Hi readers. This is my first published fanfiction ever. I don't know if it's good enough, I'm not that confident in my writing skill actually. I am not a native either, so my vocabulary is so limited and my grammar….*laugh awkwardly*. Nevertheless, I will try my best, because I love and worship Sasodei so much! I dedicate this story for both of them.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. I just own the plot and if there's same story like the one I wrote, that's merely a coincidence.
Chapter 1 - A Short Meeting in the Middle School
Today wasn't a good day either. A boy looked down at his feet, walking along the street to his home. His eyes were downcast, avoiding people's stare. He wouldn't allow such a worthless people adding wound to his already bruised pride.
He tried to ignore them, but who was he anyway? He was still a human. A human boy. A fourteen years old human boy which was getting stared at by all the human population in the public place because of his current condition.
If it was another day, maybe he would just walk indifferently like he always did, but today was different. He was tired, physically and mentally, so he couldn't help but feeling embarrassed, humiliated, and wanted nothing but the earth to swallow him whole when he was in the spotlight of public interest.
His uniform was dirty and wet with mud and dirt. His once red hair was now brown. All his body was sticky. It was disgusting, even to him. He felt like a mud monster in child's cartoon. Plus imagined that he must walk in that state all the way from school to his house. Great.
He sighed softly for the hundredth times since the whole episode started.
The boy walked slowly to his house, having his shoes heavier than they should because of the sticky brown mud. His house had already near. He could saw its white front gate in a distance. The boy fixed his school bag, took off his shoes, and started a small running.
"I'm home." The redhead murmured standing at the doorstep of his house, afraid he could make the floor dirty with the disgusting mud.
"Sasori? Is that you?" A voice which more likely came from the kitchen asked unsurely. His mom must have heard the front door opened it seemed.
"Yeah, it's me." Sasori answered. Deciding that maybe he needed help to prevent dirtying the house and adding to his mom's housework, he added, "Mom? I think I need a little help here."
"Give me a moment, honey." He heard his mother replied and some kitchen utensils noisily being moved.
Several minutes later his mother emerged from the kitchen, still wearing her favorite blue apron with sunflowers decorated its front. Upon looking at his son, her step stopped abruptly. "What happened to you?!" She immediately rushed to her son's side, checking for any injury.
"Fall." Sasori calmly replied. It wasn't a lie. However, his mother didn't need to know the detail.
"You fall more often than I make a cake! Which is saying something, boy." His mother frowned, clearly not believing her son's excuse.
Sasori sighed. "But it's the truth, Mom. Maybe I'm just clumsy like that…"
Now his mother's turn to sighed. "I will be back with a wet towel then." She said. Sasori nodded and watched his mother walked inside the house to retrieve the towel.
He shrugged. He knew his mother -or should he say foster mother- wouldn't pry into his affair.
It had been eight years ago when Sasori's real parents died in the plane crash in the middle of the ocean, no bodies could be retrieve for the family to mourn over the dead, but it was the fact.
Sasori was just five years old child back then, believing that his parents were safe and sound in another country, doing family business, while he waited patiently with his grandmother at home.
They lived together in that house, four of them. He loved his grandmother. She was a gentle woman, smart, and had so many talents. She teached him everything she knew from cooking to medical knowledge. However, his favorite lesson was puppetry. He was really talented in that area. Not that he wasn't talented in other subjects, but still.
Two years had pass without a single news from his parent. The red head boy began to feel that something was wrong. They had never been gone for this long and they would always call home to ask his and grandma's condition. However, this time, it was completely nothing.
He started to ask his grandma about his parents, if they had sent a letter, or maybe they had called when he wasn't present, but she just shook her head and said he should wait a little bit longer. Thus, little Sasori just waited for his parents' return.
Every night, before went to sleep, the little lonely boy always stared at the window near his bed, looking at the starry sky. He remembered every time his parent went home after a long trip, they always told him story about the place they visited. His mother told him that in the big city, they didn't have a starry sky but a lot of tiny little light illuminated the whole city. Not as beautiful as starry sky, but they had their own beauty.
He remembered his mother promised him to take him with them the next time they went out the country, but alas, he was sick that day when the departure was scheduled, thus he couldn't go with his parent.
That day, Sasori cried the entire time, throwing child tantrum to make them took him to the trip even though he was sick. He didn't care. He wanted to go and that was final. He was stubborn. However, his parents were more stubborn. So he was stuck with his grandma at home, in little peaceful town close to country border called Suna.
