sweet, sweet solaire | gojo satoru ✔

the past lurks from behind

Hina stood in a dark, candle-lit room.

There was nothing more detrimental than that icky, mind-numbing, horrendous feeling in which they call guilt.

It ate you. It would gobble you up when you want to be happy. In the slightest moment, where you forget it—it only comes crawling back to you. It stays hidden, in the shadows—your shadows, perhaps. You would wonder whether or not you deserve this happiness, or how selfish or ungrateful you may be for not feeling blessed for it. Is it an obligation to feel blessed? If life constructs a utopia around you— for you, the only choice is to feel blessed, isn't it?

You're given everything you've ever wanted, so you must feel happy, isn't that just it?

She felt cold, tightening fingers around her neck.

Feel happy, enjoy life, be grateful for the life you have been given.

Hina was looking into a mirror. And in that mirror, she saw herself.

Don't ever forget that.

No, not just herself.

The fingernails in the reflection were a sharp red. It squeezed at her throat, tighter and even more tighter, suffocating her, telling her not innocent, not innocent, not innocent—

Her small hands ripped them off. She struggled for breath, stumbling forward and gaining balance on the drawer frame. It shook. And then, she saw it—the nightmare itself. What a sight to see; to see your own hands coated and caked with blood. Not your blood, and Hina knew that for sure.

She was splattered in an elderly woman's dark, red-moon blood.

You putrid, insolent brat—!

Hina awoke with a gasp, a yelp, tossing her bed covers aside. She gasped for air, squeezing at her shirt over her chest. It was hot. She was burning, cold sweat dotted her neck and forehead.

And her hands, they felt—

Staggering, she stumbled out of her bed, heaving as she found herself creeping through the halls. It was still dark outside, not even a small, thin crack of dawn shown. Hina stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind her with a small click. She didn't want to disturb Toko with her inconveniences or problems. Her issues, her trauma, her sins—they weren't theirs to think about. They weren't theirs to solve or soothe—by theirs, she meant Toko and Kaito, her adoptive family—to wash away the dirt and purify.

They were hers. And she would always, always be—

No one in this world is innocent. No one.

—guilty.

Hina rubbed her hands raw underneath the cold water of the faucet, rubbing and scrubbing and rubbing until they became red, trying to wash away the stains that still plagued her until this day. She splashed her face, her breaths becoming calmer and calmer, steadier and steadier. Hina watched herself in the mirror, seeing a grown up, fifteen-year-old her.

There was no blood. It was only water, trickling down her nose, itching her skin with the icy coldness of it.

Hina yanked a nearby cabinet door open, and with experienced hands she took out a small, orange pill bottle. She popped a few in her mouth, then placed the bottle back inside the cabinet, closing it quietly. She let out a large exhale, feeling the way her heart started to beat less erratically, until it was nothing more than just a normal rhythm.

A thu-thump, thu-thump, plit plat, plit plat.

Hina swallowed a lump, another trickle of cold water running down her neck. Her shoulders slumped, and she let her head droop forward like a sack of groceries.