Wistful Dreams

[Flashback to just after Shin left for the Kage Summit]

The day was bright, which to some would have inspired joy, but to Mitsukira bright light only meant pain. And in this case that external pain was a parallel to her mood. Shin had been sent off to the Kage Summit. It really was the best choice, and it had even been her that suggested it. But now that he was gone she regretted her decision immensely. She had sent her only friend off on a dangerous mission to another country and she was left alone again. She didn’t really expect that Shin would find any trouble, it was a peace summit after all, but as she had learned recently; talks of peace were sometimes more aggressive than you might expect. She knew that Shin could take care of himself, but it didn’t stop the worry that gnawed at her as she paced outside the Muramatsu clan district.

In her hand she held a small silver key which she clutched tightly as she paced back and forth. Her eyes were half closed as she struggled with the brightness of the sun, and once she began to notice the questioning looks shot her way, she took a deep breath and walked towards her intended destination; Shin’s home. The key she held was for his front door, and he had left it for her so that she could watch over his home while he was absent. And at first she had felt awkward, pacing as she had been in front of the district. But after her anxiety presented itself, the closest option for relief from the judging eyes was Shin’s home. So she went straight to it, pausing at the door as she fiddled with a key. Keys were weird and foreign to her. She never had any keys growing up, it wasn’t as though you could lock the desert. And in her adult life in Iwagakure, she’d been fortunate enough to not need them. There were guards and assistants everywhere that simply unlocked things for her. After a few minutes of frustrated fiddling the lock made a satisfying ‘click’ noise as she turned the key and it slid open.

Stepping inside the darkened space she let out an audible sigh of relief, quickly closing the door behind her. She had a small bag slung over her shoulder and she would walk over to the table in the livingroom and set it down. The dimness of the room helped to alleviate the pain she felt in her eyes, and she deftly hopped over the table and sunk into the couch cushions. For quite some time she just sat there, curled up with a throw pillow hugged to her chest. Eventually her breathing settled and she felt herself calm down. “Well, I guess I should do something.” She spoke into the empty house but in her mind she was speaking to Shin. She knew he wasn’t there, but she enjoyed imagining that she still had her friend with her. And with no one to tell her to ‘stop daydreaming’ she could happily enjoy one of her favourite pastimes. “So Shin’s house, what should we do today? Clean up I suppose, even though it’s really not dirty in here. But let’s go to the kitchen and see what we can do about dinner.” Shin’s home was immaculate, he didn’t need her help to clean anything. Just like he hadn’t needed her help the first time she’d been here. But even she could see that he wasn’t just asking for help, he was helping her. He now knew about her fears in the village and had probably thought that leaving her a safe space to retreat to was ‘just something anyone would do’. But Mitsu knew, it was because he was kind.

Going into the kitchen, Mitsu took stock of what was available. She had brought a small bag of supplies; toothbrush, hairbrush and the like. But she also had a few bags of tea so she pulled those out and set them on the counter. “Green tea, brown rice tea and jasmine. Which of you shall I drink today?” She had an odd habit of speaking to inanimate objects around her, perhaps due to the amount of time she spent alone. She wasn’t crazy, just lonely. Pointing her finger at each bag of tea in turn, she would sing a child’s rhyme as she attempted to make a decision. At the end of her song her finger hovered over the bag of jasmine tea and she would smile broadly and scoop it up with a quiet cheer. “You are the chosen one! Today you are revered above all other teas! Revel in your achievements, blessed Jasmine!” She laughed and danced around the kitchen for a minute or two until she made her way over to the tea kettle and set the victorious tea down long enough to fill the kettle with water.

