disclaimer: bleach © kubo tite.
She felt the storm building for ages.
It had been raining, on and off, the last few days; a fine drizzle like a glass overflowing. On the way to the market she jumped into a shallow pond, blinking to get rid of the drops caught in her lashes. Cold water splashed her ankles and dripped down the back of her calves, sticking the fabric of the threadbare kimono to her skin. She ducked into an alley to wring the sodden cloth. As usual, the outer ring of Inuzuri was ghost town quiet, unsettlingly empty on the surface: rundown shacks with their windows boarded up, if there had ever been windows at all. The poverty was so desolate even littering was sparse.
It was different downtown. There was noise, for one thing, the ocean murmur of many people talking, bare feet scuffing the dirt, and when she finally found the narrow street where the market settled, vendors offering their wares in high singsong voices. Behind them gangsters prowled like wolves, most of them heavily tattooed and grim-eyed, with the slick gleam of easy cruelty in their eyes, ready to swallow clumsy thieves in a single gulp. A boy on the edge of adolescence, his hair cropped close to his skull, tried to grab a limp vegetable out of a stand and one of the thugs reached out and casually smacked him on the back of the head. The boy stumbled and fell, and the man kicked him on the side—she heard the snap of a rib giving out like a wishbone.
The boy lay still. Hesitantly, the stall owner moved forward and picked up the vegetable to put it back in the pile. She didn't glance at the boy—nobody did, actually, as if with the first whimper of pain he had turned invisible. Sitting on her heels, half-hidden behind an enormous flower pot with a crack down the side, she watched patiently as the squalid crowd went about its business. Eventually, a girl who looked about her age—four or five years old, and so thin a strong wind could shatter her—ran to the boy's side and propped him up. She had her hair tied into small twin buns, and the boy rested his cheek on her forehead for a second, fond and honest, and then he straightened up as stubborn as any tree you ever did see.
They left.
Then she realised the content of the flower pot wasn't soil but opium, and she ran away, too.
WILD HORSES
I.
She used to be a baker. That was why she kept thinking about the dumplings.
There was only one stand, and it settled on its rickety spider-legs every day rain or shine. A girl just stepping out of childhood, maybe fourteen going on two hundred, waited patiently to answer any request a customer might have (although some things cost extra). She was so skinny her wrists were like toothpicks, and she had the hungry eyes of an animal that has been beaten down so often it wears pain like a bell around its neck, but the one to mind was the old man who kept watch over her and the wares: he was tall and lean and raggedy like a piece of leather chewed on by a dog, and he smoked so much he rested lazily in his own dark cloud, cold and languid, until somebody made him mad enough to get up.
Rukia didn't know his name. She wasn't sure anybody knew it, except maybe the gangsters who came at night to pick up the day's earnings and who accompanied him back to their leader's house, the girl trailing after them like a loose button hoping to fall off. Anyway, his name didn't matter. He was strong, and he was cruel, and he was backed by someone even stronger and crueler, and somehow all of that faded when you walked down the street and smelled the chicken and the garlic and the sizzling scallion, all of it wrapped lovingly in dough so soft and elastic eating it had to be like a kiss.
Hunger could make you crazy. Ask anybody who ever felt its wolf teeth nipping their throat and they'll tell you: it will hound you like an old, bitter woman. It will run you down until you've been wrung dry. It will pick your bones clean and make hot soup, and then good luck thinking straight. Good luck thinking at all.
Desperation gave her an illusory bravery. She found a good spot, out of the way and half-draped in shadow, and armed herself with patience. Because she was young, small and underfed with knees like winter branches, it was easy to go unnoticed. At best, she was a would-be thief who could be pushed away from valuable wares with a sloppy backhand, and at worst she was the sentry of somebody powerful who wouldn't appreciate curiosity. Like a small rock dropping into a pond, the ripples settled sweetly. She held her breath but she didn't pray, afraid the wrong god would answer her.
Even so, luck smiled at her. Eventually, a woman approached the food stall. She was thin but not underfed, and she was carrying a round-faced, chubby-cheeked child who dozed peacefully on her shoulder. Shadowing her closely was a man who looked to be made of nerve and hate, there was so little meat on his bones— just muscles stretched under old, tough skin. Rukia saw his eyes drift over the blank-faced vendors (and behind them, their savage guards), and she bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. The sleeping child shifted and turned his head upon smelling the food, and the woman gave him an indulgent smile before pulling a few coins out of her sleeve. Her kimono wasn't new but it didn't have a single patch.
The stall girl accepted the coins and tucked them into her obi without looking at them. Then she opened the lid of a big pot and plucked out four dumplings to dump them into the frying pan. While the oil began its sizzle Rukia changed her position so that she was half-crouched, ready to launch herself as soon as she saw her opportunity. Her heart was going so fast it felt like she had something alive caught in her throat, trying to crawl its way out.
She breathed deeply.
The stall girl smoothed down a piece of butcher's paper so she could wrap the dumplings.
As soon as the girl took of the lid of the frying pan, Rukia blurred. She shot down like an arrow, ducked underneath the startled woman's sleeve, and snatched one of the dumplings straight off the pan. It was burning hot, scalding, but even a moment of respite would be too long - she felt the woman's bodyguard reaching out, the tip of his fingers snagging the back of her collar, but she threw herself forward like a wild animal because she knew if he caught her there would be no letting go. The fabric had been old when her sister had first traded for it: it tore as easily as wet paper. Rukia swallowed a gasp and scurried away.
