Chapter 19
Being an orphan isn’t easy, truth to be told. Food is hard to come by in the orphanage, where every child fends for themselves, and you can hardly get more than 2 scoops of rice in meals, and there’s only 2 meals in a day, and there’s expectation to help with chores and all.
Ayaka somehow thrives.
It’s easy, really.
People can be so… predictable.
Clara has memorized the pattern of human beings around her. Smile like this here, offer a helping hand here, give something on this occasion-it’s not hard to plan around people.
Ayaka utilizes that to her best ability.
And it’s so… it’s so effortless to react.
Her sensing gives her an edge here. It’s instinctive to glance at someone’s chakra and figure out how they’re feeling, especially in this place full of untrained children. Their chakra is like an open book to her, and acting on those little hints is almost child’s play.
Oh wait. It is. Because she is still a child.
Anka offers something of a resistance - her chakra is pleasantly blank normally. But it’s still very much simple to look a little deeper, focusing a little more, to read her. She’s slightly more open around Nee-sama, little flickers turning into surges and waves. Or maybe it’s because she’s letting herself be open, not willing to suppress her chakra. Ayaka remembers feeling the shift from standby to Ann-reactive in Anka. It’s almost cute, if not for how instinctive it feels.
It should worry her, but it doesn’t, not really. As far as Anka goes, she’s like a hunting hound, but ever so loyal to her master, to put it in plain terms.
Of course, she could be mistaken. Clara has never claimed to be a particularly good human-reader, nor can Ayaka claim the same.
But, well. Likes recognizes likes.
She has always been more instinct than person, Clara, Ayaka, whoever she is-was.
She only learned to humanize her behaviours through immersion, after all.
Why do humans feel pain?
Why are they so attached to feeble things?
Why do people ‘love’?
What does it mean when people say ‘I love you’?
Ayaka-Clara doesn’t know the answer to those questions. No matter how many times the same pain flares in her chest when one of hers dies, no matter how many times she stands by so easily when people kick one another down, no matter how many times she sees others in pain and heals them, she can never understand.
Humans are humans, confusing creatures that she couldn’t truly grasp.
Why does she only care for a few?
That, Ayaka doesn’t know..
But what she does know…
Ayaka can’t keep her eyes off the light that is Ann. Ever glowing so softly, ever so welcoming, eerily calm with a hint of miasma, with her eyes so knowing.
Ann, who is her twin with her gentle smile.
Ann, who is so soft with children.
Ann, who has always been her anchor.
Ann, who is so smart and brilliant.
Ann, who gets her, anticipating her reactions and feelings.
Ayaka has never felt so welcomed.
Ayaka would never betray her twin.
It’s normal to get attached to someone, especially someone who shares your blood.
Especially someone you love and loves you in return.
Ayaka is infatuated with Ann, that isn’t to be mistaken. But she is also capable of basic human connections and emotions.
Ayaka was hurt by the abandonment of their mother, a fact irrefutable. She knew family, blood for blood, and you can’t fake chakra, not really.
Love is a warmth, niggling thing that curls around your heart and squeezes, soothing and sometimes oppressive, but nonetheless comforting.
Their mother’s chakra was full of love for both of them.
It’s hard to miss it, really.
The lovely dawn that she had basked in for months back then, tinted with sea salt and soft breeze. There’s a hint of vitality, new growth and blooming flowers-but-not underneath, and Ayaka can’t help but swell at the feeling.
She smelt it a mile away as it approaches the orphanage in the cool mist of early morning.
“Ann-nee! Ann Ann Annn!” Ayaka whines, tugging excitedly at her sleeve. “The flowers! The red ones, with that pinkish hue and golden center- where are they!? I want- I need-“
She babbles and shakes, excitement causing her eyes to go wide, and something like exhilaration courses through her.
She’s back- she’s coming and she’s going to take them both back and they can be a family again-
“Ann-nee!” There’s a sort of desperate edge to her own voice that she doesn’t recognize as her own, a tint of something beyond what she thought she was all along, and that somehow scares her. “Please?”
Ann blinks, slowly, something like an owl. Deliberate and carefully inquisitive.
“Over there,” Ann points, to the edge of the fence, “by the broken pots.” Her voice is amused but understanding, a soft acknowledgement to something Ayaka knows in her own bones, that rattle her brain at times.
