Work Text:
The first time he came into awareness, Shinazugawa Sanemi was four years old. Squirming in the arms of his mother as they hid amongst piles of freshly cleaned laundry. The sweet smell of soap tickled his tiny nose, while the warmth of his mama’s arms made him feel cozy. He came to in between one heavy breath and another. Hearing his mother’s whisper in the dark of his brand new consciousness. He felt a giggle bubbling in his body, not quite understanding why. And in his childish mind he searched through the blank empty spaces of his memories for an answer. He saw no image in his mind, only a well known feeling that he should hide.
“Shh love,” mama whispered as she held him tighter against her. “We have to be quiet so we won’t be found.”
”Like a game?” He whispers back. He doesn’t know how he knows this feeling. But fear is ingrained in his bones. His blood is cold, he knows those footsteps in the heavy pit of his soul. Hide. Hide, Sanemi. Don’t let him find you.
”Yes love. Like a game.”
Mama’s warm hands press against the back of his head as he tucks his nose into her collarbone. The big heavy footsteps pass their little hiding place and Sanemi holds his breath in the crook of her neck where she carries him tightly. The familiar scary footsteps pass and Sanemi knows they’ve won the game.
But mama doesn’t let him up. Her heart beats fast in his ear, muffling the sounds of the outside world. Muffling the fear inside him. It's warm here in mama's arms; so warm that his blood, cold from fear, becomes warmer. He breathes evenly, copying her breaths as it slows to a steady rhythm. And in the quiet of isolation, he falls asleep.
He wakes up in the back of a moving carriage, mama’s hair plastered to her skin by her sweat. She works so hard, his mama. Her eyes are dull and damp, but she lights up to smile at him so sweetly.
“Mama?”
“Yes baby?”
He rubs a clumsy hand over one eye, forcing himself awake. “Did we win?”
Her eyes mist over, more and more until they sparkle with a joyful kind of sadness. “Yes baby. We won.”
He jumps up to put his arms around her neck telling her not to cry. She places her arms tight around his waist as the carriage stumbles along the bumpy road. And for the first time in his short life, everything feels right.
For a while they were unknown to anyone. Moving around quietly. Keeping to themselves. Sanemi would be free to roam on the grass, picking flowers as pretty as her. Getting his clothes dirty with mud and grass stains. Shizu would smile at her boy as he returns with his collection of weeds and grass and flowers crushed in his clumsy hands. But Sanemi would always be the boy with white hair in a sea of black and brown. And she, a single mother. ‘Her husband has died’, she tells some towns when she needed sympathy. ‘Her husband left her’, she tells a group of women betrayed by their loves. ‘She has no husband and the boy is a bastard’, lets them stay in a whorehouse with a full meal and a hot bath. In every town, a different story.
But in every town and village. Sanemi remains the boy with white hair. And Shizu, a single mother.
The men and women of misfortune would surround them with protection while the men and women of luxury would sneer. Until one village where the people meant well and believed a family should stay together. No matter the circumstance. No matter the consequence. And when news of a man looking for his wife and son spread to their little village they happily put Shizu and her baby in a small room. With a smile they told them to wait.
But she could feel the old familiar dread of a day gone wrong. Of a docile morning turned harsh. She tries to stand up but they push her down again. Tries to leave but there is no more escaping; Sanemi is with her in this room. If she runs now, he gets left behind. All she can do now is fend off the hands that try to take him. All she can do now is hold him close and hope this isn’t the end for them.
Mama is holding him too tightly, but the weird people trying to take him finally walk out of the tiny room they’ve put them in. They were told to wait so now they’re waiting. Until he hears the scrape of a sandal on the floor and a heavy stomp of a foot. He knows those familiar steps. He knows to fear him. He knows to love him. And years from now, he still won't know which feeling won that day when the door opened to reveal the man. He squirms out of his mother’s hold.
“Sanemi, dont-”
“Papa!”
And yet the boy was still blinded by that stupid unconditional love that a child has for their parents. For one blinding moment, he’d been genuinely happy to see the man who used to put him on his shoulders. High enough to see the world. Only to be met with a burning sting on his cheek as the villagers look on in horror. An old man tried to stop papa, but no one can stop a man as big as him. Sanemi feels sorry for the old man that has to clutch at his stomach after one of Kyogo’s infamous punches. The villagers all get scared. It only makes sense.
