54
Anomie felt like she was drowning in an unforgiving ocean. Just when she thought she caught her breath, he kissed her again and the water rushed into her nose and her eyes burned as she tried to breathe. His hands gripped her shoulders, sliding down her arms as her pulse raged so hard she nearly thought she was dying—and she had nearly died many times so knew the familiar tingle. She could feel him draw in a breath when her fingers ran through his hair and gripped.
It was softer than hers. How was that even possible? She highly doubted he did anything to it and meanwhile she bathed hers in serums and expensive conditioners. The smooth feeling of his skin left her breathless and the pelting rain created the conundrum of whether this moment was too special to be aggressive and tear his clothes from his body.
Her back slammed against the creaking bed, his knee resting in between her legs and her hair loosely sprawled over the bed sheets. How he managed to look so composed when she was going crazy with desire was a flip from what she was used to and she was unprepared. Was this what love was? She hardly knew how she could ever live without him. In that moment, beneath the weight of his eyes and the crash of his kiss, she was doomed with desire.
Kakashi stared down at her through deeply hooded lashes, his fingers making trails over her neck. She shuddered at his touch, wondering if she could ever go back to who she once was before she felt so warm. As if he couldn't contain it any longer, his lips ran over her neck and she racked her nails over his back, feeling her own arch as his legs trapped her underneath him.
His lips brushing against her neck gave way that he wasn't as confident as he seemed. He was unsure, kissing over the base of her throat, his hands running over her waist. She closed her eyes, but that was a mistake when his form disappeared and was replaced with Tamaki Dairo's forceful tongue. She shuddered again, and Kakashi pulled away almost immediately. She was ashamed that he could read her body even better than she could read her own.
"Don't stop," she whispered, watching him hesitate. She pulled him closer, her grip too rough, but Kakashi didn't mind. I can be better than this.
She didn't close her eyes again, as if she were afraid she'd forget who was on top of her. He traced her jaw, his expression drowning her again. She wanted to be with him in the moment, but it was all too familiar. The creaky bed, the smell of rain, the scent of desire, the fact that she loved him. She had loved Dairo too, and love was what ruined her life.
Kakashi was not Dairo and she would best this.
"Tell me to stop," he whispered, his voice hoarse, and her eyes began to water. His grip on her waist tightened.
She shook her head. She was better than the fear of a six year old. She was better than this. She could feel him tremor from beneath her touch, she could feel his pulse race, and his heart beat when she ran her fingers up his shirt and over his heart. She flipped them over so she could be on top because Dairo never let her escape from beneath him.
"Tell me you would never force me," she whispered, and his wide eyes running up and down her face as if she would melt if he touched her too long.
His lips quirked, as if she had said something funny, but his eyes remained so serious and honest and kind. "When are you going to see that no one could force you do to anything anymore? And even if I could, I would never try."
A sliver of revulsion came down her spine despite her best efforts to quell it as he touched her. "I'm sorry."
"Can you tell me about it?" Kakashi said, and she rested her head in his chest, feeling the serendipity of his embrace, even if the obvious torture she was putting him through was digging into her thigh.
"Will you still love me after?" Anomie hadn't meant to ask, but the words slipped through her defenses.
"Nothing would ever take that away."
Her eyes were burning, and the words caught in her throat, but she gripped his chin, light and true, and she pressed her lips against his. It sent the butterflies fluttering in her stomach, and she immersed herself in the feelings before she could taint them with her words. The shame filled her stomach at the thought. She was ashamed to share anything.
"Do you want to know when I started to fall in love with you?" Kakashi asked, distracting her for a moment and forcing her gaze to meet his eyes. She slightly smiled, loving the way his gaze met her awaiting stare.
"I always assumed people have a love at first sight with me," she mused, and he chuckled.
"Nah. When I first saw you, you looked like an ashtray and smelled worse than that." Kakashi squeezed his eyes shut as she laid down next to him so they were shoulder to shoulder, backs to the bed.
She let out a laugh, punching his shoulder with a light tap. "Please. You know you would tap this maple tree if I were rotting and broken."
"You should be a poet," he said with a smirk to which she offered a wink in reply.
"It's on my bucket list."
"Regardless." He turned on his side so he could lean on his elbow and just look at her. He absorbed the smooth curvature of her jaw, the way her bones were so perfectly shaped into a sharp edge that he could run his fingers along and never get bored with the trace of them. He took at the way her lips spread into a pout, slightly parted as if she were thinking about something important. Kakashi suspected most of her thoughts revolved around herself. "I started to fall in love with you that first night when you took a guess on why I wore my mask."
Anomie licked her lips, and he felt himself smile at the memory. He still remembered the crescent moon, the smell of ramen in the air, and the bouquet and vanilla scent of Anomie's perfume. Anomie, however, had to scour her memory for the night amongst the stars. It had been chilly that night and Anomie had left the house to get away from Obito making moon eyes at Rin. It was back when they had to stay with the boy and his grandmother when Rin single handedly destroyed their kitchen.
She wondered, albeit briefly, if said grandmother Uchiha was still alive. Anomie had always been a self absorbed sort, and she never even visited after Obito's death to check in and offer condolences. After a year, going back seemed all the more unappealing. Now, years later, there was no chance.
