Endless Slumber {Suzume}

[Suzume Inoue]

”No, not particularly. It is freezing. And it is so quiet…”

Suzume nodded, and was ready to comment on it when she saw Rin hold up a hand for her to be silent. She quickly shut her mouth, looking up into the bare trees as she listened to the sound of silence. After the moment had passed, Suzume sighed quietly. ”The weight of silence…” she commented softly. Whenever she left the silence, her voice was always very quiet, as if she was afraid of breaking it. She smiled to herself. ”It’s the most important piece of any song, and probably the hardest thing for any musician to master,” she told him. The lessons of entering the silence with her shamisen stuck in her mind. Silence at the end of a song could bring an audience to its knees in tears, or if it was in the middle, it could hold the a desperate, breathless moment as they waited for the next note to fall on their ears. She knew how important it was, and for her, it was enjoyable to enter that silence. But she couldn’t stand it for long. ”I guess… after a while it can drive you a little crazy, huh?” she asked.

Suzume didn’t pretend to not notice how wide Rin’s eyes went at her mention of the okiya. She blushed immensely. It really had been very stupid of her to mention it. Rin hated crowds, she had been able to get that from their first meeting. And yet she had invited him to a place full of people. Full of loud people, to be exact. And that was something she was sure he wound hate. She hoped that he didn’t feel an obligation to go there now, because she’d asked. That would be terrible, forcing him into a situation he felt uncomfortable with. ”I- I can do my best to bring it out here for you. I wouldn’t mind that at all!” she beamed up at him, sounding apologetic. ”Please don’t feel obligated to come if it’s uncomfortable…”

Suzume shrunk back as Rin narrowed his eyes, looking in her general direction. She felt as if she’d stepped beyond her limits, but she was beyond curious about him. Here he was, a mysterious figure, coming out of nowhere, and he expected her to keep quiet? That was hardly her. ”Sorry to pry, but you can hardly resent me for it,” she told him. ”I hardly know anything about you.” She watched as he thought about her last question, thinking that he was trying to come up with an answer. That disappointed her. It probably meant that he was going to lie to her, and she didn’t like it when people lied.

”Is that a question?”

Suzume blinked. ”Well, yes,” she replied. Thinking it over, she decided to come straight out. ”You’ve already told me you haven’t always been blind,” she commented, leaning against a tree and sitting down. ”So I’m asking what happened before then. If you don’t mind, of course.” she added the last part quickly, trying to not seem rude. She reached up and wrapped her finger around his hand, slowly to not freak him out and make him jump. ”You can sit down, if you like,” she told him, tugging on his fingers to indicate to him she herself was already sitting.

[Rin Hayashi]

“I- I can do my best to bring it out here for you. I wouldn’t mind that at all! Please don’t feel obligated to come if it’s uncomfortable…”

Why was she still going on about that? He had told her what he preferred, and that was for her to bring her instrument out here to the forest. He sighed, figuring she probably didn’t want to drag her musical piece all the way out here. “Look… If you want to bring this instrument of yours to the forest, then do so. If you are concerned you might trip again and break it, all you have to do is say so. If I must, then I will come to you.”

“Sorry to pry, but you can hardly resent me for it. I hardly know anything about you.”

“Yes,” Rin said, voice suddenly more serious than before, if that was possible, “I know that.” He was silent for a good few moments, expression hardening ever so slightly. “And that is the way I would like to keep it,” he added, voice now quieter, fainter. He wasn’t sure if the girl heard him or not, but it didn’t really matter. He didn’t care if people thought he was an ass. It was actually better if they thought that. Then they would stay away. Because, after all, who would want to hang around a grumpy person like him?

“You’ve already told me you haven’t always been blind. I’m asking what happened before then. If you don’t mind, of course.”

“You do not –”Rin started to snap at her, but before he had a chance to get any more words out he felt her fingers brush against his. Her touch was warm, as it had been before, and as he stood there, he felt her hand slowly close around his. He froze, forgetting what he had been saying to her, and as she tugged at his fingers he found himself obeying. A few moments later he was sitting on the ground next to her, displeased with himself for allowing some insignificant girl to have any control over him. Damn her. What had he gotten himself into? See, he should never have spoken to her in the first place. All it had brought, as usual, was trouble.

