#ruelikehell

AKA: FIVE MOMENTS WHERE THE BEST THINGS WENT UNSAID

i. the polehouse is old & well-weathered, its mangrove-hewn wooden walls stripped of their maple coloring & rich smell by the sea’s ceaseless drag of sand & salt. slivers of star- & moon-gilt ocean eddy & swirl between cracks in the grain. haku exhales quietly, rolls the senbon in his hand between his fingers to coax blood into his pale fingers, then watches clouds of tiny blue crabs scuttle up the house poles from the black water. it is easier to watch their journey than their destination: the kumo nin bound & gagged to the center pole. it’s callous of him, but haku sometimes wishes his feelings & words could be pulled right out of his body, too.

ii. the seven swordsmen don’t pick their swords; their swords pick them. there is a bond running between kubikiribocho & zabuza, a contract between two grim beasts hunting for blood; he knows better than to touch the blade. but haku is a two days into being fifteen & he can’t stop staring at kubikiribocho’s blocky handle & blunt edges whenever zabuza’s back is turned. “What’re you starin’ at, kid?” zabuza grunts when he catches haku in the act, & it is disconcerting how easily he almost says Everything instead of “Nothing.”

iii. he’s fifteen & a quarter, growing more restless by the day. the sword shadows his dreams at night, & he is unsure if this is a sign of bond-potential or if his devotion has crossed over into obsession. he isn’t sure it matters. the only thing that matters is that he be the one to help zabuza achieve his vision. … except that isn’t true, because at some point over the last three months haku’s dream has shifted from I want to protect your dream to I want to make you proud to I want to make you proud, so I shall be the one to kill you. if zabuza notices the increased squirreliness, he makes no comment.

iv. the bridge happens, & he wakes up three days later as pale as death. the inside of haku’s mouth feels like sun-dried burlap & tastes like spoiled medicine & water-rotted metal. his body feels even worse. he tries to sit up, strangles a groan in his raw throat, & doesn’t fight when a firm hand pushes him back into the blankets. 

“Hatake shoved a fist through your chest — ” zabuza's growl cuts off sharply, turning away to glare at the wall. the room is spinning just past zabuza’s shoulders.  this dream is painful; haku wants to go back to sleep. “I don’t know how you’re alive right now. You should be dead.”

“Well,” haku supplies helpfully, &, yeah, he doesn’t know what zabuza gave him, but it’s good, even though it tastes the way an apothecary’s garbage probably smells. he tries to gesture down toward the torso he can’t currently feel but hopes is still there is, but his arms won’t cooperate so he bobs his head up & down instead, “I am not.”

he’s never seen this expression on zabuza before, which is highly disconcerting. the man looks strained, & tired, & angry, but there’s more that haku can’t quite pick out. relief, maybe ? he’s not sure. the room’s starting to suck zabuza’s face into its vortex. really, the man almost looks — emotionally, er — constipated.  

“What . . . happened ? ”   his voice is so soft zabuza has to lean forward to hear him. zabuza stares at him. haku tries to smile with too many teeth, wincing at the strain on his throat, neck, everything.

“You died,” zabuza looms over him, body too big too wide too close to haku’s clammy, feverish body as he crouches over the makeshift floor pallet. 

“Nonsense,” haku slurs sagely, eyelids sliding shut as exhaustion & medicine begins coaxing his consciousness back to sleep, “I can’t die until I kill you first. I wouldn’t want you to get lonely.”

10. Does your character feel more comfortable with more clothing, or with less clothing?

haku’s actually pretty comfortable naked. he’s unashamed of his body by adulthood, aware that it is a fine and well-honed thing; a whetted dagger in the hands of the wieldy. when he was younger, however, he had his reservations about being naked due to the initial appearance of his raikiri burns, but as the wounds healed and faded and as he matured he grew to accept them as a part of him. it would be foolish for a shinobi to feel shame over scars, wouldn’t it? for scars are proof you survived.

– however, haku wears a lot of layered clothing to obscure his body from observers. people like to make a big fuss about his appearance and to oggle him, and while he likes the way he looks he’s learned that covering up and ignoring people’s glances is the quickest way of avoiding the bullshit. also, he likes wearing a lot of clothes. he very much enjoys the hand- and body-feel of certain fabrics, and he especially likes wearing tighter underlayers, like a turtleneck bodysuit for example, that is snug enough to feel secure and calm, and a loose upperlayer, like a slightly oversized haori. also it’s a great aesthetic. also it’s practical. also also also the combination has a similar effect as a miniature anxiety blanket. the combination makes him feel grounded and together, while maintaining optimal comfort.

