YonShi log.
Who: Shisui, Yondaime.
What: Yondaime visits Shisui. At that hospital.
When: After Sasuke-Shisui log betch. Kinda. A few weeks actually.
Where: ...hospital. Again. more ppl rp Shisui looks self-centered.
Warnings: angst. Stuff, some dramas, fuji sucks at this, etc.
It is not until he has reached this condition that Shisui speaks with a nurse and request for the hospital to call him, for of the three emergency numbers that exist for Shisui, they all go without fail to those who are his blood. From the bottom, the third is Sasuke, the second is Itachi and the first is his father. (A father who upon the call in Korea had moved as always in lethargic spell, the messages recording out at the beep, he had barely reached down to pull the phone cord from it, upon ordinate green and cream wallpaper, another half dark wood finish scratched in places. Pull completely, the message cut off into static and clicking silence.)
There is anxiety and calm that had always been there (to purge ecstasy, a pistol at her temple, hands and legs bound to a chair, his father had been desperate, had been ignorant all for her, and then he with the pistol in hand, the other skimming over her cheek and Shisui looking on, turning away to grab at Yondaime’s shoulders, from the half open doorway, the stairway of a room with crumbling walls, a building of grey and green metal frame, young, old, old and young, eyes widen, black to grey and that anxiety that- “Please-“) the first time he had begged for something in his life. That could not have ever existed.
A door clicks open and he turns.
Maybe returning to Oshima was a bad thing. Ever since he had crossed paths with Shisui all those months ago he felt as if he was on the edge of some cliff. Ready to fall any moment into the depths below that he could not see, knowing at any point he could turn back to the safety of other countries.
But he had told Shisui he wouldn't run anymore. In the past he had taken promises seriously, and that was something he wasn't about to change now.
So when he receives the call from the hospital he knows the final decision has to be made.
He goes.
His heart pounds against his ribcage (is this how Mikoto felt upon seeing his burned and near lifeless body all those years ago?) and he forces his voice to remain calm as he goes to receptionist after receptionist, being told a number of different things before finally standing in front of the door to room 078. It's not closed all of the way, but there is no sound of the room's television or a radio to tell him if Shisui is awake or not (even though either could be on even as Shisui slept, but something inside of him tells him that Shisui wouldn't want background noise while sleeping). The staff's words echo in his mind, but he knows descriptions don't do the actual sight justice.
He swallows and takes a deep breath before knocking gently on the door. "Shisui, it's me," he announces soft enough for Shisui to hear without anyone else hearing. He knows Shisui will recognize his voice. "May I come in?" There is urgency in his voice, concern, fear, and sadness as well.
There is no more turning back, he's passed the point of no return.
The door opens but a little more, and Shisui sees him, barely reaching out but reaching out all the same.
(And there is something. About the way she holds the old instrument that took Shisui a long while for him to understand that all the rumour about her ability to play the cello are not true at all, they are hope in admiration, it is the younger generation holding onto the arms of the old-) and that is what Shisui feels like doing. He rises up an arm and spreads his bandaged fingers, thinking this along, while his grip catches air; that by doing this he is catching that reach, that call. His voice is not caught, it is not cold or warm, calm, or frantic, there is only (-“You know.” his mother starts, fingers lovingly pressed against the strings, box aside the sweeping swell of her dress as she is on her knees, holding the cello against her as she would-) “Please-“
-like those years ago, before a pendulum swung and took it all away.
“Come in.” (“Watch.”)
His face upturning, looking up just a moment, and this time he is not looking up to look down. (“I heard the most tranquil song played from here.” Pointing fingers, against strings, his father plays the piano, not the cello and Shisui had paused, not as Shisui but- “Geum-ja? Wouldn’t you have rather learned to play the cello than the piano?”)
His hand falling back to his lap, but arm still outreached. And Yondaime comes in and it’s all Shisui must take within him not to look away. (Because he can never look away.)
The room is a good size for a private room in a Japanese hospital (he's been in enough of them to know) and he steps in, making sure the door is fully shut behind him before walking to the bed Shisui's sitting in. He doesn't look away from the boy's face at all once he's in the room. The sharply cut hair (its
cropped length tugs on Yondaime's heart for reasons he isn't fully aware of, not yet), the bruised and marked skin on Shisui's face and neck. The carefully bandaged arms hiding unknown damage (the doctor had said, but Yondaime cannot see it) and beneath the thin blue-green blanket, beneath the crisp white sheets - more damage set to begin healing.
The doctor had said Shisui's hands had received the worst damage, and as the older man comes alongside the bed he stares at them. Shisui's livelihood has been stolen from him for an unknown period of time. Having had his own life taken away, he feels the pain of Shisui's loss acutely (regardless of Shisui's thoughts on the matter). He feels Shisui's large eyes on him and offers a sad smile as he reaches out and rests his hand on top of the patient's head. What does he say first?
"I'm here," he says. It confuses him, it's out before he can think. "What may I do for you?" Proper, always proper if it's within his power. He pulls his hand away and kneels on the floor beside the bed (dragging the nearest chair over would take too long, make too much noise) and rests his hands beside Shisui's hip (a comfortable distance; nothing more, nothing less).
"I'm so glad you'll heal." It's not the usual phrase someone says, but anything else would be almost cheap in his estimation. I'm sorry you're hurt? Sometimes people wish to be hurt. Get well soon? Best wishes on a speedy recovery? Healing is the most important, however long it takes doesn't matter. He lets out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding and rests his forehead on the cool metal of the guardrail. He twists his head and glances at Shisui. "Why didn't you call me sooner?"
What Shisui had been expecting- (“Because,” and he picks up the bow mother has left to the side of her, not touching it, and there’s something strung out in her gaze as she sees him hold it. “It sounds wrong to me.”) A horrible yearning, the noise, the sound, of a cello. He’d turned on the radio only once within this room, just waiting, just wanting the crescendo of music to begin in his head again but it is gone. Itachi is gone. The smoke is gone. Mother is- (“Here.” On a knee, but he is not the prince remember? Holding out the bow to her, and she is the child he is the- he asks her bluntly, “Will you play? The cello…” and she takes not the bow but his hand.)
He has turned his head to Yondaime’s every movement. His eyes probably, have the same look as mother’s had then. He lets the curtain fall and drive up again before speaking, eyes shutting and opening, fingers bunching to each other as if on the open and that close, he had touched a blooming flower and peeled its soft petals away from it, without remourse. “I was-“
That small moment where Yondaime had placed his hand upon Shisui’s head, it could have been only enough to sate but a minute of his- “-unsure.”
Insecurity, fear, jealous, anger -Shisui is incapable of these things because he knows the answer for them, he knows within the effect the consequence and therefore rules them as obsolete and meaningless, unuseful. But also, also because that is how you protect yourself not from the world but everyone in it. Because the ripples they make, can be interfered with, yet do you, do you really want to? And Shisui resists to touch him.
