Chapter 53 - Lyra Altair

The first time that Hajime met Ninako, he was five years old.

It was the entrance ceremony for the academy and his mind was already reeling from excitement. His mother and his father were in the crowd behind him and he kept looking back over his shoulder at them, nervously, excitedly.

But it was when he finally noticed the girl beside him that he found his attention utterly captured.

She was his size, his age. Her hair was brown and cut cleanly against the angle of her jaw.

But her eyes.

He'd never seen eyes like that before.

She was smiling, smiling. Laughing, too, at jokes he could not hear.

He asked his father about her later, once the Hokage Kakashi was done with his speech. "She had really weird eyes, like… white eyes."

"Must have been a Hyuuga, then," his father said, and said no more.

His mother just smiled and smiled, his little brother holding her hand, his baby sister slung on her back.

He saw her again, when classes began. She was not sitting next to him, but near him. Still smiling, still strange.

It was at lunch that he finally talked to her. "Hey, you. You're a Hyuuga, right?"

"Yeah, that's right." She was drinking juice from out of a plastic bottle and was more focused on her lunch than on him.

"What's that mean, anyways?"

"Whatcha mean, 'what's that mean'?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I 'unno, I just asked my dad 'bout you an' that's what he said you were."

She giggled. "That's 'cos it's my clan, silly."

"Oh." He closed his mouth. "I see."

"An' I already know what clan you're from. You're an Uchiha. I can see it from that thingy on your shirt."

"Oh, huh."

"Yeah, my dad told me all 'bout you guys. Pretty high-class."

"High… class?"

She shrugged. "I 'unno. You sure ask a lot of questions."

"No I don't."

"Well you sure stare a bunch."

"Wha'd'you mean, I stare a bunch?" He had crossed his arms.

"You were eyeballin' at me this morning. At the ceremony."

But she hadn't been looking at him then, and she wasn't looking at him now.

"I wasn't starin' at nobody," Hajime said. "And what do you know, anyways, you're not even' lookin' at me."

She finally looked at him there and her smile was very sweet. "Yeah I am! I've been lookin' at you all day, cos you got such a stupid face."

"N-no I don't! My face is not stupid."

Though some part of him was surprised to learn this staring-fact. And almost happy.

She started laughing. "My name's Ninako. What's yours?"

"Hajime," he said.

"Y'wanna eat lunch with me, Hajime-kun?"

"Sure."

They were, from that moment on, nigh-inseparable.

As Hajime himself reported it at dinner, that first night, "I made a friend at school today!"

"Really," his father said.

"Yeah, a girl named Ninako. She's that one I saw this morning. With the Hyuuga eyes."

(She had explained how they worked at lunch that day.)

(Not that he had understood any of the conversation at the time. But it seemed interesting.)

"Ah. I see," his father said.

"That's wonderful, sweetie." His mother was attending to the careful mess on Nadeshiko's high chair. Takeru was eating from his plate with a fork, the handle made of blue plastic.

"Yeah, she said she wanted to walk home from school with me next time."

His father had picked him up that first day. They had talked the entire way home.

"Am I not good enough?" said his father.

"Well… I like walking to school with you, Dad, but…"

"Sasuke, remember what they told us at that informational meeting?" his mother said. "They said to encourage classmates to walk to and from school together. I think that'd be wonderful, Hajime."

"Let me walk you to school in the morning at least."

"Okay," Hajime said.

After a while, his father didn't even do that, leaving him to walk to school however he wished. Whether it was out of respect for Hajime's wishes or because he had simply gotten too busy, he didn't know.

Soon Ninako was his morning and his day and his afternoon.

His best friend.

They came to be called, after a time, the Golden Pair of their class. Always first, always second. They sat together in class, always. Chose each other as partners, always.

Their houses weren't anywhere near each other—hers in the enormous Hyuuga compound to the west, his in the Uchiha-owned property to the east—but they always managed to meet halfway.

And then, she asked, "So, hey, can I come over sometime?"

"Huh?"

"I wanna come over sometime!"

"To my house?"

"Duh, of course to your house!"

They were walking home together, nearing the halfway point.

"I'm gonna talk to my dad an' mom and see if it's okay, can you ask yours?"

"Oh… sure, I guess. Why d'you wanna come over, though?"

"To play. Or somethin'. I think it'd be fun," Ninako said.

It did sound fun. "Okay," Hajime said.

Well, his mother was for it, at least. "I'd love it if you had a friend over, Hajime. Nice little playdate."

"Who is this friend of yours, Hajime?" his father asked.

"Hyuuga Ninako."

