2 - Jasmine ジャスミン
boughs tremble in the
wind; white blossoms floating out
and back in my palm
"I have the sharingan." Hisa twines the jasmine around her slender fingers, fiddling with its small stem. It's some weeks after, a drab and dreary day, the skies so dark as the rain weeps and laments in sorrow.
Haru's a little unsure of how to proceed. He's used to losing people, to cope with the frustration and stress, but he hasn't got a clue how to console someone else. Mariko already did that. But Mariko is gone.
"The Clan Elders said-" he starts, recalling the information from the previous Clan Meeting. Sure, he's not exactly satisfied with what they proposed, but he has to listen to them out of respect.
"I don't care what the Clan Elders said!" she interrupts, slowly tearing the petals off one by one. Haru's mouth gapes at the anger inside her voice. When did Hisa become so... assertive?
"I'm not going to use it." She declares at his stunned face. "I don't want to, and I never will. Haven't you heard - it's written in all the history books at the library. It'll take away your eyesight, bit by bit, until you lose your vision. No wonder everyone in our clan is bloody blind!"
Mentally, he makes a note to check which books she's reading. "It's either blind or dead," he spits out, eyes glinting in annoyance. Hisa realises that he is losing his patience; the thin ice she's already on will shatter if she pursues this topic any further.
"Then I don't want to be a kunoichi." It's a petulant tone - one of a naughty, disobedient child, but there is a deafening silence. An alarm rings in her ears as rage surges through his face, a flame igniting in his eyes-
"When did you learn how to cook?"
"What?" she asks, momentarily surprised at the change of subject. "Oh - I mean, what else is there to do? Starve?"
"Not bad," he places an onigiri in his mouth. Hisa knows. She's always been average - never better, never worse - a justifiable ratio between two perfectionist parents. One, actually.
She shakes her head in a wry smile. "Okay. I'm fine with that."
"Mariko's was better." he mumbles, and their eyes meet in a winding thread of grief.
The topic has gone unspoken for all these days, escaping right out of their grasps as they pass by each other. Haru fights against this unusual feeling forcing him into melancholy. He occupies himself with missions, reports, duties, anything that lets him forget about his children and dead wife. Hisa, on the other hand, hides her misery as Shisui cries, winding lies and half-truths into the pretence of being a caring sister. She's not. She hates him, and will for eternity.
But they were a perfect family, and they still are now.
"Let's go out," Haru decides, standing up and stretching his arms out in full mission gear. Dutifully, she follows him outside the engawa, trudging down the wooden steps which creak under their feet. The sun is low in the sky, and she holds the white flower out, twirling its stem out in the fresh air. She hasn't really gone out much since she was born, and there's a newfound, unusual pleasure at the raw, earthy scent and high notes of nature.
Haru stops abruptly, checking for any stray chakra signatures. Hisa moves back, crossing her arms, a tint of curiosity blemishing her olive, sallow complexion.
"Why are we here, then?"
"I thought you didn't want to know." A sardonic smile, cruelly dangling the details in front of her.
Haru's a little surprised at how she's played it off. She's become more mature these days, deciphering how to cope with loss as an adult, not just a little girl. Although her movements are still graceful and her speech is still traditionally eloquent, Hisa's lapsing into a more social character, a proud confidence surrounding her every action. It's not perfect. But then, nothing is. Not even the Uchiha.
"Tell me," she urges, cold fingers fidgeting lightly with the last remaining petals. The deciduously bare tree shakes a little, matching her restlessness and the suspense which follows as he purposefully pauses again.
"Fine," he sighs, giving in to her scrutinising gaze. "But you're not going to like it," he warns.
"I can handle anything. They really couldn't have done much, could... they?" Locks of her hair twist around her fingers, knotting themselves into caged prisons. It's ironic how her voice breaks for a second, Haru thinks, as if it's exactly the opposite. And it is. He can see that Hisa isn't ready, won't be able to process it, and he mentally braces himself for the oncoming flood of questions.
"Are you sure you want to know? Maybe in a few yea-"
"No. Better to face it now than later, ne?"
"They've named you Clan Heir."
Icy-cold silence.
A gust of wind blisters her fingers, eliciting a sharp gasp as she shivers in panic. Then she screeches, her usually gentle voice so high-pitched that Haru instinctively covers his ears. "A-are you joking!? But you can't be - I can't -"
Haru never jokes, though, and they both know that.
"Not long until Fugaku-san has an heir, hm?" He remarks, in an effort to placate this stuttering, disbelieving half of her personality.
Hisa's a little confused at this, though she gets the general idea. "Not long now, you say," she sighs, a little too contemptuously for his taste.
