Soiled Scarlet
He smirked in misplaced mirth, his mouth twisting into a crude rendition of what he liked people to believe was a smile. He tilted his face towards the clouded sky, sheets of wistful smog capturing the light in a greedy act, leaving the earth without sun-kissed warmth.
He recalled though, in his fading memories, warmer kisses than the sun could offer. They were teasing, soft, sweet, and the heat could range from such heart warming tepid caresses, to heated -oh gods the burning insatiable heat- desperate presses of desire that always kept him in a pool of maddening ecstasy.
In his recollection his eyes had shut in an effort to remember the emotions those feelings had once invoked. That now invoke brushes of ghosting memories along his skin, tearing at his heart and cracking into his brain.
Upon the hill (where visions of the past surround him in an inescapable play he'll never stop seeing, no matter how desperately he wants it to) he looks into a world that he wonders if its existence ever was. The tree pressed to his back, keeping him standing, was the tree that acted as support when he had pressed him to it, imprinting his bare back with tree bark, slick and sweaty with his eyes no where but his.
The tree's leaves hung around him like a prison, caging him with his haunting memories. It mocked him, taunting him with blackmail worthy secrets.
After all, it was in the darkness of night where the full moon shone so brilliantly did Fuji make love to Ryoma under that very tree. It was under that very tree that they shared so many lazy afternoons, napping and cuddling. It was a place full of sweet nothings and unknown words.
"Syuusuke…"
"What is it, Ryoma?"
"I…I…"
"Hmm?"
"I think I love you…"
I love you…
And though these memories plagued his thoughts with melancholy emotions, they're all he has left. Life is but a fleeting flicker of an existence, and with just the careless gentle breeze, it'll go out with nothing remaining but temporary smoke as the soul drifts away.
Ryoma was only 25, the Japanese boy wonder leading the tennis world with a blazing storm, not unlike his cyclone smash. In the end, all it took was a freak fire incident to steal away those 25 years worth of life.
They never even found the body. His escalating legacy in the tennis world had fallen to scattered ashes to mix in with the dust and earth. He, like everyone else will eventually, became the inevitable natural state which weighs over the minds of all until their worldly departure to the unknown unworldly realms.
Fuji slumped to the ground, head tilted back to the trunk of the tree. The grass under his fingers was dry, drier than he remembered. He recalled that he was sitting like this when Ryoma had pounced on him, straddling him while ravishing him enticingly. He had gripped at the ground then, tearing at the grass and digging into the moist soil when Ryoma had ground his hips in that suggestive motion…
Only he had reversed positions then, it was still too early for Ryoma to be on top. Dominating the other, plunging tongue through wanton swollen lips, and…
Fuji felt a guilty wave of arousal hit him at that particular memory. The significance of the pure emotion and feeling of that time making his heart throb and ache. His mind distressing as his body mocked him by dirtying the memory with it's hormonal needs. That moment was emotions and truths in it's most vulnerable form, soaked in a whirling heated ecstasy and kept in time with the too loud beating of their hearts.
Raising his soiled hands to his face, he could smell the earth coated on his digits as he released a tired groan.
And he couldn't stop the anguished look that crossed his face as that earthy musk brought back even more shatter quality visions.
He remembered the sweet smell of the earth and the freshly cut grass and the smell of
flowers as they bloomed beautifully with pride. He remembered the feel of that grass as it stained his clothes in winter green smears on sunny summer days and starlit summer nights, as it created imprints on his naked body, tickling it with a natural caress.
He remembered that desire and heat. He remembered it as it ate away at him, pooling in his stomach, as it licked at him with flicks of that devilish tongue.
He remembered how they burned with loving sin, amongst the cool god created earth, connected as one, a couple with no regard to the reality that they were born in.
And just as his thoughts were turning dark with desire -making him all too aware of the need in his body and the all too lonely feeling in his heart- he couldn't help but feel the rush of ice drowning him like a cold shower as he remembered that it was the burning that took him away, in a blaze of a deities flame.
He'd never betray that memory, staying faithful until death. Ryoma may have only wanted happiness for him, for him to move on and find another. But he wanted to meet Ryoma one day, at those shiny pearl white gates, the two of them together with nothing else.
So with his back to a tree -branches encasing him within shadows- he keeps on seeing Ryoma's fading and vanishing image, scarlet flames and all on the wintergreen grass, swaying gently as the wind blew the flame of the ghosted candle away.
And Ryoma has been burned away into nothing but a guilt ridden memory, loved but dirtied by Fuji's aching loneliness.
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