Fairy Lights
by Parizaad
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There is the cold dawn chilled in silver. Yellowed and reddened around the edges as if burning up and soaking in goaded blood. Even if the light does not touch her skin, she thinks of how the sunlight, it loops around her fingertips, luster through the pores of her skin, soaks into the white sheets. Her eyes are supposed to see everything, they say, but she cannot see. She cannot see anything beyond this.
Hinata's eyes lax, the Byakugan fades. It is dark again in the room.
It is not unpleasant, the dark. The outlines of a kimono tossed over on the floor can be made out. Purple and gold and blues and scarlet, white silk and ink. There's a Hyuuga emblem on its sleeve, unmistakable and brazen, yet modest in its thread. It slipped off her shoulders like cream. Hinata knows this, without the Byakugan's aid.
There were fairy lights. Red as the rogue on her lips and white as frost and green as the kites in Konoha's skies.
Grim faces too, bracing diluted sake and canes tapped against wooden floors. Recalls this and Hinata only let's her palm rest on her slow beating heart. Yes, the dark is pleasant. Some things are not to be seen and maybe they both recognize the price of it. So the dark is comforting. No matter what, they cannot light it up with the superior flash of their eyes. It is only fair. And of black, long hair pinned to the nape of a gentle neck. Sootier eyes still, blood seeping into them until they spun. A modulated voice of dull echoes of undertaking. But hands so gentle on her skin, it was a cruel antithesis to the kunai grease in the nails. Remembers that too, and Hinata feels her heart race a fraction in anticipation.
The sweaty musk on her cool skin scratches against the sheets. She turns her head over and sees that the black hair are spread over the stark white of the pillows, some slipping over his shoulder like trails of ink. The pale, narrow shoulders are still, he sleeps as he is wake, she knows, a kunai at a hair's breadth always.
You are awake.
It is a whisper, echoing through the languor of the room. His shoulders do not move at all from the heavy timbre of his voice, and Hinata rests her hand between the pale reef of shoulder blades as an answer, even if it were not a question. The black hair are caught up in her fingers. Yes, there is another shedded article of clothing beside hers. Plain and black with an Uchiha fan blazing at its back. Power in its simplicity.
Good morning.
That is another answer on her part. They are not cut for such frivolous things but Hinata grasps at a sundry of strings nevertheless. Duty is duty, and it was molded into their skin the moment they were born. Of course, Hinata sought a willing smile in it, now and then, but she did not recognize the play of faith against her.
Good morning, Hinata.
It is a blow, receiving it back in return. Hinata drops her hand.
He shifts and rises slowly. Long, tapered fingers resting an inch from her idle ones. His body curves like a pale crescent, sheets slipping off his pallid skin. His inky hair tumble down his shoulder, long and thin but silk to touch.
He turns to look at her, the strong line of his nose and his parted lips as he shifts his dark eyes over her. Not the gaze of a man to his wife, no, but of cold regard. Duty. They are bound by duty, this marriage is all but duty to the village and their clans.
So Hinata rises, her body lush and naked, sheets slipping off. She regards him as he does, as he takes her hand in his, and his marble cut hands are cold, cold, cold. He raises her hand to his lips, presses a kiss to her knuckles , grazing her skin with stiff lips languidly and Hinata does not even flinch.
They are, both, grateful for the dark.
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