A/N: This is a head-canon narrative establishing a certain part in Illumi's youth; a product of my two weeks' confinement with my classic novels. Feel free to leave a review of any kind! ^^
Note: Illumi's age was 15 here.
Disclaimer: Illumi is Togashi's.
OBSCURE
It was never something that can easily be comprehended; that indescribable sensation similar to an apoplectic condition of a person in agreeable health, to a chaotic mental dysfunction of a person with the utmost sanity–that eerie feeling which diverts a human's heart into an impatient eagle violently wanting to break free from its ribcage–nerves in desperate need of letting loose, confusion to its extremity, fast throbbing pulses, drowning lungs.
Sometimes he wondered about the normality of such irrational feeling, and considered it as senseless as any word emitted by any empty brain ever existed, and that they were the deformity of his whole being, the destroyer of his bloodlust soul; for with every small smile discerning under her rosy cheeks, with every address of his name through the sweet tone of her voice, with every gaze from her glistening bright eyes, his being weakens–and the indescribable sensation once again excites his heart.
He never truly wanted it to happen, for he never knew what was to happen, nor did he know what was happening. Had she not smiled to him every day, had she not addressed his name ever so lovingly, he would have never had a slightest risk of venturing into this dangerous passion. He could not. He should not. The blame, however, was never hers. He took it all to himself, with a mindset of forbearance and self-retribution, because he never should have looked her way when he was walking up their family abode; he never should have looked her way whenever he was walking up their family abode, especially after a long bloodstained day. No, that was extremely immoral in his nature. He never should have looked her way because he should not. And that was the end of it–supposedly.
For people who have the perfect set of society with the faces of normality and prevalence, this dilemma can easily be disentangled–gradually; with common human means. But for a boy of fifteen, whose life has been about the education of cold-blooded felony, it was a threatening, yet enchanting thing. Confusion had struck him a great deal in the chest then. He was an assassin, and he was taught not to express certain something to normal people roaming about; let alone feel them in his system. He was taught not to feel any emotion, but he was never taught of how to control them once they start infiltrating his soul.
By all means, he should have been erasing her from his sight–that was the most reasonable item his bag of options could ever offer, the most natural event for him to do as well. Yet, strangely, his rationality chose to defy reason, and her termination should be the last, if not should never be an item in his options bag. He wondered why something within him tells him that he should never kill her. The brain reasons; because she was never a subject of death predominantly. It was the most sensible. Though another agency of his body reasons, he should never take it, for he might fall into complete amity.
Days, weeks, months passed and they both remained as though it was their first time seeing each other; with her greeting him with a heart-warming smile, and him walking past emitting but a single glance of dispassion towards her direction–not disclosing even one sign of his roaring spirit. And he curses himself for such. She deserved–deserves–a reply. Besides, he needed to know her purpose. She could not have done the same thing for over four months without an intention–at least that was what the other part of his reasoning insists. Though, admittedly, after the said span of time, he would wish that she should still be there standing at the top of the hill where her house was, looking at his direction, with the colour of the sunset reflecting on her ivory skin infinitely. But, she could be deceiving him, luring him in, making him fall into false serenity, and take advantage of his impossible imprudence. Uncharacteristically reluctant, he pronounced her as someone he should never keep his guard down to.
The following day he planned to speak to her the moment he returns from his outlawed occupation. His objective was direct: to know why she has always been like that towards him–a mere stranger, and worst, a murderer. Though within him another objective was passionately fighting its way into his consciousness, he dared not think about it. Had his presentiments came true, it would not matter anymore. She will be terminated and he can finally be rid of the other side of himself.
Walking towards the hill situated before the turn to his own home, thinking about him approaching her in such a sudden manner, for the first time in his life, he felt all sorts of different things rolling about his gut. The indescribable sensations came back violently with their vulnerable friends, ruthlessly destroying his completely perfect statue of a well-bred fifteen year old boy of his nature. Those feelings were meant to be ignored, and he did his best in doing so without lifting a single muscle on his face. But still, he could not understand why those sensations would come to him whenever he reaches that point of the road, and he could not possibly resign himself to a word that he knew was highly impossible in his case.
