Priorities

Priorities

Ooooops! It almost fell! 😂

"Have you ever thought of marriage?" Haku asks bluntly.

You blink, taken aback by the suddenness of his words.

"What kind of question is that?" you huff out a laughter, wiping your dusty kitchen's counter to keep your hands occupied, otherwise he'd see the way you'd clench your fingers.

However, you still touch your bare ring finger with your thumb.

You see Haku shrug from the corner of your eyes. "Just something I thought of asking."

You hum, slowly dragging your trusty old rag over a spot that was already free of stains and dust, in order to keep your eyes fixed anywhere but him. You think something you're not ready for might happen if you look into his eyes.

"Do you want the simple answer or the honest answer?"

"Is there a difference between them?"

You nod.

"The honest answer, then."

You clear your throat. You turn your back towards him and rummage through your cabinets, looking for nothing at all. A tightness in your throat is the warning sign of a dam you wish not to break.

"I used not to care about it. Didn't feel like it mattered." you murmur, not very confident in the stability of your voice.

"But...?"

"But after the curse, I... Things were put into perspective. I started thinking about mundane things, like marriage. Since I might... since I might not be able to get married, I began thinking about it. What would it be like."

You bite your bottom lip hard, willing the tears that threatened to pool in your eyes to go away.

Haku chuckles and it sounds bitter. Tired.

"We do love to think about things we can't have, don't we?"

You will yourself to turn around to see what kind of expression he was making, but you quicky wish you didn't.

You see longing, desire and despair swirling on his amber eyes like his love is water and he's oil. Meanwhile, you're a third, rotten element that needs to be contained, far far away from him. Because you do. And soon enough, you might have to.

You stand before him. The kitchen counter that stands between you two could very well be an endless ocean, and the distance would feel the same.

"Interesting how we only wish to be normal when we lose all normalcy, huh?" he asks, a crooked smile upon his face as he rests his head on one of his hands.

You wonder how long he has felt like this. Did it begin to feel worse after he met you? Does he think of you in white and in flowers just like you think of him standing on an altar when you can't sleep at night?

You place the palm of your hand on the counter, closer to him, yet afraid to touch. You can't touch. You can't taste happiness only to have it pried from your hands afterward.

"I wish I could be normal with you." you blurt out, but the embarrassment doesn't come. You know these words just cut a deeper wound inside the both of you.

His breath hitches, and he looks down at your hand, swallowing hard.

Haku runs his index finger over your ring finger, painfully gentle with the ghost of a touch. And he whispers, more to himself than to you.

"So do I."

Chrysina Limbata: a silver scarab beetle found only in mid-altitude forests of Costa Rica and western Panama. Their reflective appearance is achieved through thin film interference with layers of chitin in their shells.

RITA HAYWORTH in YOU WERE NEVER LOVELIER — 1942, dir. William A. Seiter

As expected