“Sit down, we need to talk.” Said the dry voice.
Beautiful red-headed Akane Makishima sat on the edge of her bed. Her fingers nervously tangled in the lace collar of the duvet. Her eyes already had tears. It wasn’t fair at all. Her hands clenched, straining the poor old lace.
“You are my sister, always.” The voice said, a little unsteady.
On Akane’s cheek was a bruise and it hurt Haku Ishikawa to see. It made his voice as unsteady as what he was about to say. The people of the twelfth district in south Rukongai, were cruel.
“Kuishi-chan, please.” She cried.
Haku held up a hand. He didn’t have words at this moment. He needed air, or just a little time. Fortune had shamelessly slighted him again. That the people’s dislike of him was so pure they had stooped to attacking a defenseless little girl, was maddening.
“You have obasan* in district eleven. Tomorrow, you and I.”
“No, don’t leave me, Kuishi-chan!” She managed.
Damn them. Haku thought, savagely. He wiped his eyes and formed a reassuring smile. Cupping her cheek, he leveled their gazes to meet.
“When I came here no one knew me. I was scared. I didn’t know where I was. I cried. And then something fantastic happened. Do you know what happened?”
She didn’t reply…
“A beautiful little red-headed girl came and offered me a roof and a bowl of soup.” His voice broke combining a weak laugh and a snivel. “She rescued me in a time that I was confused and gave me answers.” His voice tightened in earnest. “But I have a chance to pay all of that back, now.”
Akane’s eyes had already died. There wasn’t the slightest light of interest or care. Beneath her expressionless face, she was caving in. They had known each other for ten years today...
Haku could trace where he had come from, but to his awe, he couldn’t find in Akane’s eyes how he come this far. How he had found it again. Yes, that all important it. Despite being a mere pronoun, it was the emotional span of a lifetime. Haku knew that he was barely older than Akane, himself. It would’ve been normal for him to have homework the next day of that field trip, or god forbid, some more horrible news from home; but he had been cold and starving without enough answers to keep himself warm.
Now. Right this second. He would bend time, walk across the gap of worlds, even fight God face-to-face for the half a chance that he might return services rendered by this dearest of friends...
“Smile, Akane.” It was a desperate request. “Please.”
She wrapped her fragile arms around him and held him tight so that he could not magically slip away. Brushing her hair back away from her ear, he whispered: “It’s nothing near a goodbye. Just a ‘see you later.’”
It saved Haku’s soul to see that she pulled back with a fond smile on her lips.
“You’ll visit won’t you, Kuishi-chan?”
“Almost certainly.” He said smiling. “You’ll go to sleep now and dream a happy dream for me. Tomorrow, you and I will walk to district eleven.”
She hugged him a second time and he rose to leave. He pulled the door back and slipped out.
His thoughts were colder now, filled with questions and an unsatisfying lack of answers. But Akane couldn’t help him now. What the hell had happened to him? Was it possible he…sympathized with Akane. She was afraid of being abandoned. And Haku knew it to be one of the most murderous fears of all. He knew. Yes that was it. Sympathy aside, the people of south Rukongai wouldn’t not let them alone, but they would leave her be. Besides…In his heart of hearts, sister or no, he did not want to stay here.
Haku sat down at the table. A bottle of Awamori was already there, the beads of sweat around the bottle made Haku thirsty. He quickly poured himself a liberal amount into a chipped jade tea cup and added from a carafe of water. Ice wouldn’t be necessary and, as it happened, he didn’t have any anyway…
I know what I am…
Ten years...
He tilted his cup back. The drink slid back and his jaw tightened as it tried to turn itself inside out.
Ten years…
His vision broke. A beat pulsed in his head and made his vision weak. He could feel and not see himself take another drink, but what he saw was Mount Fuji. Strewn with white snow. Otousan** always called it angel blood.
He watched in passing interest as a mountain trail was torn apart and divested of people through motes of fog. A clever one, a group behind the massacre, leapt off the path as it was ravaged. He grabbed a tree, a smile on his face as he felt somewhat excited.
He turned to run back down the path when he was hoisted up by an unseen force. Haku drifted closer in his vision. His mental ears recalling old nightmares.
“What is this one?!” Came a disembodied gravely voice. The boy’s face was slack.
The boy was shook and came a growl of fury. It was a battle of stares. The boy couldn’t see the the thing that was hunched over looking him in the eye. He didn’t see the look of fury on it’s face as it growled.
“What the hell!? How dare you!” It bellowed.
He watched as the boy was cast down the mountain side. The vision passed and Haku celebrated with a heavy swig of drink.
He didn’t understand. Why had it all ended there? Why hadn’t it ended in Okinawa in his house with his parents? How had it all progressed, ala diminuendo, to a point of despair, alienation and death? But there, on the edge of Mount Fuji, in the presence of people he didn’t know, he died. Ripped from the ground like a guppy from a pond and dashed to atoms below. A quick cold shower of agonizing pain as he rolled down the mountain. Then the quick break, just below the blade of his shoulder.
It was the finishing blow on a life built by fear. The horrible voice. The mutilation of his Okasan***. Blood. His father fleeing like a coward. Being dumped on his relative’s doorstep. Fear had burrowed a hole in Haku’s soul. It was all dead spirit, nothing left to feel. Sometimes he had wondered where it had all gone. Haku’s expression as he was held over the edge of oblivion by an invisible monster, was so much more of disinterest than fear. That part of him was hollow… He had been that way since he was left at his obasan’s house by his craven father. Now it was Akane’s turn.
Haku smiled grimly. She would fare better and, to be honest, if she didn’t…well then so much the better. She would be more like him. And as he had learned, misery loves company...
*Aunt
**Father
***Mother
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