"I asked if you had buck teeth useful for consumption of large nuts." Anomie remembered, and Kakashi laughed. She loved his laugh. She didn't get to see it often since she felt she never made him laugh anymore.
"You were making fun of me," he said, the softness in his eyes was as warm as any blanket.
"You were a loner, but a hot one. I was genuinely curious." Anomie remembered his soft features back then, so boyish and rather innocent. She could understand why Rin's eyes followed him every time he entered the room. Unfortunately, her eyes had always been closed to everybody and her heart was just as locked.
"I thought you were the most beautiful girl I had ever seen," he said to her. "But you were also kind. The way you looked after Rin. And you were never afraid to speak your mind, even if it hurt others."
"So you liked that I hurt others?" Anomie was smiling, her hair spread over the lumpy bed as her heart clenched.
"I liked how you weren't afraid to be who you were. I liked your confidence, even if sometimes it bordered on narcissistic."
"Backhanded compliment, but I'll take it."
"I fell in love with you that day when you comforted Rin after her mother died." He ran his fingertips over Anomie's arms, over her skin, over the dip of her breasts. "You were so stubborn, stepping over the mess that Rin made and making food to sustain her even though your feet were covered in bandages and bleeding."
"And you tried to cook to help me." Anomie did remember. She remembered that despite the tragedy of the day, Anomie was still happier back then than she ever was now. "And Rin loved you," Anomie said, her lips curling. "And I hated you for it."
He squeezed his eyes shut. "I know. Cruel irony. Still, that night you were injured in the attack by the tailed beast...I thought you were dead. It was like the lights went out and I was alone. So when I found out you were alive, I went to you. Everyday. Your face was so peaceful and smooth and you were quiet so I could finally hear my own thoughts. And I..." Kakashi finally opened his eyes, staring at her with such an unguarded expression for someone who always had his armor on. "I wanted you. More than I've ever wanted anyone."
"You have such pretty words," Anomie whispered with a smile, but the heat had returned to her chest. "It's funny. I studied poetry all over the world, and yet still I cannot utter it to you in kind."
"I don't want poetry, Anomie," he told her, and he looked over to her with a lazy smile. "Just you next to me is sufficient with my overweening ambition."
"Overweening you say?" Anomie felt the smile pull at her cheeks, and she realized that she was happy. They didn't have to touch just for her to feel his pull. He just had to look at her and she became undone. Still, no matter how she tried to pull free of the armor that surrounded her, she still hadn't managed to become as unguarded as he could with her. "I hope that one day you can share with me all the other imaginative ways you have thought about me next to you."
A heat, like that of a fervor, filled his gaze and her next words caught themselves in her throat. His fingers, that had been tracing circles along her wrist, let her go. He turned his eyes back to the ceiling and took a sigh as if expelling the tension that settled in his shoulders. She went silent too, because while she wanted to touch him, she knew she couldn't bare it.
"I didn't think I could ever make you happy." Anomie admitted this with reluctance.
"For a couple years in between, so did I," Kakashi gave her a light smile. "Do you remember that night when you fell asleep crying after Rin."
"Of course." Anomie would never forget. The candles she had lit had burned out before she could even stop.
"I carried you to bed, and I remember just looking down at you and wishing I could lie there with you."
"You did not want to lie with me," she said with a charming smile. "I'm almost certain my cheeks were covered in mascara and tears."
"You could be covered in warts. I'd still want you." Kakashi said this a bit too smoothly, causing Anomie to grin.
"Oozing warts?" Anomie asked with a raised brow, running her finger tips over his arm. His gaze followed her motion with an intense expression that made her knees weak.
"I don't care," he said, running his palm over her neck and towards her face. "I could be blind, I'd still look to you. I could have no hands, and still I'd want to touch you."
"And if I had no legs, I would crawl to you."
He smiled, leaning forward and resting his forehead against hers. "That's a bit excessive. Would I have to care for your every need if you had no legs."
Anomie considered this, "Would it be any different than if I did have legs?"
How he managed to be so hauntingly beautiful was astounding. "I suppose not."
"If you are willing to look at me blind and dumb-"
"I never said dumb."
Anomie smiled, "Just promise me that after I tell you everything, you won't change your mind."
●▬▬▬Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ▬▬▬●
When I was younger, I loved the river. I loved the feeling of the dirt and the mud in between my toes. The sun upon my back and my lips chapped, but moistened with fresh water down my throat. My mother was at the market, selling her produce so we could have enough to pay her debts. The market was dangerous she would whisper to me. Instead, she had me sit by the river and wait for her to fetch me.
In her absence, I had gotten good at catching fish from the shore. They would curl and glide downstream, and made it a challenge to grip them. Still, I always loved a challenge and four times a week at the river was more than enough time to hone my craft. I would pull my hair into a braid like my mom taught me, and my memory had always been fairly good at my age, so I never failed at braiding.
There were three fish in my line of sight that sunny day, and my hands had been fast to catch one when I heard the clapping from behind me. I turned my head, catching sight of a man with beautiful hazel eyes and hair in a tight brown pony tail. This man was twenty eight that sunny day. His smile was as warm as the sunshine and when my eyes met his, I remember holding out the fish.
"I got it!" I had said. My mom always told me to not make conversation with strangers, but I always had the hardest time listening to orders. That changed eventually, now orders ruled my life.
