A/N: Well. A Sou/Sui thing. Slight mentions of femslash, but nothing explicit…because I'm just not one for those things. Inspired by song by All American Rejects. Souseiseki's line is stolen from 'Gone With the Wind'. Also, I don't know if they ever call each other Sou-chan and Sui-chan in the original, but this is my take, so if it's slightly uncanon, then so be it. Don't own. Please review. Thanks.
(I'll keep you my dirty little secret.)
What they didn't know—the heated afternoons, when their hands touched and touched and touched, and that single, s w e e t moment when their lips touched, and the crisp almost-mornings, when they'd sit next to each other, hands entwined and cheeks pressed together, watching the sun rise.
(And then she'd say, you're just like the sun, Sou-chan, so very bright that it almost hurts my eyes.)
Don't tell anyone, she'd whispered, her soft hands around Suiseiseki's frozen face, her voice sweet and vicious, but somehow, it's still music to her ears.
They both knew what she was leaving unsaid—or you'll be just another regret.
(Because, really, you're the only one who needs to know, Sui-chan.)
Souseiseki is like a storm—beautiful yet terrifying, something strong and wicked and graceful, as it carved its path of destruction through the world. And now she can't deny it—she knows it's nothing to her—what swells inside of her chest, so fit to burst, is that maddening, gravitational pull of love. Love is something alien to her, but she thinks, when she looks at her sister, and her heart fills with something so warm and delightful and solid, that she thinks if she just reaches inside, she might be able to grasp that so-called love in her hands.
(Who has to know the way she feels inside—adoration, mixed with white-hot rage?)
And then sometimes, she doesn't like that so-called love so much, especially when they're fighting with each other, and Souseiseki just stands there and laughs her pitying laugh, while she screams and screams her heart out—until she feels like she's sad and mad and angry and lovesick and she's c h o k i n g so very slowly on her own words…
At times like these, she loves her Sou-chan so much she hates her, and it's the choking, overwhelming rage, twisting and turning in her throat, is what makes her scream, "I hate you! Go away!" That's when her sister, so strong and fearless, falters, and her face closes inside of itself like she's just bitten into a lemon, and then she's gone, tappity tap tap out the door. She doesn't feel bad, no, not a bit, she says to herself, because that rage, still heated and bright, still burns in her body, but that tiny little thread of guilt bites at her, until she feels sufficiently sorry, and when she approaches her, with her proper apology all nice and memorized, all she sees is Souseiseki, smiling that smile, and passing those remarks all around—frankly, Sui-chan, I don't give a damn—so that's when she remembers why she was so angry.
(Her love is almost agony, eating away at her.)
So when she left her, for father, she'd said, with a careless smile on her face, it had been a double betrayal. She had left her, so very easily and happily, so she could fight—did everything they'd had mean nothing to her? When she'd asked Souseiseki about it, about what had been, about them, she'd just waved a careless hand, oh, you know I'm never serious about anything. She had nearly killed her sister, the rage so great it swelled up and crashed into her heart—and that had been the first time she'd ever participated in the Alice Game.
(Before, she'd thought fighting was stupid. She was wrong.)
Fighting was fine, she thought, as long as she was fighting for something that would still be absolutely worth it, in the end, when you were bloodied, bruised and half-dead. The other ones thought that she had finally realized the worth of fighting for Father. Father, pfft. Father—he was no father—fathers were supposed to stay with their children, and love them and nurture them. (He didn't. He never would, not until one of them became the little girl supreme.)
No, Suiseiseki fought for their love, for what was once there, still there, and always would be there, since no one else would.
Because what they had was worth it.
Worth every single cry torn from her lips, worth every single bruise on her body, and worth every tear that slipped from her eyes.
~~FIN~~