.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,
All the king's horses and all the king's men,
Couldn't put Humpty together again.
Haruko finds the village is an interesting place when it's gearing up for war.
Most don't know it, plodding along in their everyday lives without a care in the world, but the shifts are there. When she looks down at the markets she sees less foreign sellers in their extravagant clothes with their fancy wares and more in-village business. She sees higher shipments of grain and rice, along with a few other choice essentials, slipping through their gates. Iron is more plentiful, as are the ninja products made with it. She sees more and more ninja coming into the village and staying there.
She wonders how these people manage to make it through life with a blindfold on, and how many are holding a hand over their eyes in a mock attempt to shield themselves while they peek from between their fingers at the impending disaster.
Then again, she does understand on some level. Those who are civilian and have reason to benefit from the war see the situation in a different light than she does. Smithies and tailors who deal in ninja gear view a war as nothing but an easy way to increase their business, a new and potent demand arising for their products. The only time they feel the danger is if an enemy attacks the village itself, and with the walls around Konoha, the chances of that happening are slim to none, not worth fretting over. So long as they appear patriotic at the right time and nod and smile, they have no reason to worry.
What a simple existence. Comfortable. Who can blame them?
"Hey, kid!"
Haruko looks down at the voice. It's a middle-aged man with a head of salt-and-pepper hair and wrinkles etched throughout his face, stubble dotted along the lower half of his chin; he has a face that Haruko thinks has seen a lot of life. A smith's apron adorns his torso, a hammer and worn leather gloves hanging from the front pocket.
Her bare heels stop bumping against the walls of the armoury and she leans forward off of the roof to get a better look at the street below. "Yes?"
"What're you doin' up there?"
"It's a nice view," Haruko says. "I wanted a look."
"How did you even get up there?"
"I walked."
He mutters something under his breath and stares at Haruko with something akin to dumbfounded exasperation. "Get down?"
"I'd rather not, thank you."
"I wasn't asking!"
"Your inflection says otherwise."
"My inflection—no, get off my shop."
Haruko presses the soles of her feet down onto the front wall of the shop and adds a bit of chakra to them. Secured to the wall, she walks down—nearby folks shield their eyes when her skirt flutters up and a flash of her pastel pink underwear is shown to the world.
Might as well give them a real reason to cover their eyes.
Walking up and down walls is a trick she picked up soon after Dai introduced them to chakra. He didn't say much about it, but a day trip to the library was all it took for Haruko to get a grasp on the basics of how it functions, both in and out of the body. The stuff is a bit like gold—highly malleable and extremely valuable.
"Damn ninja brats," the man mumbles to himself, eyes down. "Ain't raised right."
"My father raised me just fine, I think."
"Sure you were, flashin' the whole street like that. Didn't anybody teach you decency, girl?"
Haruko smiles her sweetest smile at him and clasps her hands together, a perfect picture of innocent little girl.
Silence stretches.
The man's standoffish expression and posture begin to waver. She considers answering, but the way he squirms under her unblinking stare holds her tongue—no reason to spoil that. She doubts anything she can say will have quite the same effect.
"Ah—Harukooo!"
Haruko turns over her shoulder and sees Gai running full-tilt towards her. She braces herself.
Gai crashes into her with the force of a charging elephant. He crushes her against his chest in a hug, lifting her feet off the ground, and spins her around in circles.
Haruko waits until he sets her down before she says, "Hi, Gai."
"Dad said not to run off like that!"
"I didn't run," Haruko says. "I walked."
The man squints at them. She can see him putting the pieces together, an easy feat with Gai on the scene. "You're his daughter, then. Shoulda known. Guess I had it, then—you weren't raised right."
"A grown man who thinks it's acceptable to mock children has no right to criticize the quality of another's upbringing."
His eyes widen and his posture opens for a second, taken aback, before everything closes right up and he brings himself to his full height. Oh. She seems to have hit a nerve with that one.
Gai stiffens at her side.
"I think she's got you there."
As one, Haruko and Gai turn to look over their shoulder, and see a teenager standing behind them, his hands in his pockets and a well-crafted smile on his face. Haruko assumes it's false, from the circumstances, but the smile and the accompanying posture are both a flawless imitation of casualness.
