Saga of Rei
A short story that is a little bit gory, and a little bit dark. It is about a girl that wanted nothing more than to live together with her brother but was too easily misunderstood.
Ah, like many others here; English is not my native language. Please excuse any grammar mistakes and my confused spelling between American and British...
Updated: rev.2. Also finally started to work on chapter 2, but when will it be published… lol, who knows.
Prologue
Lying face down in the grass was a girl; hair red like the setting sun, sticky from sweat and tangled together to emulate some form of an animals' nest. Clothes are worn and bruised. What had at one point in time been dark blue, was merely a reminder of its former self; nothing short of grey. This was me. Beyond tired to move a single muscle.
"Again, " Sensei calls to me from somewhere above. Sensei, I guess, can be a little awkward at times because when you spend a good portion of your life stuck in the ANBU; we, the normal people, may appear equally awkward to them. Maybe it can explain why she seldom talks because talking isn't part of the job curriculum. Or maybe she is this way solely towards me - though, I cannot say because I never saw her interact with anyone before. Outside of missions, of course. Then again, I don't think that grunts and growls can count as proper communication.
One day she stood in front of me and told me to follow. A bit ominous, maybe, but I was in such a state of mind back then that I could hardly care less if she wanted to gut me somewhere where nobody would find us. In fact, at the time I suppose I could go so far as to say that I was hoping she would.
And death, they say, is something we should respect. Some people allegedly have the luxury to choose how they die, which, for their hardcore ambition could either earn their family respect or ridicule. They say that your life will flash in front of your eyes when you die, so I guess they will feel something akin to awe at how cool their death was, as they reach that point in their life-flashback. Or how horrible it was, as it were.
Who this "they" are, however, is something that has mystified me for a long time.
People always mention "them" in some way or another, and I look in books for this meaning, only to end up empty-handed. Because even in fiction they are mentioned without care. And in my village, we have many collections of books to read, most of which are heavily censored such that we cannot point fingers at faces and names whom we might recognize. I'm glad, but also annoyed.
"Rei-kun, " Sensei tries again and I don't need to look at her to know how annoyed she is. I think she learned pretty fast about this bad habit of mine to get lost inside my own head. I have heard it is not a very good thing to be doing, what with this element of surprise thing people keep talking about. Alas, I find myself still unable to move even now. Sure, my sensei can be a bit rough sometimes, and in my line of work, nothing short of almost dying accumulates a bit rough. Now that I think about it, I bet sensei get a high off of beating me down every day.
She sits down next to me after I refuse to answer. I am breathing harshly after all, while winded she is not. If she wants to kick my ass all day, I let her. Of course, I try to defend myself and retaliate. This is training, after all, I think. The kind of experience where she expects me to go a little crazy, and I do hit her when I see an opening. At least she never said anything about it, so yeah. Sensei is weird like that. Half the time I am not sure what it is that she wants me to do, and she is so half-assed as to shrug her shoulders and look at me apathetically - like I should have known what do to all along.
So here we are, sensei and I, staring each other down - or in my case staring up at her. My sloppy body has managed to roll over so that I can squint my eyes against the setting sunlight… I'm so smart. It burns my iris and gives me the feeling of needing to sneeze. But it never comes, and I am too tired to look away.
It usually ends up like this; sensei who would be sitting next to me, and me, who would slowly fuse with the grassy field. Though, technically, it is a training ground, not a field.
I finally struggle to sit up but sensei is waiting patiently for me. Why she never takes some form of pity on poor ol' me I will never know. But I take comfort in the miracle that for some reason I recover from injuries rather rapidly.
Having a high restitution, though, does not equal to having a high stamina. I suppose that is another difference between my brother and me, and I am not sure if I envy him or not for it. I had noticed fairly early on that we were both… not normal, by any means. They never did preach about what being normal implied, though, in the academy, so I am not sure.
Ignoring Sensei, I rest on my elbows behind me and look towards the direction of the academy. It is during moments like these that I miss him the most, and I always wonder how he is doing. If he finally made a friend or not, and if he focuses on his studies or not. He better not be skipping class again…
My story, however, does not start here. If I were to really think about it, I suppose my earliest memory was from when I was very young. And it all started with a little bit of tick and a little bit of tock.
Chapter 1 — Orphan's life (1/2)
In the beginning, my best friend was a clock. He would speak to me with ticks and tocks and as long as I could hear that, it felt like confirmation that I continued to exist. But staying alive, it turns out, was something that I could do without knowing I could. A bit like breathing.
