Chapter Text
That summer’s saturday afternoon was long, hot. Kawaki and some of his friends went out for a walk after meeting up at one of their houses.
They took the route of a path that bordered a park, to which a fair gave life from early hours of the day. While Shikadai narrated the – according to him – boring task that his mother had entrusted him with for that morning, Kawaki was lost in limbo, his hands kept in the pockets of his shorts, stepping on the hard pavement of the narrow road with his havaianas – flip-flops sandals –, while checking the sample objects and goods showed on each of the artisans’ stands.
His brother, Boruto, did not stop complaining about the temperature of that day, but seemed to enjoy it a little more than he did.
In a bad mood, Kawaki endured that last couple of laughs that Boruto let out when laughing at Inojin's joke and fled towards a stall located a few meters from them.
Small jars of caramelized glass, pretty cardboard boxes decorated with mystical symbols, unlit candles, a couple of twigs as decorations and other objects were scattered on the counter that belonged to a girl of purple hair.
Some cards were laid out on the table, reverse side visible, all identifiable by the same illustration. The girl managed to catch his glance when at last, so disinterested, he decided to ask what all those trinkets were.
‘You can grab whatever you want, no strings attached’ she offered as she gazed at her visitor's face.
Kawaki hesitated for a few seconds. He clearly had no interest in buying her anything, so he turned around and ran into his brother.
‘I had lost you’ Boruto said when he found him.
Boruto poked around looking for what had caught Kawaki's attention and soon noticed the presence of the girl that was attending him.
‘Class rep...’ he began, and quickly knew to correct himself in a snap. ‘Sumire! Look where we come to meet’.
Sumire smiled and waved back. The change of her temper was immediate, from being bored now she was kind of nervous, though animated.
‘Boruto, how are you? Good to see you here!’
‘Fine, everything’s going well, and you? How are you? What are you doing here?’ and immediately afterwards, Boruto began to examine her things.
‘On weekends I take the opportunity to work here at the fair’ Sumire clarified, who was curious to know who Kawaki was.
‘How wonderful’.
The blond took one of the candles and brought it up to his nose to check its aroma.
‘Do you have any with orange essence? Or something that you think is useful for concentration’.
Sumire chose another candle, as if she had understood what Boruto was asking for, while Kawaki was confused – he had no idea what kind of use could be given to a... vegetal fat concoction.
‘I like this one. I’m buying it’.
‘Cool!’ Sumire grabbed the candle container and went back to look for a small bag. ‘Shall I wrap it for you?’
‘Yes’ Boruto confirmed.
As Sumire busied herself with preparing the gift, he continued to inspect through her merchandise.
‘So now you know how to throw the cards?’ He took one and turned it over.
‘Yes, I learned it from Akita a few years ago’ she explained and returned with the present.
‘With that... you can guess the future of people, right?’
‘Hmm, I wouldn't describe it exactly that way, but yes’.
Kawaki snorted. Tarot. Another claptrap just like the horoscope and energies. He had gotten tired of ignoring his friends and his siblings every time they wanted to talk about his zodiac sign, or play Ouija’s board.
By the time the others reached them, Shikadai and Inojin also recognized the young woman. Their reaction was promptous, and they greeted Sumire in surprise.
‘Ah, Sumire, how are you?’
‘Fine. You can look without any obligation’ she replied, sliding her hand to the right, palm up, encouraging them to take the objects to visualize them better.
The boys checked the merchandise curiously, Boruto showed them the scented candle he had bought as a gift, and Kawaki stepped aside, going unnoticed by everyone except Sumire.
‘What's your name?’ the lady was interested to know. Kawaki didn’t understand that this question was addressed to him, so Boruto stepped in advance to introduce him.
‘Sumire, this is my brother, Kawaki’.
‘Nice to meet you, Kawaki’ she said, smiling. Kawaki limited himself to make a slight nod.
Inojin nudged Kawaki mockingly, causing him annoyance and breaking his trance, due to him being thoughtful, mind blank.
‘What's wrong? Has she hypnotized you?’
‘Huh?’
‘You didn’t know, didn’t you? She is a tarot reader’.
‘So what?’ Kawaki replied, with clear signs of indifference.