The teenager's headband is buried beneath a shock of blonde hair and he wears a flak jacket over jonin blues, an outfit that commands respect. Not even the brashest ninja-hating civilian would disrespect a jonin in uniform.
A flush claws up the man's neck and scratches his skin crimson. "I never intended it like that."
"Of course you didn't," the teenager says, still all smiles. "But I still think you owe these kids an apology, eh?"
I feel like I should be taking notes.
The man turns to them and with unveiled disgust, bows. It's not convincing in the slightest, but it is entertaining when compared to the perfect mask of the teenager one fourths his age standing at her shoulder. Mediocre versus exceptional. A teenager who couldn't be more than fourteen beating out a man in his forties with ease. Damn ninja brats, indeed.
Haruko stands on the tips of her toes and starts to examine the crowd around them.
Gai pokes her on the arm. He leans forward to her ear and whispers in a voice loud enough for all gathered to hear, "What're you doing?"
"Waiting to see if somebody else wants to interrupt this conversation," she answers. "It feels rude to leave without giving them the chance to."
Gai gives her a perplexed look. In return, Haruko pats him on the cheek.
Satisfied that nobody else is making their way towards them, she grabs for Gai's hand. Her eyes, a pair of polished bronze buttons set in porcelain, glance over to the shopkeeper. He's bright red.
"Glass is a terrible material to build a house out of," she says.
The weight of two sets of eyes tickle the nape of her neck as she leads Gai away.
Nonou claps her hands at the front of the room and the cacophony of giggling and improperly played instruments clatters to a halt.
Haruko looks up from the drum in her lap. Mari, on the floor beside her, startles, and drops the wooden sticks she was trying to use to play her massive drum.
A wide range of traditional instruments are scattered around the room. Shamisen, various drums, flutes. None of them are in the hands of people who can play them but that didn't stop any of the girls from attempting it, or cheering when they managed to get one butchered note out of their instrument.
Nonou has on a traditional kimono, as usual, but today's is a light purple colour with flowers smattered along the bottom half of it. She has her hair pulled into an updo, a butterfly comb holding it in place. "It's time to move into the last portion of today's class," she says. "Please put away your instrument and prepare for a dance lesson."
Classes are two and a half months in and at this point, Haruko knows that the kunoichi classes are going to be her favourite part of the week for as long as she's a student at the Academy.
Their regular classes are useful. Chakra theory, basic mathematical and scientific knowledge, and everything in between. She can think of worse ways to spend her time than sitting in a desk and having the information thrown at her, but there's nothing subtle about it all. All of the information has a clear purpose behind it: improve their ability to function as ninja. Mathematics are taught with word problems centered around throwing weapons, sciences the parts of the body they'll learn to target later down the line. Chakra theory is there for future jutsu use.
Kunoichi classes, on the other hand, are run with more finesse. The classes are social and hands on, letting the girls stay engaged and entertained for the entire period. The lesson plans aren't structured in a traditional sense. They don't know what they'll go over when they walk into most of their classes unless Nonou gives them homework. Each class itself has a clear purpose, but it tends to be more based around specific situations they might find themselves in rather than theory.
The kunoichi classes also win bonus points with Haruko because almost all of them involve a dance portion.
They spent the first half of their lesson playing around with the instruments and going over a bit of history around traditional tea ceremonies. Now, Nonou pulls out the usual makeup and kimono, as she always does before the dance portion of the lesson, and explains that she's going to show them what a geisha dance performance might look like.
The instruments were shamisen, taiko, tsuzumi, and bamboo flutes. While Nonou hands out the usual boxes of makeup, Haruko can see the pots of bright red lipstick and the pink and red eyeshadow—there's no foundation or powder to avoid disaster, but Haruko assumes that they'll get a chance with it at some point. Each box also has a few extravagant hair pieces typical of maiko. The kimono, as well, all have the vibrant and bright patterns seen with maiko.
The whole lesson is arranged around a situation where one of them might be working undercover as a geisha, specifically maiko. The role of maiko involves the heavier makeup, ideal for keeping an identity under wraps, but also better suits their age range as most achieve the rank of geisha around twenty. They get a chance to familiarize themselves with the instruments they'd be expected to play, the makeup and kimono they'd be expected to wear, and now the dance they'd be expected to do wearing a kimono, which is an experience in and of itself.
