The worst part of the day is zipping on the ol' human suit and being forced to smile and make nice, without coffee. Maybe that's just the sleep deprivation, maybe it's the misanthropy. Who knows at this point. You'd think one lifetime of stress and insomnia would be enough. It does sting a little to open my dry eyes to the brightness of the morning sun, even more so when I step outside my room, with it's blinds and curtains all shut to ensure maximum darkness. More indication that indeed, the sun is a deadly laser and must be avoided at all costs.
"Morning," the retiree from next door says as I get out the door. I wish morning people were smote from this world. It's a Sunday, it's sunny, and it's a great day for a funeral for someone who is better for dead. A celebration of his demise, if you will.
I smile back, lips practiced at this gesture from years of being a minimum wage slave in college. "Good morning." I greet back, like the functioning human being I am.
The tension at my temples feels like someone is slamming a sledgehammer against them, but nonetheless, I am like plexiglass. Shatterproof. Just need some coffee.
Today is Sunday. Yes, yes, Sunday. The cafe is open on Sunday. It feels as if in a blink, I am there: sitting at a table shielded from the morning sun.
"The regular?" The waitress (Ito? Eto?) asks more so out of courtesy than anything else, before I nod and she turns back. Today is busy, like most weekends. She comes back with my coffee and the ever-changing chiffon sandwich: today's is both fresh and jammed plum accompanied with whipped cream.
"Thank-you." I say to the angel of black ambrosia and sweet nectar, and she only smiles before turning to tend to the next flock of hungry faithful. What quaint loyalty she reaps; really, if you asked me to decide between killing a little girl or the waitress who brings me coffee every Sunday morning, well, it's obvious who I would choose.
In truth I don't feel particularly hungry or in an eating mood; the nausea building up inside my centre of mass only lets me sip my coffee. What did I have for dinner last night? Mackerel? No, wasn't that last week? Ichiraku? No that was lunch five days ago, I think.
Of course, Kaori would somehow turn this around and make this about me and how I really need to actually go to therapy, trying to replace the empty position of 'mother-figure' in her own burgeoning motherhood. My sister may think she has my best interests in mind, but I digress. My mind is my own and I would rather not let the long-fingered grip of the super-secret Yamanaka conspiracy takehold there like they have in so many other departments. It's all part of their long-term, generation spanning plot to gain military control of Fire and secretly rule through blackmail and smiling blonde therapists who know all the dusty skeletons in your long-forgotten closets.
"Sorry, is anyone sitting here?" A woman asks with that typical polite insincerity, ruining my perfectly nice lonesome Sunday morning with my coffee and my sudoku.
A glance around me reveals that the cafe has slowly filled itself up during my preoccupation with my half-finished sudoku and there's no polite way to say 'No'. She looks half-familiar: black hair like every third person in Konoha, pale skin, and red eyes. Not the sharingan, but memorable enough.
I nod and keep my head down, eyes focused on my newspaper. Table sharing may mean I have to cede my physical space, but actually making small-talk is a punishment I will try to dodge to my best ability. Almost enough to make me wish I had gone to one of the stuffier, dimmer restaurants with private dividers. Except, I was off the active-duty rolster and consequently, my pay also suffered.
"Excuse me, I've never been here before, but how is the chiffon cake?" She asks from across me, cleary not understanding the concept of 'Leave me the fuck alone'. I pretend I don't hear her, too engrossed in my wonderful sudoku to care.
"Eight, five, nine." I mutter aloud, "Seven, six, two, four." Well, good to know it's either three or one in that square.
She tries again, clearing her throat and raising her volume higher. "Pardon me, is the cake here good?"
At this point I only have a handful of options left: feign deafness (tragic, this is why ear protection is so important in ninjutsu battles, really), pretend I hadn't heard her before and give a polite response, or keep ignoring her.
To my own surprise, I didn't choose the last one. I amaze myself sometimes with my own ineptitude.
"Yes." I grunt, before turning my gaze back down. Sudokus, much more diverting than say, paperwork. Particularly the pile upon my desk still waiting upon my return.
