Something Sai Knew
Shin is the nothing he bunks with
And brawls with
And climbs into bed with to cuddle
At role call he stands with
And holds hands with
And plans with.
The nothing he reads with
And bleeds with
Pays heed to
Accedes to
He needs to.
.
Shin is the nothing he pleads to
In the dead of night
I won't fight! I won't fight you!
I can't kill you, Shin! Nii-san!
.
When Shin is dead,
Danzo-sama asks him what is wrong
And he says nothing.
.
Everything is Danzo: he knows it
With bows, he shows it
Low, they are respectful
Bordering on servile
Kow-tow he rises
Never meets eyes
With the god of the underworld
Danzo's his everything
Now he supposes
He's taking his leave of it.
.
He can hardly believe it
When Danzo dies,
Because everything he knows
Is gone.
.
He meets blonde, after a roof
And some ink animals
And a katana.
He meets pink
After a mistake of a nickname
An angry face
And a fist like a hammer
He meets a darkness
A shape of a shadow
An outline of evil, a can of worms opened
That day.
The day he met his team.
.
So, without backtracking,
These are the facts.
.
Once upon a time,
Sai knew nothing.
.
After a time,
Sai knew everything and nothing.
.
After some time,
Sai stopped knowing nothing
.
Then everything he knew
Was gone,
And he was stuck,
Alone.
Lonely, with people he didn't know,
And a task he'd failed
And an ache in his heart, just so,
And, although he felt guilty
In that mind of his
Still with nothing in it
(He felt sure Shin would find out: would know),
He smiled.
He dipped a pen in ink,
Traced a pair of hands and two friends
On a double page
And smiled.
And met the blonde one
With a hello
That quietly pierced a wall
Of stubborn irritation
Between them,
And Sai thought that,
Although he'd only known them
For a day,
The greeting was something
To let them know
That they, in his heart,
Weren't nothing,
Weren't everything...
But were something.