"That was impressive," he said to me and my dimples exposed genuine pride that I would eventually forget. I wasn't certain when the last time I had been proud of anything.
My grin spread from ear to ear as I wadded through the water. My kimono was soaked to my skin, but I was so unaware at that time what such a sight would cause a man to feel. Still, I made it to shore, my wet feet sinking in the mud and the fish flapping in my hands. His head was tilted to the side, his kind eyes overlooking me and resting on the fish.
"I taught myself," I said, and his smile was back in moments as I bent down to let the fish go free.
"Why catch it if not for food?" He asked me this, and I recall now that such a thought never crossed my mind. I had detested blood and anytime my mom fed me meat, I would cry and my mom would pray with me so the animal we ate would find peace in another life.
"I don't have it in me to kill him," I answered honestly, finally taking in the man's appearance right down towards the sword on his side. My mom always said to be careful around men with weapons. His eyes were so kind and his smile was not one anyone had ever given me. I ignored the blades.
"You are a good kid." He bent down, meeting my eyes and his hand went to ruffle my hair. My dimples exposed once more with my smile.
"I hope my mom and I get reincarnated as animals," I admitted to him, and glanced down at my palms. "I want to be a bird. A great owl or an eagle."
"Why is that?" His question was met with my hands behind my back, my fingers locked around my wrist of my other arm. I pondered the question, my head tilted to the side.
"They can go anywhere," I decided as I glanced up toward the trees in the distance. "What sights you can see."
"Do you want to see the world?" He asked me, and my answer was instantaneous.
"More than anything!" I was excited to speak to him. My mom discouraged me from speaking to others. She discouraged me from a lot of things back then.
"What's your name?"
"Fuyu!" I was too excited to say my name, probably because I had just discovered how to write it only days prior. Just to show him I could write, I knelt down into the mud and traced my name with my finger.
冬
His lips quirked up once more. "Fuyu, huh. How fitting. Your hair is as white as snow. No surname?"
I tilted my head. "What's a surname?"
He let out a deep chuckle. "A family name." When he saw I still didn't understand, his lips quirked up again. "It's a name that follows every generation. You inherit it from your father."
"What's a father?"
He chuckled. "The opposite of a mother. It takes two to create you."
"Oh." I still didn't get it, but I smiled nonetheless. "I don't have that. Is that strange?"
"With the way the war progressed, it's actually quite common." He pressed his left pointer finger into the dirt, tracing out characters.
第六環
"This is my family name," he said, drawing a line under the 第六, which made me purse my lips as I went through the kanji my mother had taught me.
"Utsubaroku?"
"Not quite," he told me, correcting my mistake. In the dirt he drew my mistake.
笂六
Only now could I see that they weren't at all similar. "When paired together, Utsubaroku would be correct had the strokes been like so." He motioned to the bottom before comparing it to what he wrote. "You seem like a smart kid. Try again."
I stared at his name in the dirt, my attention drawn to the challenge he issued and the intricate strokes that were written so well. Slowly, I glanced back up at him. "Dairo Tamaki?"
He grinned. "You are a smart girl."
My smile only widened with the pride at his acknowledgment. "I practice so much!"
"I can see that." The man named Dairo paused, and I couldn't help but have my eyes drawn to the blades at his side. My mom, having nothing good to say about weapons, had always steered clear of men like this one. She spread stories and whispers and I would listen to each and every one.
However, listening and really hearing were two different thing. In those days, I had never been too good at the latter. Also, I couldn't help but notice that his hand had been so gentle when he ruffled my hair. Even my mom never touched it, always gazing off into the distance with a far off expression as if she were traveling somewhere I could never hope to reach.
I never would catch up to her. I knew that now.
Dairo Tamaki, however, he would wait for me and he always spoke to me like I was an equal. My mother would always talk down on me and bark orders and ask me to keep my hair hidden.
"Do you come to this river often?" He asked me, and I glanced up from the kanji of his name, submitting it to memory and sending him a giant smile.
"Yes. I love the water, Mr Dairo," I told him, rushing back to dip my dirty feet into the rippling river waves. My gata sandals were lying about the dirt, haphazardly tipped over one another in my haste to take them. "Mr Dairo." I knew my formalities at the very least. My mother always stressed the importance of addressing people right.
His eyes linger on the waves near my feet, his lips never departing that calming smile as he sat down on the bank and dug his palms into the patches of grass. The water was cold, but i never minded the cold and my eyes closed shut to feel the tadpoles swim around my thin ankles.
"Hm?" His voice was so calming, and it felt nice to talk to anyone at all. My mom would never allow it. She said people were dangerous. She said they all wanted different things. She said to be kind but never stupid.
"Where do these waters lead?" I asked with a smile, tilting my head to the side and letting my braid fall over my shoulder. The current was always strong and if I took a couple steps closer to the middle, I was likely to lose my footing and the banks would sweep me down the stream towards parts I had never seen.
"This river is connected to many different directions. Likely all leading to the Hanguri Gulf in the south."
I opened my eyes at the sound of his voice. "Then that is where I want to go first."
He chuckled. "Why?"
I knelt down until the end of my kimono against my knees absorbed the waters. In between my fingers I saw small salmon attempt to rush down south. "I want to see where the fish work so hard to go."