Reaching the bottom of the small hill, without stopping in his tracks, he voluntarily gazed up like he always do before marching upwards; his face glowed with his sparkling enthusiasm upon the sight he was expected to see. Standing at the top of the grass-filled scenery, was her and all her glory, gazing beyond the boasting qualities of the deep Clementine and lavender painted sky, with which gave splendid hue to the messy curls of her red copper locks that faced him. Not one second did he savour the view; for the moment his pupils came in contact with her person, his spirit became sinfully excited, and he could never spoil himself for such pleasure, he should never allow himself to. Yet there was a contradicting power hidden behind his skull–he was inwardly fighting his own sane rationality into something that was beyond his command.
A deep breath was inevitably necessary, and he continued to stride up walking with his face to the ground, thoughtful yet guarded–torn between the want to display his dispassionate approach, and the want to conceal his emotional fragility. The probability of him being no longer able to control his other self with the latter was a great deal indeed. But a step closer and he was calmer. He was able of clearly hearing the movement of the earth under a turn of a heel, the faint rustles of the grasses that grew about, and a small sound of a light hopeful gasp that headed his way. The brain rapidly instructed him to repress the seemingly unavoidable curve his lips violently wanted to release; he obeyed, and continued his short journey towards the plan. Halfway through, and five steps more, he would hear the sound of her gentle voice once more for another day.
"Good evening, Illumi-san."
As a matter of course the boy would look up, giving a glance of the most composed and dispassionate as his nature proposed, towards her direction, and, by design, would cease in his tracks, with his face at hers.
Surprise, however, in her accordance, he expectedly found. The idea of him pausing in front of her for the very first time after the span of four months was incredulous; and with the idea that a majority of people living beyond the area of their house knew about their dreadful affairs, he has expected to see in her eyes that passionate fear–there was none. That, in his case, was the most surprising, and confusing. Still, his face was void of any emotion when he asked in the most monotonous tone of voice, "How did you know my name?"
He watched as she batted her eyes, and observed how long her eyelashes were and how dimples on her right cheek would appear the moment she smiled at him again. Blinking was then necessary; for her glistening eyes have stabbed his chest deeper with a much clearer and closer view. He then observed her person from head to foot, estimating years and height in numbers. She seemed no more than three or four months younger than he was, and her height seemed to have matched her age. He was extremely reluctant of memorizing her physicality, though; for he fears it might trigger his ridiculous felicity. He waited.
She hesitated, looking down and playing with a strap from her girdle, with which movement had made him even guarded than before, and continued as she turned her gaze towards him; "Everyone knows who you are in here, sir."
Agitation was then gradually departing his system as soon as she revealed this very essential answer, but the boy's conjecture of her character has increased a great deal. He had wondered why her face seemed to have so much colour than when he pictured her with pure white complexion in the past four months. He could not understand why her perfectly painted face would glow as though radiance was emanating through the borders of her person, and her voice sounded as gentle and soft as the hum of fresh winds at dawn. He could only but look at the grass below and give a single firm nod of a reasonable rationale. Three seconds of self-deliberation and composure passed, he looked at her, asking again another question; "Do you know who I am?"
A faint change in the facial muscles was visible about her. Her features grew stiff, but the small smile remained when she answered, "Yes, sir, I do."
Ponderous thoughts soon flooded his now opaque presumptions. "Do you know what I am?" he asked, tempted to follow up the question with another four or more. The girl entranced him, now characteristically, and he now wanted to know more about her–not just her purpose, but her whole being. His family taught no room for conversing casually with strangers, with poor strangers most especially, but at that moment, his well-known natural rationality has been thrown to the farthest and darkest abyss of his brain.
He saw her fidget; only for a reason he then assumed as what he expected–fear. But, once again, her countenance showed nothing of that kind. She answered with a reluctant nod, pressing her lips together and facing the grassy earth, kicking it with the heel of her boot.
The boy did not question her abruptly that time. His mind wandered off to the wonders of the person before him. He was questioning himself; of why she only nodded when he asked her if she knows what he was, why she fidgeted before giving an answer, why she suddenly played with the earth, why she avoided his gaze while he was talking. There were numerous questions, so many that they were starting to flood his lungs, and the longer he observed her, the more violent they danced against his chest. Uninformed by his upright alert mind, he swallowed liquid and cleared his throat.
This unexpected sound made the girl look at him with eyes wide of shamed surprise, and the significant colour on her cheeks increased. She returned to delight herself with the grass on the ground. A few moments she hesitated, and then she finally looked at him with incandescent curiosity straight in the face–searching, wondering.
