Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
I want you to know this is not a love story.
This is a story of opportunity, a story of redemption.
Read on if you will.
It might inspire you, but hey. What do I know?
Living in San Francisco has always been a far-fetched, yet reachable goal of mine. The cost of living is high, the actual town is small, and there is no point to have a car. All of these conditions crossed my mind multiple times, but nothing could deter me from the burning desire. It all started when I was twelve years old. When I was in sixth grade, several teachers—who also taught that same grade—prepared a field trip to a wilderness camp near the Golden Gate Bridge, and that was the first time I saw a city outside of my own.
That was also the final time I saw that particular city.
Dozens of pre-teens gathered in the mess hall three times a day for the meals of the day. Dozens of pre-teens battled against groups for the title of challenge winners, and these fights consisted of ninja-like actions of weapon tossing and whatnot. Dozens of pre-teens fell in love with the sights from the mountain bluffs, the ocean being meters away, and the opposite sex that were in tents throughout the camp.
Though, I have yet to see anyone from those sixth grade classes wandering the streets of San Francisco.
I own a studio apartment several streets over from the San Francisco Art Institute on Chestnut Street, which I am in my freshman year of attending. I walk to school with my hands in my jacket pockets and my supplies in my black, gray, and burgundy backpack-like tote bag hanging off my shoulders. I do not wear any type headphones that could take away from the action occurring on the streets day in and day out; there is a diverse pool in this community, and I secretly enjoy people watching. Many things come from people watching, like intelligent predictions about their lives.
But I never expected something like this to land in my seemingly complacent life.
It was winter break, but being in college means you never really have a break from schooling. I had an important project to start over the couple weeks off, which meant discovering a muse in the unfolding nature around me. My largest adoration for the city blossomed at camp, when we stood on jagged, towering hills near the fire engine red structure, so naturally I headed there for my daily walk. The Pacific Ocean sparkled with what little reflection from the sun through the cloudy shield; its water appeared green and had an almost eerie aura radiating from its depths.
I took a cab from my apartment to the beginning of the bridge before it met the freeway tunnels painted with rainbows on its entrance/exit (all depending on which way a person is traveling from). The yellow fish swam into the current once again, blending with the tons of other various colored fishes.
That's what everyone in the town was—another fish in the sea.
I ran my fingers threw my spiky, wild obsidian-colored hair as my similarly colored eyes focused on the sidewalk in front of me. It stretched on for two miles, but if a person stared intensely enough, he could confuse it for the haunting nightmare of running towards a door that continually expands further away. I pulled my nearly empty cigarette pack from my jeans' back pocket, grasped a white and orange stick from the container of imminent death and lung cancer, and flicked on a portable flame. It kisses the paper, igniting the toxins and allowing me to inhale smoke. My free hand's fingers gingerly felt the lighter's body, noting the engraved design before returning it to my pants. I sighed and began walking.
My faded cobalt band t-shirt clung to my arms and torso as the humidity and sweat began to accumulate as I wandered aimlessly on the Golden Gate Bridge. Inspiration had still not found me, and I was one-fourth finished with my exercising. Thoughts clawed at the back of my mind, like they normally do when I am left alone with myself for too long. Flashbacks of my parents' drunken slaughter entered my brain, along with patronizing words of destruction from my older sibling, Itachi, and previous girlfriends, and blinded my actual vision—it coerced me into halting my walk.
Thank God it did because I was so consumed with myself that I almost didn't notice the girl on the bridge. Almost.
Her healthy physique was not being revealed by her rigid stance against the railing. What her face looked like was unclear to me because her—what had to be artificially dyed—cotton candy-colored shoulder length tresses obscured my view. A judgmental sneer crossed my mind ("What is with some of the lunatics living in this place?"), but I instantly banished it. I titled my head slightly to see if it was my strange eyesight or the blatant truth… She was shaking rather dramatically.
The swift, unexpected breeze that washed over me was ice cold. I mean, she could only be on this bridge, acting like this for one reason: she was going to jump. She was going to kill herself, and I war bearing witness to the moments of premeditation. Things that didn't seem imperative to the situation were suddenly obvious; her Converse sneakers were kicked off, lingering on the edge of the bridge, and her hands were clutching the metal so tightly the blood has drained from her knuckles.
"Excuse me, uh… Miss?"
That was it. I had made a total fool of myself for some stupid, sad girl on a bridge suspended over the ocean a few hundred feet above the water. I was mentally attacking myself when she spun towards me, and her jade eyes were bubbling with tears, some already have welled over.
"What?" she asked, with a few inaudible murmurs before I was able to understand her.
"What are you doing?" I replied, but my voice was harsh and that caused a whole new round of liquid expressions to slide down her cheeks. I lowered my eyes and blew a puff of smoke.
