A Gray Smudge on the Back of the Mirror

When Mine turned the old mirror over, there was a gray smudge stuck to the back.

That gray mark had not appeared today. One corner of the frame had already been missing when it was moved from the old clan grounds, and the backing still bore traces of smoke damage. Usually, the front of the mirror faced the children. Everyone only looked at their own faces, and no one noticed the back. Today, before having them practice observation for the Transformation Technique, Mine forbade them from forming hand seals. They could only look at themselves in the mirror, then look behind it.

Kiyo stared at it for a long time before raising his hand. "Teacher, does the back need to transform too?"

"Who are you transforming for?" Mine asked.

Kiyo thought about it. "The wall?"

Morita Yu snickered beside him. When Mine looked his way, he swallowed the laugh back down.

Standing before the mirror, Che first saw his own eyes. Uchiha eyes always drew an extra glance, even when they were still only black. Below them were the worn threads at his cuffs, a speck of ink not fully washed from the back of his hand, and the fine stitches where Nao had mended his collar. If he needed to transform those things, he could not merely make a rough approximation.

Mine paired them up. One stood before the mirror while the other stood behind it. The one in front described what they saw about themselves, while the one behind pointed out what others were likely to overlook.

Kiyo was assigned to stand beside Che. He stared at Che with an expression so serious that he looked like he was interrogating a criminal.

"Your eyes are scary," Kiyo said.

Che calmly looked back at him. "That isn't a feature. That's your personal impression."

"The loose thread on your cuff," Kiyo added. "The right side is shorter. And one strand of your hair was sticking up this morning."

Che raised a hand to touch his hair and found a short strand that refused to lie flat.

Standing behind the mirror, Saori quietly added, "You touched your hair first. You didn't look at your cuff first."

That made Che pause.

He really had touched his hair first. He had not moved when Kiyo mentioned his eyes, nor when he mentioned his cuff. Yet the moment he heard that his hair was sticking up, his hand had gone straight to the top of his head. Perhaps the things people found hardest to hide were not necessarily the most dangerous ones, but the things they most wanted to fix immediately.

Mine had everyone write down one thing they had overlooked about themselves. The slips of paper were tiny, only half a palm wide. Kiyo wrote: When I look at people, I first check whether they're laughing at me. Morita Yu wrote: I first check whether they're about to start an argument. Saori wrote even less: The bell rings first.

Che looked at his own slip for a while before finally writing: I first fix the things that look wrong.

When Mine collected the slips, she did not read them aloud. She only pressed them beside the gray smudge on the back of the mirror.

"The Transformation Technique isn't about wiping yourself clean," she said. "First, learn which parts cannot be wiped clean."

Kiyo touched his own face. "Does that mean I'm difficult?"

"Your problem is that you always want to explain the expression on your face first."

Morita Yu finally could not hold back and burst out laughing. Kiyo turned to glare at him, and the mirror reflected an identical angry face.

Che watched the two childish faces in the mirror, and the part of his mind that had been drifting far away was pulled back. The Transformation Technique had not truly begun yet, but the mirror had already laid bare the things each of them was most likely to reveal.

At the end of the afternoon, Mine had Che carry the mirror back to the wall. It was not heavy, but the gray smudge on the back brushed against his fingertip. Che did not wipe it off at once. It left a faint dark trace on his finger, as if reminding him that the places where one truly gave oneself away were not necessarily on the front.

Kiyo ran up from behind him. "Your hair is still sticking up."

Che leaned the mirror securely against the wall. "Leave it. You can practice observing it."

"Then I'll leave a weakness tomorrow too."

"You don't need to."

Kiyo narrowed his eyes. "Are you saying I have weaknesses everywhere?"

Saori's bell gave a soft chime. Mine coughed at the doorway, and Kiyo swallowed the words he had yet to say. The mirror rested against the wall, its back facing inward, the gray smudge hidden. But Che knew that when it was turned over again tomorrow, it would still be there.

Mine did not rush them to clean up.

She set the mirror upright again and had everyone look at the front of themselves one more time. Now that they had been told about those things, looking again felt different. Kiyo studied his own face for a long while, then suddenly pressed the corners of his mouth down.

"Do I look like I'm about to start a fight whenever I'm nervous?" he asked.

Morita Yu had been about to say something, but seeing Mine still standing beside them, he swallowed it.

Che looked at Kiyo in the mirror. Kiyo's eyebrows did tend to rise first, even when he was only afraid someone would say his handwriting was ugly. Before, Che would have found that amusing and casually teased him about it. Today, with the mirror before them, that amusement suddenly felt less light.