Surrender, he said goodbye with face full of tears, eyes red and puffy from crying. His mother gave him a kiss on the cheek and told him to be a good boy for his grandma before walking to her husband who already inside a taxi in front of their house. They waved and shouting goodbye for the last time and the taxi drove off into the night. Unfortunately, it was also the last time Sasori saw his parents.
It was five years of waiting, five years of constant worried, five years of being left in the dark, that made Sasori had had enough. He gave up hope. He knew his parents wouldn't come. However, being a curious child that he was, one day, the ten years old Sasori sneaked out his house to go to local library. He wanted to search any information about his parent whereabouts. He used the library computer to access the internet. Entering his parents' flight number he found on the ticket that used to be his ticket, he found many articles came out. He clicked one of them and started to read.
His parents were died.
It was all in the news. The plane had crash several years ago in the middle of the ocean. The title of the news was big, bold, it was mocking him. At the exact moment, Sasori didn't know if he wanted to laugh or cry. All this years, he had been waiting in vain. He clenched his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. His body shook a little, restraining desire to scream bloody murder in the quiet library.
That day, Sasori went home zombie like. He depended on his foot to automatically walk him to his house. His mind was somewhere else entirely. He determined to have an answer from his grandma concerning his parents' death when he got back home, but what made him surprise was there, in front of his house, was an ambulance.
The redhead went pale. His body turned ice cold in a matter of second. He felt sick to his stomach. Sasori prayed to God that it wasn't the worst case scenario in his head that that happened to his grandma. He ran the rest of the way to his house.
His grandmother was hospitalized that day. Turned out she fell and her head hit a corner of kitchen table. The doctor needed to stitch the wound. Fortunately, nothing life threatening happen, unfortunately she didn't remember who Sasori was. She had amnesia.
After the whole fiasco with his grandma, Sasori was forced to an orphanage due to her incapability to take care of him. His grandma herself lived with her brother Ebizo in a same nursing house. Pitiful really. However, there was no one else who wanted to take care of old senile like them. Sasori felt bad for his grandmother. He would still visit her though once in a while. He promised her, because she was all that left from his family.
Not long after that, he was adopted by his current parents. Being the genius that he was, every married couple that came to the orphanage wanted to adopt him.
He snorted.
In the public eyes, he was a prodigy child, calm, mature, polite, overall a very good boy. Not to mention he was so cute as a child, both from his face and his short nature. Sasori rolled his eyes every time people pinched his cheek and called him cute. However, in reality, he was like an empty shell, not capable to feel anything. His heart was long since died along with the lost of his family.
His foster parents weren't bad. They were ok. It was his second years living with them but Sasori couldn't help but still feel empty and hollow. The numbness wouldn't go away. He went to school, chat with his foster parents sometimes, live a normal life, but he felt more alone than before. He realized he had made barrier for others to be close to him.
There was always a distance between him and his foster parents. He didn't open up to them at all -or to anyone for that matter- as if he didn't want them to replace his parents place, or maybe he was just afraid if he was attached to them and they were gone he would be devastated. His parents didn't know which, but one thing was that that made the things awkward between them. That was the very reason why one wouldn't dare to oppose the other even though they knew the other had done wrong.
Sometimes it felt like he was just a stranger, renting a room in his foster parent's house. This kind of relationship wouldn't have last long. He knew it, but Sasori couldn't bring himself to care. He had lost the ability to care. The only thing he cared about now was his art and his art alone.
He didn't need friends, he didn't need new parents, he didn't need love, he just needed his art. His art would never leave him, would never betray him, and would never hurt him. His art was his whole world. It was the world he felt safe and a little bit happy in. He could create it like he wanted it to be, it was like his escape route from the emptiness he felt, from the real world. Did that make him a coward? To just run away from his problem? Once again he didn't care. It was a little thing that made him sane.
However, there was one little thing Sasori liked from his current parents.
They were constantly moving.
He loved to see something new once in a while, kept him from bored to death with his mundane life, it also gave him inspiration about his art, and not to mention gave him excuse to his parents' questioning him why he never went out at weekend with his friends or have someone came over. He would just say he didn't want to make any bond as long as they were constantly moving and they would leave him alone.
