Title: In Perspective
Series: Naruto
Rating: K
Warnings: borderline-OC
Pairings: none
Setting: canonverse, at no particular point in the plot after the first arc of Shippuuden

It was night by the time Kashiko got home, but the house was empty so she didn't have to bother with explaining to anyone why. The supposedly easy mission had been a complete disaster. Her head and knee were killing her, but it could have turned out worse. She had screwed up, and in doing so endangered her team.

Mom and dad would find out when they returned from their own missions, but perhaps by then she would be on another one herself and wouldn't have to talk to them about it at all. She rarely did.

Kashiko limped to the kitchen to make herself supper, though she knew from experience that the only thing she would find that wasn't spoiled would be crackers and other dry ingredients. She put the kettle on for some tea, and searched around the medicine cabinet while it boiled. She had gotten something for the headache at the hospital, but had stupidly left it there as if to further rub it in that she wasn't sharp enough for this job, and she needed some painkillers now! She swore she would never get caught in a genjutsu again if the aftereffects could be like this.

The kettle whistled. Her arms flailed around the shelves in vain, and she could have cried.

Being a ninja family, you would have all the more reason to always have first aid supplies around. Being an all-ninja family, however –who remembered to do the shopping and fill the cabinets? A week could go by with none of the beds in the house being even slept in.

No matter, she could take this. She was a big girl, she was a ninja.

She punched the counter with a hissed curse, and soon she had pain in her head, knee and knuckles.

And with another curse, she did cry.

That's when the door was knocked on.

Knowing the lights could be seen through the windows and there was no use in pretending no one was home, she limped to the door, and, because she at least remembered to do that right, first quickly scanned the outside for anything threatening the best she could. Finding nothing, she slowly opened the door ajar.

There was a simple, brown paper bag on her doorstep.

"Hello?" she called into the darkness. The street lights were on, but their contrast also provided more than enough shadows to hide in. "Is anybody there? What do you want?"

No one answered, and she turned to the bag. Obviously, she was supposed to take it, but for what purpose? Maybe it was a prank and the bag was full of dog poo or something. But now that she thought about it, pranks like that usually aimed for the prankee to step on the bag, and to achieve that, the bag should be on fire. She bent down closer to investigate, remembering not to crouch due to her knee. She didn't get it… why would someone–

She felt a chakra signature become unmasked, and quickly stood up straight, drawing a kunai.

"S-show yourself, coward! If it's a fight you want…"

…then they would probably win, but it wasn't like she was going to tell her opponent that. Kashiko sincerely wished she had never so much as gotten out of bed that morning. This day just kept getting better and better.

"Take it easy, I'm not here to cause trouble," said a voice from the darkness, much closer than she would have guessed. "Don't stab me now, I'm coming to the light."

A boy around her age stepped out from behind a pillar. The lighting wasn't ideal for picking up details, but he seemed familiar somehow. Kashiko glanced between him and the bag, and the boy answered the unasked question.

"It's for you, and it's not a trap. I wasn't gonna let you see me since it's not from me, but it looked like you weren't gonna pick it up," the boy said with a broad smile that made Kashiko want to smile back and trust him. Where the hell did she know him from?

After a second's consideration, she sheathed her kunai and took the bag. "What's in it?"

"Painkillers." Her eyes widened and she might have run over and hugged the boy if it wasn't for her injury. "Not the ones you left at the hospital, though, these are easier on your stomach. The guy who sent them has a bit of experience with headaches, and he said these'd help."

A guy was sending her painkillers? Well, bless him. At the moment she'd take them over flowers and chocolate hands down.

"Why didn't he bring them himself, then?"

The boy smiled again and looked away, almost wistfully. "He wanted to, and he was going to, but he chickened out. I told him it's silly. He's faced demons, assassins and world-class terrorists on a daily basis –he's probably the bravest person I know– and he's afraid of one girl. Uh, not that you aren't someone to fear, you're a ninja after all, but I think he's got some kind of trauma with you. He said you'd close the door to his face again, and I can't imagine why anyone would anymore."

Now Kashiko was certain it was one of the couple of boys she had rejected, who had come to ask her out after seeing her once or twice, the idiots. If he knew she had been injured and had cared enough to send her medication, though, he had to know her better than that. Maybe he was a stalker.

