Reminiscence
by Sarcastic Proserpine
***
-Tea-
"I do not love you."
Her doe-white eyes looked up at him, appearing calm but in inner turmoil because of the words spoken.
That, she knew already.
She had known it since the beginning of their marriage, she hadn't known it when they still had been just kids but she had realized it as soon as he saw that she was to be the one to wed him. From the very start there had never been any feelings of love, it was merely an arrangement for political benefits, a pact in order to appease two former rival clans. He had made that clear.
She had tried, she had tried her hardest to grow tender feelings, but in the end his harsh words would stomp the sprouted beginnings back into the dark earth, every time again.
It always hurt.
Fighting tears back, she pulled the hem of her azure kimono straight and went to grab the teapot, pouring the steaming liquid in his cup as well as her own with trembling fingers. She just hoped that he wouldn't notice. The heavy silence that had come with his statement coiled around them like the damps of the herbal tea and no one did anything to lift it. She felt his silent anger and wondered if she really was that bad of a wife.
Suddenly, he put his cup down with a harsh movement and the tea spilled over the edge onto the tatami mats, leaving dark stains in the rice straw. She looked at it as he left the room without another word, his usually so apathetic face twisted in an emotion that seemed like pain. She felt it. She saw it in the water stains.
It had been three months now, and her husband detested her.
- - - - -
-Flower-
As she slid the door open, she was careful not to step onto the flower that would surely lie in front of their house, shining brightly in all its beauty to her from down the door step.
She looked.
It was there.
As always, it was there. A single flower, simple in its clean whiteness but to her so very beautiful as she knew that behind the white could lie a very surprising story of colors. Her mother used to tell her that when she had been bullied again for her eyes, her eyes that were as white as the flowers that she would now find on her door step. Since she got married, everyday, a new one would be there. As her husband would leave her for his work and to escape the suffocating bonds of his home, it would be there. Every day, it would be there.
Every day, she would pick it up carefully, enjoying the feel of the fragile petals on her finger tips for a moment and admiring it in the early sunlight. Then she would go inside again before any of the maids could notice her absence and put it in a vase, a very old one that she had gotten from her aunt as a wedding gift. Every day, she would remove the old flower and replace it with the new one, but she would never throw the older one away; the flower from yesterday would be stuffed in-between the pages of a thick book and then she would wait for it to dry, wait and wait until the flower could be put in her book, where she kept all the flowers from the previous days, weeks, months.
Sometimes, she would leaf through it. And then she could feel all the happy little moments from those days again.
- - - - -
-Hairpin-
"I do not love you."
He looked as she looked, dark eyes boring into white ones, and seeing the pain in her eyes he felt the familiar pang of guilt pierce his heart, as always when he said something horrible to her, but he would never take his words back.
He would never take his words back, because it was important that she heard them.
Not because they were necessarily true, but because the day he wouldn't be there anymore, would be less painful for her that way. He remembered the day that his parents died, everyday he would be remembered, by the hairpin that his wife would wear as a token of gratitude towards him.
It was a very beautiful hairpin, a deep dark blue color with a tinge of purple, decorated with oriental flowers and butterflies that seemed as if they had flown away straight out of a dream. It fitted the kimono that she wore today perfectly, an azure one with light pink and white flowers at the hems. The hairpin had once belonged to his deceased mother.
He had given her it.
He saw her trembling fingers as she did her best to look as graceful as possible while pouring him tea, and it angered him that his very own words were responsible for her distress.
Still, he did not take them back.
He remembered the day that his parents died, and strengthened by the conviction that his harsh treatment towards her would make it less painful for her when death would come knocking on his door, he took a sip from his tea.
It was too hot, and burned his tongue. He didn't cringe, but somehow felt as if the gods wanted to let him know that he had made a bad decision.
The anger had gotten to him before he knew it, but then his tea had already left its imprint on the tatami mats at his folded legs. For a moment, they both just sat there. The coughing fit, envoked by his sudden fit of anger, attacked him too suddenly to hold it in and he quickly rose, face distorted by the pain that came with attempting to keep a disease within its shackles.
He didn't look back as he left the room and his wife in it. It was somehow comforting to know, he thought ironically as he looked at the specks of blood that colored his fingers, that she would not be able to hear his coughs over the sound of her own sobs.
- - - - -
-House-
He silently looked from behind the sakura tree as she picked up the flower he had left there for her. She didn't know that it was him who would give her the flowers everyday and he would keep it that way. She did not need to know it was him. She just needed the feeling that someone out there cared for her.
He loved how she looked in the rays of early sunlight of autumn, hair still untied and not yet in her kimono, she still resembled a bird uncaged that way. He wanted to touch her, but didn't reach out and then she already returned inside again. Right back into the birdcage.
It suffocated him, to stay there, in the same house where his parents had lived a long time ago, where he had walked around as a toddler a long time ago, where his brother had taught him archery a long time ago.
And he and his spouse were expected to live the exact same life now, and he already knew he couldn't the first time he saw his wife-to-be.
He hadn't wanted it to be her. Her, of all people, the former childhood friend, the former enemy, the Hyuga.
