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"But you are the life I needed all along
I think of you as my brother
Although that sounds dumb
And words are futile devices."
— Sufjan Stevens
It was the first bright morning after the war.
A bright sky, the blue so blue it made the few clouds stand out in its gorgeous round shapes. Hinata had her feet touching the grass under her, not bothering with getting them dirty. She was sitting at the entrance of her home, breathing in the fresh air, hoping something in that beautiful day would warm her up again.
She doesn't remember ever being warm to begin with. She thinks she was, once, held close to her mother's bosom. She likes to think she was loved by her, but the truth was, she doesn't remember.
Her skin probably grew colder when she grew older. Her pale complexion would very easily get colored when around others, but she always saw herself in the mirror as one would imagine a cold weather — white, frigid, raw, gloomy.
Now the sun was glowing on her, burning her skin and tanning it red, but despite her sweating, it was like her body was a cage. Nothing could get in, not even the sun.
She was empty since her mother died.
She was still empty when her father dropped on his knees in front of her cousin, mouth puking blood like it was water. Eyes dropping like she never saw before, his limbs falling down lamely, a faltery smile on his face.
She dropped to her knees right in front of him while Naruto held him. Neji was standing up beside her. There were words said by both Naruto and her dying father. Then came Obito's voice.
Neji held her shoulder. Her face was crumbling, melting off the bone.
Her father's body hit the ground but not fast enough for Naruto to catch his head with his palm.
It was the first time she ever found comfort in his father's face — when he was no longer inside of it.
The realization made her choke on hard sobs. Neji's hand gripped her shoulder harder. Naruto seemed paralyzed by the body, eyes wide but avoiding both living Hyugas in front of him.
At this, Hinata raised her hand and slapped his cheek, not even thinking before the words were coming out. Without stuttering or hesitating.
There was no time for grief in the battlefield. There was no time for insecurity or self pity. Naruto had to be strong, and nothing was fair, but it was war.
When he got up holding her hand, she could only of how warm he was compared to her.
She thought maybe she had always been dead, like her father at her feet, like her uncle who was buried in her name.
Maybe it was her everlasting cowardice, but even after motivating the future hero of the Leaf, she only thought of how her sorrow wasn't mainly the pain of losing a father — even though, for all the hurt he gave her, she still longed for him — but the envy of not being the one to die.
She wanted to die for something, she realized. Let it be for love. Let it be throwing herself in front of Neji who threw himself in front of Naruto. Let her protect the people who made her anything at all. Let her life have meaning in death, since there was nothing she was worth while living.
Her father funeral was a strange ceremony. Too formal for a farewell, too quick to impact. Hanabi's tears were the only tears of the day. All Hyugas went back to their lives as if the head of the clan passing was some inconvenience. There was not much love in his death — just the same amount as there was in his life.
She didn't turn her head when Neji came to sit next to her, silent and gracious as ever, white cloth flying near her skin.
She closed her eyes agaisnt the rush of wind, trying to avoid her burning eyes of bursting out the tears she didn't the day before.
Neji has always been the closest thing to her heart, for better or worse. He was raised to serve her, to almost belong to her, and yet there was a sense of her belonging to him. She could not be Hinata without Neji. While he could be everything, more even, without her.
Her life was a cage for him, too.
They were supposed to be changing it. Fate, family, power. In a sense, they were. Since before the war. Since Naruto had Neji laying at his feet, since her father bowed down to him in shame, since the branches were not in a position of servitude and authority.
Still, the seal was there. They had managed to get the permission to abolish it, but the how was yet to be discovered.
Freedom could not exist until them. Treatments were not enough. The history was there, recent as an open wound, to prove the vows of family and honor would not suffice.
As long as Neji and other members of the Hyuga were branded, there could not be true equity between them. There could not be family.
She was her brother, in the way she loved him. In the way she longed for his rare smiles and quiet laughter. In the way she was eager to learn whatever he had to teach. In the way the only comfort of her childhood for a long time was the memory of her head resting on his shoulder while he repeated his love for her, before his love was compromised by duty.
"Don't think too much." His voice was the trigger for her eyes to open again, slowly in protest of the sunlight.
She turned her body to the side, eyes tracing his face.
He had not cried either. He had yet to say anything about Hiashi's death. She wanted to be ready to hear whatever he wanted to say, always. Even if her stomach was turning in anticipation.
She didn't want to think of death at that moment. It was not about her. What her father meant to her would probably never be discovered because she didn't have the time to make it out fast enough while he was still there.
She remember hurting, being turned inside out, being throw agaisnt the walls and her pale skin finally changing colors: purple, blue, yellow, green. She remembers his voice sending shivers down her spine and her own cries quieting down during the night so Ko wouldn't hear her.
She had no use for said memories.
She thought instead of Neji holding his head in pain, agonizing on the floor, eyes wide with veins popping like he was going to burst into tiny pieces of himself. She remembers her scared, pleading eyes being of no help.
She had been no help. No comfort. No sister.
"The elders want to talk with us tomorrow morning." She said to him, reminding herself of it too.
"Do you know what about?" Neji questioned, eyes finally finding hers.
"I think it's about the heir in line."
"Which is Hanabi." He completed, matter-of-factly.
"She's too young." She opposed, shaking her head.
"So it's you." He concluded, eyes squinting. There was no judgment or value, only a need for reassurance of what he thought as fact.