One of them got hit. So they all turn away.
Father was like a mountain, like solid earth able to carry the weight of their family. Sanemi thought he was unshakable. And then the money ran dry. And that solid foundation he called father, crumbled. The ground shook and his own feet began trembling. And the tremors never stopped. Sanemi can sometimes feel mama shaking in her sleep.
And in the days following their happy reunion, Sanemi curls up on the floor as he’s learned to do before. He hears the brutal sounds of fist hitting the softest flesh, mama’s hair blocking his view, as every strand of her body covers him from papa. She’s always in pain. Sanemi weeps quietly in her arms because papa hates it when he cries. If he knew how strong Sanemi could be, maybe he wouldn’t hate him so much. And mama wouldn’t have to save him all the time.
As long as there’s hope, Sanemi’s heart will remain broken. Because hope is an awful thing that holds you high and lets you fall.
The long unwashed oils in her long hair fall unkempt and graceless past her downturned head. Loss in her eyes that once sparkled in her youth. Her second baby is crying but she can barely hear him. Can barely hear the thoughts in her head for how they've cowered into the recesses of her mind. She tried to run. She tried to run and foolishly got caught. No. She was returned. Her and her baby boy were returned like lost cattle to her owner. So many men helped Kyogo find the wife he didn’t love. And the son he doesn’t even want.
“Why? Why look for us when you don’t even want us?”
”Because you’re mine.”
She mourns. Her tears cascading down her pale bruised face as her little Sanemi sings a song to soothe his new brother. Her only sunlight now that she knows she can never escape the night. Her beautiful boys. Her only loves. She gets up from within the shadow of their broken home; stands silently beside Sanemi and the crying newborn. She listens to her son’s whispers of love and protection.
“Don’t cry baby,” he coos at his brother, “nii-chan will become strong so he can protect you.”
The poor child, born into this cursed life. And so she named him Genya, because this is not the life she wanted for them. She named him after the deep silence of a quiet life. The kind of life she should’ve been able to provide. She names him for the deep colour of distant heaven on his midnight hair.
Sanemi, the fruits of her labour, the truth in her arms, coddled his little brother until his cries are soothed to a pitiful whimper. She pats softly at Sanemi's fluffy white hair, its roots tinted pink like the fruits of spring.
“I'm sorry baby. Mama's so sorry.”
“Mama?” He looks up at her, confusion on his little face.
“You've been taking good care of him haven't you?” She weeps. He shouldn't have had to carry this burden if she was just smarter. If she was braver. Taller. Stronger.
“Mama will take care of both of you from now on.” She kisses the top of his head. “I promise.”
Her eldest smiles wide, gaps in his teeth. “Ok mama.”
She knows her suffering takes a toll on him. Knows the trembling and the tears; singing to his brand new baby brother as his mother begs for mercy. Trying to drown the noise of her pain. The sound of his racing heartbeat. And in the daylight Genya watches her with sparkling eyes full of innocent wonder. Watches her move around their little box of a house. She looks perfect to his newly opened eyes, her smile shining a halo from where light enters the holes in their damp little house. The cuts and bruises not registering in his mind.
“Muh-hm,” he mumbles, sucking on his bottom lip. “Mmah!”
Sanemi giggles. “She's amazing isn't she?”
His baby brother squeals in agreement.
The next time he comes to awareness, Sanemi is seven years old. Rotten thoughts fester in his young mind; his entire short life changes with the realisation that something had gone wrong. And that something wrong, was him. He now knows, if she left without him, she would’ve been able to run better, hide better. Not have to look after him. Not have to go hungry just to feed him. She would have been quiet. Kept to herself. Without a son with bright white hair, she wouldn’t have been found.
He watches his pregnant mother brush Genya’s fluffy curls while Sanemi holds his baby sister in his arms. She’s calm and quiet, unlike Genya who was constantly fussy as a one year old. Mama chuckles softly as his baby brother giggles, ticklish as he squirms and tries to go to his nii-chan. She brushes Genya’s hair. His black hair, almost as dark as mama’s. His baby sister coos from his arms, a little bow tied to the wispy strands. Her black hair, darker than Genya’s, exactly like mama’s.
