Koimonogatari
Warning(s) - Yaoi/shounen-ai, angst. If you don't know what that means, you are strongly advised to leave. All flames will be publicly ridiculed at your expense.
Disclaimer - I don't own YGO, but if I did, I couldn't have written this. I'd still be in the handcuffs on Seto Kaiba's bed. *blushes* ^^;
Chapter 1
Koimizu
koimizu - tears of love (literally "love-water")
Ryou closed the stall door behind him and slid the lock into place. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes, and allowed the heavy floral scent of the air freshener to fill his mind. It gave him a headache.
He held his left hand in his right, as if cradling it, then unwound the long bandage wrapped around his wrist. He'd told Yugi and his friends that he'd sprained it at kendo practice last Friday. No one suspected a thing.
The inner layers were crusted with dried blood; he'd have to wash it out again tonight. Three parallel scars marred his pale marble skin, not truly three scars, perhaps more like countless scars, one on top of the other. One slash had scabbed over; it was fresh, only made yesterday.
Ryou gripped a point of his Sennen Ring with the fingers of his right hand. Both of his palms were ice cold, but not quite clammy as he brought the tapered point to one of the scars on his wrist. With a soft cry, he brought his hand down, leaving a new trail of crimson droplets in its wake.
Ryou watched in morbid fascination as the dark droplets welled from his skin and coalesced into one large drop. It fell into the lavatory bowl, then slowly dispersed until it had completely faded away. Another drop followed the first. Ryou clenched his fist, his fingernails digging into the tender flesh of his palm so that the blood flowed faster.
It was his life, flowing away, dissolving into oblivion, Ryou thought. Crimson drops, darker and more beautiful than the most precious of rubies and garnets. Ryou hadn't noticed, but tears had fallen from his eyes; they mingled with the blood and stung the open wound.
It seemed to him that there was this big empty void in him, like a space where a puzzle piece should fit. This was where his mother had been before she had died, and with every passing day that space became increasingly empty. He had read once, in a novel, of a void of this nature; the author had called it a "God-shaped hole". The author had said that such a space existed in everyone, and everyone finds a way to fill it.
In spite of this, Ryou was at times irrationally frightened that it would grow unchecked until in encompassed him; on some days he felt that it already had. He would feel as if he were already dead, and no one could hurt him any longer.
Death had always fascinated him. He flirted with Death, coming closer, then escaping its clutches, playing hard to get. He toyed with the idea of getting too close, but he never did.
He wished he had something sharper, a knife perhaps, to cut more swiftly and deeply, to draw more blood. He pupils had constricted with the pain; he bit his lip. Ryou thought of his yami, the dark presence so much like himself yet so different. He remembered vividly Bakura's mesmerizing smirk, the pair of knives he kept on his person perpetually. The keenest of blades, they were beautiful; they were dangerously so. He knew unerringly their whisper as they are drawn from their sheathes.
Ryou knew the kiss of the sharp edge; he had the lattice of scars on his back to remind him. He had nearly passed out from the pain that night, but through the dark haze he had thought he heard his yami's soothing voice and felt his gentle hands smoothing salve into his wounds. Ryou liked to think that it had happened, that Bakura didn't hate him, that Bakura had committed this one act of kindness thinking that he wouldn't know. But for all he knew, it could have been only the figments of his imagination, only the scions of an idle mind.
Ryou dismissed his reverie and held his wrist to his lips, savoring the sharp metallic flavor vampirically until the cut ceased to bleed. He left the stall, ran his wrist under the cold tap, and wound the bandage around it again. After slipping the Ring under his sweater, he checked his reflection and licked away the remaining traces of blood from his lips. With this, Ryou turned despondently and strode from the lavatory with a false half smile as if nothing had happened.
~ glossary ~
sennen - thousand years; millennium
Author's Note:
Short, short... yes I know. I promise the next chapter will be twice as long, okay? Lemon later; not for now. Fluff, maybe, lime, possibly. But not unless you R&R. ^^
Warning(s) - Yaoi/shounen-ai, angst. If you don't know what that means, you are strongly advised to leave. All flames will be publicly ridiculed at your expense.
