The First Mask

"Come on! It's right there! You can see it from the top."

The boy was sitting on the garden wall like it was the most natural place in the world to sit, heels drumming against the stone, one hand held down toward her, grass stains on both knees and that grin — the devilish, cute grin which the adults around the boy couldn't help but love even though they knew it was trouble.

Hinata looked up at the boy, with hesitation and indecisiveness in her hands as her fingers twirled around each other.

"I'm... I'm not allowed past the wall."

"Says who?"

"Everyone."

"Everyone's not here," Ryouta pointed out, with the flawless logic of a nine-year-old, "and I am, and I'm telling you there's a thing on the other side you have to see. It's the best thing everrr! Y'know,  you'll be sad forever if you don't."

She knew him a little already — their families were tangled up together somehow, the way grown-ups got, and she'd been in the same rooms as these two brothers a handful of times, on her best behavior, being told she was such a good girl. This was the first time they were playing without any supervision. Exactly what Ryouta had been waiting for.

"What is it?" she asked, not moving.

"If I tell you, it's ruined. You just have to see it for yourself."

"But... But I can't climb."

"You don't need to climb." He said it easily, like it was already solved. He dropped back down on her side — thump — turned around, and crouched with his back to her. "Get on, I'll do the climbing."

She looked at the offered back, then back at the wall, her eyes flitting between the two, unable to decide. Never in her life had she broken rules before and yet, she could feel her heart thumping loudly with the curiosity and excitement of what 'the thing she had to see for herself' lay beyond the wall.

'I'll only look,' she told herself. 'Just to see. Then I'll come straight back.'

Trembling and slightly breathless, she climbed on his back as Ryouta lifted her with ease and smiled back with like an imp.

He carried her over the low part of the wall like she weighed nothing, and before she could even realize, she was already on the other side — the forbidden side, the outside — and behind them a smaller voice was already climbing after, red-faced and appalled.

"You're gonna get her in trouble," Ryuuji whined, dropping down. "You're gonna get me in trouble. Nii-chan, she's not supposed to—"

"She said it's fine."

"She did not say it's fine, she said she can't climb—"

But Hinata was already looking at the thing Ryouta had promised — the whole valley dropping away below the wall, the river, the town small and gold in the afternoon, all of it enormous and none of it hers before this exact second — and something behind her ribs that had been folded very small for a long time opened up a crack, just enough to let the world in.

"Whooaaaaaaaaaa," escaped out of the girl.

"Told you!" Ryouta said, pleased.

That was the start of their friendship.

***

Hinata stood on the bank with her sandals in her hand and told him all the reasons she couldn't — it was too fast, the rocks were slippery, she wasn't allowed near water — and Ryouta was already out in the middle of it, ankle-deep, unbothered, turning over flat stones with his toes.

"This one's good," he said pointing to the large stone that lay slightly above the flowing river, completely ignoring her worries as if they never existed. "And then that one. And the big grey one. Three steps and then you can cross the river."

"I can't—"

"You keep saying that!" He found the third rock, tested it, and hopped back to her. "Hina-chan, just follow me."

Hinata looked at the three rocks. She looked at the far bank, which she had never once stood on and then back at Ryouta who had jumped on the second rock, waiting for her to follow, his hand extended as a safety net.

She put her foot on the first stone. It held. The second was further — she took a moment and breathed in. With a hint of adventure in her eyes, she leaped — a tiny hop in Ryouta's eyes but a leap of faith for the girl. Her arms flew out; Ryouta's hands were already there, steadying hers. And then she made a sound she'd never made in front of anyone — half a shriek, half a laugh — and before she knew it she was on the third rock, and then she was across. Hinata couldn't help but fall down on the grassy bank, her legs giving out from the thrill, her heart beating fast and her voice laughing with relief and triumph as she conquered her fear. She turned and stared at Ryouta who was sitting next to her — his legs folded and his chin on his hands with a beaming smile. Hinata felt as if he had done a magic trick.

"See!" he said, like it was nothing.

Ryuuji picked his way across after them, complaining. "You're not supposed to be near the water, she just said she's not supposed to be near the—"

"Kiddo, she already made it across. She's on the grass now. It's fine. And wasn't that fun, Hina-chan?"

Hinata nodded furiously, completely bewitched by the boy's smile.

That was how it went, all summer. She would stand at the foot of some new thing and list the reasons — the roots of many years of don't, still deep in her — and Ryouta would just go first, and it would turn out she could too. She climbed the low branch with him standing under it, Ryouta's arms up, always assuring her. She ran — actually ran, badly, gasping, delighted — the length of the dry riverbed while Ryuuji shouted that she wasn't allowed and Ryouta jogged backward in front of her grinning.

And every I can't got quieter, until one afternoon at the top of the quarry path she stood looking down at the drop and said, "We'd get in sooooo much trouble..." 

It didn't come out like a complain. It came out shining. A dare she was making to herself, and daring him to take.

Ryouta never said no to her. That was the one thing he never learned. What he learned instead — fast, and without anyone teaching him — was Hinata's limits.

