![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fromastudio posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
almondinflowerLight Display
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Konomi-sensei's.
Length: about 500 words
Notes: Written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
telegraph50free's 'playing with fire' drabble request, except it got too long to be a drabble and then I thought I might as well make it do double duty. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
52_flavours, theme #15. Essentially a freewriting exercise (that's my excuse, anyway).
That morning it'd rained in Kanagawa for the first time in weeks, but at lunchtime a dry wind came out, and the sharp, heavy sun they'd grown accustomed to this summer blazed down on their necks. By the time they reached the abandoned field that evening the grass was dry and the puddles had evaporated into cool, rich air, the only traces of the earlier downpour being a hint of freshness in the surrounding leaves.
Sanada built the bonfire with his usual deadly competence; Jackal gathered kindling while Yanagi gathered the fireworks to keep them safe (so he said, and seemed to be looking straight at Kirihara as he did so and Kirihara shrugged and just looked over to the right where Yagyuu was looking at Niou and shaking his head, quite subtly, and Kirihara would have been relieved if he weren't wondering about the next one, the one that Yagyuu was going to nod his head to).
Preparations were well underway, and every time Kirihara offered to help Sanada ordered him to sit down and not do anything stupid and so he sat beneath a tree and swatted at flies and uprooted clumps of grass while watching the sunset change colours from white and orange to pink and indigo, streaks of yellow fading into blue as soft darkness covered the sky and distant mountains.
He was staring at the moon - a pale orb against shadow - when warmth nudged at his cheek. He turned to see Jackal holding out a long twig with a pink, burnt marshmallow speared on the end.
Kirihara leaned forward, caught it with his lips. The taste of smoke and sweetness melted in his mouth.
“Dinner's ready,” Jackal said, and, “Hurry up, they're all waiting for you.”
Dinner was obtained from a collection of plastic Tupperware, every last bite homemade except the marshmallows (while Sanada's talents probably did extend to campfire cooking, Marui refused to take the risk and insisted that his mother do the catering). Kirihara was on his fourth rice ball when he saw Yanagi crouched in a corner, fiddling with the sky rockets.
“Hey, Yanagi-sempai,” he said. “Don't start without us.”
Yanagi smiled and didn't bother to turn around. The flick of a match, a flare and then the sizzle of fire as it flew up above them, above the treetops, a silhouette of brightness against the sky: white, white, incandescent and light.
Kirihara watched the silver streaks explode and fall to earth and thought: Yukimura-buchou would love being here. He glanced at the shadows of Sanada's face flickering in the light of the fire, dark and alive, and did not say anything, just reached into Yanagi's backpack where the Catherine wheels were kept.
He lit all six of them, and threw.
The ground burst into colour, fizzle and snap and rainbow flame; strontium red and titanium white, spinning into violet, spinning into green. One wheel lost its momentum and started hopping across the grass, scattering little pieces of light as it went. Another went straight for Jackal's feet. A third wheel spun into the campfire, where it flared; the regulars all moved back at the sudden surge of blue and orange heat.
Sanada waited for the last one to die out before speaking. “Tomorrow morning, Akaya. One hundred laps.”
Kirihara nodded meekly, “Yes, Sanada-fukubuchou,” and noted that Sanada hadn't ordered him to leave the fireworks alone.
Yagyuu had taken the rest of the rockets and was lighting them one by one, turning the sky into a constant series of explosions. Niou was etching geometrical patterns in the ground with his sparkler. Marui took half a dozen scarlet candles and set them in a circle, a fairy ring of lights.
Kirihara picked up a candle and flicked his index finger back and forth through the flame: forward, back, forward, back – how many times until he got careless and got burned, he didn't know, and in the end it was not the fire that hurt him, but the liquid wax that rolled off the edges as he held the candle askew. It splashed onto his wrist and congealed there, little circles of red on brown skin.
He peeled off the wax and and went to join Sanada and Yanagi sitting by the fire, beneath the white moon and the black night and amidst the buzz of insects, the hiss of coloured light.
