​ For once, it was Kei’s turn to track down Hazō. At this time of day, he would likely be conducting that phase of theoretical research which involved staring gormlessly into the distance while his brain innocently offered up apocalyptic seal designs one after another. It was best to approach him now, before Kagome’s screaming marked the start of the discussion phase.

Watching him ponder yet another way to tie space-time into a knot for the sake of moderately improved combat performance, Kei felt a wave of humiliation at their previous encounter. Not only had she grievously misinterpreted his words (she hoped), but she had spontaneously lost all her facility with language, plummeting head-first into the abyssal depths of accidental innuendo that had hitherto been Hazō's sole domain.

“Hazō,” she bowed awkwardly, “I must apologise for my behaviour yesterday. After extensive reflection, I have concluded that your comment was referring purely to the physical sense of touch, and not to any… personal activities that shall never be discussed again in any way, sort, shape or form.”

She looked up warily. “That is what you were referring to, isn’t it?”

As best as she could tell, Hazō seemed amused.

“Yes, Keiko. I don’t even see how… the other thing… could’ve followed from what we were talking about.”

That should have been obvious.

“Given that you began to enquire about my experience of touch, and that there are various forms of touch which produce different—”

Kei stopped abruptly.

“Never mind.”

Next time she saw Mari-sensei, she would have to ask her about Truth Lost in the Fog. Or about subcontracting the Yamanaka to erase Hazō’s memories. Blunt force trauma was also a tempting option, but not one Mari-sensei was likely to approve of. Kei made a note to catalogue the possibilities later using the Frozen Skein.

“More importantly,” she hurried on, “have you given any thought to my question?”

“Actually, I have,” Hazō mercifully accepted the change of subject. “Keiko, do you like the Clear Communication Technique?”

Ah, now they returned to safer ground, namely Hazō’s inane questions that assumed she possessed the brain of a typical jellyfish.

“It is a means of communication that you and I developed together in order to overcome what we perceive as flaws in ordinary human interaction. You may as well ask Akane whether she enjoys using her ridiculously-named taijutsu style.”

“All right,” Hazō agreed. “So why exactly do you like it?”

Better. A question that was not only inoffensive, but might provide him with useful new information. Kei would have to offer a considered response.

“Clarity,” she said simply. “As per the name—though I must admit I have no recollection of who gave it that name, or when. Certainly, I was not consulted, or I would have suggested something less ambiguous and more immediately informative.

“Regardless. Typical human communication relies excessively on non-verbal cues and subtext. These features are only amplified when the subject of communication is in some way complex or sensitive. As I have great difficulty noticing them, much less interpreting them correctly, such conversations lead me to feel as if I am crossing one of Kagome’s defensive arrays. A single misstep could be crippling or fatal, and yet everyone else seems to possess a mental map that allows them to step over the traps and read the warning signs I find opaque. Even then, I notice frequent instances of miscommunication, sometimes followed by violent explosions.

“The Clear Communication Technique renders non-verbal cues verbal, and transforms subtext into text. It allows actual communication to take place, instead of the usual exchange of cyphers and layered hidden signals that would be considered excessive even for an infiltration mission.

“Does this make sense?”

“Yeah, I guess it does,” Hazō said, but his voice did not contain the confidence Kei expected after such a helpful description. She began to wonder if he had planned this discussion in the form of a list, and she had somehow gone off-script.

“The way it facilitates trust is an advantage as well, isn’t it?” he asked. “When using the technique, you know you’re in a high-trust, high-cooperation environment, because if someone is dishonest while using it, or believed to be so, then the whole thing falls apart. So if someone is using the Clear Communication Technique, it’s a sign that they trust you and that you can trust them. I know that matters a lot to me.”

“I suppose. But I fail to see how this differs from any other form of interaction. Speaking with someone presupposes a degree of trust, because if you begin from a position of expecting deception, you are no longer communicating but engaging in social combat. To converse is to grant your interlocutor the benefit of the doubt, not necessarily in all things but in a general desire to exchange true information and seek mutual benefit. Such trust is what makes civilised society possible to begin with.”

Hazō frowned.

“You have to agree, though,” he argued, “that the Clear Communication Technique involves more trust than just talking to someone. Using it is like making a formal statement that you’re not going to hold back any relevant information, and that you’re going to offer it as clearly and accurately as you can. Also, because you’re being honest about your feelings, in a sense you’re laying yourself bare to the other person, the way you did just now when you admitted how you have trouble reading social cues. You can’t do that if you think the other person might hurt you while you’re vulnerable.”

“Again,” Kei responded patiently, “it is acknowledged within our society that, assuming a neutral context, lies by omission are unethical, as is providing true information in a misleading fashion. Any act of communication assumes that neither party will knowingly conceal relevant information, and that each will pursue the objective of making the other understand it correctly.

