Note:
Flashbacks and thoughts in italics
'Thoughts' in the flashbacks are in 'single' inverted commas.
I do not condone or encourage any behaviors in this story. It is simply a fictional story.
"Butterfly Effect"
CHAPTER 7
Lotus-Rose
"Juvia. What is it about Gray that dragged you into him? I mean, why Gray? Why someone who doesn't return the same feelings?" The buttons of his shirt coat shone in the amber light. Behind him stretched many shadows. They faded and mingled and sank. She gave him a wistful smile. He wished he could help.
Seeing that their clothes had dried, both of them lain on the bed, side by side. Juvia on the right of the mattress, her tresses fanning around her face like the petals of a blue lotus in vesper, her face gold-warm like a flower core. Loke took the left.
She started. Her speech, was a whirlpool of anger, love, and hate, the river of her tears about to flood. Her words rang out like a soprano, blowing out like a whip through the cold air. Black smoke from the smoldering wood rose into the starry sky. It wandered mad and burned in the face of the beautiful night.
"I've never had anyone to catch me when I fall. But when I saw the sunshine for the first time in my life, it felt incredible. I couldn't describe. So incredible. I cried. I knew it was real and not my imagination or a fleeting dream because I only knew grey skies. My dreams were never so bright. I was afraid the sunshine would fade away and it'll rain again before I even know it. So I held onto my sunshine, my freedom, my happiness, with every last bit of what was left of my broken self until I realized it wouldn't go away. I guess it was my weird way of expressing gratitude as well. Only it took me too long to realize the extremes that I've crossed with not just gratitude but a lot of things."
He didn't look anxious or surprised. He sat there like he was born to hear whatever she had in mind. He sat there like a man mapping wilderness, to find pieces of his own he didn't know he had lost.
"Maybe, this is fate. Juvia must've deserved it all in a way. But—No—I could never bring myself to accept that. Nobody taught me right and wrong. I learned myself. I never interacted and socialized. So I never knew how to interact, how to behave. I was just a closed, gloomy jar full of doubts and insecurities; and fantasies I thought were impossible for a cursed outcast no one will ever want. The kids in the orphanage saw me with disgust, detest, fear—all the ugly things, you name it. I was just a kid. What sin would I have done for that? If you look at it, most of my life, I had trapped myself in a loop of trial and error. Now that I screwed up again. Pretty well too. I might just girl up and learn from the mistake. It's fucked up high time. The only difference is that this time I felt like giving up. All of it. I don't have to put up with a charade, right? If this so-called God thinks he has the right to deprive me of any luck a human could have, then no thanks. I am not playing your scapegoat. Sure, I'm not the kindest woman on earth, but so are all those bitches I had to deal with in the past. What about them? The height of his audacity dumbfounds me. Normal or abnormal, sister or sinner, I'm not claiming to belong on either side of his scale. But Juvia won't, absolutely won't take any of his shit. Anymore."
"Oh!" Don't get her wrong. "I just wanted to blame someone. Who better than God? An atheist I am. Great, just when Juvia thinks there's nothing more to be broken, there goes her moral compass." After the whole external rant, to which Loke listened with keen ears, Juvia toiled to catch her breath. Her head was heavy and she felt an imaginary strain of barbed wires tightening around her lungs. He extended his hand to rub her shoulders, reposefully.
"Don't go so hard on yourself. Juvia. Your mind is a mess right now." Loke soothed. His fingers tingled. They wanted to tangle themselves in the ocean of her silky hair. However, he subdued the urge with a sigh. "Take all the time you want. That's what we have plenty now." What an irony? Her lips curved in a caramel smile.
He slid an arm over her tender one, caressing her knuckles, attempting to show his support. The tips of their fingers brushed in silent harmony. That was the moment in time when things turned upside down, when things they wouldn't have expected for the love of god, started playing out like a scene from a drama. At first, it was just the feeling of being drawn to each other by the binding of something unknown. So naturally. Loke pursed his lips, concealing a grin. The way she secretly gazed at him, was lovely.
Loke's left arm curls up into a fist, nails scraping the fluffy pillows, trying to get a hang of himself. Whereas, the fingers of his right hand wrapped around her wrist in a snug clasp. Like the planet had ceased to spin, sending seas and gravel flying 800 miles an hour due east, it began. Before he moves any further, her's had already found the collar of his shirt, dragging him close. That's when he lost it, succumbing to his wild desperation, before her inviting touch.
Was she interested in him now? What about all the doesn't-like-Loke, Loke-is-a-pervert, against-Loke things that her behavior had screamed outright from the beginning?