"I don't want to be." Her voice was lower this time, gaze falling to the space between their legs.
"When did that matter to them?" His tone hid some irony but she knew him well enough. Knew him better than everything else.
"A lot of things didn't matter to them before."
"So what are you saying?"
"It could be you."
This time, she had the courage to hold his gaze and not let her face break. He frowned, the seal on his forehead wrinkling, his eyes blinking at her statement.
"Even if the families are not divided anymore, I'm still branded by the seal." He put in the kindest way possible, as if to not insult her intelligence, but in a way that clearly showed him he thought she was losing the sense of reality.
"Our research is doing great." She said instead.
"And it hasn't reached anything yet."
His face was closer now, his eyes piercing through her as if trying to find an answer. Something hiding behind her words. He was good at figuring her out, so she let go of the niceties.
"We can get rid of it."
"You can't guarantee that."
They had been studying it since a little after the Chunin Exams. At first, only participating in the research with members of the old main branch. Neji was the only side branch member going to the libraries, visiting other villages, receiving scrolls from Kages and medical ninjas and scientists. Now, there were more former side branch members at the front of it. More people, in general. Not only Hyugas.
Still, nothing too promising. Not in getting rid of it, anyway. But...
"Well... you know by our research that it would be easy to pass it down."
She saw the way his jaw clenched, his nails digging into his palms.
"You think I will sell someone else this fate? Be at the mercy of others?" He was angry. She didn't flinch at that, for once.
"You're not selling anything. You were not sold this. You were forced. I'm volunteering. As clan head, you can do more for us and the former side branch."
As she let the words out, she felt dejavu. She was outside of her body looking in. Things were spilling out of her like in the battlefield. Her words were the only thing she could ever offer. Her physical presence had no use, no grounding.
"I'm not doing this to you." He scoffed, crossing his arms in front of his body. He looked away from her in a blooming temper.
"I did it to you."
"Your father did." He corrected.
"Does it matter?" She looked up to the sky again, sighing.
"Yes! Hinata, yes, it does. I will not pass it to you." He faced her again, eyes shining with passionate rage.
Again, she did not tremble. She didn't stutter, or cry, or ran.
"This is just logical. They called you, so they must consider you to the position. The seal is the only thing probably holding them back. You were always more suited than me, in strength and ability."
"I'm not cruel." His voice broke at that, so did her heart.
"It's not cruelty. It's justice."
"There's other ways to go." He rebuked.
"There were other ways to protect the byakygan. Our clan opted for the segregation and subjugation of half of our family. That was cruelty. This is not." Her voice was foreign to herself. Out of body, out of mind.
"What makes you think I want to put you in a position where you can be hurt?" There was so much weigh in his voice. So much pain.
"I can be hurt all the time." She laughed it off, but it came out dry.
"Don't play dumb."
"You're in that position right now. What's the difference, brother? We're just exchanging places."
"No." He looked foward again, trying to put an end to the suggestion.
"Please." She pleaded with him, because it was already a made decision for her. "Just think about it."
He remained silent and still. As he normally did, as he normally was. There was a slight shaking of his hands, a sign of his vulnerability. Of his hurt. Always caused by her, one way or another. She came to think to herself that her intentions didn't matter. There was only ever this hurt between them, this everlasting grief.
She wanted his freedom. Their freedom. She wanted a brother.
She wanted his life to be worth what hers was. More even.
"I never hated you. Even when I hurt you, even when I was sure I would kill you and it would make it all go away. I never hated you." He threw the words at her all too sudden, and as if a spell broke, her soul was back on earth.
She was made of flesh and bones.
"I don't blame you if you did. It's okay." She cringed at the way her voice came out.
Her face was wet. She didn't realized she had started crying.
"I know you don't. But I didn't hate you." He exhaled loudly. "I couldn't. I can't."
"Okay."
There was nothing more to it. Nothing more to be said.
"There's a lot to be changed." He threw his head back, looking at the sky with a newfound serenity. "The anger doesn't leave me."
He closed his eyes at that, his cheeks flushing. There was a slight frown on his face, his posture less rigid, as if the confession made him unguarded. As if his anger would only ever be punished.
"You can put it on me." She offered, her hand finding his own. Holding on.
It took him a while to hold her hand back, turning up his palm, the force of his hold grounding her. There were roots under her feet. There was something growing beneath her all the time. There were bigger things coming, arriving at an alarming speed.
"We will find a way. We'll abolish the seal. Let's wait to see what they say tomorrow." Neji retracted his own earlier statements, as if the vulnerability of the moment, the sigh of a clear sky and the clarity after death were all amounting to hope.
"Okay, brother."
He kissed her hand.
"This might make me a bad person, but I'm more relieved than hurt."
She took a moment to understand he was referring to her father's death.
She thought to herself before that his admission would break something in her. That his thoughts would tear her apart.
In a way, it did. She felt open to how it didn't sound ugly at all coming from him. She felt relief upon his own.
"Then we're both bad." She smiled at him, even if it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Maybe it's a Hyuga thing."
"Most definitely." He smiled at her finally, and she could breathe again.
A comfortable silence took place, only occasionally interrupted by birds singing, overheard conversations from passengers, branches being swayed by the wind.
"Get up. Time for me to beat your ass." He said after a while, letting go of her hand only for him to get up and offer it to her again.
"It's called training, Neji." She said, while taking it.
"Same thing."