eye of heaven
by Bethany Ten

"The ceiling," Hakkai says.

It rains. It always rains. Sometimes it's blood, sometimes it's rain, sometimes (now-times) it's stone. It always rains.

"The ceiling," Hakkai says insistently, and remembers.

● ● ●

The story of Goldilocks, somewhere near the end but not quite, goes like this: she waits. Her organza is a shade of blue eclipsed by the sky-tones; it's a crisp, brisk, utterly simplistic summer day, cloudless, and she spends it folding in on herself, tilting at the waist like orphanage seesaws and watching the ceiling pass her by. If she watches long enough, it will escape her completely, so quickly she'll have to close her eyes; she'll reopen them when the bears come knocking.

Hakkai—he curls his fingers on Gojyo's shoulders, on the stone-and-bone arc of muscle, on fleshy poems he has memorized but never recited, and he warns him. When he says "ceiling," he means "bears".

Green means go. Go, go, go.

And Hakkai burns.

He burns quietly, burns like Gojyo's hair in Goku's eyes, to think of green meaning go and gold meaning stay.

"Come on!"

The shock was ephemeral. The fear was forever; it chewed Hakkai's heels raw. And he knew all the answers, because that was the thing to do; he foresaw Kami-sama's hands palming Gojyo's collarbone, lingering a shade longer than necessary, he mouthed the "sorry" alongside Kami-sama, he tasted the word and painted it on his tongue and lips and teeth. Kami-sama was going to die. He groped for the taste again, and found it, and held it there, on the purgatory on the underside of his tongue. It tasted sweet.

● ● ●

"I should cut my hair," Gojyo says later, because he's thinking with his heart.

An empty carton of cigarettes lay misshapen and crumpled, a mass of cardboard at the edge of a flat-paneled desk.

He thinks with his heart, and his heart beats slow and languid, except when it doesn't, and Hakkai—Hakkai drops the groceries.

"But you'd help me," Gojyo says as he balances a wayward orange on the toe of his boot, "wouldn't you?"

He puts the paper bag on the desk and smooths the creases.

Hakkai lifts his head from his hands.

"When was the last time you cut your hair on your own?"

Sunlight crept closer, and jaundiced roses announced themselves at the windowsill, looming over the wood. If Hakkai uprooted them, they would still face the sun, open, home-going; he had seen those flowers before. The petals would vanish beneath Gojyo's headband, and Gojyo would smell like sex and booze and rose petals. Yellow roses for friendship, loop the ribbons twice about three-quarters of the way up the stem. Thornless roses mean love-at-first-sight, and Hakkai does not read love stories.

"This is different," Gojyo says with what is either conviction or simplicity, and Hakkai is never sure what to believe.

Author's Notes: yellow roses: friendship; try to care; jealousy.

I do believe I'll be making a small commentary on this particular piece in my writing journal—the link is in my profile—soon, so keep your eyes peeled, yes?