She shoved the hot dumpling inside her kimono as soon as she turned a street, trying to get lost in the labyrinth of houses, some of them abandoned, some of them little more than ruins, some of them suspiciously clean. It burned hot like an ember. It hadn't been more than a few seconds when she heard the howls of the old man, as furious as a rabid animal:
"Come back here!" he roared. Rukia tasted her heartbeat, a frenetic drum that set her pace. "You come back here, blood-suckin' gutter rat! Think you can rob me? Me? You still stink of mother's milk! I'll chop you up and eat you, little bitch!"
It took the pounding of blood on her temples to make her realise she had been holding her breath. She was already getting tired, gasping uneasily and trying to cover it up: tiny, choked noises that would break your heart if you were stupid enough to wear it on your sleeve. She saw curtains pulling closed, people looking away, an old woman picking up a child and shuffling back inside, a young man glancing her way and then turning his head with an expression as serene as a still pond. A child was a burden, a mouth to feed and a chain around your neck which you had to drag - until love and desperation hung you like a noose.
And then you both either drowned together, or you lost the child.
Because those with compassion perished quickly, nobody helped her when the old man caught her. He managed to grab her hair and then it was over - she lived hand-to-mouth because she couldn't afford otherwise, and her body (a small, dainty, breakable thing) was little more than bones like twigs, milky skin that bruised easily. He dragged her back, too lost in the red-hot haze of rage to think things through: instead of taking back what she had stolen (the dumpling which was still piping hot, nestled against her breast), he stepped into an alley and threw her against the wall of someone's house. The wood didn't crack, and Rukia supposed that, if there was someone inside, pretending with all their heart they couldn't hear a thing, they were grateful for that consideration.
"Think you can go an' steal from me?!" said the old man again. He had a voice like thunder rubbed with sandpaper, crackle and roughness, and though her vision swam Rukia lifted her head and squinted at him. He was circling her like a tiger, waving his arms, watching her as if he was debating how to kill her slowly. "From me?! You little bitch. You slut. You got a lot of darin', don'tcha?" Suddenly, a bark of laughter that made her flinch like she'd been shocked. He leaned closer as if chasing her. "You better start regrettin' what you did, 'cause you're gonna hafta pay for that, bitch, and I'm in a bad mood, huh?"
There was no warning. He reached down and straightened her so they could look at each other in the eye—an old man who shook with fury, and a breathless girl who was eating her own fear faster than he could frighten her. She looked right back at him, unblinking.
The old man backhanded her. Her lip split open and she tasted blood again, pooling inside her mouth. He let her go and she slumped, slowly rolling over so she could lay on her back, still clutching herself to protect the dumpling. The sky was full of clouds, slate grey and charcoal and the vaguest shade of dirty white, and when she first noticed the electric blue sparking she thought it was the light reflecting oddly on her tears, but no - lightning spread like the branches of a tree, and then the deafening purr of thunder tickled her bones.
The storm broke. Rain fell into her open mouth, washing away the taste of blood.
"Fuck," said the old man. "Fuckin' rain."
Footsteps. Rukia heard the scrape of bare feet sliding across dirt so dry even a downpour couldn't breathe life into it. She was preparing herself for a new wave of pain when someone screamed—a high-pitched sob that hurt the teeth to hear. Then a deafening crash made worse by the rumble of the storm: the rain had lost all softness. Her face hurt under the splatter, because the raindrops were fat as bumblebees.
The old man shuffled uncertainly. "You got a little friend tryin' to get you outta trouble, huh?" he asked her—but the joke was on him, because she didn't have friends.
Another crash, closer this time. The old man stared intently into the shadows—the world lay in half-light under the dark clouds, and the rain blurred the edges of everything. Rukia swallowed and rolled over again, this time onto her side, so she could use a shaky arm to hold herself up. Her gaze remained fixated on the old man, whose head tilted to one side in a curiously reptilian gesture.
Slowly, step by step, the old man walked closer to the end of the narrow alley. "Why you fuckin' makin' so much noise?" he bellowed, but there was no reply.
Rukia's heart was beating wildly by then, but she didn't dare waste one second and got to her feet unsteadily. Her side hurt terribly, although an exploratory pat down confirmed nothing was broken—as far as she could tell, but she couldn't rule out a cracked rib… Her mouth tasted sweet like hate. The man took another step and just barely leaned out, searching for any trace of trouble that could spill on him. He was higher up on the ladder than a starving little nobody like her, but he too would have knelt for the lover of that woman carrying the child, the one who'd tried to buy dumplings.
Being quiet was more important than being fast. She licked the inside of her mouth, swallowing blood and water and a bit of dirt, and then waited. The streets were suddenly deserted: gone was the quiet haggling, the subtle stream of chatter, the sound of people walking everywhere. Only the rain made any noise with its never ending splat-splat-splat. The market would have folded itself up like a flower dying in fast forward at the first sign of violence, everything packed up and boxed up and hidden away in a few minutes, everyone running off to hide in case whoever was fighting somewhere wanted a victim capable of screaming longer.
The old man took another step, his body half-bent towards the right side of the street. Rukia moved back and scrabbled for a foothold on the wall that closed off the alley. The rain was a nightmare to see through, but she reached out and trusted her hands and feet, sure in her knowledge she wouldn't be the first or the last soul trying to climb over. She slipped once, and a piece of broken off wood dug into her arm, ripping the fabric and drawing a red line of heat on her skin. If she screamed it would be the last thing she ever did, so she kept the wail burning low in her belly, but maybe the old man could smell pain because she heard him turning around and then that aged voice becoming harsher with outrage:
"Where you think you goin'—"
You should have seen her fly. She dragged herself over that wall like the devil himself was chasing her, and rather than carefully climbing down the other side, she let herself drop and rolled off the impact. By then pain was part of her, armour made of bright sparks behind her eyes and that breathless sensation you get when you're so afraid you lose all sense—she didn't let it slow her at all as she raced down the street, using the low light as best she could, ducking into shadowy spots, crawling silently over the broken pieces of what used to be a barrel, because between fast and quiet one was always supposed to choose quiet.
