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Hina's earliest memory is of bunnies-- they're drawn on her arm in colourful ink as her mother smiles and tickles her on the belly with her free hand, the one that's not holding the pen.
They're long-eared and big-eyed, looking fluffier than any of the stuffed animals on her bed. There's three of them: one with a bright, pink nose, another with especially long whiskers, and another with a little brown patch on its snowy fur.
"One for each year you've lived," her mother whispers, and later Hina would come to understand this is her mother's own little way of celebrating her birthday.
When she turns four, her mother draws four of them across her arm. They're different this time. One wears sunglasses, another wears lipstick. The other two seem to be twins with matching bows sitting atop their heads.
By the time Hina turns five, this has become their little ritual. The night before her birthday, she extends an arm without being asked, and gives her mother a toothy grin. "Give me my bunnies!"
A year passes, and another, and a few more.
And then there are no bunnies.
Year after year, she finds herself absently staring at her arm on her birthday, as if they'd magically appear if she looked enough.
But they don't. Not when she turns twelve, or thirteen, or fourteen. When she turns fifteen, the only mark on her arm is the scar from when she fell off her cycle the previous week. When she turns nineteen, there's nothing on her skin except a rash that Akari says is nothing, and will heal soon enough.
Tonight, the breeze is soft and cool, a little damp. It's raining somewhere, far enough that Hina's sky is still cloudless, but near enough that the air smells of wet earth. Tonight, the stars glimmer clearer than usual. And she's twenty-four for the last time.
In another life, there'd be twenty-five bunnies etched onto her arm about now. She glances again, and again her skin is even and unmarked. She sits in the balcony adjacent to her and Rei's bedroom. Her wedding ring glints in the moonlight. Her mother never got to see this: the ring on Hina's finger and Rei's, or the wedding that followed. Or the things that came before, too-- Hina turning ten, thirteen, having struggles and victories, starting high school, beginning to take over grandfather's shop as he got too frail to run it alone. Momo growing up. Akari growing older.
The world spins and spins, and mother doesn't crack a smile or draw on Hina's arm anymore.
"Hina," a voice calls, and she turns to find Rei standing, towering over her, holding a blanket. "You'll get sick, sitting in the cold like this."
She wants to respond. Instead, her lip quivers and her vision blurs. The soft smile on Rei's face contorts into a concerned, sorrowful expression, a mirror to hers. He sits beside her and wraps both of them in the blanket. His warmth is hers now, and his space is theirs. "Thank you," she manages.
"Birthdays are hard, aren't they?" He isn't looking at her, but at the river that flows below. Maybe this-- looking away, avoiding her eyes until she opens up-- is his own little way of giving her space.
It works.
She doesn't feel forced or rushed, and the words come out on their own accord. "There are no bunnies,"
He turns, a subtle shift of his shoulders toward her, his eyes searching her own, unasked questions seeking unsaid answers.
"Mother used to draw them," she explains. "On my arm. Every birthday."
"Oh,"
"One for each year I'd been alive."
"I see," Rei murmurs. He's staring at the river once again, and something in his eyes has gone dull, like a light switching off, a candle burning out. Looking away isn't for her benefit this time, but his own.
Birthdays are hard, aren't they?
Aren't they?
Rei's in the same boat, the one with a myriad holes, with water sinking in here and there, yet one which still makes do, sails on. The same boat that carries her, and Akari and Momo, and everyone else who doesn't get to have bunnies on their birthday. "Rei."
"Huh? Sorry," he turns back to her, pushes his glasses back in place. "I was lost in thought."
"I know,"
"Your mother. What did she draw on you with?"
"Eh?" She stares at him, eyebrows raised. But she's used to his ways, the specific, random-seeming questions he asks out of nowhere more often than not. "Markers, I think. No, it was..." she shakes her head. "Yeah. Markers. I loved how colourful they were." A faint smile forms on her face, despite the dull ache in her heart.
Wordlessly, he leans in to wrap her in a tight hug-- and as suddenly as he does, he pulls away. With a quick peck on her forehead, he gets on his feet. "Rei? Where are you going?"
"I'll be back," he says over his shoulder. Then he disappears behind the curtains, and she hears the distant thud of the door closing.
It doesn't worry her that he's left so suddenly, and it doesn't make her wonder why. That's who he is; he does sudden things without explanation, forgetting that his intentions aren't so clear to the ones around him. And that's fine, because he does tell her when she asks. Nevertheless, she hopes he'll return soon, because the night is cold and will turn colder still. She turns her attention to the river, ever-present and slow-flowing, reflecting the full moon's glow.
Her hopes are answered-- Rei doesn't take long. Barely twenty minutes have passed when she hears the door open. Footsteps approach her, soft but hurried. She notices the paper bag he's carrying. "What's that?"
"Strawberry mochi," he answers, and her heart lightens the slightest bit. "For after dinner."
"You went to get this?"
"Not the mochi," he says. "I just found that on the way back. I went for something else, initially," he reaches deeper into the bag and retrieves a pack of colourful markers, and sits beside her. His voice is nervous, hesitant, shaky. Like maybe he isn't sure of where to go from here, or whether this is something that's okay for him to do. "May I?"
You didn't have to, she's about to say. He didn't have to go out into this cold, cold night just to buy a pack of markers. But an unexpected, warm gladness unfurls inside her chest like a flag fluttering about in the wind. Instead she asks, "where'd you find these?"
"The craft store,"
"At this hour?"
"The owner had nearly left, but I managed to convince him to let me in."
With a smile, she extends her arm for him to draw on. She closes her eyes, even though he didn't ask her to, and waits.
It tickles.
The moment the tip of the pen touches her skin, it tickles. She jerks away, stifling a giggle. "What?" Rei asks.
"Nothing," she replies. "I'll try to be still this time."
It tickles the second time too, and again she wants to laugh, but she holds it in and sits still. Every time little Hina used to giggle, her mother would fondly poke her on the cheek.
With his free hand Rei holds her arm firm and steady, just like her mother used to, and in the silence between them, Hina thinks she smells the scent of her mother's clothes, hears the sound of her mother's focussed breathing as she drew on her skin. The pen's tip dances on her skin, leaving behind a cool sensation whenever he pauses to change colours.
"You can open your eyes now," Rei says at some point. "I'm done."
The drawings across her arm are sloppy. Many are barely recognizable as anything beyond an abstract blob. And she loves them anyway, all twenty-five of them, with their colourful fur and crazy expressions. "Rei," she says, voice quivering with a strange mixture of mirth and sorrow.
"I'm not much of an artist," he admits, sincere green eyes peering into hers. "But this ritual doesn't have to end. We can do this next year. And the year after that. And longer-- for as long as you want."
There's an abrupt sob, Hina's own. She lets Rei wrap her in his arms, crying into his chest even as laughter bubbles up in her throat, crying because this hurts but also heals, because her mother's not here but Rei is, because there are bunnies on her arm now, after so, so long.
From the millions of thoughts on her mind, she can't choose which to say first. So she stays silent, hoping Rei understands.