualities with ease, without that feeling of discomfort. I cannot do it as easily as I am writing this now.

Sound familiar? If it doesn’t, then firstly what’s your secret? If that does resonate with you, keep following me down the yellow brick road of this allegory. I’m going to turn it into something less deep, far easier to swallow and then bring it back to filling in application forms.

It’s going to be cool.

Hopefully…

The list of top 10 most loved/dreaded questions. Somewhere on this list is: what do you want for Christmas/your birthday because I find answering it be an egoistic minefield to navigate. Apparently, it’s considered impolite to ask for all one’s problems to be solved or a million pounds or a new car/house/holiday. What I used to say, was what I actually wanted in an exaggerated way that would generally garner a chuckle. Both myself and the other participant in the conversation knew that I was being 100 per cent serious and if the person asking was happy to buy me my dream house then I would shamelessly have accepted (whilst also repeatedly enquiring if they were sure because I couldn’t possibly, hoping beyond hope that they would not come to their senses). However, this rarely (never) happened. Thus, the usual rapport was:

Person A - “What do you want for your birthday?”

Person B - “I would love a 50-foot yacht and a butler named Steve to attend my every whim”

A and B participate in the prescribed requisite chuckle.

Person B – “But seriously, I haven’t really thought about it.”

Person A – “let me know if you think of anything”

Person B – “Of course, though you don’t have to get me anything”

Person A – “nonsense, it’s your birthday”

End scene. I will pick up the Oscar for lead performance whilst I sample these delectable mini-hamburgers. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. I had this conversation for years until I questioned what’s the point of it if nobody gets anything out of it. Having been both Person A and B, it’s uncomfortable for both parties because Person B doesn’t want to be perceived as selfish while Person A is asking to avoid the stress of having to guess what Person B wants. Now, while I love a good humble moment, this is not the time to be humble. Similar to job interviews, CV writing or personal statements. Why is it that we are not comfortable with celebrating our wants, our needs even when we are being directly asked to sell ourselves or literally tell someone what we want.

So I had a revelation a couple of years ago. I am aware that this is not going to be groundbreaking for other people but stay with me here. As of now, my life in regards to birthdays and Christmas’ consists of throwing the humble pie out of the window. My birthday is fast approaching and my family have begun to ask what I want.

AND HERE IS THE POINT OF THE ALLEGORY!

Bedsocks.

(Groundbreaking isn’t it.)

But seriously, my feet get cold because my house is old and the end of the bed is right by a window. You see the issue. Might as well sleep with my tootsies exposed to the winter’s chill.

However, (plot twist) I also want the new Jean Paul Gaultier Classique perfume which retails from £44 - £88 depending on the outlet.

I’m going to pause here because this is a Q.E.D moment. While the point of this post is not about asking the internet to get me what I want for my birthday, I feel the need to point out that I would, of course, be happy with just a card or a hug or a text for my birthday. I am merely using this as an example for the said allegory which has not yet been fully actualised. I am not some entitled princess who’s going to throw a tantrum reminiscent of Dudley Dursley if I don’t get what I want.

(If you’re not getting that reference then shame on you).

Now that I am 80 per cent sure that you don’t think I’m Veruca Salt (you better get that one), I shall continue with my point. I chose to embrace and show that yes, I want bedsocks and yes I also want magnificent perfume. Two drastically different items for the same person but these are items that I objectively want. I was asked so I answered. I am a bougie queen with cold feet.

What was interesting was the reaction of person A. There was an acceptance of my bedsock suggestion, though they did amend with, “Is that all? It’s not much”. The response to the Jean Paul Gaultier suggestion was “you don’t want much do you?” said with a scoff. We shall gloss over the mixed signals and possible shadiness and explore the duality of these responses to the embracing of my wants.

If you ever need to ground yourself or remind yourself that you are a product of all that came before you and all that will come after you, look to the Ancient Greeks. For a society that existed over 4000 years ago, we are still practising and preaching the philosophies of Thales, Aristotle, Socrates and Plato. You can find watermarks of the Greek thinkers hidden in the folds of much of modern societies ideologies, legalities, politics and psychology.

Does that mean they were ahead of their time or with all that society has evolved over that time, the human condition remains the same, regardless of how wise and savvy we think we have evolved to be?

Now it was widely accepted amongst theologians, philosophers, sociologists and psychologists that if you wish to look at the skeletal structure of a society in a snapshot, then look to their religious beliefs.

I’m going to need you to take a mental step to the right to avoid falling down the ‘is God real’ rabbit hole. We are not here to discuss the objective existence of the divine. So, I’m going to need you to hope back on our yellow brick road where we are accepting the truth that all pantheons have objectively exist in the narrative of human history within their respective societies.

To the point, the Ancient Greeks believed in a pantheon full of diverse Gods (big G, we don’t theologically discriminate here). When I first thought of the Greek pantheon, my thoughts immediately go to Zeus and his ilk. However, I’ve been on the Google and am now more informed than I was 5 minutes ago (look at me and my fact-checking… if only Fox News were the same).Anyway, briefly for your understanding, the Greek pantheon is split into 8 parts.

Parts one through to four covers the Gods who are the essential ingredients for the fabric of reality. So, Gaia who is the Earth, Pontos the Sea, and Ouranos the Dome of Heaven. The Daimones (spirits) and Nymphai who nurture the life of the four elements and so on. The Daimones that affect the body and mind: Eros the spirit of love (not to be confused with lust or attraction), Phobos the spirit of fear, Thanatos the spirit of Death. The Gods who control the forces of nature and who interacted and taught mankind. Helios the sun and Anemoi the wind; the agricultural earth Gods Ploutos, not to be confused with the pastoral Gods Pan, nor the city Gods Hestia. The Titan Gods Themis, Kronos, Prometheseus etc, are not to be confused with the defied mortals who are considered to be part of this section of the pantheon: Herakles, Asklepios etc. Nor should they be confused with the Olympian Gods Hebe and Mousai. This condensed list is actually very long.

Now we have the fifth part that everyone knows. The 12 Olympians who preside and govern over the aforementioned and the ones who have yet to be mentioned. They are Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Artemis, Apollo, Ares, Athene, Aphrodite, Hephaistos, Hermes, Dionysos and Hestia. Part six through to eight covers the constellations and the horoscopes, the monsters and the semi-divine love children of the Olympians who defeated them

That is a majorly condensed list however its extensiveness is the point I am trying to make here so I appreciate you if you have stuck with me thus far. If you wish for a full list of the Greek Pantheon here are links to further your own reading: (1, 2, 3).

So, the Greeks had this diverse belief system. These beings who governed their every action. Literally everything, physical and metaphysical alike.

Now tell me what they missed.

Tell me what’s missing from this very extensive list.

Evil.

Ah, but there is Hades the God of the underworld you say! There are monsters!

Hades was made evil by Disney I’m sorry to say (though he was fabulous).

Hades in the Greek pantheon is the God of the dead and Zeus fucked up and much as he did. Odysseus is a soap opera, I swear. Anyway, the monsters? They’re as neutral as death. They are creatures doing exactly what is within their nature to do. Thus the underlying ethos of the pantheon. Every one of those deities commits actions that can be perceived to be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ by the humans they lived alongside. The Greeks did not revere them to be absolute good, nor absolute evil. What they did, was perceive them to portray unavoidable facets of our day-to-day lives that should be celebrated, acknowledged and respected. For example, take Dionysus, the God of wine, pleasure, festivity, madness and wild frenzy. Basically, this bitch was the life of the party. As such, large banquets and hedonistic orgies were often held in his name, celebrating pleasure, life and the loss of control within the madness of relinquishing stress.

But we aren’t the Ancient Greeks are we (though I know I look fetching in a toga if I do say so myself).

Western civilisation, take the United Kingdom, for example, founded its legal system upon the 10 commandments of the monotheist pantheon of Christianity. Furthermore, The Act of Supremacy in 1534 appointed King Henry VIII the first Supreme Governor of the Church of England. A largely ceremonial title that has been passed on to reigning monarchs ever since. Within the United Kingdom, Church and State have been very much intertwined since the days of the court governance. As such, themes of Christian teachings and concepts became entwined within our culture, and over the years have become so embedded that accepted behaviour and social nuances are not intrinsically associated with its religious teaching. The obvious examples to point out are the recent milestone law amendments to same-sex marriages and abortion. Going deeper into social norms: the concepts of purity and promiscuity, humbleness and arrogance, greed, sin and punishment. I have been brought up in a time where I have heard the rhetoric about my own body change from ‘do not sleep around, don’t be easy’ to ‘it’s your body, equality, if men can do it, you can to’. Aside from my own personal views on this topic, this social rhetoric is a symptom of the culture in which we live. They also echo some (not all) Christian teachings. Triandis and Triandis (1988-2004) have produced many works on the development of culture, the bare bones of the explanation being that culture of a society is a product of history, language and stories. Prior to written print, all information was passed on from generation to generation through stories. These stories contained information about countries' histories, experiences, and beliefs. The languages and gestures telling the stories are a creole of invading forces and immigrating travellers. These are the bare ingredients for culture. All that is left to perfect this recipe is time. Leave to mature of a few centuries and you’ve got a fine wine and a handful of convoluted social norms. Hence, the aforementioned rhetoric and the continued acceptance within British culture that the Monarch is the head of the Church.