This was the second time Sasori moved with his new family. It was a small town, bigger than his birth town by a bit. It would be a beautiful town, really, when its people were nice enough, or at least would try to be nice. Also, criminal rate at this town was very high. Children, even teenagers were strictly forbidden to go outside their house when night came. Adult didn't dare to go outside without at least a weapon to protect themselves in their possession. Lucky for him, he lived in a safe side of town where the criminal rate was the lowest, but Sasori still didn't like this town. No, he detested, despised it. Especially because of a blonde boy who made his life a living hell.
A popular boy at his school named Deidara.
It was an instant hate, at least at the blonde's side. Sasori didn't have the slightest idea why he was hated by the other. It never happened before in his past school.
If he remembered correctly, he was just standing in front of his locker before Deidara addressed him with insult and pushed him so hard, he fell on his ass. Ok, maybe he was kinda nerd, with nerd and scholarly style of clothes, unkempt red hair, eyes hidden behind his messy red bangs which he intentionally let them grew to cover his eyes from the world, short petite body, shorter than all the boys his age, the list went on. He didn't care about fashion and appearance that much, it was true. However, they weren't enough reason to hate him at the first sight!
Since that cursed meeting, Deidara didn't stop harassing the redhead and made his live a living hell. He was more violent day by day and thus, was leading to the current event with sticky brown disgusting mud. Oh, and Sasori forgot to think of an excuse why he walked home. His bicycle had been damaged beyond repair and there was no way he could ride on it anymore.
The redhead massaged his temple, suddenly felt a headache coming. He knew how sucks his luck by now. He just hoped it didn't last forever. He snorted. How ironic. He liked the idea of his art lasted forever. But then again, luck wasn't art, right?
Back at the current time, his mother finally came with a wet towel and handed it to him. Sasori thanked her and began to clean himself while his mother went back to the kitchen to continue whatever she was doing before Sasori came. The towel in his hand was quick become brown. The mud was really disgusting. He needed to rinse the towel and his clothes as soon as possible, if not, the stain would be permanent.
Feeling clean enough to walk in the house, Sasori went to his bedroom to get clean clothes and rushed to the bathroom.
After took a shower and made sure to washed down all the mud that stick to his hair and body like a second skin, Sasori went on to washed his shoes and school bag which as dirty. Today was sucks. No. Every day was sucks since Deidara decided Sasori would be his personal punching bag. His hand unconsciously rubbed his stomach which had been punched before that day.
The boy sighed. At least tomorrow was the last school day for the eighth grader before they graduated in a couple of days, he mused. Although he failed to see the need to have a rehearsal for graduation day. He was really tempted to skip it but oh well, he would be a good boy this time and attended it.
At dinner that night, the redhead sat quietly poking his food disinterestedly while his foster parent talk about promotion or something. His mind wandered to his newest unfinished puppet, to school, and last but not least, to the school bully, Deidara. How he hated that boy. He was ridiculous, childish and stupid. He heard that the blonde was almost held back a grade last year.
"What do you say, Sasori?" He heard his father asked something to him, snapping him from his daydreaming.
"I'm sorry I didn't quite catch you before." He apologized politely.
"Your father will be promoted, honey. It is a big promotion!" His mother said excitedly. Sasori tilted his head slightly. "We will move to the capital city!"
Okay, that was a big news. Even to Sasori.
"Capital city…"He murmured quietly and remembered his birth mother's story long, long ago. He would finally see what it was like with his own eyes.
For the first time since he was being adopted, Sasori offered his foster parents a small smile. "Congratulation for the promotion, I'm happy for you."
His mother looked happier than she was before, if that was possible and his father just thanked him, quite satisfied with the little gesture. "If I recall next week is also your graduation too, right Sasori?" He asked.
The boy nodded.
"Good. We can move after your graduation ceremony. Start to prepare from now." Sasori nodded once again to tell his father that he understood.
If he remembered correctly, just one year ago they move here, to Iwa town, now they had to move again. However, the redhead was eager to leave this place as soon as possible, started a new life, away from Deidara. He just hoped in his next school he wouldn't be bullied.
oOo
Graduation rehearsal had just finished. It was lunch time but Sasori didn't feel like eating.
He would be there anyway, surrounded by his loud annoying friends and the redhead wanted to avoid him at all cost today. He didn't need the mud accident to repeat itself now, so he decided maybe he would have a small reading at the library.
Sasori walked lazily to the library direction. There weren't too many students except some eighth grader like him and several lower graders who just wanted to hang out with friends at school. The red head couldn't be thankful for that. Usually the hallway was so packed up with student, taller and bigger than him; he could be crushed any minute if not careful.
As soon as Sasori arrive at the old library, he went to non-fiction section and scanned the books there one by one.