That wasn't the only time I saw that man, but I dared not speak to my mother about him. She would never understand, and when she was mad, her cheeks grew so many shades darker than her hair. It was a sight to behold, and sometimes when I remember her voice now, even the yelling would sing like music in my eardrums.
"Did you sell lots?" I would ask her this each and every time she came back to fetch me. On her arm was a beautiful hand woven basket, and each time it would be filled to the brim with flowers. Each time she sold at the market, she would come back with so many coneflowers, pansies, and primroses. Each time they would be more beautiful than the last. She would pick them for me, place one in my hair, and tell me that "there's no prettier flower in the garden than you."
I realize now that she felt what had to be guilt for every day she couldn't be at my side. She didn't enjoy leaving me alone, but back then I always felt like I had been in her way. Perhaps I had.
"I sold a modest amount," she would tell me, and every time she would grab my hand and interlock her fingers through my own.
"I caught a salmon today," I told her as she escorted me through the thick trees, farther and farther way from the Hanguri gulf with every passing step. I never lied to my mom before, but my lips stayed squeezed shut and I didn't mention Dairo Tamaki, the passing wanderer I met that day. If I told her, my mother would only have more scoldings and I would not be allowed to sit by the river again.
"You let him go away then?" My mother always had an ear for heartfelt lectures that only now do I dearly miss.
"Remember to come straight home, my little flower."
Or...
"I've asked you not to speak to strangers, Fuyu!"
The problem was, strangers didn't usually like to speak to me. I was a no nothing kid with white hair and a frail body. Often they would believe that I would infect them with some sort of disease. I suppose back then, I was just lonely for some sort of company.
"I didn't want to kill him!" I defended myself that day, and some of my enemies would deny that I could be so skittish to kill a single fish.
My mom, like always, would send me that gentle smile and bring my head closer to her side. She always had a warm presence, and I still remember the way her hands felt like when they smoothed through my hair.
"Mother," I said, focusing on the crunching underneath my feet as our paces were in sync to crush the fallen leaves of the trail. The forest was gigantic, and without her by my side I doubted I could find my way.
The trees would burn in a couple years, and I would be raped somewhere along this trail amongst the burning embers. However, for now, I remember the peace in my chaotic heart as my mother aided me past the giant roots that protruded from the ground.
"Hmm?" My mother turned her head, glancing down at me as I stared back towards the river.
"Do I have a surname?" I asked her that day, and she paused. Now that I look back on it, I could see how such a thing was painful to remember. Now that I have been in love, I understand the pain of losing that person.
"How do you know that word?" My mother asked instead, her tone clipped as she narrowed her eyes at me. I was sheepish when I stared down at my feet, already feeling the argument on the rise. I couldn't exactly tell her about the stranger by the riverbed. She wouldn't let me go there anymore and I didn't want to be alone again.
"I overheard someone's name." It wasn't out of the realm of consideration, and my mother glanced over to me, and I was still close to her hip.
To this day, I never got the answer and Nagisa remained Nagisa. As far as I knew now, my mother had no family. A nameless father and a sad mom. I knew now that she often cried, she would often bury her head into my white hair, as if she wanted to suffocate herself. She never did. She went back to sell produce the next day and left me by the river.
Tamaki Dairo didn't visit me that day, but I still waited. The next day was empty too. I caught some fish, my mom came back through the trees, and I felt like crying.
Now that I knew the words for each emotion, I could understand that I was lonely. I waited for a stranger just to get some kind of recognition. When he came on the fourth day, I tripped from the current.
"Mr. Dairo!" My mom taught me how to be polite, and I didn't want to scare him away. I realize now that it was weird she taught me my formalities only to ban me from speaking to anyone.
"Young Fuyu," he greeted, the smile on his face crinkled his eyes and I attempted to stand back up from my knelt form in the river. The excitement to talk to someone nearly had my knees shaking. Once again, my kimono was stuck to my body, and the water had undid my hair, and it fell just past my shoulders, not as long as my mom's who I often strived to imitate. "Aren't you freezing?"
"Yes!" I told him, wading through the water, disappointed that I lost my fish after I fell. It was a big one and I worked hard to grip it. "I love the cold."
As I approached the shore, he pat my head. His eyes so soft as he ran his fingers over my braid that was slowly becoming undone. He then proceeded to shed his red haori and place it over my shoulders. It draped over me like a blanket, much too big considering Dairo had been a rather buff man before I decapitated him some years later.
"It suits you. Red is your color," he told me, taking a step back.
I agree.
My cheeks hurt from my smile. The cold had begun to seep into my bones, but his haori was so warm. "Thank you, Mr. Dairo!"
His haori was more than just soft. The quality of the material could be felt against my arms. My kimono was itchy, having been sown by my mom who wasn't the craftiest of women. It had holes and didn't last long with how I played. Still, I'd trade every silk kimono and vibrantly beautiful dress for the chance to wear her handmade clothes once more.
"You can call me Tamaki," he told me, taking a seat against the sand.
"I—I can't do that!" I defended profusely, my cheeks swelling with heat.
"You can call me whatever you like, little Fuyu," he told me, and his sweet smile enamored me. My mother always said that everyone that wasn't her, could also be an enemy. She warned me that all kindness had to be taken with a grain of salt. Now that I am older, I was curious to know what pains were buried in her past that warped her so greatly. I would never know. "But I would be overjoyed if you could call me by my first name."