The Ancient Greeks didn’t have time. Their teachings and stories are still hailed today, but their civilisation did not survive long enough for their culture to become a social norm.

Now, the reason why we’ve gone through this is to point out that the Christian pantheon is heavily reliant upon the idea of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Absolute good. Absolute evil. I could do an entire blog on the different theological branches of Christianity and how they have affected Western culture. In this instance, we shall focus on the concept of sin. Though it is obvious, it must be pointed out:

Sin is bad.

Bad is punished.

Ergo - Must avoid sin.

What is sin? Well, sinning is many things if we go by the Bible and the wholesome Leviticus, but here we are focusing on the widely known and accepted concept of the Seven deadly sins. Though these little devils didn’t specifically make a named appearance in the Bible, their themes were present throughout. Thereafter they were popularised and named via Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and Dante’s Purgatory.

Hopefully, you’re beginning to see all the threads of this post coming together now.

The Seven deadly sins are as such:

Greed

Envy

Lust

Gluttony

Wrath

Sloth

Pride

It is accepted within Western culture that behaviour must avoid ‘evil’ to avoid punishment. Ergo, we must avoid behaving in any way that can be associated with the aforementioned fiendish sins.

And so. The point.

I want bougie perfume and bedsocks for my birthday. Bedsocks is an acceptable humble and utilitarian item. It is not frivolous.

Bougie perfume? It is frivolous. It is a luxury. It is Greed. The fact that I boldly stated as such? Maybe a hint of Pride in my request? Either way, it is a social norm to at least raise an eyebrow at somebody stating frankly that they want an expensive item for their birthday.

To stress this point: if I had asked for driving lessons which are double the price of the perfume, no comment would have been made because of its utility. And so I bring you right back to the beginning. I am applying for jobs and finding the whole process unbearably uncomfortable because I am wondering if me toting all my achievements in one go and really selling myself will come across as arrogant (pride).

I should be humble, shouldn’t I? Humble me in the face of power…Isn’t that the social norm here? Which leads me to my final conclusion. Here are two different worldviews and neither are false and neither are true. If everything is connected (and that is what we call a callback) and if I were an Ancient Greek, how would I apply for jobs? How would I tote my credentials when there is no punishment for being proud of my accomplishments? When there is no concept of sin within the narrative of my worldview and just differing aspects of my nature, surely applying for jobs, asking for presents, networking etc, etc, etc, would be a far less painful experience?

#blog #greek gods #mental health #theory #religion #politics #everything is connected #psychology #philosophy #theology #all human constructs #created by humans #to understand the human condition #diaries of a snowflake #experimental life of a snowflake #short essay

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rubbrfrk9 · 5 years

Photo

REBORN

I HAD A NAME. I used to be somebody.

I had a profession, dignity, a position in the class structure.

Nowadays, I see through a cracked lens - society is broken, and the people participating in it are all prisoners. The people you see shuffling in the great to and from, every morning, every evening - they’re miserable. Ask any one of them if they wouldn’t leave their life, and - perhaps after some hesitation - they would say Yes.

Even the ones who have kids - the ones in love - all of them. In fact, those with ties to other people are the first ones to get in line.

For me, it was curiosity that opened the door. If one follows the classic Hero’s Journey, the arc that every myth and story takes, I heard the Call - just like you - through a buzzing, pixelated source… the great and sordid world of the internet.

One wrong step can put you on an entirely different path.

When you look back, the path you were on is obscured by the surrounding environs - pressed firmly closed, as though no thing had ever once passed through.

I should introduce myself before I preach anymore. I am rubbrfrk9. You’ve read the stories on the website, you might’ve seen my name watermarked on pics as you scroll by on your tumblr feed.

That hasn’t been our name always. But what our name was before does not matter.

All hail the Rubbered One!

And if you’re reading this, then you’re as curious as I was.

Do you dare follow your own Call?

If you do, keep reading.

THE CALL COMES FOR YOU. You don’t come for it. The Call has been there, waiting, for you to pick up the other end, for as long as you’ve been alive.

Like I was saying, for me, it was curiosity. It seems like it is for you, too.

I was always a curious guy. It’s how I became a teacher, I guess. I loved to learn about shit. Endless amounts of shit. The subjects that interested me were sucked dry by my voracious need to know. On top of it all, I was cursed (blessed?) by a need to collect, a completionist’s frenzy, and so I found myself needing not just to know, but to know it all.

Everything. A question could not go unanswered. I was a very vocal kid, always asking the dread “Why?” to anyone who had the faculty to answer. Of course, I learned quickly that faculty does not imply ability; and later still, that ability does not imply honesty. Soon enough, I started shutting up and consulting other avenues of information - books. I loved books. I read anything I could find, from my mother’s tawdry romances on the back of the toilet to magazines at the doctor’s office - but my preferred genre was Horror, without a doubt.

I loved to read stories of unfortunate people, blind to their predicament, be lulled to the predator in the story. I loved how the protagonists were slowly overcome by a sense of dawning knowledge, and were thus able to conquer - or not - the abiding horror. The best ones were when the hero failed, in my opinion - those dark, twisted passages of despair and helplessness …

I was a weird kid.

I didn’t have very much luck making friends. I didn’t really understand what a “friend” should be. I knew that it was some sort of social construct, but I hadn’t figured out how it worked yet. Taking the time to do that analysis set me back, quite substantially, in the invisible school of society. Maybe, at heart, I was always a bit of a freak, even before I came out.

Funny to think of that, now, sitting here, writing from behind my gas mask and full rubber suit.

All hail the Rubbered One!

I love how tightly it encases me. How tightly it erases me.

Slowly, now. Don’t give up too quick. Finish the story first.

As I was saying. Curiosity. After college, I became a teacher. A professor. Very highly regarded in my field, but poor with social interactions. Dates? Of a professional courtesy, only, and as awkward and dry as a lecture. Actually, for me, lecturing was my second home, aside from my tidy and obsessively-ordered apartment. I loved standing at the podium, talking about the books we read together. How they are structured, and how events, following a certain chain, can be transformative.

Although sometimes, horrific.

Life that is contained entirely within the snowglobe of acadæmia becomes brittle, after a time. Even the most relentlessly anti-social of us have a heartbeat, a pulse, and a sexual drive.

Most sexual drives will tend towards the obligatory, the procreational. Attractiveness, physicality, congruence, intercourse, and then the subsequent emotional tangle. Sex is more than just a body meeting a body a-comin’ thru the rye - it is a rendezvous of energy, some of which we can’t even begin to understand.

Some kind of cosmic interplay happens during sex.

Something so bright, so chimeric, that I was blinded just thinking about it.

I fled from it, like a medieval monk from a vision of God.

SPARE TIME. I spent most of my time in my apartment in my bedroom, perched with my skinny knees up, my face obliterated by the powder-white light of my phone. I’d scroll endlessly. And always pictures of men.

I’d known I was gay way before most people do, but I’d never bothered to “come out” or anything that obvious. I just kept my feelings to myself, for as long as I could - which may not have been the healthiest thing to do, in hindsight, and when they finally vibrated at the seal on the pressure gauge, I spewed it out all over the internet.

Tumblr was my outlet. You could find something for every kink, from men transforming into donkeys to using politics as a sexual tool. I considered myself omnisexual. I could be convinced, really, to like anything. Except a few things.

I never really got into the big “full fetish” scene. I’d, of course, seen the pictures go by - of Folsom, Folsom Europe, even some kinksters trying to make a name for themselves, become influencers, with pictures so heavily edited and filtered they almost looked fake.

But for me, my kink was - get this - intimacy. I loved pictures of men, beautiful men, kissing, embracing. Tangling together, with bliss inscribed on their faces. And it was that expression that did it for me - the bliss, the complete and total walling-off of any worldly concern but the physical, the presence of another’s lips, breath, proximity -

It got me off, every time. Imagining myself in those positions. Wearing those clothes. Caught up in those bedsheets.

Then, I’d stare into the mirror, and flex my coming-along biceps. My quads. I’d get dressed for the gym, and I’d go work out for an hour.

