My Eyes
By: Lone Ronin
Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, then Naruto would not be so stupid and I would give Neji and Shikamaru bigger roles in the show because I like them better, like that's going to happen.
Author's Notes: Hey, I'm not dead yet, I'm just ironing out the wrinkles from the next chapter for Troublesome Fate. Until then, here's a short, angst filled Neji centered one-shot to hold you over until then.
As I walk down the streets of a crowded market with my uncle, I've never felt more alone. The weather in Konoha is good today and the birds are flying, but it doesn't affect me. It's not for lack of noticing, it's because of my eyes.
I can see fine with my eyes, far more then most can see in fact. But I don't notice the market, the day or the birds because my father isn't here, I miss him so much. He died so someone could try and understand our eyes.
I see the birds flying overhead and I remember something my father said before he died. He once told me that when we pass on, our spirits become the birds and we watch over the living citizens of Konoha.
'Are you up there watching over me? Do you know that I miss you?' I wonder to myself.
I don't really understand that well why he died, at least not right now. I don't really understand the plays for power and petty politics between the Branch and Main members of the Hyuuga household. All I understand right now is that my father, the one who meant the most to me, is gone forever.
As I go through the market in the shadow of my uncle, I notice a man I've never seen before walking by us. I notice him because he's not alone; he's leading a deer on a rope, with a boy about my age riding on its back. My uncle picks up his nose in the air as they go by, his body says what's on his mind, it's only a deer keeper crossing by nobility. But for me, watching the other boy asleep in the warm sun, without a care in the world, I feel more like the beggar looking up at the prince. I can tell the man noticed my uncle's action, but he makes no sign of it that anyone other then a Hyuuga could notice as he wakes the boy to greet the candy seller.
"Is he your son?" the vendor asks.
"That's what my wife tells me." He answers in a joke before he asks his son which sweet he wants.
I feel my breathing hitch as I watch him picking out a candy on a stick. I'm holding back tears as I'm watching another boy, with his father, watching the sky as he eats a sweet. I can't hold it back any longer as he notices me and gives a lazy smile and a wave.
Even as I start running down the street, I can see the confusion in the other boy's eyes and my uncle's anger, but it doesn't affect me.
It's not for lack of noticing, it's because of my eyes, I can't stop crying.