Exhale
A Microfic by Sarehptar
Theme Song: Half Light (Low and Tomandandy)

He rises with the sun, before it, following it, it depends. It's always early, the cold sort of early when everything is grayer, lighter, a little sweeter and a little less alive. He loves this time, because even though some of the others are already awake, they don't show their faces, they sit still as statues in their rooms. He can almost hear them, because the chill of weak sunlight seems to magnify every tiny sound. He can hear his breath, though he is holding it; he can hear his heart, though its song is soft and offbeat. It's as if he can sense their breath answering his own. Inhale. Exhale.

The wood beneath his bare feet is so firm and slickly polished that it is easy to pretend it is not floor at all but ice, and that at any moment he might fail to see, slip though a thinner part and lose himself forever. This is what he thinks about as the first tentative rays of the sun reach out slowly-slowly and brush against the sumi-e painting on his west wall. Sunrise meeting sunrise--only one rises over children, and the other over men.

He straightens the sleeping yukata over the ivory peaks of his collar bones with a gesture that could be careless and could be careful. The rustle is loud, roaringly loud, but no one notices. He loves this time of the day because that is always how things are -unordinary, amazing, stark- and no one's blood is beating fast enough to see them (hear them, taste them, feel them). When he makes his way across the room it is on the balls of his feet, slowly as the advancing sun, testing each icy board for weakness with all the trepidation of a crane in foreign waters.

The shouji has leeched moisture from the night, his hand slips on its wooden edge and tears the tiniest bit of one water-weakened square. It is a mistake, and he sees it so clearly that it is as if he has torn the whole door down. In the afternoon, it will not be seen at all. There is an apology on the tip of his tongue, but it never makes it though his pale chapped lips, much like everything he truly wants to say. Instead he slides the wall back delicately, as if better treatment now might atone for what has passed. The air outside is as gray as that within, only slightly more alit with what may prove to be a rainy or a sunny day. His breath comes free as a dancing plume of mist that sparkles in the half light and then fades away as if never breathed at all.

Bracing himself, for what he is not sure, he crosses the threshold of wood and paper that separates everything that is good (and bad) from everything that simply is. Here, there is no ice and no floor to balance his feet, no sturdy place to stand upon and warily test the rest of the world. Because he is a ninja, a good ninja (a bad ninja), when he leaps with abandon into the unsure waters of the lawn, there is not a sound. Not a sound, he is pleased, even with the rippling cold and evanescent mist magnifying every shiver that runs across his skin, skin that looks almost unhealthy in this sumi-e sunlight.

When he collapses, it is planned, he catches the edges of his long nightrobe with the backs of his knees, so that not even one extra inch of his pale skin will be exposed to chill. It is not so much falling as a pretty way of sitting, a way that makes his hair scatter even more, almost glinting (but not quite because he doesn't give it as much care as he should). The blades of grass nick his ankles like paper-thin kunai, wet and stiff as freshly poisoned senbon. His hair drifts back into place, perpetually straight and straw-like. Then he is leaning forward, dangerously far, sending his hair cascading down in a mock reflection of its previous flight.

His nose, and eyes by association, are on level with the tiny blades seeking to hack him limb from limb, and he is looking. There are things to see so close to the earth, things pleasant and not so pleasant. In a moment he finds it, the most delicate and most dangerous object in the miniature field--a single drop of dew, suspended between the gray edges of the air and the green edges of the grass. Its form is flawless, intricately round, tapering in on itself at the ends to make it as bead-like and precious as a translucent pearl. It looks as if any second it will out weigh the supple blade it sits upon and slip free, but by some feat of magic or of science, the delicate drop stands as still and strong as he does.

For all it beauty, he can see danger in it, because he can see himself in it. The reflective glassy drop shows everything that is, a perfect inverse of the world he likes to call his own. Just inside it a rounded and silvery version of a warrior stares back, all blue eyes and pale skin and something that might be a smile and might be grimace like the curved edges of the pearly dew are suggesting. He likes to see himself this way, because the distortion and the purity make it so easy to see everything you want and nothing you don't.

