[FANFIC] [NnO] Shelter (Introductions)
Fandom: Nabari no Ou
Title: Introductions (Shelter series)
Author: nyanja14 (aka: Miss Fish, the_myrah)
Summary: It wasn't that Yoite wanted Yukimi to cut his hair, there was just no one else.
Word Count: 1838
Rating: General
Warnings: general angst, randomly in first person for some reason
Notes: This is some more old fic, from August 2009. I'm posting it to this journal because hey, more Nabari fanfic. The Shelter series is Parental!Yukimi/Yoite, since that is my favorite paring from the manga. Not really slash, but if you want to view it that way, then feel free to do so!
SHELTER: Introductions
I didn't look into the mirror often, but in this case, I didn't need to. My hair was obviously too long- I could tell when I dipped my head down, when I reached up to cup my neck. My hair had never been the type to grow fast, but after those three days of being pulled tight, my hair had somehow grown to reach just below my shoulder.
I didn't like my hair long. My face and body structure were bad enough, but when my hair got long, people did double-takes more and more often, the question apparent on their faces as they looked back at me.
Is that a boy, or a girl?
I didn't know myself, but I hated the expression their faces held. It was easier to masquerade as a boy, and boys weren't supposed to have long hair.
My body still felt incredibly tired and sore after the three-day old growth spurt, but I want the hair gone as soon as possible. I pushed some of it back behind my ear as I quietly searched through Yukimi's drawers and cabinets. The older ninja had no sense of organization that I could discern; there were so many memos stuck to the wall, that it was a wonder to me how he ever found the information he wanted. His drawers were like that too. I found his ballpoint pen stash along with his salt shaker and a few spare shuriken. Used notepads from years ago were stored alongside bags of rice. I didn't understand it, but Yukimi always seemed to locate what he needed with no problem.
Maybe it was because this was his house.
I finally found a pair of scissors buried beneath a pile of magazines in the pantry. I had always cut my hair myself, for as long as I could remember. Short, like how a boy's was supposed to be, but with longer bangs to obscure my face. It wasn't hard to do, but I hadn't done it in a while, and...
I stared down at my foreign hands. The fingers were so much longer now, the palms bigger than I remembered. I didn't need to look to know that my whole body looked gangly, bony, and stretched. Misshapen appearances aside, it was disorienting, and I wasn't used to the new lengths of my limbs. Cutting my hair would be tricky, especially since I didn't want to use a mirror to do it.
I didn't want to ever use a mirror again, if I could avoid it.
I raised the scissors up to my head with shaking hands only to almost drop them when I heard the front door open.
"Tadaima!"
I listened to the sounds of him removing his shoes, and wondered dimly if he'd said "tadaima" to his empty house before I was brought here. It wasn't like he actually expected me to answer- did he?
Yukimi. Yukimi could cut my hair. Maybe he'd never cut hair before, but it wasn't something hard to do and if he'd been a ninja for as long as I'd heard he'd been, then he surely knew his way around blades and wouldn't make a stupid mistake like cutting my ear. He'd finished his surface world assignments, if his triumphant expression when he'd left this morning was anything to go by, so he wasn't busy right now.
But would he do it? There was no reason for him to.
I clenched the scissors in hand and left the bathroom, careful not to let the mirror catch my eye. Yukimi's back was to me, pulling a can of coffee grounds from one of his cabinets. I stood behind him, and when he turned around, he jumped a little.
"Wha- oh, you. What is it?" he asked, rubbing the back of his neck.
I held the scissors out to him. He blinked, then took them from me. "You... you want me to cut your hair?" he guessed, sounding as though he didn't believe the words his own mouth were forming.
It wasn't so much that I wanted him to, but that I didn't have many other options. I really didn't want him standing close to me, or… touching me, but he was the one who was here and he'd been nice enough to me the few days since I'd arrived. Maybe nice wasn't the word, but he'd carried me to couch, and got the doctor who used to visit me to come over, (who, as it turned out, was his sister) and he'd gone out and bought pain medicine for me, and he'd cooked lots of food for me when I finally woke up and he'd gone out and bought new clothes that fit and…
I nodded.
"Oh. Well, alright then." Frowning, he took the scissors from me. "You should probably, ah, sit down," he instructed, waving his hand at his computer chair. Hesitantly, I moved to the living room and lowered myself into the chair as he retrieved a towel from the bathroom. Yukimi went to drape it around my shoulders, but I took it from him and wrapped it around myself.
