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Vox had one peony blossom marking. It was located directly over his heart. While the other flowers on his body signified those under his influence, this was the only one that indicated the owner’s influence over Vox as well.
The “king of flowers.” The peony could only stand for the one person in Vox’s life who was as beautiful as he was brave and loyal.
Peonies were also commonly used to symbolize good fortune at weddings, and, well, wasn’t that appropriate.
Besides that, though, the peony tattoo had been with him the longest. It had formed the day he met its owner, though he had no idea the depth of their connection then.
The day he lost his camellias, the day he lost everything, the peony faded too at the time of his lover’s death. But for reasons unknown to him, it had soon returned more vibrant than before.
It stayed with him through the centuries of obscurity and meaninglessness. At some times, he thought it was the only tether he had to continue living. He had been alone in the darkness. But then he would remember the faint warmth on his chest over his slow, barely beating heart, and he would continue on existing.
It took decades of self-acceptance over the complete loss to Tokugawa and the crushing responsibility of the deaths of all his clan members. Sometimes it still got to him. But the peony was ever-present as he slowly developed the will to move on and rebuild. It gave him hope of seeing the peony’s owner again one day, perhaps in a new form. It gave him something else to look forward to.
And finally, four centuries after the fall of the Akuma Clan, his hopes paid off.
> Good evening, husband
“Hello, baby, hello!”
“Hey, big guy, good to see you.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
His lover was not the sole reason he had pulled himself out of the abyss, nor was he the only good thing in his life now, nor his purpose for being. Vox had much to live for these days, and he was eternally grateful for it.
But his darling was a reason to laugh, to love harder than he had before, to know that goodbye was not the end but rather a pause before they could be together again. His silly, surprising, dumb, sweet, sexy, adorable puppy.
His Shoto.