I loved my routine, even if I felt the dreary recalcitrance to wake up every morning and head to work, just another body with the other bodies, shuffling to and from. The night time is when I felt the surge of life - I would be free of the grimy shackles of the city, I would pound through the tumblr feed, I would shower, I would go workout.

Life was half-bliss.

But as anyone who has half of bliss will tell you, it is never enough. You must go searching for the second half of bliss - and I found mine on the night in question.

Knees up, one foot tapping a heel in idle, anxious rhythm. Eyes greedily consuming, picture after picture, and then -

My thumb hovered over the screen as if about to lay a fingerprint down on a reader. I stared.

The picture, my gateway, was a bedroom picture much like any other I saw in my daily feed, except for one crucial ingredient - one of the men was entirely encased, from head to toe, in shiny black rubber.

The rubber was so shiny, so depthless, so reflective, that it almost seemed as though its host was Not - as though there were some kind of blotting-out, erasing, blankening … And yet, this Not Person was being encircled by the arms of another man, a strong man, by the looks of it, his biceps bulging around the Rubbered One.

Even now, looking back on it, I find it insanely difficult to pry my eyes away from the memory of that reflective rubber. That shiny, reflective black rubber. And the detail! I could see the hollows of the eyes, the imprint of the big toenail, the curls of the ears down to the tragus - it was truly as though this was not a suit being worn, this was a suit that was animated, had breath and energy of its own.

Perhaps it was, in hindsight, seducing the man which embraced it.

I don’t know how long I stared at the picture. A long time. I was fascinated with everything about it - the mess of clothing on the side of the bed, socks and shirts strewn around, as if someone had melted and left only their garments as markers that they ever existed at all. Even a pair of glasses lay askew on the carpet, next to a pair of jeans and Chucks.

If I listened, I could almost hear my own heartbeat, beating in time with the glints of light off of that rubber surface, as though the Rubbered One were moving, in infinitesimally small increments, writhing on the bed in either pleasure or agony -

I blinked, shook my head, and pressed down deliberately on the screen, for the little “Save Image” dialog to appear. I needed to see that again, sometime.

It was a lot sooner than I thought.

I had to excuse myself from my lecture. I was shaking, and my breath was wobbly in my mouth. Words had come out gummily, and I was worried that someone would be convinced I was having a stroke. I’d send in a TA to finish off the lecture, not that anyone in the darkened hall was paying attention anyway.

I went into the nearest bathroom, a single-room lavatory, and sat down hard on the toilet. Instantly, my hands fished out my phone from my pocket and called up my Photos.

There, on the top of the digital heap, was the faraway glisten and shine of the Rubbered One. I sighed in relief, in pleasure.

You would too, if you’d seen the picture. Don’t judge me.

A whisper of triumph, of pleasure, of satisfaction, threaded through my mind as I opened up the picture. There it was again. That endlessness, that Void, that Nothing. I craved it, and I didn’t know why, and I needed to know why, and to know why, I needed to keep looking. I needed to keep looking to stop looking.

The Rubbered One had moved. I remember its legs being in a different scissor - left on top of right, and now it was right, on top of left.

This did not frighten me. Perhaps it should have. Pictures are not supposed to move.

But in my addled state of mind, I was blissfully unaware of the warning - or even, really, of the thought itself. It slid right out of my head, as if on a glossy sheet of black ice. I smiled, warmly, the shuddering ceasing.

Then, surprising even myself, I unzipped my pants, and hauled out my cock.

Nothing would stop me. I was a man determined. I could even smell the rubber, could feel it lifting, wafting out of the screen of my phone. That smell, that smell that I have no words for - something utterly inorganic, but somehow seductive for that very reason.

I jerked off, right there, in the bathroom around the corner from the lecture hall. I sat so still, my hand doing all the work, that the motion-sensing lights clicked off, leaving me alone, lit only by the powdery light of my phone. There, in the enclosing, mummifying dark, I jerked myself off and came with a jagged, oblique moan that slid out of me, catching me by surprise.

I may have even been in such a hurry to get inside that I didn’t even lock the bathroom door. This suspicion came to me as I exited, stuffing myself shakily back into my khakis and my blazer. You see, the door had opened seamlessly, with no hint of a lock dis-engaging.

In fact, the momentary thrill of being caught as I masturbated to the Rubbered One flicked a little shiver of pleasure up my shaft anew, and I started shuddering so much that I had to grab the wall for fear of falling over.

All hail the Rubbered One!

There was no way I could go back to my lecture now. I fled the campus for the safety of a local coffeehouse.

OTHER THINGS STARTED HAPPENING. Like how I thought I was having a stroke, before? I found that, when I spoke, my mouth felt oddly compressed, as though I had lockjaw. I went to the doctor, but when they told me to “open wide and say ahhh” I had no trouble - my jaw, seemingly re-oiled, complacently opened its full width, and I made the obligatory noise.

Nothing wrong with my temporo-mandibular joint, advised the healthcare professional.

And yet, as soon as I left the office, trying to speak to the Uber driver, to give him directions to my apartment, the same muffling, mysterious pressure returned, and I was only able to speak in tight, restrained tones.

It didn’t occur to me until much, much later, that this was the voice of someone wearing a rubber gas mask, much like the one I am wearing now.

After awhile, I stopped talking altogether. Of course, this did make it rather difficult to be a professor, and so that had to stop, too.

But what does a mute member of society do, when the one thing they have in life is a degree in English Literature?

Well, the first step is despondency, and denial. I spent a month at least, just searching tumblr for more pictures of the Rubbered One. Sure, there were plenty of pictures - the fetish for rubber has never been a subtle one - but none of them had that same irresistable sheen and shine, that fathomless Void, of the Rubbered One. I’d exhausted most of the blogs. I kept returning to the photograph I had saved to my cloud - and jerking off to it, again and again, like a desperate man. Like a junkie. If I went without, or even thought about going out, my hand developed such a tremor that I looked afflicted with tardive dyskinesia.

It got so bad, and the attacks so frequent, that I eventually just made the picture my home screen on my phone. That way, if the tremors started, a quick pocket-dig and finger-flip would open up the likeness of the Rubbered One, and instantly, I would calm.

And (he? It?) continued to move. Perhaps, now that (he? It?) knew that I had noticed the movement, it happened more and more, and faster, as though I were watching a video rather than a photograph.

Now, in addition to the slow, sensual scissoring of its legs, the Rubbered One was turning its head, away from the suckling devotion of its prey and turning to look at me, choosing me, directing its energy towards me.

I already had my rubber in the mail. It took some doing, some difficult work, some self-measuring, but before long the order was placed and the shipment was made. It was, of course, a link that I’d seen on tumblr, from one of the many rubber fetish sites. Drone, and a series of numbers, I think. One of the ones that’s talking about being absorbed into a Hivemind, a Central Core. Nothing that ever really appealed to me.

The only thing I wished to absorb into was the Rubbered One.

I ached, yearned, to be the man in that picture. I was even jealous of him. Who was he to show his devotion to such a being, such a beautiful entity? Would not I be a better candidate for the first apostle position?

But I knew, somehow, deep inside, that I wouldn’t even be considered until I had donned my own rubber.

Here’s where it gets a little weird, right - this is usually the point when in the story, the protagonist gets a little real, sizes himself up, maybe learns something about themselves. Call me crazy, I know, but at this point, I just knew on the inside, so strongly, that I would never be worthy of the Rubbered One if I wasn’t Rubbered myself.

And so I waited, agonizingly, nearly tearing my hair out, for the package to inch itself across the ocean to my apartment mailbox. I’d ordered the full suit, of course, the one that most closely approximated my photograph.

I was utterly consumed, I was ablaze with obsession. For the first time in my life, I felt an utterly overwhelming feeling - a lack. I felt as though I lacked something that I had had for just a moment - one sweet moment, hovering, crystalline - and now that I no longer had it, I could never live a whole life again.

And everywhere I went - watching with a hawk’s eye the slow drainage of funds from my bank account - I smelled it. Rubber. There was even an auto repair shop, blockaded on one side with piles and piles of tires - I altered my daily neighborhood walk so that I could slowly amble by it, inhaling the thick, gray smell. The more of it I could get on me, the more I wanted. If there were a cologne that smelled of rubber, I’d wear it - hell, I’d bathe in it! I twitched for it to be near me, on me, inside of me.

THE DAY MY NEW FACE CAME IN THE MAIL. I was wearing rubber gloves, made for chemical and construction workers, pressing them to my face, and inhaling as deeply as I could, when my phone made its little ringing noise to signify that a package was Delivered.

It could only be one thing.

It would only be a matter of moments before I could prostrate myself in front of the Rubbered One.