“Ma,” it takes three years and two more siblings before Sanemi is brave enough to confront her. Two more siblings with dark black hair the colour of Shizu and Kyogo. Three years of this festering thought growing like mold in the corner of his mind; like flies buzzing around the awful stench of these horrid thoughts, it lingers. At ten years old, he thinks he’s mature enough to have this conversation. Old enough to know how to argue back if she tells him he’s wrong.
“You should’ve left without me.”
And there it is. The truth he’s held on to for all this time. Every year brings to light new evidence of why she was better off without him.
But the horror that twists her pretty face makes him think these words aren’t worth it. The tears that fill her eyes fill him with guilt for the words that come out of his lips. That maybe the truth isn’t worth the pain it puts her through.
“Never say that,” her voice trembles, appalled. “Never, do you understand? I’m never leaving you,” her tiny hands grab at his haori and pulls him in close. Just like she did when he was four and strangers tried to take him from her. And he knows mama wouldn’t have it any other way.
One by one she is forced to bring her children into this world of pain. But one by one her world gets brighter for it. Never mind the beatings, the bruises permanently marked on her skin in the hurricane of their home. Amidst Kyogo’s anger, they were conceived. She bore them all in pain. But raised them all with love. Sanemi wants to be good enough to deserve it. She works so hard, his mama. Sanemi wants to work hard too.
He won't cry. Doesn't have the right to cry after what he's done. What he's always done. Sanemi brought shame to his family. To his mother. To be born like this, with pale white hair in a town full of black haired people. The women in town would whisper hateful words behind his back when the men would call him pretty to his face. When they would caress his cheek, father would call him names, call him weak and womanly. So Sanemi grew older, stronger. And one day when the men of the town would leer at his strength - maybe father would finally claim him as his son.
Maybe Kyogo would finally take credit for the strength Sanemi suffered to gain.
This is not a life worth living, but for their babies, Shizu and Sanemi will live it. Because they are, to them, far more important than life.
“You really think I care about your reputation? If you wanted a good reputation, then you should’ve behaved better.” She bore a son once with hair the colour of peach blossoms and it was enough for the town to call her a whore. She ran away with her child once and it was enough to be called a bad wife and mother. And when Kyogo is stabbed like he deserves, he leaves behind him a mountain of debt. But there’s an air of relief, like Shizu could breathe for the first time since she was ruthlessly returned. It’s still enough for men to call her ungrateful. Because they always wanted more from her than she could give.
Payment. Gratitude. The right to live.
She tries to spit out the slimey lips of the man claiming to have killed her husband. To be grateful he says, though she owes him nothing. People pass by and see them, of course they do. But they also see nothing. Nothing but a new rumor to spread by daylight.
“Your kids could be grateful too, you know.” The man grins and she knows she has nothing left to pay him with; but she will never let her children pay for her sins.
Everyday, she smiles for her children who don't know anything. Delights, in the way they run free amongst the other children of the street. Her heart beats intensely with the hope that this life of poverty is not all there is in this awful world they live in. That the kindly merchant who comes and goes every season offering knowledge and an education few could afford. Sanemi forces the younger ones to go - content with learning to read from the words he spots throughout the day as vendors put up their goods. Too busy for books when he can just learn to read the signs on the roadways of his deliveries.
But most of all, Shizu smiles for her eldest who knows everything. Treats him softly because this is the only life he knows. Because he remembers a time when his father was a man and not a monster. Faces the memory of his papa changing right in front of his innocent eyes. Carries the weight of words heard from strangers and neighbours and family. That he is Kyogo's embarrassment. Born with his beautiful white hair. Faced with the idea that his love was wasted on a brute and a fool.
When next he becomes too aware, Sanemi is fourteen years old. Still so young when the rest of his innocence leaves him in a slow brutal display of violence and lust. He feels too wide awake to ever return to sleeping soundly like a child. His mother works from dawn every morning and barely returns until deep into the night. It wasn’t unusual to Sanemi’s young mind. She works so hard, his mama. It wasn't unusual at all. Until he grew up and realised it was.
Once again Sanemi believes himself old enough and confronts her on her nightly disappearances. He confronts her and for the first time, she stands like a wall. Unwilling to let him in. He's still a child. Her child. Her baby.
“That's a need to know Sanemi. You don't need to know.”
