Our Little World
Chapter One: Lost Childhood
Sakura felt her heart hit hard against her ribcage, her stomach felt like it was tied in knots and her veins felt like they were full of gasoline that had met with the match in her heart. Her entire body was on fire. She sank deep into the bottom of her bathtub, her arms wrapped around her body as if trying to keep her torso from falling apart. Her breaths came out in hard bursts, she tried to squeeze her eyes shut as hard as possible, as if that would make everything disappear, including her.
"Sakura? Are you in there?" She could hear her mother's sleepy voice call from the hallway. In response Sakura squeezed her eyes shut even tighter and tried to pretend she didn't hear her mother over the roar of the shower.
"Sakura?" Her mother called again, this time louder. The sound rang in her ears.
"I'm almost done!" Sakura called back, hoping her mother couldn't hear the way her voice was cracking.
Evidently, she didn't, her mother offered a hum of approval and drudged off. Sakura could hear her mother's slippers scraping the rough wooden boards of the hallway and for a second, the girl felt a glimmer of relief.
She nervously opened her eyes, forcing herself to look at her body. She was thin, her bones almost protruding from the skin, ugly, dark purple bruises brimming with yellow were spattered over her inner thighs, she tried to part her legs, wincing hard as her thighs protested, a small trickle of blood mixed with the pulsating water from the showerhead and swirled down the drain. She felt her chest tighten as she lurched forward, aggressively wiping at her eyes with her palms.
She just wanted the world to disappear.
Our Little World
She didn't remember what happened- not really, just one second he asked her to sit in his lap, she didn't want to, but she did like she always had. Then his hand touched her thigh and everything went dark.
When reality sank back in, she was standing over her grandparent's kitchen sink, washing the blood from her blunt, academy kunai. Spatters of blood over her naked skin. She felt hollow, nothing but a tight heat in her chest and a soreness between her legs.
She calmly walked over to the corpse of her grandfather, his face twisted into some ugly expression. The memorial incense that had been lit hours before, for her grandmother, were covering the smell of his own filth and her vomit. She picked up her crumpled red dress and pulled it over her frail body. She didn't know what to do now.
Taking a couple steps back, she screamed.
She didn't know what else to do, so she just kept screaming.
She screamed until the elderly woman who lived next door burst inside, taking a look at the scene before her and coming to usher the small girl outside. Sakura just kept screaming, she could swear she felt her vocal chords tearing themselves to shreds. She could no longer hear her own voice, but she kept screaming.
She screamed until she could feel hard hands on her shoulders, shaking her hard. Sakura sucked in her breath and looked up to see a head full of shaggy grey hair and a charcoal eye.
Her moment of clarity brought her attention to the flood of warm goop threatening to spill up her throat, she choked for a second before leaning forward to spill the contents of her stomach, gasping desperately for breath.
The silver haired man yelled something at the elderly woman who had screamed at the sight of blood in the young girls bile, something about it just being from her throat. She could feel the man's hands roaming over her midsection and her mind snapped back to survival mode, without thinking, she kicked and bit at the man, who easily dodged her attempts at harm.
She could see something akin to suspicion froth from his single eye, before he handed the girl off to the elderly woman and went back inside, the room now flush with adults. Sakura felt hazy, like her mind was moving in and out of consciousness by the time the man had returned, offering the young girl a second glance before pulling the elderly woman aside to question her.
Moments later two chunin walked outside, one wearing a medical mask over the lower portion of his face, the other was her sensei at the academy- Iruka. He was saying something to her but her mind wouldn't allow her to focus in, when she opened her mouth she winced and her brows furrowed together, her throat hurt too bad to speak. She attempted again and a gurgling sounds erupted. She winced and clutched the column of her neck.
A voice found clarity among the fuzz that was her current mental state- the silver haired man- "Give her some time." He sighed lazily, she noticed that without touching her, he ushered her through the house, she tried to avoid looking directly at the white sheet that covered the man she had once called grandfather, now a heap on the floor.
She caught glimpse of a deep red stain forming, looking like a rose among the crumpled sheet. She remembered that sheet, it had once been used for her grandfather's bed, she knew that sheet very well. She wished now that the stains from her tears were visible, so that they would all understand. She didn't do anything wrong.
She didn't do anything wrong.
Fear started to rise in her chest as she was met at the front porch by her mother, in hysterical tears, her mother was still in her flak jacket and she smelled of sweat as she dropped down on her knees to crush her daughter into a desperate embrace.
For a second a deep shame crept into Sakura's throat, she was unable to return the embrace her mother desperately sought. Did she know? Tears bubbled in the corner of the pinkettes eyes. No. She didn't want her mom to know, she didn't want anyone to know. Her hands trembled desperately, scared to touch her mother with her soiled body. So she just stood as her mother embraced her, trembling.
She looked past her mother, into the eyes of the silver haired man, something in her begged him to do something, to help.
He looked away.
