Origami
Halve.
Corner meets corner, slender fingers hesitating before ironing down the crease,
pressing it flat with fingernail.
Open.
Halve again.
Blue eyes squint as they line up the edges, adjusting, adjusting, and
another deep breath.
Fold.
And…
He frowns in confusion, staring at the instructions. Arrows and diagrammatic hands illustrate the next part, but try as he might, the symbols refuse to make sense.
Open, bring this corner to that one, push here… no…
The paper crumples in his fingers, a fold appearing where none should be, and he bites his lip, unfolding it again and plastering it down with his hands.
Perfect white square, criss-crossed with lines. That, according to the book in front of him, is supposed, somehow, to turn into a triangle, if he just does this…
…paper squashes, folds, collapses in on itself, more or less approximating the desired shape.
This corner over that corner, bringing it up in line, again for the other side…
And
again, another picture with curly arrows and instructions in tiny letters.
Mountain crease. What is that?
He turns the book this way and that, and finally settles for ignoring the step. But a few folds down the line, he realizes that this won’t work. Tug here, tug there, and it’s supposed to unfold, a paper iris. But all his paper does when he tugs is to unravel, returning to the bland white square, looking decidedly worse for the wear.
He feels his shoulders slump in defeat, and bites down a little harder on his lip as he flips the page of the book to look for something easier. The piece of paper he discards, and it falls sadly to alight upon the top of the pile of other discarded attempts. Rumpled, the crisp starchness lost forever. If he used it again it would tear, and …
…it falls, spinning, white morphing into an explosion of color (golden spirals, red leaves, this one had been one of his favorites), to land, limp and lifeless, atop the pile.
And he sighs, reaches for a new piece of paper, and tries again.
A knock sounds on the room. He starts, panicking, and hastily shoves the evidence of experimentation under the bed. “Who is it?”
“Tseng, sir.”
Is it time for class already? Can a night have winged past so slowly, lost in folds and refolds and a book and an art that he simply cannot master? And he hoped to have something ready by this time today…
“One moment,” he calls back, rushing to the cupboard to reach for his shirt and tie. He hardly notices what he grabs, and the final effect makes him look like a Turk without the suit jacket, although their ties are rarely so skewed…
He yanks sharply on it, pulling the knot free, and fumbles, trying to re-tie it. It feels like an entire night of frustration all over again as tired fingers slip, pulling too tight here, ruining the effect, and he tries again—
--when he looks up, Tseng is standing in the doorway, regarding him silently.
He forces down embarrassment, hating to seem to seem incompetent in front of a man he admires. Tseng is new to the Turks, and hence charged with this relatively less important duty of babysitting the eight year old brat, or so he has heard. But he doesn’t care. Tseng is the first person ever to take him seriously, to listen to him…
…even now, the Turk does not offer to help, does not baby him like his mother, or scream at him like his father. But stands there, a silent avenue of assistance if so desired.
He pushes the knot up, frowns at it in the mirror, and decides that it will suffice. And takes a deep breath.
Tseng watches as the boy struggles with the tie, frustration making him careless, and recalls, in dim amusement, his own escapades with that wretched piece of the uniform. Wutai has no ties, and that thin strip of black cloth was an utter enigma to him when he first arrived. Asking his senior to teach him, of all things, to tie a tie, would have been utter mortification, for nice as though Veld-senpai was, Tseng hardly needed word to get out that Wutai barbarians don’t even know how to dress themselves…
Watching Rufus brings a small smile to his face, almost invisible save for the light in his eyes. The boy is trying so hard to be an adult; trying too hard, sometimes, and it seems that he must have spent another sleepless night hunched over homework, trying to catch up with material far too advanced for someone his age.
Or not.
His eye catches a flash of color, out of place amidst the drabness of the room (a mirror image of his own, several floors below, almost, except that it is just slightly larger, the furnishings a little plainer in that expensive, clean-cut style that Midgar seems to associate with money. He calls it plainness, misses the bright colors of Wutai, the personality of every room embodying its owner. And even in Midgar, he suspects, children’s rooms typically have more personal artifacts than this one.)
The color that he spies is hauntingly familiar, green bamboo on a white background. It is a piece of paper, sticking out from under Rufus’ bed, and as he shifts position minutely, he espies more of the same, in various states of folding, hastily removed from sight.
The smile threatens to blossom, full force, on his face, and he has to look away, just in case Rufus is watching. Origami is not a Midgar tradition, and certainly not one that this particular boy’s father would approve of, having just won a war in that region. He wonders where Rufus even got the instructions from.