Inside the tiny bubble that has caught not just his eye but his whole body, he can see the barest curved reflection of the plum tree at his back, the crooked edge of the warped pine porch, the gray sky beyond all of that. It as if everything he knows to be reality has been crushed, rolled into the glimmering sliver of moisture and made to change and dance. Is there another world inside the confines of that sparkle, or is he only imagining again? It's easy to think there is something more than darkness at the back of that tiny mirror, because how could he ever look that innocent? That half-smile, that shine in that eye, that fragile appearance is surely not his own. It's an answer, he thinks--that the boy inside the teardrop is not him at all, but someone else entirely, a lost twin, the good twin who got crushed along with everything that might be reality and might be nothing but warped reflection.

The sunlight has crept closer sometime during his thinking; he can hear one of them stirring inside, but the sound is faint because the gray chill of the morning is fading away and taking all its magic with it. He can just barely hear their breath, slow and almost steady. Inhale. Exhale. And he has just made a mistake -his second of the day- without even realizing it--where its own weight was not enough, his quiet, tiny breath has provided the motion.

Silently, without so much as a dying glimmer, his entire world rolls off the sharpened edge of a blade and plummets freely through the half-light of the ending morning. He can still see that other man inside it, eyes wide in surprise, fear of falling... Motionless he watches its descent, curling over and in on itself and crushing even further the reality below the surface. Then, with no firm ground, no thick ice to break its fall, the world inside the pearl which might as well be his own strikes the unsure earth... and without changing a single thing, without causing a single ripple, he watches as the better twin is devoured by the thirsty earth, the sumi-e colored clay.

Inside the house, he can hear them beginning to speak.

Author's Notes: If you get this, you're really cool. If you don't get it, ha ha, I suck. Anyway, this one is related to "Reflection" in a way, so maybe one day I'll move it to where it belongs. I tried to write a serious morning fiction... I didn't fail totally, did I? Mahhh, it took me a while to work up the nerve to post this one too. It's just so... weird. Oh, yeah! I forgot! I managed to write all of my ideas for Sei down and stick them online (this way I'll remember them). You can check out what is coming up right here: http / www . speedsurf.to / sarehptar / sei . htm, if you are interested. (Remember to take the spaces out!)

Note: Sumi-e is a famous type of Japanese painting using only black ink in various concentrations from solid ebony to almost translucent gray. The paintings are absolutely beautiful.

To Smallpox Plum: I didn't like it either, hence the delay in posting. But I'm soooo glad you managed to catch the dual nature of it--it was meant to seem completely pleasant and normal, but I also wanted the bitter undertone to be there, and you caught it perfectly. Did this one makes sense to you? I love how you always manage to pick up on the tiniest things I write... It makes me feel like I am doing things right! Anyway, thanks for reviewing so faithfully (I always look forward to your review most.)
To Jazzy Uchiha: Hee hee, I'm glad you liked it. Thank you for reviewing, and I hope this one wasn't too strange for you.
To JazzSparks22: Don't worry about it, I totally understand how it is to love a story but never review it. (v.v) But thank you so much for taking the time this time, I looove reviews. Ew... No showersfor ninja would be nasty. I'm glad you liked the last chapter.
To Ione-girl:Hee hee, I wish I could be Deidara for a morning. I'd kick back and blow things up likecrazy. The link got deleted last time and then I was so busy with a research project, but I'm going to check out your storyAS soon as I get sometime... I've been dying under stress lately. Anyway, thanks for reviewing!
To M3di4h: I'm glad you liked the last chapter...But ha ha, me updating quickly is like a joke.It's a miracle that I'vemanaged tokeep this story alive, let alone update on a decent time... Thanks for reviewing!
To Rikou Suiyou: I pity Itachi too, very very much. He is such a great character to write with, and I love talking about him. A pimple yes... You know those ninja can't all have perfectly flawless skin with all that running and living in forests they do. Yes, I have been keeping up with the manga, and yes it is crazy. WTH was up with Kabuto healing Sakura. That was retarded. Anyway, thanks for reviewing. This chapter is like... acid trip.