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kiramaru7Title: Finding Beauty in Imperfection
Fandom: original
Prompt: Wabi-Sabi (Japanese): Finding beauty in imperfections
Characters: Mariko/Toula
Word count: 478
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Summary/Preview: Toula finally realizes her girlfriend was right; there is beauty in imperfection…
Notes: Thanks go out to my beta Kat for pinking this. This was written for allbingo's January bingo and the 12 days of ficmas.
“I can’t do it, Mariko. I’m sorry.” Toula made a face at the lumpy mess of clay on the potter’s wheel. She had been attempting a small bowl like the one her girlfriend made, but her missing left thumb made it hard to do. If only she had listened to Mariko and gone to the doctor when she told her to go, the cat bite on her thumb probably would not have gotten so badly infected. Since she waited too long, she had to have it amputated.
Mariko set her bowl down to dry and came over to her girlfriend. “What’s wrong?” She looked at the lump of clay. As much as she wanted to tell Toula it was beautiful in spite of how miserable it looked, she kept her mouth shut. They nearly broke up when, in an attempt at making her feel better, Mariko told her she was now even more beautiful because of her “imperfection.” The resulting conversation about wabi-sabi or finding beauty in imperfections had ended in a very heated argument.
“Look at it.” Toula poked it with her finger. “It looks half dead, no wait; it looks totally dead next to yours.”
“No it doesn’t. It actually looks better than anything my other first time students have done.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“No, I’m not. And I think we can fix it too, if you want.”
Toula could not help laughing. “Yeah, by chucking it out and starting over.”
“I was thinking something more along the lines of thinning out this side and…” she trailed off as she came over and sat behind her girlfriend.
“Please tell me we’re not recreating that scene from Ghost,” Toula said as she looked over her shoulder at her girlfriend.
Mariko laughed. “Only if you want to.”
“Uhh… No.” Toula smiled. “So you really think we can fix this mess?”
“Yeah… Ready?”
“Yeah.” Toula held her hands on the side of the bowl as Mariko switched on the potter’s wheel. She liked the feel of her girlfriend’s smaller hands on hers and with her help, the bowl began to take shape. It was far from perfect, but Toula’s sense of accomplishment made that irrelevant. She watched as Mariko removed it from the wheel and put it next to her own to dry. As they cleaned up, Toula thought there really was something to this “wasabi” stuff, her girlfriend had been prattling on about. When she mentioned it to her, they had a good laugh about the beauty of sushi when combined with wasabi which led to talk about traveling to Japan to finally meet Mariko’s parents over dinner. Afterward on the walk back to their place, when Mariko held Toula’s left hand and she did not flinch or pull away self-consciously, but instead, leaned in for a kiss, they knew everything was right in their world again.
Fandom: original
Prompt: Wabi-Sabi (Japanese): Finding beauty in imperfections
Characters: Mariko/Toula
Word count: 478
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Summary/Preview: Toula finally realizes her girlfriend was right; there is beauty in imperfection…
Notes: Thanks go out to my beta Kat for pinking this. This was written for allbingo's January bingo and the 12 days of ficmas.
“I can’t do it, Mariko. I’m sorry.” Toula made a face at the lumpy mess of clay on the potter’s wheel. She had been attempting a small bowl like the one her girlfriend made, but her missing left thumb made it hard to do. If only she had listened to Mariko and gone to the doctor when she told her to go, the cat bite on her thumb probably would not have gotten so badly infected. Since she waited too long, she had to have it amputated.
Mariko set her bowl down to dry and came over to her girlfriend. “What’s wrong?” She looked at the lump of clay. As much as she wanted to tell Toula it was beautiful in spite of how miserable it looked, she kept her mouth shut. They nearly broke up when, in an attempt at making her feel better, Mariko told her she was now even more beautiful because of her “imperfection.” The resulting conversation about wabi-sabi or finding beauty in imperfections had ended in a very heated argument.
“Look at it.” Toula poked it with her finger. “It looks half dead, no wait; it looks totally dead next to yours.”
“No it doesn’t. It actually looks better than anything my other first time students have done.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“No, I’m not. And I think we can fix it too, if you want.”
Toula could not help laughing. “Yeah, by chucking it out and starting over.”
“I was thinking something more along the lines of thinning out this side and…” she trailed off as she came over and sat behind her girlfriend.
“Please tell me we’re not recreating that scene from Ghost,” Toula said as she looked over her shoulder at her girlfriend.
Mariko laughed. “Only if you want to.”
“Uhh… No.” Toula smiled. “So you really think we can fix this mess?”
“Yeah… Ready?”
“Yeah.” Toula held her hands on the side of the bowl as Mariko switched on the potter’s wheel. She liked the feel of her girlfriend’s smaller hands on hers and with her help, the bowl began to take shape. It was far from perfect, but Toula’s sense of accomplishment made that irrelevant. She watched as Mariko removed it from the wheel and put it next to her own to dry. As they cleaned up, Toula thought there really was something to this “wasabi” stuff, her girlfriend had been prattling on about. When she mentioned it to her, they had a good laugh about the beauty of sushi when combined with wasabi which led to talk about traveling to Japan to finally meet Mariko’s parents over dinner. Afterward on the walk back to their place, when Mariko held Toula’s left hand and she did not flinch or pull away self-consciously, but instead, leaned in for a kiss, they knew everything was right in their world again.
