[Reborn fic] The Skylark's Naming

[morphaileffect]

Hibari-centric gen.


The Skylark's Naming

I see you're back.

Exactly on time. You're learning fast, aren't you?

Sometimes I wonder how you manage to be so efficient. You're so small and yellow.

Yet there's something about you... it sets you apart from all the other birds I've trained. Sometimes I think you can actually understand what I'm saying. And sometimes I think you actually enjoy being around me.

I also wonder if you miss the nest you'd fallen from. The one that was empty. Do you even know you've been abandoned and left to starve to death, unless you could somehow learn how to fly on your own?

Maybe that's how we're the same, you and I.

I was left to die, too.

- I might be joking. I don't remember what happened, exactly. My earliest memory is running blindly into the rain. It was nighttime.

I didn't even see where I was going, I just remember feeling cold inside and out.

Somehow I came to a school. It was just another place in just another neighborhood, but its gates were open so I stumbled in.

I found a warm, dry spot inside one of the classrooms. That was where I decided to rest for the night. When I woke up, I was in a small but neatly-kept office, bundled up in blankets and bandaged in many places.

I opened my eyes and I saw a man sitting behind the only desk in the room, looking at me. His gaze on me was steady and more than just a bit troubled. I jumped out of the blankets, off his comfortable couch, and tried to stumble out.

To my horror I found that one of my legs was in a splint. And that it was actually in pain. I couldn't scamper far enough away from the old man when he left his desk and approached me, bent down so he could get a better look at me from where I lay on the floor.

"Good morning," he said. His voice was gentle, but at the time it was loud enough to frighten me. "You tracked mud into one of my classrooms and spilled blood all over my floors."

Until now I wonder what he expected me to say. "I'm sorry"? "I'll never do it again"?

"You were taken to the hospital a few days ago. You lost a lot of blood, I'm afraid, but the doctors said that as soon as you woke up, you were going to be fine. They said I should take you home. Do you know where your home is?"

I didn't want to answer him. I grabbed the nearest object (which happened to be a pair of slippers that were just around my size) and threw it at him.

He dodged, although not that well; good thing slippers thrown by five-year-olds generally don't do much damage.

"What's your name? How old are you? Can you remember anything?"

The questions kept coming. I didn't want them to. I shut my eyes and put my hands over my ears.

He didn't try to come any nearer. He waited until I no longer looked like I was ready to kill him, and then he calmly went back to his seat behind the desk and picked up the telephone.

"Miss Nomiura," he said into the receiver, "please cancel all my remaining appointments for the day. Inform Takada that I'll be going home early. Ah - and please bring in some food for two. My young guest and I will be having lunch early."

He tried to bring me home with him.

I ran away.

While we were inside his car, I was already ripping the splint and the bandages on my legs. As soon as his car stopped at a traffic light, I climbed out the open window and ran back to the school.

I didn't feel any pain - I just wanted to get to where I was going. I had memorized the route.

Namimori Junior High... at the time it felt like the safest place in the world. There were many rooms I could hide in, and many corridors to run through in case someone came after me. There were shadows and windows all over, and everywhere I turned, there was a way out.

He somehow knew where I was. He came for me in the dead of night and found me on the rooftop of the main building.

"Surprised I found you here?" he greeted. "You seem like the sort of kid who likes heights."

I wonder what tipped him off. Was it the fact that I was found sleeping inside a fourth-floor classroom, when a first-floor classroom would have worked even better for a child who was apparently covered in wounds and bleeding to death?

"You won't even tell me your name, will you. That's a pain." He thought for a minute. "Hey. Do you like birds? I do. I have a small collection of them right here."

I was hiding behind the large birdcage. There were wooden compartments for around twenty birds, all of different kinds. I didn't even know it was a birdcage until he pointed it out. I stepped away from it.

"I train these birds, you know." He didn't seem to mind that I was edging away from him. "I got them all as chicks, and since then I've been training them for various things. Carrying messages, mostly. The owner of Takesushi restaurant and I are old friends, and we send each other messages with the help of Tsubame here." He lightly tapped the wire door of a cage that contained a swallow. A big, healthy one. "Would you like to know how I train them?"

I shook my head, but he went on talking.

"Well, I train them in different ways, but there's a basic system for all of them. I let them grow up inside the cage. But I make sure they're comfortable and that they have room to move around. And to socialize with other birds, sometimes."

To my surprise, I realized I had stopped backing away. I was waiting for the point.

"Once they've gotten used to this luxurious life, I'm supposed to set them free. If they like their cage - if they've come to think of it as their home - they would keep coming back to it.

"So one day, when all the chicks were grown, I opened all the cages. All of them came back, except for one. I still miss that one, he was always the most spirited. I wonder how he's doing..."

He looked at one open, empty cage, at the topmost row. The front of it had a label I couldn't read (I don't remember if I could already read at the time. I don't think so.) and he looked at that cage long and hard.

"Hibari," he said to me eventually. "I think I'll call you Hibari."

The name came out of the blue. I accepted it because I had no alternative.

But I still wasn't leaving this place. With a few swipes of a sharp-edged tin I found, I made it clear to the man that I wasn't going back to his home, or to anyone's home. He didn't argue.

