SOUL TO SPIRIT (BXB) (ONGOING)

FOREVER AND ALWAYS

The cries around him was what kept him awake even for a little while. His teary eyes looked at the darkening sky as he took a shaky breath only to wince in pain.

The boy lying next to him and long stopped moaning in pain. He was gone. His dirt coated fingers had stopped twitching a few minutes ago.

His time was also coming. His wound had been bleeding and pain clawed his stomach and lungs. His stomach was empty after throwing up, in his pain.

The ground around him smelled horrible. Painful wails and moans rang in his ears again and again.

However, Ryu kept quiet. He let the pain slowly eat him but he refused to cry out loud. Or maybe he had quietly cried too much that the water in his body had run out.

The war had taken innocent lives. Their village was not the first and it will not be the last.

In the distance Ryu would hear marching and loud sirens but he hardly cared.

It was too late now.

Ryu closed his eyes not wanting to spent the last moment of his life in pain. Behind his eyelids he was taken to a place, he had always seen in his dream.

The sky was clear and the afternoon sun shone brightly. Ryu basked in the slight burning warmth of the sun and smiled. The sound of the river waves rolling, filled his ears as he dipped his legs and let it sway lightly with the current of the river.

The day was extremely hot. He was sure it was going to rain after a while.

"Ryu kun?"

Ryu opened his eyes and smiled brightly at the approaching figure of the boy, who was hugging a brown worn out book against his chest.

Mori Hana walked towards Ryu and sat down next to him.  None said a word and Ryu took out his legs from the river.

"It's going to rain after a while," he commented.

Hana nodded and he to got up as Ryu dried his legs and put his shoes on. They walked under a tree and sat down. As they talked about their day, Hana opened the book he had been carrying.

"I wrote a haiku for you, Ryu kun," he said.

Ryu's heart immediately started thumping against his chest as he ruffled Hana's hair. This feelings he had was unnatural. Hana was his master's son but both of them treated each other as friends.

And Ryu wanted to be so much more than friends with Hana.

"I am uneducated," Ryu said with a grin, "Will you read it to me?"

Hana immediately blushed and frantically nodded his head as he shuffled through the pages. His heart was thumping nervously against his rib cage, everytime Ryu was around.

Hana peeked at Ryu and his breathing hitched. No matter how many times he looked at him, Ryu seemed to look even more attractive.

All the field work had tanned his skin in a golden shade and the hard working conditions had gifted him, muscles Hana can only sigh over.

Hana gulped nervously, when Ryu raised his arms to rest his head against the tree trunk and the biceps bulged against his shirt.

With red ears and a flushed face, Hana finally found the page where he had written his latest haiku for Ryu.

"I see you
And my silent
Heart beats
So loudly."

Hana pursed his lips as he stared at Haiku he had wrote. He never read his haiku out loud to Ryu because all of them held his love for Ryu. And he was afarid that Ryu would not accept him.