Fractured
An Akagami no Shirayukihime (Snow White with the Red Hair) Fanfic
“Mommy, Suzu said you’re going to the market today. I want to go too!”
Shirayuki looks down into the boy’s shining gold eyes and smiles. “Alright, but grab your coat first.”
The humming grows gradually, announcing the silent footsteps. Shirayuki looks up from chopping the herbs Ryuu gave her. “That’s pretty. I’ve never heard that song before.”
It’s an open invitation, but Obi’s not going to respond. He’s been with them so long, and still she knows nothing about before–
“My mom used to sing it. I don’t remember the words.”
She just manages not to drop her knife, but only because she doesn’t want to scare him away from sharing in the future. Still, the blade wavers, and his eyes follow it suspiciously. She keeps cutting before he can make any assumptions.
The crowds are thick today and she doesn’t like it. The rare warm days of the season always send everyone running to the market. “Don’t let go of my hand, Shoko. I don’t want you to get lost.”
“Okay! I’ll hold on really tight.” Her son’s hand squeezes around hers. “Is this too tight?” She can’t help but smile as she shakes her head. He squeezes tighter. “How about this?”
Obi hasn’t brought up his mom, or any other family member, again. He’s private. She understands that, she really does, but . . . she wants him to know he can talk, if he wants to.
“I used to help serve dinner at my grandparents' tavern when I was a kid, but I wasn’t allowed to stay for long.” Obi casts her a curious look, and, well, she supposes it is an odd thing to bring up right now. “After I helped serve the first round of customers, my grandmother would take me upstairs to my room and we would sit and sew or something while she told stories.”
A rock skids under her foot, and she stumbles. Obi catches her arm, then drops it as soon as she’s steady. “Thanks.” She shifts the basket on her arm. “She didn’t know many stories, though, so most of them were about little girls with red hair saving the village or something like that.”
If the story was meant to teach a lesson, it was a boy who had the red hair. Shirayuki guessed most of those were true, but she hadn’t asked.
Obi laughs. “Well now I know where you get your heroic tendencies, Miss.”
She’s halfway through her shopping list when Shoko tugs on her hand. “Wow, look at that!”
Shirayuki looks around and sees the stall he’s pointing to. It’s small and unassuming, but the fabrics draped across it . . . “They’re beautiful.”
“My mom, she would tell stories too,” Obi says quietly one night as they stand on the wall, staring out at the stars.
Shirayuki flounders for a moment, searching for the lost thread of conversation, until she recognizes it, nearly a month old by now.
“Hers were about traveling the world, visiting new places she knew she’d never see. Most of them weren’t real, but they were to her.”
She’s never seen such brilliant dyes. She fingers the coarse fabric and wonders how far this merchant traveled to reach Lyrias. Even if she asks about the herbs, would she ever be able to find them?
“These dyes are beautiful.” She sifts through blanket after blanket, mesmerized by the patterns and brilliant colors.
The merchant laughs. “Thank you, Miss. They are quite rare, you know. You cannot find anything like them here.” His thick accent admits the truth of his words.
Such a shame.
“Where are you from?” Obi stiffens as he pours another drink and nearly spills it on the table. She shouldn’t ask, she knows, but he’s been sharing lately and her drink is making her bold. “I’ve never seen anyone with eyes like yours.”
“If you ever do, tell me,” he says, and his dark expression makes her shiver.
“I promise, but where–” her elbow nearly knocks over her cup, and then he’s by her side, gently moving it away.
“You know the desert? To the south?”
She frowns. If he doesn’t want to answer, he can just say so. “No one can live there. It’s a desert.”
He leans closer, grinning in a way that bares all his teeth. He’s trying to scare her, and she hopes her flat stare lets him know how well it’s working. “Oh, but Miss, haven’t you figured out by now that the most dangerous killers can be the best protectors if you know their secrets?”
“Ooh, Mommy, look! We should get that for Misaki!” Shoko points to a large belt covered in tiny pockets. “She could put her flowers in it.”
