Title: Still I Rise -- #57: door
Characters/Pairings: Hinata
Rating: K
Notes: Same universe as "murmur", "2 am", "metaphor" and "tragedy".
Hinata has been lingering in doorways all her life.
She has spent years lingering around her father's doors—the doors to his study, the doors to his rooms, the doors to his heart. She hasn't managed to pry any of those open. She has lingered like a ghost, a wisp of smoke, a pale, bloodless thing, dancing clumsily every which way, salivating for his attention, his approval, his love, until she half-hated him, half-hated apologizing for her shy nature, for her lack of talent, her birth.
When Hanabi—loud, gutsy, turbulent Hanabi—effortlessly snatched his attention away, Hinata did not know how to feel: relieved, so that her child-shoulders do not carry the entire weight of his disapproving stare, or saddened, because any chance she had ever had of winning his approval is gone?
She thinks of those times, as she lays in bed in an unfamiliar city in an unfamiliar room in an unfamiliar city, and ponders upon the inexorable power that parents wield over their children: how they have the power to create a child who is bold and loved and sure of her place in the world, or create one that is not any of those things, but instead scared of her own shadow. How many years of her life has she thrown away catering to her father's whims, and not hers? How many years has she spent biting the inside of her cheek until it bled to keep from crying because all that she is could never be enough to satisfy his demands?
Her children will not linger around her door, Hinata decides. They will bound in, free of all shadows of doubt and fear and will know without a doubt that they are loved.
She can thank her father for that certainty at least.