Fic and the talk of it.
I refuse to apologize for the spam because this is the cutest thing I have seen in a long, long while.
And also because I've got fic. Albeit, fic I wrote back in August and on a spampost, so it was hastily written, and probably also hastily edited. This was originally for numisma, who requested Sango/Takeda fic.
Rated PG-13 for things that could possibly be misconstrued and the sin that is using death as a plot device.
~
May Good Things Come
He is fourteen, and she is beautiful.
He wipes his nose on a sleeve and watches, wishes, and wants.
He waits, too, but that was given from the start.
When the bear youkai is dead and she is too busy cleaning herself up to notice him, he goes to her, asks her name.
“Sango,” she says, tilting her head. “Why?”
“Because I saw you and thought you were the loveliest thing I’d ever seen.”
Kuranosuke never had been good at waiting.
He clasps her hands, marveling at how perfectly his fingers fit between hers. He presses a kiss to a fingernail, a chaste one, a promise for something more, if he can wait.
Waiting is something that lords do not do.
But she is Sango and she is beautiful, and so he finds it in himself to defy his natural aversion to patience.
-
Sango blushes furiously the whole trek home and scrubs her hands beneath a river’s waters whenever she gets the opportunity to wash.
She decides never to tell her future husband where she got her first kiss.
-
He is nineteen, and she remains to be beautiful.
Though this time she radiates with the beauty of a woman, a warrior, and a wife, all at once, all the time.
His waiting has paid off.
“Sango.”
He says her name in front of her every chance he gets, to savor the sight of the color of her cheeks, to drink in every detail he’ll want to discover again and again once they’re wed (but never, never, if they’re wed).
“Have you reconsidered my proposition at all? I am waiting for your answer.”
“No,” she says, looking down. “I have not, and I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need to apologize,” he reassures her, smiling in a way that could capture any heart except for the one that he wants the most.
And the conversation dies then and there, for he doesn’t want to say the words.
He doesn’t want to say that there’s no need to apologize, but that the way she looks at that monk is unforgivable.
-
He is twenty.
The rain keeps his company.
It is the ugliest thing he has yet to see.
-
He waits for her.
-
She is eighteen, and Miroku tells her she is beautiful.
For once, she has reason to believe he’s right.
She curls into hands smooth and unbound, and he presses his nose to hers with a grin.
“Was that your first kiss?”
“Yes,” she says on instinct, and she spares no thought toward the man she’d once assumed had taken it away.
“Hm,” he responds, and it means that he’d love her regardless of her answer.
“You monk,” she says back.
It’s her way of saying the same thing.
-
He is twenty-two and married, much to the dismay of the daughters of selected daimyo and, frankly, himself.
His wife is a pretty little thing that’s birthed a pretty little daughter, and together they laugh and smile and live a pretty little lie.
He sees the looks the lady Takeda throws toward the recently inducted palace guard. He pretends not to notice because he’s done enough pretending on his own part already, so what’s the added burden of a little bit more?
Kuranosuke sighs and adds this to his collection of lies he’s told.
They’re pretty little things.
But he’ll clench his fists and remind himself that they aren’t beautiful.
-
He waits for her.
-
She is twenty, and she cries everyday.
They had a pretty little baby, her and Miroku, just like he’d wanted, just like he’d dreamed of.
She’d been born blue, though, with life wrapped around her neck, and Sango hadn’t needed to imagine the pain of suffocation.
“It’s okay,” he tells her, breath against her ear, fingers smoothing away the tears. “We can try again.”
What Miroku never knew about her was that she feared failing.
She could never wait through those nine long months again, only to be rendered helpless when the inevitable occurred.
No.
She could not wait.
She would not wait.
-
He is twenty-five.
There is a breakout, he hears, an epidemic sweeping through his lands. It’s yet to touch the palace but it’s claiming lives, families, and leaving village with holes, with nothing.
He wonders offhandedly if there’s something alive out there worth waiting for. There must be some beauty in this dark, difficult year.
-
He waits for her.
-
She is twenty-one.
She prays by two graves every day.
Her eyes are spent from crying; they are too heavy to hold open. Every tear she’s shed she’d used to keep him from drying, dying, shriveling up and away from her. Every second she’s had she’d be willing to give up to change the unchangeable.
But even this is not enough, and there is no point in crying over what can't ever be again.
And so she packs her things, the scant she has left that she can’t carry from within, and leaves the two graves behind.
She only ignores the feeling that she’s been waiting for this moment for years.
-
He is twenty-six, and she is beautiful and sad and his for the taking.
“Sango!” he cries, kicking up rainwater from the puddles he runs through to wrap around her, to bury his face in her hair.
“Sango!”
(Kuranosuke savors the moment.)
Sango merely closes her eyes.
“You were waiting for me.”
It is a statement, not a question.
“I knew you would come.”
And somehow, Sango had known that she would too, but she hides this fact away and lets him live in this pretty little second.
He breathes and her hair smells like wood and smoke, sugar and water, of all his favorite things.
He breathes and notices the air smells of victory.
He loves her all the more for it.
-
After twelve years of waiting, her beauty unfolds before him.
She holds him close and tells him she is his, for she must hold onto something that is not the past, that will make her cry.
She sobs and hugs him tighter.
He moves to support her, as it is all he can and wants to do.
There is little more beautiful than that.
~
A few months later, I'm still not sure how I feel about this fic. But if I may be arrogant for a while, I love the way I write Kuranosuke.
Also, my drabble for today is in desperate need of polishing. But I should focus more on the writing aspect of the 31_days challenge rather than on the editing one. I tend to nitpick and nitpick and nitpick on fics if I have the time, and since I posted the drabble at the last minute, I really had to tell myself to be content with what I had. It's good that I'm writing again at least.
