guard.

AND HE WAS SO COLD WHEN HE BURNT HIS BRIDGES TO THE GROUND

ACT II, SCENE II

and he was so cold when he burnt his bridges to the ground.

She has one brother, then two, then three, then two. Fuyumi is the only girl in this family, even if Natsu-ototo babbles about an imaginary nee-chan that isn't her. It makes her a little sad, to think that he's replaced her that easy, but he stops that nonsense when Shouto is born.

(Papa hits him whenever he says there's another girl in the house. Tells Natsu-ototo to stop sounding batshit or he'll end up in a psyce ward. Fuyumi doesn't know what a psyce ward is till mama― kaasan / kaachan (mör, something whispers) spills hot water on little Shouto-ototo's little face.)

Until, until. Touya-futago (though he hated that way) stopped coming on wednesday. He's gone, sndnot in the way mama-kaasan-chan-mör is, he's not very far away. He's just gone, he's dead and he's not coming back, ever.

Fuyumi is thirteen today, and Touya-futago is supposed to be thirteen today, too, but be can't be thirteen because he's dead.

She gives his alter a cupcake anyway. She wonders if he still likes vanilla in the spirit world. If he's replaced them with other brothers and a sister. Does he have someone else he calls Yucchan? Does he? Does he?

Fuyumi wonders if that girl, (nee-chan) that Natsu-ototo keeps rambling about, likes them too. Maybe she's just an imaginary friend, some fake thing Natsu-ototo's made up to cope with Touya-futago's death. Fuyumi keeps seeing Touya-futago's face on the walls, on Shouto-ototo's face, on Father's face. She hates that part the most, she thinks. Because Touya-futago never looked over her like she was made of dust, he looked at her like he was waiting for her to come to him; he looked like that if she didn't, he'd just come to her instead. 

There's a kind of bone-deep ache in her chest when she looks in the mirror, and it makes her shiver. They have the same eyes too; sky blue like a warm winter―or a cold summer. Built for flame, designed by ice. She misses him, because he was too warm when she was too cold. Fuyumi thinks it's a tragedy, maybe, that he'll never grow up. She thinks lots of things are tragedies.

Her bed is always cold, no matter how high the heat is; no matter how many blankets she's piled. Maybe that's a tragedy, too.

_

(aniki, aniki, aniki, she says. have you seen my aniki? he's tall tall tall with white hair and blue blue blue eyes and he's dying like my aniki aniki―

touya-futago? that's my―

aniki! tou-ya, tou-ya! he's got white hair, it's black now. he's got ash all over, aniki aniki aniki aniki― aniki, don't you know him nee-chan? don't you?

that's―we don't. he's my brother, not yours! mine, and he's dead. he died, he burned all up―

she giggles, and you get mad. madder then you've ever gotten, you wonder if you look like Father like this. angry, angry, angry. so angry that you've gone cold. not that you're not always cold.

aniki's not dead, silly. he's not dead, silly. he's there, he's there―over the hills. yucchan! nee-chan nee-chan nee-chan!

stop it! don't call me that!

then wake up, silly, silly, silly―silly yucchan.)

Fuyumi wakes up and there is frost running up and down the walls.

_

Touya-futago always packs suitcases when he leaves on wednesday, he takes clothes an his freshly washed stuffed animal, the one that mama keeps clean even when Father tells her to get rid of it. Fuyumi knows that mama never got rid of it because they got his suitcase back without a Touya-futago along side it.

(Yumi's overrated, eh, Yucchan?)

Natsu-ototo takes Touya-futago's shirts even though he'll surely outgrow them in a few months, Shouto-ototo takes the stuffed animal, and Fuyumi gets his blanket. She wraps it around herself nightly, when things get too much; when she can hear Shouto-ototo through the walls and the ghost of mama crying and a kettle whistling louder, louder louder―

Fuyumi cannot burn.

Natsu-ototo's temperature shifts to his needs and Shouto-ototo can hurt anyone who tries to hurt him first, he's strong. They are strong.

Fuyumi cannot burn.

Father doesn't know she's here and Touya-futago just looks at her and Natsu-ototo only breathes out steam. Shouto-ototo refused his fire since mama told him he was unsightly. She thinks, she thinks. She dreams about it, or was it real?

Maybe nothing is real. Maybe Touya-futago packed a piece of her in his suitcase and it died with him. Maybe. Maybe. Because she dreams of him, of his corpse, walking away. Purple on his face like a wine stain. Splatter like blood does on the training room floor. It hangs heavy over her head, like an apple in her throat. Arrow lodged into her voice box, because the only thing she's told is be quiet, Fuyumi. 

She's angry, maybe. It's hard. She's angry like Touya, like kaasan is―was. Right. Playback. What is she missing now? It's something important; some things that mean something to her, she isn't really there enough to realize. Kaasan is gone, now, maybe, before or after Touya-fugato left, is the question, one she can't answer.

She wasn't there for it.

Her head gets like that, like she's dreaming, and people are talking to her with cotton in their mouths; the only thing she can do is strain her ears or numb out the white noise. It's kind of awful like that.

Fuyumi does have clear moments, she feels someone holding her hand on some days, it's cold. This persons touch. Like ice.

Fuyumi would know best. She's made of cold skin and broken pieces. Stealing the air and stealing food, love, from children that could have used it more than her.

"If your really there, imouto-chan, where's Touya-fugato now?"

There's nothing there. Nothing at all.

She laughs.

He's gone, she thinks, he's gone, Yucchan, but not forever.

Blink, once, twice.

That wasn't her voice.

END SCENE