"There's no need to be," Yondaime tells him quietly. He examines Shisui's appearance, taking in all that isn't right slowly. He's gone over his own reflection more times than he can remember, wondering how certain parts of his body looked before scare tissue covered them. Shisui won't suffer as badly, but he'll have the pain of remembering when his skin was flawless.
Gently, Yondaime reaches his hands forward, though the rail and lifts one of Shisui's hands. He handles the limb as if holding the most delicate treasure there is (but that's different for everyone, for Yondaime it's-). "Who did this to you, Shisui?"
It'll be a long road until Shisui's hands can be anything like they used to be, and even afterwards they'll carry the stigmata his attacker left him. Their graceful deftness in everything might never return fully, damage this bad....
He falls silent as his hands trace over Shisui's, his eyes unseeing, unfocused on anything in the room. He knows only he can hear it, but a tune weaves through his mind, growing stronger and louder. It's a bit melancholic, but there's hope in it as well. It's lovely.
"You'll play the piano again. I promise."
And he hums a bit of the tune before something like an electric shock jolts his system. His eyes focus in on Shisui's hand (he's holding it more tightly now - how did that happen?) and he turns to look Shisui in the eyes.
"And when you do, will you play that song for me, once more?"
He doesn't remember why that tune was special, or when he first heard it, but he remembers Shisui playing it for him. Remembers Shisui, nothing more than a very young boy playing this song just for him.
"Please?"
Shisui had tried.
And Shisui had failed.
This could only be a curse, this could only be the proof of her existence now. (“Omma,”) and with Yondaime’s words Shisui thinks- (“I’ve gone insane.” Just holding his shoulders, the partly open door, it is the rewind and it moves faster than forward ever could hope too. Yondaime looks quizzically on, hands reaching up and holding at Shisui’s arms in return and Shisui does not hold back, does not lessen the plea, the blow, the absolute finality of his words before pulling away and stepping in, seeing the future but not wanting to know what it would hold. “You-“) and words he had told Sasuke (-“can run-“) but not exactly alike because there needed to be some one who would testify all their sins and most of all Shisui wanted it to be-
As if he is jumping at a loud noise (the door creaks open as Shisui steps into the room, his father’s head swirling at his arrival and the man with the pistol, with his tied up mother gives a laugh, loosen not his finger on the trigger in the slightest. “Ah! So you are Geum-ja?” but is had not been said entirely like a question, the rusting anchor, knot the chain to say farewell. And while it was always the misconception that he was not a he she Shisui really is after all a- “And you are-” The trailing existence. Cut off the man continues, “You really do look like your mother. But… I do not think you are my daughter.”) Lazily trailing, the bell did not toll for either of them. Shisui jerks his hand away as if burned.
Face jerking upward, eyes flashing and he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if he still has mother’s eyes. “Out of everything-“ (a smile, a smile. Unconscious, omma cannot see or hear any thing, it is fine. Shisui does not want to hear her words, does not want father to hear any thing else she has never have to say. “Tell me cousin-“ this man talking to his father, “what is Geum-ja to you?” And Shisui steps forward, only to hear- “Geum-ja was my daughter.”) Smoke, from the pistol, the mouth of the lion has not any utterance for those who play ballads or change the rhythm of a waltz. “-why is it you can only ask that of me?”
Countless days, countless evenings Shisui would not ever trade for the world, he has never wanted the world, and the world has never wanted him. It was impasse, it was pointing the gun and looking down the barrel of it all at once, it was (“She was never yours.” The chair is kicked aside, his mother falling with it a sharp clamour against the hard concrete floor and even after this Shisui knows she will still love him this- “You.”) He has never been happier. The piano. His father taught him it only, he taught him kindness, he taught him where weakness would exist. And how did it exist.
A shuddered breath, as Shisui- and every time every time Yondaime returned, it was not even his name that was remembered, only at times that tune, and that was why over and over only for this man, that man Shisui would play it, on the pinnacle as it fell, looking down at the world all the while looking up and the last, the last melody to fall from his fingers before he played another. To be told to come to Oshima, to be told he should not waste his energies in athletics when he could be so much more if he would play yet again, and again. Shisui had only wanted to play the piano for-
(A shot, fired. And his father rushes past Shisui, sickly white, but weren’t they always white? Shisui had told Yondaime “Until it is over, do not move..” No matter what, no matter- not even if the world started to end because Shisui could not bear to ask-) Hold me.
And he is bowing his head.
Still cannot ask, cannot say-
(Tearing at him, a struggle, and the man holds his father in captivation of the pistol, ready to fire again and again, but it does not, taunting. “She doesn’t love you.” And father looking up, unbashed, not quivering, holding, strong, as if this were only a passing obstacle. It is.
“Neither does she to you.”
It sounds like cello music as Shisui takes the flat of the axe and rams it against the man’s head.)
Playing until his fingers are tired. Until he is tired, until he cannot move from the spot and Yondaime had to carry him from the bench. To the morning, to the night, in the day Shisui remembers shadowing Yondaime’s footsteps up those steps to his room, thinking even if they had to walk up stairs for an eternity he would not mind so long that Yondaime’s arm remained in as much reach as his steps- (not enough to kill him, knocked out on the floor his father takes possession of the gun and Shisui slams the axe into the man’s shoulder, pinning him to the ground. The blood seeping between the creases of the spot, but remaining, he wakes and coughs up blood. “This isn’t how you should treat a relative.” And they tell him they know.)
“Only.”
And turning, a music box with more faulty joints than the doll. Glazed and looking on unable to look away as Shisui had- “If you promise me it will be the last time.”
Yondaime nods his head slowly, hands loosening their clasp on Shisui's. "I promise."
He falls into silence once more, combing through the memories linked to that tune Shisui had introduced to him all those years ago. A summer's day with the breeze floating through the open windows as Yondaime turned the pages for Shisui as the very young practiced. His back was still very sore but the boy had demanded he be the page-turner.
An early spring evening - the windows are shut - and Yondaime bends near a fireplace, giving the logs a final poke for the evening. The heat on his hands makes him smile even as he can hear Shisui scowl through the last page of a piece he doesn't like. "Don't end on a sour note," he had teased him, stepping away from the fire. "Play that other one." And Shisui knew exactly which one he meant.
A rainy October afternoon in Prague (he was visiting with friends for a weekend during their final year of graduate school) searching through a music store trying to find the book to a tune that was a distant whisper at the edges of his mind.
There were more, but Shisui's hand moving under his brought him back once more. He sat back and tilted his neck to the side, rubbing his neck. "Is there anything you need me to do for you, in the meanwhile? Anything you want?" He feels himself slipping back into that safe place - the clear white of certainty bordered by grey, away from the spotty black of the unknown where slivers of the forgotten peek through. He's slipping back into business when that's not why Shisui called for him.
"How did this happen?" he asks gently, pulling his chair closer to the bed and shrugging out of his jacket, finally settling in for the visit.
