i love it when me faves make it hurt. i havent read past the 'pink spider' chapters bc of who i am as a person. have a fic instead.
the world has turned and left me here
perhaps he's always known it, the way his intentions and his duty get all tangled and knotted. in fact, he must have watched the first knot form, watched it grow and grow until he's not sure when he's genuine or when he's acting.
it's sick.
his thoughts go in circle before they're sucked up to the void like everything else. there's a black hole inside his head; a vacuum that cleans up any chances of being normal again.
he's a traitor. he's a spy.
he's a spider.
shima renzou is just a thin, plastic wall holding up the oozing miasma of who he really is. a deceiver, a make believer. so quick to mold himself to fit the circumstance, play up an act to get what he needs. tell a lie to get a truth, tell a truth to get more truths.
before, he'd been sure he knew two things for sure: his friends are too important to let the inner workings of his head discard them, kamiki izumo makes his ugly heart feel real.
now, even this, he does not believe.
does his heart beat because he's fascinated with the after-images of her on that gurney; that delicate, deliciously vulnerable side that's now his and his alone? or is it because he does lo–because he's infatuated with her? those violet-red eyes and that violet hair? that that permanent grimace and that power that simmers; under her skin, at her fingertips, at the tip of her tongue, in the sharpness of her teeth, in that glare.
when he returns to school, he can't look away from her. he watches her even when he isn't. at the corner of his half-lidded eyes, stare following the stiffness of her shoulders and the rigidness of her spine.
does she remember too?
those words that can be just as much true as they are a lie? the empty smile he's practiced on in front of a mirror until perfection?
does she know he did not kill uke and mike because…because…because…
shima stares at the ceiling and tries to clear his brain. he can't think, and if he can, he does not know what to think of. these thoughts are tumbleweeds that float by too fast for him to make sense of them.
who is he, he wonders.
does he have an answer to this question if he were asked?
is what he says true or just part of the job?
his hand reaches up to touch the dip of his clavicle, thinks of the way bon's knuckles pressed to the bone earlier, during class. they want to know the truth but they don't get that so does he.
he says all these words, laced with bravado, but it's only to placate them.
though… he laughs a bit here, rubbing his forehead and closing his eyes to pinpoint each ache from where he'd been attacked. maybe they really don't believe him.
should that hurt, and if it does is it one of these throbs he feels or not?
this is sick.
shima sighs long and loud and moves to the edge of the bed, stands up, finds his shoes, leaves his room. the halls are a bit busy and he grins and waves at everyone because that's just who shima is. he's the eye of the tornado, the calm and the storm; he knows everyone but no one knows him.
outside, he shoves his hands in his pockets and looks around the courtyard. nothing's changed, really, but he's never expected it to. change, to the normal human, happens too fast and too abruptly; but that's all him, too fast and too volatile. change of his surroundings, to him, happens too slow. lazily.
"ah," he grins and scurries on faster. "izumo-chan!"
he all but drapes himself to her, eyes closed because he knows that–
she shoves him off. as she should. as she would. as she always does.
the look in her eyes is wild, oddly contained despite this. her lips are curled and she looks so great like this, this little fighter, this warrior priestess. but he knows better; inside she's sad and lonely and betrayed.
she's the first to call him a traitor and that ghost of a gash at the center of his chest is the best of all the wounds he's got.
"don't," she says, voice raw. "don't touch me."
"aw," he flutters his eyelashes, smile slow and crooked. "don't be like that, izumo-chan. you ain't still mad, right?"
"you disgust me."
he throws his head back and laughs a little. she's walking away from him, back stiff, shoulders stiffer, legs straight–wow, izumo's got nice legs. nice–she's so nice. so cute. so great.
(oh, there goes his heart. this is real. this is so real. it has to be. it has to–)
he follows after her, arms crossed behind his head, dark eyes staring at the sky. it's not hard keeping up with her and he follows her wherever she's going. he can feel the tension around them and he sighs, almost dreamily.
"is what you said true." a demand, not a question. she's so great.
he blinks and looks at her. she's still walking and she's not looking at him. her brow's furrowed and her thin lips are twisted into a frown.
"hm?"
"don't pretend. was it true."
"was what you said true?"
she whirls around, this time, her pigtails whirling in the air, looking scarlet against the sun, like blood.
"i'm not the liar here!"
this is sick.
shima's smile is slow… crooked… almost soft because his sharpness is blunted. "i don't know anymore."
izumo's eyes look their prettiest when the sun's behind her, slowly setting and making her look like a battlefield personified. red and violet and all the shades in between. she's so great.
"how…" she sneers at him. "you disgust me–do you ever say anything that's true?!"
"aw, izumo-chan, but i am telling you the truth!" he laughs a bit and shifts to shove his hands into his slacks' pockets again.
how does he tell her, he wonders.
he's a traitor. a deceiver. a spider.
how does he tell her that? why should he?
he smiles at her some more and izumo turns around, hands clenched at her sides. "stay away from me."
shima doesn't tell her that he doesn't want to. he can't. and that's just one of the only truths he's very sure of.
this is sick.