Struggling to decide whether to rein in his temper or berate her for the blatant disrespect, he waits for the late reaction which is no doubt soon to come. Oddly enough, though, it doesn't.
"What about you? You could easily be Clan Heir - you're supposed to be next in line anyway, and it doesn't make any sense for me -"
"Can't," he answers dryly, "By shinobi standards, I'll be dead soon. The system would immediately collapse like that."
"Oh. Really?" Hisa asks, in an effort to look like she understands. "Why can't Shisui? He's supposed to be a much better fit that me, you know, boys and girls?" The last sentence is said scornfully, ridicule clouding her once pleasant features.
Sensibly, Haru decides to ignore the scathing remark. "Of course not. He doesn't have the sharingan yet, but you do."
Hisa exhales heavily. "I told you, I'm never going to use it. What's the point of even trying to tell anyone? I'll just live quietly, as a civilian, stay out of the way, whatever."
He frowns at her disappointedly, and she sees a splinter of Mariko on his face in that split-second. "It's your duty." Then his voice drops even lower. "And you'll die if you don't."
The white flower crumples in her small, rounded fist, a million tiny pieces of paper swirling around in the evening sky.
It's not surprising to see that Haru's mostly out of the house, since he's on the incredibly demanding Uchiha Police Force. Shisui is dozing off, the small wooden crib constructed not long before in the peaceful drawing room. It certainly seems too impractical to watch over him for the hours until dinner.
Are those clothes still there? Hisa thinks, languidly walking to the closed dressing-room. It's not really a room - more like a small cupboard filled with the traditional accessories and dresses of a young girl newly introduced to society. Sure enough, the untouched kimono are on the middle shelf, not to far for her to lean out and reach. Mariko sewed these herself for special events, the fine embroidery embroiled in the brocaded fabric, clothes that would suit a china doll more than a real person.
Though she's lucky Mariko thought months, years in advance - Hisa is soon growing out of the flimsy nightdresses and short skirts thought fashionable for young toddlers, and it seems a bit excessive and wholly inappropriate to buy new clothes fresh out of the mourning period. Reluctantly, her hands skim the smooth, silky cotton, the neatly ironed dress lacing up at the sides with a thin cord.
The tiny blossoms wind down at the edges of the hem as she slips it on, and it seems so unusually out-of-place in contrast to her dull black hair. Too...bold, Hisa thinks. In a simplistic, plain sort of way. Does it represent modesty, a sense of innocence which Hisa will never possess again?
The twisting paths of the Uchiha compound snake down into a fork, and then there's nothing but grasslands and trees, plains which rope into fields of sparkling green and twigs which crunch underneath her feet. She doesn't know where she's going, what she's doing, but this feels more interesting than staying at home all day, so she follows it along.
There's a house at the end of the footpath, a brightly lit minka which looks larger than the other houses in the compound. At first, Hisa hesitates, hand straying from the handle of the door as she resists the urge to slide it open. Two soft, sharp knocks which echo into the distance.
Tap. Tap.
"Who is it?" it's Mikoto's familiar figure, a small and demure shadow which slides the door open. A head peeks out. "Ah, Hisana. How are Haru-san and Shisui-kun doing? Come in then, you're just in time for tea." She doesn't seem surprised that Hisa's there, ushering her to the low chabudai table.
"Just Hisa please," she requests, kneeling down and taking care not to crease her kimono. A flower's perfumed petals float around in her teacup, a simmer of ghost-white hypnotising her eyes. A jasmine.
"Of course," Mikoto nods, taking her place on the other side of the round table. "You'll like the senbei quite a bit, it's from the bakery at the corner, you know. Mariko-san said once that you loved sweet things, so I thought...well..."
There's an awkward pause as they both realise what she's said. Mikoto's mouth turns up in a tense smile, waiting for Hisa's reaction. It never comes. Instead, the girl bites into the rice cracker, hints of a flaky, crispy biscuit filling her mouth as crumbs spill all over her dress.
"I've always wanted to have a daughter like you," Mikoto comments, brushing down the kimono with a towel.
"But you can't." Hisa says, dark eyes glancing at the other woman's wistful ones.
"Oh, I can," Mikoto disagrees. "Just not as first-born. Fugaku would rather like a son to take over as Clan Heir, though I've heard you've taken over that position for now. What your father was thinking, forcing you to do that, I don't know!"
"Fugaku-san is actually my cousin, you know," Hisa remarks, smoothing out the pleats in her dress. "I mean, he's twenty years older, sure, but Uchiha have a fascinating way of doing things like that."
Mikoto bursts into peals of laughter, a gentle, perfectly controlled ringing in Hisa's ears. "It's hard to imagine you as anything else, really. Twenty years is still enough to be my daughter."
