Author's notes: Written for Temps Mort's "This is not the worst moment of my life" challenge. Done in a little over an hour. Standard disclaimer applies.
The Sun
This is not the worst moment of his
life. It's uncomfortable. He doesn't
like the feeling of the sheets tangled around his legs, but it's a nice
morning, and there are birds singing at the window. The cloth is soft. Her skin
may be softer, but he doesn't make the move to explore the possibility. Her
shoulder is brushing his, and that alone is enough to register.
This is not where he wanted to be.
Not where he expected to be either. This is however, what they'd planned. Or
what she'd planned, though that would imply a certain amount of sly intention
when really it was all circumstance. Somewhere in the room, there is a crumpled
red kimono. He sees it, half hung over the foot of the bed. Circumstance. There
was a wedding last night. It happened to be hers and he knows this because it
happened to be his as well.
This is for the clan. He reminds
himself of that with his eyes on the window, while really, he watches her. This
is for the clan. The curve of her shoulder leads into the curve of her neck and
the line of her cheek against the pillow, her eyes closed and her lips half
pressed to the fabric. Her palm is tucked near her face, even in sleep her
fingertips twitch—old reflex, schooled into her body by nervous habit. Always
nervous. She really is a plain girl. Nothing gorgeous or remarkable about her.
There's nothing attractive when her back is turned or when she hugs herself, or
when her head is bowed--as though to take a blow that never lands. She did all
three, the night she asked—which seems so long ago, though it was only last
fall. There was something ugly about her fear as much, he had to admit, as
there was something attractive about her when her mind was made up. Please
consider, she'd said. It's your decision.
This is politics, pure and
complicated, and the idea that he'd been offered a choice feels something like
a polite formality. This is generations of hatred, lying naked in the morning.
Resentment in the lips that had pressed against her neck that night, sadness in
the fingers that ghosted over his brow, and a feeble apology in the gesture.
Nothing erased, nothing healed, nothing simple. He doesn't know what he found
so fascinating when she pressed her palm into his. She wasn't shaking. It's all
right, she'd said. You don't have to.
This is not freedom, tangled in the
sheets. He sees it out the window, has always imagined it feels something like
the sky, boundless, endless, and far, far away. This is not freedom, tight
coils in his chest constricting like the way the fabric does around his thigh
as he tries to lift it. This a warm room and soft bedding and softer skin that
presses against him a inch more, an inch tighter. This is a girl with her eyes
open as she smiles faintly, tiredly, blindly, and lifts her palm to shield
herself against the sun. Oh, she says. Good morning.
-End-