footprints in sand
1.
Her perfume gives her away. She stinks of sweat and dust from the wastelands and Toushirou remembers the scent from the hollow of her shoulders mottled red from his teeth, bitten and pretty and spread out beneath him.
The sun burns between them as he passes her by in the bar, separated by shade and the hellish heat of summer, sweat sticking to his back.
He spares her a glance, and then leans on the counter, muttering his order. Waits to see if Karin looks up. His boots knock against the linoleum floor, buckles clinking like an afterthought.
She doesn't. Instead her pen hovers over the incomplete Sudoku puzzle, indignant black smudges staining the paper and the pads of her finger. Karin stares, waiting for the answers to come, gambling on some sort of luck that manifests only for the patient. Her drink is drained, the ice melted.
Behind him, the barista murmurs that his drink is ready, and with a noncommittal sound, he digs his hands into his pockets, finding change. His fingers curl around the cool glass, sunlight catching.
Toushirou sits opposite her nonetheless, sipping bourbon as the chair scrapes the floor.
2.
When Karin turns thirteen, she asks him to run away with her.
"We can do it." She says, grabbing his arm, ready to run with him at a moment's notice, if only he said yes. Rain drenches their clothes; it clings to his hair, slides down her face, soaking them to the bone and hiding their conversation in the dead of the night. Karin tugs him closer, murmuring in his ear. "Come with me."
His throat tightens, and he pauses, considering. "Where would we go?"
"Anywhere." She shrugs, loosening her hold, but not letting go. "Everywhere."
She just wants to escape this city of endless rain. He knows this all too well. Sooner or later, everyone gets tired of the rain.
They're no different.
Karin's lived with it all her life; her lungs are filled to the brim with rainwater that she might as well be drowning.
Toushirou hasn't; his lungs are parched and dusty, clogged by sand that corrodes the cracks of his ribs whenever he inhales.
Lightning strikes above them, rumbling thunder soon to follow. Beneath the flash, Karin's blush looks blue. He can trace it with a sweep of his eyes, watch it spread further as she stares at him, wild-eyed and wet, and it cuts over sharp angles of her cheeks in a losing race to raindrops.
"Why not?" It's said so quietly that he wouldn't have caught it if he wasn't so attuned to the sound of her voice. Toushirou's known her for so long it might as well be a curse that binds him to her.
He's taken too long to answer, watching her as she tries again.
"I'm sick of this place." She states simply. Her eyes become brighter as her stubbornness grows in a heartbeat, seeking the answer, her voice becoming stronger as she tries to gauge a reaction out of him. "Aren't you?"
"Karin." He starts, not knowing what to say, his mind complete blank save for the sound of rainfall. The words come out of their own accord, tripping from his traitorous tongue. "We can't."
Not yet, he means to say, lungs empty for air, and he can't continue as she blinks at him owlishly, surprised, about to speak. We can't leave yet.
But the words fade on his lips as Karin steps back; ice cold hands falling to her side, and the rain continues to pour.
3.
(Part of her has never forgiven him since, Toushirou thinks, knows, feels, as her hands splay on his shoulder blades, nails digging deep enough to draw blood. Karin marks him with this, bruises him with her body the way she knows how, and sinks into his skin. Her hips push him onto the mattress, breath hitching, and Toushirou threads his hands through her hair, presses his thumb against her translucent cheekbone, tilting her head down.
He kisses her until her mouth is dark red and shiny. Until Toushirou is breathless and craves more, needs more. He wants it all. Her anger, her hatred, her lust. There is nothing else but noise, those wanton sounds that he likes best, an aphrodisiac that settles in his bones and all that's left is to let go. When he comes, it's like a punch to the gut, and he's left as an aching trembling mess beside her.