"You'd be my nee-san," Hisa decides. "I'm never having a sister anyway, so why not?"
Mikoto waves a hand, the small silver band sliding down her finger. "You will be a kunoichi too? I hear the Academy starts next April, and the applications have already been sent out. It really takes me back to the way things changed ten years ago."
Hisa sighs. "Haru's trying to make me sign it, but I just don't want to. If I had a choice, maybe I would know myself."
"You resent the clan for forcing you into it, then? You should wait a few years before applying, if you can't make up your decision." Mikoto advises, eyes lingering on the clock behind Hisa.
"Then they'll decide for me!" Hisa exclaims, shaking her head furiously.
"Just think about it, then. A civilian's life is full of repetition and normality, a world of being thought socially inferior to shinobi. Would it feel interesting to you when doing the same jobs every day?"
"I guess so," Hisa says, unsure. "Should I want to become a kunoichi?"
"Think about it in a rational point of view, then. Don't recklessly head straight in for something without willingly wanting to do it. " Mikoto urges.
Hisa looks down at her cup as the tea swirls into an abyss of feathery light petals, a creamy vanilla melding into the sugary rich bittersweet. "Okay, I'll take some time to think about it then. There's still a few weeks left, I guess."
Mikoto glances up at the clock again, her face now one of alarm. "Fugaku will be here soon. You'd better go, just in case he's in a bad mood."
Hisa is soon outside the doorway, looking on upon a long journey of endless roads and branching lanes, the lamplights of a foreign street far out in the distance. She shakes her head, looks back at the minka and smiles, beginning to walk.
In her small, simplistic room, Hisa has been wringing her hands for days. Mariko's old watercolours hang on the otherwise bare walls, tempestuous reds and yellows which inflame the normally peaceful atmosphere, cold air rushing in through the windows.
She closes one, gently, then flops on to her back, a moral and internal conflict tearing her heart into shreds. Is there something...more to becoming a kunoichi? Hisa thinks, a sense of loyalty, perhaps? No, where is the so-called Will of Fire when the Curse of Hatred burns strongly in their hearts? She can only be thankful that it hasn't latched on to her darkening heart yet, for when it does, it will empty her soul as death calls.
A cry from the next room. Shisui must be awake now, and he's probably hungry.
"Come on then," she beckons him to follow her to the kitchen, opening his door at a slight angle. As thought - he's a prodigy. Walking, running, talking - from syllables to broken words to sentences. He's the best of the lot, praised excessively for his characteristics at barely a year old, not even a toddler. And to think that she has to strain Haru to even get a mere compliment!
Hisa stops moving, scanning the stove for the pot of yakisoba she'd left earlier on. The steam hisses as she pours it in, Shisui watching her intently as the wooden spoon folds the vegetables over.
"Oh, you don't have to follow my every action, you know!" she tells him irritatedly. "You're never going to use this anyway, really - otou-san is spoiling you rotten." Hisa's still stinging from her previous wounds, and the matter of inequality only adds salt to them.
"Aneki," he begs, because she'd lash out if he was any less formal. "I want to see. Let me see!"
"Get down." she pulls the tugging hand away. "Go away before you get burned. And then who would get into trouble then?"
Hisa turns around to make sure he's gone, but he's already invisible, footsteps echoing faintly down the hallway. The noodles simmer gently, and she piles them into a large bowl for dinner, even if she's not even sure that Haru will be there - he hasn't come home for weeks. He's left heaps of unfinished mission reports, sentences which she tries her best to decipher but can't. The scrawled kanji lie on messily strewn sheets, complicated characters which she doesn't seem to understand.
Some are probably the paperwork for the Academy next month. She might be newly-turned three, but she's not dense. War could arrive soon, looming on the new, darker horizon, and Konoha definitely needs all the shinobi they can get, which is a lot.
She'll be one of many. She won't stand out, although she somehow longs to. Hisa smiles at how ironic her position is, trapped between two decisions which she never wants to make. Along the trees of spring, the blossoms begin to bud, bluebells and tsubaki spinning in the trees, their stems winding around each other's leaves. She watches the tulips bloom, birds chirping in a melody as the branches sway.
Hisa smiles as the breeze caresses her hair, the flowers slowly opening as red bleeds into white. The Sharingan activates once more, a fleeting sense of hope in a perpetuity of despair.
Rain drenches the wilting flowers while the sky begins to blacken, persuading Hisa to stay inside and rest. Though Haru has other plans, as always.
"Take care of Shisui while I'm away," he directs as they eat breakfast, a freshly cooked o-chazuke which still burns her tongue.
