CELESTIAL FLOWERS ( s. gojo )

arc vii ━ chapter ii. argufy

a r c vii.

❝ is your name a wish, a prayer, or a hope?

is your name a curse? ❞

━━ chapter ii. argufy

MARUYAMA MARIKA IS NOT A MASTER OF TEMPERING HER EMOTIONS. She's known this from a very young age, with the way she lashes out at every minor inconvenience, splatters of curses and obscenities at the smallest causes of pain. Her grandmother had told her that a man would never find her a suitable bride. It didn't matter to then ten-year-old Maruyama Marika. As far as she was concerned, men like her father were all worthless pieces of shit that ran from responsibilities without so much as a second glance at the flesh and blood they were leaving behind. If Marika had to act nice and graceful just to get a man, she'd rather grab a rope and hang.

Her views on marriage as well as her unchecked temper had led to many obnoxious fights with her grandmother. Maruyama Hiroe, with her long hair pinned to a neat bun, frowning at whatever mess Marika had caused was a prominent memory of her childhood days.

"The Nakano girl's going to lead a clan," she said one time, tugging at the bandages wrapped over her fingers. She had intentionally poked at them with a needle when Hiroe was teaching her to sew, faking incompetence in order to spend the rest of the day resting. "And she's a girl. Just like me! We shouldn't be treated differently. That's stupid!"

"How many times have I told you not to yell?"

"I'm not yelling," Marika countered. "It's just how my voice is. Grandma, you're already half deaf because of your age, maybe you're the problem and not my voice."

Hiroe glares at her. The sight is so common that it almost makes her giggle. Hiroe is always displeased, always frowning and glaring at whatever Marika has done, but at the end of the day, she stays by the girl's side. A constant. Something that won't leave. Like her mother and father had.

"Don't point out my age," she hisses. "Ladies don't bring up such a topic. You talk about the weather, about poetry and books."

"Books are boring..."

"You're ten, you don't get to decide what's boring or not," she says. "When the time comes and I am dead, you will be glad that I was here to teach you all these important lessons."

"That's stupid," she retorts, but the volume of her voice has decreased by a notch. She's now looking down, fiddling with her fingertips and tugging at the edge of the bandages. "And you're not gonna die yet, grandma. Don't be stupidly dramatic for no reason."

"So obvious," Hiroe whispers and reaches for Marika's face. She caresses her granddaughter's cheeks, ridden with baby fat and a smattering of freckles that look like tiny stars on her skin. "Your fear is bleeding through your face. Hide it. Haven't I told you this before? Never leave anything that can harm you out in the open. Others may wield it to destroy you and you don't want that, do you?"

She nods.

But she never quite follows through. Hiroe dies when she is thirteen and another constant vanishes in Marika's life. A girl filled with ephemeralities; of unending cycles of loss and grief. She's like an active volcano. One eruption after another. Makes the soil richer after another loss and just when life is thriving, hot rocks pile underneath the earth and there's lava, and trees and buildings are burning, drenched with red and black and orange.

Even when she is nineteen, when the baby fat on her face has vanished and replaced with sharp edges that never fail to intimidate others, Marika still cannot temper her emotions. Still leaves all her feelings out in the open and she's screaming at Erisu, her emotions so palpable that if Erisu reached out her hand, she could touch the worry, the anxiety, and the frustration.

"Talk to me!" she says, pleads. Like a pilgrim to its saint. Praying for a miracle that will never be reached. Erisu looks at her with leaden eyes, as leaden as amber eyes could be.

"You won't understand," she says. Even her voice is no longer like the Erisu she once knew. The one who looked like she was afraid she could break things if she dared breathe. She looks like she's aged rapidly in the past year, the sunken cheeks and the grey bags all very prominent without the aid of cosmetics. "Leave me alone."

And she turns away, but Marika clutches her hand and Erisu flinches. Scarlet snaking up from her neck to her face and she thrashes against the other girl's tight grip.

"You need to rest," Marika says. She just wants to help. Erisu is pitiful. A shell of the bright person she once was. With things as they are, the ritual will be destined for failure, and Erisu's life will be at risk and she doesn't want that because she cares and there are only a few people Marika cares for. "You need to talk to someone because Erisu, you stupid girl, you look like death!"

"Let go of me," she whispers. Erisu's voice is so small she could clasp it with her palms. "Let go of me, Mari."

"Erisu, please, stop this. The ritual's in a few weeks," she says. "Stop training. Get some sleep. You've been doing those movements since dawn."

"I need to do it perfectly or else I'll fail," Erisu says. "I won't talk, because there's nothing to talk about. There's only so many things to be done and one of them is to practice as much as I could. And I'm not going to let you get in the way."

"Don't do this to yourself, you idiot," she says. "Kazuko would be so—"

"I don't care what Kazu thinks about it!" she shrieks. Marika has long since let go of Erisu's hand. She's screaming. Her voice is hysterical and if they weren't in a secluded part of the estate, guards would be rushing in to see what had happened for Erisu to be pushed this far. "She had to go through all those horrid things because of me. Kazu, who's younger than me, had to sacrifice so much just so that I could live. Kazu, who I'm always relying on, who never thinks about herself. Who I've made so lonely all these years. I don't care if she thinks that it's destructive. After everything she's been through, I refuse to hide behind her.

"I'm going to do this by myself. And Kazuko doesn't need to worry nor think about it."

She turns to Marika. Her eyes are laced with fear. Something is not right with Erisu. Nothing has been right about her ever since Marika saw her after that cult incident, ever since Kazuko was found bloody and beaten in that cult headquarters.

Erisu is like porcelain, Marika thinks. Beautiful, but so so fragile. Whatever happened had sent cracks all over her, fissures and scars all over and it only takes a small little push for her to shatter into a million bits.

"And neither do you," she says. Who are you? Marika wants to scream. What the hell happened to you? This isn't the Erisu she knew from childhood, little Erisu whose grace and courteousness had pissed her off. This was some girl driven to her limits, pushed into a point of desperation like some caged animal. "I appreciate all that you've taught me until now, but I regret to inform you that I no longer need your services. The ritual is close by and I no longer have time for combat practice. You are dismissed."

"You can't treat me like some stupid employee!"

Erisu walks away and spares her one last glance. Amber eyes cold and unrelenting. "I'm the Nakano heir," she says. Marika wonders who the hell she's talking to because she sure as hell didn't ask. "I employ you. And now I'm ordering you to leave."

She shuts the door behind her and Marika, always unsuccessful in controlling her emotion glares at the door and screams, "You're such a stupid bitch!" before marching away. 

━━ to be continued.