ETERNAL SUMMER
⸻   私たちの青春の間違い

( 2006 )

     In the August of two thousand and six, the eternal summer of their youth ends. Sayuri can see the sea with perfect clarity. The feeling of the salted breeze against her skin, the scent of prismatic hydrangeas in full bloom. She can still taste the spicy tonkotsu broth they shared, the dazzling sun above clear blue waters. The sound of his laugh filling the empty sky and her hand reaching for his across the sparkling white sands. A promise made and broken in a single breath, weeping constellations flooding the night.

( Okinawa, she would whisper into the silence as her heart bleeds onto the tatami mats. The taste of plum liquor on her lips, fragmented memories flung all around her. The moment her heart soared and plunged into the swelling waves. Okinawa, she grasps at her chest as tears leak down her cheeks. Ragged breaths escaping her asphyxiated lungs, hands clenching around the fabric of her kimono. They had been such fools, lulled by siren songs and azure blue dreams. )

When she closes her eyes, she can see him under the silver moon as he singlehandedly ignites every star in the god-made heavens. How he carves a constellation of grief and rapture onto every inch of her skin, his touch that causes her to bloom like night cereus before dying as the morning sun rises. Drowning in his lips, burning in his embrace. She aches for a future that she knows they can never have.

To meet him at Sugawara Shrine, to see him in a five-layered kimono under the sacred rope. Nuptial cups filled with sake, san san kudo and sakaki twigs offered to their ancestors. What she would give to see it come true.

But when she opens her eyes, all she can see is his shattered body and blood-soaked hair in her arms. The taste of despair on her tongue as the world spirals into the abyss of the sky. Something inside her breaks into a million pieces, disintegrating to dust and taken away by the heedless wind. Even with all the blessings at her fingertips, she can not undo death when all the breath is stolen from his lungs. She would have given him every single one of hers if she could.

"Don't leave me," she begs, grasping his face and finding darkness within the oceans of his eyes. No galaxies or endless summer hues, only emptiness within the void. Voice faltering as her fingers grasp his shirt, laying an ear against his still chest. Sorrow is a hundred daggers plunging into her heart as her pleas scrape against the back of her throat. "Please... please wake up, Satoru. Don't leave me like this. Not like this, please! I'll do anything! So please... just breathe... Satoru... I love you."

And all she can think of is how she will never hear his voice again or find herself between his loving arms. The warmth of his hands and the taste of his lips, silver locks interweaved between her fingertips and the longing in his eyes when he looks at her.

The gods have forsaken her, leaving her wanting for mercy in the abandon of their iniquity. The haunting past repeats itself by edict of the fates, trapped within that endless cursed cycle of hatred and grief. She screams and screams unto deaf ears, until the sun hides its face for shame. Until the anguish drowns itself in the bottom of its own sea and all the salted tears dry upon her cheeks.

For the first time in her life, Sayuri feels the creeping madness within as if it's her very own. A thousand years' worth of resentment flows through her veins like an insidious corruption of her soul. Possessing her with such a feral hunger that she can ravage the stars, as whispers of the damned cajole her reluctant body to rip itself from his cold corpse.

She remembers her feet taking her to the Tombs of the Star Corridor, finding only more blood left in the wake of the murderer's onslaught. Suguru grasps hold of her stained hand when she tries to heal him, murky eyes filled with the want of retribution as he bleeds on the ground. Without a need for words, they recognise the helplessness on each other's faces.

"Kill him, Sayuri..." he urges her with rasping breath. "Whatever it takes. Kill him."

In that moment, she despises her own wretched existence more than anything else. Blaming herself for the lives that have been stolen, cursing her own failures and weaknesses. She who stands in their protective shadows with lacklustre talent over her own birthright. She wants to ask him, what could she possibly accomplish on her own?

