(Sadly, I don't own Naruto.)
the cherry blossoms were being Annoying.
The tree leaves are dancing again. The wind blows through them, making them shiver and pull some of themselves off. He watches as they flutter on through the breeze, waving farewell to their old counterparts, and, at this point, he slams the window shut. His eyes narrow coldly as he whirls away from the dancing cherry blossoms outside his window.
Honestly. They just had to plant the only actually nice-looking tree next to his window. Honestly. It was probably just Orochimaru's sick sense of humor again. Or Kabuto's. Or both, really, because when those two put their minds together he's seen them come up with some pretty…..interesting things. (But that isn't really the point right now, is it?)
He can hear the cherry blossoms slightly brush against his window, and in the silence, just tapping against the glass sends thunderous noises through his room, sends shivers down his spine. He turns around, grabbing the shade and wrenching it down quickly, bathing his already-dark room in shafts of long, eerie shadows and darkness. But he can still hear it, and it drives his eyes to open wider then ever, his entire body trembling as he hears the cherry blossoms whisper through the wind and slide over the glass of his window.
He shoves himself away from the sill, walking backwards a few steps before turning around completely again and moving quickly to the other side of the room. Pressing his back against the wall, as if paranoid, as if afraid of being found out of something, he sighs, hanging his head.
Just the cherry blossoms. Get a hold of yourself, he thinks, grinding his teeth together in a vain effort to try and keep himself together. Just cherry blossoms. Stupid, idiotic, damn cherry blossoms. Nothing to lose your head over.
And yet, he remembers, with a sharp, sudden pang into his heart- or, what's left of it after years of eradicating most of it out- that her hair was just like those little cherry blossoms fluttering along in such innocence it makes him want to scream, because they're exactly like her.
"You didn't want to leave, did you?"
That damn sadistic voice of that goddamn medical ninja. Kabuto always thinks he can read him. Well, he had news for him, he couldn't, no matter how hard he pretended. Of course he wanted to leave- would he be here right now if he hadn't? Of course he still didn't have any damn ties to those fools back in his- no, it wasn't his anymore- back in the village. He didn't want any damn ties, anyway. Ties just made it a heck of a lot harder. Of course he didn't like them. Of course he never loved either of them. Of course he hated them. Hates. Hates them with all of his mutilated, crushed heart. Hates them until the day he dies.
"You know, Sasuke, you look particularly dead today."
Well, you don't look so appealing yourself, sadist. he wanted to shoot back to Kabuto with such ferocity that it knocked him back, that it made him just shut the heck up for once. He had looked particularly dead that day? What the heck was that supposed to mean? Had Kabuto been trying to insinuate something about him? Or was he just overreacting again, just as usual, just as usual, just as usual?
Just as usual.
With each pitter-patter the cherry blossoms make against his window, he realizes that Kabuto may have been onto something with that statement. Right now, he most certainly did feel dead. He knew what he must look like. His eyes, staring out of his deathly pale skin, hollowed out like zombie eyes, his hair, damp from the sweat his nightmares caused, his frame, thin and yet somehow strong, but seeming like it can break at any moment with just being touched.
He knows this because it's logic. Of course he looks like this. He knows that. But he'd never look into a mirror to confirm it.
All his life, he'd been looking in mirrors. He'd gotten mirrors as presents- for God knows what reason or weird idea had struck the gift-giver's mind into giving him a mirror of all things for a present- he'd had mirrors in his apartment, he'd had mirrors in school, and all sorts of places. It was just- when was it now? Oh, too long ago to remember correctly. But if he had to guess, it was at least four years now. It was that long ago, then, was it, that he first started avoiding mirrors? So set on his goal, so set on what he wanted, so set on his power, so set on leaving, so set on getting everything his own damn way for once because that had been stripped away from him. If he was so sure of himself, so positive of how pure it all was, and not an illusion in any way at all whatsoever, why was he avoiding mirrors? Why was he still? Did he not want to stare into his own eyes- those blank, emotionless, expressionless eyes, and see those other eyes staring back at him? Those bright, sea-green eyes with their cherry-blossom hair fluttering around them gently? Those optimistic, sky-blue eyes that always seemed to fix him with an intent glare from around bright blonde hair?
Of course he didn't want to see them. Of course he didn't want to see those eyes. Of course he didn't want more pain then he was already holding.
Well, he didn't want to hear those cherry blossoms either, but that wasn't an option right now. Would this pain soon not become an option? Would he no longer have the choice of remembering all of the memories and horrible incidents of a long time ago? Would he no longer have the option to breathe freely?