Before the pond has any ripples, before the sea commits to bring forth waves, and before rivers knew that their flow may sometimes cease Shisui stirs so much from Yondaime’s released grasp that its like winter has tried to become spring and mid step, flutter the butterfly is trapped between the world and the cocoon. His hands coming up to his head, his brow and holding as anchored flesh should in its mortal capacity, head tilting back in the slight and the way. He gives a soft laugh, continuing.
Until its end.
Hands sliding down to hold his shaking drooping face, head, fortune. He brings his hands away knowing you can read nothing from them or-
Wondering what would happen if he peeled it all away and momentarily he considers though the image the sight the mind tells him (that Itachi would do it, round, and round should it take a mere five minutes or all of today and tomorrow, white unceasing. He’d throw them out right away because they were dirty even if they did not look dirty.) “…this happened because I was never taught that the world was made up of more people like you.”
(More people who did not carry this tarnished surname who cried, who did not beseech, who took hold and said-)
“It makes me sick.”
Sasuke’s face, angry, regretful, wanting, just longing- an existence like that…
But he says it like he is stating that the colour of the curtains are- (the sound of plucked strings, tuning, tuning again and he is insisting that- Omma shaking her head. Quaking, asking him why. Asking her why. Not ever looking at father and in this it drives not Shisui mad but- “Moon-su.”
Loosened silence for her sake.
“That person before you is Shisui.”
And to Shisui his father is-)
His hands fold, his arms fold, fingers pressing around his shoulders, hugging himself as if he were cold, and he is cold, whether it is a genetic fault, it is a passed fault that did not pause. Unnaturally, strange, the normality of this situation called for different respects.
“But… I don’t mind.”
Temperature, it changes, and his palms do not get cold or clammy, they get hot, he grasps one of Yondaime’s wrists, lips already twisting as if they are being force to say their last words like their first. “I didn’t mind.”
Right now.
Every thing mother had taught him. Every backwards step she told him to make and to create.
No more.
“After I play that song for you once more, will you please kill me?”
(One cannot exist without the other? Not at all, but it is a preference. He has never given much thought to death because he neither feared it nor revered in it. You either moved or were still. Because they said he was grey he touched both black and white. An open mind, a closed mind. He left the door only partially shut. And under the falling snow he called out to Yondaime even though it was Itachi who shadowed his steps. “Stop-“)
His grip neither tightens nor loosens.
For whose sake does he speak now?
(“-I don’t know.” And Shisui turns to look at Itachi who is looking up at the falling snow too.
“Why is it always white?”)
Shisui's words have frozen him and his heart twist in his chest. (Would it still have come to this if he hadn't forgotten about Shisui?) He uses his free hand to remove Shisui's hand from his wrist. He knows his eyes are hard, he knows it at the slight tremble that runs through the younger man's bruised and broken body.
"I won't." Yondaime knits his brows together and leans over the rail. He lifts a hand to Shisui's cheek and shakes his head for emphasis. "I won't kill you. I killed a part of you once, I know that now. I vowed I wouldn't again, and I intend to keep that vow. I've been dead, Shisui," he closes his eyes, the voices of doctors and nurses joking calling him Lazarus as he slowly heals. Opening them he shakes his head once more, his own hair brushing against Shisui's shoulders. "Completely dead."
Mikoto wore black each time she visited him while he was still in the intensive care unit, as if in mourning for the man he used to be. As if preparing to mourn for what he had become if he didn't make it through. He had mourned himself, for himself, for others he knew. It wasn't a pleasant period of time to associate with.
"But," he starts again, licking his lips, "I won't let you go there. Not before me. And I don't plan on dying any time soon." He brushes a few shorn locks off of Shisui's face. "If you need strength to live, take that of the people who care for and about you.
"When I heard you were here I panicked. There's something about you that unsettles me and keeps me on my toes, but in a familiar way. I can't kill you when you're the one person that brings my memories to life." His lips tug up into an attempted smile at his last words. "I honestly believe we crossed paths again for a reason, Shisui. And that reason wasn't for me to rob you of the rest of your life. Hate me, curse me, blame me, whatever you need. Just live."
Shisui’s eyes looks on, widening frame with every word, sight. He can see- (“Because,” And Itachi does not say anything further, Shisui opening his mouth to catch a few flakes, Itachi shifting a foot wisely supposing Shisui wants him to do the same. Childish. The day it falls red and melts in his palms…)
He presses his forehead at Yondaime’s throat shoulders shaking, irreversible, a mistake, an error, remained what it was. Correction was a cover up, a deceit, convincing enough to try to make scars invisible to your eyes, but only to your eyes? What remained more convincing what you see or what you hear?
Shisui is laughing.
Again, not soft, or hushed, ironic, prey. Only a loud bursting sound as if it has been a long time (as it has before in bemused smiles, a silent vibration, and clear serene words. Admiring and allowing motion and graceful upturns to display what he is feeling, a danger rushed underneath, as if at the last moment you will pull, steer away from crashing into a wall and glide atop of shallow water deeper than the abyss.) But the dam breaking, because Shisui has never really laughed like this, all the same as he has never cried, so his laughter is how he must be- (“I don’t want you to cry.” And Shisui can hear words Itachi has never said, and he answers in the same liking.
“I won’t then.”)
Like a flurry of moment, that is how this sound is, drowning out the cello, the piano, the whispered words spoken to him.
Even though in the beginning…
“Omma wanted me to be this. The Uchiha family, this name has caused us such grief, and because of its attachment she was resentful. She thought she could only dispel her uneasiness by passing it on to another. Whether she was able to completely fulfill such a desire, I do not know. Am I half of the evidence? Am I the whole evidence?” Lips could murmur against Yondaime’s throat but do not, and the smile on his face is the aftermath of that laughter, harsh and disturbing birds into flight.
(…he holds out his palms and mouth closing, but lips parted, he looks straight up at the sky, but not really. Because the sky is as vast as the universe. It goes in every direction, so if Shisui turned his head to look at Itachi, In Itachi too, one- Shisui could see- the sky. So he looks at Itachi.
“What a pretty colour.”)
Many times he has said he is not an artist nor does he want to be.
But that couldn’t mean that he didn’t have the ability within pseudo ignorance to not be able to admire it.
And hate it all the same.
“Whatever piece I am I am no longer hers in living capacity. I am her memory but… I am yours too. Most of all I am Itachi’s.”
More than Shisui is Shisui’s.
A chuckle, and that is foreign.
But he frowns.
“I am Itachi’s more than anything.”
And he looks into Yondaime’s gaze, scathingly.
“…tell me. Without me would you die right now?”
Shisui's breath on his neck, his lips so close he can practically feel them send a shiver down his spine. (He hasn't been this close to anyone since-) He trains his eyes to the window over-looking the city and beyond it - the ocean.
"You believe the man I once was, is dead, don't you? Maybe what I am is nothing more than illusion. If you die, who is to say I won't vanish?"
("You might have some difficulties re-assimilating into your group of peers. They'll always remember the way you were, and until you do as well, tension not always concealed can create problems," the doctor looked at him sadly.
Yondaime nodded his head slowly, wondering what his friends were like.