Instead, he carved out for me a place to stay: the storeroom on the rooftop, near the birdcage. As soon as he could, he installed a small bathroom with running water there, and got me a soft mattress to lie in. He even decorated the room himself, to give it a serene traditional Japanese look.

Any other adult would have drugged me and then dragged me kicking and screaming to the nearest orphanage, I know. I suppose he felt my life was still in danger, which was why he continued to hide me.

My new living quarters were too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter - but as long as it was located in Namimori Junior High, it was good enough for me. At the age of five, I was perhaps too young to understand the concept of equivalent trade: all I knew was that the kindly old man was giving me things I needed, and I was in no position to refuse them.

I mostly kept myself hidden inside that storeroom. There was no lock on the door, but no one tried to come in without my permission.

The person called Miss Nomiura came by with food regularly three times a day, as if she had been trained to do things like that. She would try to talk to me. "Won't you come out? We've locked the entrance to the rooftop so the students won't bother you. Mr. Mugita knows you don't like crowds, but a little boy like you should be with children your own age, you know..."

I didn't like talking to her. Or to anyone. I wouldn't open the door unless it was the man himself who came knocking - the person known as Mr. Mugita. Sometimes he would invite me to stroll around campus grounds with him, or take me out for a ride in his car, to public places he thought I would like (and didn't).

"You can stay as long as you want in my school," he once said to me. "I just need to ask one thing from you - help me take care of the birds. I used to let the students do that, but since we've restricted this area to students, I'm all out of people to help."

I didn't mind. The birds didn't bother me.

Since I was tasked to take care of the birds, however, I had to step out of my storeroom more often than I liked. I got used to it fairly quickly.

When the bell rang for first period, I would be washed, fed and dressed like all the other children who were trooping in. I would be feeding the birds, making sure each one was accounted for. This was the way I started school. When I was done I leaned out over the wire fence around the rooftop and watched the teachers and the students from high above.

I learned how birds spoke. And because some of them - some of you, i mean - could talk, I taught them things behind Mugita's back. I learned more than I taught, however - birds could go anywhere they wanted. They only came home from a day full of stories when they were hungry and tired and willing to be caged again.

It was Old Man Mugita's routine to head over to the rooftop at least once a day. He said I was his "escape route." He was always so busy with schoolwork and administrative duties, he only really had time to breathe when he was looking in on me.

"You know what, Kyoya-kun?" he said to me almost a year after I'd settled in. When he adopted me he gave me the name "Kyoya" - he said it was after his grandfather. "I think you're old enough to attend school."

I enjoyed watching people, but interacting with them was something else. It was a new and frightening concept. I shot him a look that said I'm not going. I'm going to kill you if you make me.

I thought that would scare him off, but he didn't cave easily. He plied me with promises... stuff like he was going to take care of me and nothing bad was going to happen. But I knew better. He made promises all the time - he promised he would drop by a second time to see me before he went home, or he would take me to the zoo that weekend, things like that. But he always said he forgot or else a student needed his help and that was more important.

Adults make promises that aren't for keeping. I learned that much from him.

So when he saw he was getting nowhere, he sighed and said "All right. You don't have to go to school, but you have to have an education. So instead of going to a regular school, you're going to stay here and be taught by me. How's that?"

I thought it was a decent arrangement. I got fed, clothed, washed, I had a place to crash, and I didn't have to go to school. But I admit, the important thing he called an "education" got me curious.

Old Man Mugita was nothing if he was not patient. At first I was bored with things like basic grammar and simple multiplication, but he had ways to make them sound interesting.

I suppose it came from being a teacher all one's life.

At night, I was free to roam around campus on my own. Once, I came across two teachers making out in one of the classrooms on the third floor. One of them said it was a shame Principal Mugita didn't have a family - he was so dedicated to teaching and running a school, that he couldn't even think about starting another one.

The words "another one" puzzled me, but not for long. The same teacher continued: Mugita's very young wife and five-year-old son Kyoya had died in a bizarre robbery case. Certainly no one would want to harm the family of such a quiet, gentle teacher just for money. But whatever he was before he became a teacher was always a mystery.

There were rumors that the objective of the thieves was mainly to assassinate everyone in the Mugita household, not to take their most precious possessions. Similar attacks went on in different parts of the neighborhood - almost as if the thieves were part of a group who were looking to kill a specific person in different homes. It was too strange to be a coincidence.

Mugita survived the attack on his family simply because he'd elected to stay late in school, to oversee preparations for the Children's Day festival.

Children's Day. The day he found me. The day he left the gate open just for a moment, by accident.

I tried asking him about that incident a few times, if that was true. But he either ignored the question or snapped at me to focus on my studies.

It seemed that was the only thing Mugita didn't want to talk about.

Old Man Mugita taught me everything he thought I needed to know - even martial arts, which I apparently had a knack for. It was my favorite physical activity, although Mugita himself wasn't very good at it. He supposed that I came from a family of martial artists and must have acquired some skills subconsciously. He lent me as many books as he could find on the sport and I hungrily read through them all.