He shakes his head, his eyes wild, his hair flying all over the place. No. Don't think about that, he tells himself, don't think about that. Thinking never gets anyone anywhere, does it? No, no, no, it does not. He did have options, he did, he did, he did, and he wanted it to stay like that. He didn't want to be succumbed to the constant remembrance of all that. He was not going to think about that. He was, most certainly, not going to think of not having options.
He shoves himself off of his wall, walking quickly over to his door, unlocking it and wrenching it open. Stumbling out into the hallway, his footsteps are slightly uneven as he walks slowly. Suddenly, he can't help thinking.
What if he did look into a mirror? What would he do when he saw his reflection? What would happen when he looked into that mirror, when he saw those things inside, when he saw that damn glass reflect everything back onto him? What if he just did look into a mirror?
Kabuto used to tell him often- back when he first found out how much he hated mirrors- that it was a phobia. Some long stupid name of a stupid phobia.
Screw phobias, he had said, I don't give a damn about them.
Well, you know, you should, Kabuto had replied, and his eyes from behind his glasses had fixed him with a dark look. Phobias are…..complex.
Are you insinuating anything by that remark, Kabuto?
Do you want me to have?
Get out of my room.
Of course.
So, he had left, and his thoughts had been buzzing with the talk of phobias. Phobia this, phobia that, well, he didn't give a damn about if he had a phobia or whatever. Just because he hated something or felt a particular way about something that just happened to fall underneath the category of being something doesn't mean that he was that category. It didn't mean that just because he liked or disliked or wouldn't look at a certain thing that if that behavior fell underneath a category of a phobia or disease that he had that, but, in his mind, and at his age back then, that was what it had felt like, and he had hated it so, because it reminded him again of his childhood.
His footsteps finally getting even, he approaches a normal wooden door that stares down upon him with blank, brown eyes. He's very quite glad that he doesn't know anyone with brown eyes, thank you very much. Slowly, he reaches out and turns the knob, and just the touch sends icicles up his spine, makes his teeth bite down hard on his tongue and his free hand clench, his eyes snapping shut. But he slowly walks inside, shutting the door behind him, and even if his eyes are closed and he's just walked through this room only once, years before, he still knows the way.
Gently, he walks forward, his shoes brushing softly against the floor as he walks along. Finally reaching the end of the long, streaming hallway, he creaks open his eyes with much difficultly.
That glass. That structure. That shape. That recognizable feeling of being penetrated by every single flaw and every single truth. That slender outline, that oval shape with the sweet, beautifully patterned frame that hugs it so tightly. That smooth feeling he gets as he runs his fingertips over it, leaving smudge marks on the glass as his fingers slide down, brushing away softly and hanging back against his side.
Above all, there's that familiar face staring out at him from the glass. The familiar face with the hair damp with sweat, the pale, hollow face with the zombie-like eyes, the thin, yet strong frame, and the sense that if he is just gently touched he will break into a million pieces.
The second the word floods back to him- Eisoptrophobia- his heart lets out a painful throb, rocketing his body with a sudden tight gripping feeling hugging his limbs and his chest. He wants to turn away from the mirror, stop his trembling, run, run, run, run as far away from this room as he can, but his feet are planted with his shock and terror right upon the floor. He wants to reach out and smash it- smash it so horribly until his fingers and hands and palms bleed so much he can't even see his own skin anymore and shards of glass fly all over the place, catching no light for there is darkness in the room. Smash it so much that it is cracked and stained with his own crimson creation and broken beyond repair. But he can't move his hands, his arms, his fingers- they are frozen just as well at his sides.
(On the plus side, he realizes, but it is a vague epiphany he realizes as well, for he is numb at the moment and his thoughts flow in thick like syrup and he can barely recognize it, but, still, he realizes and slight happiness penetrates this overwhelming fear that grows like a sickness as he sees that he does not see those eyes staring back at him- those sky-blue and sea-green eyes that he loathes and despises so much are not staring him down and haunting him for once.)
Eisoptrophobia was the fear of mirrors, or looking at oneself in a mirror.
Dammit. He hated, oh, how he just hated when Kabuto was right. But it was a suppressed, mellow sort of hate, he thinks, as he slowly drags his eyes up to look in the mirror, the mirror he wants to smash, the mirror he wants to break, the mirror he wants to take in his hands and crush and smother and destroy and stomp into the ground and burn and bury and throw it up into the sky until the sun's heat melted it and throw the remains into the ocean in a large box with a heavy chain and as it hit's the bottom of the ocean floor it dissolves into one of those weird underwater volcanoes he's vaguely heard about or whatever.
He drags his black eyes up to the mirror and sees himself. He sees himself, and all his broken glory. He sees himself, and how much he wants to smash himself and hate himself and tear himself apart.
He drags his black eyes up to the mirror slowly, slowly, slowly, and, hesitantly, hesitantly, hesitantly, he sees himself staring back.