He can't stop staring at her in the afterglow, can't stop touching the freckles on her skin, constellations slick with sweat. He's traced Cassiopeia and Ursa Minor with a feather light touch when Karin is raw and sensitive and the moans that scrape past her throat are breathy whimpers that make him hard. He's sucked nebulas on her breasts, glistened with sweat and spit, and Karin's fingers twist in his hair, chest heaving, her heartbeat pounding like a terribly kept secret that neither of them dare notice. He bites Auriga into her shoulder blade when she turns away, just to spend days watching the constellation fade away and lose itself in the tangles of her hair, starlight paved by teeth.
This is damnation.
From the first vicious kiss to the day they fuck, and after that, when it gets better, and all it takes is a few rough touches and one sharp thrust, Karin damns him with the weight of her gaze.
Toushirou rakes her dark, dark hair around his fingertips, pulling Karin closer as he begins to fall asleep, and lets himself be damned.
When they leave, jaded and bitter and heartbroken at seventeen, neither of them looks back.)
4.
The first year, they go half-crazy.
The road they travel is infinite, undefined by maps and concrete paths. It's anywhere and everywhere across the expanse of the desert. They visit a town called July; learn that across the ocean, rain doesn't really happen. Clouds are scarce, the bright blue sky above them unravelling before them in some sort of paradise. The familiar sight made him smile. This is what he remembers when he dreams. Heat sets in, and it seeps underneath their skin like an itch they can't scratch, discarding their clothes in order to breathe.
Karin glanced quizzically at everything, everywhere, half-curious, half-uneasy, not used to the warmer climate yet. It's not what she expected, she confides in him. Across the ocean, she had thought there would be buildings just as tall and dilapidated, crumbling apart and the city holds itself together by collecting buckets of sand and dim light would cradle the ceiling, ready to break apart at a moment's notice. They would share the same gloomy darkness. Instead, there are planes of desert, and cities named by months interspersed in between, and people who constantly thirst for alcohol.
The sun has never been so bright before.
It shines on their face and Toushirou looks up, his fingers linking with hers, as they wait for the motorcycle to be unloaded, and then they can go wherever they like.
They're simply dust particles, carried by the wind, looking for someone they cannot find. It's worse than that. They're tumbleweed, scraps of dirt clinging to the back of their neck, and no amount of water ever washes it out. Not even desperation.
They burn, they freckle, they survive. But only just.
(Karin burns. Toushirou buys her sun cream. Toushirou tans and Karin is jealous. She glowers for weeks, prodding the lighter shade of skin that appears on his face, brushing the dirt that sticks to his cheeks.)
The wind spits sand into the faces, accumulates in the back of their pocket, pushes it into their skin, and still they continue on this unknown path to wherever, drying up and becoming hollow shells chasing ghosts.
With freedom at their fingertips, the days pass easily. It blurs the time they spend from one city to another, until time feels like it isn't passing at all and they're lost in this stagnant sandy drift. Toushirou starts to feel dizzy when he realizes that nothing pins them down.
It's terrifying.
5.
No one ever tells them that an open sky can be so lonely.
They're teenagers.
They wouldn't have listened anyway.
6.
Karin becomes his anchor.
She's his constant, the one thing that Toushirou has after everything changes: the weather, the people, the landscapes, the dried up lakes, the broken paths they take after reaching another dead end.
When the sky darkened, she was there. When morning came, Karin remained.
She changes too. Neither of them stays the same after the desert begins to drain them of the handful of hope that slips through their fingers the longer they wander aimlessly about. What is left is the little that sticks to clammy hands scrabbling to touch hot skin and press her nose to the underside of his jaw, seeking the diminishing scent of petrichor. Karin changes and Toushirou watches; memorizing the details and cataloguing it for later as he presses a kiss to the nape of her neck. The lines on her face become harder, the palms of her hand become tougher, coarser as she grips the motorbike reins tighter, until there are calluses, blisters on her hands and feet, never symmetrical. Her hair grows longer. She becomes angrier.