"Her?"

"Oh, that's so good of you, Hajime. It's good to be friends with girls," his mother said.

"I didn't know that you were friends with her, Hajime."

"Well, we are…"

"And there's nothing wrong with that, Hajime. Let's have Ninako-chan over. It'll be nice," said his mother.

"Fine," said his father.

So Ninako came over, the afternoon after the next.

It was fun.

And the only playdate they ever had.

After her mother came to pick her up, Hajime's father took him aside and gave him a Talk.

(Halfway across the city, Ninako's father was doing the same thing.)

"Hajime, while I am proud of you for trying so hard to make nice with the Hyuuga clan, seeing as they're so… influential," His father's mouth shuddered, slightly, "you don't need to go so out of your way. These things aren't necessary."

("Ninako, little one," her father told her, "the Uchiha clan is no longer as powerful as they used to be. You don't need to associate with them.")

"So does that mean I can't be friends with Ninako-chan any more?" he asked.

("But I like Hajime-kun, Dad. It doesn't matter that he's an Uchiha or not.")

That would have been the worst thing.

But his father sighed. "No, you can… continue being friends with her. But no more playdates."

("I know," her father said, "but the elders do think that it matters.")

At least, he had that. And he smiled.

"Okay," Hajime said.

("I'll allow you to continue to be friends with him, but you can't visit his house any more," her father said. "It's for your own good.")

They spent their time together in subtle, other spaces, from that day onward. Neither of them minded.

So long as they were together, there was happiness to be had.

(It serves to be mentioned that, from Takeru's entrance into the academy at age five, he only ever associated himself with children who could better him. His playdates were civilized excuses for him to beat up other boys, and have them feel like they were enjoying it. Sometimes like it was an honor.)

(Usually.)

(And Nadeshiko didn't have friends.)

Time passed. Hajime got taller, and stronger, and so did Ninako, keeping up, running ahead, pulling him with her.

Hajime, eventually, got another little brother, in his second year of school. He'd been too young to remember when Takeru or Nadeshiko had been born, so it was particularly exciting for him when his mother announced it at the start of spring.

"Oh, that's so cool! Y'think I'll get to meet it when it's born?" Ninako asked, when he told her the news at lunch, in their new classroom.

Hajime poked at his rice. "I dunno… You know what my dad said, you can't come over any more."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, I know." Ninako balanced a pickled radish on the edge of her lip, pouting. "It's no big deal, I'll probably meet it eventually."

"Yeah, when it's older," Hajime said.

(It would take a few years for Ninako actually meet Inou, face-to-face. This didn't bother her terribly.)

Hajime first met Inou when he was seven, on a cloud-scattered November day, a week before Takeru's fifth birthday.

His mother had been breathing too deeply all morning and making phone calls and rubbing her swollen stomach, where his brother was growing. And after Sakura showed up with a bag slung over her shoulder—Hajime knew her through checkups and meet-ups and her daughter Sakari, who was a year below him at school—Hajime's father took him and Takeru by the hand, and they left the house together, and did not return for many hours.

(Nadeshiko stayed home. With the women.)

Inou was there when they came back, strange and squishy and red. But a little brother all the same.

Ninako had her own chance to be excited when the next year came. "So guess what," she said.

"What," Hajime said. It was a February morning.

"So there was a whole lot of ruckus the other day, you wouldn't believe."

"Why's that?"

"We got an heir last night. All of a sudden."

"An heir?"

"Yup. He's gonna be the next clan head, prob'ly."

"Oh. Wait, so you got a little brother now too?"

Ninako there laughed—Hajime loved her laughter—and shook her head. "No, he's not my little brother. He's more like, uh…"

(How had her mother explained it to her, when her father wouldn't?)

"He's sorta like my cousin! I guess."

"Oh. Well that's cool, I guess," Hajime said.

(Hajime did not have any cousins. Nor would he ever.)

That was the last that Hajime would ever learn of Ninako's little cousin.

For a while, anyways.

Takeru entered the academy that spring. Somehow, life got harder.

"Hajime, this is incredibly disappointing. Your brother is two entire grades below you and he's already catching up. Work harder."

So Hajime worked harder. And when that wasn't enough, he let out his frustration to Ninako.

"Ever since he started school it's been all about Takeru! Nothing I do is good enough for him any more." Hajime was almost eight years old and his little brother—whom he liked enough, whom he got into fights with at home because they were brothers and that was what brothers did—had become an enemy.

"That's dumb," Ninako replied. "You're super smart, though, Hajime. No matter what your stupid dad says."

"Y'mean it?"

