Tamayo And The Storm Of Time

tamayo and the storm of time

yushiro x lady tamayo (demon slayer post-muzan’s death)

MANGA SPOILERS

He is sinking through a dream, a dream flushed with emotions. Images cascading in dozens behind his closed eyelids, like fireworks tracing burning images into his mind. He sees an infinitely-huge palace, he sees dead bodies, he sees splatters of blood. 

His cheeks are wet with tears, and his hands stained with the vivid red of blood. His heart is racing past the point of no return, deep, hot anger flooding his veins and dizzying his mind into a delirious state. Sadness pools beneath the lava of fury, the cold shards of despair and sorrow digging cruelly into his heart. Somewhere, at the back of his mind, he can see a woman clothed in an elegant kimono, her skin a delicate lily white, her face lit up with a benevolent smile. 

He calls out her name, but she fades to black—it is only then he remembers she is dead. 

—————

There are some things you never really forget. 

Memories are like rocks. Some, with the passage of time, have years weathered at them. They are discarded; they are faded; they are nothing but a wisp of a long-lost dream. Time is the persistent lapping of seawater against stone; it never stops coming, never stops trying to wear them down and steal them away from their owner. 

But others are different. Others, despite one’s best and most desperate attempts to offer them up to the hands of Time, still remain cruelly imprinted in one’s mind. Time fades to nothing in the face of these memories. They remain cruelly, brilliantly, remarkably vivid. 

Some try to shove them deep down. Some have taken their lives in sacrifice to those memories. Some pray with tightly clenched hands and repeat them in words to their therapists. 

Yushiro prefers to paint. 

It’s a form of expression for him, as it is with many. On the surface level, it is therapeutic—to capture one’s thoughts and emotions within the net of their mind and drag it out to render it forever in vivid oils and brilliant acrylics. Freezing time within the confines of a canvas. To Yushiro, painting feels like he is reaching into his past, carving those moments forever in paint and colour. And within the mad rush of time and its infinite rampage to the future, painting for Yushiro captures and imprisons the essence of the past before time sweeps them all away and out of his reach. It gives him a rest point, somewhere in that painted little world where he can rest, undisturbed by time. 

He remembers the early years after Muzan’s death. Those years where he was so wrecked, so broken by Lady Tamayo’s death. It wasn’t easy, dragging himself out of the deep canyon of madness and heartbreak. The ghost of Tamayo still clawed at his mind, whispering sweet nothings, planting aches into his heart, etching it in his soul over and over again with taunting sweetness, only to forcefully remind him that his lady was, in fact, dead. 

He remembers his eyes stinging, tears spilling over and streaming down his cheeks. Days of locking himself up in dark rooms and mourning his lady. Days of mechanically cleaning the house he and Tamayo once shared, dusting and polishing everything just the way she liked it. Burying his face in her kimonos, trying to reincarnate her image through her scent on the clothing, crying his eyes out. Most demons couldn’t cry, as their eyes were always moist, but when Yushiro was transformed into a demon by Tamayo’s hand, he could cry—and he liked that, because it was proof he was special. 

But after her death, he couldn’t see the point in being special. When she died, it seemed as if all meaning was leached from his eternal life. And when he reached that point in time, everything started to feel meaningless. Just day after day, century after century, a mindless ghost drifting in the swift oceans of time, an idiot who couldn’t do anything to save his one and only love, an idiot without any purpose. 

It was Tanjiro, then, who suggested he should take up painting. “You should try painting, Yushiro,” the burgundy-haired boy had urged. “Or music, sculpture—any form of expression, really. It can help cope with the loss.”

Yushiro was dubious, then he picked up a brush, and began the path of an artist. 

It wasn’t easy—he had no prior experience, but dedication and passion he had in leaps and bounds, and he remembers the first successful painting he managed to do. Oil on canvas—a portrait of Lady Tamayo. He had no reference, no muse, but the image of his lady was crystal clear in his mind, never to fade, and he remembers gazing at his painting, thinking wow, this looks so much like her. 

He cried, then. 

Because it felt like he could reincarnate another Tamayo, something to help soothe the lingering gap of her loss. Like he could reach into the canvas and relive his life with her again. It was like a shrine to her and his memories of her, little bits of canvas that could perhaps construct a lasting image of her he could never part with. That is painting, something so powerful it can freeze time forever. Infinite; the way his feelings are infinite, the way they persist in time’s eternal march, never withering away. 

…God, he missed his lady. 

He still does, now. 

Missing someone is like a chord ringing out in music, layered on by texture and instrument and harmony. Like threads entwined together in a multitude of colours. Missing Tamayo is like a constant, throbbing ache scratching at his heart, running through his ventricles, hued with a quiet grief and a faint cry of anger, dyed with faded happiness over their time together. It is a palette of emotions, a colour of mourning, a sound of pain. 

