Consecration

[bookwyrmling]

I got the idea for this, believe it or not, from the song Black Velvet.

Title: Consecration

Rating: G

Characters: Echizen Ryoma, Tezuka Kunimitsu

Disclaimer: Still saving up the yen.  I mean, a girl can dream, right?

Consecration

The sun shimmers in the humid August evening.  Red light filters through the train tracks to trace patterns on the clay court.  The heat of the day has already peaked, but Echizen can feel it radiating off the ground, through his soles and socks and climbing up his legs.  He wipes his wrist band across his brow, but it is all too damp to do much good.

He breathes in.

He breathes out.

Tezuka serves and Echizen rushes to return.

It would be a drug if it was not what it already was; this game that had never been just that.  Wordless conversation.  Communion.  Each pok of the ball against racket, against ground, is a prayer.  Neither player wants to leave a single one unanswered.

The smell of summer and tennis, of clay and sweat and a newly opened can of balls, encircles them, incense swaying to and fro and to and fro, from one side of the court to the other.  It hypnotizes and consumes and is liable to leave one drunk if they partake of this sacrament for too long.  A train passing by blows its horn and the clattering overhead disappears along with the surrounding world until it is just Tezuka, Echizen and Tennis -- which is always so much more than what it had been until that very moment.

It is an act of creation.  An act of sacrifice and rebirth and celebration.  An act of redemption and sanctification.

The cadence breaks and the tennis ball clangs and rattles against the metal fence: 6 games all.

Echizen smirks.

Tezuka bows to receive.

The serve: toss and smack; supplication.  The return: a direct reply; affirmation and benediction.  The cadence resumes, a tune of heavy breaths and thwocks and grunts and footsteps and sighs rising through the sunset-painted summer sky.

Together, they worship.

Together, they become gods.

Comments

[cloverminx.livejournal.com]

This was brief, but very effective. I like how you use the religious motifs as an encompassing metaphor, up until the very end, when the actual story transcends it. I'm sorry if I'm not making any sense; I'm not very good at articulating the feelings I get when I read this fic.

Speaking of saving up the yen, one of my dreams is to travel to Japan and visit Tokyo (Akihabara!), Kyoto, and many other places there. ^_^

[bookwyrmling.livejournal.com]

Wheee! Thank you so much! Life has been so insane recently and I have been wanting to write a reply to this for the past week and a half. And don't worry about not making any sense, because I understand at least enough of it to see you got the point XD

I don't write vignettes often because they can be hard to work with, but, yes, they transcend the barriers of the metaphor, of religion, and that was the whole point!

And goodness, Japan is so amazing and I want to go back one day. I only spent one day in Tokyo (morning in Harajuku, afternoon in Asakusa) and the rest was spent in the city of Mito (totally want to go back there during the plum blossom season). I never even got to check out anywhere else, so I'd still love to check out more of the Kantou region, the Kansai region, Hokkaido, Okinawa...basically everywhere...if only I could just travel the world without ever having to worry about the money required to do so *laughs*. I'd never stop.