comes here to draft a thing
dies
WELL THEN
five times kissed [sighs in defeat]
one; sudden, nervous, awkward, should I have done that? maybe, maybe not; but it’s done, and the barrier that was between them before is ripped away for better or worse.
two; there are times when her presence isn’t needed, where she’d really be better off making herself busy elsewhere; so she makes her excuses and leaves braska and his guest to talk alone, leaving him with a kiss and a smile. it doesn’t occur to her until later that she might have gotten over her fear of people knowing about them, of not being deemed good enough for him – and she didn’t even notice it happen.
three; there’s a light breeze blowing over them from the window, the sheets tangled and mostly discarded; but they’re pleasantly warm, partly because of the sunlight falling over them and partly because they’ve just woken up. they haven’t even spoken yet, not so much as a good morning, but that can wait; for now, she concentrates on the pattern of his breathing – she can feel it against her lips and as his exhales become soft moans, she leans down and silences him with a quiet laugh and a deep kiss. He tastes like tea, even now, or maybe she’s beginning to confuse the two, the same way he sometimes puts it to her that she always tastes like sweets.
four; down the beach a little way, a circle of light from fire pits and fairy lights illuminates the sand and the rest of the guests, and most importantly, the happy couple. the bride’s dress is suspiciously loose-fitting around the middle and her slightly teary-eyed father is accepting of this; mostly because her mother was in much the same way when he married her, and he is hardly in a place to judge. there has been no formal announcement, but lady yuna’s baby is the talk of spira already.
“should i stay home…?” chuami had asked him the night before, at last.
he knew she would, eventually. the answer was a firm no. “they invited you. don’t be rude.” he added with a grin.
but they both knew what she meant. yuna’s mother should have been there; not her.
now, they sit not far from that circle of light, high enough on the rocks so they can see yuna and tidus dancing, over the heads of the people watching them. braska turns to chuami and the look of pride on her face is enough to tell him that she’s here, not as his guest, or as yuna’s friend, but for tidus, her third brother, who has just stumbled over his own feet. she catches braska watching her, she grins, quickly leans forward presses her lips to his.
it will never be their names at the top of one of those expensive invitations, but as she leans against his shoulder, fingers lacing into his, the sense of togetherness between them defies the need for it.
five; she won’t go further than halfway up the steps, and he stands opposite her, unable to speak. what was left to say? she can’t say anything either. she can’t say don’t go, not when his lucid periods are becoming further and further spaced. she wants to allow herself the luxury of anger, to just yell at him to stop, but she knows this would be the single most selfish act of her life. she can’t make a sound, because she doesn’t trust herself not to leave him feeling guilty, and she cannot, will not, let that be his last memory of her. instead, she only stands there, silently crying. she asked him not to touch her, because that might make it worse, but he can’t watch her cry, and he pulls her into his arms. the knowledge that this might be the last time he does it breaks the last of her self control and she sobs into him, apologies mixed in between the tears.
“i can’t…”
“i know. it’s okay.”
“it’s not–”
“it is, chu. you have a life here. i understand if you can’t leave it.”
but it isn’t that. it isn’t an attachment to life that keeps her on this side of that gateway, it’s an intense fear of what lies beyond it. she turns her head, still leaning heavily against his chest, and stares hard at the farplane gate for a few seconds. then she commits the one act she swore she wouldn’t.
“please don’t go. i can’t lose you.”
his response is to hold her even closer.
“it’s past my time, chu. we… we’ve already talked about this.”
she pulls away from him far enough to see his face. exhausted. they have talked about it, but that doesn’t mean she can accept it. his fingers brush away the tears on her cheeks. before she can speak again, he leans down and their kiss, their very last kiss, is over in a moment. he pulls himself free of her and walks on without looking back, because if he does, he might falter.
as he reaches the top, she calls out to him, her voice panicked.
“wait!”
she darts up the steps and her hand grabs his. not to pull him back, but to pull herself onward.
he looks down at their hands, then up to find her eyes. she looks back at him and smiles, unconvincingly.
“chu…”
“if you tell me to–”
“go back.”
“no.”
her eyes fix on the gate once more.
“i trust you.”
❝
Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long
and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. ❞
“Dear Crush…”
[presses intercom] carolyn please make a note in my diary to try extra hard to mess this hedgehog up for the rest of this week. starting now.
“Dear [҉҉̸n̷̶̨̨͘a͠͏̕͠҉m̀͝͏̸e͡ ̴̷̢e̷͏r̵̢͢a̷̵̧ś͢e̸̶̷̵d̡̛́̕͢]̨͡͞͏,
Kai says I have a lot of repressed emotions so he’s making me do this thing where I write letters to people and I say all the things I can’t bring myself to say for real. The recipient names are in order from least to most painful and every time I finish one, we do a shot (”of everything”) and burn it. It’s gonna make my company less “like having an inconvenient, whining axe wound”. We’re near the bottom of the list, so it’s probably gonna get weird.
Let me start by saying I’m the owner of a company that has a hold on most of Spira; this week, I had a meeting where another company head had to ask my permission to trade in Luca. Just me representing Sovereign’s interests, and him with six of his people. I gave it to him, in exchange for Macalania. There’s no business in Macalania. I just did it to show off, to be honest; so he knew for sure that I didn’t need Luca’s business, to remind him who’s the boss here. Do you get what I’m saying? I’m invincible.
I got that way after Anji died. I should tell you about her sometime. She was precious, you would have liked her, I think. When I lost her, I dealt with the grief by becoming too harsh and too cruel to entertain it. I expended a lot of effort turning myself into something… awful, actually, and what I didn’t use up in that, I poured into work. I kept up the practice of overworking myself when I’m out of sorts to this day. Sovereign does approximately 17.6% better during months where I would have otherwise been distracted by something. Business has been very good since you and I met.
You scare me to death, do you know that? You manage to take the persona I spent years perfecting and just… rip it away, without even trying. After last time, I said I’d never get that deeply involved with someone again. Not in any melodramatic way; I just felt that, I’d had my chance and I’d managed to ruin it in the most complete and unforgivable way possible. It seems perfectly reasonable to assume that I don’t deserve to try again, so I thought fate, or whatever, would just neatly write my life around the issue, but it wasn’t that kind. Instead, it allowed you to drop in on me, and now I can’t imagine life without you.
I’m most of a pragmatist when it comes to my own feelings. I know what my deal is, I know what you’ve done to me. But I can’t help wondering if this is fate’s idea of payback. Let her get close to this one, then take them away. To repay me for causing the death of a girl who, like you, was not meant to be touched by my destructive influence. Even if that weren’t the case, and I wasn’t in danger of losing you any second, the fact still stands that you are beyond me. I’m… nothing, really. Certainly nothing as special as you, and certainly nothing deserving of your attention, anyone would agree with that.
I told myself there would only ever be Anji because I believed it. The closer I get to feeling for you what I felt for her, the more I wonder if it makes me a liar. I’m betraying her by even thinking like this, aren’t I? I’ll ask her. Her name is next, and last, on the list. It will probably start something like, Dear Anji, I am so sorry, Can you forgive me for this?
For my sanity, I’d better keep my distance. I’d better stop myself from seeing you so often and then, hopefully, it will pass. Most things do. It hasn’t so far, but… it might.
Oh, who am I kidding? We both know I can’t do that. I’ll come back like nothing happened. I might look like crap, but I’ll tell you I’m hungover and you’ll sigh and let it go. You don’t need to know I’m exhausted because I spent most of the night crying on Kai’s shoulder because vodka makes me teary and I–
I’ll leave it there, shall I?
See you tomorrow.
xo Chu”
sovereignarchive 