Everything sang. The world, the entirety of it, whispered and mumbled and talked so loud that, for one to hear it, you had to listen closely. Because when it spoke, it did it in indescriptible tones and incomprehensible voices, the atoms that made up everything and all of those that they were the foundation of; it had always been like that, atoms dancing and singing. And as everything sang, everything started with a decision: like getting pregnant or starting a medical treatment; like repeating a mother's words in hope to see that smile brighten her face or choosing a job career to not be present as her body got weaker and her mind drifted away mid conversation; like drawing a line between three hearts that used to beat at the same times.
Chiasa had read once that out of two sisters, one was destined to be the watcher and the other the dancer, but out of three of them, she thought it went deeper than that, than being a pair of eyes and a pair of footsteps tracing from one side of the room to the other and then back to start again, a pattern's repetition going back and forth through books and beds and doors and halls. Out of three sisters, one was the body, one was the soul, and the last one the mind; they converged, linking arms, tangling themselves around the other with a feverish hum and warm hands covering each other's sight, they became a three headed creature since the youngest was born; but like death and fate and the night, people were blind beings that saw and sought, and wanted. Chiasa, Yumi and Amaya were one, until a man full of wanting left the mind and soul without a body to inhabit.
She had thought about it so many times she had lost count of it. She had thought about it so many times she never could bear looking her own reflection the morning after, because it would mean it still affected her, even after hours of repeating under her bedsheets it didn't, it shouldn't, it couldn't; because staring at her own eyes in the mirror would be as if she was staring at Yumi's or Amaya's, the day she finally opened her door, the night she sat with them to eat a proper meal, the afternoon she waited for them to come back from school with cookies and a movie, so neither talked and asked questions they knew the answers to. Sisters had a strange bond, it was a common thing people usually commented about, but the Nishiokas were sewn together; it didn't matter if May thought they would never understand her, or that Yumi didn't have enough photos of them on her phone to make one their contact picture, because at the end, they were more important to Chiasa than anyone on that earth.
But she was stuck. She was stuck in time, unable to articulate a sound or move an inch off the floor, like she had been back in the past. She was stuck, and useless, and quiet, and felt as if she was melting, and they weren't there to call her name.
"The fire is spreading!" Someone screamed. Or not. Chiasa didn't know what was truly going on around her, she didn't remember when she'd brought her hands to cover her ears, cancelling all noise that tried to shake her into reality, away from the dizziness that was taking over her consciousness.
Everything sang, and yet she leaned into the sound, listening. Then, she heard them too: the flames.
Her sight cleared and she saw The Beach bathed in sunlight in the middle of a dark night. Rays of light flickered and wood crackled, the fire was growing on the wall beside her, too hot, and it felt like her skin was blistering and her eyes were burning. She turned her face away from it and saw two figures disappearing into the foggiest hotel's area, there where the smoke was obscure and its inhalation deadlier.
THREE MINUTES REMAINING. . .
Chiasa coughed with every breath, watching with teary eyes as everyone conglomerated around Momoka's body and started dragging her to the outside, but she didn't move. She sat still, surrounded by corpses and inundating her lungs with noxious fumes, and wondered if that had been her fault too; if crumbling in a corner of a burning empire was another consequence that came with waking up covered in sweat, feeling every part of her body tremble and her ears ringing; if her surviving the acts of a hungry man foreshadowed a past, a future, a time in present that she had barely slipped away from the moment she decided to make tea for three instead of one and agreed to finish another cleaning task when she shouldn't have, because she should've went home earlier that day. She wondered if being mortal blazed like the flames stretching to caress her flesh.
Everything sang, but a voice grew louder than any other sound.
"Chiasa!?" She looked up, letting her hands fall at her lap as Kuina spotted her curled up alone, "Chiasa!" Kuina ran towards her, weirdly at first, as if she was stepping on broken glass, and the closer she got, Chiasa understood why.
"You're injured." She pointed out, but Kuina didn't give it a thought. Instead, she wrapped her arms around her and pulled until her legs responded and she was standing, burning against her body.
There was no place where they'll always be safe in that world, that was the truth that laid in between their silence, their eyes searching each other's. Though it didn't seem unbearable as her heart breathed in Kuina's own beats, it was the opposite, an opportunity to mend what she had done wrong.
The moment they got outside The Beach, Chiasa sucked the clean, cold air with as much urgency as Kuina did, both grasping the other closer to themselves. She hadn't noticed it at first glance, tears blurred her vision, but once they fell, everything took form, including the boy that awaited for them a few steps over the path.
"Is your leg okay?" Chishiya asked her, observing the torniquete turning darker, "Want me to look at it?"
"Yeah, from ten kilometers." She worded out clumsily.
"It's popularly believed that we can see up to ten kilometers, however, there is no limit. In fact, from the top of a mountain, you could see up to a hundred kilometers away or more."
"It's like he's talking, but there's no sound coming out of his mouth, isn't it?" Chiasa mumbled to Kuina, even though her eyes were glued to Chishiya's.
"You're quite persistent too." Kuina told him.
He held the Ten of Hearts card between his fingers as a demonstration of how far they've gone through to get what they wanted right from the beginning: a way out.
"I started to think that it's pointless to collect all the playing cards," Chishiya stated, "But with this, we've got everything except for the face cards, I wonder what the management team of the game wants us to see?"
They watched him unfold a piece of paper, studying its doodles until concentration turned into clarity, and they understood he knew where to go, they'd just had to follow him.
"So are you coming too?" Chishiya faced Chiasa, glancing at Kuina briefly before he looked back at her. She nodded, as there was no need to say anything else, noticing his lips tugging upwards before he turned to an exit, "I see, you two finally cleared things up, it was time."
Chiasa smiled tiredly.
Yeah, it was time, she thought as her hand found Kuina's waist and she felt hers wrapping her fingers around her back, both collapsing against the other's body to help the walk be a little bit less draining. A little more accompanied. A little bit less harder than breathing and wishing to be the first to die so she didn't have to feel her lover's heartbeats slowing down.
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FREEFALL, hikari kuina
FanfictionNO TWO PEOPLE CAN KNOW THE SUN THE SAME WAY. . . ˗ˏˋ Chiasa was aware there were as many gods as many stars, that someone could have as many dreams as many wishes and could tell many lies as many monsters could hide inside the same closet, that livi...