Mikoto swallowed before explaining that his parents, single children, had already passed on and that he was their only child. Since he was incredibly dedicated to his job he had no one special in his life, and more acquaintances than real friends.
He had believed her.)
Now he knew the truth.
He draws away from Shisui and looks him in the eyes, voice somber. "But you'll never know if you try to find out. You'll have been an innocent soul murdered and I'll have been a murderer. In some ways of thinking there's no way we'd ever meet each other in the after life to find out. Ironic, isn't it?"
Static through his fingers, lament it, cherish it, but never destroy it though need be.
(Once there had been a girl who played the cello, and she rewound every tape with him on it. Recital, concert, practice. Over and over, and she was not like the violin girl or the opera voice. She was-
“What… school did he transfer to again?”
“Still talking about him? How should I know? But don’t go ask your father.”
So she had asked no one.
Once in the hall he had passed her, and she thinks that was the last him he walked down the same hall as she, in the school. Bells unrung, long hair swung over his shoulders. The newer teachers already had problems addressing him as either “son” or “daughter” to the parent, the older always been-knowing to not say either. It was not necessary.
“I am neither those things.”
He had told them.
It didn’t seem like it hurt in the slightest bit.)
“We’d meet.”
The smile on his lips again, ironic he had said? “There is no chance that we may not.”
“The same, as without fail I will play for you once more.”
And Itachi, to Itachi Shisui would-
(That same girl rises to applauds, bowing her head thanking everyone for their support. Thanking them over and over, they beg for an encore, they ask, clapping hands vibrant faces, she sings uplifting song that seems to touch the edges of the universe- the infinity one should not conform to in order to make wishes come true.
Because they won’t and can’t.
One more bow before she leaves, curtains to fall, but a man in the front- his voice catches her, “What is your dream?”
She addresses him, calling out for every one so she may voice her inspiration- “Everyone, my dream is to one day sing to the piano of-“ but he plays the most saddest music of them all and her audience turns silent in confusion or disbelief.
At the time some where, the very melody without fail he will play Shisui will later say embittered and nostalgic. Plays that sour note, abrupt hands slamming down on all keys his fingers may reach at once, almost frustrated. The expression only coming out across through the music and not his face of form at all.
And Yondaime tells him-
-she was not the opera singer, or the violin girl. But she sang, she sang the cello.
“Why don’t you play it? His mother had asked, and Shisui tells her that that is not possible.
Because he had heard her.)
Aching autumn, which season was it that feigned such distaste? Sour counterpart, point, attack, and white hands not gloves, don’t describe the feel of skin to any fabric the world held and did not create for it could not compare. “…so could you once more…“
And he cannot say anymore.
"Let’s not test our fate just yet, hmm? He looks at Shisui patiently; hands coming down and folding together once more near the younger man's side. When Shisui doesn't continue after several moments Yondaime tilts his head to the side and quirks a brow. "I've told you I'd do anything possible to help you. You only need to ask."
Shisui holds a hand to his forehead, fingers splayed.
The past, the present- why did they have to, (Itachi counted the numbers differently from how Shisui did. But all that matter that was when they reached the top of the steps, that even while it was different it was still the same- “25.”
Itachi says and Shisui crosses his arm,
“What?” the words coming out as if annoyed and disbelieving, “Cousin, I counted 26.”
And both sigh, shoulders slumping, trudging down the steps so they may go up and count again. You only count up, not down.)
“The same.”
Fingers falling only to move, skimming across Yondaime’s cheek, by the ear, under hair and over the ear as if making one side a faulty deaf he can make the mouth mute. “Striving to rebuild yourself, will you cast away your old self then? Could you cast him aside completely?”
But Shisui doesn’t think he can, because to make something out of nothing was- (Sasori telling him that he is presumptuous about what is impossible, he will not change, and he will-) “I don’t want your help.”
He who helps others helps- “It will not be necessary this time.”
Flickering gaze, the head leaning from one side to the other, shrill note. High note. The bow inching up. Shisui realizes it’s actually a sweet-
“I can’t breath for you any more, but to begin with I don’t think you even wanted me to. I don’t care. If you could forget me again would you?”
Because the possibility remained, there is little doubt.
Shisui's hand is cool against his warmth (fire and water). Yondaime lowers his lids slightly as he looks down at Shisui. He's answered the first question before. But he'll repeat the words until Shisui trusts them. "I came here to find my old self. He's a part of me and I won't be complete as a person until I've remembered everything that I can. I cannot cast him away. Even if I chose not to come here, if I chose to live ignorant of where I come from, the man I was would forever haunt me.
"I've always wanted you to breathe for yourself, to be Shisui. You've never had to be anyone else around me." He speaks the words with a certainty of his past, (see, it's this boy, he's like a charm) as if this was a subject deeply important to one or the both of them. (Is this why Shisui kept asking?)
"No, Shisui. I wouldn't forget you. And if that's what you'd ask of me, it's the one thing I could never, would never do."
(Even if he wanted to, so much had been put into motion by his return that the six degrees of separation were close enough for him to hold all six chains in his fist. There was no escaping Shisui, nor his connection to him.)
Shisui gives a last sigh, and probably, is himself again- if that self could ever be and remain.
He lifts a hand, raising his body to stand on his knees, anxiety? You take it and make it a colour it would and could be blue, he places that hand over Yondaime’s eyes, and the fingertips are cold. “Then I will have to forget you, and I will have to remember you again.”
Because the person Yondaime was- Shisui could no longer hold on to him if this Yondaime of now wanted- and his arms wraps about Yondaime’s shoulders, pressing the head close, the futile bomber holding all the cards and then some.
“Let me hold you.”
(Just a little like you used to hold me. He threw the wish in the fire, the sheets of music pearly white, they are yellow now, but he still remembers their white in his mind, and it is all the music needs.
He needs to remember it yellow.)
“You won’t mind if I take some of your time.”
And there is something is something about the embrace that makes him feel at home. Unsure of the whys and simply acting on the feeling Yondaime lifted his arms to Shisui's shoulders and returned the embrace. Shisui tensed and then relaxed. "No, I won't." They stayed like that for a minute and until Yondaime remembered Shisui's injuries.
"You should lay down now," he warned, stepping back and sitting in the chair after he made sure Shisui was back in bed. He looked at the healing patient and smiled gently. "I guess I never formally introduced myself, huh?" He scratched the back of his head and chuckled. "So I'll start now."
He took a breath and told Shisui everything (with a few discretions) that he remembered about his life from the time he first regained consciousness in a hospital in Sapporo. Shisui interjected with questions or comments occasionally and when visiting hours were over a nurse stopped by to tell Yondaime he could stay since he was on Shisui's list.
The two talked deep into the night, only stopping when Shisui quietly fell asleep while Yondaime was telling him about a trip to South Africa. Watching him sleep, Yondaime knew, though he didn't remember the specifics, that this was not the first time they had talked all night until Shisui had fallen asleep. He quietly rose and left the room after whispering a simple, "good night."