Standing up was way harder, and it was much later that I would be able to hold myself erect like a pole. In the meantime, I would sit and investigate the strange feeling I had that felt somewhat like somebody who I could not see was watching me. As was the case, when I focused hard, I indeed could feel the presence of other people. And I knew this was true because through the other side of my locked door there would walk an old lady and visit us periodically. But the visits grew shorter and more sparse the longer I managed to stay alive.
In my room was another child, one who would, for the most part, sit still and watch me as I wobbled around. Despite one day having mastered the art of standing, which in course led to running and jumping, and climbing and falling; really, I was to a greater extent falling more than anything else. In due time the thought that popped into my head had me somewhat worried if perhaps the child I shared my room with was a little retarded, since he could not even do what I did, and he could start crying for no reason at all and for so long, that I started to crave steady rhythm of the ticks and the tocks.
He was a little strange, sure, but more than that; when I close my eyes and focus on him alone, I feel threatened and scared. Yet, when I open my eyes he will sit there staring at me as though implying I am the one who is the monster. And when he cried I would have that ominous feeling without concentrating, but I knew my clock would talk to me after he went mute. It felt silent without it, even with the wailing of a child; and I would feel gloomy.
I noticed quickly after discovering wobbling that the scrapes and bruises I got from clowning around this way and that magically disappeared during the nights. Suspicion arose that the woman who tended to us was to praise. She, who, by the way, hardly spoke, was one of those stern types that liked to hit people; contradicting the whole healing thing. And when she did speak, the words that came was something that was too complex for me to understand. Instead, I would watch while she tended to the blonde boy. Every now and then when she saw me stand there, staring, she would furrow her brow and speak to me harshly.
I worried sometimes, but I didn't mind, so long as she left me alone. I had no idea what she was saying anyway, and I would instead continue to spin and dance after she made her escape.
As I grew older my room seemed to grow smaller. I suppose having come to the understanding that my room was not the center of the world, I realized just how tiny we demons really are. Because the boy in my room and I were apparently demon children. The room was rather depressing, too; dull and grey beds donned old and dark wood-lined walls with a ceiling that appeared to have been a muddy sand hardened over years, now almost ready to cave in at a moments notice. Inbetween the beds, underneath the small window, sat an ugly green crate with dried paint falling off like dust, where we stored our clothes.
We had no gender discrimination here, because of everyone, save the adults, wore the same outfit. Unisex, they called it; so even though the boys insisted I wore boys' clothes, I would instead pry argue that the boys were the ones who wore girls' clothes.
Even if through the window in my room I could see birds fly in the sky; they did not ever stop outside in the garden to feed. It made me curious as to why because we have wooden posts outside, rooted deep within the grass that I have seen older boys set tasked to build, where tiny metal baskets hung from wires held seeds until they were stocked full.
I would debate with my roommate if the fact that birds and critters never seemed to appear outside was proof enough that we were actual demons like everybody told us, because so far I could not find any difference between a human and myself; but he would just look at me and tilt his head like a cute little doll. While in the near distance outside, I could not deny the fact there was a scarce presence of lingering animals, but when I turn my head to look, there was never anything there. Left behind was only the evidence, which, when I looked intently, were trunks sludged in mud, and trunks with missing bark near the roots. And when we were allowed outside, I explored to see for myself if I was going crazy or what; but sometimes, when the rain had wetted the dirt on the ground I would find holes that looked a little funny but definitely unnatural. I only knew what to look for because of the pictures I saw in books.
Yet, I still had to see any live animals apart from birds, but, well, eventually I figured that they are just stupid anyways - they are just food. And speaking of food; ever since I can remember, sometimes when the arms of my old friend, the clock, were the furthest apart from each other, we would leave my room and enter the long corridor with walls lined in candles, where tens upon hundreds of doors dressed the hallway. Well, I admit to be exaggerating, because sometimes it was a little scary to walk there - but entering that corridor meant we would leave my dark room behind for a while so I never told anybody that I disliked that corridor.
One of the doors led to another room which always held tons of other people inside when we arrived, sat on chairs behind huge bundles of tables. This is where they would feed us, or, at least those of us old enough to feed ourselves. Because once you stopped eating from a bottle this is where you would end up. The food was usually very dry and most of the time cold, but being too hungry to criticize has saved me many a punishment. Because in my house when we disapprove of something it would more likely than not lead to some form of discipline. To be beaten was something that I did not enjoy, and I should hope that neither did the others; I mean, who could enjoy pain? And sometimes a child or two would start to cry, but I suppose that had more to do with the fact that they were stuck here at all like the rest of us.