Rin leaned his head back against the tree behind him. A heavy sigh left his lips, and he closed his eyes for a few long moments, as if thinking what to say. Perhaps he should just tell her. Not everything of course, but just something. If he told her something maybe she would shut up and stop asking him about it, and he wouldn’t have to think about his past anymore than he had to. “I have always lived in the forest,” he told her at last, lifting his head again, blue irises visible once more. “Not always alone though.” He paused, thinking over his words, choosing them carefully. “There was a village, one that was hidden deep in the trees, a secret village. That was my home.” Rin trailed off after that. Was that enough? Or would she be asking more? He thought about this for a moment, already knowing the answer, and so he added, “I cannot tell you of its location, as that must remain unknown to the outside world, but I can tell you this… It was no ordinary village. It was…more of a training ground… ”

Rin hadn’t said so many words in a very long time. It felt weird hearing his voice out loud, rather than just in his mind, and it felt even weirder to be talking about something like this with another living being. He had never spoken of this story before, but, then again, no one had ever asked him.

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[Suzume Inoue]

Suzume blushed immensely again as he cleared up his opinions. She should have just left it as was, but instead she had to continue. She mentally berated herself for not pulling herself together, but it had been so long since she’d been out of geisha uniform, that she almost forgot how to act like a normal person. ”I- I’m sor- I mean, yeah…” she let her words drift off, realizing finally that she was rambling. Oh boy. Suzume took in a deep breath, calming herself down before she spoke another word. When she was good, she beamed up at Rin. ”Okay! Just give the word and I’ll be there!” she told him brightly. Now she felt she was finally in control of herself again, like she wasn’t frantically flapping her wings against her cage. As much as she convinced herself that she was a free spirit, Suzume recognized that she had lived her whole life in a very bright and very large cage. It was only now, as she grew up, that the space she thought was large was growing smaller and smaller. She wondered sometimes where the limit was, and if she would possibly ever outgrow this cage. The thought scared her, a little, actually.

Suzume only just heard the last words Rin said over the thoughts in her own mind. The smile on her face disappeared. What was he possibly trying to hide? Was his past really so terrible? Or did he just not want to share it with her? She hoped it wasn’t the latter. The sadness and bitterness in his voice though made her feel guilty for prying too. She didn’t want him to do anything he didn’t want to do, and if he didn’t want to tell her of his past, no matter how curious she was, she didn’t want him regretting it later

”You do not-“

Suzume flinched as he began to yell at her. She hated yelling very much. It was something she disliked more than blood or heights, and she fainted at the sight of blood. She bit down on her lip, her hand jerking a little ways out from under Rin’s hand. Then she noticed he’d stopped. Looking up, she noticed how wide his eyes were. Suzume looked back down at their hands, then smiled slightly to herself, and squeezed his hand again waiting for him to sit down. Suzume giggled a little bit at what looked to be a pout on his face. ”You didn’t have to sit if you didn’t want to…” she commented, noting the fact he didn’t look very pleased. ”But thank you,” she added, squeezing his hand again.

The geisha listened carefully as Rin explained a little bit about where he’d come from. She nodded, even though he couldn’t see it. Most of it she understood, but why would a village have to be secret? It didn’t make any sense to her. Well, sort of, but she didn’t imagine that there was any such thing here, so close to her village, her okiya. Suzume knew he wasn’t telling her everything. Just by the fact that he said it was a secret villge meant that he was hiding something. Suzume pressed her lips together. But what?

”What do you mean… more of a training ground?” Suzume asked slowly. She wasn’t sure whether that was the right question to ask, but it was the only thing she could think of. And frankly, she didn’t want the conversation to end there. Suzume knew that he would possibly take her questions the wrong way, as if she was trying to gain information, but it was purely just to put down her curious mind. She hoped he thought of that as well.

[Rin Hayashi]

“What do you mean… more of a training ground?”

Suzume asked the question slowly, as if she wasn’t quite sure of what to ask, or if she should ask. Rin knew there would be questions though. He had expected as much. He still didn’t understand why she was so interested in him, but he had accepted that she was, and it seemed until her curiosity was quenched she would continue to pester him. If he told her enough, maybe she would stop bothering him, stop asking him things that didn’t want to be asked. Well, that was what he was hoping anyway. It’d be just his luck that she’d think of another reason to keep stalking him though.