Even then she knew: there's always someone faster than you.
Still, you can't win a battle because your will is stronger than your enemy's, and she had to take a break, crouched next to a wooden cart whose contents were neatly covered with a big slab of ceramic. Rukia decided she hadn't seen anything and didn't attempt to peek at its contents. A crabby old man might forget about her in a few months and let her go. Anybody who felt comfortable leaving such a good cart out in the middle of the rain, after all that noise, would find her only to slit her sister's throat.
Eventually, her heart began to settle. The storm became part of the background, with its purring thunder and fizzy rain—like one's own heartbeat, just white noise. She peeked into her kimono to check the state of the dumpling: frightfully squashed, of course, but still toasty-warm. The skin over her flat breasts was red-pink like a spring flower trying to blossom early. The pure relief had to have distracted her, because she didn't hear a thing even as a hand covered her mouth and an arm wrapped around her middle.
Panic. A wave of pain.
"Shh," hissed a voice in her ear. It wasn't the old man, which reassured Rukia, but it wasn't her sister either, and that was the only person she trusted in the world. Again: "Shh, be quiet. The old man is still around."
It was a girl who spoke in a lilting rhythm. Well, perhaps a boy with a voice unbroken - no, Rukia could feel the press of the girl's breasts against her skinny back. The girl shuffled back until they stood huddling in the middle of a dark alley, although it barely deserved the name because the buildings that made it were so close together. An alley like that wouldn't even be used by unkind men doing business. It was the kind of passage that belonged to fearless children and languid cats, and sure enough after a few seconds Rukia saw the old man shuffling by, opening and closing his hands so the veins of his arms stood out like suddenly revealed rivers. She didn't dare breathe, and the girl didn't either. They held themselves as still as taut strings.
The old man left.
They waited a while more, unmoving and silent, drenched from head to toe, before the girl suddenly stood up and walked out. Rukia hesitated for a second, repositioned her stolen dumpling, and then scurried after her. They grey light illuminated the girl's face: youthful, perhaps fourteen or so - although with time such a fuzzy idea, who knew? She had a slender and graceful figure, melancholy as a bamboo tree, and ankles so delicate that when she skipped over a pond Rukia stared without meaning to. Her feet were black with mud.
"How lucky," said the girl. "We got away."
Rukia nodded.
"I feel like this storm came out of nowhere," continued the girl. She tried to tuck a lock of sodden hair behind her ear. "I was at the market but everyone left when the old man started that racket. He's always so loud, isn't he?"
Rukia blinked. She nodded again.
"Not a chatty one, huh," said the girl, and smiled. "Anyway. I'm Sumire. You want to go to my house and dry up a little? You can help me drag out the pots to collect water."
Rukia took a step back.
"Suit yourself," said Sumire. "He could come back any moment now. I'm not waiting around to meet that temper."
And just like that she spun on her heel and walked off, going right the first corner she caught. Rukia looked around. She didn't know this part of the district well because her sister didn't trust the inner ring of Inuzuri, since it was the place where the yakuza thrived and child gangs fought for anything that fell off their table, like a pack of wolves. The shadows were deep. It was cold. Her every breath hurt like sighing fire.
She ran after the girl, Sumire, who was waiting for her right around the corner, leaning on a wall. Sumire smiled —she had a dimple on her left cheek— and they walked off, not a word spoken. Rukia tried her best not to look at Sumire's ankles.
She wished she had dared to risk the old man and the labyrinthine streets as soon as they got to their destination. The building was enormous to Rukia, at least ten times as big as the crumbling shack she shared with her sister. Not all the windows had glass but all of them had curtains, and they were pulled shut like closed eyes. They went in through the back, of course, since the main entrance was reserved for customers: that one was big enough two strong men could walk in side by side and never brush their shoulders, but the door Sumire opened without hesitation was little more than narrow piece of wood, dusty with age. It creaked as noisily as the knees of an old woman.
Rukia stared at it, biting her lip.
"Your choice," said Sumire.
She looked over her shoulder. A water drop almost slid into her eye and she had to blink quickly, and in that blur of half-seen half-not she thought she could perceive the shadow of the old man. Hunting her.
The door creaked noisily as it closed behind her, too.
Inside it was cool and quiet. Inside the fierceness of the storm felt gentler.
The room they entered was small enough that, if Sumire had stretched her arms, the tips of her fingers would have brushed both walls. It was empty except for a two-legged stool leaning against the wall, on top of which somebody had laid towels: square pieces of cloth, halfway between rags and napkins. Sumire picked up one and scrubbed her face dry, then she handed it to Rukia, who imitated her hesitantly. It smelled not unpleasantly like smoke and damp.
There was a wooden platform a step above the hard-packed dirt floor of the entryway, upon which the brothel stood. They sat on it and scrubbed their feet to avoid muddying the inside, and then Rukia trailed after Sumire, who led her through the silent hallways. It felt overwarm like the veins of a sleeping dragon. It was a traditional house, of course, which meant there were no true rooms beside the kitchen and the entryway—everything else had been divided using fusuma, thin rectangular panels covered in rice paper. Women had been painted on most of them, classic beauties baring their breasts, riding prowling tigers, resting amid ponds and surrounded by fishes as bright as jewels. Even faded by age as they were, a kind of melancholy loveliness persisted.
