Cemetery Garden
Entering the river she was cleaned,
shining like a white stone in the rain,
and without looking back she swam again
swam towards the emptiness, swam towards death.
-Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks, Neruda
I.
In the first quarter of her life, Hinata realizes that to be born as a Hyuuga, regardless of which house one belongs to, is not an honor, but a curse. Every one of them (from the gatekeeper with his tired smile to her father with his stiff, straight back, from the elders with their severe appearances to the little Hyuuga girls with flowers in their hair and the taste of youth on their lips) carries the mark of condemned men who cannot help their fates; they have little choice but to live.
Hinata realizes it in the food she tastes everyday, in the pickled plums and the beads of rice and the miso soup that warms her throat. She realizes it in her freshly laundered clothing and her bed sheets that smell of starch and cleanliness, of sweat and dust. It is in the hallways kept clean and the raked leaves in the garden, in the bows and good mornings of the maids she passes by. The thought of it is omnipresent, and yet intangible, as evasive and haunting as a ghost.
There are more than fifty members of the compound, a fraction of which are young but too old to be her age or completely the opposite, so she lives as a secluded bird flitting around in a not-cage. It is not like Neji's situation, branded as a member of the branch house by virtue of being his father's son, wherein he must look forward to an unhappy life of docile, indentured servitude. Hinata's loneliness stems from a much simpler fact: that there is no one she can touch.
It is not purely by choice; the Hyuuga have always been cold. Hinata, herself, sees it in her eyes, sometimes: the distance she radiates even when she is not shy, hidden under layers and layers of warmth, the ice known as Hyuuga, always untouchable, impassable. This is how Hinata knows that she is Hyuuga. This is how she learns to love and hate her family equally, from the reflection of her eyes, a weak balance of half-truths, but a balance, nonetheless. This is how she learns to accept that even hope is not enough, sometimes.
This is how she understands: she cannot (must not) change the Hyuuga. She would not be able to.
Sometimes, in her loneliest moments of repose, the kind of scenes from her life that are most like the stillness before and after the never-ending storm, she thinks of what it means to be the heir. The bitter taste of knowing that she will be depended on by the clan wears her down; even simply the thought of it makes her tired. It forms, half-consciously, in her mind as a faint fog of awareness. It is not that she dislikes responsibility. It is just that she wishes it does not feel like a burden, like she is a butterfly being pinned to a board.
This is what she writes, in her twelfth year:
Second sons and daughters are merely unlucky. The eldest are cursed.
Hinata is the first in a long line of male leaders, and she is also followed by many firsts. The first to have a brilliant sister, the first to have a stutter, and the first to be defeated by a prodigious cousin who is blinded by revenge. The thought of it makes her lips tremble, and she sweeps the writing tools off her desk, as if terrified of how her words would shape themselves into a fulfillment of a prophecy, of the future she has mapped out in her mind.
She wishes, sometimes, that she were only her father's daughter, but even that is too much to ask.
It takes a while to repair her relationship with her cousin, the one who tried to kill her when it was she who he had to save from harm. It takes a year of meetings in the garden, twelve months of drinking tea after training, three hundred fifty six days of awkward acceptance. Neji becomes part of the Anbu, sometime later, and she becomes strong enough to not be considered a disgrace. They fall into their new roles neatly, the protector and the protected. Hinata does not like to call it servitude, although Neji privately thinks, sometimes, that that it what it really is.
They have no name to call it, because they begin to understand, in the way Hinata's nails sometimes scrape through his scalp, in the light touch of Neji's palm on the small of her back, that they are fools and that this is anything but that.
It is not that they have fixed what is not entirely broken in the first place; it is that they have come to an understanding, and that is the only thing that is in want.
II.
The night a favorite cousin of theirs dies, one not older than three, she stays in his room and sleeps on his bed, because she has no one else to share her grief, not even Hanabi.
"I should cry," she says to him, and, when she turns to face him, her eyes are bright, "but all I can think of is that they wouldn't let me, at the funeral."
He brings a hand to the top of her head. She bites her lower lip and looks down, a habit she has never grown out of. When she touches his chest, her hand is trembling.
"Would it," and this is where she shudders and takes a deep breath, "be alright if I did?"
There are no stars outside, no light to enter through the window, but it is so strange that her eyes are like the moon. There are a hundred things he wants to say, most of them consoling, some nowhere near it, a few empty, but he cannot find the proper (right) words when she is so near him, so intimate that it feels as if her hand is his, as if her eyes are his eyes too.
He kisses her brow instead, and that is all it takes for her to begin crying, as if it has undone something in her she has been keeping for so long, as if he has given her his consent, as if this will be the last time she may be able to cry in anyone else's presence.
It probably is, Neji reflects, because when they lower the casket to the ground, the Hinata he perceives is not entirely the Hinata he knows.
He wants to let her know: he would not forbid it.
Neji receives news of it half an hour after she goes to the meeting with the elders. He hears it from Hanabi, whose eyes are like her father's, dark in all its whiteness, and colder than the North wind. He knows she carries this fact proudly, and it reminds him of Naruto, somewhat.
