Hotaru
nothing's fair in love and war
She never expects him to waver beneath her exaggerated affections, but they’re a needling tease all their own when both parties are aware of the emptiness behind the actions. Her affections for him are best displayed in other more intimate ways, not batted lashes and simpering tones. His acquiescence is sweet on her tongue, and she slowly rolls her neck in the ensuing silence, envisioning the new expansion. “I also wanted to make a steam room. Maybe someday a garden, with little waterfalls and bridges. Take advantage of the surrounding humidity.” Her voice goes wistful and dreamlike, seeing the sprawling plans laid out in her minds eye. Easier to focus on notions such as construction and landscaping than any more serious and somber multitudes still lurking in her mind. Denial and evasion are the king and queen of coping for the pair of them. It makes it all the easier to rally against him when the opportunity arises. He is as slowed by the mud as she was, capable of little more than lurching away from her reaching hands. Too little too late, as her muddied palms find edges of dark hair, smearing what she can haphazardly before he inevitably retaliates. His laughter up close is loud and booming, edged with boyish charm, and her heart melts even as she tries to pluck at the tie keeping his hair up and away from her muddy hands. There’s no time for affection in war.
A veritable wall rises before her, the mud being plucked away leaving an empty space for her to tumble into a shallower pool of it with a startled laugh. “Cheater! I can’t risk frying us,” she calls through her laughter, tempted all the same to try it if it means seeing him with hair on end and eyebrows singed.
