Chapter Eight: Cheap Tricks
"You know the thing about fear," says Hisana, lips pulling to the side as she examines the bird, "it worsens with time."
The bird's neck is broken, and insects are swarming to devour its remains. It is very much dead. There is no spell that can bring it back.
The dead bird, however, isn't the curiosity. Birds fly into walls and break their necks all the time. The oddity here is the lordling's response. He looks uneasy: He hasn't blinked in a full minute, the hollow between his collarbones has dipped real deep, and his eyes have widened.
A cold, cruel part of Hisana wants to force him to touch the dead bird. Would he shatter into glass? Would he erupt at her like a volcano? He already looks like he's about to faint, maybe forcing him to confront this fear will shake him loose, at least.
Hisana, however, isn't a complete asshole so she pushes this thought away, especially since she has fears, too. Like the irrational fear that has driven her to the garden now so that she might convincingly skirt the duty of fetching water for the undergardener, a task that she happily performed in autumn and early spring, but, since the wet season has transformed the diverted stream into a swiftly flowing river, she can't. Physically can't. Even the thought of it strikes terror.
"I will let one of the groundskeepers know to remove the bird," she says.
The lordling doesn't move or react.
"Lord Kuchiki?" A silvery chord of empathy blunts her tone, and she places a tentative hand on his shoulder.
Still nothing.
Hisana exhales a breath. If empathy doesn't work, maybe her impertinence will reach him. "Byakuya!" she says and gives a hard squeeze.
He startles, pulling back, and his eyes flutter as if he is trying to clear a dense fog from his head. When the light returns to his eyes, Hisana half expects him to chide her for using his unadorned first name or for him to rip away from her touch. He does neither. Instead, his expression softens, and he places his hand on top of hers.
"Yes. Please do that," he says, voice unsteady and raw. He then turns and leaves her. Alone. Without cover.
"Hisana!" calls Yona.
Dammit.
She knows exactly what Yona is going to ask her to do. She sees the bucket swinging in the bend of Yona's arm. And her damn escape plan just walked away.
Way to think it through, Hisana, she chastises herself. She should have just let him stare in wordless fear until it was safe.
"The undergardener has requested that you bring him more water." Yona hoists up the empty wooden bucket with a smile.
Hisana grits her teeth. "Okay." It's not Yona's fault, she reminds herself. The task of collecting water falls to the junior maids. And, again, Hisana didn't mind fetching water before now.
"What was going on in the garden?" whispers Yona as soon as Hisana is close enough.
Hisana takes the bucket. "There's a dead bird over there." She tips her head in the direction of the wall of lavender. "The young lord apparently isn't fond of dead things in the garden."
Yona makes a face. "Me either. Is he okay?"
Hisana squints her eyes. "Is who okay? The bird? No, it's dead."
"The lord!" hisses Yona.
"Yeah. Why?"
Yona shrugs. "Are you okay? He usually gets testy if he sees a maid in the family areas."
"Yeah. I'm used to being yelled at."
Yona grins. "You are pretty good at taking criticism."
"Occupational hazard."
"I wish I was better at it," she says. "I might get better assignments, then."
"Or, you could be like me, and have all the 'good' assignments removed after you fuck something up."
"Hisana! Language." Yona gives a slow, disapproving shake of her head. "But, yeah. Hey, at least the Lord didn't snap your hand off when you touched him."
Hisana feels the burn of her brows knitting together. She will never understand Yona's or Shimo's obsession with Byakuya Kuchiki. It's the romance novels, she thinks. They must rot their brains.
"What was it like?"
"If I tell you, will you fetch the water?"
Yona bristles and sucks in a sharp breath. Hisana half-expects reason to win out, but she is not at all surprised when it doesn't. "Fine. But you need to be detailed."
Detailed? What details? She literally just put her hand on his shoulder. What else is there to say?
Hisana, however, quickly packs away her reservations since she really does not want to go anywhere near the river. "It was nice." Her voice becomes tinny at the last word.
"Go on."
"His shoulder was—" Hisana pauses to grasp for an adjective. Any adjective. All the words fly straight out of her head.