"I already do that, don't I?" Hisa intones tiredly, boredom clouding her voice. They both glance at Shisui who quietly eats his food, suddenly realising the weight of both stares burdening him.
Once he's done piling his plate into the sink, he drags her by the hand, and she's so surprised by his strength that she forgets to let go. "Aneki, let's go play!"
"Let me do the dishes first!" She pulls away, sighing and pulling up her sleeves as no-one listens, the wind battering against the windows. Haru will never get them done, because the shinobi world has classified it as 'women's work,' which is, of course, insufferably sexist.
Haru's shoes aren't in the engawa, so he's probably disappeared already.
"Wait," she tells her brother, prising his chubby fingers off hers and slamming the window shut, instilling a comforting peace throughout the house. "Sit down here, I'll come back when I've finished. " Hisa points to the zabuton and he obediently sits on the cushion.
An hour passes. Then two. She's surprised to see that he's still waiting, fiddling with the strings of his clothes.
When she does come back, she shakes her head. "Aneki, you promised!" Shisui cries, his shrill voice piercing her ears.
"I didn't," Hisa replies coldly.
A beat passes.
Then she turns around from her sweeping to pause and look at Shisui. Raising a hand, she motions for him to come closer, guilt seeping into her heart as his face considerably brightens.
As slight hope shines in his eyes, she gives a soft, almost sad smile, pressing her fingers into his forehead. He stumbles back. "Maybe next time, otouto."
"Ow! That hurts! Fine, you have to play with me next time. Promise?"
No, it's a promise which she'll never keep.
What is death? It's a question which grows more difficult to answer as time passes, simply because there is no way to come out alive.
Shisui climbs up the bare walls, oblivious to the turbulent thoughts which wreak havoc inside her head. He'll be good at that, she thinks. Much better than she ever was.
But he's supposed to be more talented than her by default. Looking at Shisui, she's glad that he doesn't have to face the dangers of this world yet.
If life is fragile, then what is death? An infinite echo of a shattered peace, a distorted reality of sorrow and rue? Is it so wrong then, to feel a shocking thrill rush up her arms when it should be forbidden? If she's going to die anyway, then what's the point of waiting for this perpetual fate?
It slowly comes to her mind that life is only exhilarating because she has no purpose, is only a tool to control. It wouldn't matter either way, if she died by her own will or on the battlefield, so why should anyone care?
Shisui laughs, and she suddenly realises that he's smudged ink all over her kimono while climbing, the dark staining into crimson. Hisa glares at him. "That was my favourite yukata," she snaps.
She blinks at the change of expression, the slight smirk which appears on his face, judging her, looking down on her. It's frustrating to know that she can't lay a hand on him, as the prized Uchiha whose life is worth more than hers. Sometimes a splinter of pity enters a heart - a sliver of sympathy at the high expectations he has. But never mind that. She's got even higher standards to uphold.
A Clan Heir. Really, what on earth were they thinking? It's going to be at least a year before she can escape this mess. If she could, she'd threaten Shisui with a knife herself to awaken his Sharingan. Then he'd be Clan Heir instead, and she would live in peace.
Ignoring Shisui's small cry of pain as she pushes him out of the room (although it wasn't exactly a push, per se), Hisa listens to his footsteps dying away, then sprawls on her back, hands lying freely by her sides.
She knows what this feeling is. She's bored. Uninterested. She'll enter the Academy next year, but that's not enough for her. Life can't exactly give her anything which she doesn't already have, and as Mikoto said indirectly - condemning her to the fate of a civilian now seems worse than a death sentence.
But then...now that it's all set in stone for her, why should she enjoy life? Hisa thinks. Especially since all the other Uchiha are arrogant, scornful, reckless She'd rather not be like them if she had the choice.
Mikoto has tried to introduce her to a few clan members, but they're older than her by far, and much more focused on protecting Konoha than listening to the woes of an unruly three-year-old child.
Why is death supposed to be something to honourable? Mariko died, suffering for her cause, as did all the others bringing up the new generation. Most shinobi die before their prime, and the others who survive a few years later are just plain lucky.
So why can't Hisa be like that? Why can't she embrace it and concede defeat? Isn't that what a shinobi - a kunoichi is meant to do? Everything is a game of life and death, a spool of hope and loss. A game.
But she's still scared.
The door clicks open and she scrambles up from the seated position, disrupting the peaceful, chaotic rhythm of steady, wild thoughts.
"Otou-san." she informs him blankly. "I have something to tell you."
"Yes?"
"I want to become a kunoichi."
Does she? Does she not? She doesn't know.
She can only play the game to survive.
And the Sharingan spins out of control, trapping her in an infernal eternity once more.
lovehearts,
m.b.