Water's Embrace || Ao'nung x Neteyam

Chapter 06: The gentleness of desire

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I love romance, I love to read it, I love to watch it, I love to long for it. Maybe in another life, I could be loved, in another life I could have what I lack in this one.

If so, I can accept my reality here. I can accept that here I can only yearn, as long as in another life my other self could even brush or have a taste of those feelings.

Naturally, what makes me despair here is the fatality. Knowing that I will never be able to have what my heart asks for, the state that eludes me at all times.

Luckily, I am able to recognize it even as a state so platonic, so alien and whimsically unnecessary that knowing that a remote part of me gets it in another place is enough to keep me comformable. 

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Ao'nung sighed while resting the weight of his body on his mallet, watching the boring croquet game unfold before him. It was well past noon, and the sun was still high in the sky. The women wore their parasols, and the men their boater hats.

There was a nice breeze providing sudden moments of relief from the hot day, however, Ao'nung was unable to enjoy such simplicities when his mind was occupied by everything but the game.

He watched Neteyam from a little afar. He stood beside his parents and his father, simply nodding along, and letting himself be used as the highlight of the party. And how could he not? As the eldest son of an American gunpowder tycoon, mothers were fanning over the one that could represent a bright future for their daughter.

The Sullys were a worthy family, but he began to realize that Neteyam, much like his mother, was of another clay. He could only imagine how elegant society would fan over him if he ever were to be introduced to social circles different than the business-related ones back In Boston, or the country ones there in Florence.

Perhaps he should take him to England, London at that. Rome was another option. Sicily even. Every place in the world seemed to suit Neteyam Sully better than the dull city of concrete he called his home.

Only if he wasn't so busy entertaining the vicious fantasies of those who only ever wanted to tie him down.

Ao'nung didn't like it one bit.

He had always been a jealous person since the moment he was born. Throughout his life, though, the object of his jealousy was always changing. First was his mother the moment his sister was born; then that same sister when his cousin Rotxo came along; then Rotxo from other boys who tried to be his friends, and the list just went on.

He didn't like seeing Neteyam nodding and smiling to whatever those money-hungry women were blabbering at him, and he certainly despised the way those women's daughters looked at him like he was their ticked to a luxurious life abroad.

Jealousy was not his strongest quality, nor was it his weakness. Simply acting like a sharp splinter in the middle of his chest that grew and shrank with every moment he saw Neteyam do as much as glance at another.

He had no right over him, of course. So, he resumed his bitter feelings to long frowned looks and annoyed clicks of his tongue that were easily overlooked, thought to be only frustration given by the fact that another's player ball had hit his own out of course.

"I say, mister Sully, do you hope to follow your father and brother on the family business?" The voice of a young woman got to his ears. She spoke to Lo'ak, who seemed to focus on trying to regain his position in the game to even spare a glance at her.