Her nod was enthusiastic and powerful. "'course, though you're not as smart as me."

"Shut up, that's not true," Hajime said, with a wicked grin, with a nudge to her shoulder.

(Ninako had already begun her hobby.)

(Ninako, who could never talk about the things that frustrated her.)

("What happens within the walls of this compound are not to leave them," her father told her. "Do you understand? These are things that are only shared amongst Hyuuga.")

("Okay, Dad," she replied. Hating it.)

It was Ninako's idea to start avoiding Takeru. Which suited Hajime.

He began with other chores.

"Mom, can I feed the baby?" he asked, one afternoon, on a day off. "Or something?"

"Hajime, you are so sweet! Here, put him in his high chair."

"But I dunno how."

"Well, then, I'll show you."

His mother appreciated it. Until his father found out.

"I don't think it's exactly fitting for a boy to be fussing over babies," he said, almost amused.

Takeru stood behind him. They wore the same expression.

"You're the one who insisted on all of these babies in the first place, Sasuke," his mother shot back, with a sharp smile. "I need all the help I can get."

That seemed to persuade him. "Well, see if you can get Nadeshiko to help first. She's old enough, isn't she?"

Nadeshiko was five years old, due to enter the academy the next year. She was quiet and obedient and already her mother's best helper around the house. She handled Inou with a precious carefulness.

"Whatever you say, Sasuke," his mother replied, as he was leaving. Smiling.

Hajime found other ways to avoid Takeru.

Outside the house.

Training with Ninako.

He improved. His teachers told him that perhaps they'd be able to skip a grade.

They. Both of them.

They tried to do everything together, if they could help it.

Hajime got the feeling that his father would have been more impressed with him if Takeru hadn't been shifted up two grades in the meantime.

Two. Of course.

The comparisons, of course, were made.

Hajime coped by learning how to distance his heart and his mind, as well as his body, from it all. It was nothing personal. He was still smart, a head above all of his other classmates.

Oh, and he had Ninako. That was probably the best thing.

(And the reason for everything else. She was his motivation and his confidence and his favorite sparring partner. Always one step behind him, always one step ahead.)

"You should try and keep attention away from yourself. It's better to be unnoticed than noticed and in trouble or somethin'," she said. "If your dad's distracted by somethin' else then he won't go comparing you to Takeru all the time."

"You sure?"

"Trust me. Works all the time for me," she said, with her smile like a piece of paper on fire.

The year that Nadeshiko entered the academy was full of distractions.

One of them was, of course, Nadeshiko herself.

The other was the announcement of another baby. "It'll be here around February or March," their mother said, during dinner one night.

"I want you to help me with the nursery if you can, okay, Hajime?" she added, aside, when he was washing dishes with her afterward.

"Sure, Mom," Hajime said. "I'd be glad to help."

Their father was already spending more time with his sister than with his brother.

Hajime had been neatly removed from all of it after Nadeshiko punched him in the nose and broke it. There was blood everywhere.

"I'll spend more time practicing at school. So this won't happen again. You work with Nadeshiko, Dad," Hajime told him.

(Somehow, the fact that she was better than Takeru sat more easily in his mind.)

(Even though.)

(Like always.)

(There were comparisons.)

(But they were always against Takeru, now.)

("Takeru, honestly! Can you not even beat your own little sister in a fight? Work harder!")

This seemed to satisfy him.

Hajime passed the time with painting and punches and keeping Inou out of his mother's way and Ninako.

Always Ninako.

Ninako was the third distraction, but hers was a late one.

One day, she didn't show up at school. Or the next day.

She was gone for a week. The final exams were in a month. It was February.

Hajime, gathering his courage, stopped by the Hyuuga compound after school after far too much waiting. He asked for her.

(She wasn't allowed to visit his house, and the sentiment was confusingly but understandably mutual.)

"Sorry, young man, but you can't see her," a woman in a blue kimono, in a white stole, said, when he asked. "Why don't you make your way out, now? Go on."

He was shooed out with gentle hands and a politeness that seemed antiquated, passed down, like an heirloom.

When he finally saw her again, she didn't feel like talking.

"Hey, what happened? What's the matter? Where were you?"

She had a bandage wrapped around her forehead.

"…nothing, I just had a… bad week."

She wasn't smiling.

Class went on. She performed as usual. Stunningly.

(Nadeshiko had made it into their grade. The highest level. She was a small shadow with heavy eyes that always sat at the back of the classroom.)

(Takeru, sitting in the front row, did not like looking at her.)

Hajime asked Ninako if she wanted to eat lunch with him and she said that was fine.

