I don't own Katekyō Hitman Reborn!.
Just a little something that wanted to get out of my mind and find its place in the world.
There's a certain kind of comfort to find in the fact that the man beside me went to hell and returned to tell the tale.
It's easy to forget reality in the brief moments of calm and serenity; to take pleasure in the simple luxury of a sunbathed room in the morn and the cool breeze of the nights. I can recall the smells entering through the open windows with an almost poignant clarity and the colors behind my lids are bright and vivid as though I were standing there, reaching out in a childish attempt to grasp the skies.
When I open my lids again the memories vanish and the dark forest constrains my view. It's not the shy smell of flowers and wild grass reaching my nose but that of fire and cinder. My eyes involuntarily travel downward. And there's so much blood.
A pair of mismatched eyes watches my every movement, ever attentive yet at the same time so, so distant. I can see his skin is marred as well, shrapnel flying everywhere, cutting everything. But they don't manage to cut him up.
Good.
"What's it like?" It takes a second to realize the rasp of a voice belongs to me. A bitter smile forms its way onto my lips. Just like that.
Death.
"Hell?" His blue hair moves lazily as he shifts into a more comfortable position against the tree trunk. His telltale smirk is ever present on his face. "The worst you can imagine—and countless times worse."
I feel something gather and bubble in my throat as I laugh. My hand is lost in red. "No wonder."
"Mh?" he hums.
There's red coming from my lips, too, iron and copper, and the taste of the wind. "No wonder you're always such an ass."
He laughs, a gentle kufufufu I'd once found so peculiar and bemusing. I'm used to it now. It's a lonely thought not to be able to hear it in the future any more.
"You can still be as talkative as ever, it seems." We don't say it out aloud. Funny thing, really, both of us usually so outspoken and straightforward when the need arises or we please. Yet I'm not dying. In this very moment I am all but dying. What a queer reality but I accept. It's easier to accept his antics than to fight them. And he had his way with words.
"Whatever you say, ass."
I don't.
He raises his brow in silent mockery to the old game of tug-of-war, the testing of limits before we became what we are. I snort and wince at the same time but the pain is bearable. Some part of me says he has his hands in play, smooths the passing. "Sorry," I hear myself mumble. I'm not sure for what.
"Now that's a word I rarely hear." He picks it up, soft joy ringing in his words. I clutch onto it. It's soothing. It's good to be alive. It's good not to be dying. We don't say it because it's not my reality—our reality. "What for?" Out of the corner of my eyes I see the trident move, turn endless circles between his fingers. My head spins similarly.
We make such a strange pair. Never yielding, always challenging. It eases the seriousness. I wish for many things in the instant of answering his question; for the skies I could never reach; for the time to unwind; the inevitable to be avoided; for the man not to linger in this dangerous place for too long. I'm sorry none of it is within my control any longer.
"You're not an ass." He laughs, chuckles, kufufufu. I close my eyes to stretch the moment. Once we'd lain together in green spring woods, without the burning, without the smoke. A crisp chill filled the air. I'd slung my jacket tight around me.
My lids feel heavier this time around when I pry them open, burning around the edges, whispering to me to close them anew. "It's getting chilly." We both know. It's just not our reality, so I won't say it.
It's easier that way.
"Mhm," he nods. His long fingers graze my wrist. One eye gleams red in my vision. I don't know what we are, what we've been. Goosebumps come and go under his touch. It's the blurred lines that kept us circling the orbit, at times so intimately close, others as distant as our worlds had once been.
I like that he took me along on his path. I think he liked my company, too.
I'd never voice it. Neither would he.
Petty oddities. My breath evens. It's easier that way. Neither too close nor too far apart. Just unsaid words passing between us in a realm of our own. My eyes fall close.
It's been a while since I've stood in the bright room in all but my dreams. I sit by the windowsill as the breeze plays with the curtains. The skies are close now and I reach out in the childish rapture I could never quite lay off. There's a distinct smell of familiarity and the taste of pale lilac flames on my lips.
This time I reach them.
Thank you for reading.