It was a little surprising to learn that people came in the many sizes they did; babies, children, teenagers and adults, some were tall and some were short, some were round and heavy while others were thin and scrawny. There were even some elder ones too who were the ones that would rule over us, like some form of a pack of sheep. But I liked to think of us as a pack of wolves because that sounds more dangerous. This house is a dangerous place, after all; but most of the time we were left to fend for ourselves or locked inside our rooms. It sparked my initial suspicion that the older you were the more power you have in this world. Because even though I sometimes act recklessly it was always the ones who were older that would scold me.
There is also a room here that they refer to as the common room. It held people here, too, sometimes so many at a time that there was barely any space left to sit, and we all usually gathered together right after dinner. Yet, even with all of these people here; nobody spoke with us, played with us, or sat with us. Toddlers were another thing though, and while I detested them (way too much drool) the boy who lived in my room seemed oblivious and easily melted into their contact.
He was a rather clingy person once he managed to creep out of that doll-like life that he had lived. And I much preferred the way he was back then when instead of shouting and talking so fast my head hurt, he would sit and listen to me speak while I figured stuff out about the world we lived in, even if maybe he did not understand what I said. Later he started with physical interaction, too, and he does that a lot nowadays. Sometimes he would droop over my shoulder like some kind of a lazy cat as I watched the pictures in books because I was the only one they did not pull away from him. I suppose it was during one of these occasions I noticed that there was something strange going on; everyone was kind of wary of us. It was around then I started to feel strangely distant to the world because it was almost as if everyone actually hated us.
Then again, it could just be my imagination, I would tell myself — because I could imagine a lot of things. Like when I try to shoot beams of death out of my eyes at Junko, but when I stop she was still standing there whole. Junko is the stern lady that would enter my room uninvited and frown with disgust and call me names. She would make us do the dishes almost every day, and when we were too slow she would hit us in the shoulder or push us into walls, and if she did not approve she would slap us in the face.
Yeah, Junko was by far the worst out of the lot.
There are a few other wardens here, like Asumi and Keisuke who likes to hide in empty rooms together and make a lot of strange noises, which is something I would have never guessed were it not for the creepy feeling I get when I close my eyes and concentrate. In public they were never together, or, it is something that rarely happened. There was also a Rora, who was the weirdest one out of them all. She would sit alone in a room almost all the time, in front of a desk, read papers, and when she wanted to speak with someone she actually made them go to her instead!
There used to be a Nonō here, too, because I hear people talk about her a lot. For some reason, she went and got herself killed, but nobody knows why or how. Regardless, she must have been very popular since people are still talking about her, even though she must have been dead for longer than twice my life. There is only a picture of her now, surrounded by lit candles and incense, and some older children would stand there and stare at her smiling face and mumble something about missing their mother.
One morning, I woke up and there stood an old man in my room. It was the first time I saw a man this old because the only old people that I had seen previously were otherwise Junko and Rora. And they were no men. He dressed in a white jacket strapped atop red robes. Upon his head there rested an enormous silly red hat, and across his chin sprouted a grey beard like an old goat. All in all, he looked rather suspicious to me.
The boy who lived in my room, unsurprisingly, jumped at the old man. I would say that he was careless, but I had stopped doing that after all this time that I had known him. To listen to me was something that he refrained from doing most of the time, especially when I told him things that he did not want to hear. Yet, I still wanted to say something; to warn him that maybe we had done something we shouldn't have, and the punishment for it was something that the wardens themselves did not even want to do. After all; the older you were, the more power you had - and this man looked way older than Rora!
Regardless of whether I wanted to say something or not, I was too slow anyway, and my eyes widened when the old man caught my blonde boy and gave him a big hug instead. I suddenly found myself staring even harder and could feel something tapping against my thigh in a familiar pattern because nobody hugs him. A brief glance showed me that it was just my own finger, and after I looked up I could see how he ruffled the boy's hair, and briefly looked at me where I laid halfway covered under my blankets, and then at my finger that I could not stop from tapping. He frowned a bit similar to how all the adults did when looking at me, but then averted his gaze towards my roommate and told us that he was the "God of Shinobi, The Professor, Hiruzen Sarutobi the Third Hokage", which was an awfully long name in my opinion.
