Work Text:
Hard and firm fingers prowled on her skin, like blades of fire and soft flows of water skating on the smooth surface. Soothing old scars and healing the faded, like raindrops cleansing her of impurities not even she knows existed, but is eventually found with the support of him.
She wonders if he can draw sounds from her, sounds that are more beautiful than the koto———
To think that these hands were once stained with blood, were used to destroy and to riot with. When soap was temporary or was viewed as to erase someone’s entire reason for living. To fight was all he had. To mindlessly demolish obstructions blocking an unthought of future. Those obstacles, what were they exactly blocking him from?
In the end, it was he himself who settled up his own death wish, hiding from a possible bright future for himself by isolation. Scared of its brightness that would blind him to an even darker form of abyss. Denying all of what grandpa has said.
And yet, the one thing that cooled him down was the strings of his grandfather’s koto. The strings that disinfects the wounds of his palms, the sound vibrations that massages all of his soreness and its heavy wood below ensuring that outside of his bubble, was something beautiful that accepted him. So beautiful that it blinded him, and yet after all of his ignorance it waited and waited for him.
The koto cleansed him thoroughly, and had he not returned to it would he be wrapped in flames. Had he not returned to his grandfather, would he never be able to meet her.
Sounds do not lie. Unlike hers when she first met him, hers was rough, ragged on the edges that scraped at the skin of the heart, deep enough to form a vibrant scar. But his were the complete opposite—— gentle, like children playing stepping stones on a sunny day, the sun shining on them as they laugh and glimmer through the countryside. It halts the audience, hearts skipping a bit as if they were distracted by that one beat.
“Ch-Chika…” she breathed his name out like a prayer. She once kept everything to herself, but after him, she gradually shared bits and pieces of her to more people. People she cared for and admired from the bottom of her heart.
And they all eventually return to a vault, a haven, one person—— all of her was sealed in him, kept safe in vines instead of rope, covered in affection instead of validation.
“I love you, Satowa,” he whispered into her temple. She could feel the vibration in his throat, full of sincerity and love that she had known for all these years.
Sounds do not lie.