The merchant stiffens, and something in her says danger. Before she can move, his arm shoots out and he hooks one finger under Shoko’s chin, tilting his face up. He’s gaping, staring at the boy’s eyes, and she knows this look, knows this reaction too well, but she had hoped, she had hoped, her children would never have to experience it.
Shoko looks scared, and she can’t blame him. He insists he’s too old to be carried now, but she scoops him up, and he doesn’t protest. She takes a step back from the stall, unwilling to turn her back on the merchant.
The man’s gold eyes meet hers, and her heart stops.
Obi brings up his mom again. She should leave the subject be, let him speak on his own terms, but she’s starting to learn just how impatient and selfish she can be.
“What was she like?”
He stops, and she’s afraid she’s pushed too far. Then he sighs, a draft in this barrier between them. “There’s a lot I don’t remember.” She lays her hand on his softly. He jerks back, then stops and relaxes. “I’ve got her eyes, though. Won’t forget that.”
She needs to stop. “What about your dad?”
He shrugs, like it isn’t important.
Maybe it isn’t.
She runs all the way back. Shoko is still clinging to her, scared. He has questions and she wishes she had answers.
Yuzuri’s in the greenhouse, as she hoped. “Shirayuki! What’s–”
“I’ll explain later.” If she can. “Can you watch Shoko?”
“Of course!”
She sets him on the bench beside Yuzuri and is halfway out the door before she remembers to ask, “Where’s Obi?”
Obi breaks away, and Shirayuki can’t help the whimper that slips out. She’s gone twenty-three years without knowing what his lips feel like on hers, but now that she does, she doesn’t want to stop. She tries to give him a pitiful look, but he just laughs.
His expression softens as he stares down at her, tracing his thumb along her lips. “I always thought I would be just like her.”
“Who?”
He startles, like he hadn’t realized he’d spoken aloud. “My–my mom. She wasn’t supposed to love my dad either.”
She wants to ask what he means–every tantalizing bit of information he gives her isn’t nearly enough; she wants all of it–but that either breaks her heart.
She cups his face in her hands, and he goes very still. “Obi, I love you.” His eyes squeeze shut. “I have from the beginning.” It’s true. Her love for him then might have been different than now, but that’s what love is supposed to do, isn’t it? Evolve. Grow.
“There’s no–no should or shouldn’t about it,” she continues. “Okay? I love you and–and that’s all.” She doesn’t know how else to say what she means, but when he tilts his head to lean his forehead against hers and pulls her closer, she thinks he understands.
He’s not on patrol, thankfully. “Obi!” She doesn’t startle him often. Under normal circumstances, she’d be rather pleased with herself.
He’s by her side in an instant, and she grabs his hands. “I–I saw someone in the market today.”
She keeps waiting for him to stop answering her questions, but he just lets her ask. Some he avoids, but more and more, he answers and it makes her happier than she’ll ever tell him.
This, though, is not something she can just ask.
“I was the closest thing my village had to a doctor,” she says, and he nods. He had probably already guessed that. “I enjoyed it, most of the time. But, um, we had a really bad winter. We lost a lot of herbs and too many people were sick. I couldn’t help all of them. I–I couldn’t help my grandparents.”
“Sounds like a lot of pressure for a teenager.”
She shrugs. She’s never considered it before. He’s silent again, and that’s fine. He doesn’t owe her anything, and she doesn’t really need to know.
“They didn’t trust her,” he says, and she goes still, afraid any sound will make her miss something. “After I came along, I mean. Hard for your secrets to keep you safe if you share them.”
But he was just giving his to her.
His eyes flick over to her, and it’s unfair how cute he is when he’s embarrassed. “But when you’re that close to someone, you–you want to share things.”
Oh.
He looks away again. “She was worried, so we planned to run away, find my dad and live with him, but they caught up to us.” He flicks a knife out and flips it in the air. “I don’t know if it was an accident or not.”
She grips his hand tight. She won’t let go. He stares down at her, and she knows he wants to argue, but she lifts her chin and stares right back. He closes his eyes. For as much as he loves her stubbornness, she knows he hates it sometimes too.