It's all rather ingenious.
Nonou makes her rounds, smiling at each girl, telling her how beautiful she looks, and dropping in minor hints and tips between the compliments.
"I don't think that's right," Mari says.
Haruko adds another layer of red lipstick to her wildly overdrawn lips. "It's not."
Her inspiration this time around is full circus clown.
Red all over her lips, red all over her eyelids, red in her eyebrows, and red smeared on her cheeks in circles. She paints her nose pink with the eyeshadow for that nice pop of colour. She contemplates trying to create some kind of puffy hairdo as the cherry on top, but realizes that there's no way she'll be able to manage it and settles for a giant bun on the top of her head.
Nonou comes to their table next. From the look on her face when she sees Haruko, it seems she expects nothing less. "A bold look as always, Haruko," Nonou says. "What's the intent this time?"
"Red," Haruko says.
"So I see."
Mari gives Haruko a sceptical look. "Where would ya wear that?"
"Somewhere dark."
Nonou lets out a tiny, near inaudible laugh.
"But then what's the point?" Mari asks. "That took you like… like… a long time!"
"There is no point," Haruko says. "There only is."
"You never make sense…" Mari murmurs.
"Does anything make sense? What is sense? Can you prove that my sense is the same as your sense?"
Mari goes back to her makeup and ignores Haruko with a level of attitude that only a five year old can pull off.
Haruko can't wait for the day when her peers are old enough to understand existential humor.
For now, she has to settle for Nonou, whose reactions are unpredictable. Sometimes she laughs, sometimes she watches Haruko as if not quite believing what she's hearing. It's fine. Haruko finds herself funny enough to make up for the lack of reaction from the people around her, and often, their confusion mollifies her as much as a laugh would.
When all of the girls are dressed and painted the desks are pushed up against the sides of the classroom.
The movements in a geisha routine are precise and controlled. They tell a story. The roots of the dances are set in old folk tales civilians used to spread amongst themselves, a form of history that ninja don't have a comparison for—there are dances out there that are hundreds of years old when some clans struggle to trace their heritage far past the formation of the villages. Haruko can appreciate them for what they are, even if she doesn't find them enjoyable.
She remembers dance as leaping through the air. When her mind flashes her back Haruko hears vibrant, active music, with violins and pianos, entwined with the flow of her body across the stage. She feels emotion. Everything was emotion. The dance was there to put into actions what words can't express.
Haruko remembers it all so vividly.
She tells herself it happened. She didn't imagine it all. She couldn't have. The human mind is capable of great feats but not of creating something so incredible, so visceral, that the mere thought of dance is enough to make her whole body tingle an entire life later.
It doesn't always help.
Some days, it helps too much, and she's left wondering if those memories are her truth and the things she sees around her today are the lies.
Haruko blows out a breath and snaps herself into focus as the music fades away.
She's here.
Nonou runs through the routine again, but this time she stops on each movement to explain the form and give a bit of insight into the story behind the dance. The dance was a fairytale, about a tiny baby girl found in a stock of bamboo who was born of the moon.
When the class is over, Nonou pulls Haruko aside. "I was wondering if you were interested in additional lessons," Nonou tells her. "You show a high interest in the material covered, and a lot of potential to be a great infiltrator one day."
"Okay."
Nonou raises an eyebrow. "You're not going to ask for more information?"
"No," Haruko says. "I don't need anymore."
She doesn't know if she'll end up in infiltration when she graduates from the Academy, but the idea of getting more lessons is worth her while regardless.
Nounou gives her a date, a time, and sends Haruko on her way.
She finds Gai waiting for her outside of the classroom, on the ground doing a set of pushups.
"Dad's on a mission?" she asks.
"Yes! He said he'd be home in a few days!"
It's uncommon for Dai to get called out of the village for missions. Most of the times it happens are for minor courier missions, something with a low security clearance but high distance to travel that chunin and jonin-sensei didn't want to waste their time with. Dai always brings them home a trinket from the civilian villages he visits along the way.
Gai leaps up and grabs for Haruko's hand. Before she can go anywhere, he starts to drag her in the direction of the house.
"Wait," she says, digging in her heels. "I wanted to go to the river."