Sumire had been contemplating him in silence for a couple of minutes, but as a good spiritualist, she sensed the aura that surrounded Kawaki and had caused a growing intrigue in her. His gray eyes spoke about his life and his unhealed wounds from the past. She felt that he was haunted by a literary melancholy that hadn’t been finished written yet.
‘Don't be so bitter’ Boruto scolded him, frowning. ‘Why don't you let her make you some tarot divination?’
‘You’re crazy’.
‘Why?’ Shikadai intervened, who under his typical tranquility, was enthusiastic about the suggestion.
‘I don't believe in that nonsense’.
Boruto stifled a laugh.
‘Are you afraid?’
‘Afraid?’
‘That she reads your future and tells you that you are going to die’ he smiled from ear to ear.
‘Do I care?’ his brother complained, put his hands in his pockets taking a step to walk away, but not before exchanging glances one last time with Sumire, who did not oppose a single response to his comments.
‘Come on!’ Boruto insisted, taking him by his shoulders, shaking him with a suddenness that provoked anger in Kawaki.
‘I bet $50 that you are afraid they will tell you something bad is going to happen to you’ Inojin managed to sting his bad mood even more.
‘I'll pay you for all the taiyakis you want to eat if you let her do the tarot divination’ the shorty blond offered without hesitation. ‘C’mon, you can't deny that offer!’
Shikadai encouraged the tantrum with a nod.
‘Stop pestering me!’ Kawaki bellowed and made a somewhat contemptuous gesture with his arm. ‘Besides, I should have to be drunk to pay for it.’
‘No, no’ this time Sumire was encouraged to speak. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
The girl grabbed a deck of cards that she had next to her. The laminated design on the back cover consisted on a pair of clouds and a moon in the shape of a fingernail, and its background was dark purple. When she took them, she did it so gently that it seemed that she was caressing them.
‘If you want, I will do it for free’ she assured. She prepared the table, removing everything that was in the way.
For a moment Kawaki hesitated, perhaps Sumire's calm and soft demeanor had prompted him to reconsider it, but the mocking expectation of his friends nullified any approach he made to the idea.
‘Why don’t you try it?’ Shikadai inquired, who was the least stubborn of the three. ‘Anyways, whatever she tells you, for you it isn’t going to come true, right?’
🔮🃏 🔮🃏 🔮🃏 🔮🃏 🔮
Sumire remained hesitant for a few seconds, and finally faced Kawaki without saying a single word. She turned her hands over on the table and encouraged him to turn his hands over as well. Sullen and lagging, Kawaki accepted and extended his wrists face up, placing his palms on the violet–haired girl's side. The aroma of ashes and something else of the incense inundated his entire nose, stealthily easing his tension and bad mood.
She took a small bottle and poured no more than four drops onto Kawaki's left wrist. Even harshly and stubbornly, he bit back his complaints, questioning the ridiculousness of the ritual. The truth was that the girl's focused and determined attitude backed up his hostility.
His body froze as he felt the friction of Sumire's hands taking his. The girl closed her eyes, meditating on a trip to the core of her senses, seeking to connect with the person she wanted to read – him.
She suddenly trembled, she felt a strong disturbance shaking in the depths of his heart, a cracked organ from which the emptiness that it contained got leaked.
There was an energy in Kawaki that begged Sumire for caution, but she wasn't afraid to go further, she wanted to help him numb that darkness that silently tormented him, hidden from his loved ones.
What was it that made that soul so frigid and his breathing so tense? Perhaps some old wound that he had never been able to heal. Some uncertainty of his future, or of the present itself, might’ve been haunting his nightly dreams.
And Kawaki remained nervous, but this connection arose a doubt in him that became perpetual, that disconnected him from the reality where he was standing, to the point where he didn’t realize that he had closed his eyes along with her, in unison.
‘Okay, I'm going to explain how I'm going to do your reading’ Sumire spoke, interrupting the spiritual release that Kawaki had involuntarily begun to do. His friends were filming him, and Boruto let out a mischievous giggle that fueled a new anger in Kawaki.
But before the older brother of the Uzumaki invoked a fight between the two, the tarot reader continued with her explanation:
‘My fortune–telling will be done with four cards. One will be destined for money, the second for work, and the third for love. The later will show the balance of your luck in general. My reading will focus on your following destiny in these spaces, but you can also make your own interpretation’.