It took her a little while to figure out the whole ‘set the kettle to boil and actually make tea inside and on a stove’ thing. She was used to either using a fire outdoors, or just going to the tea shop. Her competence with basic household chores was severely lacking. Which considering she’d spent most of her life without a house was not overly surprising. Once she had tackled that task, she would rifle through the cupboards looking for food. She found a few essentials, but not much in the way of real food. So with a shrug she would wander out of the kitchen and start looking around the house. It was much the same as it had been the last time she’d been here; everything was neatly in its place, even the bed was made without a single wrinkle in the bedding. The one thing she did find was a laundry hamper with some clothes in it. “I should clean these. Then when he comes back everything in the house will be clean.” She had forgotten she was making tea.

Picking up the hamper she would begin putting the clothing into a washing tub. She stopped however when she held a black shirt. She couldn’t be sure that it was the same shirt Shin had worn that night she had visited him, but something about it made her feel comfortable. Instead of putting the shirt in with the rest of the washing she placed the hamper down and held the shirt to her. It smelled like him. A warm and masculine scent that made her sigh and close her eyes as she remembered being held in his arms. After a second or two of breathing in his scent she would open her eyes and grin mischievously. She looked around carefully, it was ridiculous for her to think she wasn’t alone, but she wanted to make sure. Then she carefully placed the black shirt on a nearby table and hastily removed all of her clothing, tossing her dress and undergarments in with the rest of the washing. Once she was naked she would pull Shin’s shirt over her form, and she was small enough that it fit her like a dress, the bottom of the shirt brushing against her upper thigh. With his shirt on she felt happier somehow, as though he was there with her and she wasn’t alone and hiding in her own village.

Lost in the daydream that was Shin’s arms wrapped around her, Mitsu was startled and actually jumped as she heard a high pitched whistle come from the kitchen.

“Oh by the Universe Mitsu, you would lose your head if it weren’t attached.” She loudly admonished herself as she ran to the kitchen to take the kettle off of the stove. She was mostly joking. She remembered not being so hard on herself before. . . but now she was constantly putting herself down. She knew it was a bad habit and that it would just lead to her feeling more bad about herself, and then she’d put herself down even more but every time she tried to do something properly she kept messing it up. So it was what it was.

Rummaging through a cupboard she found a teacup and after placing a small spoonful of tea leaves in the bottom of the cup she poured the boiling water in, humming happily as the aroma of jasmine filled the room. Setting the kettle back down she would twirl lazily around the kitchen as she waited for the tea leaves to steep. Still in nothing but Shin’s shirt it surely would have been quite the sight for anyone that happened to walk into the house right then. She looked much paler with the dark fabric against her skin, and although she was short her legs were long and made for dancing, so there was more pale skin to see. There wasn’t any danger of anyone coming in though, at least she didn’t think so. As far as she knew it was only Shin that lived here, and she didn’t think that Shin had any servants or anything. And probably she was the only other person with a key. “Stop worrying silly, you’re not doing anything wrong.” And in truth, she wasn’t. The only thing that might have seemed a bit off was the whole ‘wearing a strange man’s clothing’ thing. From her perspective though, things were as they should be. The Universe had its plans and she just fit into the Grand Design where she was needed. And it seemed that the Grand Design had put her in Shin’s lap so to speak.

After a few minutes of lazy dancing she picked up her teacup and headed to the front window, pulling a chair over directly in front of it and perching on the edge. Since she had first laid eyes on this house she had wanted to do this, and now she took it all in. She watched until her tea went cold, one knee pulled up to her chest as she hugged it and her chin resting solidly on her kneecap. She watched as people walked to and fro, sometimes dressed in fancy outfits, other times clearly heading to or from work. She saw families with children, people with groceries, a few elderly and a total of seven and a half dogs. The half came from the size of one of them, it was either a puppy, or some breed that was adorably tiny. All the while she had her mind only half aware of the world outside. She was thinking of Shin. It hadn’t been long, but she missed him terribly. And each time she would feel the pang of loneliness she would hug herself tighter and breathe in his scent from his shirt. “He’ll be okay, and he’ll be back soon.”[/b]

