Big Bang Romance
[13.5 Billion B.C.E.]
Rating: PG.
In which stars, poetic nonsense.
A falling star fell from your heart,
and landed in my eyes.
I screamed aloud, as it tore through them,
and now it's left me blind.
-Florence + The Machine, "Cosmic Love"
"There was no sentience in Singularity," began Fai. "No understanding of Its own origin, or Its own motives, or even the science behind Itself.
"There was no space, no time, no life.
"Only infinite heat, and infinite pressure, all trapped in a point of zero space, a point of infinite density, writhing, energetic, compressed...
"And then, release.
"How could there be sentience?
"And yet, only a few million years later, two stars hung in the silent dark. They were eight light-years apart, close enough to see each other..."
Beside Fai lay Kurogane, his face dappled in sunlight and shadow. Fai reached a single finger to trace the hem of Kurogane's shirt, too gently for the larger man to notice, he thought. His hand hovered briefly near the other man's hand, flirting with it.
"But far too far to touch," Fai murmured. Smirking, he jabbed Kurogane's side, earning a grunt and a lazy attempt at a slap that Fai easily blocked with the book he was reading aloud.
"They signaled plaintively to each other," Fai continued innocently, "merely exchanging light, but that did not satisfy...
"People say there was no sentience in Singularity, but somehow there lingered a memory. A flesh memory of a time when there were no spaces in between."
Fai paused. (Dramatically? Thoughtfully? Subconsciously? Intentionally?)
"They longed for it.
"And so each star spun in place, at hundreds of kilometers a second, performing a frantic, impotent dance of ardor. For billions of years, they spun and signaled,
"calling
"and
"calling.
"They felt themselves wearying. Their hearts grew hollow with weariness. Sometimes they flared with rage at their fate, sometimes they fell into muted sadness. They felt their lives ending, and they grew afraid of falling into the inevitable darkness alone.
"More than thirteen billion years ago, a rare occurrence: Two stars within minutes flared into supernova, illuminating the galaxy and outshining their neighbors for miles.
"This blissful luminescence lingered but two weeks. Afterwards, just like that, the stars, in unison, collapsed.
"They fell into themselves,
"Into twin black holes of unrequited desire."
Fai dropped the book, folded his hands, and closed his eyes. "The end," he said primly.
Kurogane sat up abruptly. "Stupid mage," he said without heat. "You said you were going to read a story about us." He loomed almost menacingly over Fai, only to pluck a fallen leaf from his hair.
Fai considered the extracted leaf, suspended by the stem between Kurogane's thumb and forefinger; it trembled in the breeze. Casually, the ninja tossed the leaf away. Fai watched it go.
All blue-eyed seriousness, Fai turned his head to meet Kurogane's gaze at last.
"But isn't that our story, Kuro-sama?" he asked. "Something forever written in absence, in between lines?"
And then Kurogane did not know what to say,
Fai would like to imagine.
Kurogane would have too many words; he'd be forced to break the silence he held so long and pour out all the words...in a kiss.
First a careful question kiss. And then, tongue and teeth and scratching five o'clock shadow. And then hands pinning down hands in the grass, a good enough apology for a summer afternoon after the battle had been won. Fai would accept it.
But most likely, that afternoon, Fai did not ask, though he entertained the notion. Perhaps he did not even read a story. Perhaps there was no gentle afternoon by the riverbed, no two men alone, swapping veiled love stories. Perhaps there was no one there, not even one wistful man,
only a pair of stars with a memory of Singularity.
"We began as stars," Fai began.