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fandomweekly2025-03-23 10:22 am
peipakao) wrote in fandomweekly2025-03-23 10:22 am
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[#253] Brightness (One Punch Man)
Theme Prompt: #253 – A Light In The Dark
Title: Brightness
Fandom: One Punch Man
Rating/Warnings: Gen / None
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 573
Summary: To Flash, in the consuming darkness of the village, there is only one thing that is bright.
He could always pick him out from the crowd. It wasn’t his build, stature, or looks; Sonic was short but not particularly so, his build was somewhat lithe but not standout, and he had a sweet face but one topped by a fairly unassuming mop of black hair the same as half the kids in their class. But he stood out, it was like he glowed.
Perhaps it was the eyes. Not the color, although Flash did find the glinting silver hue arresting, but the gaze. Every time he looked in them he could see something inside them, shining, ablaze and alive while everyone else’s were empty, anything contained within having died long ago. Even his own, although Sonic had told him they were the same as his, he couldn’t imagine that being true. How could anyone else's eyes glow the same way his did?
Maybe it was the warmth. Flash had grown accustomed to feeling out the minute fluctuations of room temperature from body heat, as they had been trained to do, and Sonic always seemed to burn just a little hotter than the rest. He could feel it with every little touch, the press of Sonic’s shoulder against his as they stood together, the grip of Sonic’s hand as it reached for his to help him up, palm sweaty after sparring. Flash could enter a room, seek out the warmest corner, and without a doubt Sonic would be the one at the centre of it.
But really, there was just something different about Sonic. No one else here was like him, no one who could remain smiling so wide and chattering so excitedly about his dream, no one who even had a dream in the first place. In this black hole of a home that seemed to suck all the light from everyone who’d had the misfortune to end up here, how had Sonic been born unscathed, and remained so, even when everyone else had already been absorbed by the dark, when everyday Flash felt the poison of it seep deeper into his bones? On days of training so gruelling that he wondered whether he had already died and was simply here to be punished for eternity, when escape and freedom and wide open fields seemed unfathomably far away, he would wonder aloud, “what are we holding on to?” To which Sonic would simply give him that same luminous smile and answer, “our dream, of course.”
He was so bright, it could hurt to look at him.
Sometimes, when they shut him up in the confinement rooms for whatever transgression they decided he’d committed, and the only company he had was the sound of the constant dripping of water and the unbearable stinging of his wounds, Flash would wonder if he’d dreamt Sonic up. He’d wave his hand back and forth in front of his face in the complete darkness, and imagine he could see it moving. Was Sonic like that too, just an illusion created by his light-starved mind?
He mentioned this once to Sonic, and he had just laughed, smacked him upside the head and said, “but your hand’s still there, right?”
You could never get used to the dark, with him around.
Even now, when he closes his eyes, Flash can still see the bright-hot silhouette of him as he was then, a ghostly afterimage burned into his vision.
He was so bright, he had to avert his eyes.
Title: Brightness
Fandom: One Punch Man
Rating/Warnings: Gen / None
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 573
Summary: To Flash, in the consuming darkness of the village, there is only one thing that is bright.
He could always pick him out from the crowd. It wasn’t his build, stature, or looks; Sonic was short but not particularly so, his build was somewhat lithe but not standout, and he had a sweet face but one topped by a fairly unassuming mop of black hair the same as half the kids in their class. But he stood out, it was like he glowed.
Perhaps it was the eyes. Not the color, although Flash did find the glinting silver hue arresting, but the gaze. Every time he looked in them he could see something inside them, shining, ablaze and alive while everyone else’s were empty, anything contained within having died long ago. Even his own, although Sonic had told him they were the same as his, he couldn’t imagine that being true. How could anyone else's eyes glow the same way his did?
Maybe it was the warmth. Flash had grown accustomed to feeling out the minute fluctuations of room temperature from body heat, as they had been trained to do, and Sonic always seemed to burn just a little hotter than the rest. He could feel it with every little touch, the press of Sonic’s shoulder against his as they stood together, the grip of Sonic’s hand as it reached for his to help him up, palm sweaty after sparring. Flash could enter a room, seek out the warmest corner, and without a doubt Sonic would be the one at the centre of it.
But really, there was just something different about Sonic. No one else here was like him, no one who could remain smiling so wide and chattering so excitedly about his dream, no one who even had a dream in the first place. In this black hole of a home that seemed to suck all the light from everyone who’d had the misfortune to end up here, how had Sonic been born unscathed, and remained so, even when everyone else had already been absorbed by the dark, when everyday Flash felt the poison of it seep deeper into his bones? On days of training so gruelling that he wondered whether he had already died and was simply here to be punished for eternity, when escape and freedom and wide open fields seemed unfathomably far away, he would wonder aloud, “what are we holding on to?” To which Sonic would simply give him that same luminous smile and answer, “our dream, of course.”
He was so bright, it could hurt to look at him.
Sometimes, when they shut him up in the confinement rooms for whatever transgression they decided he’d committed, and the only company he had was the sound of the constant dripping of water and the unbearable stinging of his wounds, Flash would wonder if he’d dreamt Sonic up. He’d wave his hand back and forth in front of his face in the complete darkness, and imagine he could see it moving. Was Sonic like that too, just an illusion created by his light-starved mind?
He mentioned this once to Sonic, and he had just laughed, smacked him upside the head and said, “but your hand’s still there, right?”
You could never get used to the dark, with him around.
Even now, when he closes his eyes, Flash can still see the bright-hot silhouette of him as he was then, a ghostly afterimage burned into his vision.
He was so bright, he had to avert his eyes.
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