As afternoon stretched into evening Mitsu was still sitting and looking out the window. The light outside had dimmed considerably and she found that it didn’t sting at all to look outside. The golden glow of sunset washed everything with colour and it felt like the world was cheerier for it. Mitsu lifted her teacup to her lips and let out a surprised gasp as the cold liquid touched her tongue. “How long have I been sitting here?” She wondered aloud to no one in particular. She had been expecting a warm cup of tea, but the icy liquid wasn’t exactly what she had in mind for a comforting drink. Her question however was soon answered as she tried to move. Normally Mitsu was quite dextrous, but her muscles complained as she moved her limbs for the first time in hours. “O-oh my. That is most unpleasant. I should really pay closer attention to the time.” She had absolutely no intention of paying closer attention to the time. Her thoughts about the passage of time and the futility of marking it were already quite set in her mind.

She stretched as she rose, trying to get feeling back into her aching muscles and after a few minutes she found she was limber again. Looking around the house though she saw that she’d only been there for the span of a single day and already had left a mess. It wasn’t truly a mess, but compared to the immaculate space Shin normally kept it was a pigsty. She had laundry partially started, bags of tea on the counter, her own belongings strewn about and at some point she had kicked off her shoes and she had no idea where they were. She knew they weren’t on her feet, but that was where her knowledge of the whereabouts of her footwear ended. She was also no closer to eating then she had been when she first decided to make tea. A loud rumble sounded from her belly right on cue, and she clutched at the noise in an effort to make it stop. “Fine, fine. Let’s go find something to eat then.”

She waltzed into the kitchen, the lights still off, and looked around again. She let out a delighted giggle when she found a package of instant ramen. Mitsu was not a cook. She knew how to cook for survival, but that was about it. “I wonder if I should learn to cook. Then I could make dinners for my frien- . . .” Mitsu looked around sadly at the empty space. She had no friends. She had one friend, and she was in his house and he wasn’t. With a sigh she set the kettle on the stove again and climbed onto the kitchen table, sitting cross legged as she watched and waited for the water to boil. She was trying to not let things get to her, trying to be brave and strong and all the things that she thought she should be. But sitting alone in a darkening and empty house was not doing much for her state of mind. “Okay Mitsu, so being alone is terrible and makes you feel sad. So. . . let’s just pretend we aren’t.” A small smile lit up her face as she found a game to entertain herself with. Closing her eyes she brought Shin into her mind’s eye and held his image there until she felt happier. It was easy for her to imagine that Shin was just around the corner, or in the other room, or maybe even out to get groceries. She was a little surprised at how much better it made her feel to think of him, but then again he had been the only person who had been kind to her in a very long time.

Watching water boil was about as exciting as it sounded. After a few minutes she lost interest and hopped down from the table, collecting her teacup as she went. “As long as I’m boiling more water, I might as well have a fresh cup of tea.” There was a little less than half a cup left, which she didn’t want to waste, so with a flash of inspiration she would take the half filled teacup to the front door of the house. She had imagined a beautiful flower garden outside the house when she’d first been introduced to the space. And while there was still no sign of a flower garden, she was intent on making one and tea leaves made excellent mulch for flower beds. As her hand was on the door handle it suddenly occurred to Mitsu that she was still only wearing Shin’s shirt, and that perhaps it would look odd if she wandered out half dressed with a teacup into the front yard. She hesitated with her hand resting on the handle, her face scrunching up in distress.

Staring into the teacup she looked at the leaves that were now swirling gently from her movements and sighed loudly. “Why is everything so difficult? What happened to. . . everything? You used to just be. Now. . .” She let the thought die where it had started, she was supposed to be relaxing and not letting thoughts like that get to her. Letting out another sigh she bent over to carefully set the half filled teacup on the floor in front of the door. “This way I can’t forget to take it out later.” With a satisfied giggle she would spin on her heel and push off with the balls of her feet propelling herself forward as she curved her body and did a quick flip forwards that ended in her balancing on one leg. She held her arms gracefully over her head, her fingertips touching as she spun slowly with her other leg outstretched. In that moment she realized it had been far too long since she had just danced.

