Fanfic: Symbols, 1/1
Feb. 27th, 2006 02:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieTitle: Symbols
Fandom: Fushigi Yuugi
AN/Summary: This is basically a result of Tamahome saying that he used to hate to have the symbol on his forehead and the fact that well, it's right there for all to see, not like he has the luxury of hiding it under clothes. Plus, I wanted to write child Tamahome. Concrit welcome. Please.
Tamahome is on the verge of noticing that girls are pretty. He is still new to the feeling that they aren’t just pig-tailed, shrill-voiced nuisances that get you in trouble when they first demand you play with them and then complain and get you in trouble all over again when you play too rough and mess up their clothes. He isn't sure whether this revelation in his world-view is a good thing or something else to worry about, like the fact that his mother yells at him when he ruins his clothes(which he inevitably and regularly does) or the fact the his father is coughing again, or that his new brother cries and keeps Tamahome up half the night.
He becomes aware of the fact anew when he sees a pretty girl, a year or two older, stare at him and tug at her mother's hand. They are at a rare family excursion, a traveling market in the neighboring village. Tamahome's been looking forward to the treat all week, and now his mother has much ado just holding on to his hand and seeing that he doesn't get into more mischief than the family can afford to pay for (which means none at all). He stares and stares and tries to absorb the booths and the crowd and the new faces and the colors and the smells. But for a moment, he loses interest in all of that as the girl keeps looking at him. His cheeks feel hot, he draws himself to his meager inches (the growth spurt will come, but it's not here yet and he spends an inordinate amount of time measuring himself and envying the bigger boys in the village), and he fights an urge to wipe his (sweaty, grimy) hands on his shirt. The girl's hair is twisted in elaborate plaits and he is torn between a desire to yank at her hair (yesterday) and to touch it and see how pretty it glints at the sun (today).
The girl is mere feet away from him. Her mother, together with Tamahome's mother, and what looks like half the women in the village, are dawdling around a booth full of shiny cheap jewelry: beads, necklaces, cracked rings. Tamahome starts to smile (he is trying to determine when it's permitted to show interest and to acknowledge her stare but the rules are murky in his head) when the stranger’s mother finally looks up and he hears the girl loudly ask her "Why does that boy have that symbol on his head? Look, look. Moooooooom." (the last syllable is drawn out interminably in a child's time-honored whine.) He feels his smile stop on his face, incomplete, a half curled smile folding on itself. If he was old enough, it would be a grimace. He keeps staring as the mother shushes the girl, whispering, but still audible: "Don't stare. Who knows. Maybe his parents did it to him." They walk away but the girl sticks her tongue out at him in parting, when her mother is looking the other way.
Suddenly, Tamahome remembers last spring when some of the older boys, bored and looking for sport of some kind, made fun of the symbol on his forehead. The teasing drove him mad and when his eyes cleared and his temper slowed, the jokers were on the ground and there were a few bloody noses, including his own.
He also remembers running home and falling in his haste, skinning his knee. As he lay sprawled in the dirt, he tried to rub dust into the hated symbol over and over, as if he could make it disappear by sheer force of will. Dirt mixed with blood and by the time he got home his face was a mess and he got in trouble for ruining his shirt, but what he remembered the most was lying in bed that evening (after the fight, and the scolding, and everything) and feeling his forehead and the familiar shape still there and thinking it would never ever come off.
He thought he would never get over it, would never forget it. Ever. Of course, boy like, he was on to something new by the morning, but the feeling never went away, not really. He realizes that because the girl’s stare brings it all back anew, and he feels an urge to rub at his forehead, or to hide. He feels as if he’s been branded.
His mother's voice draws his attention away: the family are about to find a place to sit down to eat. Like most active boys of his age he is always hungry so he follows her readily. But as he does so, he presses his bangs on his forehead with his free hand. The shame remains a whisper in his mind, something glimpsed out of the corners of his eyes.
Fandom: Fushigi Yuugi
AN/Summary: This is basically a result of Tamahome saying that he used to hate to have the symbol on his forehead and the fact that well, it's right there for all to see, not like he has the luxury of hiding it under clothes. Plus, I wanted to write child Tamahome. Concrit welcome. Please.
Tamahome is on the verge of noticing that girls are pretty. He is still new to the feeling that they aren’t just pig-tailed, shrill-voiced nuisances that get you in trouble when they first demand you play with them and then complain and get you in trouble all over again when you play too rough and mess up their clothes. He isn't sure whether this revelation in his world-view is a good thing or something else to worry about, like the fact that his mother yells at him when he ruins his clothes(which he inevitably and regularly does) or the fact the his father is coughing again, or that his new brother cries and keeps Tamahome up half the night.
He becomes aware of the fact anew when he sees a pretty girl, a year or two older, stare at him and tug at her mother's hand. They are at a rare family excursion, a traveling market in the neighboring village. Tamahome's been looking forward to the treat all week, and now his mother has much ado just holding on to his hand and seeing that he doesn't get into more mischief than the family can afford to pay for (which means none at all). He stares and stares and tries to absorb the booths and the crowd and the new faces and the colors and the smells. But for a moment, he loses interest in all of that as the girl keeps looking at him. His cheeks feel hot, he draws himself to his meager inches (the growth spurt will come, but it's not here yet and he spends an inordinate amount of time measuring himself and envying the bigger boys in the village), and he fights an urge to wipe his (sweaty, grimy) hands on his shirt. The girl's hair is twisted in elaborate plaits and he is torn between a desire to yank at her hair (yesterday) and to touch it and see how pretty it glints at the sun (today).
The girl is mere feet away from him. Her mother, together with Tamahome's mother, and what looks like half the women in the village, are dawdling around a booth full of shiny cheap jewelry: beads, necklaces, cracked rings. Tamahome starts to smile (he is trying to determine when it's permitted to show interest and to acknowledge her stare but the rules are murky in his head) when the stranger’s mother finally looks up and he hears the girl loudly ask her "Why does that boy have that symbol on his head? Look, look. Moooooooom." (the last syllable is drawn out interminably in a child's time-honored whine.) He feels his smile stop on his face, incomplete, a half curled smile folding on itself. If he was old enough, it would be a grimace. He keeps staring as the mother shushes the girl, whispering, but still audible: "Don't stare. Who knows. Maybe his parents did it to him." They walk away but the girl sticks her tongue out at him in parting, when her mother is looking the other way.
Suddenly, Tamahome remembers last spring when some of the older boys, bored and looking for sport of some kind, made fun of the symbol on his forehead. The teasing drove him mad and when his eyes cleared and his temper slowed, the jokers were on the ground and there were a few bloody noses, including his own.
He also remembers running home and falling in his haste, skinning his knee. As he lay sprawled in the dirt, he tried to rub dust into the hated symbol over and over, as if he could make it disappear by sheer force of will. Dirt mixed with blood and by the time he got home his face was a mess and he got in trouble for ruining his shirt, but what he remembered the most was lying in bed that evening (after the fight, and the scolding, and everything) and feeling his forehead and the familiar shape still there and thinking it would never ever come off.
He thought he would never get over it, would never forget it. Ever. Of course, boy like, he was on to something new by the morning, but the feeling never went away, not really. He realizes that because the girl’s stare brings it all back anew, and he feels an urge to rub at his forehead, or to hide. He feels as if he’s been branded.
His mother's voice draws his attention away: the family are about to find a place to sit down to eat. Like most active boys of his age he is always hungry so he follows her readily. But as he does so, he presses his bangs on his forehead with his free hand. The shame remains a whisper in his mind, something glimpsed out of the corners of his eyes.
