EDEN | mitsukai

one

the walk to school was a drag. hakkai thought it felt longer than usual. the ache on his body didn't bother him anymore, used to the burning pain. however, in his mind, the thought of flying would cross from time to time. he yields to the idea of moving his body, already throbbing and bruised from last night's session. hakkai would curse under his breath when he accidentally pulled a sore muscle in his shoulder blades.

the deserted alleyway of the city was different in comparison to the portrayal usually displayed on the television. garbage littered every corner, and stray cats would appear with spoiled food hanging from their mouths. hakkai concluded that the romanticization of his city tokyo is beyond comprehension that if someone decided to visit, reality would slap them hard in the face. but, it wasn't all there was to it.

tokyo—ripped of all absurd glorification, is still a loved city. especially in the mornings, like the one he's in right now, is an exceptional sight he never gets tired of seeing. the cold blue morning of tokyo in front of him calmed his mind. buildings and skyscrapers stood tall in their wake, windows reflecting the light of a slowly rising sun and the chilly air that hugs him. the scenery complimented his lonely tall stature walking to school. somehow, he doesn't feel so alone and drowning anymore.

with this image he admired, he felt enduring his pain a bit worthy.

after the blues, patches of brown and yellow evade his vision. the dull trees waved to welcome him for reaching his university. autumn finally brush her works through the changing colours of leaves and chilly air that pass him from time to time. he ticked the long morning walk in his mental list as the birds started chirping joyfully. what a great beginning, he thought.

however, it's the least of his interest because hakkai hates the beginning.

the concept of beginning is just another variable that he correlates towards beauty. in hundreds of possibilities and consequences of your choices that can bloom into something beautiful, hakkai dreaded the beginning. it was once mentioned in the butterfly effect that the most trivial choice would trigger something bigger—in other words, begin an event that can be a curse or a blessing. hakkai had disdained the idea of building a tall building to see it all fall. to live in such shame is what he avoid at most.

what correlation did it have to beauty, you asked? to hakkai, he learned that beauty is something one build—well, god did, or that's what his brother told him since boyhood. beautiful things are like fleeting fragments. it did not exist to live for the longest of time. it changes form and fades into fine dust. it flies into the air until it thins out and disappears. he learned this in the earliest stage of his development. his brother would say something along the lines that ethereal beauty made by god is untouchable, for it is a sin to touch.

he wondered what is beauty, but a mask of farce and a make-believe glory of a thing? what irony that sin was as hakkai learned his brother desired god's ethereal beauty. his eyes fixated on anything—no, maybe everything, that is beautiful. he will do anything to obtain it, and in this case, he did it in the form of moulding his siblings. his brother had an obsession with beauty, and hakkai had a vague idea of his motives: possession. it wasn't the first time in his life that he felt disappointed, and it did not surprise him to see his brother's greed. well, it is in human's nature to be possessive after all.

taiju, his brother, likes painting, which is much of what hakkai can describe. though the canvas wasn't the pure white textured fabric attached to a wooden frame, his body, with much fragility, would bloom with vibrant hues. the colours ranged from deep royal purple to the chilling cold of blue. hakkai did attain beauty, but with utmost disgust, he wanted to die.

"you need to stop doing that. it is a sin, hakkai," taiju shamelessly drink the booze in hand, "be like yuzuha, a pure beauty from the gods."

his clouded mind couldn't think of anything as taiju made that statement. he could only grimace for his brother's evident tasteless taste in alcoholic drinks. he dragged his feet to the refrigerator, preparing an icebag to tend to his older sister upstairs.