1
They were rugged, and grainy, like the brown sugar I left on the counter back home.
They were supposed to be mountains.
They weren't mountains.
That's what I told myself as I stepped out of the car.
My father leaned against the door. His hair swept with this strange breeze that smelled like sagebrush instead of sycamores. He smiled at me. He liked to smile. He was normally a placate man. The grip he had on those papers suggested otherwise.
I walked around, opened the trunk to our cutsie-yellow slug bug, and couldn't help but think it didn't belong here. I grabbed an orange suitcase I hadn't been able to call my own until this morning, and started up the driveway. It was smooth, unlike the alleged mountains. It rolled easily behind me. My dad was at the door. Toes snapping up and down with his hands on his hips and those papers crinkling into his palm, he waited.
The house was yellow, like that ugly vehicle my dad took endless delight in carting me around in. He'd painted it the summer of 1971. There were bright pink camellia's in the flower beds that hung from the windowsills. The lawn was dirt, but all the lawns were dirt. The backdrop: those mountains that weren't really mountains, and a blue, cloudless sky.
There was a shuffling behind the door, then it was open, and Tsunade was there. A guy stood behind her in his early twenties, or something like that. I didn't much care.
"Hi!" My dad's forced smile glitched under the onslaught of her firm scowl, which for a moment was more prominent than her chest. He handed her the papers. "Kushina wanted me to give these to you before I left. She would have given them to you herself, but…"
Tsunade didn't need further explanation. My mother was in the hospital, with tubes in her arms and tubes in her neck and tubes going down her throat. A breathing mask covered half her face. Her hair was red, not the natural red that used to spark like flames under the sun, but died brown and coppery with blood. Dried blood. And a lot of it.
My mom needed to recuperate, and my dad needed to be there for her when she did. She was fully conscious now, thank God. Enough so to write those damned papers.
My dad needed to take care of mom. Solution?
Send Naruto to Hell.
My dad didn't stay long. He exchanged a few pleasantries with Tsunade (which she didn't return) and made a bolt out the door.
Tsunade ushered me into the house. It was cool, air-conditioned. The furniture polished, slick, modern. Not at all what it looked like my last visit. At least it smelled the same—our family always had a thing for incense.
"What's for lunch?"
"When have I ever made your lunch, brat?"
Shizune howled.
I set my suitcase by the stairs. So fucking hungry. Growwwwl. That's what my stomach said. Growwwwl. Give me food. Give me Ramen.
A hulk of black magically materialized, a plate of holy-shit-that-smells-good in his hands.
"Tsunade, Lunch is ready."
"Lunch, Sasuke? How thoughtful." She discretely tucked a twenty into his belt loop.
"My lunch?"
The guy's glare was intense. I almost took him seriously in that frilly apron.
"Just a sec."
He got a bowl (just my style: shiny, metallic) and…
In went Shizune's kibble.
Fuck. My. Life.
Tsunade's mouth made this little 'o' shape around her food, as if she were just remembering something. She swallowed. "Naruto, this is Sasuke. He's the maid."
"Hn."
A/N
The first chapters (1, 2, and 3) are short.
Starting at Chapter 4, there will be a sudden increase in the length of the chapters.
**Also, for readers who read my original chapters 1, 2, and 3: I tried to combine these chapters upon request. I didn't do this originally because I'd written them at different intervals, and thought the flow would be too disrupted. Upon reading it, however, I realized that the flow didn't seem as 'disrupted' as I'd originally thought XD Thanks for telling me reviewers! I would have continued my arc of short chapters forever XD
If this total disarrangement of the chapters screwed with you, I'm sorry :/
THANK YOU MY BEAUTIFUL BEST FRIEND AND BETA! I LOVE YOU!