So I dub thee unforgiven
Unforgiven
The “toast” between Shizuru and Reito lasted only a moment, but a silence which seemed to emanate directly from it lasted much longer. Uncertain and yet strangely peaceful, the silence danced coyly between awkward and comfortable with the fluid grace of an acrobat; at least, this was how Shizuru observed it. She thought that perhaps Reito might agree with her, but at the same time, she couldn’t be certain that Reito was paying any attention to the silence that had appeared so suddenly. Perhaps he was, in fact, simply studying the floorboards as he sat comfortably on his calves with his head bowed.
Or maybe he has other places—other people—on his mind. He can hardly be blamed for that. But Shizuru knew that wasn’t right either; even when he was knee-deep in an endeavor, Reito was always adept at focusing on whatever was directly in front of him, to the exclusion of all else if necessary. It was the mark of a man possessed of extraordinary discretion.
In actuality, the silence between them, Shizuru realized, was nothing more than Reito waiting for her to speak. Anything he said at this point would be utterly pointless until he had something to speak to her about; so he waited. Discretion.
So Shizuru pondered what precisely she wanted to say. She had been the one to direct them inside the cabin like this, but now she wasn’t entirely sure what she had done it for.
To talk to Reito.
To talk to him about what? About me? About Natsuki?
Why would I invite Reito in here to talk to him about myself? It seems to me like Reito would sooner talk about himself than me, and he has never talked about himself to me. Or, really, to anyone.
A little niggle in the back of Shizuru’s head, cold and impassive, said, And who does that remind you of? The voice was gentle and soft-spoken, much like Shizuru herself, but it possessed a slightly more graceful, groomed quality to it than Shizuru’s. Isn’t this the same thing that happens every time you try to talk? You float around each other like matching ballet dancers with matching butcher’s knives.
Shizuru, however, didn’t need her mother’s voice to tell her that she and Reito would not be a well-matched pair of lovers. Not now, not from the woman who, less than three weeks ago, had said to her face precisely the opposite.
Perhaps it was the appearance of her mother’s voice that spurred her mouth into action. Maybe it was that little rebellious tick in the very back of her head, the one that is possessed by every child to some degree or another. The one that Shizuru’s mother, and then Shizuru herself, had squashed mercilessly at every corner, as should be done with every child of good breeding.
good breeding.
fuck you and your
“How much do you remember from the HiME carnival?” Shizuru said, and then placed that little tick in her head back inside its box.
Reito had been prepared for any number of conversational topics from Shizuru; from the weather, to what sort of tea he preferred, to his feelings on her potentially devastating, possibly one-sided, absolutely forbidden romance with Natsuki Kuga. What he had not been prepared for was a question about himself.
Specifically, not about
him
that. That thing that had been
yourself
in his head.
So if it was possible to take Reito off-guard, Shizuru had done it with her question.
And now you have to answer, which means you have to decide what exactly the answer is. Easier said than done.
So Reito spoke slowly, for fear of tripping up and saying something (about how conscious you actually were)that he didn’t want to say. “I remember some things. More from earlier in the year, before …before whatever happened started to really happen.” It was a nice euphemism for before everybody started killing each other,really. “I saw outside of myself more than I saw inside of myself most of the time.”
The edge of Shizuru’s lip curled in to a frown, but she said nothing.
You saw outside of yourself because that …thing didn’t keep you locked up inside of yourself. He kept you in a box in his pocket. But he kept the key to the box, too. “I caught snippets here and there of the things that were happening to you. I knew who died, and when they died.” And you knew how they died, and how many of their deaths you ordered.
This was obviously trying for Reito, Shizuru thought. It’s also not fair. Get on with your point.
“Do you remember how I died?” It feels strange to say that.
Of course it would.
“I do.”
“How much of it?”
Enough to remember watching you vanishing in Natsuki’s arms, and enough to remember screaming for the first time inside that cage.
Rather than saying all of this, Reito forced a smile onto his face, pulling his mood forcefully out of the valley it was threatening to slip into. “Enough to know that it’s a bit too unpleasant for a conversation over tea, don’t you think?” Completely out of habit, he reached down in front of him for his teacup, craving a sip of something to relax him. And lacking anything stronger.
There was, of course, nothing in front of him, so his hand grasped nothing but air; confused, his hand attempted to grasp the teacup again, unable to pick up on that there was no teacup there; they were not having conversation over tea, and there was no subject too unpleasant for them to speak on. There were only the subjects too painful to think about; the kind that made Reito want to shake his head in frustration every time he did. Shake it and shake it and shake it until his head was clear and
the cage
his thoughts went away or his neck snapped and he didn’t have to worry about a goddamn thing anymore.
Shizuru frowned at Reito, who shook his head for a moment, sharp and violent, seemingly without warning; it wasn’t an atypical action for a normal person. A normal person might be thinking of something unpleasant or especially nagging, and a little burst of wind about the ears might help jolt them to their right minds.