It's the most annoying thing about small towns: the people. And how annoyingly social they are. For perhaps, a rural nobody, Konoha would be considered large. At a population of [redacted] people and [highlighted with Sharpie] active personnel, it would be considered a large city in the Land of Fire. It's still nothing compared to Seattle or Memphis, nevermind Los Angeles, Tokyo, or Shanghai. Yet, perhaps because of its military inhabitants, it has all the annoying hallmarks of small-town culture: nosiness, gossip, and an inability to understand why smalltalk isn't necessary.
"Do you work in Intel? You seem familiar."
Ah, do I have to say where I work? Must she really bring work into my day off? Of course she must. Clearly she can't just leave work at the office or in the field. Tsk, tsk.
"Propaganda."
She tilts her head a little, mouth drawn tight as though she's trying to wring a conclusion out from the line of her lips.
"Public communication and information." I clarify, giving her the much wordier actual title of my hopefully soon to be former department.
Perhaps a spark dies in her eyes once she realizes I am merely some desk-jockey and not a fellow intrepid field shinobi like her, a cubicle slave doomed to expire before a monochrome pile of papers in forty, fifty, or even sixty years time. Or maybe that's just me imagining things.
"Have a good day," I tell her, leaving a third of my cake on the with her while giving her my best minimum wage smile, "Take care." I flee to the only exit in sight I can see: paying my bill. What a pity! What a waste! I hadn't even finished the pitcher of coffee. And I was out of coffee myself.
Goddamnit.
Blink, and I am at a funeral. My eyes are open, the dryness of the air against my eye a reminder of reality as I stare at the woman who stands resolute before the dirt of the grave. The sun shines down on us. Blink again, I am nowhere, I am dead. Blink, blink, blink. The tiny plops of eyelid against eyelid. Bright light flaring out of the darkness only to be momentarily snuffed again.
Some part of us must be wired to have an almost supernatural affinity for queues. It is the only explanation as I am caught in the snaking line of people waiting to give Madame Saito, whose letter I wrote just a week ago beforehand, their condolences. We coil around her, one long black python, mouth open, ready to bite.
"I am so sorry." They all whisper to her. Then, they wrap an arm around one of her shoulders: physical comfort without too many presumptions of familiarity.
"We're so sorry." The couple in front of me says, before they too, in turn walk past her.
"I am so sorry." I tell her as I wrap my arms over one trembling shoulder and under another. One mississippi, two mississippi, three mississippi, then I release. Beneath the lined skin and poorly concealed grief is a mother's rage against the world. I can see it in her eyes for me now: rage that I am alive. If I were a better person, I would be too.
I step back from the bereaved and walk onwards to the gates. My duty here is done. There is a line to how fast you can flee from the scene of the deceased. Too fast, it's obvious. Too slow, someone might think you actually care and ask pesky questions.
Blink, and I am out of the cemetery grounds. It's only a formality for the ceremony. With another blink of my eyes, I am home.
My sister in this life, Kaori, she called my bachelor pad of an apartment "bare". It's a kind word for it. One bed, one bath, one living room/dining area, one kitchen, no balcony. There's a window, only one. No plants, no pets, but the bare necessities: a bed, a table, exactly three chairs, one desk, and a bookshelf. The light blue quilt on the back of the chair, that's Kaori's, forgotten here after the first and only housewarming party I'll ever host.
Kaori always hosts dinners at her place for a reason.
I sit down at my desk. Regret immediately rises when all I see are the scattered papers I left there this morning. Forms, forms, forms, a journal article-
-Ah, what do we have here? Let's see, please be better than requisition form 4356. Not that it's hard to be.
It's a review of Up and Down the Centuries: the Kingdom of Fire, published in the Fire Country Journal of Historical Studies. Criticism of an established work of propaganda that details the divine right of the rulers of Fire? It's a bold move Cotton, let's see if it pays off. Then I read who it's by: Itagaki Seiji
The name is familiar, I think I've heard it somewhere. Itagaki, Itagaki, that's not a last name you see everyday day. Whoever it is, I hope I don't have to make a housecall very soon. I hate making housecalls.
It isn't too far into the article that I hit the first red flag: a reference to Ueki Suga, famed female poet, writer, former Fire country nobility and political exile who resided in the court of the Earth daimyo a century before. Ueki's accounts of the formation of Konohagakure, Itagaki writes, differ and provide a more detailed account of the circumstances surrounding the daimyo's decision to create a centralized military power. He's correct: Ueki's accounts really do provide detail that Up and Down the Centuries: the Kingdom of Fire does not. Detail that isn't necessarily flattering and best not brought up in public for all to read.
