#詩 Akai Ito; xmedicus

[dokuhebi]

For all the time apart, Kabuto had never forgotten the significance of the twenty-seventh day of October. A quiet “Happy Birthday, Orochimaru” leaving his lips upon awakening, a handwritten card hidden away - he couldn’t send it, not unless he wanted either of them to get arrested, but he could still make it, that would never be taken away from him. It was different now, however. Kabuto was back in Orochimaru’s life, he was present to celebrate this time, was able to wish them a heartfelt birthday greeting - And might have had to find some way to bribe Mitsuki and Rogu, so he would keep the Sannin suitably distracted for the time-being, so Kabuto could make up for lost time.

The first part is easily done, once he’s able to smuggle his crafted birthday wishes into their abode (and that was the hard part, and required him to cash a favor in with Karin) - he simply placed a basket on Orochimaru’s bed, every heartfelt card he’d ever written them in one place, dated and signed, to peruse at their leisure.  The actual present is carefully stored (for he doesn’t doubt that Orochimaru knows something’s up, they aren’t foolish by a long shot, and he’s honestly half-expecting to turn around to sneak out and be faced with them leaning in the doorway, watching). 

An expensive bottle of sake - only the best for his beloved Sannin - accompanied by two new set from which to serve it.

The first:

A tokkuri that was a deep black, adorned by a hand-painted white serpent, its eyes as piercing as if it were alive; the ochoko marked in a scale-like pattern; even black wooden masu, adorned with the symbol for eternity. 

The second:

A tokkuri that was a milky white, adorned by a hand-painted branch from a cherry blossom tree, petals a soft pink; the ochoko marked with those same petals; even white wooden masu, adorned with the symbol for love. 

And, of course, this year’s card is neatly placed in plain view. 

“Dear Orochimaru -

I hope this isn’t too much, or conversely, too little. I don’t want to be too forward or overbearing after all the time I spent away from you, nor do I wish you you to feel forced into making a decision. It is enough that you have given me a second chance. At the same time, you deserve a spot in anyone’s thoughts, and as I’ve made plain by now, you’ve been in mine; you deserve all I could give you, for what you’ve given me. 

Happy birthday - perhaps you may wish to celebrate, now that your dream of immortality has come true.

If you would allow me, I would be honored to serve this sake to you. I hope the sets are acceptable - I wanted something that would make you think of you, but also of me, if I could be so bold. 

Warm Regards, and All My Love,

Kabuto Yakushi 

The serpent hadn’t expected their sons to make quite such a big fuss over their birthday - unknowing that half of this fussing was merely to keep them well distracted for Kabuto. It seemed that whenever they tried to slip away from the living area, Rogu or Mitsuki would always have something else in need of doing, in need, very specifically, of their parent to be present and dutifully patient. For their sons, they certainly can be just that. Besides, escape is futile when they are outnumbered by the two boys.  Little do they know that everyone in this hideout was aware of what was being done behind their back, one of the most innocent schemes to have ever graced the Otogakure halls perhaps.  Even so, they begin to get a little tired of the run around Rogu and Mitsuki have them doing. It may be their birthday, but the serpent didn’t take holidays from their work. Partly because their experiments didn’t care of celebrations, and would be subject to failure if not tended to at the right times, and partly because their work was half of their life, and they would be doing little else but those assignments if given the choice between that and a holiday. Eventually, they are given an opportunity to escape, Mitsuki and Rogu finally letting up - at the same time no less, an overlooked coincidence on the Sannin’s part. By the time they enter their room, golden eyes are quick to move across to the basket on the bed, letters all neatly folded and arranged within the center like flowers may be. More confessional than the hidden meanings of flora however, more honest, more open. They find themself seated at the edge of their own bed, slender fingers coiling around the first letter, folding it open carefully to see the date upon it. A message from the past. A message from the man they bid a cold farewell to before they were ready to do so.  It is only after this that they let their eyes wander across to the arrangement of sake and hand painted tokkuri, not images that are lost on the serpent. The serpent perhaps the more obvious symbolism, the cherry blossom tree only vividly standing out after having been offered a glimpse in to Kabuto’s dream. A perfect world. 

