So...it's not really second-person, it's just dialogue from only one character. Future chapters are a lot less vague. I just like prologues with different styles than the rest of the story.
Eh...Naruto (c) Masashi Kishimoto, not me
Every named character (to my memory) mentioned in this chapter (c) me, Zopponde. Using them without advanced permission will result in the stealing/devouring of your soul.
Recollection
Prologue
Um...hello?...Good morning?
I...I think so. I will be soon if I'm not already. But...where am I?
Wow...I never would have thought this would happen from my old life...
Do you really want to know?
Not a lot of people seem interested in me. Let alone strangers.
Well, I guess you saved my life, so I'll tell you. My day used to start like this:
I'd wake up, about the time the sun came up. About the first thing to cross my mind was usually something like, Damn sun, always waking me up. I can tell my cells to sleep, so why can't I tell them to sleep through sunrise? Just three minutes past sunrise, I ask of you, cells!
I'd sigh and groan and maybe roll over and try to sleep again if Kazuki-niisan didn't come in. He'd usually come in and go, "Haruka, it's breakfast time!" all sing-song-y and syncopated like that. He wasn't so bad at singing, I guess, but I'd groan with the exact same pitch for the exact same amount of time before I rolled over to face away from him.
Kazuki-niisan would always sigh and say, "Haru-chan, wake up already and make breakfast so I don't have to lie to Haruka when I wake her up."
I never could help it; I'd always grin and tell him sleepily, "Fine, but go away so I can brush my hair." He knew I didn't get any real kind of bed head, but I'd tell him that anyway, and he'd make this sound that was kind of like a sigh and a laugh at once, and say, "Okay, but I'm coming back in a minute and if you're not ready to face the day, I'm dragging you out by the ankles, like it or not," and leave, closing the door behind him.
Then I'd smile and sigh blissfully as I pushed the sheets down to their regular place at the foot of the foot of the bed, wrinkled and disorganized. It didn't matter that my room was a mess; nobody really came in anyway, just Kazuki-niisan in the mornings, and he never cared.
I used to go over to my mirror hanging on the door and sigh at my hair; it always had a perfect center part in the mornings, not a hair out of place from the perfectly organized hairstyle. Of course, I wasn't organized enough to like it; I'd have to mess it up so that it went to a left part. I'd get dressed, well within Kazuki-niisan's minute-limit, and walk down the hall to the kitchen, where I'd make some kind of breakfast, humming whatever tune was in my head at that moment and telling my skin cells on my head to deal with the change in hair position and that if they'd just let it stay that way it wouldn't be so uncomfortable when I parted it again.
Before he passed on, Arata-tousan used to be up about halfway between when I started cooking and when it was done. He'd be blinking and squinting, running a hand through his hair as we watched his foster-daughter cook breakfast. He'd usually complain about how bright it was before he went on to ask if the food was ready yet, and I'd tell him cheerfully when it would be done. All he could do is moan that he thought it was already ready, and that I cook too slow, but I knew that he was just joking, and I'd laugh softly and tell him that if he'd wake up later than I could call him to breakfast and it would be the first thing he'd notice instead of how bright it was.
He'd chuckle tiredly and say, "True, true," as he sat down heavily at the table and waited patiently for Kazuki-niisan to bring him the newspaper as he always knew to do for his father.
I know that the way I'm saying this makes Arata-tousan sound almost like a bad person, but really, he wasn't; he was just kind of grumpy in the morning. Actually, if he hadn't been so kind, I wouldn't have been living so happily with Kazuki-niisan after Kaa-san got sick…
…Anyway, after we all finished having breakfast (we ate together, but we never really talked at breakfast), before Kazuki-niisan graduated from the ninja academy, we'd go out together to school, and separate into our classes at the last possible second. Really, we were nearly inseparable, to the point where we were late to class as many times as we could afford—which was really saying something, because we both had high hopes of success.
Maybe I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for our being late so often….
Well, we'd attend classes, and got the highest possible grades for being late so much. In other words, we were on the border of failing…until Arata-tousan went missing on a mission.
When he went missing, Kazuki-niisan and I were pretty well off, all things considered, because he had prepared for this and left a lot of money for us. We got a little money from being without an income, and between those two sources, we got along well enough to stay alive in our old home. In some ways, we were doing even better, because then we had true motivation to start doing well in school. We were never late again and got the best grades in our respective classes. I don't know how we did in comparison to each other, but we got whatever we really needed and we knew that we would soon graduate and have our own income and be able to pay for ourselves without help from Arata-tousan's reserves.
He was still missing when Kazuki-niisan graduated. I was so proud of him, even if he wasn't really my brother; he took care of me like a father after Arata-tousan disappeared, and we were close as family, so it was only natural for me to be proud of being almost related to a new Sand Village Gennin. At that point, between what Arata-tousan had left behind and Kazuki-niisan's new income, we were pretty well off…or so I thought.
