Dangerous Thinking
Chapter 1: The Stable Boy
Characters do not belong to me, though I sometimes I'd like to think they do :)

I couldn't stop staring at him. The way his hair hung down on his face, the way he always seemed to have bits of hay stuck in his hair, the way he always smiled, even after a long day of work. He always had the most charming personality; friendly, kind, and good mannered. Though he could be hard-headed and a bit stubborn at times, he was the most diligent worker in the farm. He loved to take care of the animals in the barn. It was better than working outside in the pouring rain yet hot during the long, summer months when he could finish work and be covered in sweat. Today was one of those days where he wished he could simply leave for a bit to take a drink, but he couldn't. I was watching him from my porch, looking at him as he tried to sneak a drink of water from the bucket he used to give the horses a drink. There wasn't a drop let. He looked disappointed. He wipes the sweat that drips down his scars on cheeks. Three marks on each cheek; a particularly brutal beating where the switch hit his face instead of his back because he turned around. His name was Naruto. His caretakers had found him the corn fields while working. They asked my parents if they could keep him. They agreed, on one condition. He would be a stable boy and work in the stables. They agreed. He came to the house several months after I was born. He was the same age as me; 16. He looks around the rest of the barn, muttering to himself about how there was never enough water. He sees me sitting on the porch and nearly falls over the wheel barrel. "Sorry, sir. I'll get back to work," he says with a surprised voice.

I say nothing to him. He walks back into the barn, filling the horse's sacks with fresh hay and feeding Billy, my horse, a carrot. He walks outside again and goes over to the chicken coop, carrying a sack full of food for them. He puts the back inside first, jumps over the wooden gate, and picks the bag back up. He doesn't notice me get up and walk closer to him, walking down the porch stares into the grass. I could see the beads of sweat on his face as I got closer to him. He puts the bag down and wipes his forehead. He turns around, startled to see me. I smile. He merely stares. "Is there anything I can help you with, sir."

It never made sense to me that he had to call me sir, even though I was only three months older than him. "I'm just watching, if that's ok," I reply, resting my elbows on the wooden fence.

"Not at all, sir." He puts the bag on the other side of the fence and jumps over. He carries the bag back into the barn. Grabbing another bucket full of slop for the pigs, Naruto carries it to the pig pen. He almost falls over the rake. I catch him before he falls completely over and spills the slop. "Thank you, sir," he says.

"It's no trouble."

He smiles and walks out of the barn, walking around the barn to where the pig pen was. "If you don't mind me asking, could you hold this for me so I can get into the pen? The other stable boy is sick right now and it's awful hard to get that over when you're trying not to open the door."

"Why wouldn't you open the door?"

"It's easier for the pigs to escape. They're awful smart and pretty fast. We lost a couple piglets last month because someone left the pen door unlatched." I look at the bucket, rather disgusted with the condition of it. "You won't even be touching the sides. Just the handle, and the handles the cleanest part."

I take the bucket from his hands while he climbs over. He turns back towards me and takes the bucket back, pouring the rather gross-looking food into their food pale and climbing back over the fence. "Thank you, sir."

"You know you don't have to call me sir. I'm only a couple months older than you."

"'Fraid I have to, sir. I'll get in trouble if I don't." He turns around and the color of his face drains. "Morning, miss. Just feeding the animals for the day. I'll get to cleaning your horse before your afternoon ride with your husband."

I turn around. My mother is standing behind me. Her skirt hangs low enough to touch the ground and her long, dark hair is pulled into a bun. "It's all right, Naruto. Don't stress yourself just for me." My mother liked Naruto a lot, ever since his adoptive parents found him and brought him home to the plantation. "Sasuke, your father has been looking for you. He wants to take you and your brother for a hunt tomorrow morning. He wanted to get some practice in."