"You won't get mad?" I asked him, and he shook his head. I tightened his haori around my shoulders. Slowly, I nodded my head and spoke the name of my future nightmares. "Okay. Tamaki."
"Why are you here so often anyway, Fuyu-chan?" Tamaki asked me and my lips pursed.
"My mom said the market is no place for me." I answered him too quickly, my displeasure obvious in my face. I understood it now. Women were at their best without their children at their sides. It was an anchor to responsibility and I wonder now if my mother resented me.
"Think of it as a blessing," he told me, breaking me from my disappointment. "The market is boring unless you have the money to spend."
"I have money!" I defended, my pout now apparent.
Tamaki looked amused, and I nodded my head. "Do you?"
"I have rya saved!" I defended, and by now he was grinning.
"You mean ryō?" Tamaki let out a small chuckle, and my face by now was enflamed with red. It was a mixture of rage and embarrassment. My skin was pale so I couldn't hide the way my ears were tinted with pink.
"Shut up!" I said, covering my face with my hands.
"What do you have ryō saved for?" Tamaki asked me this and I peeked at him through my fingers.
"I want to..." I mumbled the rest so low that he didn't understand me over the current.
"Eh?" He cupped his ear, proving that he was truly listening to me. My cheeks grew hotter.
"I want to buy my mom a house in the capital!" I shouted, and my desire was so earnest and completely unattainable. I understood that now. It would take so much more than a couple ryō for an impossible dream to come true.
Tamaki Dairo didn't laugh at my dream. I wish he had. Perhaps then I would have seen the red flags on his character. Perhaps things could have been different. However, these were just empty regrets. Stupid Fuyu didn't have the capacity to doubt somebody.
He then did something no one had ever done for me. He pulled out a small string of ryō and handed all of it over to me. It felt heavy, and it was by far the most money I had ever had in my tiny palms.
"Oh no, Mr. Dairo!" I remember shaking my head profusely, attempting to give back the money. "I couldn't take this from you!"
"It's a gift," he told me and my eyes had begun to water. Nobody had ever given me a gift before. My mom would make me mochi on special occasions, but that was different. Somehow, the intent felt new and I held the coins to my chest.
"Tha—thank you!" I bowed, my braid now completely undone as my head neared the ground. I held the gift to my chest as I stood back up.
"Why the capital?" Tamaki asked me and my brows furrowed.
"My mom...she told me once," I paused, and I considered the memory even now. "She told me she had a cousin in the capital. If I had a cousin, I would want to see them too!"
"Do you have no other family, Fuyu-chan?" Tamaki asked me, and I dipped my toes into the mud, a rush of loneliness filtering through the crevices of my heart. Despite that, the fondness was apparent in my face.
"I have mom." I answered him quickly, my eyes scanning the river bed where the waters would eventually reach Konoha. "But I want my mom to be happy!"
"I'm actually heading to Konoha next," Dairo Tamaki told me and I tilted my head, my eyes filling with warmth.
"What for?" I asked him, entranced by the idea of getting to travel on adventures. It must have been nice to be so free.
"Business." Tamaki's answer was vague, and now I knew his business was human trafficking. In a time of economic strife, slaves really were the most profitable method of money.
"When are you leaving?" I asked him, and I now wondered if things would have been different if I hadn't looked so disheartened at that idea.
"I should have left a few days ago," he answered with a smile. That smile slowly faded as he looked at me. "You remind me of my daughter."
"Your daughter?" I grew excited at the comparison. I didn't know why. I had only ever been my mother's daughter. "Where is she?"
"Somewhere far away." His answer was just as vague, but I grew all the more curious.
"Do I look like her?" I had to ask, since I never looked like any of the other kids on the roads. White hair was a curse in these parts. People had the tendency to be superstitious and I was an outcast.
"You have her eyes," Tamaki said, and his fingers reached over to grip my chin. It was a gentle touch, and her took a step closer.
"I'm proud to share her eyes!" I told him, as if trying to please him. His smile was strained now, and he quickly stood up. My expression disappeared. "Are you leaving?"
"Business," he told me, and my brows furrowed together once again. I wasn't ready to be alone, but my mom hated when I begged, so I didn't want to disgrace myself to him. "I'm sorry, Fuyu-chan."
He sounded like he really meant it, and it brought another smile to my face. "Will I see you again?"
He paused, his eyes scanning my face. He actually looked like he wanted to say no. Perhaps he wasn't the demon of my memory yet, but slowly as he gazed at my smooth dimples and sweet colored eyes, he gave in to the guilt and said, "sure kid."
As he turned around, I realized I still wore his red haori. "Mr. Dairo!" I shrugged it off, my body dripped with the water from the river as I handed him his haori.
"Are you sure you don't want to keep it?" He asked this of me, but I profusely shook my head. My mother would never leave my side if she caught me in someone else's clothes. He chuckled, patting my head. "Okay then. How about this?" He grabbed some fallen tree branches, and placed it near the river bed.
I watched him curiously, my head tilted to the side as he held up his hands. He made strange symbols and it was the first time I ever saw a Jutsu. A rush of fire streamed out of his lips, causing me to let out an audible shriek, and I fell back against the grass when the fire from his body caused the leaves and branches caught aflame.
