CELESTIAL FLOWERS ( s. gojo )

arc v ━ chapter v. despondency

a r c v.

❝ all the things you have,

all the things you cannot have. ❞

━━ chapter v. despondency

KAZUKO BLINKS.

They lost. Or at least according to Gojo. Kazuko thinks achieving third place against a dozen pairs is a win, but Gojo who's sulking in one of the benches with a blueberry popsicle on hand thinks otherwise. They won matching blue scarves that Gojo has deigned to keep with himself. Kazuko doesn't want hers and leaves it to him. It's a strange prize to give especially since they're in the middle of summer.

"If you really wanted to win that badly, you should have picked a partner who could actually cook," Kazuko tells him. She's standing in front of him and even when he's sitting, their heights aren't too far apart. The sun is beginning to set and Gojo really is resembling those shonen protagonists with the way the popsicle is dripping onto the pavement.

"I could have raised heaven and hell and there'd still be no chance I could rope Shouko into going."

"So I was the only one you could rope into going?"

"Something like that."

"You need more friends," Kazuko comments dryly. She watches something blossom in his face, a flower of sorrow, but it's gone the next time she looks. "Preferably ones that would be happy to join you in whatever random trip you decide to take."

"I have you, don't I, Kazu?" He offers a small smile. How atypical. Maybe she said something wrong, but Gojo's entire mood depreciated when she offhandedly mentioned he needed friends. It wasn't like him. To look so vulnerable. He had always been a guarded person, who always put up that obnoxious front of faux smiles and conceited grins. Something stirs in the pit of her stomach, something akin to guilt.

Kazuko's not cruel enough to tell him that they're not friends and no way in hell, are they going to be. But she's not cruel enough so she simply stares at him with that blank face of hers.

Gojo is... strange.

He was hostile and inciting anger when they first met, strangely reliable the next and now he's here, in a mood unlike any other he's shown before, telling her that they're friends.

"You can always join again next year, Gojo-san," she tells him in her feeble attempt to cheer him up. Kazuko's not used to this Gojo. It's different and really really strange. But maybe underneath that god who denounced his boyhood, beneath all the celestial blessings that heaven had to offer, maybe there was still a human who breathed and lived and cared and hurt as any other.

Her voice is soft. A softness she usually reserves for Erisu. "Isn't it an annual competition?"

"But I really wanted that recipe..." he sulks. His tone has changed. That slip of vulnerability replaced by that light, childish undertone. Kazuko doesn't know if she should feel relieved.

"Don't give up, Gojo-san." The words that come out of her mouth are laced with uncharacteristic passion, sugary and sweet unlike the usual morose monotones. It feels fake. Because it is and she trails off, sits on the bench next to him, careful not too touch as always and shifts to the usual flat voice. Kazuko murmurs, "Patience is a virtue, as they say."

"Don't give up, huh?" He looks at her. There's something in that gaze that causes unrest within her system. A chaotic storm twisting her guts into a gordion knot of sorts. She can't see his eyes because the glasses are in the way, but his face framed by the golden light of sunset is a sight to behold. That fluttery feeling that makes her uncomfortable rises again. Kazuko shoves it away. It's like the voice in her head, only sans the malicious aura. "Isn't it ironic coming from you? Or maybe the word is hypocritical? You, who want things, which you've given up on."

Kazuko clenches her fists. This isn't a direction she wants the conversation to take. "I don't want anything," she whispers. Her voice is small. Unguarded. And it's funny how the wheel of life works. One moment she's surprised by the vulnerability of the person across her, now she's the one who's sporting all these cracks and breaks in her facade. Reduced to a small child who's been caught on her lie.

"Liar..." Weirdly enough, there's nothing malicious evident on his tone. It's more like a factual statement that he uttered. "Twerp, you're such a liar. You, who gaze longingly at those picture books and brochures. And that excitement in your eyes when you mention places faraway from here. There's something you want and yet you've given up on the idea of ever reaching it."

"I don't want it," she says, her voice steady. Kazuko doesn't know if she's saying it with such conviction for Gojo or herself.

I can't want it.

Gojo's about to say something, but Kazuko beats him to the punch. Fists clenched, eyes gazing at the distant sky with tinges of amber and red. A vast sea of clouds where the rays of the sun slip through and cast shadows of the trees and the numerous people going about their daily lives.

"Wanting..." she begins and looks at him. "Wanting is for everyone. We can all want so many things. But it's only people like you who have the means to grasp those wants in the palm of their hands. Those like me..." She shakes her head. "We're not allowed to want. To want things and never grasp them is painful. For people like me, to want things is to break one's hearts."

"Your chains are so heavy, Kazu," he says. "Doesn't it hurt?"

Kazuko stands and smiles. "You learn to live with it."

And she turns away. Tears are stifling her vision, streaks falling after one another. Her mind travels to a distant memory of little Kazuko sneaking past the Nakano gates, past the trees and dirt path, into the nearby village where children her age carried bats and balls. The smiles on their faces and the one on her own. A cry of glee and joy and celebration. Sweat and dust mingled in the air as they cheered and ran. Cicadas and their cacophony of noises combined with the rustling leaves of the forest.

"Will you be back tomorrow?"

Kazuko steps away. She doesn't know where her legs are going to take her, but she just wants to get away from here. From whatever is going to crumble all the walls she's painstakingly built. From whatever's going to open the forbidden chest of hopes and wishes she's tucked beneath all the lifeless words and gazes.

"Let's never talk about this again..." she whispers. Her voice cracks. Her back is shaking. Gojo reaches for her gloved hand, but she moves it away. The thought makes her flinch. Steady your voice, steady your entire being. You aren't supposed to break apart like this. Steady your voice, steady yourself. You aren't allowed to break apart like this. "Please forget everything I said. I'm feeling sick and I've said things that don't make any sense."

Kazuko walks away. 

━━ to be continued.

i. i really love this chapter. one of my faves methinks <3 

ii. see you on the next one and lemme hear your thoughts!