CELESTIAL FLOWERS ( s. gojo )

arc v ━ chapter iii. hostility

a r c v.
❝ all the things you have,
all the things you cannot have. ❞

━━ chapter iii. hostility

ERISU STUMBLES.

She falls face first onto the floor. Pain stabs at her senses and she feels blood rush from her nose. Cue the worried shrieks of the Nakano staff. They scramble to get cotton and bandages, Harunobu bellowing commands to the servants. Only Akifumi and Fuyuko remain calm. The former more irritated at the noise and the latter disinterested. It was almost as if Erisu wasn't their flesh and blood granddaughter.

Erisu looks down, watches as a trickle of blood spread on the hardwood floor, creating a blot that vaguely resembled roses. She uses the back of her palms to wipe it away and blood smears on her skin. The pain Kazuko went through was worse than this, that much she could tell.

"Erisu-sama?" came Harunobu's worried call.

Only a few months remain before the ritual. And her past trainings have all been supervised by the three elders. All of them ready to point out every error she makes.

In the corner of her eyes, she sees Fuyuko. "Did she fall?" the old woman asks, but before anyone could affirm, she walks over to Erisu with her cane. "Stand up. You are not to act like this when the ritual's looming over our heads."

"Fuyuko-san," Harunobu admonishes as he helps Erisu up. A servant approaches and hands Erisu a damp cloth, instructs her to raise her head before wiping the floor clean. "It is just fatigue. Erisu-sama will do—"

"Are you her new attendant, Harunobo?" Fuyuko asks. New attendant. The implication that Kazuko has been replaced. Erisu tries to muster some anger, but she's too tired and preoccupied with other matters. "Here to make excuses for her failure?"

Failure. The word tastes bitter and unfamiliar on Erisu's tongue. Failure. That word that she's always built a wall to evade. Failure. A word unsuited to describe the Nakano heiress. Failure. A word that would destroy everything she worked hard for after all these years. Her carefully tended blue irises squashed by a callous foot, petals pasted onto the ground, and stems snapped into two.

"Fuyuko is right," Akifumi tells the bickering elders before turning to Erisu with her cold, searing gaze. Marika has once described her as that unamused, unflinching, perpetually unimpressed teacher you get at school and Erisu has never stopped thinking of the comparison ever since. The one who would decide that you would be a failure for the rest of your life if you so much as forget to water the sunflowers outside your classroom. "Do better, Erisu-sama. We're running out of time and have no need for you falling over you feet."

The session is over after Erisu manages to successfully perform the steps needed. A perfect portrait of elegance and grace. She had threaded white jasmines on her hair as a token of good luck and gratitude swells in her chest when the results are to be lauded. She glances at Fuyuko, the cherry lipstick on Erisu's lips highlighting the small smile she makes, but the older woman remains placid.

Fuyuko cannot see, but her ears are enough to tell her if Erisu had made a misstep. Akifumi leaves first, Harunobo follows her and soon, the servants filter out of the room. They ask if they can attend to Erisu, offer their company or services but she dismisses them with a wave of her hands. Erisu remains seated, hands folded neatly on her lap, posture steady and gaze faraway.

"Fuyuko-obaasan," she calls. Calling the elder her gramdmother is not something she usually practices, but Erisu is to tired to correct the mistake so she lets it be. "I want to ask you a question."

The old woman mutters something to her attendants and they bow to Erisu before leaving the room. Erisu has a vague image of weeping willows viewed through an open window. They close the door shut before they do so and Erisu mutters thanks underneath her breath.

"What is it?" Fuyuko asks, unwavered by the term Erisu used to address her. She's never been fond of Erisu. In fact, the only things she has displayed affection to in the entirety of her life is her work, her husband and Azu.

"Do you prefer Kazuko over me?"

Fuyuko's lips curl. "What a strange question."

"You've always seen me as an annoyance," she continues. Erisu knows better than to voice all these childish concerns, but something is twisting her throat and spitting out all the feelings she's buried deep in her heart. The unraveling of the sunblessed girl. If they rip her bit by bit and reveal what lurked beneath her skin, past the practiced smiles and pleasant appearance, Erisu wonders what they would see? Would there be gold, spun sunshine into her being? Or a viscuous purple from all the rot she's hidden beneath her graceful movements and sugary words? "But you're fond of Kazuko. And I only continue to disappoint you with each passing day, so I was wondering if—"

Fuyuko raises a hand as if to tell her stop. A part of Erisu is glad that Fuyuko could not see, because if she did, she would witness the pure despair coating every inch of her skin. (At this point in time, Erisu wonders if the jasmine flowers on her hair have rotted.)

"You're the same," Fuyuko says, but Erisu wonders which part of this is her answer. "You and Kazuko are similar in a way that you both let your emotions get the better of you. Say things you don't mean and do actions that you'll end up regretting."

"What do you mean?"

"It means that you're both human. Incredibly flawed, but growing, blossoming, and learning in each passing day," Fuyuko says. Erisu has never judged her as being a cryptic person. Most of her words tended to be short and straight to the point. "Back in my days, to be human was to be vulnerable and end up having yourself be devoured by a Curse. But it's different now. Today you can learn. Learn enough to not ask silly questions."

"You didn't answer my question," Erisu says meekly.

"One of you is a girl who is cherished by almost every member of the clan, destined for greatness even before she left her mother's womb, the other is a child who sees her worth as a weapon, who's destined for damnation as she risks her life for others. Whose only affections are that of the blind, old bat that raised her and the mistress she holds dear." Fuyuko sighs. There it is again. The familiar disappointment that feels like vines circling around her neck, twisting until she's gasping for air. "And yet the mistress she holds dear asks, like a greedy, whining brat, why the blind, old bat prefers the child."

Erisu stares at her hands folded on her lap. The red hakama beneath reminds her of anthuriums, the bright red of those flowers and fresh blood. "I'm not greedy..."

Fuyuko shakes her head. She's winter through and through. A beautiful blossom like Erisu withers in her grasp, leaves, and petals covered and killed by ice. "You and Kazuko may be the same, but she would never ask this insipid question. Learn, Erisu. As the heiress of our clan ought to do."

Erisu clenches her palms, leaving maroon crescents where her fingernail struck and she hates this. Hates the way she's so hateful of so many things. Hates the way she stumbles when performing the steps for the ritual, hates the wisteria growing around the compound which sends her into sneezes, hates Harunobo and his sycophantic tendencies, hates Akifumi and Fuyuko who are always unimpressed and unsatisfied, hates her father for making a mistake, hates her.

It's the last person who makes her hate herself the most.

━━ to be continued.