The Scars, Our Masks
Jun
21
The Future
Apr
10
Rhezere didn’t like to think of memories, instead he made endless plans. But sometimes he dreamed them, waking with screams strangled between his teeth.
Sometimes he woke and muffled the memories until they faded. Sometimes he called Kasuru, who had seen his scars and never heard the stories behind them.
“You did a terrible job of healing them,” Rhezere complained. “When the weather’s bad, they hurt.”
“Ah.” Kasuru could hear everything Rhezere wasn’t saying.
They didn’t talk about the past or about the aches and pains Rhezere claimed to have. They talked about their plans, their work, and the future.
Knives
Feb
04
Sometimes Misaki counts his knives.
He doesn’t touch them, Saruhiko notices, just drops his head down to note them under a piece of furniture or gently shakes the harness out of the laundry, numbers mouthed noiselessly. If a knife is missing, he shakes the uniform again.
It’s not that Misaki wasn’t there, didn’t know Saruhiko always had knives, or even that he didn’t benefit when they faced down an enemy together.
Sometimes, his fingers rub over a scar just below his right shoulder, something noiseless on his lips.
Saruhiko leans over, glad that Misaki allows him to kiss it away.
He rolled over in the bed and reminded himself he wasn’t a little kid anymore. He couldn’t turn to his mother for comfort. He had to protect her. He couldn’t go to her when he wearing a reminder of his father.