18. Is your character more likely to admire wisdom, or ambition in others?

ambition, unfortunately. haku admires individuals with heart, passion, bravery – those who persist in the face of insurmountable odds. it’s a mindset no shinobi with a mind as tactic-oriented as his should admire, and yet there’s something about that earnest ferocity that, in the right person, could make him follow them to the ends of the earth. what can i say ? the boy's fond of reckless, impulsive, brazen idiots.

31. Describe a scenario in which your character feels most comfortable.

winter in the country. snowfall drifts silently from heavens, blanketing branches, hedges, the last of fall’s tall grasses, filling in the deft footprints of predator and prey alike. his heart burns warm as summer, but winter is his source of power and delight. he catches snowflakes on his tongue, walks barefooted over frosted hill and through snowed in valleys as easily as a young child races barefoot across warm grass. up through the sealed earth the water whispers to him, the vibrations of an ancient tongue thrumming up his heels and into his mouth; he hums and sings a song no one ever taught him, a song without words or wants, only history, tracking the rhythm to its crescendoes: the trickling mouth of a river, the fogged breath of hidden, virginal hot springs, strange spots where the earth parts like lips and great geysers of boiling, sulfurous steam hiss out between stony teeth. he walks and walks and walks and walks and finds he does not want to stop walking; remembers, with a sobering quickness, those old pernicious folktales about yuki women wandering out into devastating blizzards, wide-eyed and enchanted and utterly unafraid as they walked, languidly as a dream, into the mouth of the storm. he thinks of this story but does not stop walking. he walks for miles and miles and miles, not a single footprint in his wake.

45. What does your character believe will happen to them after they die? Does this belief scare them?

haku doesn’t believe in an afterlife; dead is dead, after all, and when he dies he will slide back into the crags in the earth he came from as unceremoniously as he slid from his mother so many years ago. haku wouldn’t deride those who do belief in an afterlife, it’s just a concept he himself cannot fully envision – what would it mean, to live a life no more than an after-image of the life he lives now ? what is there to look forward to in the shadow of a shadowed world ? there is light in his life right here, right now, products of the people he’s come to know and love, and that is enough for him. rather than being a source of terror, the idea of death as the finality of consciousness is a vague source of comfort. haku isn’t actively trying to die, not at all, but it’s assuring to know that at some point he will have done all he could do and his life will come to an end with the precision of a period punctuating the end of a hanging clause. he imagines his final moments will carry the same satisfaction one feels upon finishing a long but exciting book before shutting it and lovingly placing it back on its shelf.

– however, after his experiences in altered and alternate realities during his birthright and ungaikyo character arcs wherein the awakening of hyoton’s full potential transports an unprepared and very unstable haku into the recesses of his own soul and links him to his great ancestress tsukimono, haku returns to his proper timeline deeply changed and no longer certain that death is as final as he once thought. between holding conversation with long-dead ancestresses, speaking to the spirit-shade of his mother, running into the rinnegan-beholden sasuke ( @netsurai ) in various worlds populated by beasts, monsters, ghosts, and worse, haku is no longer certain of a lot of things.

⭐️ MEME:  // closed !

⭐️ // haku has definitely tried to commemorate zabuza’s birthday before, to mixed results. i could be wrong, but zabuza doesn’t strike me as the bouncing birthday boy type, and i doubt needlessly expending energy and resources as reward for surviving would fly with him. haku respects that. haku also thinks being alive another year is something to celebrate, all things considered, and does something for zabuza anyways. he never takes from their stores, instead catching additional game or edible plants whenever possible in the days leading up to zabuza’s birthday, and he always gives zabuza some kind of gift. the gifts are always small and practical so zabuza can’t throw them away ( “this medicine is handy, just like me!” ). sometimes the gifts aren’t physical objects. haku might tell a story, etc. zabuza lets the kid do it. and maybe he actually prefers the stories, because haku’s a damn good storyteller.

⭐️ // hmmm. this is less of a headcanon, and more of a thought: when on missions, it probably makes more sense for haku to be in the surrounding trees keeping tabs on everything, scouting, running a perimeter, and executing diversions where needed than zabuza, if only because his tools are more suited to subtle works. 

⭐️ // this one isn’t a real headcanon either, but i’m wondering about their dynamic with the demon brothers. the demon brothers were loyal to zabuza, but i’m pretty sure he doesn’t bat an eyelash at their deaths ( capture? ); however, he also didn’t respond to haku’s death until naruto wheedled it out of him, so i’m not sure. either way, i’m now curious as to what that dynamic was like, whether or not they traveled together or if zabuza specifically called them back when he took gato as a client. would love to hear thoughts on this and more !