Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Status: Incomplete
Hatsue dreamed of glass cages.
She was still, lying on her back, staring up, and the glinted in the darkness, an elegance close to the silver and diamonds her mother would whisper to her about at in the night. Her breath was caught in her chest, and her breast would not rise, her mouth not opening to draw air. She was still; unnaturally, deathly still. She could not even feel the lump of her heartbeat beating away in her throat.
She watched the glass, as it twirled and glinted, glimmering with some unreachable light. Darkness licked the side of it; shadows as thick as syrup curled their arms around it; the blackness trying to swallow it whole.
She tried to turn her head, tried to blink, open her mouth, but she was paralyzed.
Hatsue thought she stared at the cage forever. Her eyes, unblinking, staring, glazed and open, took in every inch of the bars; the glint of the light, the twinkling whoosh of against air, how they twirled, back and forth, even though nothing spun them.
Echoes and whispers dragged across her skin. Something like wind, but far heavier, brushed over her, and she tried not to shudder.
It edged itself over her, lying directly over her chest. She felt it press down, down, down over her heart, and then, carefully, cautiously, dip into her chest. She tried to gasp, to move, to shove it off, but she stayed fastened, unable to move, unable to blink, to scream.
She felt it going deeper and deeper until it grasped something deep inside of her. A sob built in her chest. Pain ricocheted across her body, clamping her throat tight. Her vision was blurry, and she wanted to scream.
Carefully, it drew it out of her.
She tried, desperately, to close her wet eyes.
It flickered, a dull, shining blue, and for a second, she thought she saw a glimmer of green, green eyes, so very much amused.
Hatsue dreamed of shimmering glass cages, and then nothing at all.
~.~
The girl was staring at him again, eyes searching his face, as if she was looking for something only she could find.
Yuji bowed his head, looking away from those eerie eyes.
It had been a week since that time he'd woken up and found her there, her hair a mess of flowers, her voice an airy whisper, and her eyes still searching. She did not speak again, not after she'd asked his name, and only the healer-woman and her son spoke to him now, terse and strictly.
After she'd caught his name, she disappeared just as quickly as she'd come, only returning days later, her eyes suspiciously blank and wet, her mouth a hard, thin line. Her skin, not as dark as he'd first thought it, was sunken and pale when she watched him and sometimes, he swore he saw something glitter and glimmer behind them; a dragon turning in its cave.
He hated looking at her. He hated her looking at him. She was too watchful, too quiet, and she made no sound when she sat still, her breathing not even stirring the room's air. He thought she looked like marble rock then, with her dark eyes and dark hair and darker skin, not inching from her spot for hours.
She disappeared during the nights, and he knew this because when he woke, in the fits of thrashes and screams from the nightmares of the Senju dogs, she wasn't on that wobbly stool; ageless, ancient eyes tracking him no more.
Sometimes, he was relieved when he found her there, watching. Other times, he loathed it with every single fiber of his being.
She had a way of being uniquely…present. Like not even the woods and the creek and the spirits could ignore that waver less stare. Like, if she willed it, she could sit there, still, silent, immortal, for an eternity and a half.
The medicine woman, he knew, was nervous around her. Her son, even more so. When she left their home, they hummed and bickered and scoffed at each other. They laughed freely, with abandon, eyes glistening with warmth. When she did arrive, they closed themselves off, eyes shuttering, mouths pursing, heads turning away, except to bark out answers to her far and few questions.
They watched her through suspicious eyes and tense faces; through the veil of distaste, sick fascination crawling between the cracks.
Today was a day that he hated her.
It was hot. The kind of hot that made him want to strip off the bandages wrapped around his skinny chest, and bathe in a stream to strip him of the smell of sweat and sickness.
It was hot, and so he hated her, because she did not seem bothered. It was as if she didn't feel the prick of sweat on her forehead, nor the buzzing of flies, or the high, scorching sun boring down on her unprotected skin.
They sat outside, as they often did when she came to see him—the medicine healer woman did not want her inside for too long—and again, they sat in utterly still silence.
Yuji had always hated the silence of the sick. It was as if their very souls would still in their chests if they disappeared too quickly within their mind, not quite able to come back out. He hated the infirmary at the Uchiha camp. He hated the way his brother sighed, and his black eyes would crease, unfocused and blurred, on the horizon when he had to go back. He hated how he'd lost his two sisters and three brothers to the stillness of the soul, how they'd gone pale first, and then quiet, and then nothing at all.
So, he hated her. He hated her for her quiet, for her stillness, for her staring, watching, haunting eyes, and unmoving mouth. He hated her for the flowers in her hair, and the sheen of sweat on her skin that didn't bother her. He hated her for her sharp mouth and jutting cheekbones—too sharp to be pretty.
"What's your name?" He asked, a little louder than he should have, because he didn't think he could quite hate her like he should—would—if he didn't know her name.
He couldn't grab onto her, make her real and true if he didn't know her name. Couldn't make her solid. She kept looking at him, but it was as if her eyes had gone back into focus, as if she'd been very far away when she stared.
Something like a smile curled those red lips; inviting, languid, so very tempting, and he felt, for a moment, the twitch of his own, until he scowled at her, eyes hating.
"Why do you want to know?" She asked, and he nearly shouted at the childish tone that escaped those lips.
He hated her for that too.
Yuji glowered, "You know mine. It's only fair."
Amusement trickled in those stone eyes and he thought they looked liquid gray then—mercurial. She leaned back, arching into the clutch of the sun. Her throat worked, and he glared at the skin of her neck.
"A rose by any other name would be just as sweet." She seemed to laugh, and her hair hung around her shoulders, the flowers winking at him.
He gnashed his teeth, and this moment, he truly wished her dead.
"You are not a rose." He hissed, cheeks heating in anger. His hands clutched at the mat underneath him. His hair, long and unbound, tickling his neck. "You are far from something as sweet."
She faced him again, tilting her head just so. He wanted to snap her neck. She looked awfully fragile there. Her eyes looked dark then, deep and serious, just like they had when he first saw her in the half-light, face full of shadowed secrets.
"Why does it matter?" She asked him, and Yuji boiled.
"It's your name!" he snarled. "It is how people know and come to understand you."
She smiled at him, "I knew you as the boy who bleed out on the forest floor before I knew your name. I understood you as the boy with the pale skin and dark hair and eyes before I knew your name. I learned you as the child who lay in the arms of a jubokko before you told me you even had a name." Her eyes were dark in her face. "A name defines, and yet not. What you know me as doesn't need a name."
"I know you as the annoying chit who won't stop visiting me." Yuji growled, then flushed in shame when he realized he lost his temper.
He expected her to recoil in shock, or burst into tears, and for a moment, her eyes flashed with something that seemed like frustration. Years later he would laugh at the absurdity of that thought, for he knew then what he did not know now; that she did not cry or react at cruel words or actions, even the most horrifying of them all.
She merely stared back quietly.
Yuji flushed a little, in shame when she spoke, "Are you so angry that you cannot even be polite?"
He hated her then, so much he nearly threw himself at her, just to tear the skin from the damned smile, that airy voice and too-sharp chin.
Yuji, hot, annoyed, frustrated, told her to shut up.
"Very well, Yuji-san." She said.
Then she rose, and he felt a lump fill his throat where rage had previously resided.
He watched her, brown skirts, embroidered sleeves, flowers in her hair, swish down the dirt pathway until she left his sight.
He pretended like he hadn't been yearning for her to look back.
Sorry for the tardiness, I've had several personal problems this month.