It’s when the chord of pain thrums out in his chest that Yushiro starts drawing. Taking out his paints and etching his emotions in colours and acrylics. And when his lady, the only one he’s ever loved, appears in a shroud of vibrant colours… 

The paintbrush dances. 

…Even if it’s only a painting, only a laughable replica on canvas, Yushiro feels himself slipping into his art, blindly grasping, helplessly searching—all for a world where his lady still lived. 

Today, he searches again. 

Yushiro has painted many pieces of Tamayo, the last reigning at piece number 1,012. Each one is a different commemoration to his love, each one is a blazing shock of Tamayo’s brilliance and light. Yushiro usually paints in bright colours, but today, he opens a bucket of muted blue. 

Blocks of blue streaked across the canvas, grey undertones to highlight the depth of his love. 

A plain beige coalescing into aqua. 

His paintbrush jumps and turns along to the beats of his heart—never stopping, never ending. 

Dancing to the waltz, tracing the curvature of Tamayo’s smile, shading the depth of her eyes, sketching delicate hands disappearing into waves of indigo silk. 

Waves crash against each other according to the orchestration of Yushiro’s brush—a requiem of colour, a maestro of shade. Swishes of white capping the storm of moving water, forceful as time, unforgiving as time. 

In his little dream world of paint and acrylic, Tamayo is standing in the eye of the storm, an elegant figure outlined in ocean and water, smiling even as chaos rage around her. 

She is smiling, and she is laughing. Her eyes are so incredibly, beautifully violet; they thrum chords and melodies in Yushiro’s soul. Yushiro’s breath hitches as the paintbrush dances to the Tamayo in his heart, singing as notes cascade against each other. 

Sliding down in arpeggios. 

Before long, the last strokes flourish the painting, and the artist is hunched over, hair falling into his eyes as he pants, and tears bubble up at the shores of his eyes, spilling over in a single, mournful drop. 

His heart is a storm and Tamayo is in the centre of it. The never changing central figure, even as the tsunamis and hurricanes of time rage and crash all around her. 

And all these waves and water and storms are crying and screaming, howling in rage and pain, because the lady, his lady who was meant to control it is gone, purely a faded image in Yushiro’s mind. Dead, never to be reincarnated again, never to be present to calm the storm in his heart. 

Yushiro cries and cries and cries-

—————

The following day, a notification of a new post in the Instagram art account @yushiro_yamamoto rings the phones of millions of people worldwide. The post is simple—just an image of a painting, and a caption. 

Tamayo in the Storm of Time. 

reference: timothee chalamet

it’s an interesting new style i’m trying out specifically for portrait drawing

falling angel

falling angel

falling angels are kind of overdone, but this was great practice in skin and wing practice! this is inspiring my latest angel drawing craze.

also the style is kind of new but i like it; it’s just a bit heavy on my hand 😔

poem for the drawing:

through the stars stained into the galaxy

and the iridescence of your feathers

kissing the sky and sun and moon

sin tainting the lips meant to pray

you

you

angels are truly more beautiful as they fall

Quivering

Reference: Kenshi Yonezu

headcanon that regulus is scared of the dark and the cold. until sirius left, and he was forced to fight them on his own until an attachment forms

the only real smile

nagi seishiro x reo mikage (pre-blue lock setting)

Nagi’s used to walking through the school gates alone, without trouble, without glances and whispers and outright cheers. 

Now, whenever he sets foot into the campus, the students around him erupt into cheers, fangirling, screams…but it’s not for him. Every time, it’s directed to the boy whose arm is slung over his neck, or the boy cycling the bike in front of him with his purple sweet-smelling hair tickling Nagi’s face. The popular top student who chanced upon Nagi sitting in a dreary stairwell, playing video games where he wouldn’t be interrupted, and convinced him to play soccer with him. 

Mikage Reo. Hakuho High’s pride and joy, top student, brilliant athlete, president of the football club. The young purple-haired boy also happens to be the heir of the Mikage Corporation. His last name screams power and wealth. Reo might as well be the most popular student in the school. 

And who wouldn’t like Reo? He’s kind, smart, generous, well-behaved, and trained in etiquette. More importantly, he pampers Nagi, he makes sure Nagi’s comfortable, he treats Nagi like, well, his treasure, which is what Reo likes to refer to him as. 

Reo says he and Nagi will become the best soccer players in the world together, and as much as Nagi thinks it’ll be a pain, he can’t help but look forward to that bright, promising future…the both of them on the world’s pedestal, the very and ultimate top. 

Nagi Seishiro and Mikage Reo. The world’s ultimate duo. 