It was a sad thought; that her singing and dancing and laughing had been cut short. And for so very long. She remembered being happy once - genuinely happy. No fear or doubt, no pain and worries that kept her up at night. She had never experienced war, or loss. She had never cried that she could recall, not before she had come to Iwagakure.

Mitsu closed her eyes and began to sing quietly as she danced.

In her mind she was dancing with Shin. It was hard not to imagine that while she twirled and sang. She was in his house, and presently, wearing his clothing. Holding out her hand to grasp the one offered by her imaginary dance partner, Mitsu moved throughout the house, swaying around and climbing gracefully over any obstacles in her path. She would have kept dancing forever most likely had the obnoxious sound of a boiled tea kettle not broken through her daydreaming. “Oh right, noodles and more tea.”

She rushed to the kitchen and took the kettle off the stove, setting it aside while she prepared another teacup and opened the package of instant ramen. As she poured the hot water into the waiting containers she would sigh happily, the smell of jasmine tea and ramen filling the kitchen and reminding her that she was hungry. She still had to wait for her food and drink to cool off enough that she wouldn’t burn herself, so she tidied the kitchen while waiting. ‘Tidying’ was not exactly her best trait. She had spilled a bit of water while pouring, and even a few tea leaves, so she cleaned those up hastily and then looked around with her hands on her hips and a satisfied smile on her face. “Good, just as he left it. I think.” It was not how he had left it.

Taking her ‘meal’ to the living room she sat down on the sofa and watched the light continue to dim outside as the sun sank beneath the horizon and night came. She still had not returned to the laundry and as she slurped up one final noodle she realized this and jumped up with a start. Rushing off to the laundry she threw the rest of the clothes into the wash basin and hurriedly washed everything, still wearing Shin’s oversized black shirt. “I’ll wash this later. Probably.” She wasn’t going to wash it and she knew it, and her words were accompanied by a quiet giggle.

Mitsu was having a grand time in Shin’s home. She wasn’t trying to be disrespectful, but she didn’t prescribe to the same ideals as Shin when it came to order and discipline. Along with her ramen she had also made herself another cup of tea, which she brought into the living room with her and promptly forgot about. By the time she came back from putting most of the clothes to wash she let out a dismayed sigh as she spied the still full cup of jasmine tea sitting on the table. “Oh, bother. Well, into the line you go, tea cup.” She carefully carried the cup of cold tea to the front door and placed it down beside it’s twin, fully intending to take both cups out to the ‘garden’ later.

Once that was done she realized that she could now see both well and comfortably as the sun had finally set. With an excited giggle she did a few leaps and twirls, relieved that she no longer felt the nagging pain associated with light. It sometimes bothered her that despite how much she loved sunshine and bright colours, her body rejected them entirely. It was her love of them though that allowed her to endure the mild pain, to her it was worth it if she could watch a sunrise or see a rainbow or just enjoy a bright blue sky. It was cosmic irony at its finest. As a person Mitsu was pure light and yet her place in the Grand Design was to embrace the shadows.

As the night wore on, Mitsu kept dancing and singing as she moved around Shin’s home, tidying as she went. Again, her version of tidying was, well, not. But her heart was in the right place. After an hour or so she began to feel drained. Even the Dancing Queen didn’t have limitless energy, and she knew that as fun as it was to enjoy her time alone and in peace that she really should get some sleep. With a peaceful sigh she wandered towards Shin’s bedroom, which had impeccably folded bedding of course. The sight of such an unwrinkled surface inspired her to wrinkle it. So with a gleeful shriek she jumped in the air, twisted and landed spread eagle on her back across the entire surface of the bed.