It’s terrifying that Ayaka is starting to lose track of herself, of the way she thinks and acts and emotes. It’s mind blowing that her twin seems to learn her better than ever-but maybe that’s expected. Ann is her twin-sisters from the same womb, who is always there- of course she can see.
She rushes off to pick the prettiest, most alive flower of them all. It stands the tallest, blossoming wide petals and shaky lines of red fades into pinkish tips.
It’s perfect.
Ayaka doesn’t hesitate to pull it up, not taking care in retaining its roots, or the other blooms being smothered in her movement. The petals don't falter, and that’s what matters.
It’s close. Lingering behind high fences and hiding behind the vines that cover walls and crawl over the building. Ayaka can see a hint of red, and it pushes her heart to new elation.
Humans are weird. They insist on family and friends and relationships when everything agony in life stems from attachment.
But Ayaka is a hypocrite who can’t let go of her ties and so her words shouldn’t be trusted.
She must look weird, when she clings to the fence , her face pressed against the cracks, the flower raised high.
Ayaka’s blue meets with an oh-so-familiar green.
Similar yet not at all. Ayaka’s mind supplies. Same base, a deep emerald green twined with subtler shades of olive. Yet Ann’s is a little bit more golden, a hint more of sinking blue underneath, a few more speckles of light.
The lady’s is sea-tinted and so much darker. Widen in surprise as they were, Ayaka can see the little yellow veins that stream from the pupil.
It’s pretty. She thinks distantly.
The lady-her mother- is shocked at the display.
Ayaka must look a mess, running to the fence, a flower clutched within her tiny fingers, breathing heavily with wide eyes and everything.
They’re so similar, she and her. Ayaka can spy the same nose, the same delicate eyebrows, that little dip at the end of their eyes, the same chin and jawline. Their hair is almost the same color- Ayaka is a deeper red, tinted burgundy.
“A beautiful flower for a beautiful lady.” Ayaka blurts out, uncaring of how much it feels like a flirt. Who cares? Her fingers clenches around the stem, and some of her feardesperationhope must have shown on her face, because the lady gently, so gentle, takes the flower from her hand and smiles.
Soft and undemanding and sweet. A mix of Ann’s and hers, when she feels like being sweet.
“Godetia, enthusiasm and charm.” She explains in a low whisper, her eyes crinkling into a smile.
Ayaka hasn’t known there’s a name for this flower. Never paid attention to botany. But she smiles anyway, her cheeks flushed and white teeth showing.
The lady’s chakra has the same aftertaste as hers, a lingering sweetness in the back of her throat, like sticky saps.
Ayaka feels Ann’s chakra approaching, a different flower in her grip, her twin a stark icy presence in contrast to them both. It makes her a little more clear-headed, breathing a little easier than her heart allows. Ann holds up the flower, the same way she did, offering the pinkish bloom, repeating.
“A beautiful flower for a beautiful lady.”
The lady hesitates to take it this time, but eventually slips her fingers underneath the bloom and picks it up from Ann’s soft hold.
“Anemone.”
She doesn’t explain the meaning this time.
Ayaka wonders what it means, and why does her mother’s cheek pales for a moment.
She decides it’s no matter if her smile is a little strained, the crinkle a touch more forced. Ayaka and Ann are seen, and that’s enough for now.
A single meeting, that’s all it takes to reignite something in Ayaka.
Instinct is a very scary thing, you see. It can guide you, protect you, push you forward when the time comes and you hesitate. But it can also blind you to things you wouldn’t otherwise be.
Family - blood family - is one of those things.
Those who live by instinct are the most vulnerable to instinct.
Ayaka has no defense when it comes to family, blood-bound and packmates all the same.
Ayaka can see the hesitation, the touch of apprehension in her mother’s face, the way her lips twist in worry when she starts talking. Started sharing about her time and days.
Guilt, perhaps.
Good. Ayaka has always been one to hold a grudge, and abandonment is something she despises.
But family- Ayaka wants that.
Ann is her twin, bound by blood and life and an everlasting bond you can’t cut away, and she clings onto the only one who would see her.
Her mother though. She’s calm. Like a flower in the eye of the storm kind of calm, beautiful and delicate, balanced in the midst of destruction.
Her chakra is sweet, gentle- it feels like home.
Maybe-just maybe-!
She can have a family.
A real family.
Several months prior
“Ne, Ayaka.” Ann calls, leaning against the tree trunk as Ayaka runs around with her ever so boundless energy. “What is love?”