It was a good thing that this Hokage person came to visit us that day, otherwise, I would have never known that it was my birthday. More than that, my blonde haired whisker-faced roommate had a birthday on the same day. We were four years old today, apparently, and it was a good present because he was happier than I ever saw him before. Never could I have guessed that a name would have held such meaning to him. Well, I can agree that it is easier to refer someone by his name rather than "gaki" or "bakakodomo". I mean, sure, Junko and Keisuke would call nearly every other child here one name or another that would often confuse me about who they were talking to since they only had the inventiveness to create three or four names. Junko usually called me only by one name, though, Kikei; and it got to the point where Keisuke too started calling me that. I had wondered if that was my actual name, and then if my family name was Goaway.
"Naluto!" my roommate cried with his arms in the air. That was his name after all. I wanted to say it, too, but nothing came out except air. It must have been loud enough for the old man to hear, because he sharply looked towards me, and then frowned again. They always did that, the adults I mean. There were quiet words that escaped his mouth, but I could barely understand nor hear him. He liked to put things in his mouth like the younger kids would, or maybe he found some kind of fascination with the smoke he could create from sucking on that pipe. Or, well, maybe he just liked to sound incoherent. I wondered if there was something on my face, or if it was only me that had done something I could not remember, something that would usually follow the expression he wore; but instead "zero" he told me.
I could feel when my head tilted sideways in confusion while at the same time my blonde friend jumped as high as he could, and "Lei!" he shouted. So I too had a name. A real one, I mean. I had no clue that on the fourth birthday we would have our very own name. The Hokage then ruffled my friend's hair again, chuckled, and reached for something in his pockets. It made me a little embarrassed to feel myself tense up, yet when his hands returned he had pulled out a couple of brushes, some ink, and a scroll that he rolled out in front of him on the floor.
He allowed himself the time to draw something for us, but stopped mid-through, as if in thought. I looked at my friend momentarily and saw that he was staring intently on the paper, so I too untangled myself completely off of the bed and went closer to the old man and plopped myself down on my knees in front of him. Whatever he was thinking, he soon came to a conclusion because slowly — slower than before, he drew the missing lines so the both of us could follow easily. When he finally finished, he flipped the paper scroll around so that we could see it from the perspective he drew from. "Na, " he said, and pointed towards the boy next to me, and then at the first symbol that he had drawn. "Ru, " he continued, and pointed at the next. "To, " he finished and gesturing vaguely at the collection of symbols.
It occurred to me then that he wanted to teach us how to spell our names, or, at the very least show us what they looked like. That was kind of him, actually.
"Naluto!" my hyperactive friend shouted with a fist in the air as he jumped again, it looked kind of like an airborne victory pose.
"Rei, " he said, and pointed to me, and then at the other assemblage of lines. "Lei! " the boy mimicked from where he had sat himself in front of the man again, but he could not sit still for long and soon he started to climb on me and cling to my neck. I had to squint down at the paper while trying not to fall over in order to properly see my name. It was shorter than the boy's, just half of his, actually.
Then I learned that we two, who differed so in appearance and personality, were in fact siblings by blood. Twins, even. Maybe I could have guessed that if I knew that I wanted to know. Our newfound relation to each other went relatively silent, we simply shared a look and that was that. The Hokage man probably thought that was anticlimactic, but I thought that maybe my …brother and I had something missing in our brain or something; like a screw that was loose. Because when the other children in my house found their family — or even a completely new one, they turned ecstatic with joy or cried their hearts out in relief. But my brother had always been here by my side my whole life; we were kind of like brother and sister already. I think that this is the feeling we already had towards each other, so I did not care so much for the news. But I guess I was a little bit wrong in that regard seeing as how my brother was suddenly almost tearing up like the other kids would, or maybe he wanted somebody else to be his sister. Regardless of his reasons, he suddenly hugged me even tighter than usual so that I almost fell over again.
Indeed, the old man Hokage uncle then wanted us to spend the hour learning the strokes and look of our names, but my brother seemed more keen on talking with him which was met with no resistance, he was simply happy to comply. My brother was rather good at talking, but he did not have a big vocabulary. I think he just liked to play pretend and was happy that someone would talk back, someone that was not me.
