Paradise Lost- Oh, Purest Love
—————————————————————————
Suguru is the first to wake up that morning. The golden beams of sun are poking through the ivy covered hut and resting on the cheeks of the man next to him. His white hair and eye lashes take on the suns color and Suguru is amazed that his love could look any more beautiful.
He is just as beautiful as they day god had created him and yet staring at him like this never was a bore and never dulled his beauty.
“God must have unimaginable power to have created someone with such immeasurable beauty as you. You are the true power of his divinity.” He whispers to the sleeping face.
Without ever opening his eyes, Satoru replies in a hushed voice, “I come from your rib, my dearest one. I am so glad to have part of you within me.”
They lay and smile at each other, blushes on their cheeks as if this was the first time they’d met.
——————
The morning was spent bathing in a pond, taking the time to gently clean each other. Maybe it was all an excuse to feel the other’s skin or to show affection through rubbing suds into the other’s scalp.
Once out of their bath, they tended to their many animals and hundreds of varieties of plants.
As he was watering a patch of grass, Satoru came upon a purple flower with wild tendrils striped with white at their bases. If he remembered correctly, Suguru had named the only one he’d ever found Passion as the gardens they tended to were a passion of his and that flower seemed a fitting reward for such a thing. Without a second thought, he plucked it from the ground to bring it to him.
He found Suguru laying in the grass surrounded by deer, foxes, bears, all snoring in harmony around him.
“Napping without me?” Satoru looked down and asked, his tone showing more endearment than annoyance.
“I was waiting for you. You know I can’t sleep without you by my side.” Suguru smiled without ever opening his eyes.
Satoru stood for a moment longer, watching the slow rise and fall of the other man’s chest and how his expression could only be described as one of utter peace.
It was so beautiful.
Without a word, Satoru took up an open patch of grass to the side of Suguru and rested beside him.
“Hey Suguru, look at me for a moment.”
Suguru obediently tuned his head to the side and cracked an eye open.
“Hm?”
“A flower for you.” Satoru answered, taking a finger to brush Suguru’s hair back behind his ear and tuck the flower stem into it.
“Divine man, full of beauty, god could never give me a greater treasure than you. I admire you more than the soul of the earth.” He says as he stares back into Satoru’s eyes.
——————
Though they have never know the feeling of clothes on their bodies, neither hungers for the other as they lie naked together, rather they look at their naked bodies as wonderful creations that deserves nothing but respect a reverence.
Their sex is delicate as if either man were a petal of the passion flower behind Suguru’s ear. They lust not for their own pleasure, but to bring the other pleasure. They wrap arms around each other, not to catch their prey, but to embrace the soul of the other in an attempt to transfer even a small amount of the abundant love they feel.
When angels come down from heaven to tell them stories, if one is napping they will wait to hear the story from the other for they trust one another more than the angels in heaven.
But is a snakes word more worthy of an ear than god’s?
——————
Satoru is the first to wake up. He wouldn’t dare disturb his love’s slumber and it would bring him great pleasure to finish their chores if only for the smile he may receive in return. As quietly as the field mice around them, he tiptoes off to the fruit trees to harvest the ripe stock.
——————
Mangos, peaches, pears, figs, plums, and so many more. All varieties of fruit one could ever want for and yet on this day, the whispers of the only apple tree in the canter of the grove call to him- the only tree they’d been told never to eat from.
As he creeps closer, he can see a lone, bitten apple at the base of its trunk. Curiosity gets the better of him as he searches for a culprit.
“Did you come for an apple as well?” asks a voice with no owner.
“No. We were told not to eat from here. Who are you?” Satoru naively asks.
To his surprise, a snake slithers down from the dense branches and speaks.
“Eat one to gain knowledge. I was only a hungry snake and now I can speak with you. What will happen when you, a being closer to god, partakes?”
The snake knocks a whole apple from its branch onto the ground at Satoru’s feet. He reaches down to pick it up and hold the foreign fruit in his hand. It feels like any other fruit.
The snake speaks again, “This fruit will give you knowledge, knowledge that shall make you that of a god.”
“I wish to ascend to that level and be as great as my god.” Satoru mumbles out loud despite everything in his mind telling him to obey that god’s orders.
He brings the fruit up to his nose and again, it smells like any other fruit. Nothing telling of its supposed god-like knowledge within.
Curiosity again bares its fangs in the form of a bite to the apple. Satoru’s mouth is flooded with sweet juice. Its taste is like any other fruit in this grove.
He takes a moment before swallowing for a revelation to appear, but none comes.
“Swallow.” the snake prods.
Satoru obeys.
“I have eaten of this fruit, I have invited death in.” He tells himself. ”If Sugur eats of this fruit, will he ascend to the same godhood?” “If I die from this knowledge, I couldn’t stand for him to have another I. We will share all, even death.”
The moment the fruit is gone from his throat and within his stomach, he resigns himself to his new status and waits for the knowledge to flow in.
He leaves the grove without a word to find the only other person in the world.
——————
Suguru is exactly where he had left him, sitting in a patch of grass surrounded by animals and feeling of peace in his heart.
“Eat of this and we shall be gods together.” Satoru coheres him.
Suguru’s blood runs cold in horror at the sight of the bitten apple extended to him. His hands lose their strength and the flowers he had almost finished weaving into a crown fall from their grasp onto the grass below.
The color of the flowers had faded to grey-ish a while ago, and Suguru now sees the reason for their grief. He too feels overcome with the same grief.
“I could give all my ribs and never find love like that I have found with you.” , he somberly states. ”I cannot live in a world that does not have you, grand or hellish. My certain resolution is to die.”
Suguru musters his strength to stand, the flower behind his ear falling to the ground like the others, and takes the masticated apple from Satoru. It’s already gone soft and isn’t so sparking red as it had been on the branches he’d looked at many times before.
With the apple pressed to his lips, he murmurs the final words to leave his mouth, “Oh, Satoru you’re so adventurous. I’d call you a fool but that name seems more befitting of I.”
His peace spoken, he takes the bite that seals his eternal fate.