I watched with wide eyes, and he turned to me, holding out his hand. I had never touched another person but my mom, so I was hesitant to place my hand in his. Once I did, I noticed his skin was warm. He pulled me to my feet.
"Stay by the fire. If your mom sees it, just say you learned something new," he told me. And I nodded my head.
"Could you teach me that trick?" I asked instead, because it looked so effortless to perform such a miraculous act.
"Sorry. This isn't something girls can do," he told me, and I frowned.
"Why not?" I asked, not angry, but I wanted to understand.
"Your hands aren't made for this," he answered smoothly, and he slowly let go of the hand he gripped to help me on my feet.
"What are they made for them?" I asked him, and his lips thinned.
"Not this," he answered.
Ironically, killing was exactly what my hands were good at. I would prove that later on when his blood clotted underneath my nails as I cut off his head and just held it until it began to smell. Still, I was a child, naïve and young. And even then, he implied that a girl was made for bearing children and making men happy. I could do neither.
"Could you teach me what I can learn?" I asked him, mostly because I always loved to learn. My mom didn't have the time to teach me different skills, and every future brothel would educate me in her place.
He took a step back, and his bangs shadowed his face. "Perhaps." He turned on his heel and began his retreat. "Stay warm, Fuyu-chan."
My smile hurt my cheeks, but I stood close to the flames. They warmed up my skin that had begun to grow stiff and blue. They were as warm as Mr. Dario's eyes, and I enjoyed the way they flickered and danced. The heat didn't bother me and I stayed under its embrace until the branches had decayed and burned into ash.
My mother appeared from the trail not long after the sun had set, and by now my clothes were mostly dry thanks to my new friend's fire. She immediately paused at the ashes and suspicion flooded her eyes.
"What happened here?" Nagisa had a talent for making me feel small, but I had gotten good at lying to her.
Besides, Tamaki had said it was okay, and he was an adult too.
More than that, my mother told me that everybody was my enemy, but Tamaki had been nothing but kind to me from the moment I met him. My fingers tightened around the string of ryō in my kimono, careful not to allow the coins to rattle. I didn't want my mom to find out, mostly because I didn't want to lie to her anymore than I already had. Also, I wanted to keep them and I knew my mother would make me return every last ryō.
My mother was an odd sort, and I realized that now that I was older. She often taught me manners and how to be kind, only to grow fearful at the lasting idea that I might use any of these skills to make friends or even greet strangers on the roads. To this day, I still hadn't the faintest what she was so keen on protecting me from. Even in her wildest dreams, I doubted that she could ever have the imagination to envision what my fate ended up being.
Fate was funny that way.
I had learned a proverb when I was but a small kamuro under Ohashi. Fate was like a stream, nipping and tucking and curling and sometimes leading far from the mother waters that spawned it. Still, no matter how it may twist and turn, the waters that control it are still from the ocean.
Ohashi had told me this as a way to warn me that you can't defy fate, but I always had a difficult time listening. It was hard to believe that all my actions were predetermined because if that were true, then it was decided long before my birth, that I was to be the child that causes her mother's murder.
Still, through the thickets that clouded me in a green haze, I had a hard time seeing past illusions. Tamaki Dairo was so kind to me. He brought me sweets of the sorts I had never tasted. He introduced me to chocolate, the first and only instance I had consumed such treats. In the future, perhaps this was why I had grown an aversion to the sweetness of sugar. He taught me different ways to sign my name upon parchments and I perfected the kanji.
"This is common in the wind country," Dairo had told me when he held up a small box of candies shaped in intricate circles and spirals. They tasted of strawberries and cream, heavenly at the time, but now just the thought made me want to vomit.
"My daughter had loved this flavor," he told me, smiling sweetly as I munched on the food he would bring me. He would often compare me to his child, and I had never minded. It made my chest warm, and I would often spend days waiting for my chance to speak to him.
He brought me gifts, ones I could eat, so my mother would never see them. I suppose this was where I learned to perfect the art of a good lie. Perhaps lying to my mother was only the beginning of my senseless and troubled life. It hardly mattered.
"Have you put on weight, Fuyu?" My mother had asked me this so bluntly that I nearly balked. Consuming the food that Dairo would bring me had brought fullness back to my cheeks, and of course my mother had noticed. I remember so little of the woman who raised me, but I suppose I could never forget her creeping paranoia.
I had learned that the best lies have a lack of too many details. Too many and she began to question me. Instead, I had perfected my smile as I grabbed her hand, allowing her to lead me along the path. "If I did, then does that make me prettier?"
My mom had smiled at the innocent question, reaching over and pulling me to her side as we walked along the road into town. "You are my daughter. You will always be the prettiest one in this country."
My mother would often tell me that. She told me that she loved my hair, told me that I had my father's eyes. It was the only thing she ever told me about my father. I wonder now if my face ever made her sad. "Mother," I remember still holding the money in my kimono. Dairo had brought me a little more to save, a gift that I hadn't been able to refuse. "Are you ever lonely?"
I had never asked before that day, and now that I looked back at those memories, sifting and forcing them up from repression, I could see so little of why my mother did anything. Still, I gripped onto those memories, bringing them to the surface so I could understand and feel what I had never allowed myself to feel.
