Chapter Text
She remembered it when her flame first manifested.
It was when she saw her brother's messy state, with scratches and smudged blood covering his arms and knees. The first time the bullying turned physical and it seemed to hurt her more than him. Her brother looked at her with worry, for her and not feeling anything for himself.
Her brother smiled at her with glassy eyes while wincing at the pain he felt. She caught the slight tremble of her brother's limb that he couldn't hide well enough. A seven years old boy smiling to keep his six years old sister from being worried. When he should be crying from this.
Her brother had always been like this. Others before him, Kaa-san before him, her before him.
Her mind blanked for a second and thought, a feeling that she very rarely, seldom felt before, started to form in her mind,
It's unfair, why should he experience this? Even though he didn't do anything wrong! Why him why! Its unfair itsunfair unfairunfAIR!ITS UNFAIR!
Then, then the flame burst out.
Everything changed after that.
Beautiful.
That was the first thing that came into her mind as she gazed at the flickering flame. The beautiful golden-azure flame, enveloping her palms as it slowly but surely crawled up her arms.
The flame burned and burned but she saw no smoke or felt any pain from the heat.
Instead, as if it was a flame of a fireplace, a flame to give warmth. To give comfort, getting rid of the chill from the winter.
It felt like she was being hugged, wrapped around a blanket, as if it was a hug from a father, mother, brother, a comforting hug.
It felt like it was the first time she felt warmth, like the first warmth after a long trudge in the snowstorm.
The hiss and crackle she heard from the flame sounded like a croon instead of what it should be. Whispering, telling her to calm down, that she was safe, that it was okay, and it told her.
To remember.
And she did.
She was not anything in her past life.
By no means was she stupid or anything. She was weird. Her family, parents knew. It was fuzzy but she could still vaguely remember the worried muttering of her parents. Asking what was wrong with her, whether should they look for a specialist. Asking themself had they done wrong.
She felt guilty. She knew it wasn't their fault, that it was her that was different. So she tried. Tried to be normal, it was what they wanted after all. But she might have done something wrong along the way.
She didn't mind the fact that no one paid much attention to her. She did it deliberately after all. Her parents, the previous one, used to dote on when she was a child. She smiled when she should and cry because it was normal, did because she must. The worried muttering ceased and her parents soon forgot the short phase of her being 'not normal', 'different'. She became what they wanted, a normal child.
Although it changed the moment her younger sibling was born.
Normal meant boring, boring meant that she wasn't interesting.
She was their child, that was the reason for their doting. That was the thing, even though she tried, she was only their child, not their ideal child. Not like her little sister.
While she preferred to gaze at the sky, just lying around and idly spent the day, her sister was the bubbly princess, all smiles and giggles at anything and everything.
Everything she wasn't.
She tried but it must have not been enough. She knew they didn't know but subconsciously? they realized it was fake.
If her parents were the king and queen, regardless of the older and younger concept, her sister was the crown princess, and she was the spare.
Loved but not dear.
Cared but not important.
is there, not should be there.
She was not abused, she was loved, just not as much as her sister. She didn't mind it much though. It was her fault after all, for not being the ideal child they wanted.
She knew that she was weird, as any child would cry at the unfairness and would try to get attention, but she didn't and knew that people would find that it was weird. She was wrong and she didn't understand what was wrong with her. It had been always been like that since the start.
She didn't have any drive to anything. Like how she acted for her parents, she did it because she must. Because it would be better.
For her entire past life, she had just been living following the wave. It was somewhat boring, but she was somewhat satisfied. It was her life after all.
She was satisfied and she didn't want people to meddle in how she lived her life. It wasn't easy though. She was weird, she knew that even as a child, what she was doing was considered "wrong". She didn't care what people thought of her, she was her own person and they have no right to tell her what to do or what she should. But, it was still what she thought. People would want to meddle in how she lived.
She feared almost nothing, but that? The fear of people would try to dictate how she should live? How she should actually feel? Trying to "help" her because they thought they were right? That was her greatest fear.
So she started to have a habit. She observed. She tried to observe everything.
Why do they do that?
Why do they feel that?
Why was it wrong?
Why should she feel that way?
Why?
Why-?
Why and why she asked herself.
She observed and slowly she built a mask. A mask of "normal", of "uninteresting". A mask that made people ignore her. Because if they ignore her they wouldn't bother her and she could live her life as it is. The mask had cracked a few times, but people would forget. Sometimes quickly as they thought that it must have been a trick of their mind and sometimes through a few incidents that were more interesting than her.
So she lived, grew up, lived, and died just like that. But as she said, she was satisfied. Even if she did die young, she had decided to follow the wave. If she died, then she died because she chose it.
She chose to live as what others considered normal.
She realized that in the end, they ended up dictating how she should live too. She had lost her way, lost on how she should have lived, lost to the people that she thought should not dictate how she should live.
But then she thought.
It's not like it mattered in the end.
Right?