It kind of sounds nice. Like something out of a video game. 

And so because he wants to attain that wonderful, enthralling title, he puts up with Reo’s long and methodical rituals and routines. He sticks with Reo’s training schedules, he plays exactly how he knows Reo wants him to play. It’s worth it at the end, when it’s just the two of them on the grassy field, when the sun is melting into evening, and they’re cycling home and his nose is buried in Reo’s hair, the citrusy sweet scent of lemon flooding his nose and making him want to fall asleep. 

That being said, one thing he does have to put up with is Reo’s gigantic fanclub. 

Like this one girl, he doesn’t remember her name, but she’s unnecessary and a pain and irritating when she runs up to Reo and presents him with a tacky pink handmade card and chocolate in a heart-shaped box. 

“Reo-kun, please accept this confession from me!”

And then the girl tries to show off her chest to Reo, in a pitiful attempt that doesn’t go unnoticed by Nagi. What he notices too is the legion of girls hiding behind the corner, eyeing his partner with starry eyes, eyes that he’s sure misses the real Reo behind all the fanfare and shine to his surname. 

See, these irritating girls, all they see in Reo is his Mikage name. Their dreams with him are positively drowning in the wealth of his last name, gilded in gold and adorned with jewels. They map out the fastest way to becoming Mrs. Mikage, they’re only charmed by his wealth and the smiling facade he puts on day after day for the masses. 

A pain, all of them. 

Because he knows the true Reo. He’s the only one who experienced Reo as a partner. Reo with his hands, scarred and calloused like an athlete’s, in his hair. Reo’s intoxicating lemon scent. Reo lavishing care on him, treating him like a treasure worth more than all the gold and jewels in the world. He’s the only one that gets to see that side of Reo, the soccer fanatic side who has that sparkling gleam of triumph after a match they won together, the intense side brimming with passion over his favourite sport, the hopeful side who maps out his dreams and Nagi’s dreams and unites them. 

All these other girls, they’ve never seen what he’s seen. 

An unfamiliar feeling rises up his insides; it scorches his guts and throat and rips a bitter hole in his heart. He doesn’t like this feeling. It’s very troublesome. It’s a feeling borne from all these nuisances crowding him and Reo, a feeling so dizzying it makes his head spin and his heart ache, a feeling that causes bile to itch at his tongue. 

He shouldn’t have to have Reo around all these girls. Reo shouldn’t be spending his precious time with them. Reo shouldn’t be lavishing those beautiful, sparkling smiles Nagi loves on those girls, those girls who don't deserve the pleasure of Reo’s smile, even if it’s a fake smile. 

None of it. 

So he tugs at Reo’s shirtsleeve to get his attention, and when quizzical, beautiful almond-shaped eyes turn to him in inquiry, he bodily drags him away, shouldering past all the other girls towards their classroom. He doesn’t care when they glare at him, when they whine and try to wheedle Reo into staying, but even if Reo agrees Nagi doesn’t agree, and he’s hauling Reo away from that crowd of irritations no matter what. 

Reo’s confused, to say the least. He tries to impress upon Nagi the ruination of his reputation if he leaves so abruptly when they reach a secluded corner, but the words queuing up on his tongue wither into ashes at the look on Nagi’s face. 

It’s intense. It’s the sort of look Nagi gets when he’s scoring a particularly enthralling super goal. The warm honey colour is slowly taking on a deep and hungry black, a poisonous and intoxicating sort of primal desire screaming promises of chaos and destruction. It’s at this moment when Reo is reminded of just how powerful and dangerous his treasure is, of how he lives for that look in his eyes, when Nagi’s laziness is stripped away for something dark and raw and emotional. 

“Never,” he says, and his words drip intensity, “hang out with those girls again. It’s troublesome for me.”

“E-eh?” Reo stutters, somewhat shocked. “But, you know, I really have to—”

“Please, Reo. It’s troublesome. It makes me angry.”

Nagi, who expresses everything within the lines of “it’s troublesome”, who has such pale and almost nonexistent emotions, saying that he’s angry, with such an intense look on his face?

Reo almost never sees this side of him. 

Nagi waits for his answer, the anger burning hot in him, apparent in his eyes, concentrated on Reo. He waits for argument, he waits for complaints, and maybe, maybe just a little part of him is tensed up for when Reo walks away from him, disappointed and tired with him. 

But then Reo just breaks out into a smile, one of those brilliant, raw ones without any hint of pretence—the smile only Nagi gets to see, not those girls. A part of Nagi laughs triumphantly at the fact that only he gets to see Reo’s real smile, not the fake turn of lips he puts on for the crowd…

“Okay, Nagi. Whatever my treasure wants.” 

…See that? It’s Nagi’s win.