In all honesty, he was becoming uneasy with her sudden deep gaze–made him wish he should not have made a sound that accounts for her attention–but he never took his impassive eyes off her. Agitation was returning to his nerves then; not the agitation of curiosity like earlier, but the agitation of intense emotion pounding hard on his pulses. He was somehow gradually considering his sentiments towards the entire situation, and learning them, but with restraint. How he had hoped he didn't have to. How he had hoped he could give her an equal enthusiasm through expression from his passionless face. Suddenly he was as immobile as ever before, and involuntarily, he was mute.
A pause of the most awkward kind presumed after the intent stare given off to each other, and the girl, after blinking and realizing her position, gave it up. She backed away to give a reasonable space between her and the aristocrat. With great embarrassment she bowed, and did not remove her eyes from the ground.
The movement seemed to have a magnetic effect on the boy; for when she stepped back, he stepped forward, without knowing himself what he did. He waited, watched, for something that can come from her to him, but after about five seconds, it was a failure. The boy then had recalled what he ought to do prior to his approaching her: he ought to know why, with the knowledge he found she knows of him, the girl's gallantry towards him had a strange consistency. A question after a bat of the eyelids was then uttered with great civility but with coldness, as his nature persists. "Why do you talk to me?"
Bright burnt umber eyes that glowed like bronze shot a good shocked gaze towards his. They read disapproval and confusion. She then answered, with a tone much higher than before, but gentle still. "Talk to you! Why, you were the one who went to me. I should be the one asking you the question, sir. Why do you talk to me?"
Surprised by the answer he received, his pure black eyes widened for a moment. He thought about her being right, but then he understood that she misled the question. He explained the content in detail most casually as his emotional courage could. Seeing the colour and expression on her face change while he was talking left him again in an endless wonder, but he was gratified; for if she was not so determined in the avoidance of eye contact, he would have never had another minute in holding on to his frigid countenance. He would have smiled, and that is sinful to his profession, because then it would not have to be unreal.
She replied with a low bow and countless words of apology for her sudden behaviour, explaining that she was tensed and extremely agitated by his approach that her nerves might have gotten the best of her. A small shy smile prevailed upon her colourful face while speaking, though with shaken syllables, with tenderness and with a glow that seemed to be coming out of her system.
The boy did not intervene while she was stating her reason with pure conviction, observing her actions and words still; searching for the answer he was looking for between the lines. The answer he was looking for, however, when asked by his own self, he could not comprehend. He knew he wanted to hear a particular, but he would never submit himself into taking it. He shouldn't. Yet the sound of her voice, and the gentleness of her features, the secrecy in her movements, have captivated his curiosity so much that his chest was taking a full blow of it. He wanted to know more and more of this interesting creature, and thus inquiring abruptly, after she has finished speaking, with rushed words; "Your name."
"What?" she asked, looking at him, but suddenly looking down once more. After a few seconds she regained composure, and with a deep breath locked her gaze towards his face with the same smile she beholds by her whenever she greets him. "If you are asking for my name, sir, you should have given a proper question."
The normality of the boy's nature was, because he has been raised in a rich and well-known family, and because he has been trained to be of superior to all the people around him except for his own elders, the manner of speaking and the indirect responses of the girl were the two things he despised of all. He was a boy, a man, who would never give time for such petty conversations. Never in his life of fifteen years did he ever engage in a discussion so full of pointless deviousness. It was never acceptable, but here he made an exception; and in the face of that exception he chose to obey. Thus he inquired again, now in a more civil manner of speaking, and with great effort in sounding as gentle as his pride could give, "Can I know your name?" The reason was irrelevant.
The smile on her face grew passionately pure from ear to ear. It will look as though she has triumphed over someone she couldn't possibly contest with. She gently nodded once to show her approval of his nicer tone and replied, "Yes, you can." With suspense he waited for her name with the most enthusiastic of his spirits hidden behind his stone-carved face. The rich smile on her face made him want to lose himself that instant, but his preventing clenched fists prevailed. She inhaled. "My name, sir, is–"
"Why, you wretched li'ul lass!"
The atmosphere shifted painfully.
"Milked t' damned cows, cleaned t' damned house, mak' yer own money, you still haven't! Oh, there, there! There, you talk to a 'yong lad befo' doing yer damned housewo'k! Ask him first of his money so I can sell you to him and you can finally be useful! Come and buy me another box of whiskey, now! How worthless can you be in 'tis damned world, you worthless piece of rusted metal, come here!"