Disclaimer - I don't own YGO, but if I did, I couldn't have written this. I'd still be in the handcuffs on Seto Kaiba's bed. *blushes* ^^;
Chapter 1
Koimizu
koimizu - tears of love (literally "love-water")
Ryou closed the stall door behind him and slid the lock into place. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes, and allowed the heavy floral scent of the air freshener to fill his mind. It gave him a headache.
He held his left hand in his right, as if cradling it, then unwound the long bandage wrapped around his wrist. He'd told Yugi and his friends that he'd sprained it at kendo practice last Friday. No one suspected a thing.
The inner layers were crusted with dried blood; he'd have to wash it out again tonight. Three parallel scars marred his pale marble skin, not truly three scars, perhaps more like countless scars, one on top of the other. One slash had scabbed over; it was fresh, only made yesterday.
Ryou gripped a point of his Sennen Ring with the fingers of his right hand. Both of his palms were ice cold, but not quite clammy as he brought the tapered point to one of the scars on his wrist. With a soft cry, he brought his hand down, leaving a new trail of crimson droplets in its wake.
Ryou watched in morbid fascination as the dark droplets welled from his skin and coalesced into one large drop. It fell into the lavatory bowl, then slowly dispersed until it had completely faded away. Another drop followed the first. Ryou clenched his fist, his fingernails digging into the tender flesh of his palm so that the blood flowed faster.
It was his life, flowing away, dissolving into oblivion, Ryou thought. Crimson drops, darker and more beautiful than the most precious of rubies and garnets. Ryou hadn't noticed, but tears had fallen from his eyes; they mingled with the blood and stung the open wound.
It seemed to him that there was this big empty void in him, like a space where a puzzle piece should fit. This was where his mother had been before she had died, and with every passing day that space became increasingly empty. He had read once, in a novel, of a void of this nature; the author had called it a "God-shaped hole". The author had said that such a space existed in everyone, and everyone finds a way to fill it.
In spite of this, Ryou was at times irrationally frightened that it would grow unchecked until in encompassed him; on some days he felt that it already had. He would feel as if he were already dead, and no one could hurt him any longer.
Death had always fascinated him. He flirted with Death, coming closer, then escaping its clutches, playing hard to get. He toyed with the idea of getting too close, but he never did.
He wished he had something sharper, a knife perhaps, to cut more swiftly and deeply, to draw more blood. He pupils had constricted with the pain; he bit his lip. Ryou thought of his yami, the dark presence so much like himself yet so different. He remembered vividly Bakura's mesmerizing smirk, the pair of knives he kept on his person perpetually. The keenest of blades, they were beautiful; they were dangerously so. He knew unerringly their whisper as they are drawn from their sheathes.
Ryou knew the kiss of the sharp edge; he had the lattice of scars on his back to remind him. He had nearly passed out from the pain that night, but through the dark haze he had thought he heard his yami's soothing voice and felt his gentle hands smoothing salve into his wounds. Ryou liked to think that it had happened, that Bakura didn't hate him, that Bakura had committed this one act of kindness thinking that he wouldn't know. But for all he knew, it could have been only the figments of his imagination, only the scions of an idle mind.
Ryou dismissed his reverie and held his wrist to his lips, savoring the sharp metallic flavor vampirically until the cut ceased to bleed. He left the stall, ran his wrist under the cold tap, and wound the bandage around it again. After slipping the Ring under his sweater, he checked his reflection and licked away the remaining traces of blood from his lips. With this, Ryou turned despondently and strode from the lavatory with a false half smile as if nothing had happened.
~ glossary ~
sennen - thousand years; millennium
Author's Note:
Short, short... yes I know. I promise the next chapter will be twice as long, okay? Lemon later; not for now. Fluff, maybe, lime, possibly. But not unless you R&R. ^^