Again, he asked what had happened.

"I'm… I can't talk about it."

"Oh. I'm… I'm sorry for asking."

She didn't look at him as she quietly ate her lunch.

(Hajime, by then, fully understood the way that those cloud-colored eyes worked. But somehow he got the feeling that, here, she really wasn't looking at him.)

But after school, when she was packing up.

"You two go on ahead. I'm gonna stay behind and practice," he told his siblings. He'd been saying that a lot, recently.

"All right, brother. I'll see you at home," Nadeshiko, six years old, said.

"You sure could use some practice, that's for sure," Takeru, eight years old, sneered.

"Speak for yourself, brother," Hajime, ten years old and filled with worry and impatience, shot back.

He left before Takeru could respond.

(It was a lucky thing for Takeru that Nadeshiko was not a cruel person, nor one particularly inclined to laughing. Or smiling.)

(He still hated her, and didn't touch her when they returned home together. To train with their father.)

Hajime, meanwhile, was following Ninako. She still wasn't really talking to him, and each moment of near-silence just made him feel worse.

"Hey, you wanna just hang out a little bit? I could buy you some taiyaki, I know how much you like that. Red bean? Is that okay?"

She walked on.

"Ninako, come on…"

The road leading away from the academy did not have any people on it.

It was snowing.

"Ninako!"

She stopped, beneath a tree. Her head lowered.

It let him catch up with her.

"Ninako…?"

And suddenly she was hugging him. She buried her face into his shoulder. Sobbing.

It felt.

Strange.

"Ninako, what's the matter…?"

He didn't know how best to put his arms back around her.

"I hate them…!"

"What?"

"I HATE them, Hajime…! All of them, I hate them all!"

Her whole body was shaking, convulsing, and the tears coming out of her beautiful eyes were hot on his shoulder.

The day was cold.

Somehow, he managed to make himself fit. Pressing his head against her head, his arms mirroring hers in the way he clung to her.

"I hate this family…" she said, quietly. Her breaths were sharp and sudden. "Why was I even born? Why would they do this…?"

"Ninako, it's okay…" Hajime said.

Because he had no idea what else to say.

"I hate this family, I hate this family…" She pressed her eyes against his shoulder even further. "I hate them all, Hajime. I wish I had never been born."

(The heir of the Hyuuga clan, Andou, had a birthday in February.)

(He was three years old.)

(And every Main family member needed a Branch bodyguard.)

"Ninako, don't say that…"

"What." Sniff.

"That you'd never been born. I'm… I'm happy you were born. You're my best friend an' nobody else comes close…"

His voice was quiet, tucked into her shoulder.

"So don't say things like that, Ninako. Okay…? It's gonna be okay…"

Whatever the problem was.

He felt her arms tighten.

"And I'm glad you were born too, Hajime…!" Her voice was high, turning into another sob halfway through.

Under the tree, Hajime held her tighter back.

"Okay," he said.

"Please don't go," she said.

"Okay," he said.

And he didn't.

When she finally let go, wiping her eyes, she apologized. "M'sorry, I've just been kinda… sad lately."

"It's okay if you're upset. Are you feeling better now?"

"A lot better, 'cos you're here. But don't tell anyone about this, you got it?"

Her smile set his heart on fire.

"I don't want anyone thinking' I'm some sobby wimp or anything."

(Nor did she want anyone from the Main house finding out about the things she had said.)

(She could only barely say them to her family. And her father's comfort was only ever a gentle hand on her back at bedtime, and pained glances.)

(Hajime was her size, and he had her heart.)

(She could tell him anything. Even this.)

(Within limits.)

"It's okay, Ninako, your sobby secrets are safe with me," Hajime said. He smiled back.

"Oh, come on. So were you really gonna buy me taiyaki?" she said.

"What, you really want some?"

"Yeah, I'm hungry!"

"Okay, okay! Then let's go," Hajime said.

Neither of them returned home before it turned dark.

Neither of them wanted to leave each other.

But they had to. Hajime heard his mother calling out in his mind. Dinner.

"I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" he said.

"Okay," she said.

Takeru had a black eye at dinner. "You have a good time practicing, Hajime?" he said.

"Yeah," Hajime replied, "I did."

And he meant it.

That was almost the first separation.

The real one came in April.

When Ninako's name was called out, the second in a group of three, just like all the rest, he was not with her.

They had always chosen each other for partners. But not this time.

"It's okay," she told him, in the hallway afterward, "we'll still get to see each other. I swear."

She was wrong.

This was the first separation.

He didn't see her again for almost three years.