But the monster inside her knows more about revenge than any other soul, outlasting even the rocks that have crumbled and the rivers that have run dry. Eternity is simply a blink of an eye compared to the everlasting spite in its woeful grudge. Life for life and eye for eye. Tooth, hand and foot, it would lay hold of them all. The monster inside her answers, Everything.

Even if she has to destroy herself in the process, even if it's at the cost of her own life. She will exact vengeance a thousandfold, pit sinner against sinner, and unleash the song of utter obliteration. She will hunt each one responsible to the very ends of the very earth and watch them grovel at her feet for a shred of nonexistent mercy. She will drown them all within the depths of the Sanzu River.

With gleeful laughter ringing in her ears, Sayuri walks unknown paths until she finds herself at the House of the Children of the Star. Stopping across the long pavement leading to the entrance of the building, she stares death in the eyes as he smiles ruthlessly back in spite of her grief. The man stands tall and proud, basking in the glory of his hard-earned rewards and accolades.

"Did you come here to die too?" he mocks. "Did you want to see your boyfriend again that badly?"

Something inside her pulls taut and breaks once more as she musters a smile of equal ferocity. She feels the liberation of her soul as she finally unshackles the gates of hell, feeling its heinous power surge through her like a euphoric drug. Her laugh is manic and wild and utterly broken. "We can see him together," she says.

Even the dreaded Sorcerer Killer recoils from her hysterics, face contorting with disgust. "What the fuck is that on your shoulders?" he spits out. "Since when did the Kurosawas learn curse manipulation?"

"You have an idea of what my techniques are," Sayuri states quietly, "but only the Gojos are privy to all the secrets between our clans."

"It doesn't matter anyway," he retorts arrogantly. "Because you're weaker than them."

She knows there's a grain of truth behind his words. Barely dodging the man's barrage of attacks, feeling the pain of his relentless lacerations across her skin. She has little choice but to rely on the very thing that has tormented her all her life.

Her eyes are stained with crimson death as she raises a hand to open all twelve gates of hell within her control. Cursed energy saturates the air in a thick and heavy fog, demons stirring from their slumber of dormant shadows. The man jumps back in surprise as the vengeful ghost that clings to her laughs and laughs in pure ecstasy. She unleashes her technique of fatalistic devastation, rot blooming forth from her fingertips. Scarlet decay staining the ground they stand on, corroding the stone path and wilting the surrounding leaves to a bare crisp. Creating distance between them, she touches her thumb to her finger in a seal of the sun.

"I will show you what hell truly is," she utters. "Domai—"

But just as she's about to expand her domain, she hears a voice call out her name. As soft as the whispering wind, laced with bitter regrets and sorrows. A gentle caress upon her prickling skin while icy blood courses through her veins. The breath leaves her lungs in a torrid rush and for a heart-wrenching moment, she thinks that she's died. That the sorcerer killer cut her down without her noticing.

Sayuri turns around to find azure stars reflected in her gaze. A desperate ache claws up her chest into her throat, heart stopping before the advent of a god. Immortality made flesh, enlightenment crowning his brows. The sun catches in his silver hair and the birth of new galaxies gleam brilliantly within his eyes. She stares in the highest of exaltations at his divine awakening, in adoring veneration of his second coming. Falling to her knees in reverence, in awe and disbelief in the light of his excellence.

Even as he kneels before her, reaching for her face so that she can feel the warmth of his hands. The blood roars in her ears, phosphenes dance in her vision. "S-Satoru...?" she whispers faintly as the tears fall unbidden onto her cheeks. Her trembling fingers curl around his, the earth tilting once more on its axis to swallow her whole. She grasps hold of his collar as she folds into his arms, sobs wracking her body from an overwhelming joy that causes her heart to convulse more than it ever did before. With his name spilling from her lips over and over in fervid devotion.

"Sayuri, I'm sorry," he says in earnest, cradling her head against his chest. "I'm so sorry. Please forgive me, please..."

They hold onto each other to keep themselves from falling apart, knowing with painful clarity that they can never undo all that has already been wrought.

