NATE
Someone has to. The words come so quietly, so gently, that even Nate is surprised by his compulsion to scream back. I could, it should be me! Sorrow curdles in his chest, too much too soon making him hard, when it's the last thing he should be. In some former life he'd done this once a week, shattered things beyond repair so he could chase after whatever shiny new thing had caught his eye, but he'd never been in love in some former life. He'd never been on this side of it in some former life.
Nate can all but feel her eyes on him while he strips down, while he steps into the water. It has his limbs lagging, made heavier under the weight of a mismatched gaze. It feels like a century has passed between leaving the shore and standing before Hotaru, and still that time doesn't ease the words leaving him. Doesn't stop the stumble, though she understands. "Are they any gentler?" Not easier, he understands well enough to know that no circumstances can make that pain easier. "Since she's back now?"
The hollowness that lurks in her voice splashes clear across his face, his smile souring until not a scrap of it remains. "Guess you weren't really my kind of girl either." He thinks that he deserves this, deserves to be bitter and selfish, not that he needs the justification. His voice would still rise just fine without it, his face would still shudder and twist, his brows pinching and his gaze on Hotaru's face. "I know Sunjata fucked up, but I didn't think that meant I wasn't even worth a letter." A knife in his front and back now, and he isn't sure if it's better or worse to have seen one coming.
Nate can all but feel her eyes on him while he strips down, while he steps into the water. It has his limbs lagging, made heavier under the weight of a mismatched gaze. It feels like a century has passed between leaving the shore and standing before Hotaru, and still that time doesn't ease the words leaving him. Doesn't stop the stumble, though she understands. "Are they any gentler?" Not easier, he understands well enough to know that no circumstances can make that pain easier. "Since she's back now?"
The hollowness that lurks in her voice splashes clear across his face, his smile souring until not a scrap of it remains. "Guess you weren't really my kind of girl either." He thinks that he deserves this, deserves to be bitter and selfish, not that he needs the justification. His voice would still rise just fine without it, his face would still shudder and twist, his brows pinching and his gaze on Hotaru's face. "I know Sunjata fucked up, but I didn't think that meant I wasn't even worth a letter." A knife in his front and back now, and he isn't sure if it's better or worse to have seen one coming.
I am tasting myself
In the mouth of the sun
In the mouth of the sun
