Ah, sorry for taking so long to post something new. Summer is here, and I've been lazing about. By the way, this might be the last thing I post for awhile. I'm vacationing in Nepal this summer until August. You can keep always keep up with me via email or my LJ, both which are listed on my profile. Bwahaha, shameless self!plug. (;
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Naruto.
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Plucking Petals
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"Is my happiness important to you, Fugaku?"
"Yes. Of course."
"Then…will you promise me flowers whenever I'm sad?"
"I promise."
‡ ‡ ‡
Songbirds outside their window often announce the morning with sweet melodies of delight. When she wakes up, Mikoto likes to lie in bed an extra minute and listen to their trills while soaking in the warmth of her husband. She is a newly wed and has no children. But, from wisdom imparted by her mother, she doesn't plan to get used to it. Still, the extra minute with songbirds serenading, are a pleasant touch to her morning.
Fugaku doesn't care for the birds. He calls their songs frivolous, pretty noise and tells her how easy it is to break their fragile wings and grumbles about the nests in their trees. Yet he says nothing when his wife sets up a bird feeder in the tree closest to their bedroom window. The birds show their appreciation by trilling happy tunes. Mikoto likes to imagine they sing just for her.
One day there is no sweet melody to gently whisk her out of sleep. There is only a thin, broken-record cheep. Mikoto gets up to see what's wrong. And in the gleam of rising sun, tears begin to fall. Since last week, a pair of birds had been building a nest, a home to return to after flight. Now there is only one bird. On the ground is the unmoving body of its mate. Fugaku is right: it's much too easy to break the fragile wings of birds.
By dinnertime she is still quietly saddened. Standing there blankly, a potato in one hand and a potato peeler in the other, she is lost in the sick image of a broken bird. Her husband startles her from her reverie by setting a vase full of colorful flowers on the kitchen counter. Mikoto frowns in confusion then leans up to kiss his cheek. Fugaku has not forgotten his promise.
‡ ‡ ‡
The duties of a shinobi are important. Each time she repeats the words, Mikoto grows a little wearier of waiting. It's their anniversary, but perhaps his mission simply has a greater weight in gold than a celebration of their second year of marriage, she tells herself. She doesn't know whether to be sad, angry, or worried.
Finally, as the clock strikes ten, he appears. Mikoto stares down at her lap. The table had been made up so nicely with her favorite china, scented candles, and a bottle of wine to go with the extravagant meal she made. But now the china looks cold, the candles have become stubs, the bottle is half-empty.
Instead of demanding any answers from her husband, she gets up from the table. Fugaku says nothing as she stalks past. Mikoto has settled on being angry. However, that anger is hard to maintain upon entrance into her bedroom, where she discovers vibrant sunflower petals scattered everywhere. There is a small, white box waiting for her to open it.
"Sorry. I was a bit late from my mission." He's leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, a smile teasing the corners of his lips. Mikoto replies with a soft kiss. It is an apology for becoming angry and also a declaration of her love. They tumble into bed together. Together with him, she feels so sensual, so warm. Their touches and whispered words fill her heart to brimming. The warmth feels never-ending.
Later, when they lay side by side in the dark, she has to ask, "But why sunflowers?"
The sunshine petals are stuck in her hair. A rough, calloused hand combs them out gently. "You like the color yellow," he answers simply. For Fugaku that is enough. Mikoto rests her head on his chest and falls asleep with his heartbeat thumping in her ear.
‡ ‡ ‡
Their first child is a quiet baby with solemn, watchful eyes. Mikoto wonders why her baby doesn't cry very often, why he doesn't shriek in the middle of the night, why he doesn't blubber in baby speak. As he grows up, everyone repeatedly deems him a genius without her consent. Itachi is her baby boy not her genius. But, much too soon, it becomes exceedingly difficult to ignore. Indeed, she has borne a prodigy into this world.
Mikoto the mother has to worry as she watches him hurtle through life while Mikoto the kunoichi is impressed by his skills. He is both worrying and awe-inspiring. She cannot help being proud of her son. Still, she also cannot help but feel as though she is treading on dark waters with a child like Itachi.
She confesses her concerns over morning tea. "I hardly ever see Itachi smile, Fugaku. What if he's unhappy?"
Her husband only gazes at their son's top marks. He doesn't seem to have heard a word of what she has said. "As expected of my son."
‡ ‡ ‡
(They say the sea is a wily siren that draws ships and sailors and maidens atop cliffs to their deaths.
Mikoto happens upon the small seaside town completely by accident while in search of a place to stay. After a mission full of disarrayed slaughter, all she yearns for is a warm bed to sleep in. This quaint town is salty sea breezes, sails snapping in the wind, satin blue sky and offers it all with open arms. She gets herself a hotel room that looks out onto the harbor and sleeps through the day like the dead. The stars have long since revealed themselves by the time she finally stirs from slumber. Conking out in her shinobi gear had been a bad idea. She awakens feeling soiled by the dried blood staining her clothes.
Rolling groggily out of bed, she stumbled to the window. In the moonshine glow, the seawater is reminiscent of melted silver. Mikoto wants to go for a swim in the nude. Though the thought is tempting, she forces herself to disregard the idea. Still the desire perseveres in calling her. The sea—she is a temptress of the watery grave. And she cannot be ignored easily. Mikoto finds herself sneaking down to the water's edge in the dead of night against all reason.
Appalled and enthralled in the same breath, Mikoto discards all her clothes and dives right in. It is a world of silver and blue enchantment in the sea. She breaks the surface with her heart pounding refreshingly and delighted laughter on her lips.
