Shy

Her eyes found him again, after twenty ri, with the same expression, despite the death. The worm from her jaw winked at him, then burrowed back in the autumn chill.

The iron hat felt heavy on his neck, and his spear shook with each step. The others didn't notice, they only talked of the quaint rapes ahead. Nor did the boy holding her with his spear.

“Sir-”

He remembered when the boy stood over her with his sword, and her eyes found him- perhaps because of his lone sober expression, or his confidence with his weapon (when he killed her mother,) that she pleaded in that knowing manner.

“Sir.”

Her eyes were wide, but full of...strange hope and a final wish, her teeth were still like pearls sheathed in rosebuds. Despite the fire still was more afraid to be unmannered. She was more brave than he was at her age, or ever, just gulped down despite her fear, like a proper invitation.

“The honor should be yours.”

~

He remembered the boy over the girl, and the seven strokes the kid missed, he remembered those pearl-teeth shatter like porcelain with coils of  her dye- blood, remembered that perfect jaw unhinge, remembered her screams then. Remembered her screams now.

Her mother's head felt heavy on his spear tip, her cold unblemished cheeks shone brightly despite the two weeks without her proud body and her forty years. An expression of serene buddhahood with only a mild registration of displeasure. The boy was talking, bragging of his first kill, and the kills to come.

He felt those same eyes reflected back in the coming dawn. For some reason, he remembered...his first crush, who went home with her greatest mistake, with that tormentor. He remembered her brave proposal once, remembered her wanting to be his, when they were but kids. He remembered his shyness then- remembered himself walking away.


“It should have been me...” He thought.

Less selfish than all the times he thought such before.