Someone before me has already drawn arrows around another concerning passage. There's no suggestion of Konohagakure's creation in what many consider to be the monk and historian Doin's greatest work. "In the twenty-first year of the Myoge era..." he writes, yet there is a conspicuous hole of information surrounding the shinobi who have created the first of its kind. Of course he wouldn't write about, he wouldn't dare. The head of the fire temple had been assassinated five years prior, to this day no one knows who, but given the odds, it was a ninja. When the fire daimyo himself is backing the ninja, of course Doin would put his life first before his work.
And the rest is history. Up and Down the Centuries: the Kingdom of Fire becomes a hit success, a book every Academy graduate has at least chapters of, and Doin keeps his head. Win, win.
Itagaki... It's so familiar, the tip of my tongue and the skin of my teeth. The whirl of thought flies blatantly in my face, dangling tauntingly away yet so close I can almost grasp it.
Ah, Tatsuo, Tatsuo Morito. We had met, Itagaki and I then. My last foray into the court of Fire and its snakepit of academia at the Royal University of Saimei. Before Morito's untimely death by moonlight boating accident. Very unfortunate, what a tragedy.
His widow was desolate and turned to paranoia in her final years before being committed to an asylum. The best asylum in the nation.
What a tragedy.
Itagaki had been close to Morito, one of his gaggle of academics raised in lieu of children. No surprise then that the hawk will return to snatch another chick before it's time. So many blatant references and critiques of the current history department at the Land of Fire's premiere institution of knowledge, Itagaki knew exactly what he was doing.
Then it is fitting he knows how this ends.
Quietly, it is always quiet. Quiet and quick on the draw, although the scheming may be slower. Sometimes it is a gentle touch: soft rasps of skin against skin and the slow, drawn out moan. Sometimes it is just the sharp kiss of a blade. Suicides, accidents, auto-erotic asphyxiation: we do it all.
I guess someone has to. Or maybe we don't. Then we get hammered down because someone else has to.
There's a system to all of this. Red ink, green ink, blue ink; squiggly, circle, underline, and star. By the time I am finished, I have signed Itagaki's death warrant in red circles and stars. It's a very avant garde death warrant, almost quite pretty if you squint and tilt your head a couple degrees down and to the left. I almost like it myself.
With the clack of the switch I turn the lamp off and in the darkness of the room, I blink, and I am asleep.
In a fit of madness, I decided I had my fill of paperwork and desks, and decided to go through the long and arduous process of obtaining a mission: therefore, to the hospital I must go. Ah, Konoha Hospital, lair of the evil medics and spiteful nurses. Needles, and forms, and nudity, oh my.
I regret going for my final check up at this time when Sukui shows up and drags me off to her lair. Some people really never manage to grow past a certain stage, really. Like clinging to genin teammates, even when you're a chunin with your own coworkers and social circle that you should really go annoy instead.
"What are you thinking? Your injury needs at least another week of observation before you can go off and come back even more injured? What next, a pneumothorax? And you still have a psych evaluation you need to do! Doctor Yamanaka told me she can make room for you on the 29th, so be here at-"
A knock at the door interrupts her usual lecture: being irresponsible, having a death wish, forging a medical note saying I was completely healed, going on a mission that lead to poor Shinji-chan dying while still being injured, having a death wish, typical Sukui-sensei stuff. What a bleeding heart.
"Kikuchi-san?" The genin asks, eyes going from side to side as he nervously watches the Sukui's reddening face. Ah, yes, great. Finally, an interruption to Sukui's tirade and not one from me either. He looks young, freshly graduated from the Academy young, with a shiny new forehead protector tied in the proper place, navy blue cloth still one uniform shade and texture.
"Yes?" Well, that came out harsher than intended. No matter then, it's just a genin.
"Your sister, Kaori Kikuchi, is having her baby right now sir. She wants you to be there and to pick up her son. You nephew's in waiting room two."
"Well then," I say with the straightest face I have mastered, "I see I'm needed elsewhere. Enjoy your day Sukui-sensei!" And then proceed to give the biggest shit-eating smile I can to her when the genin has turned away to leave. Ouch, I don't think my facial muscles were meant to stretch that far.
