The last rays of the sun looked down on the little girl sitting on the bench. She was all alone, and tears soaked her face, and her body shook with each new sob.
Her hair was a mess, and so were her clothes, but worst of all were the large red spots on her forehead from the constant poking.
Kids can be so mean.
She pulled her knees in closer to her chest, and tried to hide her face. Not that there was anyone around to hide from. This was her place.
All alone in a clearing in the woods that surrounded her village she smiled to herself. There was no one that knew this place existed, and that thought gave her a little bit of peace.
She bit her lip as she thought about how worried her mother must be that she had yet to return, but she couldn't find it in herself to get up and start walking home, lest she run into someone.
"Forehead!" they would yell, while pointing their grubby little fingers at her.
"Look at it! It is so big. There must be something wrong with her" they would sneer as though she couldn't hear.
But she could.
They would chase her down, and tackle her to the ground.
"Some ninja you're going to be" Yuki had said, as she pushed Sakura to the ground earlier that day. She grabbed a fistful of Sakura's short hair. "A pink haired ninja? Hah! You wish! Although I guess your biggest downfall would be that you are so ugly it's repulsing!" She jabbed Sakura's forehead.
"Look at this thing. It's a wonder you can even stand, or walk without falling over."
The other kids around her had laughed as though it was the funniest thing that had ever been said.
Sakura wanted nothing more than to scream, and to shout, and to yell, and kick, and punch.
But she knew nothing would come of it.
Iruka-Sensei had taught the class about their "fight or flight" instinct. And hers told her to run as fast as she could.
So she did. Unfortunately, this wasn't all that fast.
After all Sakura had never been known for her physical feats. It had been her mental ones that managed to shock all of her teachers.
So it didn't take long for all the other kids to catch up with her again.
'Soon.' She thought to herself as she was once again brought to her knees by a swift jab to her stomach. 'Soon the bell will ring and everyone will have to go home.'
But she knew that this would not end. They would be back the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that.
She would never escape them.
The tears stung her eyes, but she held them back. If she cried they would only laugh more. Their punches and kicks would only come harder.
There was a time when her tears had stopped them. They actually felt bad for a moment, but now it just mad them even angrier.
She had tried to beg them to tell her why they hated her so much, but they had just laughed.
She couldn't tell anyone.
Her mother would take her out of school, and she would never be a ninja.
Her teachers would help, but her weakness and cowardliness would be frowned upon for the rest of her career as a kunoichi.
All of these thoughts consumed her as the laughs grew louder, and the punches harder.
She closed her eyes to escape the world for a moment.
The last thing she had seen was a petal falling off a tree, and on the head of a little boy hiding behind a tree.
She had awoken a while later.
No one was there, so she had assumed they had all left.
They had better things to do.
So she limped her way to her special spot.
And sat on the bench.
And cried.
And she cried, and cried.
It started off as a few tears trailing down her cheeks, but soon they were loud wails.
All her pent up sadness flew out of her.
She clasped her knees to her chest and leaned forward and sobbed.
This was never going to stop.
If not them, it would be someone else.
And they were right.
Her forehead was big.
She was weak.
She was useless.
She was ugly.
She wasn't worth it.
She would never be anything.
Every thought hit her like a truck, and her eyes steeled over with determination.
There was only one way to stop this.
She slowly lifted herself up off the bench, and gingerly walked across the clearing to the place where she had spent countless hours working on her kunai training. She had hoped that maybe if she impressed everyone when they learned it in school, they would leave her alone.
She felt her clammy fingers wrap around the cool handle of one of the knives that was still lodged into the tree.
She took a breath and yanked it out.
One quick swipe.
That is all it would take.
To end the hurt and pain and disappointment.
She could never let her mother down again.
She would never ruin someone elses day with her ugly and worthless self.
She gently laid the kunai vertically on her wrist and took another deep breath.
"HEY" She heard someone scream.
The sound startled her so much she dropped her kunai.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?"
She turned around to see the little boy from earlier who had been hiding behind the tree. He now stood right in front of her. His eyes clouded with anger, and his mouth set in a grimace.
"what?" She choked out.
"I said, just what the hell do you think you are doing?" The blonde haired boy glared at her.
"Nothing." She said again. Her voice was still soft, but she had managed to find enough of it to be heard.
