Hatsumomo is like grass, she's weed. Green and strong and resilient and sprouting from in between the cobblestones. She has long black roots that hug the ground, twining it between her fingers. She feeds from her environment, drinks the cold old water deep down. She spreads over fields and into gardens, sweeps through people's homes. Nests around ponds and climbs mountains.
Hatsumomo survives the frost of winter, when the flowers wither and die, she rests and glitter in the light. She worms her way around bushes and trees, around willows and oaks. She lies in hide and waits.
Spring comes and storms and breaks the cold away, it hurts, the new. It breathes into her ground, melts the ice around her roots. The water is scorching, blistering, and twisting her foothold. It hurts.
Spring is child. Is undone, is change and water. It pours, thousands of thousands of shards raining down.
Hatsumomo is summer. Is the heat and the fog and the vulture of youth. She is the all consuming force of will and clouds of dew. Hatsumomo screams and echoes between mountain cliffs, over steep hills and over lonely fields.
Fall is the fall. It's a step over an edge, the beginning of a hard bruising landing. It's red and brown and death. It's leaves and blackberries and sake. Fall tastes of ashes. Of smoke and of pipe.
Winter is silent and cool. Snowflakes and footprints. Winter is still, and winter suffers in silence and solitude. It's discreet where fall is bitter, discreet where summer is heat, and silent where spring is change.
Hatsumomo drinks her tea. It tastes of Mother's opium and thin green leaves. She can imagine the small delicate hands pouring it. Trembling, unskillful, ungracious.
Undone.
She tips her head back, mindful of her black strands of hair. She thinks of her onee-san, of her too round face and too full lips. Disharmony. Disqualify. Disturbed.
And there will be bitterness in its wake. Like a trail of smoke and ashes.
She spreads her fingers against the window, slender and white against the background. There will be mist around her handprint, her warmth.
And Mameha is the frost and the winter. Hatsumomo laughs. Because she knows her rival, she knows. She can see. Solitude and stoicness, like fin calligraphy. Distance. Discretion. Deluded.
Hatsumomo laughs again, raising her cup and mouths: Kanpai!
Because Hatsumomo is no fool, she's grass with old black roots and she is weed. And summer will come and feed her, and winter will come and smother her, and fall will come to claim her - but only spring will hurt.