Hidden Meanings

Weak [Madimo]

Leave me alone I'm still a sucker for this ship okay- and I love angst. That too. Angst will always play into my stories. 

Even angels had darker sides. They had a mask meant for smiles with perfection stitched tight on their lips, but they had faces.

Faces, just like any other human being, like the soul they used to be.

One of tears, of a broken sob and a shattered heart. One of anger, for an enraged tongue and accusing eyes. So many faces.

Shikimo could feel her mask breaking. Words became choked up, strangled and seized in her throat before they rose into the air.

She didn't have a pulsing heart, but instead a paper halo, a halo of an angel without purpose.

She was dead.

So why was she feeling this way?

She could remember every moment of her being an angel, and good god, Kishan, with his simple voice and reassuring touch.

Kishan.

Her heart still sung songs for him and him alone, no matter how much she tried to pull a lock over that portion of her heart that was his.

And Shikimo hated it.

Maddox, her dear Maddy, deserved her heart.

That was why, standing there, watching Maddox stare at her with panicked eyes and one hand clutching at his own wrist, Shikimo found herself choked up.

"I don't want to hurt anyone, Shikimo. Not you. Not anyone. Not anymore."

That was what Maddox had said, wasn't it? An open gap welled up in her throat, frenzied melancholy thundering at Shikimo's heart.

"It... Doesn't matter if you hurt me..."

Stop crying.

Angels swept the world clean of sadness with their wings of radiance, they were supposed to ensure happiness and peace, they were supposed to embody the idea of elation, and they weren't supposed to cry.

Crystal tears broke free from Shikimo's lashes, and she couldn't stop the waterfall starting to stream down her cheeks.

"Do you think I don't get scared, Maddox?! I do! I do, okay?! But that doesn't mean I run away! I... I was a coward once, and that took something I cared about away from me! Do you think... Do you think I'm going to let it happen again?!"

The words spilled from her lips, tainting her heart black with the color of regret. Black and red, red just like the color that slid lazily down Maddox's wrist, just like the color that stained his hands.

He was motionless in return, watery irises turned downcast and away from her. 

Shikimo's voice clogged up, but she didn't stop.

"And now I can't get it back! And now that I fell in love with someone else... And that someone else is trying to get me away from them to protect me... I'm tired of being on the sidelines...!"

Shikimo's voice rose with each word, agony in every few words that passed her lips.

Maddox lifted his gaze.

She knew that his eyes had set on the tears that rolled down her cheeks, and she wanted him to hear how much her heart was breaking, a little tragedy of song, the fragile thing-

"So tell me that you don't love me, but don't make me leave your side!"

The little bear she had, cream yellow in color, dropped to the floor. Shikimo's shoulders shuddered with a trembling heart, nails digging into the surface of her palms.

Maddox's lips parted, quivering with fear for the other.

"I don't want... I don't want to hurt you, Shikimo," Maddox pleaded.

He still held his wrist tight, skin smeared with blood. Had someone looked underneath the cover of his plan, hideous, bloody marks and wounds would appear to the eye.

Shikimo took a step closer; Maddox took one back. Closer. Back. Closer. Back.

"We're dead," her whisper was soft. "But even so, if my soul was alive and my heart beating, I would lay my heart down on a silver platter for you to break. I'm weak, Maddox- you are my weakness in this world of immortality."

She lifted a finger to brush at her eye, letting out a small chuckle. "This isn't who you know as Shikimo, is it? No, this is the scared Valvara Alexandro..."

The person who died all those years ago. The person who lived all those years ago. The person who hid. The person who was hidden from. The person who was left alone. The person who left.

Without warning, she darted from her spot, fingers gently prying his from the wounds. One hand peeled a piece of fabric from her sleeve, steady despite the tremor in her voice.

Maddox didn't struggle against her actions, shoulders sagging with relief until pain sparked once again.

She worked in silence, touch light as a feather as they danced from objects to skin, from blood to wood, from one person to a medical item.

So tell me that you don't love me, but don't make me leave your side.

It was after hours when she finally finished, Maddox having gone to sleep through his pained haze, and Shikimo rested her chin on her open palm.

His wrist laid bandaged against his side, the red soak having stopped darkening. Shikimo set her gaze on his sleeping form for a moment, of the peace that had kissed his face the instant he had relaxed into sleep. 

"... I don't want you to hurt yourself, Maddy..."