She never had the words for the grey feeling — the way her breath went short and wouldn't catch up, the way her head went light and the world started to tilt — and by the time she felt it coming, it was usually already bad. But Ryouta felt it sooner. Every time, somehow, she would be mid-sentence, laughing, feeling wonderful and he would just pause.

"I'm dying," he announced once, in the middle of a field, flopping flat on his back in the grass for no reason at all. "I can't go another step. Somebody bury me here."

"But we were going to the—"

"We have all the time in the world Hina, we'll get there. Come here on the ground and look at that cloud, it's looks just like Ryuuji."

"Huh, where—"

"It's got the exact worried face."

And she would sit next to him, because he had made it about the cloud and not about her, and by the time they got up again the grey would have gone back down where it came from. Hinata never once felt like a thing that had needed rescuing. She only felt like a girl whose friend had gotten lazy at a convenient moment.

He carried her home on his back more evenings than not, when the day had been long as the tired girl snoozed on his dependable back.

***

The shrine was on the hill at the edge of the district, old and half-tended, and by late summer the grass behind it had gone to dry gold straw.

They weren't meant to be up there once the sun went down but the kids quietly sneaked in. Under the old offering hall someone had left a box of fireworks behind after the last festival — not the little handheld sparklers, the real ones, the launching kind with the long warnings down the side — and Hinata found the box first. She turned around, the fireworks box hugged to her chest and the same light that Ryouta used to have, in her eyes.

"~Look what somebody left."

"Put it back," Ryuuji said instantly, in the voice of a boy who already knew he would not be listened to. "Please? Hina-chan, those are the big ones, those aren't ours, someone's gonna— can we please just—"

"One," she said. "We'll do one and put the rest back."

"Nii-chan, please—"

Ryouta ruffled his younger brother's head, "You worry too much kiddo, you need to learn how to have more fun!"

The protesting eyes of Ryuuji looked at Ryouta as Hinata handed over the box to him for inspection. In a matter of minutes, the trio were outside — behind the shrine.

After reading the instructions, they finally figured out how to set one up. Luckily for the kids, someone had also left a lighter next to the box of fireworks. Ryouta asked the other two to back up as he lit the firework. It went off with a blast — a shriek and a rush and then the whole sky over the shrine blown open in white, and for one held second all three of their upturned faces were lit with it, even Ryuuji's. And Hinata laughed. Not the careful, polite laugh the good girl had learnt growing up in the Ichinose household, but the carefree one, that came from within her heart. The one nine years of rules had never once let out of her.

"It's my turn now!" squealed Hinata, as she grabbed another piece from the box and snatched the lighter from Ryouta's hands — much to his surprise. The girl had grown much bolder since the day she had leapt over the garden wall.

"No... No no, that's— we did the one, you said one—" Ryuuji lunged for the firework, but she had already lit it. She turned her shoulder to protect her precious firework away from Ryuuji, and the lit one in her other hand dipped as she turned. Before any of them could realize, the rocket flew out of her hands and into the dry straw.

It didn't burn slowly.

One moment there was grass. The next there was a low seam of fire running sideways across the hill, heat coming off it in a wall, a sound like cloth tearing.

And Hinata just stood there. She had never once had to get herself out of anything — that had always been Ryouta's job — and now, when it was hers, her body simply wouldn't. She froze.

Ryouta had her by the arm before she'd finished freezing.

He hauled her back off the hillcrest, put his own body between her and the heat, got her down the worn stone steps and out onto the road where the air was still clean, and only when she was down did he look back and see how far it had already run. Below them the town was waking up in pieces — a dog, then a shout, then a window going bright, then another and another, the whole sleepy edge of the district lifting its head at once.

Ryouta wasn't looking at the fire. He was looking at her, at the way the breath wasn't going all the way down, the grey climbing up around her mouth.

"Hey, hey — slow, slow down, you're not running anymore, you're just standing." His hand went flat between her shoulders the way it had a hundred times that summer. "I've got you, just breathe Hina. Slowly."

Behind them the hill burned, and the sirens started, far off and swelling, and the lights came.

The grown-ups came the way grown-ups come to a fire in the dark — fast, and much too loud, and frightened under all of it.

Daigo was among the first up the road, Hinata's father, struggling on his cane and behind him Himawari, catching up quick, still half a girl herself in those days, only just come to the family and not yet good at hiding what her face did in a crisis. And the boys' own mother, running as fast as she could with her sandals in her hand. And neighbors, and then the men from the brigade in their heavy coats dragging a hose up the shrine steps and shouting to each other over the roar of it.

And in the middle, three children in the flicker, and the one question every adult was asking over their heads at once:

Which one of you did this?

Ryouta stepped forward before the question had finished as Ryuuji watched in shock and  frustration — still shaken, fighting back tears.

"It was me." His voice didn't even shake. "I found the fireworks under the hall and lit them. It got away from me, I'm sorry."

The locals had known Ryouta to be a serial troublemaker. It was the easiest thing in the world for them to believe — the grass-stained, scabbed over older boy, the one forever causing mischiefs around town. Of course it was him.