One day, we heard the news; they had found Arata-tousan's body. He was confirmed dead, so Kazuki-niisan was the only way we could get any new money until I graduated. Naturally, I tried my hardest, and my teacher told me that I was the closest thing to guaranteed to graduate the next year as I could be.
Unfortunately, there was too much time between when she said that and the exam that I needed to take to graduate. Kazuki-niisan told me one night over supper that he was going out on a long mission in another village. He was leaving early in the morning, and wouldn't be back for supper tomorrow, probably even the next. I didn't know what he was really doing, so I let him go without really questioning it.
The next day, I went off to school. On my way, I saw one of Kazuki-niisan's teammates. She wanted to know where he was. I told her what I thought; he was off on a mission in another village, but even as I said it I realized the problem, and she pointed that out to me the moment the words came out of my mouth.
If he was on a mission, she wouldn't be there, and she wouldn't be wondering where he was.
We looked so hard that I was late to class for the first time since Arata-tousan disappeared.
When I got home, I was so anxious I couldn't sit still, so I started pacing around the house. I remember eventually ending up walking into Kazuki-niisan's room, and I saw that he left the bandana with the Sand symbol on it, sitting on the bed.
And that told me that he'd be back as soon as he could. He was too proud of his graduation to leave the proof of it behind for any reason other than proving that he wouldn't.
Sure enough, he was back the next day.
Needless to say, I pestered him with questions about where he was. All he'd say was "I can't say," until I finally got him to crack and tell me, "I was making some plans. You'll know all about them soon enough."
I remember sighing and letting him be for then. I figured I'd ask him more later-—but later never came.
The next morning, I woke up, after sunrise, in a hospital room. I didn't have these scars until then…I honestly don't remember getting those scars. I just remember falling asleep and waking up with them.
Eventually, a nurse came around, and she explained what she knew—-that I'd been found unconscious on the hospital's doorstep with a note. She was kind and let me read the note.
In a nutshell, it was an apology for leaving me; an explanation of why he had left the day before; a note saying that I was going to leave for the Leaf Village to live with my mother's family, whom she ran away from; and it was an apology for leaving me with the family that my mother made such an effort to keep me from. And he mentioned something about my little ability to talk to all of my body being a family thing, so maybe it wouldn't be all that bad in Leaf. He said.
That's why the forehead protector in your hand is from the Leaf Village and not the Sand.
Do you have any idea how hard I worked for that forehead protector? I had to change gears entirely, going from virtually no cover and thus not very much specific strategy to spending more time hiding behind trees and walking softly than technique and strength.
I still hate the forest. It's a little cooler but so humid that it's worse than the desert, and the bugs keep eating me alive, and I still don't know anyone, and I seem to be quite appetizing for the bugs.
Did I mention the whole bug issue?
Okay, now I know why I had it worse; there was a guy, he had a bit of a bug thing going on, and he kept following me everywhere. So much so that when I was forced to retire, he went and talked my aunt—the person taking care of me there—into letting him marry me.
Marriage? Arranged marriage?!
That's why my mother ran away, by the way. My aunt was the head of the family, and she decided that my mother, her sister, was to marry someone beneficial to the family. But she loved someone else. So she ran away.
She once told me why I don't know my real father; she said he had already planned for them to run away when she told him about her plans, but his plans were more, well, planned, so they went with those. Soon, though, my mother got pregnant (with me), and realized that the plan they had involved making a new village, and that whole plot seemed a little risky for a newborn child. So she ran away from her plans to run away, away from the man she ran away with. She ran to Sand Village, where I was born, and where I met Kazuki-niisan, and where she got sick and passed away, and where I lived with Kazuki-niisan until he ran away.
What is up with my life and running away?
So, anyway, in the desert, there were virtually no bugs, so I had no previous way of knowing that I had a horrible phobia of bugs.
See the problem yet? That whole about-to-be-forcibly-married-to-a-guy-who-is-one-with-your-worst-and-most-unwanted-fear thing? Yeah. I think my reasons for being here are very good ones.
Everything was set up for the marriage, and we were having this cute little party to celebrate. If I'd been born into that family, I would have been perfectly happy with it, smiling and dancing and whatever like a girl who just married the handsome prince of her kingdom. Really, the guy himself wasn't that bad, just a little…stalker-ish, and the bug thing freaked me out too much, and that's why I…
…that's why I'm here. That's why I had to leave, and that's why I fell into the river, and that seems to be why you found me, and that's why I'm here.
Um...in case anyone's wondering, I don't have a Beta reader or anything, I just try to read through them before I post them, which isn't so easy when you pretty much know it by heart anyway. So, if anyone's willing to Beta read for Chapter 1...say so, please!
(By the way, I have a lot of this story written--over eighty thousand words, so my not posting them yet is because I'm tired of posting some big long thing and nobody seeing it--so nothing more until someone reviews or something.)