I hooked up my laptop to my flat-screen television, where the Rubbered One had also become my desktop wallpaper. I opened up the picture file and let it sit, in the middle of my living room, the picture of Him.

Again, I fell far into His Nothingness, His All-Consuming Void - He turned on the bed, in the picture. He silently got up. He moved so subtly that it was impossible to tell if my hallucination was real, or some sort of digital magic. He kicked, as if insulting, the pile of clothes left by the bedside.

The whole time, He kept his head, His black eyes, His shiny face, impassive and monstrous, but so aloof, so superior - His direct gaze - riveted on mine.

All hail the Rubbered One!

With barely a shimmer, He stepped out of the frame of my television and deliberately into my living room. Tendrils of black squirmed out around the square of my screen, lashing to and fro idly, almost amusedly.

None of this seemed unreal, or even fantastical. It was simply as it was - I was in a sort of ecstasy, like the kind the saints have, all-consumed, raptured. The Rubbered One had chosen me!

Go, He told me without speaking.

I was on my feet, I was sprinting, I was dashing, my hands, still in their gloves, slippery on the door knob. I was down the stairs before I realized I was barefoot, or that I was still wearing the heavy-duty black rubber gloves. And there it was - my Rubber. It was, of course, still in the box, it needed to be freed -

I cradled it in my arms. I inhaled, as deeply as possible, again. I could smell it, whining at the edges of my nostrils, begging to be freed. I felt it, inside its cardboard prison, shifting and rustling. Whispering.

I brought it upstairs with as much care as a mother would bring home her day-old newborn, but once inside, slamming the door behind me, I pillaged the drawers for the scissors, tearing into the box that would dare imprison my -

And there it was. Still in a sad, folded-up heap, but it was mine.

Now, said His voice in my head. I didn’t have to turn around to know that He, the Rubbered One, was standing behind me - had moved silently from the living room to the kitchen. I felt Him questing at the edges of my consciousness, starting the interview process.

I felt a strange mix of craven desire and hot-blooded lust twist through me. How I wished to possess the Rubbered One! And how I wished to be possessed by Him!

I began to don my Rubber. I felt it coo as it met my skin, as I replaced my own with its black sheen. I saw my toes go, then the top of my foot - ankles, calves and shinbones, kneecaps and thighs - I watched as the black tide continued its creep up my body, as quickly as night follows dusk.

The Rubbered One put His hands on me and I was nothing, I was everything. I was part of a gigantic, moaning chorus of voices, I was absolute silence.

I saw Him reach out to me, his Nothing fingers and Nothing hands, his Void arms, his Void body. I saw Him pull my self to His, and I felt us as we docked, somehow, for an imposssible moment, sharing the same physical space.

Then, with a sound that reminded me of a slurp and a sucking, closing noise, I was no more.

RUBBERBORN. I ceased to exist as I knew myself.

I had a name.

I wasn’t much of somebody, but I was somebody.

Now, I was part of a growing, aching consciousness - I was part of a vast, growing hunger. My thoughts were no longer my own.

All hail the Rubbered One!

I buzzed and chirred, excited beyond words. I was ramrod hard, even in the rubber, which smoothed everything away, everything - all emotion, all thought, all nerve, all worry. All features of my face - gone. All features of my body - slurped up.

I stood in front of the mirror. All sign of the Rubbered One was vanished. I could see, somehow, through my suit, though it had no eyeholes.

I saw through Rubber eyes.

I understood that I was Rubberborn. That this was my destiny.

The words “my” and “me” and “I” and “mine” were erased, scratched out heavily. I was plural, now.

We were plural.

We stand in front of the mirror, staring at ourselves, our new body. A mere morsel in the face of our hunger.

Do you feel it?

As our eyes swivel slowly, tracking across the room, away from the mirror. Looking into the camera lens backwards. Do you feel the chilly fingers of our gaze landing on you as you read? Playing along your bare shoulders, the pliable, delicate skin of your arms?

The Rubberborn understand and acknowledge that this body can be used for purposes that satisfy the hunger.

They gave it the name rubbrfrk9. The name you know, the author of these stories you read, curious in your own way to know how the rubber feels. The same name you’ve seen watermarked on pics of us as you scroll by on your tumblr feed.

Or maybe you already know - maybe you’ve already felt the ecstasy, struggling into your own shirt or pants. Gloves or socks. Mask or hood.

Perhaps all of the above.

Perhaps the voice of the Rubbered One is even now mingling with your own thoughts. Sinuous, twisty, shiny and smooth. Silken whispers, just an undercurrent of sibilant breath in the background, there. If you strain, you can make it out. Can hear our voices.

We can sense you.

We know.

We are coming.

Say it with us now: All hail the Rubbered One!

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tsubaki3192 · 4 years

Text

Christmas Gifts

[Ikevamp Leonardo x MC/Bee]

@3amheartache, Merry Belated Christmas, and I hope you've had a very Happy New Year! (Psst! I'm your secret santa!)

Notes: Ikevamp Holiday Exchange participation! Also, I did get a little confused with the name thing so please let me know if that was what you wanted!

Tags: @3amheartache @ikevamp-holiday-exchange @tsuki-no-usagiii @unstoppablelinda

-------------

You… Weren’t even sure just how it happened.

One morning, nearly two weeks before the date of Christ’s birth (a fact everyone seemed to forget, though apparently not you, even when considering the fact you weren’t Christian-), you had stepped out of your room in search for the perfect Christmas gifts for everyone when your foot, landed upon a letter at the mansion’s doorway.

Addressed to you, of course.

To be fair, you had near-missed the snow-damp envelope, given the fact it was bleached white and partially hidden under the still-falling ice. But you had caught sight of it nonetheless and brought it back inside with you, leaving it to dry by floor of the fireplace.

And yet when you returned from your daily duties later that evening, another gift had been placed delicately on the now-watermarked surface.

To my beloved, the tag read, followed by your name.

And if anything, you had to smile. It was sweet of him to give you little gifts, though you knew exactly who it was that had left it. Leonardo had always been rather thoughtful of you- But this was something new. Two long years of your relationship had brought you here. Two long years of his sweetness and love.

And that was just the beginning.

Your fingertips held the delicately crafted rose, admiring it’s beauty. You twirled it, watching for all the perfect imperfections that made it unique: Little dents here, missable scratches there…. It was handmade, to say the very least. And yet the thin, crimson-metallic sheets wounded and welded together made for the most everlasting flower while it sat on a more solid stem, golden in colour, with green leaves twisted in between.

And it was just something you utterly adored, especially when you considered the fact that you hadn’t seen him for the last few days.

(Truth to be told, you missed him dearly though you would never give him the liberty of knowing, for he would merely endlessly tease you.)

Even then, a smile had graced your features following that, skipping to your room to read the letter in peace.

---------------------------------------

The following week and a half ended almost similarly, and yet you still had not seen your boyfriend. Not once in the 240 hours of 10 days, the 14,400 minutes nor the 864,000 seconds, but hey, who’s counting?

And to add to that, it almost seemed like the entire mansion was in on a secret you weren’t aware of. Their excuses seemed to be stumbled, hurried, as they avoided you at all costs. Well… Except maybe Vincent, Napoleon and Theo (just slightly) and it was a given that Sebastian and Comte would continue to converse with you freely. It wasn’t as if you could avoid them, after all.

And yet-

It was Christmas Eve. The night you would usually spend with your family. And just as you had promised him, this year you had decided to stay behind. To say you were disappointed was simply not enough. Leonardo had promised you time together and you just simply hadn’t received that.

And yet here he was, leaving various gifts around the mansion where he knew you would find.

Your eyes shifted from the window to the lineup of items on your table, each item landing upon the calendar date beneath the glass and sighed with a mixture of contentment and concern.

Just where was he, and what was he up to? You knew you would never find him if you searched. He was far too good at hiding himself from you, though he could find you in a matter of seconds.

But as you rose from the outstretched couch beside the windowsill, a sharp knock came from your door.

------------------------

“Cara mia…”

It was words of endearment that had you leaping from your seat, and your exclamation of “Leonardo!” didn’t hide your partial surprise. How could you, when your eyes shone bright with tears; when your hand flew to your lips in utter surprise? And he just chuckled, the sound sending rather wonderous shivers down your spine.

“You’re always so easy to read….”

Nevertheless, he whisked you into his arms with ease as you finally found your voice to yelp. But he only gazed down at you longingly, before pressing his lips against your forehead.

“Come now,” he started as he pulled away, “we’re going out. But first, I have a few gifts for you.”

“Huh…?”, you uttered, confused. More gifts…?

