Litost - White_Lily_NH - Naruto (Anime & Manga) [Archive of Our Own] (2024)

LITOST

Here I am, there she is. My hand moves instinctively forward, as if I could touch her, as if I could erase the distance. Before it manages to sense the cold glass and scare her away, I stop it.

It’s not the thick, reinforced glass that shapes her cage, nor is the water surrounding her, threatening to drown me. What truly separate us lies much deeper, on the never-ending days of searching for her, on the nights crying oneself to sleep, on the heartbreak that made her go.

And past the years that teared us apart, I remember her soft and kind voice telling me stories to sleep, back when I couldn’t even read myself.

“Their beauty conveys their sadness,” she said one night, showing me a mysterious mythological entity in a book, half human, half sea creature. “Legend says if a person is found by one of them, and their heartbreak is deep enough, that person can choose a clean slate. They resign their legs and the air on their lungs, and instead, they get the opportunity to live under the sea, where the life is much calmer and beautiful, far from pain and cruelty. They lose their memories and in so, they may find happiness again.”

I was too young to understand how tragic it was, amazed by the bright colours and the beautiful shapes, captured by their beauty. Just an average minded child.

“Can I become one too?” I asked, wide eyed, fully believing her story, with rose coloured cheeks and an excited smile.

Hinata looked at me with a mix of tenderness and sadness, a soft smile gracing her face.

“I hope not,” she said.

I pouted, and she giggled, taking me in a warm embrace and tucking me in bed finally, a kiss placed on my forehead.

“I don’t want you to suffer or to be sad,” she explained, trying to remind me of the high cost of my aspirations; “besides, I’d miss you unbearably, if you’d live under the water, I could no longer see you. “

“Mmm ok,” I agreed with a smile, “I want to remain your little sister then, and be with you forever.”

… Yet there she is, and here I am.

I’ve gathered enough heartbreak to convert myself, I’m sure. As I think about it, I can’t help feeling betrayed.

‘I’ve endured enough pain, Hinata, and it’s because of you.’

But it takes me two seconds to realise what does that mean.

Hinata has endured more than enough pain. Who could be responsible for that?

I turn to see father several metres away, uninterested, unbothered. It’s a waste of time, and I couldn’t be here if it weren’t for Neji, who managed to convince him an aquarium is actually a learning place. Neji, who had tried to become an older brother to me, after I lost my sister.

I see him next to father, admiring some creatures himself, mumbling some words. He’s probably telling father something clever about them, as brilliant as he has always been, the pride of such a noble family. His unmatched intelligence helped me through the harsh days of studying, and his teachings surely aided my way to the number one. The best, a perfect score in the exams. A place in the Hyuga hall of… well, whatever, simply another Hyuga joining the legacy.

Would it all be different if he did for Hinata as he did for me?

I stop myself in the thought. He has gone through enough guilt already, I know. He has questioned himself exactly that, many times, even if he won’t admit. I know it in the way he tried to make it up to me after she went missing.

But it’s not Neji’s fault, in any way.

I look at father again, the dark circles under his eyes, the deepened wrinkles on his forehead, the anguished expression on his face. He never says, but he hurts. He hurt when Neji’s dad, his twin, passed away, and he hurt when everyone in the family deemed Hinata a failure. But he hurt the most when he couldn’t find her, and when he had to come to terms with the fact his daughter was gone forever.

In the nights he cried silently on his study, thinking no one would ever know, oblivious to his younger daughter spying on him, I saw him weep holding Hinata’s picture and putting the blame on himself.

‘If only I hadn’t been so harsh on her,’ I imagined he thought to himself. ‘If I hadn’t compared her to Neji, if I hadn’t allowed the family talk to her in that manner.’

If.

‘If you hadn’t confessed to her soon-to-be headmistress that even you felt disappointed when she scored number two,’ I think. ‘If you were attentive enough to realise she was standing behind the poorly closed door, holding her breath... Why couldn’t you? Even I realised, and I was just a child.’

But I stop myself again. I know father has gone through enough pain as well.

The memory of the last time I saw Hinata makes my heart ache, and I furrow my eyebrows in frustration.

I no longer question if being the number one is so important, I no longer blame the family who judged her so bad for missing one point on an exam.

The only question in my mind is for Hinata.

‘Why did you? You said you’d miss me and promised to be my sister forever. Why did you leave me?’

My body refuses to obey my mind, and my hand reaches towards the glass, palm open.

I wonder what father and Neji will think when they reach this point at the aquarium, if they do. I wonder what Hinata’s life was like after she left, and how did she end up here.

I hope she had found happiness in that world under the sea, away from grief.

I almost consider the idea of joining her somehow, finding a way to be together again.

But when she looks at me and then my hand, fear in her eyes as she swims away to hide herself, the cold hard truth strikes me.

Here I am, and there she is. But Hinata doesn’t know who am I.