Feeling a little left out, I instead started to practice writing my name over and over and over, until it eventually looked somewhat similar to the old man's own scribble. Though where his were sharp and precise, mine were wobbly and smothered in ink. I even practiced the name of my brother, and by the end of it I was covered head to toes in ink, but I didn't care. It was the first time I had ever made something that was mine - by myself. And it was my name! My very own name! Something felt different with my cheeks then, and I needed to touch them to understand what it was because it was almost like blood flowed more freely. They felt nice and warm and gave birth to butterflies inside my stomach.
After Uncle Hokage introduced me to the art of reading and writing, I would spend most of my time at the orphanage — no longer looking at the pictures in books but at the symbols of text. Apparently, these weird symbols actually carried a hidden meaning that was something only adults could understand. And there existed three kinds of alphabets; Katakana, Hiragana, and Kanji. Me and my brother's names used Katakana script so I at least could read the measly five symbols I could recognize from that. Kanji there existed many of, much more than katakana and hiragana combined. To add further confusion, some Kanji were pronounced differently depending on the context. Luckily in our children's books, they would disperse these symbols into tiny hiragana (or katakana, depending on the reading) above as a means to help us learn faster.
I was the only one surrounded by books, as if, just like me; they were the most boring of things that could exist. When we had story time, I would listen intently and with this newfound knowledge of the existence of a hidden script follow along to my best ability with my own copy using my own fingers. Hiragana was easy to learn, Katakana too. It was basically a game of memorization, and I would be truly damned if my memory was not this good.
Asumi was the youngest caretaker we had, and while she was pretty, she did not act much different from the other wardens. At least she was not one to discourage me from trying to learn about our world and her voice would be clear as she read slowly. It was easy to follow in my book when she was the one who read to us.
There were a lot of different stories in our books, and they would span a huge range of legends or myths, but mostly just fiction. I liked the ones with animals that would talk in riddles; wasn't too fond of the monsters that would haunt you at nights when you misbehaved; I was awed by the stories relating to the heroes called ninja.
I could not wait until I turned older when I would be able to attend the schooling that the other kids would have and properly learn these Kanji. But for now, I guess, I could only make do with what I had; so having stories read to me was what I did.
There were stories about evil people that disagreed with the village ideals and who would instead leave to pursue other evil dreams, and then the heroes would search for days while jumping through trees and build walls of dirt instantaneously to protect each other, until they eventually kill the heinous villain, and return with his head and glory and fame.
There were stories about good people that would sacrifice themselves in order to save their friends. I found those stories rather sad, especially when I learned to grow fond of the hero. However, I could not deny that they sparked some form of respect for the imaginary cast. But my favorite was the one where a helpless orphan who was the weakest little kid grew up to become a strong personality and reached to the heights of the ninja ranks, with a beautiful wife and two children that lived together happily for many years after.
Like I already mentioned before, I have a vivid imagination. And I was more curious than the average child, apparently, since I was the only one asking questions about the "why?" and the "but why?". The wardens never seemed to want to answer me, so I simply had to come up with my own conclusions. The terror the enemy must have felt as they suffered casualties, I already know how painful burns can be; when they watched their comrade's head cut off, I already know the terror of watching another child be tormented by the wardens. It was not fun to think about it, so sometimes I would instead imagine how it would be like to be one of those heroes that were celebrated as celebrities upon their return, but then I would think of the death, and the losses, and the sadness that would surely follow. That aftermath which I have already seen here many times in my own house, sometimes when new children came their facial expression look really… strange.
I decided that it was something I would never want to do. Something I could never do. I could most likely never risk my life for anyone because I wanted to continue to live and learn more about this world. But when I really thought about it, I found that I would probably do anything to make sure my brother was well and alive.
My brother was not as interested as I was in this whole literature thing; so more often than not he would go out to play by himself instead. It made me worry a little, because ever since I learned that he was my brother — the only living family that I had — I wanted to keep him safe, keep him near. But at the same time, I was a little glad too, because I didn't want him to learn of the implied horrors some of these stories could tell. Luckily it was easy to locate him, if only because he was the one that made me the most scared when I closed my eyes and focused on the presences around me.
I began to understand that learning came easy to me, easier than it did my brother. Reading had become my strong side, so much so that eventually I did not need anyone to read for me any longer. I admit that Kanji was a hopeless cause, and I still required the tiny kana written above in order to understand, but more often than not they depicted expressions I had yet to learn a meaning of. Maybe the fact that I had practiced writing, too, helped with the reading and mostly I just copied whatever I could see from books and decorations unto my given scrolls. The old man Hokage had given me scrolls as a birthday gift after he saw my beginners attempt at writing our names that day many months ago. I cannot say that I am very good at writing though because most of the time the characters I make are unclear and difficult to read. I kind of suspected that there had to be some order in which the lines were to be drawn, like when he wrote down our names that time.