Ayaka pauses, turning to look at her twin. It is a sunny day, the wind blowing lightly, and their hair is a mess.
“Love, huh?” Love. A rather foreign concept for Ayaka. Love wasn’t abundant in Clara’s life, no. Not even familial love, when her old flesh and blood tried so hard to show it but failed miserably. “Love… is a feeling, I think. People say there’s different types of love.”
Her forefinger raises. “Familial love.”
Her middle. “Love between friends.”
Her ring finger. “Bodily love.”
Her pinkie. “Unconditional love.”
“Each and every one of them is love all the same. They are…what fuel human beings, make us human. Love is affectionate acts and little considerations and protection and… and adorations . That’s what love is, I think.”
Ayaka never quite understood what love is, but it doesn’t stop her from loving.
She would pour her heart out, drain her own blood and mind to keep her family safe-that is her “love”. A carefully constructed tower, with everything one can ever want that she can provide, endless care for details, all arranged in a way that her loved ones preferred.
But also a prison of possessiveness and obsession, a carelessness that she takes with her things.
Caring, but sometimes forgetting.
Ayaka isn’t the best with love. It’s an ephemeral thing, love. But obsession, protection, possession? That, Ayaka does know.
“Why do you ask, nee?”
But the thing is, Ann doesn’t ask useless questions. Ayaka knows that.
It’s not that she doesn’t ask, per say, more of she doesn’t need to ask for clarifications. Ann speaks when necessary, or when it’s interesting, or when it works to her favor. It’s a little trick of hers, to make people listen when she does speak up.
There’s a tilt to Ann’s lips, a slight smile that is all too soft. Something she has only ever shown to Ayaka. She can read from it some amusement, some intrigue, and so much fondness. All for her.
“Curious, that is all, imouto.” Ann says, twirling a stray strand of hair between her fingers. It’s getting long-both of their hair is. Ayaka’s has reached the middle of her back, while Ann’s is a little shorter. “What is familial love to you, Ayaka?”
“You.” Ayaka doesn’t need to think to answer it, would never have to. Familial love is Ann, is her sister, is her twin. “Familial love is protection. It is caring even when you don’t see eye to eye-” like Clara’s brothers and sister, fighting at every twist and turn yet when push came to shove- “It’s teasing words and rough housing and anger at one another, yet still willing to fight for one another.” -they stood together.
Ayaka can’t quite explain it-has never had the vocabulary to talk about her feelings, has never tried. She stumbles over her words but can’t help wanting to talk more, to tell her twin her heart, to promise everything she has.
“It’s little gifts that are always needed and loved, it’s small things that you can’t help but notice, it’s a careless gesture here and there that make you realize “Ah, they do love me after all’. It’s all that and more.”
Clara lost her family-maybe never had it in the first place. There was love, but then there was love. Maybe she was too selfish, too greedy, wanted for too much, but then again, isn’t that human?
She wants for more, always, always.
“It’s adoration and fondness and loyalty. It’s trust and love and instinctive reliance. It’s protection and gentle hands and leading feet.”
But just this once. Ayaka trusts Ann, cares for her more than she knows what to do with. Her heart bursts with love as she watches this amazing girl that seems so young yet so ancient and she knows. Ayaka knows Ann is no normal human.
That has never mattered-Ann is hers, and that’s enough.
“That is my familial love, nee.” So please, please.
“Does that satisfy you?” Ayaka asks but it sounds like a plea, all soft edges and gentle whisper. “Is that what you wanted to hear, nee?”
For the first time, Ayaka sees such a smile on Ann.
Sharp and poised, contentment mixed with a hint of smugness. Greedy and self-centered, egoistic.
How do you describe something that strikes fear into your heart?
How to put into words something you see yet can’t comprehend?
It is so out of place on Ann’s lips, yet so befitting, like it’s meant to be there, but it can’t be - such a sight couldn’t be Ann, couldn’t be her twins-
But it is. Ayaka would recognize Ann no matter what. The same glint in her eyes, the same reckless tilt as Ayaka.
Familiar yet strange.
“Of course, imouto.” It disappears as suddenly as it comes, and Ann is back to the same soft sister of Ayaka. “It is your love, after all.”
It must have been a trick of light, must have been a hallucination. Ayaka must have misinterpreted things. Ann is still the same as always.
“I love you, Ayaka.” Ann says. She is looking at Ayaka, truly looking at her. It’s like- it’s like all the time before, Ann has never really seen her.