“I am more prepared to grant your point regarding emotional vulnerability. Nevertheless, I am given to understand that this is a general feature of human relationships as well. Uncomfortable admissions are not restricted to the Clear Communication Technique, nor are the risks they entail.

“Hazō, why are you attempting to ascribe the Clear Communication Technique virtues beyond those in its design specification?”

“I was just trying to make a point,” Hazō muttered.

Kei decided to relent slightly. It was a tendency of Hazō’s to oversell his inventions, and she could not blame him for being proud of their joint creation. Even without being some magnum opus that would revolutionise human communication across the continent, it was a tool of great value that would transform the world for the better were it more broadly adopted.

“Let us grant, purely for the purposes of argument, that the technique truly does elevate conversations to some new unprecedented level of trust. What am I to conclude from this?”

Hazō gave Kei a grateful smile.

“What I wanted to say is that often, the loss of control that comes with touch is the whole point, because it’s an expression of trust.”

Kei could see how this might be true. Vulnerability generated trust, and trust permitted vulnerability. Mari-sensei had explained it to her. Repeatedly.

“So you are saying that people allow themselves to be touched in order to build trust with each other?”

“Among other things. If you touch someone, you’re expressing trust that they won’t react badly. If you let someone touch you, you’re expressing trust that they’re not going to hurt you. It’s a two-way street.”

Was this so? Kei had never flinched away from Ami’s touch. Yet that touch itself had nothing to do with building trust. Rather, it was possible because the trust was already there, already absolute. It was inconceivable for Ami to wish to hurt her. And even if she had… she was Ami. There was nothing Kei would not have given her if she asked.

Nevertheless, the example was inapplicable. There was no creation of trust involved in those acts of touch. They were purely expressions of affection.

Kei understood the use of touch in expressing affection. It was nigh-universal. Doubtless, any partner she acquired in the future would expect it of her as well, and would lose trust in her when she was unable to comply.

Suppose Kei’s inability to do so was due to a lack of trust. Presumably, it was theoretically possible for her to trust another human being sufficiently to permit herself a surrender of control in their presence. It would, of course, not happen. Kei still remembered being hugged by Mari-sensei, once, on their final day in Hidden Swamp. This woman had just pulled her back from the brink of annihilation, glimpsed Kei’s darkest depths and brought light to them, and yet all Kei could feel at her touch was the helpless terror of the small fish as the shark’s maw closed around it.

Conversely, there was another who had earned trust, rapidly and in significant volume, precisely by refraining from touch, by wordlessly communicating a deep understanding of personal space as safety. Kei hoped that she would forgive her for being unable to offer whatever fulfilment touch was supposed to offer. Not that Kei harboured any such feelings towards her. Or that her feelings would be returned even if she were, given Kei’s lack of appeal as a person generally and as a woman specifically. To say nothing of the implications of the upcoming marriage.

Enough of that subject.

On further reflection, Kei was unconvinced. She trusted Mari-sensei. She trusted Hazō and Noburi and Akane. In principle, she trusted Kagome—on a peculiar level, he was a kindred spirit to her, another person with essential parts missing, incompetently attempting to navigate a world designed by normal people for normal people. Even to someone of her social skills, Kagome was predictable and therefore unthreatening, at least when he wasn’t threatening the survival of her team, her clan and her village by unilaterally attempting to murder her team leader. But such incidents were hardly exceptional within her team as a whole, and in the end she found that she would trust all of them with her life nevertheless.

Yet she would never let any of them touch her.

Furthermore, those relationships of trust had not been built on any touch whatsoever. Indeed, her teammates had earned her trust in part by respecting her personal boundaries instead of treating her as “that weird Mori girl who freaks out when you grab her”. For that matter, with the exception of Akane’s insistence on hugging people, and Mari-sensei’s subtle techniques of manipulation and control, her team had built their other bonds of trust without much touching at all. Certainly, one did not see Hazō and Noburi prancing around hand in hand, and indeed now she visualised it, the image was pure comedy gold.

“I do not believe your description adequately accounts for the use of touch as I have observed it," Kei concluded. "I have witnessed bonds of trust being formed through dialogue and through action, but those who touch each other only tend to do so after such bonds have been established, as opposed to using touch as a tool for building them. Perhaps matters are different in romantic relationships—it would be consistent with the way you and Akane insist on holding hands at every conceivable opportunity, as if such physical contact were all that prevented you from being dispersed to the opposite ends of the continent by some S-rank Wind technique.

“However, in ordinary relationships where such intense emotional bonds have not already been formed, it makes no sense that people should choose to surrender control to others at the point of minimal trust, as a way of acquiring more. Conversely, once a reasonable degree of trust has been established, there are plenty of means of furthering it that do not require one to train oneself to suppress the feelings of danger that regularly ensure a shinobi’s survival.

“Is that the extent of the insight you have to offer on the subject?”