Our Little World
They thought someone had broken in and tried to rob him, luckily her grandfather had been boasting about winnings from a local bingo game, but there were none to be found and no shopkeepers recalled seeing her grandfather around. They figured someone broke into his home to steal the winnings, found her grandfather, slaughtered the old man and took off with his winnings. Sakura doubted he had ever won anything at all. He was a very good liar.
She went with the story, saying she was in the bathroom and she was scared. She was okay with being the coward if it meant she wasn't the murderer, or worse. So when she appeared before the council she told her short, simple story. Praying it would work.
On some whim of a hair, it did.
Sakura walked free, with her mother devastated that she had lost her elderly father, and Sakura herself feeling freer than she had before.
Soiled, but free.
Our Little World
On her tenth birthday her mom made her a pink cake with small white flowers on it. Sakura smiled big for the first time in four years, as she blew out her birthday candles. Her mother gave her a jade chopstick for her hair, Sakura knew her mother was taking late shifts guarding the gate to afford it, so she tried her best to be excited for the gift. It was beautiful.
Our Little World
A week later, she met Sasuke Uchiha, she'd known of him- obviously, the whole town was on edge after what happened to his family, and he'd been in her class, but she really met him the day he broke the hair pin her mother had so desperately saved up her money for.
She was leaving the library with some books she'd borrowed using her mom's library card when she saw him sitting on a dock by a nearby stream. The small pinkette tucked a stray hair behind her ear and clutched the book she had been waiting weeks for under her arm as she trudged down to the dock, a small pink blush touching her cheeks.
She really didn't have a plan, she just saw him sitting there looking sad, and wanted to go see if he was okay. She wasn't sure how girls were supposed to talk to boys, but it made her a little uncomfortable. She saw the way his shoulders hitched when the dock creaked under her weight, but he didn't turn around.
"Um, excuse me are you-"
She wasn't able to get a full sentence out by the time a blur of yellow and orange whizzed past her, her eyes widened when she saw it crash into the boy, not knowing what to do, she ran to the end of the dock, her hands grabbing for the two young boys who had crashed into the stream. It was late fall, too cold for being in the water.
She was able to grab the blonde boy but she couldn't see his face, not very well at least, though he looked familiar too. Sasuke grappled himself back up onto the dock, scathing. His expression made Sakura flinch.
Sakura leaned forward to help him up but he smacked her hand away, causing her to lose her balance, when she slipped she landed hard on the splintery surface of the dock, her hairpin falling hard onto the surface, breaking in half before it rolled into the waters of the stream.
She felt her heart break and forgot about the blonde she'd accidentally dropped into the water, that was a gift from her mother. Her face turned red with anger and she shouted to the retreating Uchiha, it came out a snooty gasp, when in reality she wanted it to come out as a swear word. She turned her head and angrily helped the groaning blonde up onto the dock.
When he flipped the unruly blonde spikes out of his face she flinched a bit. It was that boy, he was always alone. She remembered him from class too, he wasn't a very good student. Her mom told her to stay away from him, but never told her why.
When the blonde noticed her staring his cheeks flushed and he gave a rebellious "What?!"
Sakura stood and shook the wood splinters off her t shirt before giving him an expression full of sadness and anger, eyes brimming slightly with those cry baby tears she'd always had. "That was a gift from my mom and you made me lose them! No wonder nobody ever wants to play with you!" She huffed out of anger and hurt before she ran off, leaving a forlorn blonde behind.
Our Little World
She met Naruto Uzumaki, when he came to her on the playground, pale and sniffling with a bad cold. "Here, Sakura-Chan." He said, his voice warped due to his dripping nose.
"What?" Sakura said, looking down at his shaking hand, in his palm, sat her jade chopstick, taped sloppily back together, her brows knitted together as she picked it out of his hand, alarmed at the feverish heat coming off his body. "How did you-"
"I dove to the bottom!" He howled proudly, his thumb pressing hard into his chest as he offered a wide grin before sucking up the snot dripping from his nose. Sakura's face contorted in disgust for a moment and as if realizing that his snot was not acceptable in the presence of a lady he hurriedly turned around to viciously wipe at his face with his sleeve. She didn't know which action she found grosser.
But as she looked down at the chopstick her cheeks flushed a bit, she'd said such mean things to him and he still dove to the bottom of the stream to get this for her, the cold fall stream. She felt a prickle of tears appear once more. The blonde was alarmed at the sight of her tears and asked her if he did something wrong.
She wiped her face and apologized, thanking him for getting it back for her.
"What's so important about that thing n'yway?" He asked, scratching her head.
Sakura blushed and explained that it was a birthday gift from her mother, she noticed his eyes swimming with a sad expression when she said mother, but he seemed to perk up a bit at 'birthday'.
"Well, consider this your birthday present, Sakura-Chan!" He laughed.
"By the way, how do you know my name?" She said curiously, remembering that he had called her that earlier too.
"Oh!" He laughed nervously, "Well… I didn't really know your name and I wanted to return the thing properly, y'know? So I asked Iruka-Sensei about it during detention yesterday." He nodded proudly.
