What You Wish For [Complete]

Outside

"Ansei...?"

A boy of about four turned to the three year old from where he squatted, pulling a towel from the closet. "Hm?" the young boy asked.

"What's it like outside...?" The black and white haired boy blinked and got back to his task. "Ansei!" the second child whimpered.

Ansei smiled softly. He stood and walked to his younger counterpart, placing the fluffy white towel around the poor boy's deformed body. "It's not as great as you think it might be," he grumbled as he lifted the child in his arms.

"But what's it like...?" he whined.

Ansei sighed. "Well, right now it's hot out there," he answered finally. "Hot and humid."

"Well, what's that like?" he asked, his white eyes wide.

Ansei thought for a moment. "You know how when I've drawn your hot bath and we walk into the bathroom and the air feels really hot and heavy?" The child nodded. "Well, it's kind of like that, I guess."

"It gets like that outside?!"

Ansei giggled. He opened the door to the bathroom where he would be bathing his cousin. "Usually right after it rains or right before," he answered as he placed the child into the tub. He began rubbing the boy's legs.

"I don't believe you."

"You should, Ningyo."

The boy wrinkled his nose at the nickname. "Why do you call me that, Ansei?"

Ansei paused for a moment, then shrugged. "Because you're like a little doll; all fragile and helpless." He splashed the boy gently in the face. "Scrub your hair." The younger boy stuck out his tongue before he started lathering his long, dark hair. The two remained silent for a few minutes. "What do you want to be called?" Ansei asked finally. "What does Lady Hanabi call you?"

The boy frowned, splashing absently in the water. "Mommy doesn't call me anything," he grumbled finally.

Ansei turned to the boy and stared at him for a long moment. He sighed and reached over, hugging the child gently. "Come on, you, let's finish this up."

He finished bathing his younger cousin and then dressed him in a silk robe. He put the child on his back and started back towards his room. "Why do they call you Ansei?"

Ansei smiled softly and shook his head. "I don't know," he admitted. "But don't you worry about that, okay?" He turned the corner.

"Can we go outside, Ansei?"

Ansei shook his head. "No. Not today..."

The boy had grown up... Alone and without any more interaction than Ansei had been given throughout his life. While Ansei grew up outside, Ningyo had grown up inside. The small child hugged his mother tightly with his aching limbs as they hid in a safe room while the world fell apart outside.

She said no words to him. They acted like strangers. They had been forced apart by the elders of the Hyuuga Clan. Ningyo was a relic that could not be touched and his mother was not his caretaker. He loved her... he truly did, but that didn't mean that he understood her unwillingness to visit him. Was she disgusted by his tortured body? Did it hurt her to watch her son crawl on the floor, unable to walk?

His whole life had been inside. Inside one room, and then inside another. Even when he went outside, it was never outside. He was brought to the gardens in a screened tent. He had never felt grass. They were ashamed of him. He wasn't just a crippled child, he was also a reminder of their failure to Hanabi. They had been failing for years, and they had known it.