A Thousand White Eyes
II: Burn
"That's not your brother, Hiashi."
"Papa, what do you mean, it's Hizashi, see, it's Zashi..."
"Zashi is dead. Hizashi was not Sealed. That one is Branch. That one is Sealed."
(burn me)
It hurts and it burns on his forehead now, and it is icy cold when he wakes. The fact that he can't call his father 'father' anymore hurts worse.
(burn us)
Only that's a lie. Hiashi isn't allowed to talk to him anymore, and that crawls down his throat and grits and burns and never goes away, and Hizashi watches, watches, watches his brother and something always feels a little hollow.
(burn you)
"You can change things, right, Hiashi-sama?" The question is carefully placed and Hizashi hates it, almost more than he hates the silence that is his only answer.
(burn them)
Hizashi is not looking for a miracle; there is no cure for this disease. His people are cracked and bleeding and worn raw on the inside; when one of them has a headache it shivers through them all and they fear. He can feel his brother's eyes on him, always watching him, and he would hope, he would hope, but he does not look for miracles anymore.
(burn one)
Hizashi sinks to his knees, his son at his side, pain searing through his head, unable to help but hearing two children whimper, unable to stop himself from remembering the way they both whimpered when he was Sealed, and decides that maybe the girl might be a miracle— or she might be her father.
(burn both)
"I'll go," he tells 'Yashi, not Hiashi-sama but Yashi, his brother, his twin. He will not die for the head of the Main House, but he is willing to die for Yashi. Maybe, he thinks, a little wry when he sees the pain on his brother's face, maybe this is his miracle.
(burn all)
"They were equal in every way. But born first, born second— that is what decided their fates."
The conversation between Hiashi and his father comes courtesy of Cyberwolf, used with permission.