From behind me, I thought heard him sigh tiredly.
He shifted his weight, and then I felt his hands by my neck, just barely touching the top of my scar that peeked above my turtleneck. Panicked, I tensed and jerked forward, ripping myself away from him.
This time, I knew for sure I heard him sighing, though this one was more aggravated. "Relax, okay? I was just trying to get your hair out from beneath the towel."
Frowning, I reached up and did it myself, then I tightened the towel, making it sure it fit snugly around me and that the scar was fully covered.
"You ready now?" Yukimi asked. I nodded.
The man went to grab a section of my hair and I instinctively reached up to slap his hands away. Yukimi finally snapped. "You want me to cut your hair without touching it? Are you stupid?"
I hunched my shoulders up at his volume, but otherwise gave him no reply. After a moment, I could literally feel him calming back down. I couldn't see him, but I had a feeling he had his palm to his forehead.
"Look," he said, voice not gentle, but also not cruel. "I'm not going to hurt you, okay? I know you've got some no-touch policy or whatever, but I'm going to have to touch you at least a little if I'm going to do this. Alright?" He didn't wait for me to answer. "Now, just relax and hold still and I'll make this as quick as possible."
I tried to force some of the tension out of my spine, and succeeded into leaning back into the chair just a bit. Yukimi wanted a minute, then moved his hands back to my head, taking off some of my hair in one of them and lifting off the scissors with the other. The sound of the tool crept quietly into my ears, and I closed my eyes and tried to forget what had happened last time someone had brandished a blade so close to my neck.
Yukimi didn't speak to me as he worked, and I of course didn't say anything to him. Just the sound of the scissors clinking and the barely discernable sound of my hair falling onto the floor. After a while, he moved around to my front to cut the hair in my face. I refused to look him in the eye, so I stared down at my new fingers.
Finally, he stood up straight and announced he was done. I pulled the towel off my shoulder and examined the amount of hair on the floor. My head felt so much lighter…
I left the towel on the seat and moved to sit in my usual corner, while Yukimi put away the scissors and cleaned the hair up with a broom. I felt like I should help him, since I couldn't thank him aloud, but I didn't know how to clean and I didn't want him to yell at me that I'd ruined his apartment. I didn't know how to do much of anything useful, really. I had the Kira though, and I wondered when we'd be given a mission, so I could at least earn my keep somehow. It'd been four days since I'd arrived, and so far I hadn't been asked to do anything…
I reached up to feel my hair and was somewhat surprised to feel that he'd left me bangs. They were longer than what I usually gave myself, but they covered more of my face and I liked that idea.
For the first time in a long time, I wondered how I looked. Luckily, Yukimi started talking and I was able to banish the impulse.
"I wonder what would be a good name…"
Name? A name? He couldn't mean… for me? I lowered my hands to my knees and looked up, but he was pacing along in front of me, not looking at anything in particular, so he could only mean a name for me.
Somehow, I couldn't wrap my mind around that concept. My father had always referred to me like some object, and my step-mother never spoke of me at all. I'd asked Tsukasa about it one day, and he'd just said that I was probably Sora.
But Sora had never existed. Sora was supposed to be a girl and I… wasn't. I couldn't be Sora, and no one had ever bothered to give me a name of my own.
Yukimi cupped his chin, still think aloud. "Tetsuo… Kosaburou? Kirasuke? Hmmm…" I stared after him in disbelief as he dropped the names, still pacing along the small living room. He couldn't be serious, how could he give me a name? Didn't he realize I was going to disappear soon, didn't he realize that I wasn't even really alive? You can't give non-people names, you just couldn't… I clenched my hands around my knees.
Suddenly, Yukimi stopped and stared out the window at something I couldn't see. I heard him murmuring something I couldn't catch. And then, more loudly:
"Yoite."
I felt my breath catch. That name, he spoke it with a familiarity the others hadn't held. With a warmth. He spoke it like it meant something to him. Not just some kanji stuck together, but like a name that really belong to someone.
I wanted that. I didn't care if they name wasn't really mine, I could make it mine. For me.
"…Yoite…"
Yukimi was muttering to himself awkwardly, turned away from the window now and not really paying me any attention, but when I finally let my voice escape from my throat, he immediately looked over at me. It kind of hurt to talk, and I could feel Yukimi's eyes on me as I raised my hand up to gently touch my scar.
"Yoite…"
Yes, I could become that name, I was sure of it.
~~FANFICTION MASTERLIST~~