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Konomi-sensei's.
Length: about 500 words
Notes: Written for
telegraph50free's 'playing with fire' drabble request, except it got too long to be a drabble and then I thought I might as well make it do double duty. 52_flavours, theme #15. Essentially a freewriting exercise (that's my excuse, anyway). That morning it'd rained in Kanagawa for the first time in weeks, but at lunchtime a dry wind came out, and the sharp, heavy sun they'd grown accustomed to this summer blazed down on their necks. By the time they reached the abandoned field that evening the grass was dry and the puddles had evaporated into cool, rich air, the only traces of the earlier downpour being a hint of freshness in the surrounding leaves.
Sanada built the bonfire with his usual deadly competence; Jackal gathered kindling while Yanagi gathered the fireworks to keep them safe (so he said, and seemed to be looking straight at Kirihara as he did so and Kirihara shrugged and just looked over to the right where Yagyuu was looking at Niou and shaking his head, quite subtly, and Kirihara would have been relieved if he weren't wondering about the next one, the one that Yagyuu was going to nod his head to).
Preparations were well underway, and every time Kirihara offered to help Sanada ordered him to sit down and not do anything stupid and so he sat beneath a tree and swatted at flies and uprooted clumps of grass while watching the sunset change colours from white and orange to pink and indigo, streaks of yellow fading into blue as soft darkness covered the sky and distant mountains.
He was staring at the moon - a pale orb against shadow - when warmth nudged at his cheek. He turned to see Jackal holding out a long twig with a pink, burnt marshmallow speared on the end.
Kirihara leaned forward, caught it with his lips. The taste of smoke and sweetness melted in his mouth.
“Dinner's ready,” Jackal said, and, “Hurry up, they're all waiting for you.”
Dinner was obtained from a collection of plastic Tupperware, every last bite homemade except the marshmallows (while Sanada's talents probably did extend to campfire cooking, Marui refused to take the risk and insisted that his mother do the catering). Kirihara was on his fourth rice ball when he saw Yanagi crouched in a corner, fiddling with the sky rockets.
“Hey, Yanagi-sempai,” he said. “Don't start without us.”
Yanagi smiled and didn't bother to turn around. The flick of a match, a flare and then the sizzle of fire as it flew up above them, above the treetops, a silhouette of brightness against the sky: white, white, incandescent and light.
Kirihara watched the silver streaks explode and fall to earth and thought: Yukimura-buchou would love being here. He glanced at the shadows of Sanada's face flickering in the light of the fire, dark and alive, and did not say anything, just reached into Yanagi's backpack where the Catherine wheels were kept.
He lit all six of them, and threw.
The ground burst into colour, fizzle and snap and rainbow flame; strontium red and titanium white, spinning into violet, spinning into green. One wheel lost its momentum and started hopping across the grass, scattering little pieces of light as it went. Another went straight for Jackal's feet. A third wheel spun into the campfire, where it flared; the regulars all moved back at the sudden surge of blue and orange heat.
Sanada waited for the last one to die out before speaking. “Tomorrow morning, Akaya. One hundred laps.”
Kirihara nodded meekly, “Yes, Sanada-fukubuchou,” and noted that Sanada hadn't ordered him to leave the fireworks alone.
Yagyuu had taken the rest of the rockets and was lighting them one by one, turning the sky into a constant series of explosions. Niou was etching geometrical patterns in the ground with his sparkler. Marui took half a dozen scarlet candles and set them in a circle, a fairy ring of lights.
Kirihara picked up a candle and flicked his index finger back and forth through the flame: forward, back, forward, back – how many times until he got careless and got burned, he didn't know, and in the end it was not the fire that hurt him, but the liquid wax that rolled off the edges as he held the candle askew. It splashed onto his wrist and congealed there, little circles of red on brown skin.
He peeled off the wax and and went to join Sanada and Yanagi sitting by the fire, beneath the white moon and the black night and amidst the buzz of insects, the hiss of coloured light.
