fandom - Tactics
title - don't make a sound.
rating - pg
pairing - haruka + kantarou
description – Kantarou remembers something he tried desperately to forget…
disclaimer – Tactics isn't mine.
don't make a sound.
by miyamoto yui
The ashes are flying everywhere like burnt feathers flowing every way the erratic wind pleases to move itself. The blaze rises high into the sky, prayers made in the smoke from flesh and wood.
I watch because it's beautiful in an oddly, morbid way.
Somehow, I almost want to go toward the sparkly fire that calls to me with its flashing colors and seductive fingers. I want to touch it and feel what it all means.
It's to support the changing times. That's what all the adults tell me. They're fighting but they pretend their bodies and their hearts are exactly in sync with the intentions of the people around them. They seem to like lying to themselves that in this half-hearted attempt, they're doing their very best.
Your life's purpose is simplified and defined into two things: giri and ninjyou.
Which do you choose? Yourself or society?
Indecision makes your death faster, it seems.
In awe, I don't understand anything really. Being seven, I only understand what I've been told or what I like to read. But as always, I just listen because my red eyes scare people.
That's why I'm mystified by the fire. For a brief moment, it has the color of my eyes. Can my eyes ever be as beautiful as that, I wonder?
"You're not safe here, Kantarou-kun. You have to get out of here for a little while."
My friends, the Tengu, take my hands with their kindness. We run towards the woods because they want to save me, the outcast of society. Apparently, I'm one of a kind with these eyes that have the color of blood. Though I am allowed to live within the village, they treat me like an eta* and wish not to touch me or interact with me too much. The only saving grace is that I have powers that benefits their 'protection' from the tengu that they say are all bad.
But from what I can see of this destruction, humans are much worse than they esteem themselves to be.
Running, running. Shh shh. My body floats through the tall grass as branches of trees, stems, and leaves touch me. I'm holding onto my friend's hand as they say while putting a finger to my mouth, "Just be quiet and keep on going."
My heartbeat gets faster as my wooden clogged feet rush through the dirt and mud in my way. I catch my breath but fear starts to overcome me. I clasp onto my clothing, holding onto the cloth as if I'm squeezing out my own heart.
I know…
Some part of me knows it's because of my eyes…
You either want me for your advantage or you reject me because I'm useless to your 'ideals'…
Why can't I ever protect myself?
Over and over, I see the fire becoming smaller. My eyes blink and record everything behind me.
Then, I turn forward and mumble to myself, "What would Haruka do? What would you do?" That is the foolish prayer I chant.
When we go into the dark forest, we sit in an area covered with leaves and trees that are only a few feet away from one another. I sit with my back on the bark and breathe in and out.
They hold my hand and try to smile. "Are you okay?"
I grin back as much as I can. "Yes."
Inside, I'm terrified.
I'm sweating more than I should be and the cold catches me by surprise when it touches my body.
With my head in my hands, being the child I am, I start to cry. I sob quietly while rubbing my hands on my messy face. They hug me, but I continue to rain a puddle with my eyes.
I don't understand anything that's happening. I don't get why things have to be like this.
Then, I hear steps coming towards us.
They whisper into my ear, "Don't make a sound. Lie low."
My friends push my head towards the dirty ground. We're all on our stomachs, but their hands remain gently holding the top of my head, soothing me with the feel of their fingers in my hair. I cross my small hands in front of my mouth even if the tears are coming out.
My heart is bursting through the walls of my chest. It's going to break out really soon…
One person with a sword says, "They say they want that red-eyed heir…"
A foot steps in front of my wide-eyed face and I instantly stop breathing. It's only when I hear their steps go slowly away do I sigh in relief.
But we don't move. We're there for an hour.
My tear-strained face manages to fall asleep.
*/*/*/*
I look up to the ceiling and cough. I close my eyes painfully and turn over to find Haruka next to me. My arm goes over his chest.
As I do so, he's staring at me. I blink and I'm startled.
"Haruka?"
He quietly wipes the sweat from my forehead with his palm and rubs it on his yukata. Without having to say anything, he pulls me forward to lean my face into his shoulder, holding me as tightly and as warmly as he can. I can feel his heartbeat through the dark chocolate-colored yukata. His lips touch the top of my head as I find myself shivering.
"I heard you calling me in your sleep," he whispers protectively into my ear as I close my eyes trying to push the images away. I'm trying to forget even though I know I shouldn't.
Within the dream, I had my adult mind, but was stuck in my child body…
Trying so hard to come out…
I bury my head even more into his sleeves, separating the gap of my tears touching his clothing.