That was only downstairs, though. The second floor had a more practical air, rather like a woman coming home from work and toeing off her high heels. The workers shared a common room, which was pleasantly busy when Sumire leaned in to say hello, and then beyond that were the sleeping quarters, which were at once cramped and oddly empty. Mostly Rukia saw girls, some a bit younger-looking that Sumire—one seemed almost thirteen if a day—but no younger than that, and then teenage girls and mature women and even a lady in her late forties. She was inside her bedroom, her bare back to the open door, her black hair pinned up with a ragged ribbon, putting scented lotion on her breasts, on the softness of her belly. She half-turned to watch them walk past and Rukia met her eyes by accident. The other woman had a plain face with delicate bones and terribly sad eyes.
Sumire gently pulled her away, shaking her head.
As for Sumire's own bedroom, it was a peaceful place, nestled next to a wall with a tiny window that wouldn't open all the way. A repurposed old kimono, worn for so long it was thin as a dream, had been cut to make a curtain that fluttered in the wind. There was a young woman asleep, her body curled on her side like a plucked flower, the soles of her bare feet pale, the stream of her long hair falling over her face. Sumire knelt at her side and smoothed it back, and the young woman hummed in her sleep.
"Hanako," said Sumire, "Hanako, what did you take? Were you alone?"
The young woman's lashes fluttered but her eyes didn't open. Rukia stood frozen like an old rock next to the door, impossibly upset. Unbelievable, she thought. You see the face of poverty and desperation every day for forty years and learn to be unfazed, but all of a sudden you're invited to their home and it hurts you all over again.
"Hanako," said Sumire again. "Answer me."
"Client," said Hanako. She spoke like she had a soft tongue. "N'alone."
"Okay," said Sumire, and tried to help Hanako tie her obi, but a sudden burst of energy must have filled the young woman, because she sloppily rolled away, giggling, right towards where Rukia was standing next to the door.
Hanako's kimono gaped open. There were purple bruises like lavender blossoms underneath her small breasts, the reddened handprint of a slap on her hip. Her ribs were mountains trying to crawl out through her skin, sharp as only bones could be. They looked at each other and something in Rukia's tiny frown must have upset Hanako terribly, because her expression crumpled and she burst out crying.
"Don't look at me like that!" she said. Her hand locked around Rukia's ankle, startlingly strong. Her palm damp with sweat. She tried to get on all fours, but her body was limp. "Don't—look—at—"
"Hanako!" said Sumire, trying to drag her off by the waist. Rukia grabbed the fusuma screen with a death grip. Her nails sank through the rice paper and touched the wood of the inner structure. "Hanako, stop, stop, let her go, what are you doing—"
"I don't wanna, I didn't even wanna, I didn't…" Hanako's eyes filled with tears. Rukia's ankle throbbed. "You, you, you're just a child… What d'you even know… Don't look..."
"No, no, she doesn't know," said Sumire, wrestling with Hanako's hand. "Hanako, who was your client? Who were you with?"
"Dunnow," said Hanako, blinking slowly. "Hadda cock this big." And she used her free hand to signal something that must have made sense in the soft blur of her world, because she cracked up and rocked onto her side, shaking with laughter. A string of saliva dripped from her mouth onto the floor.
"Really," said Sumire. "Hanako, here, look, give me your hand so we can play a game…"
"M'all fu… fucked out today, Sumire…"
"It's not that kind of game, Hanako. Give me your hand."
"Oh, yeah," said Hanako, and obligingly slumped on her back, letting go of Rukia's ankle carelessly. Locks of hair clung to her cheeks, wet with tear tracks. She grinned with all the stupid innocence of a child. "Hey, Sumire… you're home…"
Sumire caught Hanako's hands and tried to drag her back to the futon, but it was like carrying a dead body. The drug had softened Hanako until she felt as if she was floating above a cloud, light as dandelion fluff. Sumire was younger than her and shorter, and they inevitably stumbled, Sumire trying to bear Hanako's weight so she wouldn't trip and crack her head open. Hanako giggled becomingly, baring the long line of her throat as if offering it to Sumire in apology—it must have been too much, because Sumire released her breath in one long sob. For years and years, Rukia wouldn't be able to say why that was the one thing that finally spooked her like a wild animal, but it was, and it did, and someday she would know and it would break her heart—
She ran out of the room, past the older woman who was now lying on her side like a marionette with its strings cut, past closed doors, past the common room where a teenage boy and a young woman were making scented pouches with old tea leaves and clumps of perfumed grass, down the stairs, through the quiet hallways of the first floor, frenetic like a mouse escaping a hungry cat, scurrying around corners, breathless, until she finally found the back door from before and yanked the door open, no, it was stuck, again—
She crashed into somebody's knees.
Rukia took a step back and tilted her head to gaze up, up, up. A woman gazed back. She had the face of a beautiful fox who shouldn't be beautiful, those narrow cheekbones and the pointy chin and the long black slashes of her eyes, but her bottom lip was painted red as a poppy and her hair, even streaked with silver, had lost none of its plain elegance. Her kimono was layered, which was an unspeakable luxury, but the right sleeve mildly motheaten.
One sharp eyebrow rose.
"Oh?" said the woman, expressionless. "And who might you be?"
She said nothing. Her throat had tightened like a fist.
The woman reached down and put a finger under her jaw to tilt up Rukia's face. There was beauty in there, like a small seed kept warm under fertile earth, ages away from truly blooming open. Her lashes trembled, her heartbeat quickened, but something warned her: do not move.
Her stillness gained her a smile full of teeth. "Spirit," said the woman, straightening up. She held out a hand languidly—she was holding a kiseru pipe, graceful as a slim snake between those pale fingers—and gesture at her as if to say, go on. "It will do you good, child. They like that. But not yet. Come back when you've got the body to pay up, hmm? Go quickly, now. Nobody fucks children in my brothel. So come back when you're not a child."