“You think I don’t know what you’re up to? Dammit ma! Why can’t you just tell me! ”
With his right arm, Sanemi punches a hole clean through their wall. The silence rings loud in his ears. The dark walls of his home blurs along with his vision. He stares at his bleeding hand like it’s a stranger in the night. His blood- his blood-
“Ma,” he whimpers, voice pleading and afraid. “I didnt- I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to.” He trembles like a red leaf in the tail ends of autumn. Faced with the reality that in his veins runs a monster’s blood.
His father never claimed him until he showed a feat of strength. Pushing carriages, carrying sacks of rice. He's strong. Like his pa. He’s sure, if Kyogo were alive to see him now, he’d proudly claim him as his son. But mama takes his hand. The one trembling with a need to be cut off from his wrist.
“You're strong Sanemi.” She places a soft kiss on his traitorous right hand. She then takes his left hand in hers and kisses it just the same. “Protect us with your right hand. Put your heart in your left.”
”My left?”
“Remember, that when you are angry with us. Be delicate, like your left hand.”
It doesn’t appease him. It isn’t meant to.
His pleas are nothing but whispers in the dark. “I don't wanna be angry with you.”
It hurts to see him like this, knowing he tried so hard not to become Kyogo. But life is a terrible teacher and it gives consequence to those undeserving of punishment. He’d have to live the rest of his life with this evil in his heart. His own blood overflowing with anger. So he puts his fear in his right arm and his love on the left. Because he doesn't know what else to do but cut off his hands. But he needs his hands for work. And so he keeps them.
He forces his hands to do good work that puts food on the table or a smile on their faces. With a butcher’s right hand, he cuts up meat to sell. The townsfolk look down on him for the blood on his right hand as they purchase food for their own bellies. With a mother’s left hand, he mends scraped knees and broken pinwheels. His baby brothers and sisters crying around him while he soothes them. With a gentle smile that looks like mama’s, he puts their hearts at ease.
Don’t worry. Nii-chan will fix this.
Sanemi’s smiles are few and far between. His joy, stolen from his lips by the very blood he despises - first Kyogo and now himself. She can see in his eyes how he barely scrapes by, his feet dragging his tired body from day to day. Her child, getting hollowed out for every day that nothing changes. For every day that hope grows smaller. For every day he is reminded - this life is not worth living. But for his family, he lives it.
And so she does what every mother does and bothers her eldest son with reassurances and teasing and begging him to get married. Anything. Anything to get his mind off of this hopeless life they live.
“Being educated is very in right now Sanemi. Imagine all the girls who would love to have a genius for a husband.”
"Ma I told you. I'm not getting married,” the boy rolls his eyes at her as he hands over the sun warmed blankets “Besides, Genya’s smarter than me, that's why he's learning to read and write, remember?"
"That money was for your tuition.” Always should have been. “You worked so hard for that.”
"Exactly, I worked hard so I could put the kids in class. We're not arguing about this. Or do you want the boys to be rickshaw drivers too?"
"Oh, look at you.” She tuts. “Old enough to argue with your own mom."
She reaches out her water wrinkled hands, the feeling of it must be icky on his face but Sanemi leans over anyway. She wants to kiss the top of his fluffy white hair. Her small hand cupping his cheek, a worried smile on her face and love in the warmth of her palm. "I just want my son to be happy."
"I am happy ma,” he smiles for her. “I don't need anything else. I promise."
He’s happy now with merely surviving. But her son had been a genius, calculating things she and Kyogo could never understand. Learning how to use unfamiliar tools as soon as he picked them up. The whole neighborhood would come to him and he’d know just what to do. And when he comes home with the money he no longer has to hide, Shizu feels something like pride. Gone are the days when he would have to hide his hard earned books under loose tatami. Or keeping it with the neighbors only for Kyogo to tear it all up the moment he gets an inkling that the boy had been learning.
She tells her boy he can finally learn to read and write without the looming threat of his father over him. He says he doesn’t want to with contentment in his smile. But she can see the fear in his eyes even though Kyogo is dead and gone. Fear that this too will be taken from him.
She sees the way they look at him. Can hear it in the filthy way the men tell her how much her boy looks like her. With his soft face and a smile that looks just like hers. It’s a shame he doesn’t smile all that often they say. It's awful to think but she'd rather her son never smile at all. The first time she hit a patron, he took everything. Even the money. Even with Kyogo gone, the suffering her body goes through hasn’t changed all that much. Her only reprieve is going home to see the happy faces of her children. Now free of the horror of living under a tyrant’s foot.
