Disclaimer: Naruto was written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto, not me.
Emotive
Emotionaladjective; passionate; affected by an emotion.
Synonyms: ardent, disturbed, emotive, enthusiastic, excitable, exciting, fanatical, feeling, fervent, fickle, fiery, heart-warming, impassioned, impulsive, irrational, overwrought, pathetic, poignant, responsive, sensitive, sentimental, stirring, temperamental, tender, thrilling, touching, warm, zealous.
Antonyms: cold, dispassionate, emotionless, insensitive, unemotional, unfeeling.
The first person to come to Sai's mind was Sakura.
Taking out his sketchpad he flipped to his most recent drawing of his teammate. He looked at her likeness as she was caught in mid air, right before she delivered a bone crushing blow to their other teammate, Naruto, for a comment he made during training. They were just thighs. Sai didn't understand her extreme response to the comment.
But that was the thing about Sakura. She was the perfect study of emotion.
Ardent: adjective; intensly devoted or enthusiastic; vehement, fierce, firey.
He looked at the picture again. If he were to give it a name, it would be called "Ardent". For a healing nin, she certainly was fierce in her punishment. Even if they were close friends. And Naruto was perhaps the pink haired ninja's best friend, even if she would never admit to it. Enthusiastic? Oh yes. Sakura was enthusiastic alright. Only Naruto could rival her in that department.
Disturbed: adjective; marked by symptoms of mental illness, agitated or distressed. Noun; person who exhibits symptoms of neurosis or psychosis. Verb; to break up or destroy the tranquility or settled state, to trouble emotionally or mentally, to interfere with, to interrupt, to intrude on, to inconvenience.
Sai flipped two more pages to a different drawing of Sakura. The picture showed the young kunoichi clenching her fist (right before delivering a blow to Naruto about some comment regarding reliving himself). At the time it almost seemed as if she were having an internal conversation with someone else, both before and after the hit. That would certainly count as mentally disturbed. And it most certainly destroyed the tranquility of the woods they had been practicing in. The wildlife had been skittish for days after that.
Irrational: adjective: without the faculty of reason; deprived of reason; without or deprived of normal mental clarity or sound judgment; not in accordance with reason; utterly illogical; not endowed with the faculty of reason.
Opening the sketchpad to the middle he found the picture of Sakura smiling happily as she sat at a table nursing a cup of tea. She was having tea with her sometime friend sometime enemy, Ino. Her relationship with the blonde girl was practically the definition of the word 'irrational'. They hated each other because of their once rivalry for the boy Sasuke. But they cared each other deeply. It made no sense. How can one both hate and love another at the same time? It defied all reason.
Overwrought: adjective: extremely or excessively excited or agitated; elaborated to excess; excessively complex or ornate; wearied or exhausted by overwork
The picture that illustrated that particular word was a couple more pages back. He didn't need to turn to it to remember ever stroke of it.
It was after training one day. Naruto and Kakashi had gone off for ramen, Sakura made an excuse of wanting to do a little target practice with the kunai. Sai walked with the other males for a distance, then simply left them. He wasn't checking on Sakura out of worry or concern, merely curiosity.
He found her sitting under a tree with her knees drawn up, arms hugging them to her chest. She was sobbing. Not just crying, but sobbing. Sai knew the difference, he had looked it up later that day. It was a stronger type of weeping, convulsive and uncontrollable. The kunai she claimed to be practicing with was lying at her feet. It was memorable, because he felt something stir within him. It was foreign and uncomfortable. But he had pulled out his sketchpad and drew her, even though he knew that he should probably be focusing on the strange new sensation in his chest.
The name Sasuke was broken, but Sai recognized it anyhow as she cried. Kakashi had mentioned the boy's name right before Naruto decided that he couldn't take another second of training and was in dire need of sustenance. Ramen, of course.
Sasuke. The boy he had come to replace, though saying so only brought out violent responses. How was it possible for one human to draw out such powerful emotions in another? Sakura's anger with Naruto, though often physically violent, was not nearly so strong. Not like the anguish he witnessed from his place in the tree across from her. Was this because of the love that she claimed to have for the boy? Was the amount of love given to a person directly proportionate the amount of anguish one feels when that love is lost? If so, why would someone even want to love that much? Why open yourself to the possibility of so much… well… 'heartbreak' is the only word he could think of to describe what Sakura seemed to be feeling.
He pulled himself away from those thoughts and looked up another interesting word he had found that was a synonym for 'emotional'.
Emotive: adjective: characterized by or pertaining to emotion; productive of or directed toward the emotions; expressing, or exciting emotion; drawing out or evoking emotion.
The library door opened and soft footsteps padded in his direction. It was Sakura. He didn't have to look to know. He just knew. Lifting his eyes from the dictionary he watched as she looked through the stacks at the medical books. Her eyes lit up with happiness when she found what she was looking for.
Her eyes actually lit up with happiness. Over finding a book! But that was the thing about Sakura, she had an overabundance of emotion. Sai couldn't understand how she could survive it. Her emotions seemed to be so extreme. It had to be exhausting!
When she was only a few feet away she noticed him and smiled.
"Hey Sai."
"Sakura."
She noticed the sketchpad and the dictionary. He knew what was coming. In addition to being an explosion of emotions, she was also very inquisitive. He braced himself for the inevitable.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm contemplating your irrationality and how you are mentally disturbed, Ugly."
"WHAAAAT?"
"You just have some sort of death wish, don't you?" asked a voice from far away. Sai recognized it as Naruto's.
Slowly the darkness receded and consiousness returned. He looked at the remains of the library wall and saw Sakura profusely apologizing to the librarian. Naruto was still berating him for being an idiot who should know better than to bait Sakura as Sai pulled himself to his feet. Hmmm… a broken leg and some ribs. Sakura would heal them. She always did. Sometimes she would still be angry even as she healed him, sometimes she'd apologize, sometimes she'd be embarrassed, and very occasionally she would even shed a tear for him. For HIM.
Emotive.
He was emotive. He had the capability to draw out emotions.
He may not be able to experience or understand emotions, at least not yet. But at least he was one step closer. If he continued to study Sakura, then surely he would be able to one day understand emotions. Maybe even be able to experience them for himself.
If he survived it, that is.
ooOOooOOooOOooOOooOOooOOooOOoo
Author's Note:
I'm pretty sure this is a short little one-shot. At least that is how it was meant to be. I have, however, been known to change my mind.
Thanks to for all the definitions. Though I took liberties and shortened a bunch of them.