Title: Sonnet #29
Rating: G
Summary: The Sohmas are used to waiting for her death - all save Shigure. (Aki/Gure)
A/N: Yea, there's no excuse for this. Long live the crazies.
Sonnet #29
The pale light trembled into the room, kowtowing to all the captives inside. A servant opened the door, and hastily tried to hide a tray full of copper-tinged cloth. Shigure noticed how she slammed the door fiercely, giving no glimpse into the darkness. It is suppose to keep the spirits out, in case the incense or the prayers or the gathering around her didn't.
"Excuse me, Shigure-san, would you like anything?" The woman asked, her head so low, she could only see his feet. This was how the Sohma bent others toward its will, held their spine and twisted and pulled, until it was satisfied.
"No, thank you." Shigure lit another cigarette, and held it in his hand. The smoke spiraled upwards, as the woman disappeared into the maze.
"It'll kill you," said Hatori, and Shigure chuckled. Ayame didn't even lift his head from the table, as he continued to stare into nothingness.
"We're all bound to die eventually. One might as well lessen one's time here." He inhaled the smoke, and blew it towards Hatori.
The clock shifted, but the Mabudachi remained still. Yuki sat cross-legged on the floor, and did not touch his tea. Hatsuharu and Momiji were staring outside, with the same expression of monotonous wait as Ayame. Those who weren't cursed were back even further, behind the sets of heavy closed doors, and he imagined them all lined up, waiting the door, fidgeting, or maybe talking – even joking - in respectful tones, of course.
He focused on the red-headed man kneeling at the edge of the door, waiting for his summon. His fingers tightened around the cigarette, before stabbing it into the nearby tray, making the table rattle as loudly as he could.
"This is the third time," Ayame said.
"Gods don't die," said Shigure, and then shook his head, because he meant shouldn't.
"We're not Gods, Gure-ni."
"No, not all of us."
And what truth lay in that statement. Shigure knew that even at her worst, when she raged like the ocean and spewed her own caustic poetry, it was still enough. He preferred that to the poverty of Kisa or Rin, who shuffled at the periphery of his God's world. He was summoned, and had come starved for news. He knew every knot in her spine, the scent of her sinews, and their sound as they creaked underneath. A man does not forget the sun, even after being blinded. He mused.
Hatori quirked an eyebrow. He knew when his friend went off into his head, and shut the door behind him.
"Waxing poetic?" Hatori asked.
"About blind men and tsunamis," said Shigure, dramatically throwing a hand onto his forehead.
"Tell me, Hatori, do you remember why you went to Medical school?" Ayame turned, bored with the garden view. There were too many shifting colors, each reminding him of all the dresses she'd never wear. Lovely creams and greens that might accentuate her snowy completion, and seductively soft pale skin. He wished he could share stories of silk ribbon sashes, or dreams of pale kimonos swallowing the curves she starved away. Shigure has seen the sketches. All of Ayame's models have dark hair and no chest.
He shifted slightly, and watched as Kureno listened at the door, patiently waiting, that love-sick adoration still disgustingly damp and fresh.
"The same reason I came back for this." Hatori replied. "No other such reason exists."
"I remember that day," chimed in Ayame, laying his head against Hatori's shoulder. They are the Mabudachi, the oldest of all, and they remember a time before her, a waiting period for grace.
He thought back to their first death wait, and the second, and the third. One eventually grows accustomed to grief, and other numbed sensations. Briefly, he imagined if this was like losing an arm, or his sight, only multiplied infinitely, as with all things involving the heart.
"Tori-ni, why travel so far away? Why not stay nearby? Hmmm?"
"When I come back, things will be easier."
A long long time ago, she had been locked inside, unable to breathe inside that slip of a body. Hatori brought her a bough of cherry blossoms when he was sure no one was looking, and then she was locked inside with that woman, who claimed that Akito-chan has fallen ill and can not come out to play. She was gone for a week, and Hatori stayed outside her doors, refusing to sleep or eat. Sometimes, Shigure wondered if all of this was penance.
A loud hacking came through the doors. The three men kept their hungry gazes at Kureno, who would slide inside if a voice demanded. Shigure remembered that spot against the wall. He remembered where to put his head so it did not ache, and how to wait for minutes that bordered on hours. But most of all, he remembered her voice calling out to her faithful one, and how that frail body burst into giggles, and how tightly he had held on. She had been wearing gold and tasted like it.
A voice rasped out in the failing autumn light.
"Kureno."
Shigure turned away. Why read ahead, if you already knew the ending. It was true then, that the rooster had been freed. He tried hard not to think of supplanted or worse, chosen. But he is Shigure, and he does not beg.
Some days he can hear his bones groan and ache from being so old. He has dealt with rejection. Hatred. Being desecrated by her sharp little mouth. But he does not like this slow fugue. When the zodiac was pressed into a wheel, they all spun on one solid center, and Shigure happened to know her name.
Footsteps were heard, and he turned his head to see Ren walk by, looking at them with that sly smile. She locked her eyes with his for a moment, before quickly turning on her heels, fluttering down the hall. He watched her form, and hoped it would never be that bad.
"Careful. Never bite the hand that feeds you." Hatori said, his eyes darkening, and it took Shigure a moment to realize that he was not the only one who had been robbed.
"Ah," he replied, and looked back outside, where the last vestiges of light obscured the shifting patterns of the shadows.
Such a lovely girl.
That then I scorn to change my state with kings...