#((more soseki hc than opium au but close enough))

[sosekisuggestions]

❖ What is something that you regret deeply?

((I am very sorry for the delay. I’m a hella slow writer. Also, long post, be ye warned, people. Also has more dialogue than usual, so yay!))

There was no denying that Sensei was a storyteller.

The very first story that he wrote was about a calico cat who watches over humans. It was similar to a children’s book in its humor, in its persistence to laugh at all the wrongdoings. He wrote about humans like they were shadows, but there was this sincere breath of life to them and it turned him into the beloved author that he was to this day.

His friends at the military would hear his stories with childlike joy. He would tell them stories during his watch duty like it was nothing but a night in the campfire. The scent of burning oil filled the room while shadows of the rabbit, the owl, and the cat appeared on the wall, all made from the shapes of his hands.

He told them about home. He told them about family, about friends, about the loved ones they will come back to. Anything to keep them away from the war.

“–her name is Mei An.”

He couldn’t remember the soldier’s face. He could have been like any other ones with the silver badges adorning his chest and the rifle settled by his side. All he remembered was the picture of the child he always carried. A little girl, seven years old. She had the brightest smile he had ever seen.

“I can’t stop thinking about my daughter.” The soldier’s fingertips caressed the edge of the photograph like one would wipe tears from a child’s eyes. “In six months, it’s going to be over. The war is going to end. It has to.”

“…and why is that?” Sensei asked him.

He could see the soldier’s mind wandering. Those eyes were gentle, like a man who has found his life’s meaning. “Mei An’s birthday. It’s a nice thought, isn’t it, coming home to a wife and child? Coming home to the ones you love?”

He knew better than to share his vulnerable moments in the face of another. You’re loving a shadow, they would say. “Have you thought about what you’re going to get her? A present, maybe?”

“Oh, I’ve got something better than a present - me!”

The soldier laughed at his own joke. It was terrible, so terrible and Sensei couldn’t help but grin at it.

“I think of her, you know? I think of her when I get up in the morning. I think of her when I’m about to fight out there. I think of her when I’m laying down on the ground, when my life was about to flash before my eyes. I don’t care what will happen. I will live on for her, that’s all that matters.”

The soldier paused to look at the rifle in his arms, like he was cradling a newborn baby.

“I miss my daughter. I miss her so much,” he continued. “Do you know what frightens me? My wife wrote to me about her. She said Mei An’s sick, terribly sick. She’s warning me, she’s warning me to end this war soon. She’s warning me that Mei An is going to leave me. She’s warning me that this is going to be the last time that I will ever see my daughter again.”

He remembered bowing to him. It was a bow meant for a friend, an inspiring person - a father.

They were only humans. They live for the sake of their loved ones. They do not live for the sake of war, no matter what the blood on their hands told them. They will never be able to run from the remorse, from the loss, not until they became shadows, until they linger to remind them of what they have done.

“My friend, I wish you safe journeys. May you return home to your daughter’s side for her birthday.”

He saw his friend’s smile before the other bowed back.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

The soldier never made it home. Blood loss. Shot multiple times through the lungs. Six months later, all Mei An got for her birthday was a letter from the military about her father. She’s dead now.

Sensei needed to forget.

He should have known that it was impossible.

All the people that he met and all the people that he lost, they became shadows. He wrote about all that he had seen so terribly. The love he felt for the woman he lost, the regret he had for committing his crimes, the guilt he felt for outliving his comrades, all the wrongdoings, all of the pain - reduced to a corrupt comedy.

One night Sensei told a story about the afterlife. He told the military boys about the world had come to end and the time when all of life will wait for their final judgement.

“What have you done in your life?” He asked, deepening his voice to resemble a sentient, godly being. “What have you done with your time in the world?”

His hands formed the shapes of animals. First it was the rabbit, and then the owl, and then the cat.

“I ate and I made children,” ‘the animals’ said.

That was all that animals said. He spoke in their place, highly-pitched and silly-sounding, and he sent his storytelling audience into bouts of roaring laughter. He spoke the words, over and over, forming one shadow after another. He never failed to make them smile.

The laughter never stopped until Sensei put his fists on top of each other against the light. A shadow of a human face was seen on the wall.

“What have you done in your life?” He asked, deepening his voice to resemble a sentient, godly being. “What have you done with your time in the world?”

