A/N: Written for the Furaba Flash Bingo Challenge on the FBFC (link in profile), number 125 – past.
Ribbons and Butterfly Clips
Akito rarely looked back on the past. It reminded her too much of things that had passed on without reprieve, of things that lurked in her shadow should she ever turn to look, and things that had been cut loose like the fine strands of hair that vanished into the breeze.
Sometimes though she remembered the feel of ribbons in her hair, remembered how it felt when those thin fabric stands tickled the bare skin of her neck or danced in front of her eyes. She remembered the heavy overweighing clip that had that butterfly on springs, and how she'd poke at it constantly in the mirror until the wire one day snapped.
But then she'd remember that she was no longer a girl, could no longer indulge in such things, and the memories of foolish accessories fled into the dim recesses of her mind. And she'd snap her eyes forward: to the stiff jaw and the raggedly cut fringe that had once been silky and smooth, to the distinctively male kimono she wore in place of a pretty frock she might have once picked to match a hair accessory. And she'd cast the image aside.
It didn't matter after all; it wasn't what she was, what others saw. She could take off her clothes and become a woman. Adopt the voice of a God and become a man. Kneel in front of her mother and become a child. That was who she was, that ever changing clay that would one day freeze into some misshapen shape – and perhaps then she would allow a longer glimpse into the past, to see how she'd become…or else she'd find her face forced forward entirely, and the past a path that couldn't be seen again.