Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Opening Her Arms ❯ The peony was as big as this ( Chapter 1 )

opening her arms

Sometimes Mikoto reminisced, triggered by the smallest things. She knelt on the floor of the dojo, lapsed.

---

Fugaku was always serious, and it made her lightheaded to have the intensity of his focus directed wholly at her. Of all the girls who had wanted him, only she knew the touches that could calm him and the smiles that would draw his out. When he ran a thumb high across her cheekbone, she knew she loved him.

He promised her that they would build a family together, a strong one, and they would be happy, and she looked at him in wonder and said she already was.

---

Even when very young, Itachi behaved as though he was older than his mother. He was solemn and clever and so self-possessed it unnerved her sometimes. He smiled indulgently when she would play, and when she taught, he would look at her as though he knew all that she didn't.

He excelled without trying and developed without practice, and Fugaku began to believe he'd always known Itachi would become more than they could have expected. He spoke of great Uchiha blood and the speed of his progress, and she wished Itachi had ever been a child.

---

When Sasuke was three years old and his head was untroubled by shuriken and not good enough, he helped her tend the garden. In his child's mind, helping was really trampling the budding plants and plucking everything but the weeds, but she was glad to see him laughing.

She watched her youngest son stumble on the path and catch himself gracelessly on the heels of his hands, and wondered if maybe Sasuke wouldn't be a shinobi after all. She never acknowledged how hopeful the thought made her.

Itachi and Fugaku were training, and Fugaku would come home proud and silent, Itachi quietly smiling. Itachi would scale trees without his hands to the awe of his little brother and Fugaku would kiss her forehead and tell her how blessed they were as she made dinner.

She remembered that Sasuke picked a peony for her and crushed its petals. Dirt was embedded under his nails and deep in the cracks in his skin when she took his hand in hers, the flower held tightly between their palms.

---

Itachi was telling a story to Sasuke, who watched him raptly and forgot about the apple he came into the kitchen to get.

Mikoto washed dishes and listened to the smooth rhythm of Itachi's words and the silence of Sasuke's attention. Whatever his one-sided rivalry with Itachi, Sasuke loved his brother, though someday he would learn a gentler, less selfish way to express it.

Without breaking the flow of his story, Itachi picked up Sasuke's apple and peeled it. Mikoto watched as he handed the slices to Sasuke, ignored the absent movements his fingers made over the blade of the knife like caresses.

---

When Sasuke was six and learning all the ways he could be a failure, he fell asleep on Mikoto's lap. It was unintentional on his part, as he was beginning to equate physical affection to weakness, but that evening he trained to the point of exhaustion. Since his father and brother were elsewhere, Sasuke let Mikoto apply salve to his raw skin.

Mikoto wished again Itachi wasn't so special as she watched Sasuke gradually lean into her, his strength finally falling away. She hummed, pleased to support him, and he unfolded against her in sleep. His eyelashes were dark against his skin, his fingers curled tightly in her dress.

She tucked him against her chest and rested her cheek on his head and murmured into his hair, "As expected of my son."

---

Shisui's funeral was held in the morning, his body interred as the sun rose. Mikoto loved the boy, would grieve him, but the tightness in her chest was for her children, not another's. Beside her, Itachi was as composed as ever, his eyes fixed on the horizon. Sasuke stood before her, head turned toward Itachi.

Mikoto never felt so unable to reach them as she did now. Sasuke wanted to learn, but listened and rarely understood. Itachi seemed to know everything already, and whatever he understood was beyond Mikoto's conception.

Her hand clenched briefly on Sasuke's shoulder as she thought about her sons. Sasuke, who fumbled desperately toward any light he could see. Itachi, who burned brightly but gave off no warmth. She touched her eyes and couldn't remember why she was crying.

---

Fugaku was always strong in the daytime and fragile at night, when it was just them and the dark. He believed he was the protector, but she knew differently when she cradled him with her body, her arms and thighs holding him safe.

His eyes would go blank as he spoke of Sasuke; now, always Sasuke, and she knew from his expression that he was thinking of Itachi. She couldn't say anything to comfort him, but she could still him with gentle fingers until he unfurrowed and rested his forehead in the hollow of her shoulder.

He promised that they would be happy again, and she stared at the ceiling and wondered when they had started to need the again.

---

Mikoto knelt on the floor of the dojo, her husband beside her, her son behind. She remembered Sasuke tripping over a stone, Fugaku touching her fingers, Itachi watching a sunrise. Itachi's knee brushed her back as time collapsed on itself, end meeting end before her. Her hands were folded, her head bowed in reverence. She looked at dark stains under her nails and reminisced.

She lapsed, dreamed of peonies.

end

 

kore hodo to / botan no shikata / suru ko kana
-issa kobayashi

"the peony was as big as this,"
says the little girl,
opening her arms
-translated by Reginald Horace Blyth