His first love. His last love. His wife. He hadn't wanted it to be her. She would only get hurt. She was not a bird meant for the birdcage called the Uchiha manor. He could only hope that the flowers would give her a fleeting moment of freedom.
- - - - -
-Cloth-
There had been no flower that morning.
Half a year had passed. Six months, twenty-five weeks, 175 days. Such a long time, and so little had changed. Only, on 168 of those days she had received a flower. Every day, she had received one. Every day, except for the past week. And she hadn't realized how much she loved receiving them until they no longer came. She had been very happy with them, of course. But nothing had stricken her more than the day there had been no flower.
She pulled her mantle a little closer around her form as it was very cold for that time of the year and gave a slight smile and a small bow towards the vendor from whom she bought his last fish. He gave her a sorrowful look. She must've looked pathetic, a skinny, young woman unaccompanied by her husband on a cold afternoon.
Somehow, she did not want to go back. She wanted to stay outside a little longer, underneath the downpour of Sakura blossoms that colored the world around her. However, her feet automatically brought her back to the Uchiha manor. It was a chilling sight to see, as the house looked dead.
When she softly closed the door behind her and turned around, she found him laying on the floor, a white cloth over his face.
A yelp escaped her lips as she saw him there, unmoving and looking so very dead. Before she could move, though, he had lifted his arm up and tilted the cloth up from his face, dark eyes boring a hole into hers. She took a step back, hand on her chest as to calm her heartbeat down.
"I-I'm sorry, you s-scared me. I thought—"
He interrupted her before she could finish her sentence. "I felt warm. So I put a wet cloth on my face to cool down a little." He folded it until it rested only on his forehead. A sigh was heard.
"Lend me your lap for a little while."
He had closed his eyes. She turned red in an instant at his request.
She didn't think that she had heard that well. She didn't think that Sasuke had asked that just now. But when she saw he had opened his eyes and was now glancing at her with a questioning look hidden deep underneath a layer of apathy, she could do nothing more than to scoot over to his side and kneel beside him. He lifted his head and rested it on her folded knees, she awkwardly let her hands fall at their sides.
Both did not move for a very long time and not a single word was spoken, as had been the case for so many times before. But somehow, this time it wasn't unsettling. It wasn't brooding. It felt comfortable. She closed her eyes to savor the forgotten feeling.
"I'm sorry."
White eyes opened wide and looked down in shock, straight into dark ones. He was looking at her. He was really, truly, looking straight at her, without averting his eyes or turning away. He was simply looking. The cloth slowly slid downwards.
"I'm sorry."
He said it again. Why? Why would he apologize, why after such a long time? The tears stung harshly in her eyes and she closed them for a second to will the sadness away.
The cloth had covered his eyes again. He did not attempt to push it back. He was silent. He felt cold. She stared. A red stain appeared on the cloth where his mouth must have been.
"Hinata-dono? What are you doing?"
- - - - -
-Forget-me-not-
She looked up. One of her maids, Ino, was staring at her with a worried look on her face before coming over and crouching down next to her, putting a hand on her shoulder as if to wake her up. "Hinata-dono, are you feeling not well? Do you need to lie down? You look very pale." Light blue eyes averted and were directed to what her mistress was holding onto.
Hinata shook her head. "I'm feeling fine, Ino. I was just…" She looked back at what her fingers were clutching as well. The cloth was thrown onto the ground.
Ahh, of course. How could she have forgotten?
"Ino, h-how long has it been since…since…" She could not even finish her sentence. Realization had struck hard, even though it was only a memory from before. The other let out a soft sigh. "Sasuke-dono has been dead for a week now, Hinata-dono. Do you not remember? The tuberculosis had finally gotten to him." She tried to lift her mistress up. "Come Hinata-dono, you need to rest now."
She let herself be taken away, suddenly feeling very tired and cold. In her room the last flower she had ever received was still standing there, already withering but still not bereft from its beauty. She slowly walked towards it and took it from the vase.
"Do— Do you perhaps know the name of this flower, Ino?"
Her maid, since long having a particular interest in flowers, scrutinized the wilted petals for a minute before looking up again, half smiling. "They have a very peculiar name, Hinata-dono, one that I had never heard of until someone specifically requested for them at my parents' flower boutique a while ago. Forget-me-not's, I believe they are called Forget-me-not's."
-Fin-
* * *
'Elloo. Before you ask, I have always wanted to do something like this. I just hope it wasn't too bad. T-T Anyway, this was what I would like to call a silent story; nothing much happens, yet a lot happens. …If you were somehow able to make sense of this, let alone the story,
In case I was kind of vague; when looking at every chapter, you'll see that the meaning of the word 'reminiscence' comes back; in Tea the tea stains leave a distinct impression, in Flower it's the flowers that remind Hinata of the happier moments in her days of marriage. With House I don't mean a certain sexy doctor, but it's more of a metaphor that reminds Sasuke of the life of his deceased parents and brother, and the life that he and Hinata are supposed to live. In Cloth the white cloth that covered Sasuke's face was a reminder that he was already dead. Hinata just didn't want to realize it yet. Forget-me-not speaks for itself, I guess. :)
Well, enough ramblings. Pleaseplease click that one button, you know, that one, you know you want to. XD