Outside, the leaves are wilting, and the pond has not been cleaned for days. He folds his arms, uncrosses them, walks around, and catches a falling leaf mid-air.
The door to the room opens, and he immediately falls into step with her as they move further away. Her eyes are still soft, her movements gentle, but her fingers twitch slightly with every conceivable, perceptible breath she takes. It is as if she wishes to say something, as if she is about to overflow, and she is precariously perched on the edge of the cup of questions he has in his hand. But if there is one thing about them that has not changed, it is this: that he does not give her the satisfaction of being fulfilled, and that she has always wanted him to ask.
Instead, he takes her to the training room and tells her to him as hard as she could, if she can. He does not know if it is the right thing to do, and he almost falters when she hesitates. It is the only way he has ever known. But she follows, because she has been following all her life and she does not mind following him.
Later he would find out what the matter is, when her almost-limp body rests on the wooden floor and he crouches above her. She talks of an arranged marriage in so formal and indifferent terms that he cannot help but frown at her, because it is as if she has finally taken the worst step to the resignation of her fate.
"You are supposed to be the leader," he tells her, and she offers him a crooked smile.
"No," she responds, "my duty is to be a mother."
Something in her voice has a distracted edge to it, and her eyes are filled with meaning. He tries to find it, tries to understand what it is, but he cannot breach through the distance she has made for herself, through the decisions and the thoughts and the ideas that shape her life.
"I thought you believed in love," says he who has felt too little of it for his entire life.
She looks at him, a curious expression in her glassy eyes, and he knows that this should not be important, the way she is trying to find herself in his words, that this should not be a reason for her to falter because he has been moving forward all his life, and that he should find it in himself to come into terms with her decision.
He does not know that she has been waiting for this for far too long.
She brings a hand up to tug at his hair, and the smile on her face is strained. "I thought so too."
Even as she says this, she watches the arching of the smooth column of his neck, the downward curve of his lips, the tightening of his jaw, and he holds her hand and frowns because he does not know what else to do.
Some days, he wishes that he knows her soul.
III.
Preparations are far too long and the days too short. Time lapses in great dollops of stiff formalities. Neji has taken to measuring the passing hours with each fabric Hinata holds up in her arms, from pale pinks to rich hues of blue that seem to make her pale skin fragile in comparison, each sprig of baby's breath he tears apart out of sheer boredom (and, perhaps, something else), each congratulatory message from friends and acquaintances. There are invitations to be sent, letters to be written, formal gatherings to attend, and he is always by her side, as the Hyuuga expect of him.
The two of them cannot spare time for external matters. Neji still accepts the occasional mission not lasting longer than three days, but Hinata's role is not to protect her country, but to serve the best interests of her clan. That is why during the little periods of time she can spare, she familiarizes herself with the man she will spend the rest of her life with, the man she will eventually learn to respect and care for, the one she shall call her master.
It is not that she expects to love and be loved in return. She has always believed that it does not matter anymore, that necessity far outweighs her own wants.
"As long as we can regard each other with deference," she tells Neji, once, "as long as we do not hate our marriage, then it will be fine."
Hinata's gaze is vacant and wistful, and Neji has nothing to say to that.
Her betrothed is a young man of Neji's age. He comes from a highly respected clan, not as superior and ancient as the Hyuuga, but still recognized and held in high esteem, still brilliant in its own right. He has dark hair, darker eyes, and an easy, unaffected smile. If Neji's silence is cold, then his is a comforting one.
Sometimes Neji wonders if she likes him better. He is anything but unkind to her, and treats her as if he has known her his entire life. It fills Neji with discomfort, but he is thankful that he is not like him, or her father. They paint a pretty picture together as they walk up to Hanabi. Surely, they would be fine.
Neji does not fear being replaced. He will be beside her for her entire life, possibly longer than this one will ever be able to.
Once, he might have hated it, but now, as he watches them converse on the Hyuuga grounds, bathed in the warm sunlight, he is filled with nothing but love.
Though, sometimes, he cannot help it if he wishes and waits longer than he should.
The night before her wedding day, she knocks on the door to his room, grabs onto his sleeves the moment he emerges, and silences him with a kiss.
It is an unremarkable one. His lips are chapped and their teeth clack together, but her lips are smooth, her mouth welcoming, and her grip firm. He pulls away, his eyes confused and desperate, his thoughts a muddled jumble of thoughts, but Hinata warmly, quietly whispers his name.
He holds out his hand to her, and her fingertips brush against his palm before entwining with his. His life is one of many regrets, but he feels that this is worth it, even if it is the last of his days as a lonely wanderer and the beginning of those to be spent as a lonely bystander, always looking but never begetting. He kisses her like a dying man, and her smile is as gentle as she has always been. It remains imprinted in his mind, long after the door opens a fraction and shuts behind them in finality.
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers.
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you
-sonnet xvii, Neruda