What: Yondaime visits Shisui. At that hospital.
When: After Sasuke-Shisui log betch. Kinda. A few weeks actually.
Where: ...hospital. Again. more ppl rp Shisui looks self-centered.
Warnings: angst. Stuff, some dramas, fuji sucks at this, etc.
It is not until he has reached this condition that Shisui speaks with a nurse and request for the hospital to call him, for of the three emergency numbers that exist for Shisui, they all go without fail to those who are his blood. From the bottom, the third is Sasuke, the second is Itachi and the first is his father. (A father who upon the call in Korea had moved as always in lethargic spell, the messages recording out at the beep, he had barely reached down to pull the phone cord from it, upon ordinate green and cream wallpaper, another half dark wood finish scratched in places. Pull completely, the message cut off into static and clicking silence.)
There is anxiety and calm that had always been there (to purge ecstasy, a pistol at her temple, hands and legs bound to a chair, his father had been desperate, had been ignorant all for her, and then he with the pistol in hand, the other skimming over her cheek and Shisui looking on, turning away to grab at Yondaime’s shoulders, from the half open doorway, the stairway of a room with crumbling walls, a building of grey and green metal frame, young, old, old and young, eyes widen, black to grey and that anxiety that- “Please-“) the first time he had begged for something in his life. That could not have ever existed.
A door clicks open and he turns.
Maybe returning to Oshima was a bad thing. Ever since he had crossed paths with Shisui all those months ago he felt as if he was on the edge of some cliff. Ready to fall any moment into the depths below that he could not see, knowing at any point he could turn back to the safety of other countries.
But he had told Shisui he wouldn't run anymore. In the past he had taken promises seriously, and that was something he wasn't about to change now.
So when he receives the call from the hospital he knows the final decision has to be made.
He goes.
His heart pounds against his ribcage (is this how Mikoto felt upon seeing his burned and near lifeless body all those years ago?) and he forces his voice to remain calm as he goes to receptionist after receptionist, being told a number of different things before finally standing in front of the door to room 078. It's not closed all of the way, but there is no sound of the room's television or a radio to tell him if Shisui is awake or not (even though either could be on even as Shisui slept, but something inside of him tells him that Shisui wouldn't want background noise while sleeping). The staff's words echo in his mind, but he knows descriptions don't do the actual sight justice.
He swallows and takes a deep breath before knocking gently on the door. "Shisui, it's me," he announces soft enough for Shisui to hear without anyone else hearing. He knows Shisui will recognize his voice. "May I come in?" There is urgency in his voice, concern, fear, and sadness as well.
There is no more turning back, he's passed the point of no return.
The door opens but a little more, and Shisui sees him, barely reaching out but reaching out all the same.
(And there is something. About the way she holds the old instrument that took Shisui a long while for him to understand that all the rumour about her ability to play the cello are not true at all, they are hope in admiration, it is the younger generation holding onto the arms of the old-) and that is what Shisui feels like doing. He rises up an arm and spreads his bandaged fingers, thinking this along, while his grip catches air; that by doing this he is catching that reach, that call. His voice is not caught, it is not cold or warm, calm, or frantic, there is only (-“You know.” his mother starts, fingers lovingly pressed against the strings, box aside the sweeping swell of her dress as she is on her knees, holding the cello against her as she would-) “Please-“
-like those years ago, before a pendulum swung and took it all away.
“Come in.” (“Watch.”)
His face upturning, looking up just a moment, and this time he is not looking up to look down. (“I heard the most tranquil song played from here.” Pointing fingers, against strings, his father plays the piano, not the cello and Shisui had paused, not as Shisui but- “Geum-ja? Wouldn’t you have rather learned to play the cello than the piano?”)
His hand falling back to his lap, but arm still outreached. And Yondaime comes in and it’s all Shisui must take within him not to look away. (Because he can never look away.)
The room is a good size for a private room in a Japanese hospital (he's been in enough of them to know) and he steps in, making sure the door is fully shut behind him before walking to the bed Shisui's sitting in. He doesn't look away from the boy's face at all once he's in the room. The sharply cut hair (its
cropped length tugs on Yondaime's heart for reasons he isn't fully aware of, not yet), the bruised and marked skin on Shisui's face and neck. The carefully bandaged arms hiding unknown damage (the doctor had said, but Yondaime cannot see it) and beneath the thin blue-green blanket, beneath the crisp white sheets - more damage set to begin healing.
The doctor had said Shisui's hands had received the worst damage, and as the older man comes alongside the bed he stares at them. Shisui's livelihood has been stolen from him for an unknown period of time. Having had his own life taken away, he feels the pain of Shisui's loss acutely (regardless of Shisui's thoughts on the matter). He feels Shisui's large eyes on him and offers a sad smile as he reaches out and rests his hand on top of the patient's head. What does he say first?
"I'm here," he says. It confuses him, it's out before he can think. "What may I do for you?" Proper, always proper if it's within his power. He pulls his hand away and kneels on the floor beside the bed (dragging the nearest chair over would take too long, make too much noise) and rests his hands beside Shisui's hip (a comfortable distance; nothing more, nothing less).
"I'm so glad you'll heal." It's not the usual phrase someone says, but anything else would be almost cheap in his estimation. I'm sorry you're hurt? Sometimes people wish to be hurt. Get well soon? Best wishes on a speedy recovery? Healing is the most important, however long it takes doesn't matter. He lets out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding and rests his forehead on the cool metal of the guardrail. He twists his head and glances at Shisui. "Why didn't you call me sooner?"
What Shisui had been expecting- (“Because,” and he picks up the bow mother has left to the side of her, not touching it, and there’s something strung out in her gaze as she sees him hold it. “It sounds wrong to me.”) A horrible yearning, the noise, the sound, of a cello. He’d turned on the radio only once within this room, just waiting, just wanting the crescendo of music to begin in his head again but it is gone. Itachi is gone. The smoke is gone. Mother is- (“Here.” On a knee, but he is not the prince remember? Holding out the bow to her, and she is the child he is the- he asks her bluntly, “Will you play? The cello…” and she takes not the bow but his hand.)
He has turned his head to Yondaime’s every movement. His eyes probably, have the same look as mother’s had then. He lets the curtain fall and drive up again before speaking, eyes shutting and opening, fingers bunching to each other as if on the open and that close, he had touched a blooming flower and peeled its soft petals away from it, without remourse. “I was-“
That small moment where Yondaime had placed his hand upon Shisui’s head, it could have been only enough to sate but a minute of his- “-unsure.”
Insecurity, fear, jealous, anger -Shisui is incapable of these things because he knows the answer for them, he knows within the effect the consequence and therefore rules them as obsolete and meaningless, unuseful. But also, also because that is how you protect yourself not from the world but everyone in it. Because the ripples they make, can be interfered with, yet do you, do you really want to? And Shisui resists to touch him.