And Ryuuji would never have resented Hinata, if Daigo hadn't turned to the small trembling girl at the back — his own daughter, so pale, so frightened — and crouched down to her, and asked, gently, the gentlest anyone had spoken all night: Are you ok, sweetheart? Why were you here?

That was the moment Ryuuji's world fell apart.

He had no word for it. It would be years before he'd call it a mask, and that night it was only this: her face, which had been a real face, with guilt and fear — going smooth. Arranging itself, soft and sorry and small, into exactly the shape a frightened good girl was supposed to have. Her eyes brimmed, neatly. Her lip trembled, just enough. And in a little brave unsteady voice — the first, true performance of her whole life — she said:

"...I was so scared. I told them we shouldn't have."

Her father's face broke with tears and relief seeing Hinata's scared face and all the questions in the world could wait. He was already wrapping the blanket provided by Himawari around Hinata's shoulders. Someone was telling her how brave she'd been, poor thing, up there in the dark. And Ryouta stood in the cold cleared space where the blame had come to rest on him. He let it stay, and said nothing, as their mother walked over to them, her face a mix of fury and exhaust. There was not a single shred of anger or betrayal on his face. It was just guilt and determination, ready for the accountability that didn't belong to him.

In the end, that was what Ryuuji couldn't forgive. Not the lie. The lie was bearable — it was hard not believe the small and scared girl, and everyone's already knew what Ryouta was like.

It was that his brother shouldered it knowingly. He had stood in the fire Hinata had made and wore the blame she had conveniently passed to him. As far as Ryuuji could see, Ryouta was nothing but a tool for Hinata to blame when things went wrong.

"He didn't do it," Ryuuji said.

He said it to his mother. He said it to Daigo. He said it to a fireman, to a neighbor, tugging at coats, his voice climbing and cracking. "He didn't, it wasn't him, it was—" And every adult there looked down at the little brother crying to save his troublemaker of a big brother, and gave him that soft sad grown-up smile that means 'of course you'd say that,' and not one of them heard a word of it. Why would they? He was a child, and he was hysterical, and the sweet pale girl in the blanket had already told them exactly what happened, and anyone could see she was led astray by the rowdy Ryouta.

Being good was supposed to be the thing that kept you safe.

Ryuuji learned, at eight, at the foot of a burning hill, that being good had kept no one safe. Not him. Not his brother. It had only made her lie fit better — one good child was more trustable over one bad-looking boy and one panicking little brother — and he understood then, in a cold flat way that never once left him afterward: a kind face was not a safe thing to trust. 

The kindest face in any room was the one you had better keep your eye on.

He never told Ryouta. There was no point in it. Ryouta didn't blame her — that was already true and would stay true — and saying it aloud would only have taken something from his brother and changed nothing at all.

So he carried it himself.

He had been carrying it by himself for eight years.

***

Ryuuji couldn't sleep.

He had known he wouldn't, from the moment they got home and Ryouta went up ahead of him with that slow, dazed weight in his shoulders and shut his door without a word. Ryuuji had been awake for hours, listening to the wall clock above his head tick, and the shrine had come back the way those things always come back — uninvited, in the quiet, when there was nothing left to drown it out.

He hadn't let himself think about that summer in a long time. And he understood now, staring at the ceiling with the whole day finally landing on him, why it had come back tonight of all nights — why the roster and the sliding names and Hinata's smooth, helpful, tireless hands had struck that one wrong note in him all afternoon and refused to fall quiet.

Because he had seen this before. He knew this exact move. He had watched her make it once already, at the burning shrine, with the whole world lined up to believe her — the good girl at the back who pretended to be the voice of reason, so soft and so sorry and so completely, quietly in command of every adult on that hill.

She wasn't helping the club.

She was doing it again. To Ryouta. Right now, slow and patient and out in the open, and every one of them was pressing the pen into her hand and thanking her for taking the trouble, exactly the way Hinata's father had knelt and wrapped a blanket round her shoulders and called her brave.

She's using you, she's always used you, I watched her do it before to you.

He couldn't say that to his big brother because Ryouta didn't remember. 

He had buried that whole summer with all the rest of it, and prying it back up would break something in his brother that Ryuuji had spent two years helping to mend. 

And somewhere, Ryuuji was still hesitant and couldn't be sure. 

That was the worst of it, the thing that had held his tongue on the hill as a child and held it again now. What if it was only him? What if it was just the old wound still talking, the boy nobody believed, still furious all these years later, seeing a monster where there was only a girl who was helpful and kind and did every last task set to her with that quiet, careful, almost mechanical care?

The one person who could see it clearly was the one person who couldn't open his mouth.

Down the hall, his brother's room was dark and silent — Ryouta asleep, or pretending to be, carrying a guilt that had never been his, exactly the way he had carried it up that hill and never once set it down.

Hinata had only gotten better at it. She'd had years to practice, and he was the only living soul who remembered the first time she used her mask at the cost of someone else.

Not anymore.

He had to stop her himself.