AN: This is narrated by Ivan, and the story flows according to his memory. There are some sentences that may seem out of place, or out of order, just remember that the story is not told in a complete linear way. Some sentences are scenes of Yao that suddenly appear in Ivan's mind. I thought about putting those sentences in italic, but I decided against it since it's more fun this way.
Warning: Contains some sexual material. There is no graphic smut (I'm sorry lol), but it does contain a few suggestive descriptions.
Blood seeped through the calloused skin and dripped down on the parchment paper.
Red camellias bloomed outside the window once upon a time. Something pure grew in tainted soil.
I let my blood paint the outline of his favorite flower. Distracted by the sickening scent, I remembered one night from many years ago.
I couldn't remember his name. A foreign name for a foreign whore.
I couldn't even remember his face. His features blurred with the others I'd known. But I never forgot his laughter.
Amber eyes and lips colored like fire.
His skin wet to the bone dressed in yellows and reds.
Swollen thighs like ripened fruits teased against mine.
I remembered how he stared at the camellia tree beyond his reach. Dark shadows flickered across his face, he laughed as I planted cerise buds over his body. Maybe they will bloom next year, he joked.
"M' lord, you're bleeding!" The cupbearer's voice disturbed my fading memory of him. "It's merely a small cut," I muttered impatiently, waving him away. "Bring me more wine," I commanded. What was there more to life than dulling our five senses? "Well, get on with it." What was that idiot still doing here? The cupbearer remained stationary in his spot, head staring at the ground afraid to meet the merciless eyes of his lord, shaking slightly at the frigid voice. "M-m'lord, you have a visitor," the boy stuttered nervously. Nothing annoyed me more than cowardice. I sighed, "Let him wait."
He quickly bowed and left hastily. Once again my thoughts were free to echo alone in the empty room.
What was his name? That boy who ripped opened the pomegranate in half, the ruby seeds nested in his hands, mouth, and hair. What was the last thing he said? A pity, I couldn't recall that either. But the image of him spread across on the wrinkled bed sheet, his head tilted on the pillow, his eyes a mixture of sadness and confusion left its mark in my memory. Confusion about who I was, or why I was leaving, to this day I still have no idea.
Lips lied, but heart ached for the loss of flight.
A sparrow flew in and landed on the paper dyed with droplets of blood. Short stubby beak pecked at the scraps of bread crumbs, dainty head moving this way and that way to look at me. It hopped closer to me; its black glossy eyes greeted my blank amethyst ones. "Shoo," I tried to scare it away. It hopped back, fluttered its feathered wings. "He's not here. Go away."
He was not here. Never rolled in my bed, never stepped foot in my room nor the land I told him about. He only existed in that one night.
I remembered the moon shinning on his face, illuminating his heated puffs of breath. His hand reached out for something, perhaps for the unattainable camellias, but I grabbed it and intertwined our fingers together. It was never love, or so I told myself. I was simply a lonely man seeking warmth on a cold summer night.
Years ago when I was still in the military, when the Great Rebellion was still ongoing, when I was a soldier fighting for a cause I didn't understand-but I was cunning enough to survive, smart enough to climb higher and higher than those born of nobler houses- I stumbled onto the red lighted district. The year when I must have been no older than twenty, our troop travelled to one of the eastern lands that had already surrendered. A borderline between poverty and corruption, slavery and filth plagued the streets that may have been once beautiful before the war. I didn't want to go. I had no plans on getting myself wasted in a place reeking with debauchery. But my fellow men insisted on celebrating for the small victory, insisted on seeing the eastern whores.
Lanterns glowed against the inky sky. Money spewed on the ground along with raw sewage. Drunkards sang songs of their wasted homelands, entering from one brothel to the next. It was like something I had seen in an exotic dream. Yes, exotic; those men and women decked in jewels and layers of silk. I couldn't tell the whores apart from the noble ladies. Black hair and hungry eyes all stared at the flicker of gold.
The red light district was not only adorned in red. Red. Orange. Green. Purple. And Blue. Every color you could think of illuminated the fallen society.
Glowing in the darkest of nights, blinding the passengers with sweet promises and lies.
But light was a dishonest thing. Too fragile, too wicked-minded. It would flee if the fire burned out; no one was ever able to tame light in their hands.
I was not amused by light. Yet I walked behind my comrades, listening to their chatters, following them down the streets and stopping in front of one of those buildings. Like a palace with its grand form. Like a temple with its revered pillars. It was a whorehouse.
Red curtains blowing in the breeze, he balanced a red pomegranate seed on the tip of his tongue.