"There's no need to be," Yondaime tells him quietly. He examines Shisui's appearance, taking in all that isn't right slowly. He's gone over his own reflection more times than he can remember, wondering how certain parts of his body looked before scare tissue covered them. Shisui won't suffer as badly, but he'll have the pain of remembering when his skin was flawless.
Gently, Yondaime reaches his hands forward, though the rail and lifts one of Shisui's hands. He handles the limb as if holding the most delicate treasure there is (but that's different for everyone, for Yondaime it's-). "Who did this to you, Shisui?"
It'll be a long road until Shisui's hands can be anything like they used to be, and even afterwards they'll carry the stigmata his attacker left him. Their graceful deftness in everything might never return fully, damage this bad....
He falls silent as his hands trace over Shisui's, his eyes unseeing, unfocused on anything in the room. He knows only he can hear it, but a tune weaves through his mind, growing stronger and louder. It's a bit melancholic, but there's hope in it as well. It's lovely.
"You'll play the piano again. I promise."
And he hums a bit of the tune before something like an electric shock jolts his system. His eyes focus in on Shisui's hand (he's holding it more tightly now - how did that happen?) and he turns to look Shisui in the eyes.
"And when you do, will you play that song for me, once more?"
He doesn't remember why that tune was special, or when he first heard it, but he remembers Shisui playing it for him. Remembers Shisui, nothing more than a very young boy playing this song just for him.
"Please?"
Shisui had tried.
And Shisui had failed.
This could only be a curse, this could only be the proof of her existence now. (“Omma,”) and with Yondaime’s words Shisui thinks- (“I’ve gone insane.” Just holding his shoulders, the partly open door, it is the rewind and it moves faster than forward ever could hope too. Yondaime looks quizzically on, hands reaching up and holding at Shisui’s arms in return and Shisui does not hold back, does not lessen the plea, the blow, the absolute finality of his words before pulling away and stepping in, seeing the future but not wanting to know what it would hold. “You-“) and words he had told Sasuke (-“can run-“) but not exactly alike because there needed to be some one who would testify all their sins and most of all Shisui wanted it to be-
As if he is jumping at a loud noise (the door creaks open as Shisui steps into the room, his father’s head swirling at his arrival and the man with the pistol, with his tied up mother gives a laugh, loosen not his finger on the trigger in the slightest. “Ah! So you are Geum-ja?” but is had not been said entirely like a question, the rusting anchor, knot the chain to say farewell. And while it was always the misconception that he was not a he she Shisui really is after all a- “And you are-” The trailing existence. Cut off the man continues, “You really do look like your mother. But… I do not think you are my daughter.”) Lazily trailing, the bell did not toll for either of them. Shisui jerks his hand away as if burned.
Face jerking upward, eyes flashing and he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if he still has mother’s eyes. “Out of everything-“ (a smile, a smile. Unconscious, omma cannot see or hear any thing, it is fine. Shisui does not want to hear her words, does not want father to hear any thing else she has never have to say. “Tell me cousin-“ this man talking to his father, “what is Geum-ja to you?” And Shisui steps forward, only to hear- “Geum-ja was my daughter.”) Smoke, from the pistol, the mouth of the lion has not any utterance for those who play ballads or change the rhythm of a waltz. “-why is it you can only ask that of me?”
Countless days, countless evenings Shisui would not ever trade for the world, he has never wanted the world, and the world has never wanted him. It was impasse, it was pointing the gun and looking down the barrel of it all at once, it was (“She was never yours.” The chair is kicked aside, his mother falling with it a sharp clamour against the hard concrete floor and even after this Shisui knows she will still love him this- “You.”) He has never been happier. The piano. His father taught him it only, he taught him kindness, he taught him where weakness would exist. And how did it exist.
A shuddered breath, as Shisui- and every time every time Yondaime returned, it was not even his name that was remembered, only at times that tune, and that was why over and over only for this man, that man Shisui would play it, on the pinnacle as it fell, looking down at the world all the while looking up and the last, the last melody to fall from his fingers before he played another. To be told to come to Oshima, to be told he should not waste his energies in athletics when he could be so much more if he would play yet again, and again. Shisui had only wanted to play the piano for-
(A shot, fired. And his father rushes past Shisui, sickly white, but weren’t they always white? Shisui had told Yondaime “Until it is over, do not move..” No matter what, no matter- not even if the world started to end because Shisui could not bear to ask-) Hold me.
And he is bowing his head.
Still cannot ask, cannot say-
(Tearing at him, a struggle, and the man holds his father in captivation of the pistol, ready to fire again and again, but it does not, taunting. “She doesn’t love you.” And father looking up, unbashed, not quivering, holding, strong, as if this were only a passing obstacle. It is.
“Neither does she to you.”
It sounds like cello music as Shisui takes the flat of the axe and rams it against the man’s head.)
Playing until his fingers are tired. Until he is tired, until he cannot move from the spot and Yondaime had to carry him from the bench. To the morning, to the night, in the day Shisui remembers shadowing Yondaime’s footsteps up those steps to his room, thinking even if they had to walk up stairs for an eternity he would not mind so long that Yondaime’s arm remained in as much reach as his steps- (not enough to kill him, knocked out on the floor his father takes possession of the gun and Shisui slams the axe into the man’s shoulder, pinning him to the ground. The blood seeping between the creases of the spot, but remaining, he wakes and coughs up blood. “This isn’t how you should treat a relative.” And they tell him they know.)
“Only.”
And turning, a music box with more faulty joints than the doll. Glazed and looking on unable to look away as Shisui had- “If you promise me it will be the last time.”
Yondaime nods his head slowly, hands loosening their clasp on Shisui's. "I promise."
He falls into silence once more, combing through the memories linked to that tune Shisui had introduced to him all those years ago. A summer's day with the breeze floating through the open windows as Yondaime turned the pages for Shisui as the very young practiced. His back was still very sore but the boy had demanded he be the page-turner.
An early spring evening - the windows are shut - and Yondaime bends near a fireplace, giving the logs a final poke for the evening. The heat on his hands makes him smile even as he can hear Shisui scowl through the last page of a piece he doesn't like. "Don't end on a sour note," he had teased him, stepping away from the fire. "Play that other one." And Shisui knew exactly which one he meant.
A rainy October afternoon in Prague (he was visiting with friends for a weekend during their final year of graduate school) searching through a music store trying to find the book to a tune that was a distant whisper at the edges of his mind.
There were more, but Shisui's hand moving under his brought him back once more. He sat back and tilted his neck to the side, rubbing his neck. "Is there anything you need me to do for you, in the meanwhile? Anything you want?" He feels himself slipping back into that safe place - the clear white of certainty bordered by grey, away from the spotty black of the unknown where slivers of the forgotten peek through. He's slipping back into business when that's not why Shisui called for him.
"How did this happen?" he asks gently, pulling his chair closer to the bed and shrugging out of his jacket, finally settling in for the visit.