Rukia thought about the red handprint on Hanako's hip and swore to never set foot in the Pink Orchid's entryway ever again. But you know how it is with childhood promises: if they aren't made to be broken...
"Where have you been?"
In fairy tales, the prettiest sister ate up all the luck, so her childhood was made up of black years. Then she started to bleed, or she fell in love, or a witch's curse tried to swallow her whole, and all that built up luck exploded in a silvery cloud that overturned destinies and changed fates, just to make a good story. If the girl managed to crawl out of her mother without breaking her like a cracked egg, her other sisters might find some tenderness in their hearts for that strange creature, with her eyes glossy as river stones and the glow of terrible things under her skin.
Rukia ran to her sister and clung to her skirt.
"Rukia," said Hisana, only it came out like a long sigh.
But she still put a hand atop Rukia's head.
Even before the starvation took hold of them, they had belonged to a long line of bird-boned women. Some of them were loud, others were complete daydreamers, but every single one—I swear on the dirt of my own grave—had the stubbornness of a crazy dog. Hisana was the fairest of them all, and the one who hid it best. She had hair like silk, lips as pink as spring and a certain demure air, akin to a gossamer veil, that made looking at her in the eye an experience, a revelation.
Rukia did not care about luck, I will tell you, as long as she had Hisana.
"Where were you?" repeated Hisana. Rukia said nothing, her face buried in her sister's belly. "I was worried sick! You know I don't like it when you go out alone."
Inside their home, a crumbling shack that Hisana was always fixing up because somehow the cold got in even in summer, the rain felt kinder, as if it was protecting them. They had lucked out with it anyway because only a little of the floor had been ransacked before they'd found it, and so half the interior was a wooden platform that Hisana kept clean no matter how tired she was. In a corner there was an old box, and inside they stored the single kimono Hisana had outgrown ten years ago, for when Rukia needed it, and a small water jug Hisana got in payment at her job.
"M'fine," said Rukia, muffled.
"Don't lie to me," said Hisana. "What happened to your face? Let me see."
Rukia obeyed helplessly. She tilted her head back and to the side, the better to allow Hisana a clear view of her cheekbone, where the old man had backhanded her. She was surely hardier than she had ever been, now that she didn't have a soft fleshy body to weigh her down, but a hurt was a hurt was a hurt, and when Hisana brushed a thumb over the darkening bruise her expression rippled with pain.
"Again?" said Hisana, voice high. "What was it this time? Show me."
She did. The dumpling of discord had miraculously survived the journey mostly intact, although it was terribly squished. Rukia looked at her sister hopefully.
Hisana stared back, nonplussed.
"You've got to stop stealing," she said finally.
Rukia clutched her sister's skirt with her free hand and shuffled closer, until their bare feet were bumping into each other. Hisana sighed and knelt in place, covering Rukia's tiny hand with her own. She kissed Rukia's bad cheekbone, and the movement made the dark cloud of her hair tickle Rukia's collarbone.
"I'm so afraid," said Hisana, "that one day I'll come back and you won't be here. And I'll go look for you, Rukia, I'd look for you anywhere, but I won't be able to find you—a-and then enough time will have passed that I'll start looking for your body throw in some gutter instead, and I—" Hisana swallowed. "And I think, I think a lot about the day I'll have to grab your cold hand to pull you out of it, and it's like I'm almost resigned to it already, oh, Rukia, darling, please stop… What would I do without you… Just stop..."
It was warm in Hisana's embrace. She didn't seem to mind Rukia's sodden clothes, or the stickiness of her wounded arm, or even the fact hugging Rukia felt remarkably similar to hugging a coatrack. The storm reminded them of its existence with the savage roar of thunder. The raindrops were so fat each time one hit their roof it sounded like a tiny bullet. Flashes of lightning lit up and darkened the room by turns, and Rukia watched the play of light and shadow on the wall over Hisana's bony shoulder.
Hisana swallowed. Her fear ebbed behind the composure she would never lose, and her lovely eyes —those long lashes like the feathers of a bird— traced Rukia's mulish expression.
"Why won't you listen to me?" asked Hisana quietly. "Just explain yourself. You know we're in this together. I've told you why I want you to stop. Now tell me why you do it."
But there was nothing to say. Hisana knew exactly why.
Four days a week Hisana got up before dawn. If there was food, she checked it was still good and then she woke up Rukia to feed her, because if she didn't watch carefully then Rukia would hide the food for later. Sometimes there wasn't enough and Hisana went without anything, and on those days her mind floated in a hazy cloud a step behind her body, but what can you do? Endure.
So they endured.
Hisana worked for a washerwoman, which perhaps didn't explain the weight her employer carried in Inuzuri. A woman in power was already notable. A woman in power who didn't have to lie back and pretend pleasure was outstanding. Masako ran her business like a warlord, perpetually stern-faced, and she prefered paying a day's work in either food or water (never both) instead of coins, the better to make sure her little foot soldiers wouldn't abandon the war. As these things go, it was an impersonal unkindness—sometimes it was not enough, and once Hisana had fallen sick and Rukia had had to fill in for her under Masako's placid frown or risk losing her spot, but there wasn't a purposeful cruelty, just the cold of winter. The snow does not care where it falls.
Because her sister would not allow her to stay behind, Rukia went with her that day. They woke up early so they could go slowly: Hisana had examined her bruised face and her aching side with bright eyes and white lips. The rain had stopped sometime during the night, although the grey clouds hadn't disappeared, and the ground had become a muddy slush that clung to your feet and made every step a burden. Hisana held her hand until they arrived: Masako's place was a long and squat building with small round windows that were too high for everyone, so to peer outside you had to stand on tiptoe, and once in awhile a small dirty face would squint through the glass. The workers were young, in general—there was a young woman aged seventeen or so, and she stood out sharply. Rukia had never asked. Hisana seemed young yet, so they had time.