He stopped at this one book about advanced human anatomy. He was always fascinated about human anatomy, maybe the second to his art. Art would always come first. He took the book from the shelf and opened it, taking a quick peek of its content. He didn't want to read a book which he had already known all the information inside, did he? Sasori nodded to himself, satisfied that it was turned out to be a good book, maybe in a level of medical university student handbook.
The redhead then went to an unoccupied table beside the window to start reading, all the way wondered how the book could end up here, at the middle schooler library.
Several hours of intense reading later, Sasori's stomach suddenly grumbled. He wondered what time it was. He looked up only to find that the library was already deserted. He couldn't find another student except for himself there.
Sasori got up from his seat to put the book back at its place and went to cafeteria. Hope there was still some food left.
The cafeteria wasn't as packed as usual when Sasori arrived there. Maybe it was because he came long after the lunch time, or maybe because it wasn't a school day. Student wasn't required coming to school except for the eighth grader.
There were several students lined up to buy food at the counter and the redhead made a move to the queue.
Turned out it was Sasori's lucky day. He got the last food of the cafeteria while the person behind him groaned in disappointment. He couldn't help but smirked at the other's misery. The redhead looked at the spaghetti on his tray, his stomach grumbled again impatiently, begging to be feed. He walked to the nearest empty seat, oblivious that someone had sneaked behind him.
It happened so fast, he didn't even have time to register what was happening until his face covered in spaghetti. The sauce dripped from his face to his uniform, several laughters were heard around the cafeteria and of course to top them all, a chuckle from a person near him who was more likely the cause of this entire incident.
Sasori just stood in his spot, unmoving. He thought he had already forgotten how to feel anything, but at that time, the redhead boy was feeling something boiling inside him.
Left it to Deidara to force some feeling out of him.
"Look, the ugly nerd freak was actually too stupid to do anything, his brain freezed!" A laugh.
Sasori swept his face from the red sauce, all the while gritting his teeth to prevent himself not doing anything regretfully. He was beyond pissed. He had had enough of this humiliation.
Sasori didn't usually respond to Deidara's advance. He would just let it happened, and then walked away without saying anything, being as ignorant as he was in everything. He always thought the other wasn't worth his time. However, today was different. Maybe because of hunger, the boy concluded.
"Oi ugly nerd, I wonder how your parents look like if they have a son as ugly as you. Maybe it was genetic, un." The bully snickered.
Wrong move.
In a millisecond a tray collided violently with the blonde's face in a sickening voice. Deidara cried in pain, stumbled backward before fell on his ass. Blood was already oozing from his broken nose –at least he thought it was broken-. His blue eyes watered, bearing the pain from the collision. He felt his shirt being grabbed roughly, forcing him to look up to his assaulter hovering above him.
"You can insult me, I don't care. But don't you dare insult my parents!" The redhead growled, his voice was full of malice.
"Oh, mommy's boy, aren't you?" Deidara spat mockingly.
Sasori's hand clutched tightly, his knuckle turned white. He was ready to punched Deidara when suddenly a strong hand seized his lifting arm, preventing him to really punch the other in the face.
"Let me go!" He yelled to his captor.
"Akasuna, principal office, now!" The person, a teacher, commanded sternly.
Sasori tch'ed, reluctantly released Deidara, half shoving him, and without saying anything he left the cafeteria in grim.
The teacher sighed, eyes following the retreat figure of the redhead until he was out of the vision, then he turned to the student sitting on the floor.
"Deidara, go to the infirmary." He said, annoyed by the trouble maker's attitude. The boy nodded weakly. His nose throbbing badly; blood kept coming out from it. His two friends approaching him then helped their friend walked to the infirmary.
As the three of them entered the infirmary, the nurse there shook her head. "Who was it this time?" She asked.
"Just treat me already!" Deidara grumbled under his breath, cringing as a pain shoot through his body from his broken nose.
She sighed and stood up from her seat to get band aid, an ice pack and a basin filled with water with small towel to clean the boy's bloody nose. The nurse inspected the nose and reassured him it wasn't broken, but she suggested the boy rest a little in the infirmary before going home. Deidara just nodded. His two friends patted his back and said their goodbye.
After being left alone, Deidara just rest on the infirmary bed, looking at the ceiling. His nose was still throbbing but the ice pack made the pain lessened greatly. He really didn't expect the nerd to stand up at him. He was usually submissive, Deidara swore. If he was more alert, he was so sure could dodge the attack easily like eating cake.