"It was?" Yona leans closer, eyes wide, the vein in her neck fluttering quickly under the skin.
"It was warm?" Hisana's voice climbs an octave at the end, unintentionally transforming the statement into a question.
The gleam of excitement in Yona's eyes dims. "That's it? You touched the Lord and that's all you have?"
Before Yona can shove the bucket back into Hisana's arms, Hisana adds, "It was strong. I could feel the muscle tight and thick over it when my fingers sank in. When he put his hand on mine—"
Yona's eyes widen and her cheeks go bright pink. "He touched you?"
On review, perhaps Hisana should have left the last part out. Maybe that's not something lords should do to maids. "I don't think he meant to. I think he was surprised."
"What was it like?"
Hisana's lips part, her mind desperately trying to cobble together something more poetic than, 'It was scratchy.' What comes out, however, isn't much better.
"It was really nice." Hisana winces at her delivery. If only she had some sort of prior experience of romance from which to draw, but all she knows of "romance" is violence. "I felt warm all over." That's something she felt once when a man touched once right before things went terribly wrong.
"Was his hand soft?"
Hisana stares at the girl, perplexed. "No." He trains for hours a day with weapons, what is Yona thinking? Then, it dawns on Hisana that Yona isn't thinking. She wants a feeling; she wants a story.
"His hand was strong and firm. Comforting." It's the best Hisana's got to offer.
Yona gazes dreamily into the garden. "Maybe we should fill the courtyard with dead birds so the lord will accept our comfort."
"Yeah, no. Not that."
"Alright," says Yona, looking a little flustered by whatever fantasy was playing in her head. "I will get your water."
"Thank you." Hisana bows politely and leaves before can Yona think to ask her to describe anything else.
It's night, and Hisana is fighting with the spigot. Why doesn't it work? If it worked, then she wouldn't have to go to the river to fill her bucket. That would be lovely.
Her bucket, as it currently sits, is half full. She did manage to find a swampy little area full of floating lilies and an assortment of slime to draw from. However, she couldn't keep in one place long enough before sinking into the water.
So, now her maid's uniform is soaking wet from the hem to the middle of her thighs, and the material clings to her, rubbing uncomfortably against her legs. Her skin also feels like it is crawling with the creatures near the boggy area that she pulled from.
"Lonesome bird." The words reach her carried on the tide of a sigh.
"Let the man in melancholy be more sad and sweet," she completes the line, reflexively, and glances up at the servant's porch.
It must be Wednesday, she thinks when she finds the lordling peering over the banister.
"What are you doing?" he asks, eyes narrowed as if squinting will make what she's doing make sense.
"Trying to get water from a spout."
"The spout is dry," he says.
"It does seem that way." She steps out from under the porch so that she can better see him. "Any chance a certain lord of the house could put in a word to get it repaired?" She flashes her most charming smile.
He takes one look at her and immediately turns away.
Rude, she thinks. She doesn't look that bad. Glancing down at her green-tinged uniform, however, immediately convinces her to concede this point. She looks like a half-drowned cat.
"The pipes to the river were dug up last summer," says the lordling stiffly. His fingers wrap around the banister; their grip is so tight that his knuckles punch out white. "Their replacement is set for late this summer."
He seems irritated. With what? Hisana can only guess. It's probably with her. She's likely doing something highly improper according to some unspoken, unwritten protocol. Which protocol? She has no idea. It doesn't help that Byakuya is fickle on which protocols matter to him and when they apply.
Whatever.
Heaving a sigh, she glances down at the bucket. The water is clear enough, she thinks. The undergardener probably will not send it back, like the last time. If she's lucky.
"Tonight." The lordling's voice chases after her.
When she glances back at him, she finds him watching her from over his shoulder.
Oh, yes. Her nightly trouncing. At least he's asking. Although, 'tonight,' sounds more like a demand. Either way, she knows to expect him, which is a small improvement.
Not that Hisana particularly minds. Having an opponent is preferable to shadowboxing in the women's dojo alone. If only she was better at it.