He learns that skin cracks, and that it hurts to breathe in dingy motels in the desert, so insufferable and filthy and without air conditioning that functions properly in the middle of the day. Toushirou's temper is an ice cold thing that cools him to the bones, makes him forget about the sweltering heat that exist beyond their room, and when he looks at Karin, he can't stand it, something deep twisting in his stomach. Her touch scorches him, burns him up from within, and no matter how much he tries, his hand sliding in between her legs, he can't calm her down. Not when the stars still shine outside in the darkness and he still sees thoughts racing in her mind slowly vanishing like a fight she can neither win nor forget, until her hips jerk instinctively, until all she's whispering his name, whimpering as his fingers curl inside.
Karin's eyes flutter as she comes, heavy lidded and she meets his gaze beneath her lashes, mouth parted, her eyes still so dark and dilated. She reaches for him in a way that makes him feel utterly helpless.
Sometimes all he can do is scream until his throat is raw.
He still doesn't know what he's doing here, or what the hell she's thinking as she looks at him.
Alcohol helps.
7.
"What if," Toushirou slurs, and this is a game they like to play, when there's smoke and flashing neon lights and there's a nightclub found in one of the main desert cities and the excuse to drink as much as they can. Both of them are slightly more unhinged than they normally are, liquor staining his shirt, and he can breathe cigarette smoke on her, and it becomes so much easier to twist the knife and grin like apathetic teenagers picking scabs just to watch blood form. "What if we got it wrong?"
This is the thing that scares Karin the most.
"What if they stayed, you mean?" She says, her voice even and ironclad, quieter than the pulsing club music, yet it rings loudly in his ears, sends shivers down his spine. The wall behind him is sharp and hot, even the nights here in April City are still too stifling, and with his back pressed into the gritty clay, Karin traps him. "What if they stayed in the rain?"
Her hands rest on the curves of his shoulders, and she makes sure that he doesn't break eye contact, and he focuses on her, the centre blurred and angry and bitter like whisky he can smell on her breath, a pinprick of pain serving as a warning as she narrows the space between them, and he shifts slightly to accommodate her.
He nods.
"Then we find out when we reach December." She hisses, nails grazing his neck, drawing red marks, and her arms loop around him like a noose. Music pulses to the rhythm of her hips, steady in his hands.
Their mouths meet with a crash. Teeth clack together, and Karin bites Toushirou's tongue hard enough that he can taste copper. Up close, he can see the smudge in her makeup, the smear in her lipstick, the droplet caught in her eyelashes, and her hangman's knot tightens around his neck. Karin jumps on him without warning, her legs wrapping around his waist, flush against him and his arms flail about before he catches her, feeling awkward from the limited space they have in the alley.
What then? He nearly asks, fumbling as he supports her weight, stumbling backwards into the wall, tasting blood in her mouth that she's swiped from his bitten lips. What happens then?
He's not drunk enough to taunt her with questions she can't answer, but she knows them anyway. Karin takes them from him with her tongue and presses into the bruises that she left to make him ache and yearn, to groan at the sudden spike of pleasure and pain when he feels her hot breath against his ear.
Tonight they'll burn brighter than the stars. "So shut up."
December. End of the months. End of the cities. End of the desert.
She doesn't know, and Karin hates herself for that, hates him for reminding her, and shoves her hand down his pants.
He's not the only one drowning out thoughts with sex.
8.
Some mornings Toushirou wakes up with sunlight streaming through the window, the curtains forgotten, Karin fast asleep and curled up to him, her legs entangled with his. Other times, he wakes up and rays of sunlight creep past the curtains, and Toushirou is alone.
She looks different like this, sprawled on the bed. The light hits her face in different angles, and she shifts restlessly, strands of black hair falling past her closed eyes.
Mornings like this, quiet, peaceful, dust settling on floorboards, Toushirou doesn't change a thing. He just tries to take the moment in, finding it both strange and sad that even in sleep, Karin can't afford herself to relax.