But when winter arrives finding her ill and unable to move, Sanemi gives those men exactly what they want. Shizu didn’t know her heart could still be broken when she woke from her illness and her eldest wasn’t home. He came in from the cold, shivering from the winter night. Shivering from the things they’d done to him. He came home, trembling and shaking, a bag full of coin and once again old enough to argue with his mother.
“Share the burden with me,” he pleads.
“You're a child-”
“That hasn't been true in a long time.” He wishes so hard for his lost childhood, wishes he'd held on tightly to paper pinwheels turning in the wind. But he was only four when he first woke up. "Ma," his voice trembles, small and frightened. "Don't you look down on me too."
And his tears strike a pain in her gut like nothing she’s ever felt. Much worse than any physical pain she’s had to endure. Shizu nods shakily. Her son's pride hurts her. Has the ability to hurt them all.
Sanemi, my baby. “My baby grew tall and moved out of my arms so quickly. Mama can't carry you anymore, but I wish I could.” She wishes she could’ve carried him farther away from here. She cups his face, mouth opening to ask him- ask him what? If he's happy? How could he be?
He smiles at her so gently, with the smile of a parent soothing a baby. His eyes welling up with the tears of a child.
"I'm happy ma,” he says with a devastating sigh in his trembling voice. “Promise."
She works so hard, his mama. Sanemi wants to work hard too.
Sanemi feels so far away. Asleep for all the blood that pour out of the cuts on his face. The red seeping, bleeding the colours from his eyes. The dark of the night gets darker amidst the emptiness in his heart. His ears hear Genya’s voice calling for him, calling for a doctor. But he is not the only one, as the monster above him hears the voice of his little brother and staggers towards the sound of his desperate call. Instinct pushes at Sanemi like a gust of wind through the sails, his right arm full of fear grabbing her kimono. His left, holding all of his love, swinging the cleaver towards her head.
The first time he came into awareness, he was four years old coddled up next to mama and already knowing fear. He had already memorised the sound of Kyogo’s footsteps hitting dirt floors; of his fists hitting mother. Can recall with perfect clarity, the sound of her bones breaking amidst her screams. He can feel her bones now crushing under his own fist. The creature howling in pain. His mama crying in pain.
The next time he came to awareness he was seven years old and learned the thing called blame. He was to blame for all her misfortunes. That the truth isn't worth the pain he puts her through. He learned the depth of her love and realized the depth of his. He loves her. This woman who would die for them. Is dying for them. He would never do anything to hurt her.
When next he becomes too aware, he was fourteen years old and figuring out how to kill that part of him that is Kyogo. Frightened of the strength in his arms and the anger in his heart. Now- now he uses that part of him to survive. Always surviving. He uses the strength his father gave him to brutalize his own mother as history repeats and sons become their fathers.
And when next he wakes, the sun is rising. Standing in front of her tiny body, blood all over the street. A butcher's knife in his left hand with promises all muddled up and broken. Using his delicate hand against her. Just as she said. His baby brother calls him a murderer and Sanemi watches as the last of his hopes vanishes into the dawn. Genya’s cries brings the waking town out of their homes looking for signs of blood. Looking for a murderer. Looking at Sanemi.
Their house warmed hands are too hot on his body. On his clothes, grabbing and clinging unkindly. Like the men whose filthy hands grab at him almost every night. It doesn’t matter that it’s not them. Their hands are large and he’s just a boy. Then he's running, slipping from underneath his haori as it flutters to the floor. He runs. And runs and doesn't stop. Stumbling into the still dark woods. Dark enough to block out the sun. The world is dark to him now. He can barely see for all the colours that have bled from his eyes.
For all of Kyogos sins, he never killed anyone. Sanemi is fourteen years old. And already a worse man than his father had ever been.
So he puts his hatred in his right arm and his despair on the left. Luring demons to their deaths. A feast in the blood dripping from his left arm where he cuts it. The left arm that killed his mother. He cuts it like a punishment. And when he watches it flow like water, he doesn't wonder if it'll ever stop. He doesn’t wonder if one day, he'll ever stop. Sanemi's mind goes into hiding. His body moved by instinct alone. He doesn't know when he'll wake up again. Doesn't know if he wants to.
After all, there is only pain to greet him every time he wakes.