This year I will:

Draw more.
Write more.
Smile more.
Read more.
Find something I can stick to.
Take better care of my friends.
Move to the Mainland.
RP less.
Get a job.
Become happier with my body.


Happy new Year y'all.

Black on black, this is incredibly beautiful.

Artist: immanuel via Ectomo

for ssukso; 1 hour; 268 words.

For a few days it doesn't stop raining. (Four.)
(Yuuya's counting, miserably, Choco's expression matching her owner's as they both peer longingly outside and hope for sunshine).
Mao knows Yuuya's told him from time to time about why he dislikes the rain so much. Written about it, maybe. Their Ame-otoko. Still-
It's just one of those little details that slips through the cracks; a gap in synapses sometimes and Mao's asking him again like it's some favoured story.(He supposes it is.) (Because it's sometimes they curl up beside each other like-)
On the fifth day there's respite from above and Tokyo is littered with puddles. Big puddles (the type that if Yuuya's not watching, Choco will spring into chasing some reflection) that take up half the path and the little puddles that reflect like mirrors. Shallow puddles and the deep ones that are thought about but rarely seen; deceptive, shining clear as glass until-
Night comes and so does the rain again. Sharing an umbrella between them, Yuuya's right shoulder and Mao's left get soaked while they stay dry in the middle (despite huddling close, shoulders brushing and walking practically in each others pockets). There's just the rain drops on the fabric and the traffic that always sounds different in the rain, wet treads, a slower pace. Things move slower in the rain.
Mao's listening to tyres on the road and breathing. The typical in and out meaning more to him. (A heart still beating.)
Small shallow puddles ripple beneath their feet, matched in rhythmic stride and foot falls. There's no destination.
Just chasing fireworks on the footpath.

A world without colour was painful to him. The only familiar thing being the paleness of the snow. He searched amongst the ruins. So many dead. Faces he knew in passing and faces he didn't; all strangers now, frozen by the winter. He didn't know exactly what he was searching for. The colour that had been so stolen from him, perhaps? The colour of a world he had taken for granted until the last minutes and lost for such foolishness.

Nothing now but white and the echoing shades of pale grey to pitch black.

Searching maybe, for the house he had left behind. The park in between their two houses. A street corner where he could see both their windows. Roses and Hydrangea's lining their inner city streets. A distance once not so far, lengthened by death. Socks and memories.

Only knowing that despite the pain, if he stopped there would be no more moving on.

For how long he wandered like this, he wasn't sure. He collected things along the way; rope, watches, chains, cigarettes; becoming a common thief from the dead no less and he could feel his soul wither, drop after drop until it drove him to a halt. To fall upon his knees and weep nothing but sobs into the ice.

I couldn't save you... Couldn't save anybody...

Something told him to continue.

When he found the boy, almost dead but not quite; whimpering, no more voice left to cry; he wondered if the messed together weaving frame and the web of tangled spiraling knot work inside was big enough to heal all his wounds, as the rope hurriedly burnt away with the rise of his voice. So much blood on his hands, a dark grey against his fingertips... In the snow around them, discoloured from the pure whiteness. A creeping taint.

It was as he held the boy close to his chest; broken bones protesting against sharp intakes of breath, that he wept those tears now stained the most vibrant red.

More than for singing life into the narrow body that convulsed as the hurried healing took place; it was the fact that colour was restored to his sight.

He wished to be blind again.


( .... )