The tattoos

A bright morning glistened inside the room. The room had its own sense of divinity with pure white walls, spacious interior and somewhat symmetric vibes. The mattress covered with white sheets lied at the center with respect to the wall that was opposite to the sliding door, a typical Japanese style ambience. The mattress had two indoor green plants adorning beautiful hand-painted vases on each of its side and right above it on the wall lay hanging a large life-size scratched yet shining samurai armor covered in black and gold. The windows were large shoji (translucent paper held by a bamboo lattice in forms of dividing doors and windows) that let the rays of the rising Sun come perfectly like a katana’s form in an experienced pair of hands. And the entire room had wooden furnishing including the floor that was softly covered by authentic Japanese mats (tatami).

Amidst the ambience was a boy wearing a black kimono sitting on the mattress seiza style, the traditional formal Japanese sitting style, facing the wall and not the entrance. He had copper skin and black hair with facial features that seemed to have sternly stared at death more than its own reflection. A girl, then, enters the room and slides the door shut. The girl was Japanese and had a thin physique with short black hair and fair skin. Surprisingly she was neither wearing any makeup nor had her hair pinned up. She was wearing a simple Yukata. She possessed a similar stare like the boy, one that screamed the enemy’s soul out through their eyes.

Hearing her entrance, he slid down his kimono slowly revealing his bare back before her. His back was entirely covered with a gigantic dragon tattoo. It was obvious that he was part of a huge mafia for him to have made the elaborate symbolic tattoo.

“Should I be scared, love?”, she asked nonchalantly.

“No, you don’t have to be.” he replied with similar indifference.

He couldn’t face her, but he was sure that she would leave and waited patiently for the sound of the door being opened. It was the obvious move.

“It must have hurt huh?” She said with her eyes moist and closing the distance.

She stayed.

He was relieved yet his eyes were moist.

“Yes, it did.” he said with soft voice. This was his first and last submission.

She sat down and traced the dragon on his back as if feeling the pain during its making.

Then she stood up and went in front of him and sat down facing the wall and took off her kimono too revealing her lotus tattoo. He couldn’t believe his eyes but he accepted her difference with beauty and love, and proceeded to trace the lotus petals. Both of them were breathing in unison that reflected how their hearts felt heavier with every single touch.

“So we’re different yet the same.” he said.

She turned to face him and they held each other tightly as if they would never let go. They hugged and swayed their fingers on each others’ tattoos as if trying to complete the circuit. And they did. The tattoos then came alive encircling the lovers. The lotus bloomed with an enormous size as the dragon emerged from within the root, swimming through it’s stalk and escaping out majestically. The petals scattered in all directions with water droplets and the dragon, like vine, spiraled around the two, breathing fire. A large suspended drop of water and the fire breathed out by the dragon then dissolved into one another and engulfed the lovers to flow into ying and yang representing unification amidst rivalry.