"Be a good girl," said Hisana.
Rukia smiled, a sweet upturn of her lips, and Hisana smiled back. She watched quietly as her sister sat down in front of the wash tub, the water inside it gleaming with the slick shine of soap, clothes floating in it like heavy lily pads. The line of Hisana's bent back, her steady hands scrubbing until her skin was red—one thing about Hisana, you know. Her hands were the only rough thing about her.
Inevitably, Rukia fell into a daze. There was nothing to do in that place except work, rows and rows of boys and girls next to each other, their bodies curved like bows, too tired to chatter. Midmorning it began to rain again, a soft patter that quickly became deafening, and Rukia stacked a few empty boxes so she could reach the window, where her breath misted the glass and blurred the outside so even this flat land where nothing grew except tall thin trees with tired leaves became kinder; a splash of black and white that could be anything if you squinted just right. Eventually, that too got tiresome and she curled up next to her sister and slept, except the aches of her body kept her anchored to consciousness as wickedly as a necklace of thorns.
Masako appeared shortly after, a skinny woman with the bones of a sparrow and dark hair, dressed in the same nondescript fabrics as everyone else. She was followed by the scruffy punk who guarded her out of the kind of loyalty that sickens and perhaps confusion at his own freedom—there was a look about him, Rukia thought, like he wasn't even sure he was a real person so what would he do if he were to go off on his own, anyway. There was no sudden bluster of energy where everyone remembered to get to work. Masako gave very little space for rebellion since anyone who got fussy got kicked out and ten more idiots lined up as neatly as you please.
For some peculiar reason Masako liked Hisana. This was only surprising because Hisana tried to keep them as isolated as possible, but once Rukia aged she'd realise everyone liked Hisana.
After a fashion, at least.
"Girl," said Masako, stopping in front of them. Hisana straightened up and breathed deeply. "Your sister?"
"Yes, miss Masako," said Hisana. She touched Rukia's hair, who was watching Masako intently. "This is Rukia, my little sister."
"I see," said Masako, and she really did see because she was watching Rukia right back. Her eyes had the perfect blackness of ink. "You look alike."
"We were sisters before, as well."
Masako said nothing for a long time. At Hisana's feet, curled up like a feral cat that only intermittently believed in kindness, Rukia felt her muscles tightening up, the delicate bone of her ankle digging into the dirt floor which was never dry, outside the rain a drum gone frenetic, and then finally Masako spoke with a knowing sort of artlessness: "It's always hard to care for children. Especially when they're not your own."
Her pupils dilated as she watched Masako drift away, suddenly uninterested in them and in Hisana's awkward smile and unamused eyes. Rukia only realised she had bitten her tongue when she swallowed and tasted the blood; it clung to the back of her throat, sticky. She rested her forehead on the tired bump of Hisana's hip, who after another second bent over and picked up her work and they said not a word, not for hours, and then when it was time to go Hisana was too tired to try and prompt her sister to speak—I suppose by now you've realised Rukia wasn't quite a rosy-cheeked, chatty little girl—so silent they walked home, carrying three small green apples in a cloth sack. Acutely aware they were carrying three small green apples in a cloth sack.
The rain had lightened again. By the time they got home, it was a delicate gossamer overlaying the world. Rukia helped her sister drag inside the one big barrel they owned, which could only be half-filled because it had a leak. Watching the water trickle down—watching the rain outside—it made her despair a bit. It was a lot like finding a treasure and having to leave most of it behind because you just couldn't carry it, while back home the one you loved most dressed in rags and sold wildflowers to buy some hard bread.
Rukia licked away a drop that clung to the corner of her mouth. It tasted like salt. It was not rain.
She undressed herself and wrung her clothes on the dirt-floor half of their shack while Hisana spread out a bamboo-woven mat and shook the only blanket they had, to make sure no mice or bugs had crawled in. Then she lay down and it was Hisana's turn. You could count the knobs of her spine like little buds under the earth. Her hips were as narrow as a closed fist.
Naked, in the dark, they huddled close for warmth. Rukia opened her eyes and closed them again. Hisana's breathing was a soft murmur, quiet like a black sea under gentle wind. It went on raining until it became just another sound; in the morning the earth would be softer, and they would go to the market, and…
"Forgive me," said Rukia. Her voice was so small, it would have taken a single gulp to swallow it up. Her hand reached out and touched her sister's stomach, stumbling blindly—her fingers divined the lines of her ribs, the faint curve of a breast, and then Hisana caught her hand in her own and pulled her closer. The world was lonely, it was unkind, it could be cruel, but that hand. That hand wouldn't let her go, would it? Especially when they're not your own. If she was not Hisana's, then where else did she belong?
And somewhere between one breath and the next, as she waited for a word that never came, she fell asleep.
In the morning, the rain had stopped. Hisana held her hand all the way to the marketplace.
"It's not that I don't trust you," she said, pulling her off to one side so Rukia wouldn't have to walk over a muddy patch. Most of the puddles had dried already, or had been scavenged by somebody too thirsty to care, a topic over which she didn't care to linger even in her thoughts. "But I'm more at ease like this. It's not that I don't trust you," she repeated.
"Sister," said Rukia, and smiled at her, a little. Hisana smiled back thoughtlessly, helplessly.
"I like holding hands," said Hisana, straightening up a little. "You're doing me a favour, you know."
Rukia's smile widened, and she hid her face with the sleeve of her kimono. Her feet were black again, and her clothes worn thin by the years, and her hair a flyaway mop cropped close to her ears, and still for a moment she was so lovely in her startling grace, anybody who loved her less than Hisana would have had to look away to avoid getting their heart broken.