It was just as fun as she’d imagined it would be, and she couldn’t help but burst into a fit of laughter as soon as she landed. Her laughter went on for a while, until she was holding her sides as they ached from laughing for so long and tears began rolling down her cheeks and soaking her hair and the bedding. Her joyful laughter turned to sobbing as the dam that she had constructed against her emotions broke again. Laying on Shin’s bed and wearing his shirt, alone and afraid she wept. She cleverly buried her negative feelings under positivity and a firm belief that everything had purpose. But as she cried she realized that the only reason she was in Shin’s home in the first place was to escape the tragedy of her life outside of its walls.

She lay on top of the bedding for a long time, her arms wrapped around herself and crying quietly as she let waves of emotion wash over her. Eventually her tears stopped and she was able to calm herself, she had already been tired when she came into the room and crying only made her more exhausted. With little energy left, Mitsu crawled to the head of the bed and pulled back the covers. It didn’t occur to her that actually sleeping in Shin’s bed might be inappropriate. He wasn’t in it after all. She pulled Shin’s shirt over her head, but unlike every other thing she’d done that day, she held the shirt close as she slid under the sheets.

Cradling the shinobi’s shirt close, Mitsu spoke quietly as though she were speaking to Shin himself. “Thank you for letting me stay here. And thank you for being my friend, you don’t know how much that means to me. I’ve been alone for so long, all my family are still in Sunagakure and I can’t seem to get along with most people here in Iwa. I try, I really do try. I tried with Chen but that ended. . . bad. It ended bad. I don’t know what to do with him, for now I’m just avoiding him, but I know eventually that won’t be possible. I told him no again. About kicking you off my squad, and I know that he’ll only tolerate that for so long. I can see it in his eyes, he wants to kill me. It isn’t political or something he thinks he needs to do to gain more power. He actually just wants to. I didn’t know what hate was until I met him. I’d heard the word of course, but I had never seen it in anyone or anything. And I know I could just fight back, I know I could. But. . . how does that help anything? He’ll still hate and then I’ll have more blood on my hands. Assuming I won, which honestly? I’m not so sure. I think he hates me more than I’m willing to fight. Universe help me, I’m going to die here aren’t I?”

With a shudder, Mitsu curled her knees up to her chest and squeezed her pink eyes shut. She was finally getting to the heart of her anxiety and it was unpleasant. Whispering as though she was afraid someone might overhear, she spoke one final thought before finally drifting off to sleep. “I don’t want to die.”

That night Mitsu had disturbing nightmares, the same as she’d had every night since her time in the throne room with Chen. There were people she recognized in the nightmares, but their faces were distorted and their expressions exaggerated into the grotesque. The scenes were erratic and confusing; long halls that she had to run through to avoid the killers chasing her, pain as she was stabbed over and over again in a room filled with jet black crystals, and finally she awoke gasping for breath as she clawed her way to the surface of an angry sea after being dragged down by a terrifying monster from the depths. When Mitsu first awoke she was confused and frightened, soaked with sweat and tangled in the sheets on the bed. As always though, it only took a few moments of looking around and blinking away sleep for the nightmares to fade, and then once she was fully awake after a few minutes it was as though they had never happened at all. Mitsu’s mind, mercifully, allowed her to forget the things that haunted her.

With a laugh Mitsu rolled around on the bed to untangle herself from the sheets, until eventually she was free and unceremoniously rolled off the bed and onto the floor with a ‘thump’. “Owwww. . .” Mitsu stood and rubbed her backside where she had landed, it wasn’t especially painful but it was an unpleasant way to get out of bed to be sure. Leaving the bedding as it was, Mitsu wandered into the living room where she had left her bag and pulled out a pair of white shorts and a white tank top and then pulled them both on. “It wouldn’t do to wander around outside naked now would it?” Mitsu didn’t particularly care whether she was clothed or not, but Shin’s neighbours might.