It’s not her eyes, or her gaze, or anything. Ayaka feels it, not sees it. More piercing and assessing than the simple… glance Ann gave before.
“Sister isn’t strong.” Ann stands up, moving out of the shade. The sun shines so brightly and warmly, but Ayaka feels her heart freeze. This Ann is foreign, yet so familiar, and just as fond of her as before, so why?
Why is she scared?
“But I will protect my imouto.”
They are standing close.
Ayaka can feel Ann’s warmth, can sense the running currents under her skin, veins upon veins, overlaying with her blood vessels.
She hasn’t noticed it before, but Ann’s chakra is cold.
Like biting frost, but not really. Like mist in the summer night, humid but make chills go up your spine. Like the hanging moon over a still lake, beautifully lonely yet enticing, even when you know you are walking to your death.
It’s not soft and still, like a pond's surface, nor whimsically pretty like the butterfly.
Ann’s chakra is-
“So don’t you worry, ne?” Ann softly ruffles her hair, smiles her patient, calming smile, and Ayaka worries no more.
Does it matter, really? If Ann is a bit different, if she acts out that slight bit, if she is strange?
Ayaka is Ann’s sister-twin, and never would Ann hurt her.
It’s a fact as obvious as the sun is bright and the ice is cold.
Her heart unfreezes as she realizes that. Ann cares, in her weird way, distant yet gentle, more action than words.
Ayaka smiles, ignoring the way her instinct blares out warning, as something deep inside her purr at the attention - finally.
“What are you talking about, nee-sama?” Wrapping her arms around her sister’s small frame, Ayaka takes the time to breathe in her scent. It’s sweet and comforting, like milk and bread and tea. Cleaner now than what she remembered, the softness fading away.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re not strong-that’s fine. I’ll protect you instead.” So what if Ann felt a little like insanity at that moment? Ayaka is no less crazy. “No matter what, I will stick with you.”
“Forever?” Ann asks, hands carding through her locks.
“Forever and ever and ever.” Ayaka reassures, pulling away to stare into Ann’s eyes. She wants her to be sure, to know that never would Ayaka betray her. Never.
“Even when I’m unreasonable?”
“Even then.”
“Even if it’s against someone you love?”
“I wouldn’t love someone who disagrees so vehemently with us.” Because Ann and Ayaka are twins, and twins stick together.
“Trust me, nee-sama?” Ayaka asks, as she pulls Ann along. The wind blows pleasantly as they run along the riverside.
Ann doesn’t pull her hand away.
The water splats around their ankles as Ayaka dances forward, hands joined. Ann is never three steps behind, even as she struggles with breathing and her cheeks flush with exertion.
They roll down a hill full of wildflowers, a little nock Ayaka found before when the twins wandered around. White petals fly up in the air, as innocent as a young soul, scattering in the wind as the two girls tumble down.
Ayaka holds her twin securely in her arm, and they lay together, breathing heavily.
Sitting up, she takes a second to look, truly look at Ann. There’s nothing wrong with her. She lays there, ethereal, white dotting her splayed out hair, blushing cheeks and heavy breathes. Her eyes seem so soft here, the sharp intelligence glinting nowhere to be seen.
“This time, next time, next next time- every time, no matter what, I will find you, nee-sama.” Ayaka swears, hands clutching her sister’s fingers. “I will find you and take you to see the beauty of the world.” So you won’t see the darkness, won’t have that look in your eyes. “I swear on my name I will protect you.”
So please, please. Don’t leave me.
Ayaka raises their joined hand and fervently presses a kiss to Ann’s ring finger. A declaration of loyalty.
“So, keep looking at me, ne?”
Don’t you dare take your eyes off me. Watch me, Ann. Watch me grow and learn and become great, knowing it is your hand that raised me to be this way.
Ann looks surprised, a slight widening of her eyes, her lips open. Then, she smiles sweetly, crinkling her eyes as she pulls Ayaka down, hugging her loosely.
Ann’s embrace is feather light, yet weight like the world.
“Idiot imouto.” She whispers, and Ayaka wishes she can see her face right now, but her sight is filled with soft black strands. “I’m the older one, it’s me who’s supposed to be protecting you.”
“Then let us protect each other, ne? I’ll be your sword and shield.”
“And I’ll be your wielder and carer.”
There’s nothing else she would rather have.