Prince of Tennis: untitled (03/12/06, finished)
Title: untitled
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Characters: Yukimura (Sanada, Niou, OC)
Challenge: Special writing challenge: Write a memory of a charcter, one you've never thought of writing before, and make it metaphor-heavy.
Notes: It's about 750 words, and does not exactly follow the challenge (it's not a memory, although memories are included in it). And I hope a character I've used, but not focused on counts. :/
---
The snow was falling, thick and silent, soft underfoot, turning the city, normally hard and cold and fast, into a twinkling fairyland of beauty. Softer, in a way, the edges blurred, the world no longer a fast-paced rush to get to from point A to point B, but rather a slow waltz of movement.
And Yukimura Seiichi could not find the ability to breathe.
He had not expected it to be snowing when he returned, but he wasn't sure what he had been expecting, after years of being gone. All he knew was that he had not been expecting it to snow, for the cloud cover to be low and heavy, painting the day in shades of monotone. Even the lights looked different.
Yukimua had been looking forward to the lights of Tokyo, like he always had been upon trips to the city, and he had returned to black and white and gray, the shades of winter, of death and dying and rebirth in the Western culture.
Winter was an athlete's worst enemy: slick icy sidewalks could cause a broken leg or damaged shoulder; practice outside could lead to fevers and colds. To people used to flying in the sun, winter was a nightmare of momentous proportions, worse than boogeymen and falling and fire and being unable to escape.
But none of those were reasons why Yukimura found breathing a challenge, harder than winning any game of tennis had ever been; it was one reason, specific and as set in stone as death, the force of it there, always pressing, always lingering, a ghost in his mind. And even that one reason could be pinpointed to a dozen instances, all milestones in a life that should not have had such milestones.
It had been winter when Yukimura had collapsed, horror widening in his eyes as he felt his legs give out beneath him, his thoughts so female at the time: I am not that fat that I can't support myself. It had been winter when he had been diagnosed and sentenced to months in a hospital, surrounded by white walls and taunting breezes through a single window.
It had been snowing the day he had told his best friend that he was dating someone else and watched an impenetrable heart shatter into a thousand pieces, scattered on the wind like sakura in the spring.
It had been winter when he had broken yet another heart, this time that of the girl he had been dating. He'd watched a single tear break free from the others gathered in her eyes and inch its way down her cheek, a diamond glittering at the corner of her red, red lips, frozen to ice in the cold winter night.
It had been the season of dying and rebirth when he had watched his best friend die, a strong figure so seemingly unbreakable, broken by a car, a splash of darkness - the body, his clothes, the blood - against the pallor of the snow on the streets, freshly fallen that night.
And now, when Yukimura returned to his home, after years of roaming, after fleeing everything he'd known, a thief in the night, without word or warning, it was snowing again: mocking him with beauty that hid such terrible strength beneath its softness.
"It's always reminded me of you, Seiichi," Niou said, beside him as they walked the streets from a restaurant to the hotel. "The snow. So beautiful and so powerful, stopping everything if it wants, changing the world."
"Stop waxing poetic, Masaharu," Yukimura told him. "It doesn't fit your personality."
"Sanada-san agreed with me; we talked about it one night, when he was drunk." Niou stopped and grinned at Yukimura, letting the snow fall into his hair, white on white, melting from the intense heat that was always Niou. "You can even be icy when you choose to be."
Yukimura smiled at his friend and said nothing, patiently waiting for Niou to move again; he could wait all night, if he needed to, a figure frozen in time and snow, reliving the memories his mind would always connect with the winter.
"Maybe I am," Yukimura murmured under his breath and although Niou cocked his head, demanding to know, Yukimura did not speak up. Such thoughts he had were not for others: they were his and his alone. He would take to his grave the realization that Niou was right.
He was the snow, destorying everything he loved.
---
Fandom: Prince of Tennis
Characters: Yukimura (Sanada, Niou, OC)
Challenge: Special writing challenge: Write a memory of a charcter, one you've never thought of writing before, and make it metaphor-heavy.
Notes: It's about 750 words, and does not exactly follow the challenge (it's not a memory, although memories are included in it). And I hope a character I've used, but not focused on counts. :/
---
The snow was falling, thick and silent, soft underfoot, turning the city, normally hard and cold and fast, into a twinkling fairyland of beauty. Softer, in a way, the edges blurred, the world no longer a fast-paced rush to get to from point A to point B, but rather a slow waltz of movement.
And Yukimura Seiichi could not find the ability to breathe.
He had not expected it to be snowing when he returned, but he wasn't sure what he had been expecting, after years of being gone. All he knew was that he had not been expecting it to snow, for the cloud cover to be low and heavy, painting the day in shades of monotone. Even the lights looked different.
Yukimua had been looking forward to the lights of Tokyo, like he always had been upon trips to the city, and he had returned to black and white and gray, the shades of winter, of death and dying and rebirth in the Western culture.
Winter was an athlete's worst enemy: slick icy sidewalks could cause a broken leg or damaged shoulder; practice outside could lead to fevers and colds. To people used to flying in the sun, winter was a nightmare of momentous proportions, worse than boogeymen and falling and fire and being unable to escape.
But none of those were reasons why Yukimura found breathing a challenge, harder than winning any game of tennis had ever been; it was one reason, specific and as set in stone as death, the force of it there, always pressing, always lingering, a ghost in his mind. And even that one reason could be pinpointed to a dozen instances, all milestones in a life that should not have had such milestones.
It had been winter when Yukimura had collapsed, horror widening in his eyes as he felt his legs give out beneath him, his thoughts so female at the time: I am not that fat that I can't support myself. It had been winter when he had been diagnosed and sentenced to months in a hospital, surrounded by white walls and taunting breezes through a single window.
It had been snowing the day he had told his best friend that he was dating someone else and watched an impenetrable heart shatter into a thousand pieces, scattered on the wind like sakura in the spring.
It had been winter when he had broken yet another heart, this time that of the girl he had been dating. He'd watched a single tear break free from the others gathered in her eyes and inch its way down her cheek, a diamond glittering at the corner of her red, red lips, frozen to ice in the cold winter night.
It had been the season of dying and rebirth when he had watched his best friend die, a strong figure so seemingly unbreakable, broken by a car, a splash of darkness - the body, his clothes, the blood - against the pallor of the snow on the streets, freshly fallen that night.
And now, when Yukimura returned to his home, after years of roaming, after fleeing everything he'd known, a thief in the night, without word or warning, it was snowing again: mocking him with beauty that hid such terrible strength beneath its softness.
"It's always reminded me of you, Seiichi," Niou said, beside him as they walked the streets from a restaurant to the hotel. "The snow. So beautiful and so powerful, stopping everything if it wants, changing the world."
"Stop waxing poetic, Masaharu," Yukimura told him. "It doesn't fit your personality."
"Sanada-san agreed with me; we talked about it one night, when he was drunk." Niou stopped and grinned at Yukimura, letting the snow fall into his hair, white on white, melting from the intense heat that was always Niou. "You can even be icy when you choose to be."
Yukimura smiled at his friend and said nothing, patiently waiting for Niou to move again; he could wait all night, if he needed to, a figure frozen in time and snow, reliving the memories his mind would always connect with the winter.
"Maybe I am," Yukimura murmured under his breath and although Niou cocked his head, demanding to know, Yukimura did not speak up. Such thoughts he had were not for others: they were his and his alone. He would take to his grave the realization that Niou was right.
He was the snow, destorying everything he loved.
---