"Well," said Hisana, pleased. She laughed. "Well. Let's go, then."
Thanks to some clever bargaining Hisana had managed to trade bits and pieces of the food that Masako gave her in exchange for small coins. The beggar children liked her because she was neat and serene and never screamed at them. It is true you had to have a hard heart to survive in a world where any softness would get you eaten up in a blink, but often people glanced away, or stopped themselves from delivering that one last fatal blow, not quite out of kindness but perhaps out of a feeling closer to kindness than anything else. Hisana preferred for Rukia to stay away from them—she said Rukia's thinness had nothing on those feral children, so she stood out—and Rukia hadn't the bravery to ask... was Hisana afraid they would lure her away to become a wild thing?
Or was she afraid of how much easier her life would be without Rukia in it?
"What are you thinking about?" said Hisana.
Rukia blinked. She allowed her arm to drop because her face had relaxed into its usual seriousness. Life is like that, child. Pain that comes and goes. You ought to know that already.
"Little sister?"
She shook her head and tried for another impish smile. You wouldn't expect it but she was an alright liar—when she was in the right mood—and Hisana wanted to believe her. They kept their peace, and silent, they walked on.
They did not venture in deep, as Hisana preferred to make her business quietly and Rukia preferred for the old man to stay away from her, so it suited them well. The stalls had been set up tidily, all available wares stacked enticingly. With money in her hands everything looked kinder. There was a woman selling cupfuls from a sack of rice, which usually would have attracted only the bravest customers because a whole sack was an extraordinary luxury, but she had long hair the shade of dark honey and the kind of flinty stare that would stop a rabid dog. Rukia didn't need to be a genius to guess the shadow of somebody in power floating a step behind her hungrily.
"Wait here," said Hisana. She ruffled back Rukia's hair. "I want to see if she sells me two cups for what I've got. I guess I could…" She bit her lip and wandered away, her glossy eyes hardening.
As luck would have it Rukia did not need to wait alone long, and she didn't miss much of importance either—the blonde woman's eyes yielding with the wariness of an animal that has been hurt too often, silently accepting Hisana's coins. Sumire had a tired expression this time, the corner of her eyes tight. She hadn't realised how much of that disaffected attitude was just pretend, but it was easier to see it now. Like polish rubbing off.
Rukia stared at her. Sumire stared back, hugging herself. She tried for a smile that was limp around the edges, like a rag doll whose stitches were too loose.
"Hello," said Sumire.
She was prettier than Rukia had remembered. "Hi," she said back.
"Oh, so you do talk," said Sumire. She rubbed her own elbows. "I was wondering."
Rukia glanced at her sister, who was still chatting with the rice seller. Sumire followed the turn of her head. A light in her eyes flickered and died.
"Ah," she said. "Your sister?"
Rukia nodded.
"You look alike."
Another nod.
"I just wanted to apologise," said Sumire, rather abruptly. "I wanted to help you, but—"
"She doesn't need your help," said Hisana, who had apparently finished up just when Rukia had stopped paying attention. Of course. Her voice was high and brittle, and she stepped in between them, ushering Rukia behind her. "She doesn't need anything from you. We're not interested."
Like a veil falling over the face of a bride, Sumire's face became a study of nothingness. "It's not like that, I—"
"It's none of my business," said Hisana, coldly. "Please don't talk to my sister again. She's a good girl, I don't want her to—" Nobody spoke in the wake of Hisana's aborted sentence. Rukia noticed her hands were fisted tightly, trembling. She had a cloth bag hanging from her obi. "If we ever need to talk to, to somebody like you, it will be me," said Hisana, raising her chin proudly. "It will be me. But never her."
They stared at each other. They looked nothing alike: Hisana, a girl spun from milk and dark glass, and those eyes that were lovely enough to cast a spell or two. Sumire was taller, older, with a triangular face and upturned eyes, and brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. She called to mind faraway images of a bamboo forest, or a deer walking soundlessly to the edge of a river to drink.
But of the two, Sumire was harder. No question about it. Rukia grabbed the bottom of Hisana's kimono and held on.
"Sister," she said, quiet. "She helped me."
Hisana was breathing heavily. The set of her shoulders lost some of its tension but didn't relax. It wouldn't be the first time a story took a wrong turn, after all. It wouldn't be the first time somebody misstepped because of cheap kindness.
Sumire sighed deeply. She straightened her posture and let her arms drop at her sides.
"I wasn't any good at stealing, that's why," she said, low. "I wasn't any good and I was too young, back then, to try for a position in a gang, I was just… I would have been another mouth to feed and that's that. And maybe it wouldn't have been so bad, but… um." She swallowed. Her lashes fluttered like butterflies taking flight. "I, I've got a brother, see. A younger brother. So I understand. You don't have to worry." And louder: "I didn't become a monster just because I did what I had to, you know."
Hisana crowded Rukia closer to her, as if the mere talk of this was hurting her. "Where is he?" she asked.
Sumire's full mouth twisted bitterly. "Somewhere better, hopefully. I did what I had to," she repeated. It did not sound like she was trying to convince herself, it sounded like she had been saying those words for so long they had become a prayer for luck. If it was true, then it wasn't meaningless. If it was true, then it was okay to sleep once dawn came.
A group of young men—oh, they looked like they had just left twelve or thirteen behind, but they were men because their teeth were sharp and so were their gazes—crept into the market like a wave splashing ashore. Sumire and Hisana both turned to look at the same time, their staredown being paused seamlessly. Things were like that, in that place: the enmity of women does not survive the weight of a man. Rukia pinned the ringleader immediately. It was a boy whose dark hair stood up in spikes. His red lips were thin and mobile, his fangs peculiarly long. She didn't know his name but she was betting it would be spoken like a curse.
