CELESTIAL FLOWERS ( s. gojo )

arc i ━ chapter iii. soliloquy

a r c  i.
❝ and you love the chains, even when they cast you to the ground. ❞
━━ chapter iii. soliloquy

ERISU WATCHES THE MOON BY HER OPEN WINDOW. As far as she could remember, she has always loved the moon. The mysterious beauty it possessed and the light which was not too bright, too much, but lit the way anyway as it stayed in the sky and bathed the earth in an ethereal glow.

"I've always wanted to be the moon," she says to Gojo who stands outside her room, keeping guard. She watches him flinch when he realizes that she noticed his presence.

"How many days has it been since you discovered that I'm here?" Gojo asks.

"The third day," she responds. "Your cologne has a very powerful scent."

He tries to smell himself and frowns afterwards. Laughter escapes Erisu's lips in small amounts.

"Don't tell the twerp," he says. She connects the dots and figures that he's referring to Kazuko. Erisu shoves the brewing emotions away. She's not particularly fond of the demeaning way he calls her bestfriend, but she has to be cordial with him. "She's gonna go on a whole tirade of how it's improper or whatever."

"Azu doesn't mind," Erisu answers, calm and composed as she should be. As she always should be. "She found out before me although she didn't tell me about it. I saw her glaring at the window on the first night you came here. That triggered my suspicions."

A pause. "I see..." he says. "She checks up on you every evening, so why's she not here tonight?"

"The elders summoned her earlier. They usually don't take a lot of time, but it's been half a day," Erisu sighs. Per her usual routine, she'd be sleeping at this time, but she's waiting for her bestfriend, watching the moon and stars to pass time.

Gojo doesn't press the issue any further. Time passes and when she glances at the corner of her room, she sees the hands of the clock. It's almost ten in the evening, but Kazuko hasn't arrived yet. She's feeling a little sleepy, but ever since the dilemma of the cult started, she's improved on warding sleepiness away. The nightmares are certainly helping. Kazuko and Gojo were mum about it, but she heard the maids murmuring about the intruder from yesterday.

"So... what's this about the moon?" Gojo asks, and she thinks that he's probably humoring his curiosity rather than help her stay awake. Erisu has been observing him for some time and she's come to the conclusion that he really isn't the sympathetic type. "You said something earlier."

"I've always wanted to be the moon," Erisu repeats.

"Like Princess Kaguya?"

She shakes her head although Gojo couldn't see it, his eyes still staring at the obsidian sky embellished with celestial bodies. She doesn't comment on the fact that he's wearing a blindfold instead of his regular glasses. "Kaguya didn't become the moon, she was taken there, while I want to be the moon."

"What a strange thing to want."

"Really? I think it isn't strange at all," Erisu whispers and steals another glance at the heavenly body up above. She used to connect stars with Kazuko and they'd stay up all night forming illustrations with their fingers. Erisu would giggle and gush over the drawings she made while Kazuko would be secretive and simply offer her a smile. "The moon is beautiful, elegant and mysterious. It's brilliant like the sun is, but when you look at it, it doesn't hurt your eyes at all. It's also not lonely like the sun is. The moon has her stars and there's millions of them in the sky."

"Does the twerp share that sentiment?" he asks.

She shakes her head and thinks of Kazuko. With her secretive gaze and the way she used to smile when they were kids. A smile Erisu could never decipher. "Azu's like the moon already." And speaks no further on the matter.