"Dad said to go straight home when he's out of the village."
"Please?"
"No!"
"Pretty please?"
"I will not concede!" Gai cries.
Haruko loses that one—when their father tells Gai something, he listens, and Haruko has no hope of trumping Dai. Her wistful gaze remains locked in the direction of the river. She'll just have to go after dark, once Gai tucks in for his nine hours of beauty sleep.
They're halfway home when Haruko's reminded of the one thing that manages to beat out their father, and that memory jogger comes in the form of Gai bolting forward with the cry of, "Eternal Rival!"
Haruko has no choice but to let herself be dragged forward by her brother. She's at his mercy until he lets go of her hand.
She gets a glance at the white-haired boy and a half second to realize she can't stop, then she's being catapulted forward into something solid and then she's on the ground—no, the thing under her is soft, that's not dirt—and disoriented. Something shifts under her and she feels her back hit something hard. This time, she knows it's the ground.
"Eternal Rival!" she hears Gai say.
"I didn't agree to this," another voice answers, high pitched and childish.
Haruko rubs her eyes and blinks.
Gai stands, his legs spread in a solid stance, and one arm is jut outward to point at the white haired boy while the other rests on his hip. His eyes are wide and determined, both his eyebrows in a downset line. The white haired boy looks unimpressed.
"I challenge you to… to…" Gai trails off. His posture deflates and he looks around, hurried. His eyes land on a food stand. Gai puffs all the way back up and shouts, "An eating competition!"
"No."
"What? Why?"
"Eating a lot isn't a skill."
"Of course it is!"
"There's no value in it," the boy says. "Nothing worth proving." He turns on his heel and goes to walk away.
If the boy accepts Gai's challenge, Gai will be distracted. If Gai's distracted, Haruko can sneak away and go dip her toes in the river. He won't be held off for long but a couple of minutes now is better than nothing—she can go later, as well.
"Being able to eat a lot in one sitting shows a great control over one's body," Haruko says. She doesn't raise her voice from its usual soft, delicate lilts to catch him, but he still hears and stops. "Mind over matter, like pushing one's body to the limit during a training session."
The boy turns back around to face them. His steel-grey eyes are narrow.
"Yes!" Gai says. "That's exactly it!"
"Fine. Just this once," the boy says. "Then will you leave me alone?"
Gai sprints over to the food stand without giving an answer. The boy follows, body drawn taut with annoyance.
And Haruko leaves her shoes in the middle of the road and takes off towards the river.
"I think she would do well in a higher level class."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. Her bookwork is exceptional. She does very well in all of her studies, and her physical scores are above average, though not the top of her class. Still, I'd suggest bumping her up a grade to see whether it's a better fit for her."
Mr. Fukui gestures at a grade sheet. Dai leans forward, one hand stroking his goatee. The expression of intense concentration on his face is cartoonish—even in his more serious states, their father never fails to be a colourful individual.
Haruko watches clouds roll by through the classroom window while the conversation plays out. Gai sits in the desk beside her, jittering in his seat. He keeps glancing between Haruko and their father; he's nervous. Haruko half expects him to break into a spontaneous workout session.
"I must admit, this comes as a bit of a surprise," Dai says. He leans back in his seat. "Finding out that not one, but both of my children are recommended for grade advancement."
"You have two bright ninja on your hands," Mr. Fukui says. "You've done well with them."
Dai gives him a blinding smile.
Haruko wonders whether Mr. Fukui means that, or if he's saying that to make her father more favourable to the Academy's agenda. She's not complaining either way. She wants to be placed in a higher grade range and a lie is worth seeing that kind of smile on her father's face.
"I am lucky to have them," Dai says. His voice is soft. "They are good children."
Mr. Fukui nods. "So you agree to this, then?"
Dai hesitates. His eyes flit back to look at them. "I… think I must discuss this with them first."
"Yes, of course," Mr. Fukui says. "But I encourage you to decide sooner rather than later. If you wish to do this, it's easier to move quickly to help them adjust."
"I understand."
.
.
Haruko traces her finger along Gai's palm. The skin is an odd mixture of baby softness and rough calluses. He wiggles beneath her touch, but she holds him by the wrist with her free-hand to keep him steady.