It was summer, yet I felt chill under my uniform. The camellia flowers stirred in the breeze. Planted right beside the brothel, some drifted in the air destined to fall to the muddy ground. I grabbed one as it flew past me. Careful not to crush it, I opened my palm and saw the crimson blossom. It resembled blood; it reflected a never-ending battlefield with mutilated bodies and pools of blood. Without another glance, I stuffed it inside my pocket. Maybe this wasn't a bad idea after all. I needed a drink.
Warmth provided by liquor, warmth of rubbing against another body. He turned back his head and laughed; it was warm, that night; made by his laughter, it was warm.
Stepping inside of the brothel was like entering another world. My eyes blinked hard to adjust to the blazing lights. People were everywhere engaged in pleasuring themselves, but I supposed that many heads were turned from our arrival. We were foreigners to them, while they appeared exotic to us, to them we were even more so. Young, handsome, foreign soldiers. We could pick anyone. But hidden in their eyes, I knew there was hatred.
My comrades were smitten with lust. I liked to believe I had more self-control than them. Sure, I looked at the exposed skin. My eyes glanced at the exaggerated curves and flesh. Silks and velvets, nothing was left to the imagination. But to be honest I was more interested in the alcohol. It wasn't that I had a girl waiting for me back home, no nothing like that, I simply wasn't interested. Exposing vulnerability in front of strangers, why did people do that? Ah but wine would taste better with a handful of tits.
The room smelled too sweet, like it had something to hide. Soiled ground and flowers, delusions and realities. I was drawn in, yet disgusted.
While others already found what they were looking for, I wandered awkwardly until an older lady, the one who managed the place I assumed, asked what exactly suited my taste. "We have everything you possibly imagine here," she said. "What kind of girls you like? Big breasts? Big thighs? With experience or virgin-like? And do you want a private room?" Bombarded with questions I didn't know how to answer, I smiled courteously and tried to explain to her that I didn't have any particular requirements. She ordered to have more wine filled in my cup, and as my wine was being poured, I glanced at the falling strands of black hair that escaped from being tucked behind those ears.
Bells rang in the distance.
His eyes looked directly into mine.
Red was his color. Red was his lips. Red was the spider silk wrapped around his pale complexion. Red was the cherry pits embellished on his chest. Red was the sound he made, his laughter, his sighs. And because it looked so good on him, I painted his body red.
"How about this one?" I pointed to the person serving the drinks and food. The woman paled and laughed nervously. "My good Sir, this one not a girl," she said. "If you like, we find someone who is-"
"I know he's not a girl," I interrupted coolly. There were no jewels or pearls adorning his long hair; he wore a modest white garment that hung loosely on his thin frame; his cheeks were not dyed in excessive blush. I knew he wasn't a regular worker. I didn't know what possessed my mind to choose him. "But he does work here right? In this place? I don't think anyone who works here is a virgin, am I right?"
The woman looked at me silently, and then she smiled with her lips but not with her eyes. "Him, and some others, they are for special occasions. Special customers. Those with heavier, stranger tastes."
I shrugged, "Maybe I have heavier, stranger tastes."
"In that case…" Wrinkles formed at the corners of her curved up lips. "This little one will get ready for you." She turned to the boy and spoke to him in a language I didn't recognize. Her tone was agitated and mean, but he remained calm and nodded his head at whatever her demands were. As I was observing him, I saw him glancing at me a few times. When he looked away, his lips were formed in a strange way as if he was trying to stop himself from smiling, or laughing. What was so funny? I never understood his jokes.
I was directed to one of the more secluded rooms on the fourth floor. By the time I opened the door, he was already finished getting dressed. Later I found out that since my request was late and unexpected, he only had the time to change his clothes. His head turned when the door creaked open; his left shoulder and the silhouette of his backbone were exposed to my wandering eyes; he smiled at me, the intruder; he was already sitting on the bed of red silks and scarlet linens.
Sinking in a bed of a thousand flowers, the ruby seed rolled off his tongue and I caught it with my hand.
He slowly rose from the bed. I wanted to step back, to stop myself before plunging deeply into sins, but instead, I took out the camellia from my pocket and placed it within the braided strands of his hair.
Why. His amber eyes glowed with confusion and something else I couldn't quite comprehend. His slender finger touched the strange object I placed in his hair, and he smiled, laughed.
There was nothing I wouldn't do for that smile.
His hands were hooked around my neck. The tip of his fingernail grazed over the scars that hadn't disappeared. "What's your name?" he whispered, his breath sending shivers, sparks down my body.
"Braginsky."
He tasted my name on his lips, bringing himself closer until I could feel the friction between the fabrics of our clothes. "That's your family name, I asked for your name."