It came out harsher than she had intended. But she was disappointed. Part of her had hoped that Hazō would have an answer, some means of bridging the gap between her and the rest of humanity. After years on the road, Kei was about to be once again immersed in ninja village society, and she had to perform more competently as a human being than she had in Mist. She couldn’t return to that way of life.

“Sorry, Keiko,” Hazō dashed her hopes. “I’ll let you know if I come up with anything else.

“But I do want to say one thing. We do all know you trust us, touch or no touch. The Clear Communication Technique wouldn’t work if you didn’t. And I don’t think you have to force yourself to learn to touch people if you don’t want to. You’re a paranoid shinobi—in the Kagome meaning of the word—and if people think it’s strange that you flinch away from touch, then just play up your background. You’re a hardcore ex-missing-nin who’s survived dangers those poor village ninja can’t imagine, and if they think it’s weird how you don’t want to be touched, then they should try camping out in a forest full of dropbears sometime.

“That said, being chained by your fears sucks. I mean, obviously nothing bad actually happens when people touch each other, so it would be a lot better for you to overcome your fear of touch so you can do it too.”

“I am not afraid of touch!” Kei snapped almost without thinking. “I have strong personal boundaries. That is not the same as cowardice, and I resent the implication.”

This was a lie. Of course Kei was a coward. There were so many aspects of her life that she surely could have changed by now, had she only the courage, and this was but one of them. Everyone else was capable of touching others—even Kagome was merely uncomfortable with hugs—yet to her the very idea was paralysing. What was this, if not the most contemptible cowardice?

“Of course not,” Hazō said, placating her like a small child, which she supposed her outburst had earned. “I didn’t mean to offend you.

“There was one more thing I wanted to ask you about, if that’s OK. It sounds like, apart from your sister, your family didn’t take much of an interest in you. I can’t exactly imagine what that must have been like, given how close I was with my mother—though I guess you could argue that the entire rest of my clan pretending I didn’t exist might count—but if you want to talk about it, maybe that might resolve the underlying problem.”

“What underlying problem?” Kei asked. “At the age when Mori children commence aptitude testing, it was demonstrated that I was mediocre at best. My parents, who had been hoping for another prodigy like Ami, were gravely disappointed, and judged me to neither require nor deserve attention beyond what was necessary in order to raise me as a productive member of the clan. It was a rational decision that allowed them to allocate their time and resources more efficiently. I fail to see what there is to discuss, unless you are merely expressing curiosity concerning my background.”

“I’m just wondering,” Hazō explained, “whether that situation has something to do with your fea—dislike of touch now. I mean, if you didn’t experience much affection through touch as a young child, maybe that would make sense of why you’re not comfortable with the idea now.”

“It seems unlikely,” Kei said. “Mist, like every village, contains many orphans who may have lost their parents at a young age and thus been deprived of parental affection. Yet they do not demonstrate an aversion to touch as I do. Equally, there exist many strict households where casual physical intimacy surely does not occur. Indeed, I was even so fortunate as to receive affection from Ami, my sister, where other children in an analogous position might find themselves in total isolation.”

Hazō gave her a strange look. “Keiko, I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure it’s not normal for parents to abandon their children just because they don’t live up to their expectations.”

“What are you talking about? Of course it’s normal. It’s a matter of rational optimisation. Parents are no different to other shinobi in that they have limited resources with which to serve their clan and their village, and must allocate them as effectively as possible. In cases such as mine, when it is apparent that extensive investment in a child’s upbringing will not generate sufficient return, it is sensible to perform only the necessary minimum and spend the rest of one’s time and energy elsewhere.

“If anything,” Kei felt herself growing irritated, “my parents were generous. They not only permitted but expected my presence at family mealtimes. They tolerated Ami’s decision to spend time with me, despite the fact that any other activity on her part would have been of greater benefit to the clan. They held me to the family’s high standards despite my demonstrated ineptitude. They even expressed occasional interest in my activities at the Academy, a topic of no relevance to the lives of adult shinobi like themselves. It is not as if I were an unwanted civilian child, knowing I would be the one to starve to death should a lean year bring insufficient food to sustain the entire family.”

Hazō seemed taken aback, which was only appropriate. Who was he to pass judgement on her family? To imply that she had somehow been systematically mistreated, simply because her relationship with her parents was different to his? Did he expect her to be jealous that his mother had, for lack of any other options, apparently invested such a vast amount of herself in a bond with her son? That he was so close to her that, two years on, he was prepared to risk his life in order to be with her again and believed she would do the same?

It was insulting. Ridiculous. Kei was a provisional chūnin. Practically an adult. There was somebody out there who wanted her hand in marriage. She was not some child to be led astray by fanciful imaginings of a life that could not and should not exist.

She needed to be alone.

“I have other matters to attend to, Hazō. I will see you at dinner.”

She left quickly. It would have been dangerous to wait for him to respond.