Before the pond has any ripples, before the sea commits to bring forth waves, and before rivers knew that their flow may sometimes cease Shisui stirs so much from Yondaime’s released grasp that its like winter has tried to become spring and mid step, flutter the butterfly is trapped between the world and the cocoon. His hands coming up to his head, his brow and holding as anchored flesh should in its mortal capacity, head tilting back in the slight and the way. He gives a soft laugh, continuing.
Until its end.
Hands sliding down to hold his shaking drooping face, head, fortune. He brings his hands away knowing you can read nothing from them or-
Wondering what would happen if he peeled it all away and momentarily he considers though the image the sight the mind tells him (that Itachi would do it, round, and round should it take a mere five minutes or all of today and tomorrow, white unceasing. He’d throw them out right away because they were dirty even if they did not look dirty.) “…this happened because I was never taught that the world was made up of more people like you.”
(More people who did not carry this tarnished surname who cried, who did not beseech, who took hold and said-)
“It makes me sick.”
Sasuke’s face, angry, regretful, wanting, just longing- an existence like that…
But he says it like he is stating that the colour of the curtains are- (the sound of plucked strings, tuning, tuning again and he is insisting that- Omma shaking her head. Quaking, asking him why. Asking her why. Not ever looking at father and in this it drives not Shisui mad but- “Moon-su.”
Loosened silence for her sake.
“That person before you is Shisui.”
And to Shisui his father is-)
His hands fold, his arms fold, fingers pressing around his shoulders, hugging himself as if he were cold, and he is cold, whether it is a genetic fault, it is a passed fault that did not pause. Unnaturally, strange, the normality of this situation called for different respects.
“But… I don’t mind.”
Temperature, it changes, and his palms do not get cold or clammy, they get hot, he grasps one of Yondaime’s wrists, lips already twisting as if they are being force to say their last words like their first. “I didn’t mind.”
Right now.
Every thing mother had taught him. Every backwards step she told him to make and to create.
No more.
“After I play that song for you once more, will you please kill me?”
(One cannot exist without the other? Not at all, but it is a preference. He has never given much thought to death because he neither feared it nor revered in it. You either moved or were still. Because they said he was grey he touched both black and white. An open mind, a closed mind. He left the door only partially shut. And under the falling snow he called out to Yondaime even though it was Itachi who shadowed his steps. “Stop-“)
His grip neither tightens nor loosens.
For whose sake does he speak now?
(“-I don’t know.” And Shisui turns to look at Itachi who is looking up at the falling snow too.
“Why is it always white?”)
Shisui's words have frozen him and his heart twist in his chest. (Would it still have come to this if he hadn't forgotten about Shisui?) He uses his free hand to remove Shisui's hand from his wrist. He knows his eyes are hard, he knows it at the slight tremble that runs through the younger man's bruised and broken body.
"I won't." Yondaime knits his brows together and leans over the rail. He lifts a hand to Shisui's cheek and shakes his head for emphasis. "I won't kill you. I killed a part of you once, I know that now. I vowed I wouldn't again, and I intend to keep that vow. I've been dead, Shisui," he closes his eyes, the voices of doctors and nurses joking calling him Lazarus as he slowly heals. Opening them he shakes his head once more, his own hair brushing against Shisui's shoulders. "Completely dead."
Mikoto wore black each time she visited him while he was still in the intensive care unit, as if in mourning for the man he used to be. As if preparing to mourn for what he had become if he didn't make it through. He had mourned himself, for himself, for others he knew. It wasn't a pleasant period of time to associate with.
"But," he starts again, licking his lips, "I won't let you go there. Not before me. And I don't plan on dying any time soon." He brushes a few shorn locks off of Shisui's face. "If you need strength to live, take that of the people who care for and about you.
"When I heard you were here I panicked. There's something about you that unsettles me and keeps me on my toes, but in a familiar way. I can't kill you when you're the one person that brings my memories to life." His lips tug up into an attempted smile at his last words. "I honestly believe we crossed paths again for a reason, Shisui. And that reason wasn't for me to rob you of the rest of your life. Hate me, curse me, blame me, whatever you need. Just live."
Shisui’s eyes looks on, widening frame with every word, sight. He can see- (“Because,” And Itachi does not say anything further, Shisui opening his mouth to catch a few flakes, Itachi shifting a foot wisely supposing Shisui wants him to do the same. Childish. The day it falls red and melts in his palms…)
He presses his forehead at Yondaime’s throat shoulders shaking, irreversible, a mistake, an error, remained what it was. Correction was a cover up, a deceit, convincing enough to try to make scars invisible to your eyes, but only to your eyes? What remained more convincing what you see or what you hear?
Shisui is laughing.
Again, not soft, or hushed, ironic, prey. Only a loud bursting sound as if it has been a long time (as it has before in bemused smiles, a silent vibration, and clear serene words. Admiring and allowing motion and graceful upturns to display what he is feeling, a danger rushed underneath, as if at the last moment you will pull, steer away from crashing into a wall and glide atop of shallow water deeper than the abyss.) But the dam breaking, because Shisui has never really laughed like this, all the same as he has never cried, so his laughter is how he must be- (“I don’t want you to cry.” And Shisui can hear words Itachi has never said, and he answers in the same liking.
“I won’t then.”)
Like a flurry of moment, that is how this sound is, drowning out the cello, the piano, the whispered words spoken to him.
Even though in the beginning…
“Omma wanted me to be this. The Uchiha family, this name has caused us such grief, and because of its attachment she was resentful. She thought she could only dispel her uneasiness by passing it on to another. Whether she was able to completely fulfill such a desire, I do not know. Am I half of the evidence? Am I the whole evidence?” Lips could murmur against Yondaime’s throat but do not, and the smile on his face is the aftermath of that laughter, harsh and disturbing birds into flight.
(…he holds out his palms and mouth closing, but lips parted, he looks straight up at the sky, but not really. Because the sky is as vast as the universe. It goes in every direction, so if Shisui turned his head to look at Itachi, In Itachi too, one- Shisui could see- the sky. So he looks at Itachi.
“What a pretty colour.”)
Many times he has said he is not an artist nor does he want to be.
But that couldn’t mean that he didn’t have the ability within pseudo ignorance to not be able to admire it.
And hate it all the same.
“Whatever piece I am I am no longer hers in living capacity. I am her memory but… I am yours too. Most of all I am Itachi’s.”
More than Shisui is Shisui’s.
A chuckle, and that is foreign.
But he frowns.
“I am Itachi’s more than anything.”
And he looks into Yondaime’s gaze, scathingly.
“…tell me. Without me would you die right now?”
Shisui's breath on his neck, his lips so close he can practically feel them send a shiver down his spine. (He hasn't been this close to anyone since-) He trains his eyes to the window over-looking the city and beyond it - the ocean.
"You believe the man I once was, is dead, don't you? Maybe what I am is nothing more than illusion. If you die, who is to say I won't vanish?"
("You might have some difficulties re-assimilating into your group of peers. They'll always remember the way you were, and until you do as well, tension not always concealed can create problems," the doctor looked at him sadly.
Yondaime nodded his head slowly, wondering what his friends were like.