The boy grumbled to himself and tossed around slightly to have a more comfortable position on the bed.
Several hours later or maybe was it several minutes later? Deidara didn't know for sure because he was half asleep and barely conscious on the bed with wind blowing gently from the window beside him, he heard the door to infirmary opened.
The new person talked quietly with the nurse but Deidara couldn't careless, he just so sleepy and ready to go into slumber when the footstep of the newcomer seemed approaching his bed.
Deidara groaned quietly. "Go away, un! This bed is occupied."
"Heh...As rude as ever." The person snorted mockingly.
The blode's eyes snapped opened to look, there, near the end of his bed, stood the only reason he was lying on infirmary bed right now.
"Why are you here, un?" Deidara glared dagger to the redhead and the latter just stood silently still. "Oh I know, you want to kill me when I'm lying helplessly on the bed, huh?"
The other boy kept silent although Deidara could felt his eyebrows rose slightly. He couldn't tell for sure because the other's eyes were covered by bangs.
"As badly as I want to, no. I'm here to apologize. Principal's order." He shrugged.
"What's the point if you apologize because of others' order, un? Save it, I don't want it." Deidara paused. "No, I don't want anything from you. Go away, un!" He waved his hand to shoo him and closed his eyes to have a small nap.
There was a moment of silent between them before Deidara heard the other talked again, "Why do you hate me so much?" The blonde heard him but chose to remain silent. "I have never done anything to offend anyone."
Deidara kept ignoring him while pretending to be asleep. Sasori sighed. It was pointless to talk to the blonde. It would only irritate him further.
He was going to leave when suddenly he heard the other spoke.
"I hate your appearance."
Sasori stopped moving, waiting for more answer from the blonde, but none come."That's it? You bullied someone just because you hate their appearance?!" The redhead said in disbelieved. "I don't know what to say."
"Then shut up and leave, un!" The blonde scoffed, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
Hesitantly, Sasori asked again, "Why?" He saw Deidara's blue eyes opened and glared at him.
"I hate how you are so careless with yourself, un! No….You careless of everything! I just know your type! When you can have everything you want with that genius brain of yours, you just made yourself seemed pathetic, vulnerable and called to be bullied, un! If you don't respect yourself, take care of yourself, then no one would! If you show weakness people will eat you! I hate people like you, un! "
Sasori was, how he could say it, surprised by the blonde's outburst. He thought he could understand the other a bit better now. He didn't expect that his reasoning would make any sense, but it was. However, he got half of it wrong. Particularly, he, Sasori couldn't have everything he wanted.
The redhead wanted to argue more with the other boy, but he decided it could wait. Deidra looked tired and in needed of rest. Sasori then reached into his pocket pants and took something out from it. He threw the thing to Deidara's head.
"Ouch! What's that for, un?!" The boy scowled, rubbing his forehead. He looked at the unknown object that had landed on the pillow beside his head. It was a small candy.
"Heard you are a bully with big sweet teeth." The other smirked. Deidara gaped like a fish out of water, his cheeks turned slightly pink.
"I've never….." He started before a realization hit him.
"MS. SHIZUNE!"
A giggle from the nurse was heard.
Deidara cursed.
No one ever knew his loved for sweet except for the nurse. It was an embarrassing memory Deidara would prefer to forget. For now, just said that it involved sex ed.
"Anyway, I'm sorry for your-" Sasori motioned to the other's nose. "But I have no regret."
"Yeah, whatever." The blonde grunted. The redhead nodded and left him alone without another word and Deidara just grumbled the rest of his infirmary stay.
oOo
Today was the day of his graduation day, and of course Sasori awarded to be an honor student like always, with perfect scores and all. His parents were there to congratulation him. It was nothing special overall. Sasori looked bored like always, sitting alone while his parents had a chat with his principal.
The redhead was aware that a particular student with blonde hair was glaring dagger at him from afar. He could even feel the hatred from where he was sitting. Sasori just ignored him. It was also his last day at Iwa, so why bothered.
He saw his foster parents came to get him. He exhaled. This was it. He stood up and followed them to parking lot. Sasori didn't want to admit it, but he was really considering Deidara's words back then. He stopped to look at his reflection on their car window. He brushed his bangs back, revealing his grayish-brown eyes for the world to see.
Maybe he would have a haircut when they arrived at the capital. Sasori opened the door of the car and got inside. The car immediately drove off to the new live waiting for them at the capital city.