[Time passes, and Hayame makes no motion and gives no word to hurry it along. She won't, or can't. There is something lodged deep in her throat that is heavy and unpleasant. Something that she shamefully knew had never been enough in her world to make her act against the very same treatment he had suffered. And even if she had mercy enough to acknowledge that she had been but a child struggling to avoid that very same fate, the threat of life as an armless broodmare, mount, or "companion" constantly held over her head to ward off failure or betrayal...
She can not say anything further until he speaks. His doppelgänger's blood is still smeared on her lips like a beast's attempt at a woman's beauty. And she hates it, hates that every time she feels that rare, strange desire to reach out, to- to connect, or... comfort...
She fails. She fears she sees in his face and eyes that she has done more harm than good. Perhaps she should just have kept her mouth shut, let him believe that she believed what he'd told her that day at the restaurant, that he'd only been used for thug shit. From her own experiences... She was supposed to know better. She was supposed to have been taught better. Like how when the stable master had flensed Toshifuji's arms from her shoulders. Like when she'd seen what happened to Kohibari every time the lord waiting to buy him visited, little tricks and tastes to keep the man interested long enough to raise the boy to his sale date.
It happened. It's over with. Can't do anything about it now.]
I know.
[She knows. She just- She simply wanted him to know something, and yet the words don't come out the way she wanted them to. Her lips twist with frustration, her fingers curl into impotent fists, forcing a hiss of pain as the broken digit moves with it, but she has to finish it despite.]
I simply meant that-
[What? (What did "friends" do? If she were even going to half believe that-)]
... That is all I will say. I fought my own clone from the ice. It is the only thing that happened.
[She repeats it, but in a far different tone, with far different meaning. ... No one else needed to know what she had seen. Let alone someone who wouldn't understand.]
cw: more child sa stuff
She can not say anything further until he speaks. His doppelgänger's blood is still smeared on her lips like a beast's attempt at a woman's beauty. And she hates it, hates that every time she feels that rare, strange desire to reach out, to- to connect, or... comfort...
She fails. She fears she sees in his face and eyes that she has done more harm than good. Perhaps she should just have kept her mouth shut, let him believe that she believed what he'd told her that day at the restaurant, that he'd only been used for thug shit. From her own experiences... She was supposed to know better. She was supposed to have been taught better. Like how when the stable master had flensed Toshifuji's arms from her shoulders. Like when she'd seen what happened to Kohibari every time the lord waiting to buy him visited, little tricks and tastes to keep the man interested long enough to raise the boy to his sale date.
It happened. It's over with. Can't do anything about it now.]
I know.
[She knows. She just- She simply wanted him to know something, and yet the words don't come out the way she wanted them to. Her lips twist with frustration, her fingers curl into impotent fists, forcing a hiss of pain as the broken digit moves with it, but she has to finish it despite.]
I simply meant that-
[What? (What did "friends" do? If she were even going to half believe that-)]
... That is all I will say. I fought my own clone from the ice. It is the only thing that happened.
[She repeats it, but in a far different tone, with far different meaning. ... No one else needed to know what she had seen. Let alone someone who wouldn't understand.]