They reach out for the birthday card, yet find themself unable to let go of the confession from the past still held in their hand. Golden eyes now scanning the words he has written in memory of this day. Over a century since they had spent the twenty-seventh day of October together. A strange concept, if one knew how glued to the hip they both were in the old days. If one knew just what close friends the two had been - and perhaps may still be.  Those precious assignments of theirs suddenly lose their status of priority. With sake to keep them company, the twin flasks to offer them fonder remembrances, and endless confessions from a time they would have killed to read even a word on one of these pages, they will be kept busy all day. For perusing at their own leisure was for those who could control a more obsessive side - certainly not the serpent.  If being remembered was what the man wanted, being thought of, well, they could certainly promise him that. // @xmedicus​

[dokuhebi]

Kabuto @xmedicus​ / cont. He hasn’t phrased his words as a goodbye, not an endless one at the least, yet the serpent can hear nothing but that from his lips. When he gets up from his spot to cross the short distance to the door, a retreat they may be watching for the last time, before they successfully chase him from their life for good. As if they are some affection starved dog, relentlessly lunging with snarling jaws at anyone who reaches out, then dismayed when loneliness greets them in the wake of their actions. An action they used to think was a voluntary response to ward off potential risks and threats, a response they deluded themself in to believing was what they genuinely wanted. But it wasn’t, and whether this is some sickness they were born with since young, a devil child since opening their chatoyant eyes, or whether this is a behaviour ingrained in to them due to a life full of sufferings both wrought by themself and the world, they can not tell. Only that they had thought themself above this in their days of ascending to an immortal, but find themself falling quickly back in to that former habit now that Kabuto has returned. As if he has brought with him the serpents past self.  It’s why they call out to him. It’s why they dismiss the thought that they wanted space. Even if their actions had pointed to that very concept. Even if they had been nothing but ratty, quiet and uncooperative since wrestling with their own feelings. Moving beyond playful banter and entering territory of spiteful speech. And now they are faced with something worse, as midnight eyes meet their serpentine pair, begging for an open door in to their mind, their heart. Giving them the permission to speak with a dagger like tongue, to strike out if that is the only way their emotions would ever unveil themselves.  “I don’t know what I want from. I only know that I don’t want you to leave.” The words find themselves clumsily, almost cluelessly, as if they are hearing it for the first time along with Kabuto. As if their lips spill secrets they are yet to confess in their own mind, as golden eyes, a little shaky looking, try and map out his reaction before he has a chance to actually respond.  “I don’t know how to want something from someone I have just been told I never actually knew. Someone who ran off, for a good reason or not, due to that very cause. I spent years thinking I was the only person who understood you, in the same manner you understood me. I knew you haunting the halls with your mothers song. I knew you taking a drink out of my hand when you decided I’d had enough. I knew you working too hard until I had to make sleep an order, I knew you cloaked under the streetlights to help me stay hidden, I knew you pacing the halls when you had too much on your mind, I knew you trying to figure yourself out as I did the world, I knew you with devils and angels somehow reflecting in a single gaze. If all of that- if all of what we did, was just some show you put on to please me, if it was coerced, manipulated, false... then what if I simply love a man who doesn’t actually exist?” Love was not the word they had wanted to fall from their lips, unsteadiness was not the sound they wanted to shakily roll off their tongue, knuckles a few shades paler from the sheets gripped tightly in the ball of their slender hands. Claw like nails already tearing in to the soft fabric, perhaps even creating crimson indents in their palm. “You must have guessed I would be curious of your new life at least once. I saw how happy you were, I saw what peace a life a part gave you. And for the longest time, I hated your brother for giving that to you, I hoped he hated me back in some juvenile desire his disdain for me may indicate some semblance of worry I might be the only one able to lure you away again. Until finally, I let you go completely. I stopped chasing your shadow in the streets, I stopped bending my parole to catch a glimpse of what you chose over what we had, I stopped thinking of you all together, banished your name from my halls, scratched your name off of any project recovered from my old hideouts. Even if some part of me, despite all the rejection I felt in the wake of your decision, knew you would come running the moment I timed myself and my words properly. Knew that I was one clever sentence, plea or promise away from getting what I felt deprived of.”

They were never oblivious to their manipulative side, it was the only means they had ever known to social interactions. Why risk it all? Why risk their heart, why risk humiliation, why risk the smallest fraction of pride, when they could set themself up for success with a bit of persuasive speech. By setting themself up for success. “You were someone I saw as my equal, yet you claim to have been nothing but another pawn. You were someone I envisioned in whatever future I may find myself in, yet you were the first to go. I want you to stay, I want you to be the one who helps me up if I fall, I want my sons to trust you as much as I did- I want what I thought I already had all those years ago, and more. Not for the powers you can bring to my army, not for the wounds you can heal, the projects you can better, but merely for the drinks we shared, the conversations only you could keep up with, the company only you could offer. But I can not possibly say that I love someone I not only don’t know anymore, but never did.” Another uneasy breath enters their lungs, golden eyes tainted by something uncertain, by something damp, by something wishing to conceal all of that, “so I suppose to no ones surprise, what I want is selfish. I want you to stay, I want you to keep loving me, to keep supporting me, so that I have the time to see if I can offer you the same.”