"Now, what might such a beautiful maiden be doing out here so late at night?" a voice behind her wonders aloud. Cool fingers ghost through her hair. Oddly, she is reminded of entrapping vines. Mikoto rips herself away from the stranger's touch. Apparently she is not the only one who was ensnared by the gleam of the water. The man is tall, handsome, a mysterious smile perpetually on his lips. Brilliant, storm gray eyes seem to see straight through to her heart. Mikoto is frozen in place, chest heaving, dark eyes locked with gray. There is a whole ocean in his eyes. Her heart is intrigued.
"Are you married?" he inquires, his smile as charming as his amusement with the situation.
"No," Mikoto lies. She has a husband. She has a child. She has a heart, and it is not a toy, so why does she treat it so?
Relief floods her when he smiles; he believes her. "Good." He holds out his hand. Mikoto does not hesitate. She places her hand in his and pink heats her cheeks when a kiss is planted on the back of her hand. Charismatic sailors should not be able to overpower her senses this way, not when she's married and has a kid. And, oh my, he tastes of the sea.
The night is still young.)
Whenever Mikoto looks upon the sea, she remembers a nameless sailor she was in love with for a night and the stains of betrayal.
‡ ‡ ‡
The house is still.
Only Mikoto has left the land of slumber, bustling quietly about the kitchen. Even the cat, who believes in the saying of the early bird, is not awake to enjoy the first rays of the sun seeping in through the open curtains. All she has for company is the clock, which ticks and tolls and asks if she's lonely.
Mikoto decides to use her favorite tea set today—the anniversary present that Fugaku gave her the first year they were married, a warm reminder of old memories. Though there is no special occasion, it begs to be used, the pretty, blue patterned porcelain gleaming in the morning light. Once the tea is resting inside the belly of the teapot, Mikoto places it in the center of the table, along with the three required cups. Soon she will have to use four though, she thinks, placing a hand on her swelled stomach.
A thin curl of steam rises from the hot liquid she pours in her cup. She is careful not to spill a drop. 'Even the slightest sloshing is unseemly,' she recalls her mother repeating to her over and over. Without this teaching, Mikoto knows her hand could never be this steady when pouring tea, as was the case in her youth. She remembers a humiliating tea ceremony when her unsteady hands got hot tea all over her uncle and the embarrassed face of her mother and the tears she didn't cry because she was too old to.
The clock announces the hour merrily with its soft chiming. Fugaku enters the kitchen, sits down at the table, awaits his cup of tea (all without a 'good morning' for his wife). She pours him a cup, pushes it in his direction, waits. But he doesn't say a word. Mikoto is relieved yet disappointed. This is no petty argument. The angry tension remains thick between the two of them.
The silence stretches to include the kitchen now. Mikoto feels uneasy being alone in his presence. It becomes harder for her to speak when Itachi joins them. For Fugaku it is easy, he brings up various shinobi topics. When their conversation deepens, it is almost like she isn't there. Even when it would be so simple to add her opinion into these shinobi matters—she is a kunoichi after all—Mikoto can only pour tea for her son. Itachi does not notice the tea set is different today either, that it's porcelain his fingers are touching. Even her soft sigh goes unheard. She asks the one growing in her stomach if he will be like that too. Of course there is no answer.
Finally, breakfast ends. Itachi leaves for the Academy, the bento his mother made for him in hand. It is just husband and wife again. Still they do not speak, though Mikoto catches her lips parting once in awhile to form words—a sign of her reluctance towards this wordless quiet. Soon Fugaku goes to work without bidding his wife goodbye. He leaves a single flower in his place.
Then it is just her and the hyacinth her husband left on the table. Mikoto smiles as she buries her nose in the flower.
‡ ‡ ‡
During an especially rain-drenched summer, Mikoto gives birth to their second son. He is nothing like his big brother. Always crying, keeping everyone up until the wee hours of morning, blubbering baby nonsense. Every night she sings him a lullaby to whisk him off to the land of slumber.
He is a normal little boy. And that is what seems to disappoint Fugaku the most. Mikoto wishes he had the tact to stop the conveyance of this disappointment around their son. He doesn't, and Sasuke takes it to heart. She watches as her baby tries so hard, as he trips and falls while chasing after his brother, as he sits in the tree furthest from her bedroom window to cry.
Sometimes, to make up for it all, Mikoto spoils him a little. She puts special treats in his bento, humors him and the quirks—like arranging food in an organized order before eating—that he has, buys him trinkets and new gear that he doesn't always need. She can tell that Sasuke loves her. Her youngest son never forgets Mother's Day.
It is Itachi that troubles her so. Besides the growing rift between father and son, the boy just does not smile. And the rare few times he does, his smile is always for Sasuke. Mikoto sighs and ruffles her little boy's hair as he runs past her (the plans for the coup are wearing her down). Even as Sasuke runs through the fluttering sheets drying on the line, she doesn't have the heart to scold him.
There is a bouquet of roses waiting for her in the kitchen when she returns inside to make lunch. Mikoto holds them to her heart. She has a good husband who loves her, and she is grateful for that. (All she wants to know is if her eldest son loves her.)
‡ ‡ ‡
Mikoto doesn't wish to die. She has so much left to do, so much left to see, so much air left to breathe. She never realized how much she had left to live for. Death personified as your son can do that to a person. How ironic that they should die at the hands of the son they brought into the world.
It's Fugaku who is cut down first. Mikoto feels her heart shatter as her husband defends her with the last of his life. The katana blade flashes, and she collapses beside her husband in a growing puddle of their blood. "D-don't hurt…my baby…" she choke outs, gasping for air that will soon be denied to her, crimson dribbling from the corner of her mouth. Red eyes flicker. But her son only gazes at her emotionlessly. Yet, she feels at peace. (She knows that Itachi is a good boy at heart.)
The last words Mikoto hears before the world fades to black are from her husband. "Sorry…Mikoto…looks like…I…can't keep my…promise…this time…"