Yet, yet when she looked at her hands( hands that should be larger than this but it should be this size ) through the flame that surrounded her, enveloping it and didn't understand why. The twin-colored flame that seemed to fight to be the victor, to be the only one burning. She expected to feel nothing, to feel apathy and something was wrong.
Because she didn't feel what she should feel and it was wrong.
Why was she feeling warmth?
Why was she feeling alive?
Why was she feeling what she had always wanted to feel but had never been able to?
Why was she feeling happy?
Like something was hugging her and telling her it's okay?
Soothing her, further breaking the mask that had been there, telling her to stop wearing the mask( something that should not be there in the first place ).
That it's okay to not understand, that she can take her time, that it's okay.
It made her( that woman ) feel something.
She knew she was wrong. She knew something had always been missing from her( that woman ).
The flame erased those thoughts. The flame enveloped her small form, covering her, protecting her. In the warmth and assurance, the tears she didn't realize had accumulated and started to drop. Droplets of her tears falling and disappearing as it the flame flickers.
As she cried, blankly staring at the tears, she felt like wishes that she didn't know she had were being fulfilled and that she was finally crying for the unfairness she should had felt.
( In the middle of it, the entity of
her, the child
and she, the woman
started to separate )
For a moment she had forgotten about her brother. Her injured brother tried to tell her not to worry and the feeling of unfairness led to her realization. She snapped her head up from gazing at the beautiful flame that turned completely golden when she remembered her brother's injuries.
Her brother was gazing at her with a shocked expression. Flickering amber eyes( the color that should have been caramel brown ) gazed at her with shock and worry in it. He took a step toward her, hand reaching out.
She unconsciously followed his action, with teary eyes she reached her hands out trying to touch him, to ground her to the present. The want to feel something physical so overwhelming that the tears increased.
But she didn't reach him.
Specks of black appeared, it hindered her sight as she felt both hot and cold at the same time.
Her eyes slowly closed as she impacted the ground.
"Honoka!"
Her brother's anguished cry of her name was the last thing she heard before all turned dark.
Honoka slept, dreaming of the distant memories of her. The woman she was and no longer is.
The family the woman had, the few friends she had to perfect her mask, what she did, the way she lived, and the emptiness.
The emptiness that had always accompanied her before and after her death, the emptiness that somehow disappeared as soon as the flame appeared.
Her flame. Something that is hers only. The beautiful flame that she couldn't understand.
Her will.
The resolves that took form in her.
But more importantly, she dreamt.
And she learned, from the woman's mistake.
So that she could be better.
So that she could--
Waking up, Honoka felt everything was clearer. She knew more, saw more, and understood more. The sunrise that she saw from the window, the light from it that shone against her face, the vague warmth that felt much like the flame in her.
The blurriness that had been there disappeared with no trace. The muddled feeling that hindered her mind, like a glass stain was wiped away.
Instead in its place was the exact opposite of it, a feeling of clarity that whispered to her. A barely heard voice made her feel safe and warm. A voice that would tell her what to do like i-
She blinked her eyes, feeling it slightly wet.
She raised her body shakily, feeling the comforter fell to her waist. She gazed at her hands hoping that the flame would appear again. She clenched and unclenched them, trying to grasp the warmth, the core of flame in her chest. But no matter how long she sat there hoping and hoping, something she was learning to do, it didn't appear.
"Wuu... .h.."
She let out a high-pitched raspy sound, similar to a canine whimper, feeling disappointment deep in her chest. Honoka let her upper body fall back harshly against the bed, feeling regret as soon as the room spun due to the reckless movement.
She fell asleep.
Honoka woke up again when the sun was bright up in the sky. The comforter covered her entire body, not only her lower body when she woke up before. Kaa-san or Tsu-nii must have entered the room to check on her.
She got off the bed and fell with a loud thump as soon her legs buckled, unable to withstand her weight.
She winced at the soreness and pain that she felt. Feeling pain in her forehead when she accidentally slammed it against the floor. She shakily sat up, her back against the bed. Looking to the side, she spotted a washbasin on top of the drawer beside her bed.
Honoka concluded that she had a pretty bad fever. The washbasin and the soreness proof it.
But...
she looked toward the bed and find that there was no towel too. She tilted her head confused. Leaning against the bed and grasping the edges of the bed she practically toddled toward the drawer. Peering into the washbasin she found that yes, it was filled.
Questions filled her mind as soon as she saw it.
Why would you place a water-filled washbasin inside a sick child's room? Did they want to make sure that the air is not dry? Then shouldn't a glass of water should be sufficient? Why would they want to make sure that the air is not dry either way?
She got the answer just as the door slammed open.
Unless the person who brought was clumsy and forgot to bring the towel.
And well, and there was only one person in this house that was that clumsy, wasn't it?
"No-chan!"
The cry was similar to the anguished one she heard before she passed out, just that it was instead filled with relief, joy, and of course worry. He had always placed her first.
Her brother, Tsu-nii
( Sawada Tsunayoshi, Decimo of Vongola Famiglia, but she didn't know about it at that time )