‘Okay’ the boy agreed, turning around again to face her. As Sumire instructed, he adjusted his arms to give her room on the table.
Perfume shaking the air between them, Sumire offered him the deck of cards face down.
‘Choose four of the major arcana’.
He didn't know what kind of witchcraft an arcana was, but Kawaki obeyed and picked the cards one by one, without thinking too much about which ones he removed. Sumire placed them on the surface and joined her hands.
In a state of spiritual transition, Sumire turned the spectral cards over one by one and paused, thinking, alarm rising.
‘And? What does it say?’ the boy asked impatiently.
‘To start, we have the wheel of fortune. This card is inverted, which indicates that in terms of money, you will have to take precautions because times of bad luck are coming. I recommend you to take caution with how you handle it – do not get into debt, and take care of your savings and belongings from possible thieves'.
Kawaki hissed, almost laughing. Failing to temper his semi-mocking laugh, Boruto scolded him.
‘Kawaki, shut up’.
Sumire waited for the dark-haired guy to pay attention to her again, elucidating the following auguries she had to communicate to him. Once those gray eyes of his returned to look at her, she continued.
‘If we talk about work, the second arcana is an inverted tower. This card is giving you an important message, and it is a wake-up call. You may suffer some misfortune regarding your job position or working hours – you may even lose it'.
Kawaki rolled his eyes. It was all beginning to sound like a joke to him.
‘What else? Next time you're going to tell me I'm dying, right?’
‘Your third arcana dictates your exploration in love. It is the judgement, and it is vertical. An encounter with a love awaits you, it will flood your heart with a feeling that you have never experienced. Without a doubt, this feeling will blossom into infatuation. Your sight of life will be reborn and it will happen through this emotion'.
He furrowed his brows, his nose, and inevitably burst out laughing. If there was one thing Kawaki wasn’t interested in in the slightest, it was love. Everyone was the same for him, he had never felt capricious affection for anyone. Sumire assessed his expression upon receiving the divination, and hypothetically surmised that his love’s perspective was linked to an agonized past.
She gazed at him until she realized her cheeks were turning a telltale color. The tarot reader tried to disguise that moment of distraction with the following omen.
‘In conclusion, we have the fourth arcana describing your luck, an inverted sun’.
‘Tch, it sure is something bad’.
‘No’ the girl firmly objected, drawing his attention. ‘This card talks about your spiritual introspection. There is something confusing, a pursuit that tries to materialize and give a concept to your reason for living. You will feel a lack, but this will be resolved when you understand what illuminates and gives energy to your life. It's up to you to find that answer’.
Kawaki got up from his chair, fed up and overwhelmed by hearing so much nonsense.
‘You finished?’
‘Yes, but...’ Sumire tried to speak to him, wanted to give him more advice and maybe also explore a little more about the boy's psyche.
However, that turbulent energy got in the way and blocked her approaches. Kawaki looked at her coldly, bored by her words and by all that circus that she readied to predict an unlucky future for him. Losing money and his job was not on his agenda, and it seemed impossible to him. All the more, the fact of meeting someone who may fluster him as he had seen his brother with his girlfriend.
Bullshit.
Kawaki left without saying anything, walking away at a fast speed from his friends. Boruto followed behind him, who was yelling at him with a raised and clearly angry voice. Shikadai and Inojin stayed with Sumire, apologizing for the boy's behavior. But she hadn't been bothered at all, she understood his reaction. She felt that there were a thousand plus one reasons for him to be in this state. She had been through that in her past.
After hours had passed and the dark night had settled, Kawaki prepared his clothes and went to his room to lie down on his bed. He had showered in a few minutes and devoured dinner in less time, avoiding crossing paths with Boruto, who on the way back reprimanded him for his attitude with Sumire.
He wasn't interested in her or her predictions, much less the tarot and all that foolishness about magic and esoterism. The girl looked like a crazy person who only came to bother him saying that he would lose his job and his savings. For a skeptic, there was only one reality and the one that could be seen, the rest were fairy tales.
Despite the skepticism, that conversation, the touch of her hands that electrified his and each of the cards haunted him and imprisoned him in nightmares all night. He turned over and over in his bed, unwound himself from the sheets, but not from the trance he had fallen into, and that he was futilely trying to ignore.
Kawaki had been enthralled, enraptured under an irreversible spell that he could no longer escape from: his destiny.