I Set Myself On Fire
To anyone who would claim to know Juri Arisugawa, she was a woman of ice. A barren, frigid field blistering herself on an otherwise lively and active landscape, the fencer stood coolly off to a corner of the cafeteria. The bustling mass of students around her swelled into an active leviathan, a enormous beast alive within its own world. She stood solitary and apart from this, hazel eyes gazing past the monster of loud students and to the opposite wall. Looking there, across to a specific group of girls, or more precisely the one and singular girl, she knew nothing within her was frozen at all.
By choosing this path, by partaking in the challenge, Juri had enrolled herself into a new and all together dangerous endeavor. Through her cool, aloof pretense, past her apathetic and uncaring stare, she was yet still a child. A child who would partake into a truly adult game, one she was certainly unready and ill-equipped for. To play, you couldn't feel, you shouldn't care. To play…You certainly shouldn't hope. And hope, of course, was always her downfall. Calmly, almost unnoticeably, she stood watching Kozue from a safe distance. No, that wasn't particularly true; it seemed nowhere was safe any longer. After all, she could never really escape herself. Holding a shining, silver razor to her waiting heart, the golden-haired young woman felt a familiar emotion slowly creep upon her.
The blue-eyed young woman she watched seemed altogether unaware of the eyes set upon her. The younger girl, it certainly seemed, was much more adept at the game than she. Her grin was masterful and wolfish, ready to engulf the eager boy in front of her. Her cobalt eyes sparkled as a new strategy weaved itself into the fabric of her plan and she knew for certain that this little fly would fall so graciously into her web. Another amusing and useful toy to play with, at least until she decided to grow bored or lose interest.
Being an audience to this, even as far as she was from it, made her feel like something else. Something primal, something wild. Her heart drove her on like the tribal beat of a drum, the rhythm moving through her, transforming her. The thick, unfettered emotion, something more than want or need or desire, something fierce and unnamable, surged through her like crazed adrenaline. Juri wanted to rip past the crowds. She wanted to tear the boy apart, tear them all apart, tear every line, every restraint, everything keeping her from having the other girl completely. She wanted to rip away this game, to have nothing between them except what was real. It was selfish, wasn't it?
She was haunted. The feeling of Kozue's skin on hers, their breath intermingling, the mouths and hands and fierce release. These things, these experiences, it made her burn. It was Juri's fuel, and she set herself on fire. The flames were wild and seared completely through her, engulfing her with the blazing, crimson ember of human emotion. As the inferno grew, it seemed, there was no longer anything she could do to stop it.
Then again, she didn't want to. She knew, somewhere, that this was dangerous. That the choices she was making would ultimately cause her downfall; but here, in this moment, It didn't matter. She was alive and, finally, she could feel.
She was human.