And gifts they were indeed. A stunning scarlett dress to match your heavy midnight boots. Your hands quietly slipped the silk-like fabric against your torso, shivering at the sensation of the cooling fabric. A small hum of anticipation left your lips as you applied rouge to your lips and jewellery to your ears and neck.

(They were both gifts from him. Never would he allow another man to gift you with such beautiful objects.)

But Leonardo was waiting for you outside, and your chest hummed in anticipation for the evening together. It wasn’t often that he took you out for dates- and when he did, both you and he became sidetracked by the hundreds of admirers your boyfriend held in the palm of his hand.

(It wasn’t as if you didn’t have any admirers either- It remained strange to know that you were the one he chose; the only one he could truly love. And stares of envy and awe would always follow your linked hands.)

The dress’ hem shimmied around your ankles as you twirled in front of the mirror in delight. It really did fit you well. Almost too well, you could say. But there was no time to waste: The night was young and you simply couldn’t wait to begin your date, crossing your fingers with the hope of no interruptions.

-------------

“This place….”

Leonardo had blindfolded you the second you had arrived in the mansion’s foyer, before lifting you into his arms with ease. Naturally, you had yelped in surprise as he hooked his arms beneath your knees and your back, only to relax into his embrace only seconds later. To match your yelp, he released a chuckle if his own, to which you only snuggled closer at the sensation of his vibrating chest.

And he had brought you, by carriage, to a rather stunning restaurant frequented often by counts and high-ranking families in the society. And it just so happened to be one of the few higher-class restaurants you enjoyed.

“Leo, what’s the occasion?”

You had questioned him upon entering the grand doors, but he had given you nothing more than a charming grin as you were permitted through to his table. The host had given you the same (yet somehow different) charming smile at the sight of your extravagant dress. And if anything, you only smile back politely as Leonardo’s possessive grip on your waist tightened and his smile thinned.

“Your table, Monsieur Leonardo.”

Strangely, Leonardo had pulled your chair out for you- something he had never done before. And when you, again, questioned him for his actions, he gave you another loving smile that sent you speechless.

--------------

Leonardo had been silent throughout the entire dinner as he watched you eat, chuckling every so often as he reached over the table to wipe whatever neglected sauce remained on the corner of your lips. And now-

He clasped his hand over your own and brought you to the restaurant’s extravagant garden. Crimson roses lined the paths, overshadowing the neatly trimmed grass and sculptures scattered throughout. And yet from the way his eyes remained on the path before you, he had a very specific destination in mind.

Before long, you arrived at the centre of the garden. A white pagoda sat at the centre, connecting the numerous pathways to it’s centre. But what, perhaps, had caught your attention most was the painting, veiled by a thin section of cloth, standing at the centre of the partially enclosed room. And as you admired the scenery ahead of you, you failed to notice Leonardo’s hand leave yours and fumble through his pockets.

“Bee…”

At the sound of his voice and your name, you turned, to search for him, only to find him on a single knee, a small, also crimson, box in his outstretched hand. Your eyes widened, as the events of the night suddenly pieced itself together.

His silence. His actions. His gifts. His disappearance.

“Everytime I close my eyes, all I can see is you. Everyday, all day, all I think about is you, Cara. Your smile, your voice plagues my mind, tesoro, and I find myself unable to focus on anything that’s not you. These few weeks have been hell…I’m not sure how I’ve managed without you all these years, stellina.”

He paused, and watched your eyes glimmer with hope and fill with tears. And with his empty hand, he reached out to your cheeks to wipe your tears.

“I suppose what I’m trying to say, cara, is ‘Can I be yours, as you will be mine?’ Will you let this soul care for your own? Will you allow this soul make you smile-”

You didn’t even allow him to finish his statement, as his fingers flicked at the contraption that opened the box. Nestled in between the pieces of foam was an intricately designed, silver ring- no doubt of his own creation. Diamonds, large and small, glittered brightly from their positions beneath the moonlight.

Your arms flew around his neck, whispering through silent tears, “Yes!”

Smiling gently at you, he slipped the ring to your finger and brought your hand to his lips.

“Grazie, Cara mia.”

(And you could just hear the relief in his voice as he held you close to him.)

--------------

Leonardo would later reveal the painting to you, the intricate brush strokes depicting yourself and he in that same garden he had proposed to you in.

That same painting now hangs in the centre of your shared room, bringing a small smile to your lips from the memory.

#2019ikevampholidayexchange #ikemen vampire #leonardo #oh god i feel like im nearly late #ikevamp #leonardo da vinci

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thekitchensnk · 4 years

Text

and the spider lilies bloomed in the fall (chapter 18)

Rating: T Warnings: Violence Pairing: Gin/Ran Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18

“They say that lovers doomed never to see each other again still see the higanbana growing along their path, even to this day.”

A girl collapses on a dusty road one day. A boy takes her home.

The girl lives.

—

(The boy doesn’t.)

Even weeks later, Ayame could not leave the subject alone. She brought the subject of Rangiku's victory up so frequently and so loudly that Rangiku had developed a scheme to feign deafness whenever Ayame started up.

"I just don't understand why you wouldn't-" Ayame would huff.

"What? I'm sorry, Ayame-chan, but I-"

"I said that I just don't understand why-"

"SORRY, AYAME-CHAN, BUT SUDDENLY IT'S VERY HARD TO HEAR ANYTHING. I think I might have blocked ears!" Rangiku would cheerfully lie.

Ayame would glare. "Don’t be so immature. You can't just pretend to be deaf to avoid conversations you don't want to hear."

Rangiku would momentarily pause in her efforts to mop the floor, and squint at her, digging at her ears. "SORRY, AYAME-CHAN, WHAT DID YOU SAY? I SAID I CAN'T HEAR YOU."

And Ayame would throw her cleaning rag down and storm off, leaving Rangiku grinning widely in her wake.

Whatever illness it was that Ayame seemed to have been suffering from also seemed to have passed. She was adamant that the vomiting spells which had plagued her were just her stomach adjusting to the inclusion of Rangiku into the cooking roster, reasoning which everyone else could quite easily buy, though which Rangiku herself contested hotly.

"There is no kitchen curse!" she would shout angrily. "You're just picking on me, like you always do!"

Regardless, one morning a little over a month after Rangiku's fight with the shinigami student, Chiyo had taken a long, hard look at Ayame, taking the girl’s jaw in one lined hand and examining her with brow-knitted intensity.

Ayame had gone pale and still, her eyes wide with fear as she suffered Chiyo's scrutiny.

"You've not been looking well lately, Ayame," Chiyo had said, slowly. "It's been too long since you've had a rest, I think. Take the morning to go into town. I have some things I need you to pick up."

Ayame had crumpled then with the release of that strange tension, and relief had filled her eyes.

"Of course," she had said weakly, her eyes darting to the door as she did so. "Thank you, Chiyo-san." She had made to leave as quickly as possible.

"Ayame," Chiyo had called after her serenely. At the sound of Chiyo's voice, Ayame had frozen in place.

To Rangiku, watching on, it had made for an odd spectacle indeed.

"Take Rangiku with you," Chiyo had said pensively. "It wouldn't do for you to take ill on the road on your own."

"Y-" Ayame had cleared her throat nervously. "Yes, Chiyo-san. We’ll leave straight away."

Which was how Rangiku suddenly found herself following Ayame through the streets of the fourteenth district, aching with a sense of sudden, dizzying freedom.

It was only seldom that she left the confines of the Floating Moon, and every time she did, she felt the openness of the sky towering dizzily above her. It was strange, but she never felt imprisoned until she was allowed out into the open, where suddenly she found she could breathe more easily. Today, the air was thick with water vapour and overripe with the potential for a storm.

As she breathed in, she breathed in water; the air felt wet and heavy and it lay on the two as they walked, clinging and soft, like an embrace. The sky was iron dark and gray, but it did little to suppress the energy humming under Rangiku's skin. If anything, the dark shadows on the horizon just made the bright leaves of autumn even more beautiful, and Rangiku more appreciative.

In fourteenth, the district had had the means somewhere down the line to plant decoratively- the elegant palm fan leaved gingko trees were beginning to turn butter yellow and the maple trees were sporting shocks of red and fierce orange. The air painted everything in soft focus, muting and blurring the edges of everything solid until it was as hazy and indistinct as a dream.

As Rangiku walked, she raised her arm up and let her fingertips brush against low-lying leaves the color of the sun rise, and she smiled softly to herself in the descending mist.

The sky was dark- so dark- but everywhere, the world was turning to gold.

I'm going to live beautifully, she thought suddenly.

Even if I have nothing else in the world. Even if I'm abandoned time and time again. Even if everyone says that I'm naïve and empty-headed. I'll live with my head held high and my fingers touching gold, and if I can do that, it will have been a life worth living. There is beauty everywhere for those who care to look, and I'm going to find it.