“A training ground for ninjas,” Rin muttered, deciding it was best to just be blunt. If he was direct, she could ask no more questions, for he would have already answered them all. Of course, he would still keep some things filtered, some things secret, but if he gave her at least a general overview perhaps that would satisfy her. “The village I came from was home to ninjas. Is that specific enough for you?” He sighed, though he didn’t bother waiting for an answer. “Anyway, that is where I lived before, many years ago. That is where my childhood was spent.” He paused now, wondering what he should say next. Should he stop there? Or should he continue, tell her more? He wanted to stop there, however he was pretty sure that Suzume would have other ideas. She was like a cat, a curious cat, one that stuck her noses in places it did not belong. One day that might come back and get her though. After all, as the saying went ‘curiosity killed the cat.’

“Let me guess. Now you are going to ask me why I left. How I became blind. Am I correct?” he asked, his voice a little quieter than usual. He leaned his head back against the tree behind him, letting it rest there as he waited for her answer. He didn’t know why he was bothering to wait, why he wasn’t just spilling his guts out to her right now. Of course she would ask him that. What he had to think about now was how to answer. Rin’s gaze saddened ever so slightly as he thought about this, misty blue eyes narrowing in a defeated way. Why was he even doing this? Why had he let this girl persuade him? Usually he was quite stoic and unresponsive to these sorts of things. Then again, no one had ever asked him such personal things before. Honestly, he was just uncertain how to deal with it.

Part of him hated her. Hated her for making him think about these things from his past. He would rather just brush them under the rug and focus on brighter memories. He’d done that for years now, and then this girl showed up out of nowhere, prying into his life, into his past. This was only his second time meeting her, and already she was being nosy. He hardly knew her well enough to be telling her any of this stuff. Another sigh passed his lips, this one very faint. The breeze blew past them, whipping his hair around, and he let the memories swirl around in his head. He wondered if they would meet again after this, or if it was some fluke in the system, his system. He’d always lived by the rule of never crossing paths with another more than once, but now it seemed that pattern was broken. He wasn’t sure how to feel about this change. He couldn’t decide if it was a good or bad thing. He supposed that would come in time.

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[Suzume Inoue]

Suzume bit her bottom lip and looked down at her hands in her lap. She felt as if she were being a bother to him. How was it that she always knew what to say as a geisha, but as a simple girl, her mind froze up? It wasn’t as if she was two separate people. Suzume the geisha had the same brain as Suzume the girl. So how was it that the things that came easy to the geisha, like talking to men, or making them feel happy, came so hard to the girl? She felt like she was messing it all up, and that Rin was mad at her for asking so many questions. Maybe if she let him ask her questions, he wouldn’t be so angry. It probably wasn’t entertaining at the least to be on the other end of her constant questioning. But she was very curious about him. Suzume though of piping up and telling him that he could ask her anything when he responded.

”A training ground for ninjas.”

The words took a while to register in her mind, but then it clicked. Ninjas? In this forest? Although Suzume believed that Rin wasn’t lying to her, she had a hard time wrapping her mind around the idea that there could be a village of ninjas living so close to her. She had always thought of ninjas living far, far away from any civilization, like up in the mountains. Suzume was used to seeing samurais on the occasion that they visited with the daimyo, since they didn’t earn enough to visit alone, but that was something completely different. Samurai lived out in the open. They made their presence known. Ninjas… well, she didn’t know too much about them. No one around her knew too much about them. They were something like a folk lore, something that everyone knew of, but no one knew if they really, actually existed. Did that mean that Rin was… a ninja?

”Let me guess. Now you are going to ask me why I left. How I became blind. Am I correct?”

Suzume looked at Rin with shock. Was she so readable that even a blind man could see what she was thinking?! Suzume blushed deeply, biting her nails into the flesh of her palm. Yes, those were questions she’d been thinking of asking him. Now, when he said it aloud, they sounded pushy. She pressed her lips together, nodding and forgetting for a moment that he couldn’t see her. When she remembered, she blushed again. ”… yes” she said in a quiet voice, a little embarrassed. ”Am I that obvious?” Suzume asked with a shaky laugh.

The girl looked over at Rin, pressing her lips together as he sighed, quieter this time. Did he really hate her for asking so many questions? She looked back down at her hands as they worried the fabric of her sleeves. If he really didn’t answer them, he didn’t have to. That’s what she kept telling herself, at least. A small part of her wondered what she would do if he did refuse to answer. Would she just let it drop, or would she continue pressing for more? As the silence continued, Suzume wondered if he was going to continue with his story. ”Well,” she began. ”Is that all?”