"I-I am—nothing. I am doing nothing. Why don't you mind your own business?" she snapped. A sob ran from her chapped lips, creating a tense feeling in my stomach. I have never attempted to comfort a person in my life (unless it was my mom when I was child) because I feel uneasy and nauseated. It is not my thing, to say the least. So, why was I trying to save a person I didn't even know existed until minutes ago?
"Hn," I paused, in hopes I would find the strength in myself to fix whatever went wrong in this woman's life. "Just tell me what happened."
"Did you m-miss what I said e-earlier? I'm n-not a charity case, and I don't need y-your help," she stammered, her intended powerful tone lost in her cries.
Another haze of smoke slithering from my mouth like a creature transformed in my digestive tract. "You need someone's help, clearly. You don't want to die—we both know that."
"You must if you k-keep smoking. Do you k-know…" she trailed off with loads of statistics of young adults, specifically, who die from nicotine poisoning, from secondhand smoke, and the lot. She muttered hideous details of a smoker's lungs compared to a non-smoker's, and that was about as graphic as seeing my parents smashed in a sedan on the highway. The visions tried breaking my concentration, but this girl had that locked down.
"Stop talking about that for God's sake. Just tell me what drove you to this position."
"A cab."
I stared at her with disbelief. Was she making this a joke? "Are you seriously trying to be funny? You suck at it."
She rolled her gemstone-like eyes and wiped her raw nose with the back of her hand. "Who even are you? Who are you to b-butt into my life?" she prodded, removing a hand from the railing and shifting it to her right hip in a sassy attitude. An attitude I was not fond of.
"I am a concerned citizen. Let me help."
"How would you do that?"
"By letting you talk, that's how I can help. Maybe we should go somewhere else to discuss it though."
"No, I want to stay here. It's nice outside today," she declared, her eyes dreamily looking over the ocean again. My fore and middle fingers split, letting the key to an early grave fall to the cement sidewalk, and I scuffed my Vans shoe over it, crushing the filling and paper into bits. She must have noticed with her peripheral vision because a small smirk formed on her lips, which was the most beautiful thing I had seen in a long while—so long, I couldn't even recall the time, place, or date. "I got dumped, my cat ran away a few days ago, and I hate everything about my job," she finally stated.
"Those are reasons to take your life?" I questioned, feeling almost smug I had been correct that she had gotten out of a relationship. Then I realized how wrong of me that was.
"My mother passed away a year ago on this date, and I might not have enough money to attend medical school after undergraduate lets out, especially if I live here." She ran a hand threw her hair, messing with the part down the middle, but I decided it was better not to bring up something so superficial when it was evident there was so much beneath the skin. "I rolled out of bed this morning, drank a lukewarm cup of Black Tea, and thought to myself: 'This is the end. I am content with quitting my life where I am now.' I went to a local café, utilized their Internet to check on how many successful suicides were performed on this bridge—do you know how many? There is an estimation of 1,406 people in 2007."
I open my mouth to speak, but I could not find the words. It was a fucking sick statistic, and I was glad I was so close to the side of the bridge in case I vomited. What's with her and these arbitrary facts anyways?
"I would be one of those people had you not come along," she said softly. "I don't know whether to thank you or hate you."
"The latter sounds like a reasonable choice."
She giggles, but halfheartedly and without parting her petal-painted lips. Out of fear for her life and the post-traumatic stress I would suffer from if she committed suicide, I find myself snapping to capture her attention. She began to chatter incessantly about her problems, and maybe that was better than standing against the edge of a bridge and the edge of her life. As words exit her mouth and evaporate into the chilled air before us both, I was suddenly walking, taking her elbow into my calloused hand, and leading her down the bridge.
That was, after all, why anyone comes to San Francisco—to exercise, to experience a new culture, to be anonymous, to live.
As we shuffled along the bridge, she poured her soul to me and I drank her in. Her complexion was so fair that I wonder how she didn't already adorn a sunburn, and a good portion of her face still demonstrated her heavy crying. My onyx orbs observed several things about the way she moves: her hands and arms flailed as she spoke, she reserves a special voice for those she deeply cared about, like her mother and pets, and familiarity radiated off her. We—and by 'we,' I mean just her—behaved something like long-lost friends, and then it slapped me in the face.
I knew her. She was the strawberry blonde girl in my sixth grade class, who was taught by Kakashi, but her annoyingly exuberant demeanor was not present anymore. This distraught, aching wreck of a human being was in my class as a child, and now we were living in the same city as adults. The thought sailed through my multi-track mind, a fishing boat drifting to open water, stirred a chuckle in my throat, which did not go unrecognized by the woman.