Reito was different, though. Of all of the people Shizuru had met, all of the little insignificant people that she had smiled at, shaken hands with, greeted formally; all of the people that her mother had told her about, introduced her to, and even—sometimes less subtly than others—forced her to court; of all of these people, Reito was the most controlled. The most self-contained, self-sufficient, self-reliant. The only one who never, ever slipped. Even Shizuru could slip
and fall on someone else’s head
now and again. Once in recent memory. Perhaps twice more if she dug back deep enough.
Not Reito.
Not ever.
And yet here he was, doing just that. Slipping. What did that mean? Had something disturbed him, hurt him, fazed him that badly? What could possibly—
“I believe we were talking about you, in any case.” Reito’s voice did what it so often did, and interrupted her thoughts just before they went off of the deep end.
“Were we?” Shizuru said less coldly than she had, perhaps, intended. “I was under the impression that we were here for tea.”
“I believe that the tea must be postponed for the time being,” Reito said. “While I would never, by my own devices, miss out on a chance to sample your delicious tea, I would prefer that we not use the place in which we plan to sleep as tinder with which to prepare it.” His voice was formal, teasing; it was as it usually was. He had regained himself, something which Shizuru had yet to do.
Shizuru nodded pleasantly at him, allowing herself to regress into formality alongside of his own. As she did this, she realized for the first time in a very long time, by the pangs in her stomach and the niggling at the back of her head, that this bothered her; that she wanted to talk to Reito and that by doing this, by dropping back into the old routines, she was cutting off that chance. The wonderful and terrible thing about formality and politeness is that you could use it to speak volumes to a single person, a crowded auditorium, or any group in between, and not actually say a single thing to them. And not one of them might notice.
So, for the first time in a long time, Shizuru spoke to Reito directly. “No. I don’t want to go back to that. I would like to talk to you; I’m sorry for acting stubborn.”
Still, no reaction from Reito, but Shizuru could tell she had fazed him anyway. Maybe it was the lack of an immediate, clever riposte; maybe it was the eye contact he made. It was something; she had surprised and disarmed him, and it felt
damn good
different.
Slowly, Reito smiled. “All right, then. What would you like to talk about?” The infernal question; that one, impossible, irrefutable question. What would you like to talk about?
Well, if I knew that, I’d have begun talking about it already, wouldn’t I have?
But it’s still a perfectly valid question.
“Natsuki.” It came out as she considered this infernal question, apparently not so diabolical after all.
“What about her?” Reito asked his question as all great speakers asked their questions: Fully aware of the answer, yet possessed of an attitude that suggested precisely the opposite. Sometimes that was what confused people really needed; not deep, sentimental questions, but somebody who would simply ask them about what they thought they already knew. This was something Reito understood better than most. “What about Natsuki do you need to talk about?”
That I’m in…
“Is it that you’re in love with her? Is that it, or is there more to it than that?”
Of course there’s more to it than that. How could you even think…
“There is,” Shizuru said calmly, not understanding where Reito was going and not entirely willing to go along with him.
“Is there?” Reito asked. “Is there anything more that you could add to that statement that wouldn’t fall into the realm of romantic hyperbolae?” Reito allowed Shizuru about three seconds to answer, and then continued, “should there be anything more you can add to that? Should you really have to say anything more than, I love you, Natsuki?”
Another moment, and Reito smiled at her with that irritating, infuriating, amazing little knowing smile of his. “Doesn’t anything more than that tread a little close to obsession, Shizuru?”
Obsession is a dangerous thing, Shizuru.
Shizuru finally remembered who had said that to her: It had been Reito. How could she have not remembered that?
Because I wanted to forget it. Because I had wanted to ignore that person. I had wanted to ignore Reito, and he let me, because he knew it wouldn’t do any good to press the issue, not back then.
Will it now?
“Of course,” she said calmly, her hand desperately demanding a teacup to clutch, her lips craving a taste of the hot drink to calm them. To allow her some degree of
escape
certainty. “You’re right. Of course you are.”
Reito nodded at her, his sharp eyes watching her as carefully as a psychologist’s. Or a police interrogator’s. The trouble was, he didn’t know where to go from here. She had said it, and that alone would have earned him his day’s wages had he been a psychologist or an interrogator, but he was neither, and he was getting no wages out of this. She had said it, and maybe she had even believed it, but that meant nothing if it didn’t help her, and hammering the point home would get him nowhere.
What he had to do now was wait for Shizuru.
He didn’t have to wait long. “I’m sorry,” she said in the only tone of voice she was capable of apologizing sincerely in: A quiet one. “You’ve told me this once before, and I ignored you. I’m sorry.”
This surprised Reito, but not nearly as much as the rest of the day would surprise him.
He stood and grinned down at her, offering her his hand. “Apology accepted,” he said cheerfully.
Shizuru looked up at him for a moment, not entirely sure how to feel about this, and then took the hand and allowed him to help her up. A gentleman’s move, with a gentleman’s touch; he did not jerk her into himself, nor did he simply use his hand as a rope, but rather, he pulled as much as she did, allowing her to stand up gracefully, and with a minimum amount of effort.
