FINGERS CROSSED, yuzuha usagi

CHAPTER FOUR

Together was something they learned it sounded good when they were side by side. It didn't need to be worded out loud, a thought was enough to survive the pain of living without the need of the other shouldering it. Lovely-eyed, together morphed into the quivering of the foam dancing in their raging hearts, intoxicating and hot sand scented; it spent hours spreading down and up veins and arteries, out through their exhales when laughing stroke and in again when the fear of taking a leap and finding emptiness became too present to ignore, like a heartbeat resonating inside their chests.

Ikehara and Yasuko were one, from the start to the end. It was a fact, something they knew how to mold, destroy, engrave, always careful of not making too much pressure. It was them zigzagging between the tallest trees and pointing out whatever looked remotely similar to poison ivy, never getting any closer to a concrete answer; them who treated each other's wounds; them staying silent all night long hoping what they'd been avoiding didn't come yet; them who kept white lies under key; them longing that what they felt was not theirs.

"We need to join a game," Ikehara said, not sure if he waited for an answer or the wind to blow his voice away, through leaves and bushes, "We can't keep running around from the King of Spades."

They both knew it, the truth laying behind it. It was a matter of time to hear it from either of them, the number of seconds they had left was actually not so large and the minutes passed even though they stood quiet, regretting every first time that brought them there. Because that was what they were the best at: regretting, they'd been doing it since they were first introduced; since the first time Ikehara pleaded her to linger near the door uncomfortably instead of just leaving; since the first time Yasuko noticed him forgetting thing after thing so he could always come back later for it; since the first time they made fun of each other and the one they fought when they met again after the Ten Of Hearts game, Yasuko weeping blood and Ikehara fearing they could both fall apart if he ever dared to coil his arms around her back.

"No, forget it." She replied with force.

Yasuko didn't want it to be negotiable, she didn't want it to be like what it was at the beginning. That if he said 'will you...' her answer would be 'yes' before his sentence was out, before he could question her trust, her hands cupping his face even if he was trembling teeth and bloodied fists. Things changed, but they still stepped backwards every time they tried to go forward.

"It's the only way." I know, she wanted to tell him, scream it. All she did was close her eyes tightly to not see it, the expression on his face, the frustration and sorrow haunting her from every corner of the earth. "Look at me?" He whispered.

She shook her head, hiding herself behind her arms, like she always did when she was little. A killswitch. Something inside her that tried to stop her fears from leaking through her flesh, from tearing it up, and leave her soaked in childish wants. When her eyes couldn't see and her forearms covered her surroundings, she became just a child, wiping the warmth of tears off her cheeks, the smell of coconut sunscreen taking her back to the time she didn't have to be tough. Then, she only wanted that, to not be tough until the sun woke up.

"How can I trust you?"

Yasuko's snuffle mixed with a quiet laugh, a bittersweet red light turning yellow that drew Ikehara's breath off his chest as if she'd cross punched him straight on his sternum.

"What?" He scowled. Yasuko stood up abruptly, dizziness barely an obstacle for her to face him. "What does that mean?"

"I just need to know how can I really trust you when the story keeps repeating itself." Their eyes bored into each other, as if they didn't know where else to go. 'Cause, where else did they belong in either way? Ikehara had forced himself to forget any home he once felt welcomed in, while Yasuko couldn't find anything that fit to house such fret, one that homed crimson and saffron sunday mornings and sleepy eyes drifting away from the laughter staining the walls. "You weren't there when everything went to hell, you left and I stayed, I waited days and nights for you to come back only to almost get burned alive inside a little room, alone. You hate promises and never say goodbye, and maybe I'm asking for too much but..."

It was hard to see through the mist gradually covering his sight, yet he recognized every bit of her standing in front of him with a clarity that he knew it'll only be untouched the day he left earthly soils. As a shadow, a dream, a living body full of complexity and desires he couldn't appease, even if she made the effort to share his grief to give him some space to breathe.

"All you have to do is say something," her lips trembled slightly, "Anything."

A beat passed like the flapping of a butterfly's wings.

"I don't want to fight." He begged, hoping she would notice the want of time. Whether she gave him another minute, a second, a blink, he would've taken it to make everything work for them, but Yasuko didn't.

She just waited.

At that moment, it crossed her mind the last time she felt so lost, right by the beach, with toes on the sand and an empty slot on her chest getting bigger and bigger like the tides rising. It was a reminder that there were things in life that she had to risk the pain of losing them for that short-lived joy of having them for herself. Like her mother's hand, her seat next to Mira on The Beach's room meeting, the folded papers she sneaked under Usagi's door, the awkward encounters fluent in silence with Arisu on the open terrace.

"We're not going together," she finally accepted, turning her back to him, "Not this time."

Perhaps that could be her last act of love before the current wrecked them apart.

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