He is not blind.
All day there are eyes on him; all day and every day, cold as fear and hot as hate, burning deep beneath his skin. They flay him alive and leave him bleeding on the street, tear out his scarred heart to place it beating on his skin.
Demon is branded skin-deep, heart-deep, soul-deep, offering truth in mute validation. He has no tongue to protest that it was they who wrote it there in the first place.
He closes his eyes so he cannot see, but he cannot close his heart.
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He is not deaf.
All day he hears; all day and every day the word to which none will give voice, a susurrus of monstermonstermonster that both is and is not forbidden. They speak death, filtered through their fingers, hiding behind their hands, the soft whisper scouring the flesh off his bones, the emotion from his soul.
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He does not dream.
Some days when the murmurs grow loud as a shout in his ear his fury lights the world on fire; so he snarls with bared teeth, eyes closed so that no one will see them turn red. And he remembers not so long ago times of blood and death and fear as the world burns down around him, the salt-sweet taste of blood warm down his throat, rich with terror and bitter like death, the haze of white ash and black smoke with the bright brilliance of flame and the subtler dancing fire-shadows…
Some day, he promises himself, some day.
And then Iruka-sensei calls, Iruka-sensei who shouts loud as love and glares heat without pain, and he thinks;
Some day, but not this day.