So while I had already decided that a life as a ninja was not for me; I still wanted to do something useful with my life. I sure as hell did not plan to stay in this orphanage all my life like Keisuke had.
This was why, when I read my books and learned about the world of ninja (which, frankly, while terrifying, was also quite exciting); I learned the importance of a Kage. He would be kind of like the last boss that the heroes fought, but next to him sat a useful person. Someone that worked with papers and lists and numbers, yeah I am talking about his secretary. That was what I wanted to be, where I could be near the ninja and yet so far away. That, or maybe a librarian where I would have a fortress of books all around me - somewhere where I could continue practice writing and read about the world I lived in, and about the ninja that lived within.
Real life Ninja actually, was really weird. It was not the fact that they could walk on walls, jump really high and perform acrobatic moves as easy as taking a stroll. Not kidding - I have seen it myself because a few days back a group of kids my age and older had to stand outside in the rain while they stood there. Four of them. They asked us a lot of strange questions like what would I do if the orphanage had caught a fire, and what did I think of the fact that the sky was purple — which, when I looked up, it surprisingly was — even in the rain. I had actually never noticed it would sometimes change like that.
They would play games with us, too, which was kind of fun. Though I grew so tired by the end of it, that I fell asleep instantly when I went to bed.
First, we ran, as fast as we could around our house while the ninja pretended to chase us. They would throw objects made of hard paper at us that we needed to try and dodge. I was not the fastest, of course, since I was smaller than everyone else. Even my brother was faster than me, but not by much. I was however surprisingly adept at not being hit, and it took the ninja a combo attack from different angles before they hit me. Since I could kind of feel their locations, I already knew from where the object would be tossed. But ninjas are actually very sneaky and has amazing teamwork.
We played games of Janken pon, which I kind of felt bad about, almost as if I cheated. Because this creepy feeling I have when I focus on a person? Yeah, I kind of knew which hand I needed to deal in order to win. It was difficult because the ninja I played with would sometimes change their hand really quickly, and I needed to focus very hard to keep up and win. But they did say we were supposed to try and win, so there's that.
There was also a little workout routine they made us do so that we could experience what it was like to be a ninja. My muscles had never felt so strained before, not even when I was smaller and started wobbling around in my room did I become this exhausted. They told us to continue until we couldn't anymore, so I just copied what the ninja showed me and did it until I couldn't go on. By that time it was only me and my brother who were the last two still working out when a ninja told us to stop. And while I couldn't stand up for some time after that, with sweat dripping down my forehead, my brother, on the other hand, didn't even look winded at all and just gave me a confused look as if he had expected better of me.
Then they would take us to an empty room in the orphanage one by one, where we would answer even more questions, like if I have five apples and a monkey stole one kind of questions, Or if I was cooking yakisoba to four friends, how much of each ingredient would I need kind of questions. And after that they wanted us to listen to a book I had never seen before being read, and we needed to write as much down of everything we heard as we could manage.
Strangely I did not see anyone else go into that room; but hey, I have already learned how sneaky ninja can be.
A few days later. It sunny outside for once, and my brother is running around, jumping down and up, and somehow gives the feeling of appearing to be everywhere at once; both inside and outside. I am more or less enjoying sitting here by myself in this corner of the common room and thinking about all these things that have happened. There is some kind of satisfying sense of accomplishment that the droplets of ink falling from the tip of my brush gives me when I gently tap my finger against the wood. I am not really able to write anything at all like this since my mind is elsewhere.
All of a sudden I hear Hokage-sama calling my name, and I look up. I am not sure why he is here today, maybe I had a birthday again; that would make me six years old already. He seemed interested in the mock drawings on my scroll like he saw something important there. Or maybe he did not. It must have been the first time he initiated a conversation with little ol' me and he looked a little sad as if he was thinking the same thing. I almost expected the "go away" that seemed to be a common phrase once calling out to me. But when he spoke and said something else instead…
"Would Rei-kun like to come with me for a while?"
…I felt my eyes narrow into thin slits and the comforting tick and tock tap on my thigh was back.
Notes:
Kikei, I should hope, means a freak in the sense that she is a monster in their eyes.
Bakakodomo, essentially "a fool child" according to google translate…
Yakisoba, it is a noodle dish