Happy Birthday, to me. /Happy/, indeed.
[ ∞ ‡ ]
Mother comes to mind almost immediately, and Urushi. …And it hurts right in the center of his chest more than he had expected, prompting Kabuto to raise a deft hand and rub a few fingers at his sternum in an attempt to relieve it. The blow feels dull, just as it always does when old wounds pull apart at the seams and begin to bleed when they open again, and the silver-haired, for all the times he’s experienced this sort of pain, has yet to develop a way to distract himself from it. Sometimes it comes when he looks in the mirror and sees his wide-eyed, soft, smooth visage, and wonders, with how angelic he looks to himself, to whom does he appear grotesque monster, caked in blood and growling for more. The pain sometimes appears in these nightmares that shake his to the core, those long, sleepless nights that he would wake up sweating and swearing, trembling and doe-eyed just minutes after he’s drifted off. And at othis times, the pain just…comes to his, without warning, and with a great deal of panic which he’s at least learned to repress to an extent. his throat is dry.
It’s just a regular day, he reminds himself. Memories of the significance of such a date prompts him to continuously try to push it away. he doesn’t want to /think/ about it, not now when there’s so much work to be done. For Orochimaru-sama even, it’s a reason to celebrate that his little medic has successfully served and survived another year, with many new talents and fresh knowledge to show for all the bloodshed left in his wake.
/No/. It’s no use to dwell on the smiles of his brothers and sisters at the orphanage, the elder Urushi in particular who always used to tease him on this day, saying that he’s really only a fourth of his /real/ age. Perhaps that’s what makes the day special in a sense— it’s such a mysterious, strange day in the lunar calendar. It’s the day that’s missing, the day mostly forgotten, yet always /remembered/…and now, in spite of his best efforts to remove these thoughts, Kabuto can’t help but wonder to himself if anybody else remembered. The lesser servants aside, all of whom greet him throughout the day with stringent bows and ‘best wishes’ that mostly likely mean nothing more than to curry favour and stay on the medic’s good side, Yakushi really wonders who else knows, who else /cares/.
It isn’t surprising when the tightness in his chest increases, and he finds his tongue devoid of any answer, a resounding /nobody/ echoing mockingly in his ears. No family, no true/ friends, no lover… Well, it never bothered him before, so why does all this assault his mind /now/? he’s certain he doesn’t have an answer for that, but he’s also sure that he wishes it would cease. he can barely handle it already, what with the uncharacteristic sting at his eyes in the silence of a village square where he sits, dilly-dallying and doing nothing of consequence. Mother would chastise him, and Orochimaru-sama would just tell him to head to the morgue or to his bed, to distract himself…not that he ever felt it his place to speak to the Sannin so openly on personal matters.
If anything, Kabuto is painfully repressed. It feels as though a cloud of gloom hangs overhead no matter what violence with which he could try to shake it. And if it weren’t bad enough, to look up from his teary-eyed perch in solitude on a wooden bench, cloaked form still assaulted by the frigid winter breeze running through the fabric unyieldingly, it’s clear he’s being avoided. his long silver locks fluttering in the wind obscure his vision but once before it clears to show not a bird in sight, and those villagers on the main street quite a few meters from where he sits are all intentionality keeping far enough away from their village…/benefactor/. What a /joke/. he scoffs. If only he could get close enough to hear the words themselves whispered from one villager to the next, the gruesome stories and assumptions kept under wraps for fear of being disloyal or rude to the medic and his master. If only he could challenge them to speak those very words to his face, he would. And he would defend himself, too. They don’t /know/ his, so how could they judge so by his actions alone? They don’t know /why/ he does this…so wouldn’t it only be fair to not be stigmatized for his deeds? Is it so much to ask for perhaps one /sincere/ smile from the lot of hundreds upon hundreds of villagers, and nothing more?
It is, and Kabuto, in some part of his conscious mind, understands why. Any person in their right mind would fear the reaper. But be it far from Kabuto’s luck that he’s unable to be smited by such a woefully dark entity, should it even exist. Perhaps then it would atone for his sins.
"…"
Inhaling a deep breath, and watching his exhale swirl upwards in the cool air with a wisp of warm mist, the medical ninja seems to hunch down only more, as if an invisible weight has been dropped upon his large, thick skull. he shouldn’t be so down, no. he shouldn’t let it get to his so easily. he did /not/ excel so tirelessly as a spy to be so base as to be troubled by /unnecessary/ emotions. Love and friendship? /Bah/. he has his intelligence, his master, a home, food, a warm bed at night…but he also has painful memories and an ocean of blood dripping from his dainty little hands, from the inside of palms worn into small patches of hard skin from work and use for events more immoral than not.
"Happy Birthday, to me." A pause. "/Happy/, indeed."
It’s a bitter reality to face, but it isn’t like Kabuto’s naturally stubborn self to walk away from it. He has endured it another year, and he supposes that is reason enough to be content, at least for now.