“Fine, but you let me handle this, okay?”
She nods. He frowns, clearly not believing her, but she really doesn’t plan to get involved.
Unless she has to.
The storm is loud, but she’s a grown woman. She shouldn’t need comfort. She ends up in Obi’s room anyway. She sits against the wall with her blanket over her shoulders. Ryuu sleeps on the floor in front of her feet, and Obi sits beside her. It’s nice, comforting–
BOOM
She jumps, then curls into Obi’s side. She shouldn’t be scared of a little thunder. He laughs, though not unkindly, and adjusts his arm to wrap around her better. She remembers sitting up through storms as a child, only feeling safe with her grandparents. She wonders when Obi became her safe.
“Do you still have any family?”
He makes a face. “I mean, by blood, I guess. Really, though, just my uncle. He and my mom were pretty close, and he’s the closest to a father I really had.”
She curls in tighter. Obi is always here, he always has been, and she doesn’t want to think about him ever leaving, but– “Do you ever think about going to see him again?”
“I couldn’t if I wanted to.” He hooks a finger under her chin and makes her look up at him. He knows her too well. “And I wouldn’t want to anyway.”
She feels guilty for her relief. “Why couldn’t you? Even if they think you’ve shared whatever secrets, that’s not as bad as–as killing someone, and if the people who attacked you were able to go home–”
Obi’s expression darkens, and she recognizes that look. It’s the same one he had during the fight with the Claw of the Sea. “Miss, I never said they made it back.”
She shivers then. The blood pounding in her ears says, a child, a child over and over and she wants to cry.
They take the roofs for a better vantage point. They cross from the bakery to the tavern as Shirayuki directs him to the correct stall. They stop on the other side of the street so they can see under the stall’s awning, and she worries that makes them just as visible.
She points to the stall, and Obi’s eyes widen. “Oh.” He sits on the roof, but the movement is more like falling than anything she’s seen from him before.
He hasn’t let go of her hand, and she squeezes it as she sits beside him. “Oh, what? What’s the matter?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing’s the matter. That–that’s my uncle.”
“Oh.” She doesn’t know how to feel now. Judging by Obi’s expression, neither does he. “Do you want to go talk to him?”
He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t force him to choose like that. At least now he can still say he doesn’t know where I am.”
He stays, though, just watching.
Obi can’t take his eyes off the tiny figure in his arms. “I never thought–” he stops and traces a finger along the sleeping infant’s cheek. “He’s so tiny,” he says instead.
Shirayuki nods and she can’t stop smiling as she watches her husband pace the room, cradling their son in his arms.
“I just wish she could have seen him,” he murmurs.
She remembers how her grandmother would coo and fawn over babies. How her grandfather would silently hold an infant for hours, refusing to let anyone else relieve him. She knows how Obi feels.
They go in the early morning, before the crowds can grow heavy.
She carries Misaki on her hip and holds Shoko’s hand tight. She explained the situation to him the night before (well, as much as he needs to know at that age) and asked if he was willing to go back. He was.
They find the merchant easily, and his face lights up when he sees her. “You are back! I did not think you would be.” She wonders if Obi could still mimic that accent.
“Yes. I’m sorry for running off yesterday.”
He winces and shakes his head. “No, I am sorry. I should not have frightened you. I was surprised. Your son reminds me of a boy I used to know.”
She smiles and squeezes her son’s hand. “Why don’t you introduce yourself?”
“I’m Shoko.” He watches the merchant suspiciously, but the idea of a great-uncle is certainly an intriguing one.
Misaki stays silent, but she barely speaks to her favorite people, so that’s hardly surprising. “This is my daughter, Misaki. And I’m Shirayuki.”
The merchant smiles. “I am glad to meet you all.” They talk for a few more minutes about weaving, dyes, and everything else that doesn’t matter, then Shirayuki explains that they have to get back.
“Thank you,” the merchant says as she leaves, and she turns to smile at him. “Take care of them. All three of them.”
Her smile broadens. “I will.”