He made the first move, climbing on top of her to trap her between his strong arms. He leans down, locking their lips in a spellbound kiss. A moist, breathless one. A fleeting one.
It felt like they were fated to be here at this moment. But Juvia loathed Fairytales with every fiber of her being. She dismissed the notion even before it came. For her, fairytales are crap, bullshit stories that have misled many young innocent hearts. She is her own knight, king, princess, and shining armor. No one else.
Her hands pulled him back by the neck, her sparkly orbs telling him that he had her permission, letting him see the lust she had for him. The feeling was mutual. Whatever he was feeling, she felt too.
It dawned on Juvia that they were overwhelmed with lust for each other. But only that much. Juvia knew she needed to leave but had never in her life felt so content in a place. It surprised her, how less it took for her to throw the caution to the wind and submit to him, in the end. Yet, this element of surprise, this too, soon blurred into the background, engulfed by the flames of pleasure.
Juvia had left without a word many times before and from many different places. But this time, some binding energy pulled at her feet, freezing them to the ground, leaving Juvia intoxicated to the man before her like a moth to the flames. Every sensation and everything else was outre, inexplicable. But she liked that. In a time of such an unsettling transition, her mind may have screamed at Juvia to leave. To get the hell out now before it was too late. But right now, she could only savor the spicy flavor of his breath and process the hot tongue licking on her lips for entrance. Perfect, now the situation is as clear as mud.
"I wanted to become one with the water. I—I wanted to disappear into a drop of water so that no one could find me. I wanted to be finally free." Pearly tears leaked through the ends of her almond eyes once again. Suddenly, it was too much to bear. "Free of everything—all the pain, happiness, sadness, insecurities, fear. I drank so that I could add up the courage to do as I please." Finally, she said.
"Juvia." Loke cooed. His thumb slid over her glassy cheeks to wipe away the hot, gleaming tears.
"Yet. I—Juvia couldn't do it. She couldn't bear to see Gray and Erza together." Juvia pushed her fisted arms against Loke's chest, fruitlessly. Her whimpers, loud. 'Why?! Why did you—If you didn't come along, Juvia could've—Juvia could've—"
"You would've wasted your life over someone else's affairs. Over Gray. And if I just stood there smoking on the balcony, knowing that someone's going to suicide, and if that someone turned out to be you, I would've had one more regret to add to my record of regrets. You know what? I had been fed up. I'm still fed up. Living your entire life with a huge, suffocating weight on your shoulders isn't much of a fun thing to do. I need no more regrets."
Every single time he bound her in the subtlest of kisses, very much like bees dancing on honeysuckle, Juvia didn't want anything more than to pull him down by the edges of his shirt and make him peck onto her bosom the most bruising ones. She held on to Loke's hot neck and kissed him back with all the lust she presumed she had lost. After all, he had mercy on her, a concern to alleviate the ache.
His touch caused her to shudder and burn all the same. There was plenty on her mind, more so than she could abide. Juvia is convinced in her state that she too is allowed to do the same; she could have sex with Loke (deciding to cross all the boundaries, all the limits, she's had set up for herself for the past four years..)
The winter shall wilt for the pastel petals to pop out their buds, for the blooms to blossom and hypnotize her. Juvia doesn't have to defer, nor does she have to linger.
Loke might not be the one for her. He doesn't have to be. One day, on the skyline of luminaries, she would catch a better half she desired all along. Juvia promises herself that this better half, even if he's flawed, would be better than anything Gray ever was. It is not soon, but sure. For now, she shall overlook everything and appreciate what her rugged self has to flaunt. Juvia shall puff out all the remorses and live.
After the pent-up feelings of her past singed down to ash and coal, she seemed to have missed remembering to breathe. Like she had been dazzled in a world of dreams, dazed in the cradle of slumber, all this time, her vision flapped open. She woke up with a gasp of freshness.
The kisses now making a rosy garland round her neck provided the evidence almost conclusive of the path they were taking. Seemingly, the temptingly forbidden road of blind satiation.
However, 'almost certain' wasn't good enough. Juvia needed it to be entirely conclusive, and for that, she needed to find it out personally.
Seldom was good sex the worst way to forget.
Author's Note:
So, that's the beginning of a flashback. Things steam and spice up in the next chapter.
I had already created a few more chapters. Just a little bit more to write, and it'll be ready to serve. However, for that "little more," there's a lack or motivation or whatsoever. So, until I get the that, there's a chance I might put it on pause.
Meanwhile, I could start something new.