They sit across from each other on the floor of the living room. It's later in the evening, the windows showing nothing but black, and the two of them are alone while Dai runs to get some takeout for dinner.
She holds his right hand because it's his dominant one. "This is your head line," Haruko says, her finger moving down a line that bisects the skin between his thumb and index finger. It stretches straight towards his pinky and peters out near the middle of his palm, curling down at the end. "A short line."
Gai gasps. "Is that bad?"
"No," she says. "You're a fast thinker. Determined. You don't flip-flop when making a decision."
"Oh." His whole face brightens. "Yes!"
Haruko hums. She moves her finger down to the second line. "This is your life line," she says. It starts in the same place as the head line, but it curves out once it gets to the middle of his palm and reaches down toward his wrist. "It's long and curved, and easy to see. You're steady and stay strong in tough situations."
The grin on her brother's face warms Haruko from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. He's an easy person. Easy to entertain, easy to get along with. Easy to love. She wonders if she ever loved somebody the way she loves Gai and her father. Even at such a simple thing like this, reading his palm with information she got from a book on the street a few days ago, he looks at her with awe, like she's plucked a star from the sky and laid it flat on his palm.
"What's the third one?" he asks, bouncing up and down beneath her grip
Her finger goes up and winds along a line that goes from the base of his index finger, expands into an arch towards the middle of his palm, and ends at the base of his middle finger. "Your heart line," she says. "Long and curved. You're passionate and proud of it."
"Yes!" Gai shouts. He has a giddy, eager energy about him, and he leans forward so that his nose is just a few inches from hers. "What about you?"
Haruko lets go of his hand and smiles. "Can you pass me my book?"
"Haruko!"
"It's behind you," she says. "On the couch."
"Please?"
Haruko reaches behind him and grabs it herself. Gai whines. She flops onto her back and stares at the open book. Gai follows her down, laying on his stomach beside her.
"Haruko, Haruko, Haruko—"
She taps the tip of his nose. "It's unlucky to read your own palm."
Gai freezes. "Ah! Okay!" he says. He rolls onto his back and lays shoulder-to-shoulder with Haruko. She can see a determined look on his face. "I won't ask anymore!"
Haruko knows what's on her palm.
Her head line stretches to the middle of her palm and splits into two. She's of two minds, shifting worldviews, always seeing from multiple perspectives.
Her life line is like shattered glass pressed into her skin, a jagged, broken line. A sign of past traumas that continue to impact her.
Her heart line is uneven, with other lines slashing through it at multiple intervals to create a mess of x's. A sign of great personal betrayal in her past.
Her body remembers what her mind forgets.
Haruko imagines that at one point or another, she did love somebody as much as she does Gai and Dai, but those fragments are lost from the mosaic of her memories. She doesn't see that as a bad thing; she's glad she can't remember enough to say one way or another. Not all questions in this world require an answer.
Dai slams the door open and the smell of barbeque wafts into the house.
Haruko lets the book fall onto her chest and turns her head to look over at Dai. He's got a tower of takeout boxes balanced in his arms. "My dearest daughter! My dearest son!"
"Hi, dad."
"Dad!"
The obligatory group hug ensues, with Haruko and Gai taking care to avoid knocking over the food boxes.
They help get the food into the kitchen and dole it out, Gai and Dai taking their massive family-sized piles of food while Haruko takes a respectable but humane amount. They gather at their table, silent, until Dai clears his throat.
"I suppose we must talk about this school business," Dai says.
"I want to move up a grade."
Right away, Gai nods. "Mhi whant gfho uff—" Haruko reaches under the table and pokes Gai's knee with her big toe. Gai swallows. "I want to go up a grade too!"
Dai knits his eyebrows together. "Are you certain?"
"Yeah," Haruko says.
"Yes," Gai says. He gets starry eyed. "I must catch up to my Eternal Rival."
"Then it's settled!" Dai cries. He holds a piece of pork with his chopsticks and raises it up towards the ceiling. Bits of barbeque sauce splatter to the table. "To success!"
Gai copies his movements. "To success!"
They both wait, arms raised, for a solid minute until Haruko grabs some broccoli and lifts her arm up too, though she doesn't say anything. The boys cheer.
Haruko can't help but smile as she takes a bite from her broccoli.
I don't need to remember anybody but them.