"Jin, this isn't over you-"
I close the door and leisurely walk my way down to the waiting room. Two was it? Sounds about right.
It isn't hard to find Sozen.
Surprisingly, he looks like me. White hair that needs a haircut because it's falling into his eyes, almond shaped green eyes, not too pale or too tan skin. The whole family-Kaori, Kasumi, grandmother, and me-had joked that he was actually my child instead of Kaori's when he was still a newborn. Especially since Kaori had a different colouring to mine: round grey eyes, wavy apricot hair, and almost ghost-like skin. The same as our mother and Kasumi, our older sister.
He has Kaori's nose, more rounded and slightly tilted upward which makes him look cuter than the average eight year old. Which, in my completely unbiased opinion, he is. Sozen Kinoshita, son of Kaori Kikuchi and Shizuka Kinoshita. My one and only nephew. Who is currently unsuccessfully reading his history textbook.
Sozen had wanted a cat. Too bad, he gets a younger sibling.
See, see the inequality within the system?
"You're going to be a big brother! How does that feel? Are you excited?" The waiting room medic gushes with exuberant enthusiasm, more than Sozen who sits in the not comfortable yet not uncomfortable chairs in the waiting room. In her hand, with the red-gold nails that have become a commonplace sight on the women of Konoha recently, she grips her list of patients.
Let's go on a tangent here. Red has always been associated with the court of Fire, long before we ever had independence. Yet, why red now? She probably doesn't know who manufactures her nail polish, but it used to be mostly sourced from Water. Coincidentally during the Third Shinobi War, bare or nude polish was in vogue. She probably doesn't care. Now a company in southern Fire makes it, but when the daimyo's daughter chose to paint her nails red and gold for cherry blossom viewing, it spread like wildfire.
And now we have red nails. Red lacquered claws that grip the clipboard while the other set taps the pen listlessly against brown cardboard. Her foot taps along with her; it would get her killed on a mission like that. That and the jewelry; pretty pink stone set into gleaming silver. It loops around her neck and dips into the beginning of cleavage. The pendant would be easy to grasp and then, just a loop, a twist, and a push of wind chakra. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Silver is ridiculously chakra conductive for a non-chakra metal too, the purer the better. There was a ninja from Mist who had done that once, or tried to do that to me. I picked the trick up from him, after I had stabbed him from behind, and nearly lost all the fingers on my right hand trying to replicate it in the downtime I had after that mission.
"Do you want to see them?" She asks, and he hesitates, eyes going wide, unsure. He holds the arms of the chair in a death grip as he tries to reason out what he should say.
Too bad I'm making the decision for him. I pry his fingers from the poor chair, one by one, and by now, he knows not to fight me. Holding securely onto his hand, I give the medic my best smile. It looks real: eyes crinkled, lips pulled up and back. Aren't I harmless?
"Lead on," One quick glance down to her nametag, "Aida-san."
She smiles back and takes us down a maze of hallways until we're in what seems to be the right room.
The funny thing is, if you asked me about my family, I would look you in the eyes, smile with crinkles at the corners, and tell you I love them. Which family, doesn't really matter. I'm lying. It's a bad habit but I'm so far deep into it I can't stop now.
Maybe Sozen's lying everytime he says "I love you kaa-san" to Kaori except his earnest little eyes and tone makes me doubt that. Maybe Kaori and Kasumi are lying everytime they tell me that, but they show none of the tells they usually do. The grandfather, my deceased grandfather in this life, Masahiro, had never told me he loved me. Sloppy footwork, shoddy swordsmanship, lazy attitude, yes. But love, he never spoke a word about love which is why he's my favourite. He didn't lie.
For a family of ninja, that's a fault but Masahiro Kikuchi took more after our distant samurai forefathers I think. He was a veteran of two wars, old enough to see the village founded and fight in the first, then the second. Old enough to bury his sons, his daughter, his grandchildren.
A miserable old man that hated everyone else because he grew to fear love.
Looking at the eyes of the newly born Yasuko Kinoshita, I wonder if he would have finally melted a tiny bit in that empty cold space within his chest. Held the baby, smiled, cried even. And as her glossy grey eyes stare into mine, I think I know the truth.
He wouldn't have.
(I don't know either).