It was a secret vow she whispered to herself, and she held it close to her chest, tucked next to her heart with all the other small and profound things of which she was comprised- the taste of dried persimmons, abrupt kindness to a fallen enemy, the sound of a party in full swing. She felt warm, suddenly, in spite of the damp chill.

Even in the gray light, Ayame looked healthier, as if even just a morning off was good for her soul.

Rangiku was glad to see it. The past few weeks had given Ayame a wan, thin cast to her face.

"Ayame-chan," she called out happily, "I have money for mochi. Would you like some? We could get some tea to go with it."

It was testament to the heady power of a morning off that Ayame hesitated even for a moment. But in the end, not even a morning's freedom could curb Ayame's natural tendency to always, sensibly, obey the rules.

"We should do Chiyo's chores first, Rangiku-chan," she said, though a note of wistfulness was threaded through her voice. "Maybe once we're done with those though."

"I'm going to buy matcha flavoured mochi," Rangiku announced boisterously. "Matcha mochi, yuzu tea." She paused. "Matcha mochi, yuzu tea, and maybe a new ribbon from the market." She bounced slightly on her heels in giddiness. "Where do we have to go for Chiyo's stuff? What does she need us to get?"

"Lye soap, for laundry; jasmine oil for the bath."

"Do you know where we need to go for those? Where on earth do you buy jasmine oil?" Rangiku asked quizzically.

"Chiyo only ever gets the cheap stuff. There's a florist over on the corner that gives Chiyo a cheap price for her loyalty. That's where we'll go."

The inhabitants of the fourteenth were better heeled than the inhabitants of Rangiku's home district. By no means was anyone rich- certainly not by the standards of Seireitei nobility- but the inhabitants all had shoes, and looked to bathe at least semi-regularly. There were no children with hollow, empty eyes and naked backs here; no curdling stream of filth running through the street. Whores here did not heckle and solicit on street corners, but were obliged by law only to operate within certain areas of the district, over clean waters and arched bridges the colour of saffron.

The women went about with wooden combs in their hair, their healthy bodies draped in cheap cotton yukatas of every colour. It was rare to see a mouth of cracked and calcified teeth, and rarer still to see the pock-marked, poverty-disfigured faces which had been the norm where she came from.

It had been over two years since Rangiku had last felt rain dribbling on her face through a threadbare roof. Over two years since she'd had to bathe in a river. Over two years since she'd had only one stained, ripped and patched yukata to wear.

Sometimes she wondered whether the stains and watermarks of that old life were branded onto her soul, evident for anyone with keen enough sight to see. Would she always walk through busy streets with her fists clenched, ready to swing? Would she always scan dark corners and alleyways for the next attack? Would it show in her manners, in her speech? Was the dirt and shame caked on so thick and deep that she could never be rid of it?

Could everyone see it on her face?

And if they could, did that matter?

She was strong, she was young, she was beautiful. She was moving forward, striding forward. That had to count for something.

(But still, she feared those things burnt on her soul- the fears and the anxieties of abandonment and hunger. She feared them because she knew that they still had a hold on her and moved her in incomprehensible ways, like a magnetic field moves a compass needle. She could gather her things in a sack and walk a thousand miles from that place, but something of it would always be inside her; the fear.)

Here and now, she was indistinguishable from any other person living in the fourteenth district. Her clothes were every bit as clean as theirs. I look as if I was born here. she thought fiercely as she and Ayame walked through the cobbled streets. I fit in here. I’ll smack anyone who says otherwise. There was a rumble of thunder far off.

"Did you feel that?" Ayame asked suddenly. "I think that’s the rain. Did you remember to bring the umbrella?"

"Erm." Rangiku scratched at her head. She had heard that they were to have the morning off and had scrambled excitedly to find her money, like any person with sane, healthy priorities would.

"Rangiku-chan!" Ayame groaned in annoyance.

"Hey!" Rangiku protested hotly. "You have arms! You have legs! Why didn't you bring the umbrella?"

As they were bickering, the sky, thickly filled to saturation with water, finally burst. The rain which dropped fell in fat, heavy droplets which smacked against the ground. Ayame, fussy at the best of times, yelped in shocked outrage.

Rangiku grabbed her by the hand and began to run, overbalancing as she did so.

She only made it a few feet before she felt her arm yank in its socket.

"You're running the wrong way," Ayame shouted, though her voice was drowned out by the rain. Her chestnut coloured hair was stuck to her face with water.

"What?" Rangiku yelled back.

"Oh, for fuck's sake! You're runnin- you're running-" Ayame gave up and grabbed her arm and began to stride in the opposite direction. Rangiku followed blindly, an arm raised above her head to in the hope of some meagre cover.

The florist's was only two streets away, but they were soaked through and breathless by the time they arrived, Rangiku's fumbling with the door adding a good twenty seconds to the time they spent in the rain.

"Great!" Ayame complained, raising her hands in annoyance. "Chiyo gave me the morning off to improve my health, and here I am, soaked through and shivering!" She glared around the shop.

"That's not my fault!" Rangiku protested.

"I didn't say it was!"

"You aimed it in my direction!"

"I know you don't control the weather, Rangiku.” She drew herself up haughtily. “Don't be childish."

Rangiku glared mutinously. "You're not much older than me. I'm sure of it."

The shop assistant coughed politely, a hand as white as porcelain coming up to cover her delicate mouth, but Rangiku was pretty sure she could detect the hint of an amused smile beneath it. Ayame immediately looked mortified; Rangiku continued to shoot daggers at Ayame.

"I am," Ayame tried to smooth her clothes to make herself look a little more dignified, "so sorry about that. We didn't mean to create a scene."

Gin had seemed to make it his life's work to terrorise every shopkeeper he came into contact with. Rangiku hardly thought that raised voices and endless complaining warranted the level of embarrassment that Ayame was displaying.

Color flooded Ayame’s cheeks. "If you don't mind me asking,” she said in a quick bid to move on from the supposed shame of minor public disturbance, “where's Kojima-san? Is she working today? Not we have anything against you-" Ayame added hurriedly- "it's just that she has an understanding with my employer regarding prices, and my employer is very strict about this sort of thing."

There was a quiet, understanding amusement at Ayame's fumbling in the young shop assistant's violet eyes.

"Please don't worry," she said, her voice as soft and sonorous as glass chimes. "Is it the jasmine oil that you're here to purchase? I've been made aware of the arrangement, if so."

"Yes," Ayame said with a sigh of relief. "Yes, that's it. I don't believe we've met before. Have you only just started working here?"

"Six weeks ago," the shop assistant admitted shyly. "I've only just moved here."

"Oh? Did you travel far?”

The shop assistant's ears turned a delicate pink, as if she were about to divulge a shameful secret. "Inuzuri," she murmured, unable to look Ayame in the eyes.

If anyone could understand that feeling, it was Rangiku.

"Shit," she said appreciatively. "That's further than even me, I think, and I lived in the middle of fucking nowhere."

"Rangiku-chan, watch your mouth!" Ayame cried in shock.

"What have I done this time?" Rangiku complained in despair.

The shop assistant laughed then, an awkward, breathy laugh and the flush settled lightly on her cheeks. She looks good laughing, Rangiku thought. Healthier, more alive, more like a person. She smiled to see the woman’s composure waver.

"What's your name, shop assistant from Inuzuri?" she asked warmly.

"Hisana." The woman paused. “Just… Hisana.” No surname, Rangiku noted pityingly. It was not unusual for those from the poorest districts not to have one.

“I’m Rangiku, and this lovely lady,” she draped a clumsy arm over Ayame, “is Ayame.”

There was a short awkward pause whilst Hisana looked them over, during which the drumming noise of the rain filled the shop.

They were soaked, and their thin yukata had done nothing to prevent them from being soaked through to the skin by the weather. A cold, dim light filled the shop, second-hand light filtered through the rain clouds. Rangiku’s tabi squelched in her sandals as she shifted her weight, her chin raised pridefully as Hisana looked them over.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Hisana said formally. She looked at them thoughtfully for a beat. “What perfect names you both have for the setting.”

Ayame wrinkled her delicate nose, but it was Rangiku who explained.

“We get that a lot, in our line of work. Men always think they’re so original.” Rangiku put on a comically gruff, masculine voice. “’’Lovely little flowers. I’d love to pluck your petals,’ and all that rubbish. It makes my skin crawl. What losers. They always think they’re so original as well, the smelly goats.”

Hisana looked confused, but was too polite to pry further into their employment histories. It was, Rangiku figured wryly, probably why she worked at a florist and not behind the bar in a whorehouse.