     Guilt. It is not an emotion that Satoru is familiar with, that he allows to gnaw into every bone and sinew. If he racks his mind, there's not a single thing that he can come up with. He's never one to blame himself for how others want to live their lives. He's not god to dictate what is right or wrong, to exact divine judgment or retribution. To war against their destined deaths or struggle against the futility of mortal beliefs.

Regret, however, is his companion on the lonely star-filled nights. When the veil of omnipotence drops from his facade, he's left with a hollowness in the pit of his stomach. Like a virulent disease or potent poison that taints his blood black with devastating sin and traitorous hopes.

( I should have stopped them. I should have, I should have, I should have— )

Yes, bitter regret fills the spaces between his breaths in every interval.

The long summer perishes after a slow lingering death as the leaves wither and meet their untimely ends. As the earth revolves on its axis and the temperature drops exponentially to a single digit. Frosted breath fills the air and chilling winds bite against his bare skin. There is something melancholic about her smile that night as the moon lights her hair with its lucent glow, crowned by Tsukuyomi's ethereal grace. She is star-shine within the fading of the gloam that caresses his cheeks.

Their last mission had been hard on them all. A triumphant failure that nearly resulted in his own death. He can even still taste it; the bleak moment of hopelessness as her voice tears through his dwindling consciousness. The sound of it continues to haunt him at the back of his mind, the anguish and raw despair reminding him of everything he stands to lose.

Her hand is cold as he reaches for it. "Let's go back inside," he says.

Sayuri looks at him with glassy eyes under the pale light. Her voice is quiet as she tells him, "I'm leaving, Satoru."

He blinks in confusion. "Where are you going at this hour?"

"I'm going back to the clan," she says, taking him by surprise. "My father is gravely ill, they say he won't make it to the next winter."

"How long will you be gone?" he asks though he dares not hope. He knows what it's like to be bound by duty and blood, to toil under the burdensome expectations of kin and strangers alike.

Her smile is like the fading blooms. Beautiful and sad and lonely. "I don't know... you might not see me again."

Winter is the silence before the first snow, the sound of two hearts shattering on opposite ends of the universe. Imperceptible yet catastrophic nonetheless, an entanglement of two souls destroying one another in tandem. The ache in his chest is ugly and desperate, so much so that he wants to claw it out. There are so many words that he wants to say to her yet each one perishes upon the tip of his tongue. ( "Stay. Don't go, don't leave me." ) It hurts to even breathe as he swallows the lump in his throat and grasps her hand in earnest.

"What do you mean?" It sounds more like a plea than a question.

Her lips tremble though she holds her smile valiantly to the very end. Even as crystalline tears cling to the edges of her lashes, threatening to fall across her cheeks. He reaches up to brush them away, feeling something crack from his sternum down his ribs. "It's for the best," she whispers.

"For who?" he asks sharply. "Neither of us wants this."

She shakes her head, crimson eyes shimmering. "It was foolish of me to come here in the first place."

"That's not true." All the memories flash through his mind, filled with warmth and laughter and passion. He knows that she's happy with them—with him—and there is nothing foolish about that. "Not just me, but Suguru and Shoko will be sad to see you go too."

She sighs forlornly into the night and regret hangs in the frigid air. There is pain etched between her brows and the smile on her lips wavers. He takes her face between his hands, a million suns setting within her eyes. Bliss and sorrow intermingle in a bittersweet kiss, the taste of summer lingering on her tongue, iced coffee and faded memories. The scent of sea salt on the breeze as the glistening waves crash on white shores, his name whispered like an errant prayer. Time converges into an immeasurable series, slowing down until it appears to stand still. Within the infinitesimal seconds between them, he holds infinity within the palm of his hand and the world in a grain of sand. Heaven is a wildflower and eternity exists within an hour.

"You don't have to leave," he implores softly.

"I don't want to," she says as he feels her slip through his fingers and he stands there alone with only grief being the price they paid for love.