She nods her head and leaves.
Nightly trouncing was probably too gentle of a way to spin it. It's more like a nightly beating until she remembers that she doesn't have to abide by the Academy rules of engagement and can resort to "cheap tricks."
She imagines that is why he decides to harass her in this way, to avail himself of her cheap tricks. Problem is, she is running out of cheap tricks. Once deployed, they are easy to guard against for round two, and the lordling is a fast study.
As he rears back at a speed that she previously thought impossible, she prepares for impact. Her reiatsu flares in time to save her from death, but she can't help the stumble backward. Crumpling to the ground, she sucks in a sharp breath and groans.
It isn't even that good of a show, but it works.
"Hisana!" In a flash, Byakuya is at her side. Before he has a chance to kneel down to check on her, she swipes his legs out from under him and points her bokken at his throat.
"I really didn't think that would work," she says, grinning down at him triumphantly.
He stares up at her, deeply unamused.
Hisana flicks the tip of the wooden sword away and offers him her hand. "Thanks, though." It has been a long while since someone expressed genuine concern for her well-being.
Byakuya takes her hand, and she reels back, using her weight to help hoist him up. What happens next would definitely count as a cheap trick, when, instead of taking her help, he yanks her down to the ground.
Usually, his attempts at using her tactics against her never work. He gets her with this one, though. She falls. Hard. She laughs even harder until she is gasping. When she pulls herself up on her forearms, she realizes he is laughing, too. Then, their eyes meet, and the laughter stops.
She's on top of him. That's how she fell. Her face is leaned over his so close that she can smell the sake on his breath. It's the good kind, the kind that doesn't have artificial flavor or that needs to be warmed to drink. It's the kind that burns.
He lifts his head a little, and she thinks he might mean to catch her mouth with his. But, she pulls away too quickly.
Maybe he's in pain, she thinks. She's boney and sharp in ways that men seem to find unpleasant.
He doesn't look like a man who finds the weight of her unpleasant. In fact, he looks at her like she might mean something. This thought, however, scares Hisana. It's almost as harrowing as the realization that she is straddling an heir to House Kuchiki. One of her hands grasps his shoulders; the other is pressed flat against his chest.
She can feel his heart racing through the silk of his kosode. She sees his pupils dilate. She braces against the grip of his hands against her hips; his fingers sink into her; it feels as if he is fighting himself to pull her closer.
Her breath catches in her throat, and her heart flutters. "You want me?" The conclusion surprises her just as much as it surprises him.
In an instant, he shoves her off him, onto the floor, and he is on his feet. Words, hot and angry, explode across the room. They'd probably hurt a lot, too, if she hadn't already internalized the worst of his criticisms eons ago.
Hisana rolls her head away from the lordling and stares miserably into the darkness of the wall. Maybe if she plays dead, he'll leave her be. It's a trick that has worked before. It worked on one of her tormentors at the Academy.
Looking back, Byakuya and her Academy bully aren't so different. The Academy boy probably did what he did for the same reason that Byakuya is doing what he is doing. It's not at her that he's actually mad at, she reminds herself. He's mad at himself. He's mad because he feels a certain way about her that everything in his life—his family, his peers, and the law—has told him is ethically, morally, and statutorily disgusting.
He can't be wrong, though. Society tells him so. It even grants him immunity because if he does it, it is right and just. Therefore, she must be wrong.
She's not actually wrong. She just doesn't have any power, and she never will because those with power ensure that its flow is never down or away from them. And that's why she finds herself being verbally eviscerated on the floor of a dojo. It's also why she found herself being harmed beyond measure all those years ago in the dark, in the night, in that little Academy room.
Hisana watches the way silvery starlight rushes into the room when the door opens. The darkness skitters to the edges where it lies in wait. Darkness needn't wait long, though. For as soon as the door shuts again, it attacks, forcing a full surrender.
Only then, as she lies among the shadows, does she know that she is alone. Sweet silence rings in her ears, and she inhales a shaky breath.
The pride and vanity of noblemen have stolen many things from her. Tonight, at least, she is left untouched.