"Never." Nagisa had never sounded more confident, and her hand gripped onto mine as she pulled me along the dirt road. I held onto her as if she were my last line of life. "I have you, now don't I?"
I wish I could ask her so many questions now that I'm old enough to comprehend everything. I want to ask how she met my father, who her cousin in Konoha was, if I have family somewhere, if it was possible to have saved her. I knew it was senseless to dwell on the hopeless, but I couldn't help it since the fact remained that those coins falling out of my kimono robes had started everything.
They rolled down the dirt path, faster than I could move as the coins scattered around my feet with rattling noise. My breath got caught in my throat, my lips flapping open and closed as I tried to catch the ones that fell.
"What is this?" Nagisa glanced towards me, her eyes narrowed as the gears in her head began to turn. "Where did you get this?"
"I-I found it," I said, but knew immediately that I had to work on lying under pressure because I awful at my attempt.
"You're lying." Nagisa brought those deep blue irises down to my level, finally looking me in the eyes. "You've been lying to me, Fuyu?"
I was young back then. In only five months, I could have come back from even that. I could have made up a lie that bested the old ones. In a year, I was already good enough with deceit to never be caught in a lie at all. And now, even I could hardly tell when I was lying or sharing the truth. But when I was Fuyu, I had none of those skills and I did what most children did when caught. I told her the truth.
I had never seen my mother so furious and so sad. She watched me like a hawk. Still, she couldn't take me with her into town when she made her business. What she really did to earn the money I never knew. All I did know was that she would leave me in the back rooms and paid a hefty sum for the tavern keeper to have me stay put. It was dark and empty in the room I stayed when she could not be by my side to protect me. I hardly felt protected then. I had missed the friend I made dearly.
So when I saw him, speaking to the men who I would come to know in later years, I was ecstatic. I wanted to say hello. I wanted to learn about Chakra. I wanted to learn so many new things that my mother would not teach me. I tugged against my mother's hold on her way down the street with the sack of grains on her back. She held me tighter.
"Fuyu!" Nagisa scolded. "Stop. It's not safe."
"Mother please he's my friend. Just meet him. He is nice. Not everyone is bad." I told her this in hopes to make sure she saw my side, which she had been ignoring for a week.
"Not everyone is bad yes, and be kind to others yes, but be smart." Nagisa tugged me forward again. "Don't disobey me Fuyu."
Dairo finally looked up from the ruckus I was making, glancing from me to my mother before he ignored me entirely for the men he was talking to so seriously. I was confused. I didn't understand my mother. I didn't understand the world.
I was lonely and sad and I lashed out all the time. "You need to eat Fuyu!" Nagisa would scream, clutching her hair as she likely felt frustration for the disobedient daughter.
"I hate this," I would tell her when she laid her head against the table. My uneaten rice, boiled vegetables, and salted fish lay untouched in front of me. I had been silent for days at that point, and now I only wished I had never said anything. I wished that she didn't have to hear these words that couldn't be farthest from the truth. "I hate this. I hate this village. I hate this house. I hate you." I slammed my hand across the food on the table and it hit the far wall and splattered against wall.
Before that day, my mother had never so much as squeezed my arm too hard to leave a mark. She had never truly raised her voice until that month. She was always stern, but she kept everything else under tight wraps. When her palm slapped against my cheek, I was in a stunned silence. There was something undeniably humbling about being slapped.
Still, even though the pain was immense, my mother looked even more hurt by her actions. Her hands cupped her face in shock. They were shaking and when my eyes filled with tears she tried to speak. That was when the door was broken down. That was when the slavers slammed open door.
In the future, there would a moment where I had been shoved from the top of a mountain. The wind had rushed through my hair and the vertigo of the fall had created tremors throughout my body. The splat before the fall would be approaching and that fear coursed through my jolting body. I had nearly been too surprised to save myself before the fall. Of course, I turned into smoke and stopped the landing, but that was the closest I could ever come to describe the feeling of those men crashing in, their weapons drawn upon my unarmed mother.
I remember so little of the words of that night. With my tears and blinding headache from my mother's strike, it was like looking through a kaleidoscope. However, some things remain very clear when Dairo walked into the house, looking as if he just stepped in mud. There was no remnants of the kind man who had been so sweet to me on the riverbed.
"You have no right," my mother's voice rang out, but the chuckle of Dairo was hauntingly cold.
He held out a contract, and his lips quirked. "The age of content for indentureship is five. This is your daughter's print."
"Indenture? Pretty words for slavers." I wasn't certain when she did it, but Nagisa had gotten a kitchen knife in her hand. She angled her body, bent her knees only slightly, and hid the blade with her forearm.
"I am a businessman, miss. Nothing more. Your daughter wants to give you a better life. Isn't that right, Fuyu?" He finally looked at me, and still I didn't understand.
However, what he said was true enough. "Yes! I want mama to have a good life."
Nagisa's face looked stricken and pale, as if she might faint seven times over and it still wouldn't be enough rest. "You are a snake."
Dairo shrugged, but his eyes remained a second longer on me.
Nagisa lunged, the knife in her hand as she went to strike him down. It was a surprise, and Dairo must have thought as much too for her blade cut clean across his face. A scar trailed from where he could not dodge, but she succeeded in ripping the contract out of his arms. She was outmatched, and two of the three slavers dragged her away, forcing her to drop the contract. It floated down next to me, and it was my handwriting.