Sakura did recall that he was in detention a lot, but she assumed there wasn't any talking allowed in detention. "Yeah…" She muttered, feeling a little uncomfortable. She didn't have anything to give to him in return for getting this back for her.
He sneezed into his sleeve and the trail of mucus almost left her gagging, reaching into her pocket she pulled out a small orange handkerchief, handing it to him while simultaneously trying to avoid contact with the snotty child.
He looked very surprised, but accepted it, "Can I… I mean, is this for me to keep?" He questioned. Sakura was confused, he was acting like she'd given him a gift, or something.
"Sure?" She shrugged, confused.
He smiled at her, that cheeky grin he'd worn when he presented her lost chopstick back to her, and blew his nose.
"Wanna' see something cool?" He questioned, Sakura had to get home, but told him that if he hurried, that would be fine.
When he lead her out to the deep forest, she felt a familiar fear come over her. She shouldn't have let him take her somewhere this secluded, anything could happen to her. His overwhelmingly male presence struck chords of fear in the darkest recesses of Sakura's mind, she felt her hand wander to her kunai belt.
When said blonde turned into a hundred versions of himself, Sakura was amazed. She will never forget the day Naruto shared that with her.
Our Little World
By the time Sakura was twelve, she and Naruto had become good friends. Her mother let him stay over for dinner sometimes, though she always seemed wary of him, her mother was just glad her daughter had made a friend.
Sakura had even gotten an apology out of Sasuke Uchiha, something she thought impossible after the way he had shoved her when they had met. Though they didn't speak after that, she found herself enamored by his beauty like most other girls. One girl in particular, whom she had been friends with when she was very little, they had a falling out after some argument, but now it turned into an all out feud between the pinkette and the Yamanaka.
Naruto consistently spoke ill of the Uchiha, and during times of frustration Sakura would agree, while other times she'd just ignore him or whap him over the head lightly. The blonde would tell her about his great pranks and types of ramen he had, Sakura even ate ramen at his favorite ramen stand once on his birthday, it wasn't as good as he made it sound. But she didn't really like ramen.
On her birthday, he didn't have any money so he wrote her name on the Hokage monument, they both got in trouble for that one.
But the day that she was assigned to team seven, was not a happy day, even assigned on a team with her first crush and her best friend, she couldn't remember a moment of happiness that day. It was all overshadowed by a puff of chalk dust, and a single charcoal eye.
When she first saw Kakashi Hatake- her new jonin sensei- everything came rushing back. Blood, the soreness between her legs, and the sound of her hoarse screams.
The man only spared her a glance, as he had the rest of her new team, she felt a tinge of anger that he didn't seem to recognize her whatsoever. When he brought back a flood of buried emotions and rage that had rested deep in her belly for years.
After Naruto berated the man with an onslaught of insults for being over an hour late, they were lead up to the roof of the building. It was sunny, but she didn't recall feeling warmth on her skin, she felt cold despite the sweltering Konoha heat.
He asked them to share some things about themselves with him, the standard things you would ask children. Your likes, dislikes, dreams and whatnot, Naruto gave his usual spiel about all of his favorite kinds of ramen (Sakura already knew his answers.) then proceeded to give Sasuke a nasty look when referring to his dislikes, and continued on to the Hokage speech he gave everyone. Usually, Sakura would offer a small smile at his passionate speech out of consideration for her friend but her face felt numb. Everything felt numb.
Silence stretched for minutes and she soon realized that the question he had asked had gone straight over her head. Now everyone, including Sasuke, was staring intently at her. She could see a flash of confusion on Naruto's face, along with irritation on Sasuke's. A small blush touched her cheeks and she offered an uncomfortable "What?"
The silver haired man quirked an eyebrow at her, "Likes, dislikes and dreams?" He sighed. Seemingly uninterested with anything she would have to say.
Sakura's stomach knotted at the sound of his voice, but she cleared her throat and tried to sit up more in response to the unwanted attention from her teammates. "Um, I'm Sakura Haruno, I like sweets and… books, Uh, I dislike…. Well, I guess I don't really know what I dislike, and I want to be a good ninja one day." She said as she awkwardly shifted around in her seat, feeling pressured to answer quickly. She wanted to go home.
"Okay?" The silver haired man sighed in a confused manner, before turning to the last participant.
"I don't like much of anything, but I dislike a lot of things. As for dreams, I want to kill a certain man…" Sasuke trailed off, eyes smouldering in a way that made Sakura's stomach flip. She felt an uncomfortable silence haze over their little group. She felt the urge to leave.
The Jonin cleared his throat and stood, bringing a small orange book to the bridge of his covered nose and declared that they would be having a test tomorrow, and not to eat anything or they may vomit. Proclaiming that if they had failed the test they would be sent back to the academy.
On their way home, Naruto chatted happily to her about what her mom was making for dinner and how excited he was to be going on 'real ninja missions', but a deep unsettling feeling crept through her stomach.
What was a Jonin doing there… that day? Why did it have to be him? Why didn't he say anything?
Naruto Belongs To Masashi Kishimoto.