She holds herself against the world and him along with it.
9.
There's a smile on her face when they're out in the road, manic and ecstatic, and he catches sight of it in the reflection. It doesn't matter who drives, it's still there whether her head rests on his shoulders or he rests on her. Hope reignites on her face, the engines revving and brought to life in her hands.
"Maybe this time."
"Yeah."
It's what motivates them every time they stop in the latest town, asking questions.
Have they seen a trio? An orange head, red head and brunette? One's petite and slender; the other two are tall and lanky.
Each time someone shook their head, shrugged and said no, something breaks in her face, turns her fierce blue eyes into stone cold marble. Her jaw tightens imperceptibly.
"I see,"Karin says, and she's furious and cold, a burning white starlet seconds away from imploding and no one seems to notice, bored expressions looking elsewhere, and a twisted version is mirrored on her face. "Thanks anyway."
She's punched walls afterwards, until her knuckles are bloody, handed him her half-drank bottle and gazed at him with a bitter grin as he drinks the rest of it, stared at strangers in the face for too long, wanting them to change into people she longs to see, hating them for not changing at all, not even their silhouettes in the dimmed lights so she can pretend.
Her anger never fades, never completely.
It's there flexed in her bones, masqueraded by the sway to her body as she takes Toushirou's hand and tells him: let's dance, forget about everything for just one night.
He watches her anger ripple over her muscles that hide under her clothes, and it builds with the smoke of neon clubs, the music thrumming though her veins, and she becomes a frenzied mess, out of control and impatient for answers.
The angrier she gets, the more she can't forget, can't lose herself to the beat, because she's burning up like wildfire, spreading across his skin and the only thing he can do is slam into her as she shakes and arches and comes undone and her hands leave his spine red and raw.
They don't talk about it when they leave the next day. They're nothing to be said.
They just pack up and leave, just like they were never there in the first place, living through their pockets, and absentmindedly tracing last night's scars lazily and eating a greasy breakfast, bacon and eggs and some terribly made coffee. The one with the least worst hangover gets to drive.
And she glows.
They hit the road, and the sun is still hot, but now they're surrounded by wind, and it rushes through their hair so fast that it recoils like whiplash. He holds onto her tightly, because there are some days when she can't wait to get out of the latest city, and she grips the accelerator too much, and the speed goes so fast that he can hardly think.
They're alone in the dune swept hills and there's nothing to say.
It's easier to forget and lose all sense of self when there's nothing but an endless region of desert and she's leaning on him.
There's an electric grin on her face, blinding and beneath bronze goggles, and out here, he could almost mistake it for hope inspired happiness.
10.
It's a sick sensation that spreads to his stomach when he realizes. Gravity is knocked off its axis, and Toushirou can't hold the world on his shoulders tonight and the feeling floods though his lungs, rising up his throat until he's sure he's about to throw up.
He splashes water on his face. It's not enough. It's never been enough, but he used to be able to handle it. Now he can't breathe, can't feel, there's a numb ache that exists under his skin that won't go away no matter how much he tries to ignore it. Right now it's hard feel something meaningful.
Toushirou laughs, hollow, empty, and the howl of the wind that explores the ravaging sands isn't what he wants. He wants to vomit and feel cheap and used by the dry heat that leaves him feeling caged. He wants to feel something that isn't useless and temporary and afraid of what happens when the journey ends and have a promise for something about forever. He's stuck in the middle of nowhere with the dregs of a desert wasteland for company with no finish line in sight, nothing to even hint that they've made the slightest bit of progress.
It takes two years, but it's finally happened.
Rain falls in the desert, but it's a poor pathetic reminder that Toushirou misses the rain from before.
The look in Karin's eyes, the lightning strike that flickered across her pale face, the coin flip that decided everything.
It all goes back to that one moment, when he broke her heart and his own in turn.
And—
He is so, so fucked.