Mitsu had planned on making a garden and as she made her way outside, Mitsu stopped and ran back into the bedroom, where she grabbed Shin’s shirt and threw it on over her tank top. She was still feeling lonely and having Shin’s shirt, which still vaguely held the scent of the man, and it made her feel less alone. It was comforting, if strange to anyone who might have seen it. She had spent a few minutes before rushing into the outdoors stretching and boiling water for yet another cup of tea, and then suddenly realized that although she wanted to do some gardening she hadn’t seen any gardening tools in Shin’s home. Slipping her shoes on she would rush home to grab her tools, keeping her head down and avoiding everyone she came across. She had a set of small gardening tools in her room, lovingly wrapped in a canvas cloth with painted flowers on it. Just before she left her room she saw her paints, paintbrushes and a few blank canvases sitting unused on her desk and grabbed them as well. Once she had both sets of tools in hand she would rush back to Shin’s home.

When she had left she exited through the back door so as not to knock over the line of full teacups in front of the front door. Upon her return she promptly forgot all about them and entered the front door with gusto. . . and the sound of pouring liquid and teetering pottery. “Oh, Universe! What have I done now?!” She cried out in dismay as she saw cold tea pooling on the floor. Without too much thought she took one of the blank canvases in her hand and put it down on the floor where the tea was pooling, the canvas did a fine job of soaking up the liquid and after a few minutes it was all but gone. The canvas however now had an interesting tie-dyed tea effect; it now was a backdrop of mottled pale green and brown.

Shrugging Mitsu would set down the paint and paintbrushes and take the gardening tools and wet canvas back outside. Hanging the canvas on the fence to dry she turned her attention to the yard. The lawn was peppered with beautiful wildflowers and it inspired her. Over many hours (and with incessant singing) she carefully cleared out two flower beds near the front of the house, preserving the grass that she removed and then transplanting the flowers from all over the lawn. With a practiced hand she filled in all the holes the flowers had left behind with the bits of still living grass she had removed to make the flower beds. It was late by the time she was done, but she had two well filled flower beds full of flowers of all colours of the rainbow. While she had been digging and transplanting she had found numerous rocks and she placed them along the edges of both flower beds.

Standing in the yard with her dirt covered hands on her hips she let out a satisfied sigh. It had been a long time since she had created anything artistic and her heart felt light for the first time in probably years. The sun had long since dried the tea soaked canvas, and she gathered it up before heading back inside.

Not wanting to get dirt on any of Shin’s things, Mitsu went straight into the shower. She spent a good long while there, enjoying the hot water and playing with soap bubbles while she sang her heart out. The shower had especially good acoustics and just a tiny bit of an echo so she found that she could harmonize with herself if she was clever enough. It was a similar effect to what her cousins Jethro and Stephan had shown her in the Land of Wind. There were caves there that provided amazing acoustics and the three of them would spend hours practicing their music. When her skin was finally so wrinkled that she imagined she looked about ninety years old, she grudgingly got out from underneath the water. She found a towel in a cupboard and wrapped it around her then exited the bathroom. She still had not gotten used to how much colder it was in Iwa than it had been in the desert and so after a few moments she was confused as to why she was still wet. She laughed at her own forgetfulness, took the towel and dried herself off, dabbing at her long white hair until it no longer dripped water on the floor.

Plopping herself down on the couch once she was dried, Mitsu looked over to the tea soaked canvas and then to her paints. “Hmmm, this place could use more colour.” Spreading the canvas out on the floor she got her paints out and a cup of water and began painting. Since it was Shin’s home she wanted to paint something that he would appreciate. Mostly. She wanted to commemorate their friendship and so she worked long into the night and painted what she imagined would be their happiest moment.


She would lean the painting up against the bedroom wall to dry once she was finished, and make her way back to Shin’s bed to sleep. It had been a long couple of days, and she needed the rest. That night she didn’t cry herself to sleep, she stared up at the painting and thought of Shin. She sent out a prayer to the Universe that he make it home safely, and that one day he would find the peace he was looking for.

[Exit Thread]