A short stout man, who secured the air with strong fumes of alcohol and smoke, came out of the old cottage, calling the girl with the most high pitch of his raspy old voice, stumbling halfway because of the effects of the liquor at hand, slapping the face of the young woman upon reaching her, and violently pulling her through her hair towards the cottage. The girl struggled fiercely, unlocking the strong grip of his fat hand from her hair, and groaning towards his direction. Planting her feet on the earth she did, but the strong build of the drunken man three times her weight dragged her to her heels.
The boy watched, with an accustomed air but with a roaring disapproval, as the man brutally dragged the girl and how she struggled and seemed to struggle in vain. He was torn between sense–with which he knows in his nature that he should not intervene with the inevitable–and sensibility–with which he feels that he should. Hearing the soft, gentle voice of the girl earlier turn into aggressive, struggling growls; seeing her ivory skin marked with hands it did not deserve, her smile replaced with an angry frown, her eyes with full fury, his fingers twitched, and an unwelcomed emotion was emanating within him–he was infuriated. He took a step forward, but hesitated, and waited a little longer to think whether or not he should do what his sinful spirit tells him to do.
Two empty attempts by her failed, and another failed again. The more the boy watched, the more his blood boiled. He took another step, but was ceased the moment he saw her step the heel of her boot powerfully on her proprietor's right foot and bite the skin of the wrist with which hand beheld her locks. A loud agonized scream came out of the throat of the man, holding his bitten wrist with the free fingers from his occupied hand. The girl broke free and ran to the direction of the young man, gasping for air, but after another step was struck to the ground again, with a large rock hitting her weak back. She tried standing up but found it too painful. The boy turned his now dreadful eyes towards the accused man who was walking towards the girl. He watched as he stood above the young woman, stepping his heavy foot on her shoulders, pressing it deeper into the earth. The boy knew the infliction of pain upon her; for the girl was in anguish. A few laughs left the old man's system and, lifting the bottle of liquor he had in his hand and aiming it at the head of the girl, he said, "Kiss your own grave, you wretched, useless mutt."
The boy thus finally moved, and silence filled the sunless twilight. Hearing the silent whimpers of the creature he then knew he cared for, he approached her slowly, watching as she gained enough strength to lift her body from the ground. She had managed to seat herself on the earth and regain composure. He reached and ceased in front of her, crouching to level his face with hers, and starting, without a single tremble in the tone of his voice, "Can I know your name?"
Her countenance seemed to have lightened up when he called her attention, but her face gave an anxious look as she looked around. "Where is my father?"
After a blink he answered, "I killed him."
A loud familiar gasp had escaped her throat–familiar, too familiar for him. But at that very moment, though at first he truly expected it from her, he then dreaded to hear it, to see it–it was the sound of fear. And the look in her face; backing away with her bronze eyes glistening with tears, looking at him as wide as they could go, eyebrows not knowing what line to form, unable to utter a word, unable to move a muscle–this was exactly it: the look in the face of a person who was taunted in complete horror, and that the person who caused it was fifteen inches away from her face, shamelessly speaking of the truth of what he had done.
The boy, though externally void of any emotion, was extremely feeling something he was forcing his brain to relate to physicality, but was not. He was not scathed, he was not scratched, yet a dagger seemed to have stabbed his ribcage open, played with his lungs with its blade, and violently wounded his life muscle to the core.
All hopes for the improbable romance were over; a painful conclusion to the anticipated event. He had murdered her father. She feared him, and she will fear him for eternity. Excuses could never have had satisfied the girl's conscience. He hurt her; something he wished not to do. A silly thing–it came to him the moment his sane rationality claimed his reasoning; what a silly thing to wish not to hurt somebody when it has been the most natural thing he was born with that he will, no matter what he may choose, he will. The realization of the incapacity of his nature to want somebody through normal means instantaneously shot his mind. An unsuccessful acquaintance of the normal kind, a ruined consistency, a pointless sensibility; these clouded his brain. He stood up, looked once more at the dispirited girl who sat stunned, learned her features for the final time, and walked away towards the darkness.
It was never something that can easily be comprehended. The overflowing sensations, his passionate feelings, he can never explain them, not ever, forever. For once in his lifetime he had tried to unravel the wonders hidden behind those emotions, but his nature dictated his actions, and as objective as his rationality characterized, he was resolved. That his indescribable sentiments were only of interference to his occupation, and that he has been tricked, thus he should never have them trick him again.
Never again...