"If you cry, are your tears blood, Kantarou-kun?" they used to tease. I can still hear the children and their taunts…
I'm becoming lost in the darkness as the cicadas outside are playing their eerie, attractive melody on this summer night where the moon is hiding itself from the gaze of the people on the Earth.
"Kantarou? Kantarou?" Haruka calls my name over and over, but it sounds so distant. I'm unable to smile for him right now. I close my eyes tighter, so grateful that he's here now even if it's hard to speak up.
"The children used to chase me out of cruelty. Then the adults wanted to exploit me to help them with their 'noble causes within society'," I slowly say with my hands gradually going over his chest and grasping for more. I hold onto him with my fingers and snuggle even closer. "I tried so hard to forget but it came back."
"That's why you were so shocked and terrified when that oni was reaching out towards you while saying that your eyes are probably the mark of blood."
Yes, while doing the exorcism, I had just stood there and was scared of the things that rushed back into my head right before I saw Haruka save me. And I was so mad that I couldn't save myself.
But I don't want to talk about it anymore. I don't want to say anything right now.
I promise I'll tell you later, Haruka. Just not now…
"Shh, it's all right," his soothing voice tells me lovingly while touching my head softly with his fingers. "Don't make a sound, or else you'll worry Youko…"
And I don't hear anything beyond that familiar chant of 'don't make a sound'. Silently, I cry all over again while my body quivers out of response to his words.
Until now, I still don't know what it means to be strong and it always eats away at my heart every single day. I'm so confused and nothing's making sense with the cicadas' song becomes louder in my ears mixed with his firm, yet assuring voice talking to me.
Back then, was I supposed to fight everyone or run away to live?
"Kantarou, you're safe here."
This single sentence gets through my hardened heart and the perplexities that have started to invade my mind. I begin to relax a bit. I can close my eyes now without become scared of the invading darkness trying to catch me.
I'm still shaking, but I still hold on.
"Yes, that's right, Haruka," I smile as I turn my head to look at those deep, deep eyes. But when I blink again, my eyes are full of concern as they fill with water again. I put my hand on his cheek as he watches me attentively.
"Someday, it will be me saying it to you."
When the confusion clears, I'll be able to do it. To not think of quiet voices that tell me to follow what they want me to do while being threatened of death or being told that it's better not to live than to be the way I was born…
I will rise to become even stronger than the feared oni-eating tengu.
I have to protect the only good dream I loved that remained from my childhood…
Firmly, I hold onto his hand, closing my eyes to vividly remember everything little by little. To fight and free myself of the things I'd forced myself to forget. To repaint my world to find something I can believe in without faltering as others before me.
Now I understand why my eyes are red:
They're to proudly display the blood of a path no one has taken. It is not clean and it isn't as righteous as others assert their own trails to be.
I'm just so frustrated that it's taking so long. No matter how much time has passed, I'm still like this. I'm trying so hard to analyze everything around me and to build up my heart to become strong enough to take anything hurled at it.
It's still not the level I want it to be.
He pokes one of my dimples to make me smile and I end up doing so. I laugh at him in this darkness because he's silently telling me, "You're doing just fine."
Yes, I'm fine for now. It's not that I don't know what to do. I'm just impatient. With you, I will learn what it means to become strong to its fullest extent, Haruka.
Even if you're quiet most of the time, you're always thinking, only saying things when you feel it's necessary. When you're worried by the way some tengu pursue you because of your past, you fight for the future, not troubled anymore with just surviving intact.
You think about protecting me while I'm trying so hard to be someone that can equal that.
It isn't about having an impenetrable heart at all. It's being able to take all the drowning impacts of the nightmares that life throws while keeping afloat with our huge dreams, both the good and bad. To not become bitter because of the world's imposing standards and ideals,
but to become compassionate enough to remain gentle to understand the 'why' of the ones I carry for myself…
More than with my inked pen, I have to be able
to speak up for them fearlessly
so that I can change.
I lean forward to kiss your forehead and lie back down to go to bed with your hand in mine.
Tomorrow, when the sun rises, I'll be able to smile, the one you're trying to save from the harm of my own doubts. But don't you know that after all this waiting,
this is the one that I saved just for you?
Owari.
-
Author's note – I felt like doing something that was somewhat related to the Meiji periods since my love is turn of the century Japan, especially its literature. (My two favorite authors of all time wrote in this periodSoseki-sensei~! * ahem *)
* eta – a status in society that marks like an 'untouchable' in a caste system.
Thursday, July 28, 2005
1:08:17 PM