Title: Still I Rise -- #41: tragedy
Characters/Pairings: Neji, Hinata
Rating: Solidly K.
Notes: Same universe as "murmer", "metaphor" and "2 a.m.". Details what brought Hinata to breaking point. I've got about nine more of these written--this prompt thing is so exciting!
Hinata deals in silences. Her silences are soft and certain, whispering and fluttering, like the sound a butterfly's wings make as it alights on a flower: barely anything at all. Hinata has grown accustomed to this and she has grown resigned to the fact that, when she dies, the world will not remember her, because her fingerprint on her own life is a transient one at best and nonexistent at worst. Impacting another--truly, deeply connecting with another, soul deep—is a laughable notion.
She certainly is not stupid—she understands exactly what Hanabi always rages about—she needs to speak up; she needs to voice her thoughts; she cannot be silent forever. Hinata knows all of that, and knows it well. They are the words she mumbles to herself at night, staring hard into the darkness and willing strength into her voice.
She had not always been this way, not always been so silent that she could be a shadow. She keeps the bright shards of her childhood, their jagged edges dulled by time and wear and constant examination, close to the surface of her mind. She remembers the feel of Neji's hand in her even littler one, and the time that they had stolen cans of condensed milk from the kitchen and slurped them--sticky and delighted at their success--behind the boathouse; and when they had begged pieces of watermelon gum—to be gobbled up a pack at a time and so quickly that her jaw would hurt—from their older cousins; and when she would stumble and fall in the dirt, and Neji, who is only a year older than her but who had seemed to be infinitely wiser, would kneel and make that grown-up face--it would not scare her, because Neji is not scary when he made that face, not like her father is scary--and pat her on the head and tell her that she should not cry, it was only a fall, and that she is too strong of a girl to cry because of such a small thing.
She wonders what he would make of her life now, and if he would laugh at the farce, for it is too much of a stretch to even call it a 'life'. Perhaps 'puppet show' would be more apt, and perhaps the real tragedy of the thing is that, sometimes, she can even fool herself into believing that there is some comfort to be found in a father who plans her life for her as though she is nothing more than a marionette dancing on his fine silk strings. It is no longer her responsibility, so when she is old, she will not regret anything because the happenings of her life could not have been helped.
Except, she knows in her heart of hearts, that she does not want to be a doddering old woman who mutters meaningless platitudes to herself, who lies and says that she had no choice.
Her heart is pounding in her ears, sharp and staccato and terrified, but she stops biting the inside of her cheek and looks her father in the eyes for the first time in years. She will fight and fight and fight, because she hasn't been given that choice.
And she wants it.