"That is not what it looked like! Don't lie to me! You know what you were going to do, and I wont let you do something that stupid!" The boy screamed at her. His hands were balled into fists at his side.
This was the last straw. She had had enough!
"Well if you knew then why the hell did you ask?! Who are you anyway?! You don't even know what I feel like or who I am! What do you care?" She screamed at him. The tears were now racing their way down her cheeks again and she was furious.
"I know." The boy said, softer this time. "I know exactly what you feel."
Sakura calmed down a bit and sniffled.
"Huh?" she said, a lot softer this time.
"I said I know. I go through it too. The hurt, the jokes, what it feels like to be all alone and abandoned? I live with it every day." He looked down at the floor, and his voice cracked. His blonde hair drooped over his blue eyes that were once filled with a fiery passion. But now they were drowning in sorrow.
"But you Sakura-Chan, you are anything but alone." He looked up at her, and her eyes widened in shock.
"How do you know my name?" She said.
"You are not alone." He repeated again, ignoring her. "You have parents that love you. They are worried sick right now. You have teachers that cherish you. Iruka-Sensei adores you! You have friends too! You just don't know it yet."
Sakura looked at the boy wordlessly.
"…friends?" she let out.
"Yeah. Friends. True friends. That would never let you get hurt. You just don't know them yet, but they are out there, and they would murder me if I let you do this before you got to meet them."
Sakura sniffled and gave a small smile as she wiped her eyes.
"You really think that I will have friends?"
"Oh yeah Sakura-chan!" The boy exclaimed with a smile stretched across his face. "Lot's of them! You will make their day with your wittiness, and your talents, and…" he trailed off and a light blush dusted his cheeks "your cuteness…"
He looked up at her and sheepishly scratched the back of his head.
"Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, you have a lot in front of you. I promise you do."
Sakura let out a little giggle and sniffled again.
"But promise me one thing." He said. His intense passion was back, and his voice low. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand into his. Hers was wet with tears, and his was dry and warm and calloused. They both felt a shiver run up their spine at the feeling.
Sakura looked up at him with an inquisitive expression.
"never do something this cowardly." He gritted out. "never give up! You never know what's coming. And when things are at their worst, just remember that they get better. You are going to be okay."
Sakura nodded at him. She was speechless.
So she did the only thing she could. She pulled him in for a hug. It was awkward to say the least. Neither of them were used to much contact. They both stiffened at first, but eventually fell into it.
Sakura buried her head in his shoulder and his somewhat long blonde hair tickled her cheek.
"Arigatou" she whispered.
"Sakura!" She heard off in the distance. "Sakura! Where are you?"
Sakura stepped back.
"That's my mother!" She squealed as she started to freak out.
"COMING" She shouted back into the distance, before hastily running away, and leaving the boy behind.
But as she reached the end of the clearing she turned around.
The moonlight drenched the space between the two in a beautiful light.
"Hey!" she screamed waving her hands over her head to catch his attention. "I never caught your name!"
"I'm just a friend!" he shouted back.
"you just don't know it yet" he whispered only to himself.
And then Sakura's mother was heard in the distance again.
Sakura cursed quietly under her breath before turning around and sprinting again.
She had so many questions for the boy, but she was more scared of her mother.
If she had turned back, she would have seen a little blonde haired boy, close his blue eyes as the tears overflowed. She would have seen him slump against the tree trunk, and cradle himself, as the petals fell around him from the wind.
But she never caught his name.
The very next day, her mother had moved her out of her current academy, and into another one.
Here the teasing let up, because it seemed that the kids had another target. Some weird trouble maker named "Naruto."
There was something oddly familiar about him, but she could never quite put a finger on it.
But sometimes when she was sitting in class, she would turn around, and he would be staring at her, and giving her a sad little smile.
It was times like those that she knew there was more to him than a troublemaker. But she was just not sure what.
Soon she got swept away by school hierarchy as do all preteens. She met Ino, and started liking Sasuke, and was in a whole new world.
But sometimes, at night when she was alone in her room, she wished that she had gotten to know the stranger in the woods. She couldn't even remember what he quite looked like. After all it had been dark. The only thing she could remember about him was his passion, and she had yet to come by that again.
But a nagging feeling told her that she would see him again. And that he would be her friend. Forever.