fanfic; cultivation; part 4

[acperience]

▶ Part 3

—

Tiir coughs into one sleeve as dust falls, prying at ceiling tiles with his other hand. Looking down from the chair he’s standing on, he turns to Minato, who’s standing on the floor beneath him, as still as a statue.

“Are you all right? I apologize—this place tends to gather dust.”

Minato nods, though Tiir wasn’t exactly expecting a different reaction. Still, satisfied by the fact that Minato isn’t sneezing or coughing or waking everyone up, Tiir goes back to his current task. Soon enough, he removes a tile, leaving a gap large enough for him to squeeze through—which is just what he does, slipping into the space above. Moving away from the hole, he peers over, reaching a hand out to Minato.

“Climb up.”

Minato tilts his head to one side with a curious look, before climbing onto the chair and taking Tiir’s hand, as Tiir pulls him up into the space with him. A slight widening of his eyes tells Tiir, who looks around with a smile, that he’s surprised.

“You weren’t expecting this, I assume?” Tiir says. “Only Lafra, Pueka, and I know about this. I found it when I was bit younger than you.”

‘It’ refers to the room they’re currently in: a hidden attic, one could call it. The space isn’t very large—smaller than the bedrooms, certainly—but large enough for Tiir to stand and move around in. He walks over to a small rug laid on the ground, which, along with the handful of candles sitting on it, he’d stolen from another room years ago. Using the matches lying next to them, he lights one, basking the room in a dim glow. After sitting down, Tiir pats the spot next to him, indicating for Minato to join him. As silently as ever, the boy does.

“It’s good for hide-and-seek,” Tiir says, only half-joking. What he doesn’t tell Minato is that he did, in fact, use it for just that. Much like Guriko, Tiir wasn’t been particularly social as a child and instead elected to avoid others whenever possible. As the workers kept finding him, he kept finding new hiding places, and this one was his best.

Now, of course, he has no reason to do such a thing, but in a building where privacy doesn’t exist, he still finds it a good place to retreat to.

“Oh,” Minato says. Tiir wonders if he’s even listening.

They sit in silence like that for a while, with Minato saying nothing further and Tiir deciding to stay quiet. Eventually, though, figuring they can’t remain that way for the rest of the night, Tiir asks the question that’s been bothering him:

“So, Minato… how long has this been going on for?”

—

To be honest, Minato wasn’t expecting to run into anyone that night. Most people weren’t up at that hour, and even if they were, they were in their rooms.

—Just as he should’ve been.

And so, even if he didn’t show it, he was just as surprised to nearly crash into Tiir just as Tiir seemed to be.

He’s not sure how the current situation came to be, with him in Tiir’s special place—only that he told Tiir that he couldn’t fall asleep. Somehow, one thing led to another, and Tiir was guiding him down the hallways, reminding him to be quiet, lest he wake anyone else up.

Minato nodded his head—yes, he would make sure to be quiet.

Now, he was sitting cross-legged on a rug, blinking into candlelight, trying to think of how to answer Tiir’s question. Despite its abruptness, Minato knows what he’s asking.

Tiir wants to know why he’s still awake.

“… A long time,” he finally says. He can’t see Tiir’s expression very well in the dim light, but he can tell that he’s thinking.

“… Since your parents died?”

Minato stares. Tiir smiles wryly.

“My apologies... the workers told me. Don’t worry—it’s not something they tell most,” he says. Minato wonders why Tiir isn’t part of that ‘most’, then, but figures it probably has something to do with how long Tiir’s been here.

Nine years, Tiir told him, since he’d drawn that picture, and he just said that he’d been here since he was younger than Minato. He’s probably friends with the workers by now, Minato decides.

Either way, Minato nods—his answer to the original question. Tiir smiles sadly at him.

“Have you seen a doctor about it?” he asks. Minato nods wordlessly. One of his previous foster families had taken him—only for him to be accused of making it up.

Of course it would seem that way. How else should one react when a child claims that he sees blood and coffins where there should be people at night?

It’s not something that happens.

Another doctor even ran tests on him, just to see if perhaps he was brain-damaged—but nothing. He’s a normal child, apparently, except he has never felt normal. There’s something wrong with him, but he doesn’t know what.

He’s never mentioned it since. There’s been no reason to trouble anyone else, no need to induce whispers of how peculiar he is, and why isn’t he like other children—

Minato swore never to talk about it again.

And yet, Tiir seems to be intent on bringing it up.

“Oh?” Tiir says. “And?”