"Go," said Sumire. She was hardly breathing. "Go, now."
But Hisana didn't need a warning. She was already turning to pick up Rukia, untying the cloth bag from her obi so she could hand it to the child. Hisana balanced her sister on the jut of her hip and exchanged one last thoughtful look with Sumire.
"See you."
Sumire blinked. "See you," she echoed.
But they didn't see her.
Hisana said nothing else about the matter, not even to ask pointedly how come her disobedient little sister was so familiar with a prostitute. Rukia didn't dare raise the topic because she could feel the curl of anger still arching Hisana's step. You can say it's well and good all you want and your heart will keep on throbbing black. Trees take time to grow and so does honest forgiveness. There was nothing wrong with that, and nothing to do but wait, and…
And.
Rukia didn't go out on her own again. When she felt her fool head trying to chew itself, she reminded herself this meant Hisana loved her, because Hisana forgave almost anything easily except danger to Rukia. The days sped by and Hisana went to work and Rukia accompanied her. Once her bruises healed —track marks erased by the rain— she even dared to go outside, although she made sure to stay within sight of the workhouse. She played hopscotch in the dirt. She walked under the lean shades of trees and traced the rough bark with the tip of her fingers. She held her breath to listen for the ghostly trill of birds. She slept curled up at her sister's feet. She woke up every morning hungry and went to bed starving, and in between she wondered at the prickle of longing growing in her belly, digging deep, spreading its branches…
She climbed trees.
Most everything in Inuzuri looked dead. Including the people. Especially the people. In any case, under a certain light at sunset, the forest behind their ramshackle home gave the impression that it went on forever. An ocean of grey trees. Some of them did shed leaves, but not enough to make a crunchy carpet under your feet. Like everybody else living in hell, they held on tight to what they had. She liked it best when she climbed as high as she could —as high as her sister, ever-vigilant on the ground, would allow— and then looked up at the sky, without anything to interfere with the clean spread of it. Hisana didn't let her go deep into the forest because sometimes monsters ate people in there and, as she said it, she had not kept her foolish little sister safe for years and years to have her get snatched up by a strange creature, thank you kindly.
This was her life, now.
Monsters in the forest. Monster haunting a house of sugar. Monsters—
"What are you thinking about?"
Rukia let her cheek rest against the trunk of the tree and glanced down. Hisana had pinned up her hair and her face was pink with liveliness. The hushed quiet of the forest enveloped her in a delicate beauty. It made one glad that Hisana rarely smiled at strangers.
"Come down," said Hisana. "Time to go, darling."
Rukia obeyed without protest. The light was softening, the shadows grew in slow blurs. Hisana was waiting for her at the foot of the tree, arms outstretched and brow furrowed in concentration, and Rukia skid down the last stretch sloppily before she was caught anyway. She had rubbed her ankle raw, but there was no blood. Hisana tutted disapprovingly.
"You're so careless."
"Sorry."
"No, you're not. Don't lie."
A half-smile. Hisana dimpled back. For a moment it was easy, and that's why Rukia said, "Are we going to see Sumire again?"
No man is an island. So they say.
It would have broken your heart to see Hisana then, that secret smile dissolving like sugar in hot water and draining, first from her eyes, then her mouth and finally from her hands, which stilled in the air.
Rukia bit her tongue. Then she said, "I'm sorry."
"You don't have to apologise," said Hisana, unsteady. "You haven't done anything wrong."
But—
Hisana picked up her little sister and balanced her on a hip sharp as a cliff. Rukia clung to her, tiny fists leaving wrinkles shaped like starfish on her clothes, and they went home. Whenever there was silence—and this one thing Rukia wouldn't admit it, but it was true—whenever there was silence, Rukia had the unforgivable sensation of having made a mistake. It was like she hurt Hisana just by existing, and at the heels of those unkind thoughts came worse ideas. Like maybe the real Rukia wouldn't be such a bad sister. Maybe the real Rukia could love Hisana better.
Thinking about Sumire ached less. She was not a real girl yet, you know, not to Rukia who loved only one person in all the worlds—but there was a certain poetry about Sumire. It's easy to become fond of pretty sad girls because you can more or less fill them up with what you want, you can pin any sorrow you like on them. Rukia thought about Sumire's fine bones and her wry smile when talking about her brother and was fascinated by it, was flushed pink with curiosity.
Hisana looked at her for a while and swallowed a sigh.
"Don't wander too far away, Rukia," said Hisana the next morning. It was so early the sun wasn't quite up yet and a pearly mist covered Inuzuri like a wedding veil. "And I don't care how nice she seems, don't follow her into any buildings."
They both knew even if Sumire picked up Rukia and dragged her away kicking and screaming nobody would help. Politely, Rukia refrained from commenting.
"And you have to be back by noon. Otherwise I'm seriously never letting you go anywhere on your own, ever. Even when you're three hundred years old, you'll be stuck with your naggy older sister."
Rukia nodded, bright-eyed.
"I know where she works," Hisana continued, stern-faced. "So don't try to be sly! Elder sister can be tricky too."
Rukia covered her mouth with a sleeve. A dimple appeared on her right cheek. Hisana knelt and hugged her tightly, as tightly as she could, and then stood up with her customary mild expression.
"Go on, then," she said soberly. "Go play."
Rukia turned right around and ran towards the heart of the district without looking back.
The heartlessness of children.
notes:
1. as of august 2017, this story is active again.
2. i have a very hard time writing this. we shall see how it goes.
3. thank you very much for reading. if there is anything in particular you liked, do please share.