“The rain is pouring down very heavily,” Hisana noted, “and neither of you seem to have an umbrella. Would you like to stay here while the rain eases off? I could make a pot of tea.” There was a desperate look in her eye.

Ayame looked torn- it was very wet outside, but she was uncomfortable imposing too long on someone else’s kindness.

Rangiku had no such qualms.

“Hisana-chan!” she cried out, tripping over her feet in an effort to take Hisana’s hands in her own. “You’re our very own saviour! Thank you!” She barely paused. “Do you have yuzu flavoured tea?”

“Rangiku-chan!” Ayame scolded.

“What? She offered!”

HIsana shook her head regretfully. “I’m afraid we don’t have any yuzu tea. Only standard green tea.” Anxiety entered her voice. “Will that suffice? Is that alright?” she asked, a slight worry in her eyes.

Ayame nodded firmly. “Pay no attention to Rangiku-chan, that klutz. Green tea would be lovely. Thank you for your kindness.”

Whilst Hisana pottered about making tea in the shop’s backrooms, Rangiku took the time to look closely at the wares.

Autumn was just beginning to set in, and the shop had wild bunches of the last of the summer cosmos on display, tied with string, pink and yellow and orange, childishly bright. The elegant, slender petaled chrysanthemum flower that was her namesake was also on display in singles and doubles, and she bent her head down to smell them, her nose filling with their green, aqueous smell. It was usually the second to last flower to bloom in the year. There had been no chrysanthemums growing where she had grown up, and she had scarcely known that she was named for a flower. It wasn’t until Yuki had offered to make her a cup of chrysanthemum tea that she had learned that fact.

As she cast her eyes around, they landed finally on a familiar sight, a scarlet nest of spindly protrusions, grown from a bulb, fierce and scarlet and beautiful.

Her eyes went wide.

He had been full of happy impatience, that day; all smiles and nervous movements. He had wanted to give it to her, that patch of ground, had wanted to make a present of it. She had not known at the time, but it had been his way of saying this is your home, this garden is mine but it is yours too, put something of yourself into it so that you can know that it belongs to you, that you built something here with me, that we were here together. "This spot is for ya'.” He had said. “Grow whatever ya' want here- onions, scallions, garlic, cress, cabbage. Whatever ya' want."

“Here. Give them to me. I'll carry 'em for ya’."

"They're pretty. This was a good idea ya' had. I wonder what these are?"

“The fox is having his wedding…”

He had given her a spot of her own in the garden in which to grow whatever she’d wanted, and she had wanted flowers. She had raced to the river and dug the flowers out of the riverbed with her bare hands, carrying them back bulb and all.

She had greeted him with mud on her face and arms full of spider lilies, and he had pronounced them beautiful.

He had barely looked at the flowers. She had thought that he must have been lying, just to appease her.

They were the first thing that they had put in the flower bed, and her spider lilies had returned every year after, as constant and steadfast as the rain. They had always bloomed for his birthday, and for hers too, thriving brightly as the world around them was beginning to decay.

It had been so long since she had seen them, and her heart ached all of a sudden for a ramshackle garden and a rundown house, for happy summer days, and for a boy made of smiles and silver, all so far away.

Hisana had returned with the pot of tea, and she poured a cup for each of them. In the damp autumn chill, the steam from the tea condensed quickly, spiralling and smoking in the air.

I need to have one, she thought. She burned with it, suddenly, the need to have some reminder, some memento, some thing that could tie her present to her past, something to convince her that it had been real.

(Because it had been real. Hadn’t it?)

(Hadn’t it?)

“Hisana?” Rangiku asked abruptly. “How much is it for one of these?”

Hisana’s hands flew to her mouth as if she had sparked off a catastrophe.

“Oh,” she said gravely. “I didn’t realise. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Rangiku’s face contorted in confusion. “Huh?” she asked, her mouth a small ‘o’.

Hisana took her hand gently. “You’ve not lost someone?”

Rangiku blinked. “No…?” She laughed loudly, retracting her hand to thread it nervously through her hair.

“Oh. Then I’m sorry. The higanbana is not a pleasant flower,” Hisana said in a small voice. “We only stock them for O-Higan, so that people might commemorate their loved ones who have passed on.”

Rangiku was silent, her brow wrinkled.

Ayame looked at her gently. “They’re flowers for the dead, Rangiku-chan,” she said. “People put them near graves, so that vermin won’t get at the bodies.”

“I didn’t know that,” Rangiku said quietly, a strange despair curling in her belly. “I always just thought that they were pretty.”

Hisana was a kind soul, and she rallied quickly to try and brighten Rangiku’s spirits.

“They are very pretty, and they do look interesting. There aren’t many flowers that look like a spider lily, and not many flowers at all grow so late in the year. And there are so many stories about them. They’re interesting flowers really.” She smiled enthusiastically.

Ayame was contemplative.

“They say that once upon a time, the flower was the most sacred flower of all,” she said pensively. “Two spirits were commanded to guard the plant. One guarded the leaves, and the other the flower. But the tragedy was the leaves and the flower can never grow at the same time, so the spirits could never see each other.

But the spirits fell in love anyway, though the stories never tell that part. They decided to run away together, to become everything to one another, defying every law of the gods in the process. The gods raged at their disobedience, as all gods do, drunk and violent in their power, and they decided to punish the lovers for their insolence, for daring to abandon their god-demanded duty.

They would never meet again for all eternity, and never will, not until every star in the sky blackens and sputters out. Not until the sun and moon embrace each other in the sky without covering one another up. Not even then. They say that lovers doomed never to see each other again will still see higanbana growing along their path to this day, because of those two spirits. Red spider lilies.”

Rangiku’s expression must have been strange, because Hisana took her hand gently and looked her in the eyes earnestly.

“They’re just stories, Rangiku-kun,” she said kindly. “It is also said that the higanbana light the way to the next life, for what that’s worth. So they’re not all bad. You shouldn’t let stories get in the way of a pretty thing. If you want one, you should buy one.”

But something of the melancholy of the story had worked its way deep into her heart, and she felt like an empty-headed fool all of a sudden to have liked them so openly and enthusiastically.

Knowing the sad truth behind the lovely scarlet flowers, she was certain that she would never be able to look at them in the same way ever again. Joy in their beauty and all of her fond, sun-lit memories would be tinged forever now with a streak of sadness, like a line of spilled blue ink.

She could not stand the sight of them.

Outside, the drumming of the rain was beginning to slow.

She laughed a bright, fragile laugh, but it sounded a little hollow even to her own ears.

"No, no," she said, "I wouldn't want something as depressing as that in my room, Hisana-chan. Only pink cosmos for me from now on. You've done me a favor in any case, because I was going to spend my money on mochi, not flowers." She grasped around desperately for a change in subject, so that the two women would stop giving her such pitying looks. "Good job that your boss isn't here! What would she think of Hisana actively stopping her customers from buying flowers, eh?"

When she laughed this time, it was more genuine.

Hisana blanched in anxiety.

"It's okay, it's okay," Rangiku said smiling, and sipped at her tea. "We won't tell if you don't."

Ayame glared daggers at Rangiku, who pulled a face at her in return. "When does O-higan start this year, Hisana-san?" she asked, kindly changing the topic for Hisana.

"Tomorrow, actually. It's a little bit later this year, apparently. O-higan follows the movement of the sun, or something like that," Hisana paused thoughtfully. "Or at least, that's what I've heard. It will end on the 29th though."

"Due to the nature of our, ah, work, it's very easy to lose track of time. Days and nights kind of all blur together. September already..." She trailed off suddenly into a fraught silence, looking unsettled, like the end of September heralded a death sentence.

Rangiku had other concerns.

"It's only a week until my birthday!" Rangiku yelped.

Hisana looked very confused.

"I do not know your line of work," she said politely, "but do you not have calendars there?" The question seemed genuine, but Rangiku pointed her finger at her all the same.

"Ayame-chan! Look at this! Hisana-chan has only known us for forty minutes, and she's already giving us sass about our inability to keep track of time. She knows us both so well already!"

Hisana looked shocked, but it only lasted a moment before she broke into a delicate, tinkling laugh. "I don't quite know how to respond to that. Happy birthday then, if I'm not fortunate enough to see you again before next week."

Ayame stood abruptly. "We should go, Rangiku-chan. We have chores to do, and the rain has eased off," she said shortly, her expression stormy.

"Eh? But I was having fun talking " Rangiku complained.

"We shouldn't infringe too long on Hisana-san's hospitality. We're keeping her from her job."

Rangiku was about to protest that the shop was empty, and likely to be empty for the rest of the morning, with the weather being as bad as it was, but she stopped herself when she caught sight of Ayame's troubled features. Her eyes narrowed.

"Okay," she nodded quietly. "Let's go."

