My White Wall
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto
There is a wall.
It is white. It has nothing on it. It is just one of the many walls that make her house (her safe place). Every single day she walks past that wall. Every single day she wonders why it is different to the others. How is it that a wall can fill her with such a strong feeling of familiarity?
Some days she will get the urge to knock gently on the wall with her knuckles just to check how strong it really is (but what is the point to that?).
She is really quite proud of how much the wall can take. It has been with her for years and hasn't acquired a single mark. Not even from two friends who are just like family.
There is a mark.
At first all she gets is a weird feeling as she passes the wall. It is like the miniscule ache one gets when thinking of sunny Sunday afternoons and wanting them to come back. She does not know what causes it.
But one day she notices a smudged mark on the wall. She tells herself that she'll clean it up tomorrow because there are still bills that need to be paid, still friends to visit, family to call, essays to write, food to buy and it is only by the following week that she actually gets a sponge and bucket of soapy water and starts to rub at that silly little mark.
But that silly little mark won't come off.
And so she rubs harder. Thinking that maybe there isn't enough soap, she puts more in.
But the silly little mark hasn't even faded and now she rubs even harder and harder and why isn't it coming off it should be coming off and what caused this silly little mark that just won't. come. off and—
A porcelain bowl is thrown at the wall by the man who left when they were kids but came back in the end because her loud friend never gave up and kept trying to bring him back and it finally worked.
Furious eyes stare into her soul as her mind dimly notes that the wall is a little bit dirty now.
He turns and leaves the house (why? It's scary out there), telling her to stop pretending to care.
(But… I'm not…)
She's in tears now because he turned and left and she does care and why can't he see that and she is still rubbing and this silly little mark will not come off and—
…
…
…
Her tears stop, her muscles relax, she places the sponge back in the bucket, grabs a towel to dry the wall, sits cross-legged in front of the wall and its silly little mark.
And she laughs and laughs.
Because it is only a silly little mark that can easily be fixed by buying some paint.
There is another mark.
It gives off the same feeling as before, except stronger. And this time she notices it straight away.
(No I haven't checked that wall every single day at least once because that would just be absurd and what the hell are you talking about?)
So this time she brings out the sponge and bucket of soapy water straight away (maybe it will come off if I get rid of it as soon as possible) and rubs.
It doesn't come off.
She is in her element. All of her friends have been invited over for lunch and now they're walking around the room, talking to each other.
She notices that he is leaning on her wall watching everybody by himself. So she starts to walk over but is interrupted by her genius but really lazy friend who asks if she would like to play shogi with him tomorrow because she is the only one who actually plays any good.
She accepts of course as it is always a pleasure to spend time with her lazy friend.
He walks away from the wall when she finally approaches him and it sadly registers in her mind that that really weird feeling is back but now it's stronger so maybe she needs to check the wall again?
She rubs a little harder.
It doesn't come off and she isn't surprised and she just sighs.
So she goes to get the paint that she used last time to cover up that silly little mark. And she can't help but sigh again.
But there isn't time to spare because it's her loud friends birthday and all her friends and he will be there. And this time she'll talk to him and see if maybe he'll come over again or maybe they should eat out and let's bring the loud friend along because he's part of their little family.
There is a crack.
It is just a ruler length of paint that is no longer the same. It is in the corner and not easy to see when everything is dark.
But she sees it. She sees it every single time she passes the wall. The wall that was perfect in every single way. The wall that suddenly got that silly little mark and that other not-so-little mark. She sees that crack in the paint that is the length of a ruler and thinks that maybe the paint is a bad brand, maybe this is a sign of water damage, or maybe whoever built the house and painted it did a bad job.
But in her heart she knows that isn't true because the paint is the best one out there, she checked for water damage when the second mark appeared, the builders were the greatest from Suna, and her friends helped her by painting the entire house (and she knows that it was him who painted the wall but right now she'll pretend she's forgotten)
And suddenly she gets the urge to knock her knuckles gently on the wall to see how strong it really is.
Instead she grabs the paint and covers the crack on the white wall that has always given her such a strong feeling of familiarity. But she has to rush—
She sprints down the streets of her home, heading towards the hospital because he is there. Has been for a few days now. And she just learnt that fact and wonders why nobody thought to tell her.
But it seems the sprint and worry and wondering is pointless because he orders her to leave the moment she opens the door. She protest but soon leaves because although she is naïve she is not stupid and knows when it is time to listen.
And now she feels out of breath so badly that she staggers to the closest chair, not knowing why it is hurting this much.
It is almost time for her to meet her loud friend and him.
She spends most of the dinner with them staring out at the stars and wishing on the full moon.
There is another crack.
It is larger. It spans nearly the entire wall horizontally and is imposing and very jagged at one of the ends. When she wakes up and first sees it all she does is kneel in front of it. Then she is eventually lying down on the floor and staring at the crack that, this time, isn't just the paint and is, in fact, the wall itself. And she thinks how this could have happened. Walls that are made so well shouldn't get a giant crack. This wall that is so white (or used to be) and has been with her for so long without a single mark (but that is no longer the case now, is it?) and always gives her that warm, friendly but kind of cold feeling of familiarity shouldn't have such a large crack in it.
And she is so very, very tired because cracks like this can't be so easily fixed (covered up and ignored in hope that it will just go away and no one will notice it and maybe it will go away. GO AWAY.) and she isn't getting much sleep lately because she just can't seem to get comfy (of course she isn't crying herself to sleep, of course she doesn't eat fudge ice-cream in the hope it will help (because it could fix everything as a child), of course she is feeling okay) and her bloodshot eyes are just the result of overworking.
He stops her from going to her next patient for their routine check-up (and her heart beats just a little bit faster because he came here for her) and looks at her stoically.
She tells him to let her move (because although he is the love of her life, her patients will always come first) as there is a lot of stuff she needs to do and the quicker she gets it done the quicker she gets to go home and sleep (and she fails to mention he is the reason she is always looking tired these days), so could you kindly move out of the way?
And he furiously tells her to go home because they don't need her here.
She listens. She tells a colleague that she's going home early. She leaves. She makes it home, gets changed into her comfiest pair of pyjamas. She turns on the television. She sits on the couch. She bursts into tears.
Because no matter what has happened, he has never spoken to her so harsh in tone and harsh in words. The pain of how she felt when he told left her when they were children, of how he told her to stop pretending to care, is only a tenth of what she is feeling now.
She has always told herself that things will get better. She has always believed in herself at least a tiny bit. She has always known that, although in so much pain, she will heal.
This time she is not too sure, and inwardly she is faintly laughing at how it's about time because she has been waiting for this defining moment for so many years now. She feels so old and yet she is only twenty two.
And now she has the urge to knock gently on the wall with her knuckles just to check out how strong it really is.
But then she is hit hard with a wave of terror that leaves her gasping desperately for breath. Because what if it isn't strong? What if it breaks so easily with just a single soft tap? What if, all these years, it has been secretly crumbling? She does not know what she will do then.
There are some things you just can't fix by yourself.
Things such as a mind, a wall.
And a deeply cracked heart.
Thank you! Thank you!
Do not despair if you are after a happy ending and an explanation on why he (and we all know who I'm talking about) is seeming like such a bastard for no reason! Because I will get round to writing a sequel!
And if the writing style seems chaotic or whatever to you, then I'm doing a good job.
Thanks for reading!
I would love to get a review if you have the time :)
Georgie-chan