I never told him my name as I lifted him up and pushed him onto the bed.
There was a fleeting beauty in madness.
Like fragments of broken glass in the sun.
Its shimmers and cuts.
He let me spread his legs wide open with no shame on his face. He let me sink my teeth and puncture his veins. He let my hands twist and caress his ravaged skin.
I knew I was breaking him, scared that I was permanently disfiguring his insides and outs. But I was more angry that I could hear laughter in his cries.
There was rippling laughter in his screams, his begging, his sultry moans. And in his laughter I heard cries of sorrow and resignation.
This wasn't his first time and wouldn't be his last.
The realization saddened me more than I could ever imagine. There was nothing I could do except shoving myself deeper and deeper into flesh and blood. Even if he wouldn't remember the foreign soldier, I was making sure his body remembered Ivan Braginsky.
His abdomen swelled with the growing seeds. My seeds. They spilled out, tainting the bed sheets in a sickly white.
Juice flowed down his legs like a sour river; he licked the rancid cream off his face with his bleeding tongue.
This was never meant to be love; we were simply two broken people seeking warmth on a cold summer night.
"Were you praying to the old gods or the new?"
He smiled sadly at me. "I don't pray anymore."
Soft as the camellia petals, his lips waltzed with mine. His legs wrapped around my waist, he whispered to me his name. His name…what was his name? I can't remember.
I don't want to remember.
Perhaps because he was a prostitute, perhaps because our bodies were mingled together under the moonlight, I told him about myself. I told him about my home, a land where winter resided eternally. I told him about my childhood, a lonely boy who wanted to swing a sword while his father was a lowly farmer. I told him that if I could, I would take him to see the snow fall over that vast land of whiteness.
He said he just wanted to see the camellia flowers outside the window.
He said he believed me.
And I believed his words.
Does he remember me? Does he remember the man couldn't let go of him for an entire night? Does he remember the soldier who fell for a prostitute?
When I woke up at noon from the chirping of sparrows, I scrambled to my feet realizing I was late for the practices. He watched me as I got dressed, still half-asleep and fully naked. He didn't say anything as I reached for the door. I stopped, my hand gripping the doorknob, I turned to look at him for one last time. I wished I said something; I wished he said something. But all he did was smile, and gave me a half-hearted wave.
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"...tell me, Braginsky, what could I have said to stop you from leaving?"
I never returned to the brothel. Never saw him again. Soon our troops were moved to another territory. And years later, the war ended. Life moved on. I did despicable things to climb higher, but I never lost a day's sleep over it. I became a general, than appointed a knight. I didn't get married, and I didn't have any children to carry my legacy, but I was more than satisfied with being alone. However there were times when I thought back to that one person whom I shared a brief intimacy with. I wandered if he was still there, if he was being pinned under someone else, or if…if he was finally able to stand beneath the camellias.
I returned to that place many years later. After the war ended, what once was adorned in lights stood in ruins. It was a ghost town of buried memories and secrets that died with the residents. What remained of my night with him were a lone pillar and crumbled stones.
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Yet the camellias bloomed.
I plucked one of the flowers out. I wished I had someone to give this to.
"Love is a smoke made with fumes of sighs," I repeated something I once heard in a poem. He kissed me softly on the nose. "A madness most discreet, a choking gall, and a preserving sweet," he finished what I was going to say.
I let go of the flower and watched it drifted away in the gentle wind. I said goodbye to my last memory of him.
Sitting by the ledge of the window, sparrows landed on his shoulders and hand. He giggled and placed a finger to his lips. He said, "Shh, don't wake him. He's still asleep."
I must confess. I had not been completely honest in my account. Because in fact, I did remember his name. It was Yao. It was not just one night, but several nights where I visited him right until when my troop had to leave. I travelled around the world to find him, asked strangers one after another if they knew anything about a beautiful boy with laughter full of pearls. But I never saw him again. No matter how far I travelled, I never heard his laughter again.
The bleeding had stopped. But the red imprints were already dried.
"Do you know a boy named Yao?" I murmured to the little sparrow that refused to leave me alone. "Is he still smiling? Is he still laughing? If you see him, tell him…tell him that…"
Before I could finish, the little bird flew away.
I wish I told him my name.
I wish I listened to him and ran away with him.
I wish I returned sooner after the war ended.
I wish…I wish that we….
But what good are wishes for anyways.
On a new parchment paper, I finished what I was writing and swallowed down the remaining drops of wine. Remembering that a visitor was waiting, I slowly got up from my chair and walked towards the gate.
The camellia fell from his hair, onto the fallen red silks. He wanted to pick it up, but he never did.
AN: Thank you for reading, I hope you liked it!