Minato shrugs. He doesn’t want Tiir to think of him as abnormal too. He doesn’t want to Tiir to realize that when he looks around, in a room that’s likely meant to be comforting, he sees blood.

For whatever reason, he doesn’t see a coffin when he looks at Tiir, and for that, he’s grateful.

Tiir follows his gaze, though, blinking when he presumably sees nothing but the walls that he’s always seen.

“Do you see something?” Tiir asks with a note of concern in his voice. Minato shakes his head as Tiir turns back to him. Tiir inclines his head to one side.

“Don’t be afraid. You can tell me.”

Tiir probably thinks that Minato merely saw a bug or, like most children, fears what lurks in the shadows, or some else equally meaningless. Minato would rather let him have his false conclusions.

Lighting another candle, which he holds, Tiir stands up. He then moves over to where Minato is staring, holding up the candle to illuminate the area. A few moments pass, and he speaks.

“There’s nothing here,” he says gently. Minato says nothing—the blood is still there. Tiir returns, a worried expression on his face. His candle flickers, and it’s then that Minato sees.

Tiir’s eyes are different. He can’t tell exactly what, but they’ve changed since a few moments ago. Perhaps their colour, as Minato recalls Tiir’s fight from before. It was an unnecessary sentiment, Minato thinks, as he’s used to the comments (he’s ‘creepy’, he knows), but he remembers Tiir’s eyes.

“Your eyes…” Minato begins, before trailing off, unsure how to continue. Tiir blinks, as his eyes shift again—and now, Minato can see that it’s their shade, confirming his suspicions. Then Tiir smiles, in a way that Minato can’t quite place his finger on. It’s not quite happy, but not entirely sad either.

“Ah, that,” Tiir says. “They’ve changed colour, have they? I’ve been told they do that.”

There’s a pause, as Tiir’s voice becomes quieter, though his smile (?) doesn’t falter.

“Does it scare you?”

That, Minato doesn’t need to think about. He shakes his head. No, Tiir doesn’t scare him.

“Why?” he asks. It’s probably a vague question, though Tiir seems to understand. He’s quiet for a few seconds, presumably trying to figure out how to answer, before he replies.

“Because my body is different,” he says in a light tone, rendering Minato unable to read how he’s feeling. He wonders if Tiir too suffers from being ‘abnormal’. “I’ve never seen for myself, but others have told me that it happens. I’m not the only one, though. Lafra and Pueka are the same, as is Guriko.”

“Guriko?” Minato asks. Tiir nods.

“Hers are a bit in different, in that they don’t change like mine or the others’,” he says. “But it’s how I recognized her. There aren’t many like us.”

And there it is—for just a moment, at the end, Tiir’s tone changed. His turn to look worried now, Minato scoots a bit closer.

“… Does it hurt?” he asks. Tiir looks at him with a blank expression.

“Does it hurt…?”

Minato nods, thinking of how to elaborate. “… Being different.”

And at that—at that—Tiir smiles, reaching over to stroke Minato’s head. It’s a sad smile, Minato can tell, but genuine.

“It was hard, sometimes, at the beginning,” Tiir says. “But I’ve never wanted to be normal. Being different can be a good thing, no matter what anyone else tells you. Accept what makes you unique—all right, Minato?”

Minato thinks over, looking up at the bloody walls. He’s never outright hated his abnormalities, but—

—A good thing? Is it really?

When he hasn’t had a proper night’s sleep in a very, very long time, he wonders if it’s truly something to be happy about.

Maybe Tiir is wrong.

But Minato thinks about him, and what he’s seen these past few days. He remembers those words Tiir said when he thought Minato wasn’t there (for Minato, even as a child, is no fool—he knows Tiir is not always as kind as he seems to be).

—A red-eyed freak. How often has been Tiir called those kinds of things?

And yet there was no trace of doubt. Even in his melancholy, Tiir meant what he said—that he’s never wished to be anything but abnormal. He’s never wished that, even though being different must have caused him pain, just as it has for Minato.

Maybe there’s truth in Tiir’s words.

Minato doesn’t really know.

Still, for a moment, when he looks at Tiir’s smile, he can pretend that the blood isn’t there and there aren’t more shadows than there should be.

For a moment, as he sits there in the candlelight with Tiir, he can find peace in the night.

—

“Where the hell did you go?” Lir asks Tiir when he re-enters the room. Tiir shoots him a glare as he heads back to his bed.

“Why are you even still awake?” he retorts. “Stalker.”

—

For the first time since his parents’ deaths, Minato falls asleep within minutes after his head hits the pillow.

—

▶ Part 5