When a child dressed fear up as fierceness for too long, others would truly begin to see him as someone who caused trouble easily.

"When you're nervous, your chin lifts first," Che said.

Kiyo immediately touched his chin. "Did it lift?"

"It did just now."

"Then what should I do?"

"Look at the paper first. Don't look at people first."

Kiyo tried it. He lowered his head to look at the paper, and sure enough, his eyebrows did not shoot up so quickly. He only lowered his head too hard and nearly bumped into the mirror frame.

Morita Yu finally spoke. "You don't need to bow to the paper either."

Kiyo snapped, "I'm practicing ninjutsu."

"Even the mirror can't bear to watch."

Saori gave a very soft laugh beside them. Afterward, she touched the cloth around her bell again. When it was her turn to stand before the mirror, she stood half a step farther away than everyone else. Mine did not urge her to come closer. She only asked, "Why are you standing there?"

Saori looked at the little girl in the mirror holding a doll. After a long while, she said, "If I get closer, people will notice the bell first."

The room fell quiet.

To others, the bell was only a sound. To her, it was like a sign everyone noticed first. When people asked about the bell, she had to explain. After explaining too many times, it felt as though the bell was leading her along instead.

Mine moved the mirror back half a step.

"Then we'll start from this distance."

Saori looked up at her.

"It'll be the same with the Transformation Technique later," Mine said. "You don't have to stand where other people tell you to every time."

Che remembered those words. Not because they sounded like a rule, but because after hearing them, Saori's fingers loosened slightly from the doll's ear. That movement was more precise than any elegant explanation.

Finally, it was Morita Yu's turn. When he stood before the mirror, his face showed little expression, as if he had already prepared himself to be criticized. Kiyo immediately leaned in. "I'll observe."

Morita Yu looked at him. "Don't settle personal grudges."

"I'm a professional."

"You bowed to a piece of paper just now."

Kiyo choked on his words.

Standing beside the mirror, Che noticed a water stain on Morita Yu's cuff. It was not large, as though he had washed his hands by the sink that morning and failed to shake them dry. Che was about to point it out when Morita Yu hid his cuff behind him first.

Che stopped.

So Morita Yu hid things too. He usually seemed a little steadier than Kiyo, a little colder than the others, but once the mirror reflected him, that small wet mark on his cuff became his weak point.

Mine asked, "What are you hiding?"

Morita Yu looked down at his cuff and was silent for a moment. "I spilled water this morning."

Kiyo's eyes lit up. "You do that too?"

"I spilled it. I wasn't attacked by water."

"Is there such a big difference?"

"A huge one."

The two children nearly started arguing again. Mine did not stop them. She only had them hold their words in front of the mirror. In the reflection, Kiyo's chin was beginning to lift again, while Morita Yu's cuff was shrinking farther behind him. Both noticed their own movements at the same time, then both looked away.

Che suddenly felt that today's lesson was more troublesome than actually forming hand seals.

If someone formed a hand seal wrong, the teacher could point out which finger was crooked. But the places people hid were rarely laid out openly on a table. The mirror only illuminated a little of them. The rest had to be admitted by oneself.

Before school ended, Mine returned the slips of paper to them.

"Don't hand them in," she said. "Keep them yourselves. Look at them before practicing the Transformation Technique in the future."

Kiyo carefully folded his slip. "Does this count as a ninja tool?"

Che said, "Yes. It's called Don't Lift Your Chin First."

Kiyo glared at him.

Saori tucked her slip inside the lining of the doll's clothes. Morita Yu slipped his into his cuff, just enough to cover the water stain that was nearly dry. Che placed his beside the wooden notebook, not to turn it into a summary, but because he was afraid that the next time he had to transform into someone, he would first erase the thing he most wanted to fix too completely.

When he returned to East Row 2, No. 7 at dusk, Nao saw the gray smudge on his fingertip and asked, "Did you go digging through ashes today?"

"I turned over a mirror," Che said.

"What was behind the mirror?"

Che thought about it. "Things you can't see from the front."

Nao set the food on the table. "Then wash your hands first. Don't bring things you can't see into dinner either."

Kiyo nodded beside her. "Auntie Nao is right. Ashes can't join dinner."

Che went to the washbasin and washed his hands. The water faded the gray mark on his fingertip, but did not wash it away in one go. He watched the gray disperse in the water and suddenly felt that today's lesson had not ended. The gray smudge on the back of the mirror was still by the wall, and tomorrow, perhaps it would be turned over again. When that happened, they would probably discover new things.

That was far harder than creating a perfect face.