“Ah, Tseng…” Rufus hovers before him, anxiety written all over his face and evident in the way he fiddles with the end of his tie. “I…”
The boy is clearly nervous. He wonders if it has to do with the stash hidden under the bed.
“Happy birthday,” Rufus blurts out, a slight flush rising on his cheeks. “I wanted to get you something, but… I couldn’t. I’m sorry.”
He blinks in surprise. His birthday. He had forgotten, caught up in the days flying past one after the other, a series of missions that test him to his limit and leave him precious little thought for anything else. He wonders how the boy even knew, or found out, and…
..suddenly, the pile of crumpled origami paper makes sense.
He allows himself to smile now, knowing that it won’t be interpreted as condescension or cruel amusement. He has to resist reaching out to ruffle light strands of blond hair, and places a hand on Rufus’ shoulder instead. “Thank you, Master Rufus. I appreciate it greatly.”
“But—“ Rufus glances sharply away, frustration and fierce upset marring his young features. Sons of Wutai do not cry, and it seems that neither does this son of Midgar, although he has seen plenty of other brats wailing their way around the upper plate.
“It is not easy,” he says softly. “And it is an art that takes many years to master under the guidance of a mentor.” Not quite the full truth, but not quite a lie, either. Without instructions, it is impossible to fold the more advanced and delicate sculptures. A single crane is easy, but a flock of cranes poised in flight is something else altogether. And at the moment, these are the words that will bring that tentative smile, too rarely seen, back into blue eyes. “I know the basics,” he says, wondering if he is overstepping the boundaries of propriety. “I could instruct you, if you wish me to.”
Rufus knows what it is he is speaking of, of course, although it is clear that he is surprised as to how he knew. And still bitter over his failure.
There are many in this building who would call this boy a brat for that, but Tseng finds it an admirable thing. The boy is still growing, still discovering his limits, and if he does not push them, they will not move. Refusal to accept failure is not, in of itself, a bad thing.
And this brat has just spent the entire night trying to make something for him.
“Thank you,” Rufus ducks his head and whispers. “I would like that.”
*
His hands move mindlessly over the paper, folding, tearing off the strip at the end to turn it into a square. And another fold, bisecting, and another, and another. The paper takes form under his hands, but he hardly has eyes for it, gaze locked on the sight of the ocean beyond.
Fold, and fold again.
Mountain and valley creases come almost naturally to him, painstakingly learnt, fingers much larger than his own gently guiding, showing him where to crease the paper, where to apply just the slightest pressure to make it fold. Fingers that would, in much later years, unfold his jacket and trench coat like fluttering white origami paper, that would pin him to the bed or run across his cheekbone.
Open, press it down. Sharp creases.
He had never been very good at it. He had never had the time to take it seriously, and fingers shaking from the repeated application of a ruler across the knuckles for various infringements or, later, calloused from holding various firearms, had never acquired the gentle delicacy needed to fold the really delicate pieces, the cranes that could perch atop a fingertip.
Flip the paper. Repeat the process on the opposite side.
He stares at the ocean, and beneath the waves he can see almost see a dark shape moving. Nearing.
“2 km and closing, sir.”
Open. Flip. Unfold. Tease, not pull, Master Rufus, bend the paper here
and seal it by drawing your fingernail across…
“1 km.”
The water on the surface of the sea is breaking, churning into white foam.
He sighs.
And now for the hardest part, be careful not to squash the rest.
I can’t do it, Tseng.
You can, sir. Keep trying.
The crane blossoms in his hands, pure unblemished white.
And the Weapon rises from the sea, guns trained on him.
“Sir, Weapon has—“
“Advance forces to engage with long range artillery,” he says, tired even before the battle has begun.
“Alpha Squadron is reporting heavy casualties! 67%-- no, 75% of units have sustained critical damage and/or have been destroyed…”
“Beta and Delta squadrons to engage.”
Weapon unleashes a huge bolt of energy – yet another weapon in its arsenal, he notes, and destroys half of the fortifications.
Another round. Another piece of paper, sent fluttering, spent, wasted, to the floor.
“Sir, we’re taking critical damage and down 87%--“
“Where are you, Tseng,” he whispers. “Now when I need someone to teach me how to fight these things?”
“Sir, we’re—“
“All units, fall back,” he calls. “Abort mission.”
The crane falls from his hands, to sail mournfully down to the floor.
END