"Can I at least know who you're running errands for?"

"Sorry," the boy replied with a shrug, "I'll just say a good friend of mine, because I wasn't supposed to talk to you anyway. I think he'll be glad I did 'cos you looked a little down, but I don't know if he wants me to tell you. I'm just the messenger, since I was in town, and he said you accepting the gift would help him let go of something and I can't seem to be able to say no to him."

Kashiko frowned. The boy just looked at her innocently with his big blue eyes, unlike any she had seen in her home village.

"You're not from Suna."

"Ah, no, I'm not. I'm not wearing my forehead protector, what tipped you off?"

"Well, firstly," Kashiko smirked, "you said you were in town, which could just mean you're between missions, but no one in the desert dresses that bright. Maybe back in Fire Country where you have fall you can get away with that, but around here you'd be seen from miles away. Also…"

"Okay, I get it already, I fail at blending in with the natives big time," the boy said in mock self-pity.

"…you're too cheerful," Kashiko finished.

"What?"

"And trusting. You aren't even armed, and you're going around sneaking at ninjas' doorsteps. I could have killed you!" She doubted she could have, though. The boy didn't let on what his skill level was, but besides of sweat, tree bark and cheap ramen, he reeked of raw chakra. He wasn't trying to hide that, either.

The boy sighed, either sadly or with restrained exasperation.

"You should be able to be, too," he said in a low voice that almost drowned in the wind that had picked up again. "But maybe you will, now that he's in charge. If anything, I'll be happy to lend him a hand in giving this village hidden in grouches a bit of bright, cheerful shock-therapy." He was grinning again, the cheeky bastard. "Well, see ya around."

And then he was gone, jumped to the rooftops and probably well on his way back to his anonymous friend.

Kashiko closed the door quickly to keep the sand out, and went to get her tea. The water was lukewarm by now, but it would do, and she knew better than to let any more of it evaporate by re-heating it. She sat at the kitchen table and opened the bag.

Inside was a small bottle of pills, with a hand-written note taped to it –dosage instructions. In addition to that, there was a lunchbox, which she discovered was full, and supplies for changing the bandage on her knee, in case she didn't have any (she probably didn't, and there probably would have been in the pack she left at the hospital), and another note. She folded it open to find it was in the same handwriting.

'We have only met once, as children.'

Kashiko wrinkled her nose at the first sentence. Yeah, the guy was definitely a stalker.

'I hurt your body then, and you hurt my mind. Please accept this as my apology, both for that incident years ago, and for not having the courage to offer it in person this time. I bear no ill will toward you, and wish for you to know that you are one of the people I have since sworn to protect.

'I took the liberty of calling your parents back from their missions, and they should be in Suna shortly after dawn. They have been informed of your situation, and that you are not to blame for it.'

Kashiko's eyes widened and the paper stretched in her hands. Mom and dad were coming home? They wouldn't be mad at her? But it had been her fault, hadn't it… though none of her teammates blamed her, and neither had her team leader…

It escaped her attention no less that her 'stalker' apparently had the authority to order jounin home from A-rank missions at hours' notice. She skimmed through the last paragraph in a sudden stab of panicked realization.

'I thank you for the insight on synchronizing the mission schedules of ninja families. People should have someone to return home to after taking a life and coming close to losing their own.'

She only had to glance at the signature. There was a stain of what looked like a corner of an official stamp, as if used out of habit and discarded at the last second –and next to it, a hand-written name.

She should have known where she had seen that foreign boy, and whom she had seen him carry to the gates of Suna as the villagers cheered their greeting (her not included).

She had not forgotten who had given her the scars on the leg that was currently the healthier of the two, but she did now begin to question how selective her memory of that occasion was.

How had she… 'hurt his mind' exactly? She had hardly said a full sentence to him directly.

He shouldn't have even remembered it at all.

Kashiko debated with herself for a good ten minutes whether to accept the contents of the bag after all, and when she did gulp down the first pill with her tea, she wondered how many people during her life she had so easily told things that would stick with them for years. Perhaps the mo–

(No, she would have to think of something new to call him, though she wasn't quite ready to refer to him by his name or title yet.)

Perhaps the boy with the sand and the wound ointment wasn't the only one who needed to let this one go.