Saw The Blood
I love him, or at least I think I do. I've been locked away a beautiful, crisp white for so long I'm not so sure what those kinds of strong feelings are anymore. Not that passion or the feelings of love and devotion. All I know is that sterile white, and the smell of cleaning fluids.
Then he came in one day. He was kind of messed up, a teenager who had been abused a little too much in his childhood. I watched him for a long time, fascinated by him, amazed by the beauty in his eyes. I kept my distance though. I used to clean and take care of everyone else in the asylum. But now all I do is watch him.
Years pass and it doesn't look like he's getting any better. Which is good. I would hate to attach myself to someone who would disappear once he got "better." I know I'm here for life. The sterile white walls and the smell of bleach will be the bane of my existence.
Everyday he sits in front of the window, just watching as the seasons pass. He acts like there's something out there, perhaps there's something I can't see. Maybe he's got hallucinatory tendencies. I don't know, I haven't spoken to him since he'd been dropped off by his mother years ago.
He's got such beautiful hair, that red, deep crimson. Whenever I look at him sometimes I glance towards my own arms. They're healed now, but I can still make out the chunks of flesh missing, bulky and wobbly. They'll never heal, they'll never look normal. I'm missing hunks of my arm that I purposely carved out.
His hair reminds me of that. But it reminds me of freedom too. A world beyond the white.
I don't know why I talk to him.
"Hello." I am cheerful. I am always cheerful.
"Oh, hey," he says, glancing back over at me. He's still looking out the window, like there's something to see besides a world we can't reach.
"I'm Hakkai," I say, taking a seat on the windowsill. Maybe then he'll watch me instead.
"I'm Gojyo," he replies, looking over at me.
I smile.
He smiles.
"You remind me of blood," I say at first. I'm not sure why, normally I don't spit those things out right away.
He looks down towards my misshapen arms and he knows I'm a self-mutilator. He knows I probably tried to kill myself. He knows why I'm here.
"Oh," he replies.
"I like blood," I try again, cocking my head to the side to look at him. He looked back up into my eyes and he smiles. I smile back, again.
"It's nice," he agrees.
I can't stop the joy from fluttering around in my chest.
I place a hand to the side of his face, revealing scars, evidence of abuse. I could swear the blood from his hair stained his entire face. I love the blood in his eyes.
"Can we be friends?" I ask him.
"Yeah," he says with a nod. "We can be friends."
Years later I ask Gojyo why he didn't shrug me off, why I was different and why he stayed by my side. When we're in bed and I admire the blood in his hair, I ask him.
"It's because you saw the blood in me," he replies on those night. "Because you saw me."
I love the blood in his eyes that drew me to him, but I think I love him even more than that. We still know only the sterile white, but within that world, we bathe in reds. Reds of blood, reds of passion, and reds of our hearts, beating side by side.