LONGING AND DESIRE ❪ inumaki toge ❫

TWO: THE PRIZED JEWEL OF THE AKIYAMA CLAN

What is love? Akiyama Fuyumi's definition of it has to do with the sensations around her. The coldness of metal against her lips as she is fed spoonful after spoonful of sweetly cloying honey for her sore throat. The nearly forgotten ( only remembered because of the desperation she possesses ) memory of her mother's smooth palm against her forehead, the rumble of her father's laugh as he tosses her in the air. The razor sharp smile of her brother as he shields her from the hungry eyes of Clam Heirs and arrogant men. The rustle of lace aprons as maids bustle around her, the clack of their shoes against the smooth pavement. The press of cards against her fingertips as she faces off her brother with steely eyes. They're in the parlour as they usually are during the short amount of free time Akiyama Shiro has, hidden away from the curious eyes of bystanders and whoever else comes to visit the clan compound. Shiro's eyebrow twitches as he tries to carefully calculate his next move. His hair is swept over his left eye but it doesn't cover the murkiness in his once bright eye. It does not matter that Shiro is half blind in that eye because he is all seeing in the way he instantly picks up on people's reads. Maybe that is why he groans and throws his stack of cards on the floor, giving up in the face of Fuyumi's barely restrained glee.

"I win!" she cheers, arms thrown up in the air as she celebrates. Shiro pouts, looking like a child rather than a man well into his mid twenties, and crosses his arms. Fuyumi secretly relishes these moments when all the worry melts away from her brother's face, watching and memorizing the way his eyes soften and how his smile brings out the dimples in his cheeks.

"I let you have this one," he says sulkily and Fuyumi rolls her eyes good naturedly as she starts clearing up. As if summoned by the moment her finger touches the cards closest to her, maids rush in and drag the cards away from her hands.

"Let us, Fuyumi-kun," she frowns.

"Juono-san, I can do it-"

"Let them do it, Fuyumi," Shiro interrupts her, smiling at the maids as they gather and clean up their mess. Fuyumi's frown deepens and she hesitantly approaches the topic she's been holding back for weeks.

"You can't let them fuss over me all the time, nee-san. What are you going to do when I go to Jujutsu School?" he startles, turning to look at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Jujutsu school?" the careful way he pronounces the words makes her clench her fingers in the fabric of her kimono. It's a silk gown, dyed in a rich shade of lavender and embroidered with love, care and talent that Fuyumi can't even imagine possessing. "I thought we agreed you were going to study privately here at the compound,"

"I didn't agree to that. I always told you I was going to go to Jujutsu High. Specifically Tokyo Jujutsu High," Shiro stiffens, raising himself so that he looks like the firm and formidable Clan Heir. 'The Razor Toothed Akiyama' he truly is with the wedge between his eyebrows and the scowl on his lips.

"Tokyo? But that's so far away from here. And that boy is there," he doesn't speak the name but they're both well aware of who he is speaking about. Inumaki Toge, who Fuyumi last talked to when she was nine and has only seen in snatches and glimpses during the rare times the Inumakis have been allowed to set foot in the Akiyama Compound.

"Does that matter? He has never ever tried to hurt me," they've had this argument before. Only once because Fuyumi hates to upset her brother. She was nine and enraged at the way her brother had looked at Inumaki ( Toge, back then. Back when there was a chance of a friendship before their surnames firmly divided them ) and had scolded him in her childish, high voice. Shiro had indulged her in ten minutes of her anger before cutting her off sharply.

'Do you want to end up like Okaa-san and Oto-san?' he had asked her gravely and her mouth had clamped shut at the first mention of her parents' passing in two years. The hollowness in Shiro's eyes had frightened her and she had apologized before retreating to her room. But she is not nine years old and she is no longer as scared of upsetting her brother as she was then ( but she always will be because he is all she has left and she does not want to lose the only hand which will take her's ).

"You don't know what he is thinking," Shiro argues now.

"Neither do you," she points out and folds her hands into the sleeves of her kimono. "I need to go out there, nee-san. You can not hide me forever,"

"I can try," his stubbornness has always been something that pricked at her nerves and she huffs.

"You're being childish. Either you let me go, or I'll find a way out on my own!" Fuyumi stomps as she gets up, ignoring her brother's call of her name as she hurries back to her room. It's intimately familiar to her. Her own little prison where she has been for the last six years, forever protected against the Curses and the Cursed humans that roam the world. Her only time of respite has been during the visits of the other Clans but even she lost her happiness of those moments when she realized how they all looked at her. Those pitying, darkened eyes ( how could a human be Cursed? Just ask the richest, the most powerful of people and ask how their greed continues to swallow them despite the wealth they already possess ) always set her at odds and she sealed herself back into her room. It is her home but it is her prison as well because she is subjected to stay in it time and time again. The walls are covered in stories that she would write and paste on as wallpaper, her cursive writing tilting and the oldest stories turning brown with age. Her bed ( still far too big for her ) lies in the corner of the room right next to her window so that she could stare out at the maids working. It is what she does now: stares at them and the way they laugh. She wonders if they envy her for the life she lives and wonders if they know she envies them for their lives: full of hard work but more free than she could ever dream to be.

'I hate Shiro.' she thinks to herself fiercely and then winces at the stab of guilt she feels at the thought. Shiro is her brother, her only surviving blood after the death of her parents at the hands of multiple Curse Users. It is he who protected her from their various relatives, the one who claimed that she is to forever be by his side no matter what. She loves him immensely and can't imagine her life without him. But Fuyumi can't imagine a life with him either. What is a life if it entails staying stuck in a house whose every nook and cranny she knows since she has been five? What about the world out there? Will it accept her for who she is ( cowardly, scared of blood, too gentle and forgiving ) or will it mould her into what it wills? She will never find out if she remains stuck in this tower, only letting her hair down for the same people time and time again.

━ ๋ ˒ ✶ SAM'S NOTES !

ah yes, my favourite trope: the damaged siblings. There is going to be no villain between shiro and fuyumi because they are just two kids who genuinely love each other but show their love in different, equally damaging ways.