[ What they do isn’t planned. What they do is impulsive, what must necessarily follow from a sudden air-kiss at this specific moment, in this particular place. (Their place, together; Null Set is Sen’s just as well as Rin’s; dependent on Sen’s schemes and marks and discovery.) Sen drifts that kiss, and Rin tilts their cheek toward him, nudging at the empty air to catch that gifted kiss. So that it lands light against their cheek, and so they tilt their head again, as if to let the kiss settle, as if to coax the kiss in-place.
They can almost, they think, feel it; a kiss light as fallen snow, warm with sunlit affection. A kiss like the scent of hyacinth.
Rin could drift on this sensation for hours, for days. (Could take Sen’s hands and keep hold, if they could spare both hands to do so, if this counter didn’t hold between them.) And they favor Sen with a soft smile, pleased smile. Then offer one more fluttering of lashes, for good measure.
(They don’t think into what they’ve done; how it differs from past years and would-be-kisses. How they’ve never once permitted a kiss to land, or caught it without batting it aside. The game has always been evasion. The game has always been a bit of fun. One way of playing along with Sen, they’d thought. One way of flitting through the world, uncaught and uncatchable, as they were ever wont to do, as they most often needed to do.
Sen was different, though. Sen has always been apart from the gnashing world and its demanding machinations; Sen has always been a force against the forms that the world imposes, a hand helping to bat off artifices that crept too close. A hand that welcomed and permitted and accepted; that encouraged.
A quiet wondering, swimming briefly, barely up from deepest waters: what might Rin have missed, discarding all those kisses?
And, on its tail, appearing and disappearing just as swiftly: What had Sen thought of that game? (And had it been, for him, a game?)
All of this plays out beneath Rin’s present knowing. Spells pieces that begin to tick their way toward coming into place; pieces that will make themselves more present over days to come. When Rin’s had space to let this moment settle. When Rin is less caught up luxuriating in the moment.) ]
Why speak of hellfire when you herald spring with such simplicity of eloquence?
[ A breath, almost a sigh, and their smile brightens. ]
You make your point, rugged philosopher.
For you and you alone, I will be… That term. That name. A word uttered only by my Sen; not to be borne from any other, never to touch even these lips.
[ They purse their lips lightly - these lips, right here! - a gesture that shifts into another tilt of their head, as if distracted by the air-born kiss that they’ve ben granted. Now they let their eyes slip shut, lingering in a moment’s lull, their thought become little more than a pleasant hum, their self mostly wrapped, rapt, in this moment gifted by and shared with Sen.
To have both Sen and this place, the home, this haven; there can be nothing better.
How terrifically fortunate they are.
Adjusting carefully, they open their eyes and lilt a hand to their cheek, a light tap where the kiss landed, a tap that turns into a settled, drifted touch, as if to marvel at and seal the kiss in place. ]
no subject
They can almost, they think, feel it; a kiss light as fallen snow, warm with sunlit affection. A kiss like the scent of hyacinth.
Rin could drift on this sensation for hours, for days. (Could take Sen’s hands and keep hold, if they could spare both hands to do so, if this counter didn’t hold between them.) And they favor Sen with a soft smile, pleased smile. Then offer one more fluttering of lashes, for good measure.
(They don’t think into what they’ve done; how it differs from past years and would-be-kisses. How they’ve never once permitted a kiss to land, or caught it without batting it aside. The game has always been evasion. The game has always been a bit of fun. One way of playing along with Sen, they’d thought. One way of flitting through the world, uncaught and uncatchable, as they were ever wont to do, as they most often needed to do.
Sen was different, though. Sen has always been apart from the gnashing world and its demanding machinations; Sen has always been a force against the forms that the world imposes, a hand helping to bat off artifices that crept too close. A hand that welcomed and permitted and accepted; that encouraged.
A quiet wondering, swimming briefly, barely up from deepest waters: what might Rin have missed, discarding all those kisses?
And, on its tail, appearing and disappearing just as swiftly: What had Sen thought of that game? (And had it been, for him, a game?)
All of this plays out beneath Rin’s present knowing. Spells pieces that begin to tick their way toward coming into place; pieces that will make themselves more present over days to come. When Rin’s had space to let this moment settle. When Rin is less caught up luxuriating in the moment.) ]
Why speak of hellfire when you herald spring with such simplicity of eloquence?
[ A breath, almost a sigh, and their smile brightens. ]
You make your point, rugged philosopher.
For you and you alone, I will be… That term. That name. A word uttered only by my Sen; not to be borne from any other, never to touch even these lips.
[ They purse their lips lightly - these lips, right here! - a gesture that shifts into another tilt of their head, as if distracted by the air-born kiss that they’ve ben granted. Now they let their eyes slip shut, lingering in a moment’s lull, their thought become little more than a pleasant hum, their self mostly wrapped, rapt, in this moment gifted by and shared with Sen.
To have both Sen and this place, the home, this haven; there can be nothing better.
How terrifically fortunate they are.
Adjusting carefully, they open their eyes and lilt a hand to their cheek, a light tap where the kiss landed, a tap that turns into a settled, drifted touch, as if to marvel at and seal the kiss in place. ]
I think I’ll keep it, hm?