Sometimes I wonder if Tachi is afraid of that sound as well, the tap-tap-tapping of businessmen's shoes crossing hardwood floors. Perhaps it is something else that frightens him; the way the light slices across the room from the outer hall as the door is pushed open just so. You can see the shadow of that ridiculous tree, then; it is ludicrous and licentious in a carnally carnivorous sort of way.
I sometimes wonder if we could prevent it together -- Black Thunder, Blue Rose -- or if those signature colors are no more than the bruises of betrayal which lay so heavily upon our souls. I have sold him before for a single night's peace; no doubt I shall do so again.
I remember, tenebrously now, a time before, before she died and he went mad and her duties became ours in a twisted world of senseless insensibility. Her face, my face, and it shone like the gleam of the knife's edge as it rests against my all too willing (all too white!) skin.
The walls are thin, so thin. Why else would we send poor Sasuke to sleep in the snow-filled bell tower? Even tortured creatures such as we feel the sting of shame and 'tis more than enough that one's evening of peace is spent mired in the echoing of the other's disapprobation without the ever-present knowledge of all.
Everlasting peace, a temptation that fills my soul and makes my heart tremble faster, faster. Even the thought of never ending serenity destroys harmony; a sign, perhaps, that interminable tranquility is not what it seems.
Perhaps I should have slipped the drugs into Tachi's meal this eve -- the reverberations are likely to drive me to hysterical laughter and then must I run, run in the dark and dance with the fireflies!
I would much prefer a quiet evening in the presence of Ranma-sama to that hideous prospect.
With that thought comes another and another. For all that I may wish for tranquil dark nights (with no one moaning in pain next door), Ranma-sama is the very embodiment of vivacious animation, life mingled with light and incessant vitality. Why, then, do I love him so? Perhaps for his beauty... perhaps his tenderness, perhaps even the sound of his voice dancing in shivers down my spine.
Ah, and yet his strong arms escape me and there is no surcease of the nightly visits, the low withering sobs that seem to rest in no particular place because I am made of nothing and nowhere commingled with stars and flickering ribbons of dancing thunder.
Ranma-sama. Peace. Eternity. Dancing. Flickering. Vitality. Infinity.
And all that's left is the sound of businessmen's shoes tap-tap-tapping on the hardwood floors.