“I have learned.” ‘The human’ spoke. “I have learned to love and to care, to win and to lose, to feel pain and to feel pleasure, to fear and to suffer. To dream, to hope, to struggle, and to regret. I have committed many crimes. I have done terrible things, but still I cherished my time in the world. I have learned my lesson and I have passed them down to my children after me.”

There was silence before he made the sentient being speak again.

“And what happened to your children?”

He pulled his hands away. The shadows were gone. All that’s left was a man who has seen too much of everything.

“They died in the war.”

send me a ❖ + a question and my muse will be forced to tell the truth.

❖ What is something that you regret deeply?

Losing all those people. 

[sosekisuggestions]

Hot Chocolate?

((I’m so sorry about the lateness. I hope you don’t mind that I turned this another part of the opium!au hc for Natsume Soseki since I do think for this question he has a broader sense of the word and thus would be more comprehensible if it’s answered in narrative format. Long post, be warned.))

Sensei always thought the power of words to be… overwhelming.

He was a writer. His words, full of wise oaths carefully chosen on pieces of paper, were his best weapon. He had the power to turn the raging storm into teardrops, to turn ignorance into blissful curiosity, to turn even the tales of sorrow into stories of heroes and saviors of children. His words, in their truest form of sincerity, were powerful.

‘Love’, however, was a weaker word for him to use.

Love, for lack of a better word, is overused. To him, love is being a friend when his temporary owners needed their calico cat to cope with their problems. Love is being a parent when he had to stay in subdued grief while his troubled family unfolds before him. Love is being a martyr when the woman he fell for depended on opium and he had to work through sleepless nights just to keep her happy.

'All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players’.

Shakespeare. An old favorite.

Sensei couldn’t help but wonder just how sincere those words are. Cold and brutal, like sincerity ought to be, but still he cherished the people he met, all the memories they shared together gazed back at him while his clock winds and he nears his wait for the last chime. There was, however, a certain warmth he felt when he laid on his bed, thinking that today could be his last, and he waited for the night that he would slip into an eternal slumber. There was warmth in remembering those who came and those who left in his fleeting little life. There was warmth in knowing that he had a remarkable ride with all those people.

Love is a weaker word. It simply wasn’t enough. It’s too simple to describe what he felt. All the gain and loss, all the joy and suffering, it wouldn’t be fair to label them as a two-syllable word that rendered its own meaning useless and vague and fickle to the people who don’t have the slightest clue of what it’s like to grow old, to watch those he cared for leave him behind while he wallowed in the shrieking nothingness as he waited for his time to come ever so slowly.

…There is, however, a more powerful word. He called it 'affection’.

He held her close. He didn’t have his pen and paper. His tongue felt weak just like the rest of his body, but still he had his arms wrapped around her while she cried to her heart’s content on his shoulder.

This word, 'affection’ - it confounded him. These warm yet simple gestures, they somehow managed to speak in a thousand more words than he could ever try to the people that he loved.

He always had a way with words.

His words were fierce and bold when he stood on the blackened sands of Yokohama, his vows of bravery sharp against the cannon’s mouth to his comrades of war.

His words were calm and soothing when he stood before his disciples, his whispers of fatherly pride piercing through their lost gazes while they seek him for guidance.

His words were mute when he was with that woman. Her tongue lashed out to him like a horrific game of hangman until she broke down in front of him.

She was the madness that he had to live with in the early years of his life, and when she turned a deaf ear to him he could do nothing but watch her scream like some penitent drunk because, oh, how miserable she was without those wretched drugs! How sad it was to see her lying down and getting wasted on the bed while he had his fingers battered in blood because of her! Oh, how hurting it must be for her inside her own mind even though she was the one hurting him, forcing him to watch as she turned from the woman that he once loved turning into this pitiful creature that hurts him everyday because of how much he still cares about her!

His words were not overwhelming, but he couldn’t even admit that.

“Why won’t you say anything?”

He wanted to tell her he loved her. He wanted to tell her how much he loved her, how he never wanted her to succumb to her madness, and yet his words never came. He held her still, in this affectionate embrace, because his words failed him and there was nothing more he could do.

“I’ve got nothing to say.”

Cafe Asks ☕️ Hot Chocolate : Are you an affectionate person?

Perhaps I am, to the ones I love.