Asa no Tenshi

Maybe the sun's light will be dim
So it won't matter anyhow
If morning's echo says we've sinned
Well, it was what I wanted now
And if we're the victims of the night
I won't be blinded by the light
Just call me angel of the morning, angel
Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby
Just call me angel of the morning, angel
Then slowly turn away
I won't beg you to stay with me
-"Angel of the Morning"

 

The morning birds are singing. One is perched along the inward slope of my window, serenading me a sweet ohayo. I know you can't hear it. You sleep so sound, like the dead. And it's funny, since I'm the one bearing that curse. I suppose it doesn't matter that you can't hear it. I don't want you to wake up anyway. I want you to stay here with me, as long as you can, in this bed, beneath these covers, no matter how messy or disarrayed they may be. You're on your back, your face turned away from me, and you're smiling in your sleep. That soft, secretive Shigure smile. It used to annoy me because it's obvious from such a tiny, dagger-like smile that you're up to something, and it's always impossible to tell. But now I rather cherish it, especially at times like this. It's evidence of your true nature – you cannot help being who you are. I wish I could be more like you, more honest with myself. More honest with others. You especially.

On my right side, I reach over with my left hand and brush away the hair from your face. The loose strands dance across the bridge of your nose, and you sniff, mumbling something between a giggle and a sigh, rolling your head toward me in your sleep. Your sooty lashes are surprisingly long, thick black fringe against your pale cheeks. I trace their edges with my fingertip, your eyelids flickering with irritation and your smile twisting into a frown. I pull my hand away, you sigh again, and then you're still.

I really want to stay here like this. I don't mind the morning so much as I mind the day. On days like this you have a tendency to sleep in, at least till the birds have stopped singing, but it's always the same when you wake up. A sleepy smile, a muttered word, then you're dressed and you're gone. I'm alone, and I can't say to you as you're leaving, "Stay . . . just a while longer?" My moment of weakness is kept to my heart, added to all the other tiny heartbreaks as I wait for the right time to reveal it all to you. I wonder when the time will come that you'll abandon me too, just like he did. Hatori, flirting around with that silly girl, that stupid girl who can't even hold him, let alone ever be able to hold him the way I did. When will it be your turn to go against me, leave me, find some little witch to betray me with? I don't even want to think these things. I tell myself I can't imagine you with a woman. I can't imagine you in love. I tell myself I have nothing to worry about, because the stupid dog is loyal, the stupid dog never abandons his master.

Even though I know . . . it's only a matter of time.

You're so hard to read. Hatori was much easier to understand. His serious nature was hard to penetrate, but so lucid. Like ice. It only takes so long for ice to melt, and any kind of heat will do the trick. It doesn't matter where it's from or what it's made of. Ice is fragile, even more so than impending death. I could melt Hatori, then I could freeze him over again. But with you, with you it's so different. It's like stumbling around in the dark, blind and searching for something – a light, an answer? Every time I stare into your dark eyes, no matter the expression surrounding them, I feel lost. Swallowed into their darkness. Swallowed into all your secrets, shrouded in them. Surrounded by the colors of something beautiful I'm too blind to see. It makes me feel helpless and even ashamed. But at the same time you bring me beauty in the tactile – touch and taste and sound.

You make me feel beautiful in a way a person like me should not. It's wrong and very, very right.

Those things I can't read in your eyes or from your hidden mind, the things I can't see, you try to make up for it. Your hands the echo of your whispers, on my face, tracing down my ribs . . . my waist . . . over my hip and my thigh. Your nose nuzzling against my hair, your voice an amused murmur that manages to seduce without even trying. It's all in your hands and their reverence for a smaller body, for me who is weak and you who are afraid of touching me too roughly. The apologies for that first time are unspoken now, but constant in your caresses and gentle kisses that are often only prompted to greater passion by me. I always imagined you to be different than that, to be less tender and more rough and tumble. I imagined sex with you to be hedonistic, carnal, hard. I never dreamed that on that rainy night I seduced you it would lead to these frequent visits fraught with silent apologies and gentle lovemaking.