If Hisana found their sudden departure rude or unexpected, it did not show on her smooth, polite face. "Don't forget the jasmine oil you ordered," she reminded them courteously.

Ayame looked at her. "Thank you. I might have, had you not reminded me." She paused, and her expression softened slightly. "Thank you so much for giving us shelter from the storm, and for the tea you made us. You didn't need to do that. Kindness is rare, even here. We appreciate it."

Hisana smiled sadly. "I've not met many people since I've moved here.” She ringed her delicate, pale wrists with her hands anxiously. “I left everyo- thing behind in Inuzuri. I spend most of my days here, in the shop, alone. It was nice just to have someone to talk with."

"Then I'll definitely come again when I next have a morning free," Rangiku vowed. Ayame gave her a sharp look, and she swiftly moved to correct her.

"Rangiku-chan doesn't get many mornings off, so that might be difficult," she said smoothly. "But I do. I'll definitely visit."

Rangiku was puzzled, but said nothing. They made their farewells, and left soon after.

As they turned the corner, Rangiku craned her neck to look back. Hisana sat behind the counter, alone. Her pale fingers played slowly with the petals of the spider lily.

It made for a sad picture.

The rain had stopped, but the cobbles on the street were slick with rainwater.

Gigantic puddles stretched across the street and captured the sky in their flat, reflective surfaces. It seemed to Rangiku that there was a second sky right at her feet, that she was walking above it, and that with every step, she might fall through the clouds. It was a dizzying, vertiginous feeling, like standing on the precipice and preparing to let herself fall. Her heart beat an odd, syncopated rhythm against her ribcage, and she could feel her pulse in her neck, and it made her feel slightly sick. A strange sense of unease settled over her.

They walked in silence, Ayame's face tight with some unspoken emotion, Rangiku's eyes downcast.

They bought the lye soap Chiyo requested, and stopped at a market stall so that Rangiku could buy her mochi, but by the time it was time for her to order, she had changed her mind and decided to buy herself hanami dango instead. It was almost time for them to be returning to the Floating Moon, and she figured that it would be more easy to eat dango as they walked across the bridge to get home.

Home.

She was just starting to eat the red bean dango, when Ayame stopped abruptly in front of her. Rangiku was so absorbed in eating that she walked barged into Ayame's back.

Her eyes flashed in irritation. "Hey!" she hissed, outraged. "Don't just stop in the middle of the road! I could have dropped my dango, and then we would have had to go back so that I could buy more." She pouted childishly.

Ayame closed her eyes and inhaled as if trying to reign in her temper. She exhaled steadily, and when she opened her eyes again, she said:

"You and I need to talk. Properly this time. No stupid games."

"I've not done anything wrong," Rangiku insisted immediately.

"No,” she said. “No you haven't. But you're making a huge mistake, Rangiku-chan."

Rangiku looked up from her dango and gave Ayame her full attention. "Hm?" she said, taking a bite.

"You're making a mistake." Ayame repeated quietly.

"What do you mean?" Something twisted nervously inside her at Ayame's tone of voice.

"Why are you here?"

Rangiku didn't understand.

"I work here.”

“No, Rangiku. You know what I mean.”

She didn’t.

“I need to eat, and this job's better than the alternatives,” Rangiku protested weakly. “And anyway, I like it. I like being around you, and Yuki-san, and Sayaka-chan, and Rin-san, and everyone else. I like being useful." To Rangiku, it was simple. She needed to eat, yes, but more than that, much stronger still, though she would never tell Ayame, she knew that she would sooner die than be alone again.

"Rangiku..."

Ayame sighed. Something in her seemed to crumple in on itself then, as if some iron pillar in her had collapsed under an immense weight. She looked Rangiku straight in the eyes, and her brown eyes were bright and almost desperate. Rangiku stared into them uncomprehending, and she tried to smile, to get Ayame to smile with her, but it was no use. Her gaze was almost too uncomfortable to bear.

"Not everyone is as lucky as you," Ayame gritted out. "Not everyone gets a choice. How do you think Yuki got started? She was thrown out of her house because she was found kissing girls, and had nowhere else to go. Sayaka? Sayaka was hooked on drugs when she was too young and trusting to know any better. Rin? Fled a marriage to a prosperous man who nearly killed her. She still has the scars on her back. Rangiku-" Ayame's voice caught in her throat, "don't make the mistake of glamorizing this. All of us were desperate. None of us had a choice. Maybe there are some girls out there who are lucky enough to have a say in whether they do this or not, and frankly, more power to them if they do. But never forget for a moment- for most of us, there is no choice, and there never has been."

Rangiku breath caught in her throat. "Why are you telling me this?" she asked weakly.

"Do you know how many of us get our start? We're sold into it. That's how it was for me, and that's normal." Ayame swallowed. "I've only just paid off my starting debt. I could leave, but there's no other way I'd be able to make money, so I'd just find myself back where I started, on the street. Girls like me- we’re trapped." She paused, and when she spoke, her voice was thick. "But you're not. You could leave today if you wanted. You could leave now. You've got power. You've got prospects. Why don't you understand? Why won’t you leave?"

Rangiku could feel a kind of hot shame curling in her chest. Her voice wavered when she spoke. "But who would keep you safe?" she said, her hands balling up in her yukata. "You need me." She was certain of that. "I keep you safe. You need me."

The look Ayame gave her was unspeakably soft.

Her words were not.

"We don't need you," she said gently. "We were alright before you came, and we'll be alright after you're gone." She paused, and when she repeated herself, she sounded so thoroughly matter of fact that Rangiku wanted to cry. “We don’t need you at all.”

Her cheeks were suddenly wet, and her dango felt sticky against her hand, but she barely noticed.

It's happening again, Rangiku thought dully. Why? Why does this always happen?

She had made this, this small thing for herself, this space of shared jokes and shared nights; she had folded herself inside it, had made herself indispensable to it in the hope that she would not ever have to suffer loneliness again. It was her sandcastle, standing small and proud on the shoreline, the work of childish hands and clumsy labour, and she had smiled to see it, to know that it was hers and hers alone.

But the tide was coming in. There was one truth for her, though never for anyone else it seemed: there could be no security anywhere in the world. Just this: the futile effort of building, building, building, just to see it all swept away in the end.

"That's the truth," Ayame said and her voice cracked. "We don’t need you. You'd never have to see any of the awful things you see regularly here ever again. Do you think it's healthy? To be responsible for the safety of so many people at your age? To have seen the things you've seen?"

Rangiku cheeks burned. Her mind replayed Ayame's words over and over again on repeat; we don't need you.

"Rangiku," Ayame said, her voice low and urgent. "Do you really think Chiyo is content to let someone like you sit around playing barmaid when you could be making her money? When I'm gone, the first thing she'll do is coerce you into whoring yourself out for her in my place. I'm on your side, and I will be even when no one else is- you have to listen to me."

It was this which snapped her attention back to Ayame.

"What do you mean, 'When I'm gone'?" she asked, her voice small and tremulous.

But Ayame was tight-lipped and would not say anymore.

"There is a place for you. Out there, behind those pale stone walls. The new term starts in January. If you aren't there, in that stupid uniform, when it starts-" her voice came out of her throat almost like a sob "-then I'll kick your ass into next Tuesday. I swear it. I will. I don’t have powers, but I’ll do it."

Rangiku was dazed. It felt as if the entire world had tilted sideways, like she had stepped through the clouds and she was falling through space.

"What is happening...?" she mumbled to herself in horrified wonder.

Behind gray clouds, the sun was beginning to dip below the skyline, and the shadows of the golden leaved gingkos and fire-garbed maple trees were beginning to crawl and lengthen over the cobbled street. What little sunlight was to be found played idly on the slow eddies of the river below.

She watched Ayame looked up at the sky, her expression unreadable.

How fragile, this life. How easily it crumbles apart.

Ayame sighed. Ragiku watched her as she readjusted her yukata neatly, as fastidious as ever.

"We'd best get back," she said with distantly. “The gong will be sounding soon.”

She walked ahead, and Rangiku watched her as her green-clad back got smaller and smaller , before finally disappearing around a corner.

Rangiku looked helplessly at the dango in her hand. Her hands were sticky, like a child’s.

With a heavy sigh, she lobbed the stick into the air.

It tumbled several inelegant somersaults before splashing into the water below. She was no longer hungry. She felt sick.

#bleach #ginran #gin ichimaru #rangiku matsumoto #hisana kuchiki #spider lilies #real life is kicking my ass #writing is just... not feasible for me rn #fyi check out gxlden's new fic on AO3 #sterling characterisation #places due importance on Gin's relationship with Aizen AND Rangiku #*chef's kiss*

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