“Thank you,” she said quietly—again, the only way she knew how to be this sincere with a man. Perhaps it was simply the only way to be sincere with a man like Reito. I’ll probably never know for sure.
He exited before her, primarily because he actually had someplace he wanted to be, but also because he knew she wanted a bit of time to think.
She would find out later that day just how close to the truth this thought of hers was. One of the effects of this would be that she would forevermore hesitate to use the word never.
This was probably wise.
Ah, the age of the liberated gentlemen, gently pushed into being by the liberated women of the day.
“I couldn’t get a word out of Natsuki, so I figured I’d try Shizuru instead,” Midori said. “Neither of them have said more than a couple words since we got back from Goza, to each other or anybody else.”
“And you were, naturally, worried about them, were you?” Reito didn’t believe it for more than a couple instants, but he did give Midori credit for those instants.
“I was.” Her voice was genuine, as were her eyes. Perhaps Midori deserves more credit than I give her.
Or perhaps, something Reito had yet to consider, he simply gave himself too much credit.
“She’s inside,” Reito said, acknowledging Midori’s victory by not saying anything about it whatsoever. “Though I believe she needs privacy right now more than she needs a teacher.”
“It’s nice that you believe that,” Midori snapped without meaning to. “But you’re not her teacher.”
“Neither are you.” Reito hadn’t been defensive in a long time, but he was now, and he had no real idea why. “She goes to a university now, which makes you her upperclassman.”
“Which affords me about twice the teaching privilege that it affords you.”
Why are you so angry?
Reito, taken aback by Midori’s harshness, had to remain silent for several seconds to avoid shooting an insult back at her, something he hadn’t had to do for a long time.
Nobody has questioned you like this in a long time, either. The two had more to do with each other than he understood.
“Very well,” Reito said quietly. “She awaits your infinite wisdom.” He gave a mock-bow and retreated towards the ocean. As he did and Midori vanished from view, he found his heart pumping and his mind reeling from the sudden, unexpected, undesired conflict.
Midori was reeling as much as Reito was; she herself didn’t entirely understand why she had been so suddenly hostile when a simple smile and a few gilded words would have sufficed to stroke the bastard’s ego enough to make him fucking move for me.
While she considered this, another bastard was having his own ego stroked.
This latter bastard would cause considerably more trouble than Reito, who would undoubtedly come around in time.
To be something they would never admit to—a mistake. They had made many mistakes, but he had made none. Not yet, anyway; he wasn’t stupid enough to discount the possibility, nor was he stupid enough to cover for it in the event that he had made one.
If I have made a mistake, it can be explained to the press. If my men make a mistake…then I am in trouble.
That was, of course, why he had needed so much money. The more you paid a man, the fewer mistakes he was likely to make.
And the more likely he was to cut and run, like that bastard…what had his name been? Alder? Something like that.
No matter. The problem would be resolved shortly.
Very shortly.
“You may commence,” he said into his small comlink.
Now it was only a waiting game. Operations rarely began with a rush, but his operations also rarely ended in defeat.
Wild animals were the least of his worries. He kept his hand close to his gun, wishing desperately for his backpack and his sniper rifle; those would have made him, at least, feel better.
“You seem nervous,” Shiho remarked from behind him. “There aren’t really that many animals in the forest here, and they’re as afraid of us as we are of them.”
The way she said it was at least mildly infuriating to Minoru, but he suppressed his urge to snap back. She’s thirteen, Minoru. Fourteen, tops. You know how they are.
Or at least, he thought he did.
“Yeah,” he nodded, not easing his hand away from his weapon for an instant. “You’re right, of course. I’m just edgy is all. It comes with the territory.” He regretted saying this in his subsequent breath; he was, in fact, used to saying it to women, but the women were typically older and a lot more naked than Shiho.
“What territory is that?” she asked, her voice not so much curious as wry. “Are you a hunter or something? I thought that was illegal.” Wry or knowing. Neither made him particularly comfortable.
“Mmm...,” Minoru said cleverly as his mind reeled, reaching out in every direction at once for something to say to quell Shiho’s curiosity. Something that didn’t involve the numerous illegal activities that he actually did participate in. Oh, I’m a hunter of sorts. I just hunt the gag most dangerous prey of all gag.
And what would that be, Minoru?
Oh. Um. Whales. You know, Ahab got his ass pretty well handed to him by one of those. You gotta watch your back around them whales, you do.
Yeah. Right. With a great, powerful effort, he forced calm on himself, and began to relax.
Then something dropped next to him, and he drew on it and nearly put three bullets into his old backpack which held his old sniper rifle. It had a small note taped to it; he holstered his gun as Shiho stared at him in awestruck silence, and grabbed the backpack, ripping the small note off and reading it to himself.
You’ll need it soon. Keep her with you. It’s the safest place for now. –Akira
Oh, shit.
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