A collection of my Kanna oneshots and drabbles. Most will probably be AU. Kanna is not my favorite Inuyasha character but I tend to write a fair amount about her. I feel kind of drawn to her.
Birthday
Today she is eleven. Kanna thinks this to herself as she brushes her hair. She doesn't feel eleven. She doesn't even know what eleven feels like. "In just two years you will be a teenager," her sister Kagura tells her. Kagura is fourteen and always looking ahead. A family joke is that Kagura started counting down the days till she's old enough to move out from the day she was taken home from the hospital. Kanna studies her refection in the mirror. She looks like a little girl still. She looks no different than she did yesterday.
"Come on," scolds Kagura, "Stop looking in the mirror. Everyone is waiting for the birthday girl." That is another family joke- that Kanna spends too much time looking in mirrors. Reluctantly Kanna takes her eyes off the mirror. She follows her sister out of her room and down the hall where everyone is waiting to sing to her. Their father lights the candles on her cake. The cake is Kanna's favorite flavor, vanilla. The frosting is vanilla too. Everyone sings to her. It is Kanna's turn to make a wish then blow out the candles. Kanna doesn't know what to wish for so she wishes to she feel like she is eleven.
After everyone had eaten cake and ice cream- neapolitan so everyone can their own flavors (Kanna's is of coarse vanilla)- they gather in the family room so Kanna can open presents. Kanna is hard to shop for because she rarely says her preferences out loud. Once she has opened all of her gifts Kanna lines them up in a neat pile: a two puzzles, a sweater (her favorite color: white), a board game, two books, a new lunchbox, and a mirror. The mirror is from her father. It's an antique with a circular reflecting surface about the size of a wall clock. For the past few years Kanna's father always gives her a mirror for her birthday. He claimed when he gave her the first one that something about it had him think of her. Now it's become a family tradition, like the antique fans Kagura receives every birthday and the masks that have become Muso's annual birthday gift. On his birthday the kids always give their father a piece of rose quarts. It's just a family tradition.
Kanna thanks her family for the gifts in her quite voice. She feels uncomfortable being the center of attention. Kanna prefers to watch others. She takes the gifts to her room and puts them away. Everything is just so in Kanna's room. Kanna turns the mirror over. On the back is an inscription: To Kanna: my little ghost. She has been nicknamed the family ghost because of her habit of always wearing white. Her skin is naturally very pale and her lack of color in her wardrobe makes it appear even more ghostly. When Kanna returns to family room Kagura and Muso had gotten in an argument. They're fighting about nothing really. They just like to bicker because the have aggressive personalities. Kanna picks up one of her new books and pretends to read. But really she is listening to them fight. She likes to observe others; she likes to think about how they act. Kanna almost always thinks before she acts, she is not impulsive like her older siblings. She enjoys watching them though. Kanna is content to watch, content with her role as the family ghost.
Today Kanna is sixteen. She doesn't feel sixteen. She stares at her reflection and it stares back at her. She doesn't look sixteen. She doesn't look fifteen either. "You're just a late bloomer," Kagura has told her. "One day you'll wake up and look in the mirror and you'll be shocked to find you've grown up." Kanna studies her features wondering what she would look like if she looked her age.
Kanna studies herself, studies her expression. She tries to determine if one can figure out what she's feeling based on her expression. Her expression is blank- the perfect poker face. It actually does show how she's feeling though because she feels blank. She feels empty like a hole or a void. "Kanna," her father calls "Are you coming?" Reluctantly Kanna tears her eyes off the mirror. She walks down the hall to where her father is waiting for her, with a vanilla cake waiting to be lit. Her father lights the candles and then sings to her. It's just the two of them. Kagura and Muso are away at college. Kanna leans in to blow out the candles. She doesn't know what to wish for so she wishes for a happy year.
Afterward she and dad go to the living room so she can open her presents. Kanna arranges them neatly: jewelry, make-up, a movie, a jacket (white of course), three books, a CD and an antique mirror. Kanna thanks her father and takes her gifts to her room. She turns the mirror over and reads the inscription: To Kanna on her sixteenth birthday. Kanna isn't really friends with the kids in her grade. They think she's a little odd. There are some that she gets along with okay, but they don't really know her. Kanna is always an outsider. Kanna misses her older siblings terribly. Everyone thought she would be fine when they moved out, she was always such an individual always seemed so content by herself. They don't realize that it's hard to be the quiet watcher when there is no one left to observe. Kanna is too shy to be herself around outsiders, so only her family knows her. Only her father and her siblings really know her and with Kagura and Muso gone the house is so empty.
In just two and half years of so Kanna will leave for college too. Kanna is scared of being alone. She doesn't want to move out or grow up. She wants to remain always the family ghost, the one who watches the braver ones until she is ready to try things for herself. As she puts away her gifts she finds the mirror her father gave her when she turned eleven. She tries to remember what it felt like to be eleven. She misses those days.
AN: Written around my own birthday. I feel sort of the same way on my birthday albeit for different reasons.