Sasuke scowls at his mother. He hated hunting; he didn't know why his brother and father loved it so much. All hunting was simply shooting at an innocent animal and hanging it on the study wall in reminder of how well you did. The deer heads was something Sasuke knew his mother wasn't fond of, but she didn't have any authority to tell her husband not to hang them up. The disadvantages of being female. "Please mother, don't make me go hunting again. The last thing I want is a repeat of what happened last time. I don't think father wants to be rushed to the hospital again to remove a bullet from his foot, do you?"

"Please do not argue and go inside. Your father needs to speak to you about something else. I do not need another fight like last night."

Sasuke looks down at his shoes. He and his father were fighting about something almost every night. There wasn't a moment, at least according to him, where his father wasn't disappointed him about something, whether it would be how he always dazed off in class, how he hadn't found a girl to settle down with, or how he hadn't acquired the same tastes that his older brother had. Whatever the case may be, his father never seemed to be satisfied with his younger son. Sasuke shoved his hands into his pockets, waved to Naruto, and walked back up towards the house, his mother following behind him. He looks back once at Naruto, who walks back into the barn to start cleaning up his mothers' horse. He didn't ever mention to his mother his habit for staring at him.

:::::

Fugaku was sitting in the study next to the fire place with a glass of whiskey in his hand, staring at the portrait above the mantle. This is how I usually found my father; sitting among the antiques of the study, looking up at the picture of his father with a glass of whiskey in his hands. He looks over at the arch. "Ah Sasuke, there you are. I've been needing to talk to you." He walks over to his son. "Why do you smell like a stable boy?"

I stumble with the words in my head. "I was sitting out near the barn, watching the stable boy work." I bit my lip nervously.

My father eyes me, but simply brushes it off. "You'll need to bathe then. I have some surprising news for you. Take a seat." I knew this was big. Most news, my father would just let me stand. This was either about finding me a potential wife, or about my brother. "I've noticed you haven't found a potential wife yet." I knew this would be coming. "So I've talked to some of the parents in town and have found one for you." I felt my job drop. I didn't know if I was able to blink or not. "She's a lovely girl, a great cook, and has been sewing since she was a young child. Her family is awfully nice too. She might be a bit of a handful, but I'm sure you'll be able to tame her." My mother gave my father a look, knowing what he meant by 'taming her'. "Her name is Sakura. She's coming over for dinner tonight. I would like you to meet her."

I roll my eyes. This wasn't the first time he had tried to set me up with someone, but this was the first time he tried to bring a girl home to meet. Apparently, he was pretty sure this was the girl for me; otherwise, he wouldn't even consider bringing the girl home. "Father, why can't you let me pick the person I want to marry? I don't think I'm even ready to marry just yet. I'm only 16."

My father looks sternly at me. He always gave me this look when I would mention how I wasn't ready to be married. "I was 16 when I married your mother. Your brother is 22 and has a child on the way. Do not say that you aren't ready to be married. I will not have that kind of…radical talk in my house. Do you understand?"

I look away from my father. He always got like this when talking about marriage. I just didn't find myself ready for a wife. I wasn't even sure whether I wanted a wife. Dangerous talk that might be, but it's honest talk and sometimes honesty is dangerous. I never did tell my father or mother what I really thought; I didn't need them to disown me for having such unethical thoughts; thoughts that didn't involve me being with a girl. I pushed that aside. "I'll go bathe and prepare."

"That's my boy," my father said proudly. "I just know you're going to want to marry this girl once you see her."

I smile at my dad and get up to walk upstairs. I didn't want to tell my father that I wasn't looking forward to this at all. In fact, rather the opposite. I walk into my room and sit down on the wooden bed, staring at the window towards the barn. Naruto was cleaning the horse, laughing when Rosie shook her tail and splashed water all over him. "How am I supposed to clean your milady if you are being so uncooperative?"

I smile as I watch him a bit longer. I could hear my mother talking to my father. I knew she was sipping tea as she sat next to him, talking about the other servants who worked in the farm, in the house, or with the animals, like Naruto had. I grab a change of clothes and walk over to the bathroom, dreading what the end of the day would bring.