XXII. Truthfully
Yes…he knew where he was.
He had spent many hours here with his mother. Fuuma was usually off doing something else, being a normal individual whilst he was left to placate his mother, her happy-go-lucky voice incessant in his ears, told him stories of the Sakura tree, of the Sakurazukamori and what their goal was in this life, and what exactly would happen once that goal was achieved. She also told him stories of how sweet blood smelled once it was exposed to the midnight air, how camellias were her favorite flower, and how the sound of decapitated heads amused her.
There were times that he wondered if Setsuka was really his mother. She behaved so much as if she was just a friend, or a companion to Seishiro more than acting like his mother.
As if…she was courting him.
Then again, his mother had always been an enigma to him.
Her smile could brighten up a room, raise everyone's spirits, and with one word she could send the unsuspecting plummeting back down.
She was hopelessly devoted to the ways of the Sakurazukamori – so much so that it often clouded her judgment, as well as whom she sought as her partner, in crime and in other ways.
It is because of her that for most of his life, Seishiro had learned to be devoted to no one.
Seishiro lay down on the dew-kissed grass, his arms crossed in an x-position over his eyes, hiding them from the blinding sun that had made its way through the clouds. Every now and then the wind blew across the garden, moving the flowers and the leaves of the sakura ever so slightly, that a rain of petals would wash over him, away from the majestic branches that stood so proudly, landing on his face, his body, and he would not move an inch.
In this position, he would have accomplished just what his mother always wanted.
He remembered her smile – subtext within each of them, almost as if she was always imagining what to do with him, suggestive in every sense. They were carried by lips dyed with the color of blood, the life essence of those that were sacrificed to the sakura tree that loomed over him at this very moment, the lips that would stop to kiss Seishiro passionately on the mouth at a moment's notice. They hid the teeth that nibbled at Seishiro's ears, his neck, the space between said neck and his shoulder.
He remembered her touch – despite her open (sometimes too much so) nature, her hands stayed cold and detached, nimble fingers wandering where they shouldn't, the iciness, the lingering enough to make his insides quake.
He remembered her words – enthusiastic, abbreviated, changing tone with milliseconds, painting the world in shades of black and white.
Chaos within the order.
Order within the chaos.
"I want you to take my soul away…"
"I choose to live this way…"
"I know you'll never share my point of view…"
Those words haunted Seishiro, though he'd never dare show it. It would not matter anyway.
For the longest time, even before he came to realize the person he had been with for so long was actually his mother, the concept was beneath him. He didn't have any interest of what exactly his mother was, her background, how she came to meet his father, where his father was now…
None of it mattered in the end.
"You're my child."
This utterance as well struck him – when he thought about it, it was as if his heart, whatever shape it was in at the moment, was squeezed with a vice. It was an unusual feeling – one that he was not used to.
He was not used to being tied to someone, as well as being tied to their fate.
"I love you."
No one else had said that to him either. She had said it so freely, without ramification or thought to them – she said it automatically.
She had wanted him to kill her, to continue the pact that members of the clan made – that they would be killed by the person who loved them the most.
"Kill me Seishiro…please."
It was finally, in the middle of the night when Seishiro had just turned fifteen, that he killed her. He had been looming over her, their forms close, the fate shared by the two of them inevitable.
Her wish had been granted.
Her blood had pooled between his fingers, escaping around her body, like that of the petals of the camellia flowers that she loved so much. He was relishing every second that his mother was losing the life essence, as she was in losing her life, a smile gracing her features as she died.
He had kissed her when she died…but…he felt nothing.
He didn't feel anything towards her death…her life…nothing.
Now Mother was nothing more than an object – her fate signed to that of her son, her partner, her lover.
She was nothing more than something that had been broken.
It made sense that the Sakurazukamori would die happy – if killed by those they loved and buried underneath the Sakura tree…just as his mother was buried now.
On impulse, he could feel one of his hands moving away, the shade that it as well as the rest of his arm leaving him, exposing him to the sunlight. He closed his eyes quickly as the hand moved downwards towards his groin. His fingers pass over the area of his crotch, a vast pulsation going through him as he closed his eyes even tighter, the sun's rays completely gone from his frame of vision. At all of these thoughts running through his head, those relating to his mother and otherwise, there was now a velvet hardness underneath the cloth of Seishiro's pants.
Without hesitation, his nimble fingers clutched his arousal, and now his mind was in a complete, irrevocable haze of pleasure, a haze of nothingness and yet of everything.
Eventually he succumbed to the heat that enveloped his body, enjoying himself immensely and perversely as the high ended, leaving him to slowly open his eyes once more and gaze at the beauty that permeated each sakura leaf that greeted him.
In another flash of light, he could feel himself hover higher and higher above the Sakurazukamori tree, the flower garden that it inhabited, and the spirit of his mother still with him, even after all of this time, after all of the years of detachment and wanting.
Truthfully…he could have stayed there forever.
But he would come back.…in due time.