"Did I say something funny? What are you laughing at?" she interrogated, offended by my smirk.
"No," I replied curtly.
"Then what do you have to laugh at?"
"Where did you live for elementary school?"
"Not here."
"Helpful," I scowl. "Who was your sixth grade teacher?"
"Now you're asking specific questions. Where were you earlier—stuck within yourself, I presume? Well, I was… enlightened by the teaching of Kakashi."
"Me, too."
"Huh," she stopped to stare at my face. One of her small hands traced my facial features—man, her hands were freezing—and then she stopped again. Her eyes studied me as mine do in the mirror each morning, analyzing every contour as if I could forget my own appearance. However, she is drawn to my hair more than everything, it seems. Then she continued, "You've that duck-butt hairstyle since then, I see."
I talk her down from the ledge of death by her own hand, and that is the thanks I receive? "It's nice to know you remember me," I dryly responded.
"Of course I do! I had the biggest infatuation with you back then. I guess it's a good thing everyone grows up"—she sighed—"This reminds me of Shikamaru, you know, my ex-boyfriend as of yesterday night. I just cannot believe he still has a thing for his high school sweetheart when we have been together for almost a year."
"Were you in love with him?"
"Pardon me? How can you even ask me that when we were going steady for nearly an entire year—"
"Answer the question. Were you, or weren't you in love?"
"I thought I was. But mulling over it as I leaned against the bridge's metal, I figure that was a one-sided feeling. I was not in love, I was in lust. And he needed someone to fill the gap of Ino." The spitting, tasteless way she said who I assumed to be Shikamaru's ex's name, I was aware how crushed this girl was. I had numerous girlfriends, but never cared for the 'in love' label—in fact, I never employed it until now.
"Sorry," I mumbled.
"It's fine. I don't want to talk about him anymore because it might turn into another episode of Jack and Rose on The Titanic, minus the ship and the romance. You don't seem like the type," she pokes, stealthily asking about my love life in a way I have never been challenged before. So, I accepted.
"I'm not much of a lover, but when I do, I'm a good one." One of my dark eyes winked in her direction and her mouth kind of dropped open at the sexual innuendo. "I haven't dated someone since springtime."
"Why not? A shrug does not count as an answer."
"I didn't feel like it."
"How can you not desire the intimate touches a woman can give you?"
"Are we going to paint each other's nails now and gossip?" I rolled my eyes, as did she. We were almost at the other end of the Golden Gate Bridge, which meant it was time to pull a U-turn. "We are going to have to cross soon. Ready?" I turned towards her, and felt confidence pumping through her veins with adrenaline.
"I have walked this hundreds of times and never crossed at a designated crosswalk. Are you cool with that? We are going to have to run, jump the divider, and survive. Go!"
Without another thought, we were dodging cars, which were in a haze of leisure or business; these fish were out for the kill, such as a deadly piranhas or sharks. In unison, we smacked our left hands to the smooth top of the meridian and forced ourselves over, then bounded across the lanes. We reached the adjacent railing and panted as if we had been drowning in the sea of atmosphere.
Then we laughed. Bursts of light drizzled out of our mouths like smoke from my cigarette.
"I haven't felt this good in…" she trailed off, her brain clearly reminiscing about her less than spectacular life in recent years. "Ever—I haven't felt this good ever," she finally said, looking at her hands as her breaths were ragged and staccato.
"It's good you didn't jump then." It wasn't like we were having a moment, I told myself mentally. We both knew why she came here today, and it wasn't to meet a 'tall, dark, handsome stranger' like those silly fortune cookies say. She came to die.
"'I would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!'" she quoted, wagging her forefinger at me. "Haven't you ever seen Scooby Doo?"
"No."
She rolled her green orbs in the process of shrugging. "I guess it wasn't as funny as I originally thought. I just can't think of a way to talk about it without being overcome with sorrow unless I make it a joke. Naruto—you remember him?—taught me that a long time ago."
"I do remember," I answered quietly. I recall him being my best friend for as far as my memory goes, but then I ran away to live in the city of my dreams, and that was it. "At least you know now that every issue can be resolved."
"I knew it before. There's just a certain sadness that accompanies the contemplation of death—it's all in your head, and that's your enemy. You tell yourself people are better off; you tell yourself the world is better off. Suicide is nothing to make light of, but if those who redeem themselves from an attempt can't, then who will? You saved me."
"Almost." The word rolled off my tongue like a free tire down the asphalt. I couldn't explain what I meant before she was already asking me what I meant, with a fierce, confused glow illuminating her eyes. I smiled (a real smile; a grin so rare that it compares to the finding of gold), and spoke, "I almost saved you. You weren't over the railing yet."
The end.