"Why do you want to be strong?" he once asked me.

I said I didn't have a particular reason. That didn't sit well with him.

"What's the point of being strong if you're not out to protect anything?" He asked me this, but he might also have been talking to himself.

Once I'd found the things I was interested in, I realized that having an "education" was actually a breeze. It wasn't long before I became impatient to learn the things that middle school students were learning. Things like algebra and economics and world history.

He said I shouldn't rush things, because everything had a time and place. I was in "training," and if I rushed my training, I wouldn't learn things properly. He even managed to weave that into a lecture.

"Everything on this earth can be trained. Animals, plants, even humans. However," he said emphatically, "there is something inside all of us that can't be tamed or trained, no matter how hard anyone tries. It's stronger in some of us, and weaker in some of us."

I asked, "What's it called?"

Survival instinct, he answered. "It's the thing that allows us to resist death, sickness, and things that run contrary to our nature. And we all have it because we're all wild, in some way."

I had more things I wanted to know. "I read something about survival instinct once. It was in a chapter about 'natural selection'. It said there that the weak is eaten up by the strong, 'cause that's how they survive. And that's the true order of things."

He nodded.

"So if this untameable thing inside me is stronger than the thing inside everyone else, does that mean I can eat up everybody else?"

He looked shocked. He cried, "Are you a cannibal? For God's sake, don't eat anyone!"

I looked at him in askance. He looked thoughtful for a second.

"Maybe you can just bite them to death," he decided.

I liked that idea.

You can tell Old Man Mugita loved the school. He loved it like a painfully average child. It didn't overperform and it didn't underperform (hell even our school anthem makes note of that) but he was still proud of it. As a result, Namimori got its most number of sports awards (3) and the most number of academic excellence citations (1) it had ever gotten, during his time.

He put in all his effort, every waking hour, to making sure every part of the school got the improvements it needed and deserved - a new coat of paint here, one less wall there, a new stock of books for the library. He kept tabs on them all.

People would remember him as the pioneer of the "golden age of Namimori Junior High," when the school looked its finest and the students were most inspired to learn. He would also be remembered as the quiet middle-aged guy with the cheerful temperament, who walked the halls of Namimori with a peaceful smile on his face.

School records would show that he officially resigned due to "health reasons."

I didn't know about this.

His manner of saying goodbye was congratulating me on finishing six years of semi-formal education, handing me a diploma, and telling me he may not be seeing me again.

I asked him why. He said he was very sick, had been sick for some time, so he needed to check himself into a hospital and undergo a series of treatments, which may not turn out well for him.

He may have broken his promises, but he never lied to me.

"It would be a good way to go," he said brightly. "At least I wouldn't be bleeding all over any of my classroom floors."

I accused him of not taking care of himself. Of working hard when he should be resting. These were things I didn't think I cared about; I guess I just needed someone to show me.

"I've taught you this," he said sternly to me. "When faced with the option to run or to stay and fight, always stay and fight, even if you might lose." He put his hands on my shoulders. "You have to. For the sake of the ones you care about. And the ones who care about you."

I said, I didn't care about anyone.

He smiled. "You care about this school," he said. "The same way I do."

I didn't tell him that I cared about the school because he cared about it first. That without him I was afraid the school was going to turn empty. And I would have to leave it and forget him and everything about the school eventually.

It turns out I didn't have to tell him anything. He said, "I'm afraid I need a little help now. So I'm leaving this school to you, all right?"

I wanted to tell him that this wasn't a birdcage, and I wasn't his damned underling. That as soon as he died, I was going to find my own place and change schools and to hell with Namimori and the stupid students and the stupid teachers and the birds.

But what I said was, "All right."

I don't know what my real name is. I don't know who my family is, or who I was supposed to be, before I became "Hibari."

But I found myself here in Namimori.

The old man didn't just leave me the school - he left me everything he had, as a child he had legally adopted. Without my consent, of course.

I take care of the birds at the rooftop. The large cage is gone, but no one needs that anymore - the birds come to feed and rest early in the morning and late at night. They ferry information from my end of the world to others, and back. If I'm not there on schedule, I have one of the Prefects take over.

The Prefects, yes... they and I keep order within the school. We may not be able to restore it to its former glory, but we may be able to turn it into something greater.

- At least that's what I tell them. They seem to believe it.

From time to time I think I still see Old Man Mugita walking down the halls, with that peaceful smile on his face that nobody remembers now. Nobody except me. I see him looking up at me out of his thoughts and waving. Or yelling at me to focus on my studies and not wander off or ask him too many personal questions.

I suppose this is what they call being "trained."

Well, that's all the chatter I can spare for now. You look bored. Raring to fly off again, I suppose.

Listen. I don't even know what species you are. I'd like to say it doesn't matter, but it's a pain.

So you know my name, little yellow thing. What shall yours be?

I think I'll call you...

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Notes:

1. On the significance of Children's Day - Hibari's birthday is listed as Children's Day (May 5)

2. On the name Mugita: "There is a Japanese skylark where there is a wheat field," from this page.

and Mugita = 麦田 = as close to "wheat field" as I can get :P