And also because I've got fic. Albeit, fic I wrote back in August and on a spampost, so it was hastily written, and probably also hastily edited. This was originally for numisma, who requested Sango/Takeda fic.
Rated PG-13 for things that could possibly be misconstrued and the sin that is using death as a plot device.
~
May Good Things Come
He is fourteen, and she is beautiful.
He wipes his nose on a sleeve and watches, wishes, and wants.
He waits, too, but that was given from the start.
When the bear youkai is dead and she is too busy cleaning herself up to notice him, he goes to her, asks her name.
“Sango,” she says, tilting her head. “Why?”
“Because I saw you and thought you were the loveliest thing I’d ever seen.”
Kuranosuke never had been good at waiting.
He clasps her hands, marveling at how perfectly his fingers fit between hers. He presses a kiss to a fingernail, a chaste one, a promise for something more, if he can wait.
Waiting is something that lords do not do.
But she is Sango and she is beautiful, and so he finds it in himself to defy his natural aversion to patience.
-
Sango blushes furiously the whole trek home and scrubs her hands beneath a river’s waters whenever she gets the opportunity to wash.
She decides never to tell her future husband where she got her first kiss.
-
He is nineteen, and she remains to be beautiful.
Though this time she radiates with the beauty of a woman, a warrior, and a wife, all at once, all the time.
His waiting has paid off.
“Sango.”
He says her name in front of her every chance he gets, to savor the sight of the color of her cheeks, to drink in every detail he’ll want to discover again and again once they’re wed (but never, never, if they’re wed).
“Have you reconsidered my proposition at all? I am waiting for your answer.”
“No,” she says, looking down. “I have not, and I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need to apologize,” he reassures her, smiling in a way that could capture any heart except for the one that he wants the most.
And the conversation dies then and there, for he doesn’t want to say the words.
He doesn’t want to say that there’s no need to apologize, but that the way she looks at that monk is unforgivable.
-
He is twenty.
The rain keeps his company.
It is the ugliest thing he has yet to see.
-
He waits for her.
-
She is eighteen, and Miroku tells her she is beautiful.
For once, she has reason to believe he’s right.
She curls into hands smooth and unbound, and he presses his nose to hers with a grin.
“Was that your first kiss?”
“Yes,” she says on instinct, and she spares no thought toward the man she’d once assumed had taken it away.
“Hm,” he responds, and it means that he’d love her regardless of her answer.
“You monk,” she says back.
It’s her way of saying the same thing.
-
He is twenty-two and married, much to the dismay of the daughters of selected daimyo and, frankly, himself.
His wife is a pretty little thing that’s birthed a pretty little daughter, and together they laugh and smile and live a pretty little lie.
He sees the looks the lady Takeda throws toward the recently inducted palace guard. He pretends not to notice because he’s done enough pretending on his own part already, so what’s the added burden of a little bit more?
Kuranosuke sighs and adds this to his collection of lies he’s told.
They’re pretty little things.
But he’ll clench his fists and remind himself that they aren’t beautiful.
-
He waits for her.
-
She is twenty, and she cries everyday.
They had a pretty little baby, her and Miroku, just like he’d wanted, just like he’d dreamed of.
She’d been born blue, though, with life wrapped around her neck, and Sango hadn’t needed to imagine the pain of suffocation.
“It’s okay,” he tells her, breath against her ear, fingers smoothing away the tears. “We can try again.”
What Miroku never knew about her was that she feared failing.
She could never wait through those nine long months again, only to be rendered helpless when the inevitable occurred.
No.
She could not wait.
She would not wait.
-
He is twenty-five.
There is a breakout, he hears, an epidemic sweeping through his lands. It’s yet to touch the palace but it’s claiming lives, families, and leaving village with holes, with nothing.
He wonders offhandedly if there’s something alive out there worth waiting for. There must be some beauty in this dark, difficult year.
-
He waits for her.
-
She is twenty-one.
She prays by two graves every day.
Her eyes are spent from crying; they are too heavy to hold open. Every tear she’s shed she’d used to keep him from drying, dying, shriveling up and away from her. Every second she’s had she’d be willing to give up to change the unchangeable.
But even this is not enough, and there is no point in crying over what can't ever be again.
And so she packs her things, the scant she has left that she can’t carry from within, and leaves the two graves behind.
She only ignores the feeling that she’s been waiting for this moment for years.
-
He is twenty-six, and she is beautiful and sad and his for the taking.
“Sango!” he cries, kicking up rainwater from the puddles he runs through to wrap around her, to bury his face in her hair.
“Sango!”
(Kuranosuke savors the moment.)
Sango merely closes her eyes.
“You were waiting for me.”
It is a statement, not a question.
“I knew you would come.”
And somehow, Sango had known that she would too, but she hides this fact away and lets him live in this pretty little second.
He breathes and her hair smells like wood and smoke, sugar and water, of all his favorite things.
He breathes and notices the air smells of victory.
He loves her all the more for it.
-
After twelve years of waiting, her beauty unfolds before him.
She holds him close and tells him she is his, for she must hold onto something that is not the past, that will make her cry.
She sobs and hugs him tighter.
He moves to support her, as it is all he can and wants to do.
There is little more beautiful than that.
~
A few months later, I'm still not sure how I feel about this fic. But if I may be arrogant for a while, I love the way I write Kuranosuke.
Also, my drabble for today is in desperate need of polishing. But I should focus more on the writing aspect of the 31_days challenge rather than on the editing one. I tend to nitpick and nitpick and nitpick on fics if I have the time, and since I posted the drabble at the last minute, I really had to tell myself to be content with what I had. It's good that I'm writing again at least.