-` HAKU ! ´- ╱ icecurse ·
@healpalm // RIN.
❛ Do you ever — ❜
lips part in question – only to falter and fall shut once more, hesitation obscured by a soft, mournful sigh. such disquiet is uncharacteristic of him ; though prone to privacy, haku has never been a nervous or trepidatious child. to see him standing before rin’s kitchen window, brows furrowed as unreadable brown eyes scan the faces of civillians mulling in the streets below, fingers rotating the dog-tag necklace usually hidden beneath his clothing with increasing agitation, is … strange, to say the least.
fingers fist over the windowsill, fingernails pressing crescents into the old wood. the words lingering on his tongue are bitter and bleak, rolling in his mouth like marbles, staining him from the inside out as he struggles to contain the blackness. a week of bearing such feelings on his own, with no one to take them to. he has not wanted to be ungrateful for the gift given him, nor disrespectful to those who had lost so many in combat, least of all the warm, soul-soothing presence that is RIN, but. but he just two months past his fifteenth birthday, he is so young for all the terror and hardship he has seen and wrought, he has known so much lost already. and it is selfish of him, perhaps, but just this once he wants someone else to feel it with him. to feel the weight of the pain carried upon such thin shoulders.
❛ Do you ever wonder what would be different if they had lived and you had died ? ❜ haku’s voice is firm and clear, despite the faint tremors of sorrow and rage coiling in its depths. there is no need to define the subject. he knows by her eyes that the young woman knows loss as well as he. he knows she has heard stories of the devil of the mist and the angel of death hovering in his wake. ❛ What could have been, if only you hadn’t been you. If only you had been faster, stronger. Better. ❜ he does not dare look at her, for fear of what he should see — or, worse, what she would see: the black irascible fury pacing in him like a caged animal, its pained howls and brutal self-loathing. haku has never wanted for pity, least of all from those he admires.
I didn’t raise a coward, a dark voice growls in his head. Always look your enemy in the eyes.
slowly does he shift, staring across the kitchen at his host with dry, hollow eyes, lips parting to say the words he has thought for so long now:
❛ It should have been me. ❜
𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐄𝐃 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 stems not from indifference but the debilitating ache of her heart which his words had caused. the ceramic plate she had been drying as she listened to him threatened to slip past her weakened grip , fingers clenching tight around its smooth edges to save it from shattering. yet there was nothing she could do to save her composure from sharing the same fate. calm disposition falters despite all intentions to gather her strength for his sake ; an obstinate tear streaks down her left eye , traveling over the peak of a marked cheek to reach the end of its trek as it rolls off her chin.
she had been younger than he when the same sentiments had plagued her grieving mind. regrets of not being stronger , not knowing better ─── a myriad of what-ifs that still haunted her in adulthood , but had been magnified in the wake of an introduction to the ruthlessness of war and her loss of innocence. his words were needles pressed deep into an unhealed scar that still bled at the slightest provocation , guilt rising in the form of vile burning at the base of her throat. with great difficulty , she swallows ; an unsteady hand lifting to wipe at her wet cheek as the other gently sets aside the plate. with all the grace of billowing summer wind , she strides towards him and wraps her arms around him.
warm embrace finds Haku cradled against the ruffles of her long dress , fingertips dipping into his hair and drawing soothing concentric circles over his scalp. none of that. ʹ she hushes him , breaking their embrace to look down at him with a gentle severity ; the trademark of a caring mother. she pries his fingers away from their restless tugging at his necklace and holds his hand steady in hers. ‵ thinking like that makes nothing better . . . i would know. ʹ hushed voice drops a tone in melancholic reverie. the weariness she so expertly suppressed creeps into her youthful face , deepening the shadows beneath her eyes. ‵ surviving is the heaviest burden , i know , but things happened as they did for a reason. you have a purpose yet to fulfill , Haku. ʹ