It was made from one of the many parchments where I signed my name over and over until I got it perfectly. Perhaps this was where my hatred for the name 'Fuyu' stemmed, but all I knew was that I had been stupid. Worse than stupid, I was naive.
My mother was distraught, screaming and kicking, but the men were stronger and overpowered her thrashing before the last one turned his arms around me. He grabbed me, hauling me to my feet when I realized I had fallen to my knees. I glanced over to Dairo, looking for the man who had made me a fire and supported my dream to buy my mother a home worthy of her. His eyes were cold, filled with something I could not place and when finally met my eyes, there was something that I could only now describe as predatory.
"Please. Take me." My mother was pleading now, her eyes red and blotchy and her face pale. The fight in her had seeped out.
"Take you?" Dairo asked, and his lips curled. "What good would that do?"
"I will sign any contract. Just let my daughter go." Nagisa's voice was hoarse, wrought with emotion and pain as she finally brought her gaze back up towards him.
Dairo smirked, taking a step forward. "And you think you are capable of the workload?"
Nagisa bit her bottom lip, her eyes finally turning hard and she refused to look at me. I had long since grown silent, lip with the betrayal that only just began to register in my bones. "I am." Nagisa finally said this, her eyes hard and her lips straightening.
Dairo considered this. "Your life for the care of your daughter? I don't think I believe you to make the trade. You will just have to prove it to me."
His hand went to the front of her dress, laying just over her chest. He pulled the material down, ripping it until it exposed her bosom to her naval. She didn't speak. She stopped crying. She wouldn't look at me.
Dairo looked at me. He stared at me throughout all of it, and maybe that was what made my mother finally act. Maybe she saw what I could not at the time. She saw that all this would end with both of us separated, her as a servant across the coast, and me as a whore. Worse than that, Dairo's next words were a promise, cooed with an emotion I didn't understand. "Rest assured. I will make sure your daughter is cared for when I pay for her services."
I didn't understand, even as my mother cried out harder. The blood had already began to trail down her thigh, mixed with beads of white and damp clinging sweat as Dairo dropped her body. She stabbed her needle, the one she always kept to tie up her hair, into his neck, but Dairo was faster. He was trained, and before I could scream, he had allowed his palm to take the blunt of the damage. The rage in the air was palpable and I screamed out for him to stop.
"Please! Don't hurt my mother." I believe it was the first time I ever begged for anything in my life, but it spurred him on. I knew that now. He liked the sound of my crying and that was when he slit my mother's throat.
When she fell to the ground, slumped and broken, her breasts hanging out, her dress ripped and her thighs bloody, she finally stared at me. She gurgled out words that were not understandable. I tried to crawl to her, but the arms of the third slaver held me back. I don't remember what I screamed, I just remember the crying as I tried to reach for her.
Her bloody palms made a motion to reach for me right back, but her body was weak and the slit across her throat was leaking so profusely that it was a wonder her head hadn't been chopped clean off.
"Mama." The slaver had let me go, perhaps out of pity. I crawled to her, taking her hand in mine and feeling my chest quake with the tremor. "I-I." I couldn't get any words out.
"F-Fuy-" Nagisa didn't close her eyes when she died.
I had to be sobbing I think. I had screamed and thrashed and roared that I hated Dairo. When he had stepped forward to lift me up, I had turned into a rabid animal, and scratched my nails into his face. Still his hands moved to my neck, dragging me out the house.
"She's dead, dear. If you want to live, shut your fucking mouth." He never cursed me before, but with my nails having marked his face until blood covered his cheek, he looked murderous.
I wish I had made threats. I wish I had told him that he should fear me, but then I saw my mother's blood staining his hands when he grabbed me and everything went black. It was as if I were falling, I gripped onto the doorframe, screaming when he raised his palm to silence me. The blood of my mother filled my mouth, rushing against my tongue as I gagged and his narrowed gaze filled mine.
"Dispose of the corpse." Dairo instructed the slavers, and they obliged without a word. They dragged my mother out the back and disappeared from sight. All the while, his eyes had not left mine.
I couldn't speak. His palm was slick against my face. When his other hand lowered to my stomach, my back so forcefully pressed against the door frame that I feared it may break, I finally understood what happened next.
"Stay quiet, Fuyu."
He used his hands, the blood of my mother caressing my skin like oil, to touch me.
Author's Note
Fuck that was dark. I am sorry for that. It was just a necessary revelation on why Anomie is so scared when people tell her they love her. I tried to make the implied rape scenes very vague so I don't trigger myself. Still, Nagisa was taken by force and so was, of course, Anomie.
It is also an explanation as to why she feels like her mothers murder was her fault and why she hates the name Fuyu. I felt it was finally time for Kakashi and Anomie to really get to know each other and speaking your demons out loud is the first step to getting out their power over you. This will never be my favorite chapter, but I do think it was necessary. Also, I've never given Nagisa actual chapter time so I wanted her to be introduced. There is still so much about Anomie I have yet to delve into, so much that I can't wait to share.
Thank you for reading!
Kuremachisu (クレマチス) is a clematis flower. It means cunning and poverty