[dokuhebi]

Kabuto  @xmedicus​ / cont.

The serpent had struggled to find sleep, a restless sleeper on an average day, they only find it that much more taxing after the argument. So much had been learnt in those hours of nightfall settling over the hideout. An outburst on their end, an outburst on his, confessions from them both. It felt as if they had said too much, and yet too little. As if they had only managed to get half of their feelings off their chest, despite how much clarity was gained. For the serpent particularly, they view that goodbye as something entirely different now. But despite having a logical view on that moment, the pain doesn’t erase itself. Knowing does not manage to mitigate the feelings of rawness and abandonment that had already weighed them down for over a decade.  No matter how the rational side of them tries to apply Kabuto’s side of the story like some balm.  They only manage to sleep after tiring themself out further with overthinking all that had been said. After combing through their memories for any evidence of times they had done something wrong. It feels like every memory spent with Kabuto is now rewired and seen as incorrect. It now feels as if they had been blind and oblivious to his suffering. Thinking they had given him all that was good in the world, when realizing they really hadn’t encouraged him in the right ways. Only in the ways their deluded mind had deemed right at the time. Between sickness of the physical and emotional kind, they did manage to fall asleep hours later. It isn’t a long slumber however, and they are half on the verge of waking up at the smallest noise. Needless to say, Kabuto’s fussing beside them, and the subsequent scream that followed, startles them awake without pause. Forcing them to sit, to almost reach for the blade kept beneath their pillow. Until they realize his source of torment was the imaginary kind, which could not be killed so easily by a dagger.

They don’t have the opportunity to ask him what was wrong, they barely have the opportunity to move at all before arms have slung themselves around the serpents svelte form. Before his body is pressing their smaller one to his chest, desperate in action as he is desperate in speech. Stuttering and stammering to communicate faster than his tongue can twist words in to coherent sentences.  It strikes the serpent instantly, the onset of new and fresh tears. He had been so happy, so at peace, when they were no longer in his life. He had been content in his life while at the orphanage, it had been simple, it had been without suffering. It hadn’t left him clawing for breath twice within twelve hours. Love could blind someone. He loved them, that they now know. But him loving them, and him being good for them, didn’t mean they were good for him. And how long before he realized love and loyalty may not be enough? He had left the first time for that very reason hadn’t he? Were they naïve to invite him to stay again? Were they selfish? Were they prolonging the inevitable repeat of another crippling goodbye? Was it not easier to call it off now, before it progressed in to something even more destructive and volatile? Or was the serpent simply doing what they did best, running away from what they wanted, from who they loved, from everything that seemed too good to be true? Who was the true coward? It certainly was more often them. A habit of cutting people out of their life rather than admitting to how they feel. For they still haven’t answered him back, they still haven’t bared their heart as he has to them. They still remain flighty in the face of love, ready to burn a bridge when too timid to cross it, yet feigning heartless apathy to conceal that pitiful fear. “If you had stood between Sasuke and I, he would have killed you.” Their voice is quiet, not quite cold, yet lacking any emotion to deem it anything else. Slender fingers falling to his shoulder, to slightly push him away from them. To look him in the eyes, to read the tear stained expression and the pain, the chaos they had ignited there. As if their very existence was little more than a hurricane, and the home of his confidence had been obliterated by their mere presence. They do not remove their hand, they keep some form of contact so it can not be misconstrued as rejection, so he can still lean in to them if that was his choice. “If you had stayed with me, instead of going to find yourself, then that would have killed you too,” they say - ‘then I would have killed you’ - for they are now wondering just how misguided they were to think they did anything else, but wreck havoc for those they loved. For those who loved them. Nawaki wouldn’t be dead if they acted quicker. Jiraiya wouldn’t be buried at sea if they stood by his side. Mitsuki wouldn’t be sick if they had not played god. Kabuto wouldn’t be breaking before them if they left him alone.  “You’re staying here out of guilt... you never felt like this before we met, you never looked quite so unhappy. I know you have promised to stop chasing ghosts, but perhaps you still are. Perhaps the only one you truly can’t turn your eyes away from is the ghost of whatever we used to be... a phantom love is no place for a heart as fragile as yours my dear.”