Mikoto swallowed before explaining that his parents, single children, had already passed on and that he was their only child. Since he was incredibly dedicated to his job he had no one special in his life, and more acquaintances than real friends.
He had believed her.)
Now he knew the truth.
He draws away from Shisui and looks him in the eyes, voice somber. "But you'll never know if you try to find out. You'll have been an innocent soul murdered and I'll have been a murderer. In some ways of thinking there's no way we'd ever meet each other in the after life to find out. Ironic, isn't it?"
Static through his fingers, lament it, cherish it, but never destroy it though need be.
(Once there had been a girl who played the cello, and she rewound every tape with him on it. Recital, concert, practice. Over and over, and she was not like the violin girl or the opera voice. She was-
“What… school did he transfer to again?”
“Still talking about him? How should I know? But don’t go ask your father.”
So she had asked no one.
Once in the hall he had passed her, and she thinks that was the last him he walked down the same hall as she, in the school. Bells unrung, long hair swung over his shoulders. The newer teachers already had problems addressing him as either “son” or “daughter” to the parent, the older always been-knowing to not say either. It was not necessary.
“I am neither those things.”
He had told them.
It didn’t seem like it hurt in the slightest bit.)
“We’d meet.”
The smile on his lips again, ironic he had said? “There is no chance that we may not.”
“The same, as without fail I will play for you once more.”
And Itachi, to Itachi Shisui would-
(That same girl rises to applauds, bowing her head thanking everyone for their support. Thanking them over and over, they beg for an encore, they ask, clapping hands vibrant faces, she sings uplifting song that seems to touch the edges of the universe- the infinity one should not conform to in order to make wishes come true.
Because they won’t and can’t.
One more bow before she leaves, curtains to fall, but a man in the front- his voice catches her, “What is your dream?”
She addresses him, calling out for every one so she may voice her inspiration- “Everyone, my dream is to one day sing to the piano of-“ but he plays the most saddest music of them all and her audience turns silent in confusion or disbelief.
At the time some where, the very melody without fail he will play Shisui will later say embittered and nostalgic. Plays that sour note, abrupt hands slamming down on all keys his fingers may reach at once, almost frustrated. The expression only coming out across through the music and not his face of form at all.
And Yondaime tells him-
-she was not the opera singer, or the violin girl. But she sang, she sang the cello.
“Why don’t you play it? His mother had asked, and Shisui tells her that that is not possible.
Because he had heard her.)
Aching autumn, which season was it that feigned such distaste? Sour counterpart, point, attack, and white hands not gloves, don’t describe the feel of skin to any fabric the world held and did not create for it could not compare. “…so could you once more…“
And he cannot say anymore.
"Let’s not test our fate just yet, hmm? He looks at Shisui patiently; hands coming down and folding together once more near the younger man's side. When Shisui doesn't continue after several moments Yondaime tilts his head to the side and quirks a brow. "I've told you I'd do anything possible to help you. You only need to ask."
Shisui holds a hand to his forehead, fingers splayed.
The past, the present- why did they have to, (Itachi counted the numbers differently from how Shisui did. But all that matter that was when they reached the top of the steps, that even while it was different it was still the same- “25.”
Itachi says and Shisui crosses his arm,
“What?” the words coming out as if annoyed and disbelieving, “Cousin, I counted 26.”
And both sigh, shoulders slumping, trudging down the steps so they may go up and count again. You only count up, not down.)
“The same.”
Fingers falling only to move, skimming across Yondaime’s cheek, by the ear, under hair and over the ear as if making one side a faulty deaf he can make the mouth mute. “Striving to rebuild yourself, will you cast away your old self then? Could you cast him aside completely?”
But Shisui doesn’t think he can, because to make something out of nothing was- (Sasori telling him that he is presumptuous about what is impossible, he will not change, and he will-) “I don’t want your help.”
He who helps others helps- “It will not be necessary this time.”
Flickering gaze, the head leaning from one side to the other, shrill note. High note. The bow inching up. Shisui realizes it’s actually a sweet-
“I can’t breath for you any more, but to begin with I don’t think you even wanted me to. I don’t care. If you could forget me again would you?”
Because the possibility remained, there is little doubt.
Shisui's hand is cool against his warmth (fire and water). Yondaime lowers his lids slightly as he looks down at Shisui. He's answered the first question before. But he'll repeat the words until Shisui trusts them. "I came here to find my old self. He's a part of me and I won't be complete as a person until I've remembered everything that I can. I cannot cast him away. Even if I chose not to come here, if I chose to live ignorant of where I come from, the man I was would forever haunt me.
"I've always wanted you to breathe for yourself, to be Shisui. You've never had to be anyone else around me." He speaks the words with a certainty of his past, (see, it's this boy, he's like a charm) as if this was a subject deeply important to one or the both of them. (Is this why Shisui kept asking?)
"No, Shisui. I wouldn't forget you. And if that's what you'd ask of me, it's the one thing I could never, would never do."
(Even if he wanted to, so much had been put into motion by his return that the six degrees of separation were close enough for him to hold all six chains in his fist. There was no escaping Shisui, nor his connection to him.)
Shisui gives a last sigh, and probably, is himself again- if that self could ever be and remain.
He lifts a hand, raising his body to stand on his knees, anxiety? You take it and make it a colour it would and could be blue, he places that hand over Yondaime’s eyes, and the fingertips are cold. “Then I will have to forget you, and I will have to remember you again.”
Because the person Yondaime was- Shisui could no longer hold on to him if this Yondaime of now wanted- and his arms wraps about Yondaime’s shoulders, pressing the head close, the futile bomber holding all the cards and then some.
“Let me hold you.”
(Just a little like you used to hold me. He threw the wish in the fire, the sheets of music pearly white, they are yellow now, but he still remembers their white in his mind, and it is all the music needs.
He needs to remember it yellow.)
“You won’t mind if I take some of your time.”
And there is something is something about the embrace that makes him feel at home. Unsure of the whys and simply acting on the feeling Yondaime lifted his arms to Shisui's shoulders and returned the embrace. Shisui tensed and then relaxed. "No, I won't." They stayed like that for a minute and until Yondaime remembered Shisui's injuries.
"You should lay down now," he warned, stepping back and sitting in the chair after he made sure Shisui was back in bed. He looked at the healing patient and smiled gently. "I guess I never formally introduced myself, huh?" He scratched the back of his head and chuckled. "So I'll start now."
He took a breath and told Shisui everything (with a few discretions) that he remembered about his life from the time he first regained consciousness in a hospital in Sapporo. Shisui interjected with questions or comments occasionally and when visiting hours were over a nurse stopped by to tell Yondaime he could stay since he was on Shisui's list.
The two talked deep into the night, only stopping when Shisui quietly fell asleep while Yondaime was telling him about a trip to South Africa. Watching him sleep, Yondaime knew, though he didn't remember the specifics, that this was not the first time they had talked all night until Shisui had fallen asleep. He quietly rose and left the room after whispering a simple, "good night."