I frown at your sleeping face, then brush away another stray strand of hair, tucking it behind your ear. Lovemaking. Frivolous. That's what it was supposed to be. I miss Hatori because that's what it was. And he knew it. Understood it so well. His heart could not be attached to anyone's . . . until now. And it's only painful to know because I was so easily abandoned. Painful because it was that stupid woman who drew him in and made him smile. Why, the other day he came to see about my croup and wouldn't even deign to return a simple kiss. Just pushed me away, gently, but with that tone of ice. "I have no time for your little love games." Games? It's not a game to me. Not anymore. Not with you.

You . . . you and your easy smiles, your giddy laugh, your torrid looks just before giving in to me and taking control. You and your helpless whimpers and childhood stories, all tasting the same in my mouth. You even told me about you and Hatori and Ayame, without even thinking or considering how I would feel. But I could care less about what the three of you do. In the end I know it's a cold comfort, being embraced by one who is exactly like yourself.

But it helps to feel the warmth of skin, the protection of stronger arms than my own. I embrace you now, having depressed myself with all these thoughts. I drape one arm over your stomach, pull myself close to you, stare at your closed eyes and sooty lashes for the longest time. I don't know how or why you're so beautiful. You're really very plain. Not as handsome as Hatori, but much more desirable. Maybe I only speak from experience, which has tainted my opinions. Maybe it's the secrets hidden in your eyes, which are trembling now, lids shifting, sliding open. The honesty in morning eyes, bleary and confused for a moment, is diffused with the untold as they focus on my face. That drowsy smile curves your soft lips as you reach out and touch my cheek.

It's these touches I crave the most. Even when you're inside me, kissing me, bending me in two, it's the shape of your hand on my hip, the possession in your hold that makes me come. I don't know how to come to terms with this need to be yours. You make me want to be dominated. You make me want to lose control. Yet at the same time, you make me want to be strong and handsome and equal to you.

"Asa no tenshi," you murmur, the morning light catching in your eyes, making them shine unnaturally. I sigh. I hate this, how soft and vulnerable I feel, how much I need you right now when I'm so sure you're going to leave. Even though to close my eyes, feel your lips brushing across mine in the echo of a kiss, is so wonderful if I should die now I would actually be happy.

What's even worse, I want you to be happy too.

Your tongue's against my lips, tasting the morning in my breath. My face is in your hands, and there's nowhere to go even if I wanted to. I part my lips for you, the movement of your tongue enough to make me wild, to make me want and want and want. You roll over, embrace me, then roll me onto my back, making a soft sound of pleasure even though the morning is cold and the sheets have slid off your body. You pull away briefly to smile at me, the sunlight just now painting the room faintly golden, highlighting your hair and half your face with a warm radiance. I need this. I don't know why. I need my hands in your hair. I need your drowsy smile. I need your glazed eyes, your sloppy just-woke-up kisses, your hands tracing down my ribs . . . my waist . . . my hip and my thigh. The gooseflesh, the desire, the spread of my legs, the hook of your hands, the pressure, the pain, the groans, the steady gaze because I need to see you and maybe you keep looking into my eyes because you need to see me. But I'll never know, caught up in your mystery, unable to see the truth behind the secrets. Maybe this is just what you enjoy, my hands on the pillow, my mouth open, my pupils as big and black as yours. My cries, the morning birds taking off together, as one, from the cherry tree outside the window.

I feel like an angel somehow, like my wings are crushed beneath me. The sunlight is warm on us both now, or maybe it's only us? Maybe the sun's not shining at all. Maybe there's a reason they call it "afterglow."

You moan once, arms trembling as you hold yourself in place above me, then smile again. Drowsy, sated, lopsided smile. Genuine. Charming. You sit up, pick me up, hold me in your lap for the longest time. You're writing on my back with your fingertips, tracing out words like "koibito," "gikun," "sakura," "kami," "wakarimasen," . . . "nemasu." You trace out the last one more time, kiss me gently and lay me down. Leaving again. All I can do is watch you, too tired to move, too scared to speak. You're moving in the morning light, your body a shifting canvas of white and gold, bending, stretching, now hiding. Please don't put your clothes on, I want to say. Just get back under the covers, just hold on to me. You'll never know how lonely I am. You'll never know how scared I am. You'll never know. You'll never know.

I suppose that's part of my mystery.

The morning birds serenade you a sweet sayonara as you slide the door closed behind you.