Broken Glass

There was something inherently beautiful about the shards of broken glass.

Origin: I'm almost ashamed to say, I've cracked multiple iPods multiple times. Said iPod(s) also include the one I am currently using. One day while cleaning it, I was looking at the area that cracked and was struck by the way the light shone off of it. And one thing led to another, and eventually came down to this.

Disclaimer: Nothing I write has plot. Therefore I can't possibly own Naruto.

He looked around at the glass left on his floor, at the jarring edges left around the hole in his window. The wind blew gently, softly whistling around the edges of what was once his window, and he shivered slightly. It didn't really matter though. He wouldn't catch a cold. There was no rush to repair the damage that had been done. Maybe he'd even keep it like this, a reminder of the imperfection of the world. He'd figure out what to do with it tomorrow. For now, all he can do is pick up the pieces.

He walks across the now-empty streets. It's far past midnight and the villagers are either at home or finishing their celebration in bars. Trash litters the sides of the streets, broken fox dolls, remnants of fireworks—leftovers of a festival.

He notes wryly that there are fox figures, fox masks, discarded fox toys, and yet nothing remains of the Yondaime artifacts that he knows are also sold at this time. The villagers know better than to carelessly toss away any legacy of their beloved hero after all. The fox figures were meant to be destroyed. The Yondaime ones, kept. It's the way of the village after all.

He reaches his apartment in due time, making sure not to catch the attention of any passerby and taking special care to avoid the bar districts. As he climbs up the steps to his apartment, he doesn't bother bracing himself for what's coming. After almost a decade, he's managed to maintain a neutral expression. He unlocks his door and walks in, ignoring the graffiti he knows will be on his wall, the rocks and sticks carrying messages and death threats lying on the ground, and he moves to the kitchen to make himself a cup of ramen. When he is finished, he throws the cup away and rinses off his chopsticks before walking back over to his broken window.

It's hardly been the first time, and he sincerely doubts it'll be the last, but there's a strange melancholy that fills him briefly before giving away to nothingness. He's never really paid much attention to what it's like. And then he realizes, there's something inherently beautiful about the moonlight shining off the shards of broken glass.

He's puzzled. Glass has never been an extraordinary thing to him before. Superheat sand to get glass—simple as that. And yet it seems completely different now, shattered into pieces. Each shard catches the light, reflecting it in different ways, each piece individual of another, yielding no hint to the fact that they could have all been one piece at one point in time; each one an individual, no two pieces exactly the same. But they all had the same root. He wonders how something so different from one another can come from the same place.

He runs his fingers gently over the frame of the window where unbroken pieces of glass still remain. They're still perfect, unaffected by the plight of those that had broken and fallen. Theres dirt and smudges though, detracting from the would-be perfection, muddying the otherwise clear view. He realizes that in the shards of broken glass, the smudges help scatter the light, almost making it more artistic.

Perfection is so easily marred, but the same elements that diminish perfection also bring out character in something flawed. Almost as if to say, "I've been there, I've been hurt, but I survived. And it's made me all that stronger." Perfection must be constantly maintained, but it's the flaws that make things stand out.

He steps back slightly from the window, looking down at the mess strewn around him. The sticks and stones he tosses out the broken window, but the notes he picks up one by one, carefully unfolding them to reveal their contents. He knows there's more outside as he's witnessed the process of his window breaking before.

The first one does almost no damage, merely bouncing off. But as the night drags on and the festivities increase, more people come, with their messages of hate and weapons against a monster that only exists in their minds. Each time the window gets weaker, cracks just a little bit more, forming an intricate spider web pattern. Until finally the pieces come crashing down and the mob disappears with yells of glee.

And just as each object they throw does a tiny bit more damage, every note that accompanies it cracks him a little more. He's had mental breakdowns the first few years before he knew what was happening, before he could get out in time. The villagers stopped trying to enter after they figured he learned his lesson and vacated his apartment that day each year. Now they leave messages for him to see when he gets back.

He knows he can just ignore them, throw them out the window with everything else. But his fingers fumble to unfold yet another note; his eyes read over yet another hate message; and he can't stop himself. He doesn't know why he continues sifting through, why he doesn't just save himself the pain. All he knows is that each one hits him a little harder, weakens him a little more, and leaves tiny, almost imperceptible spider web cracks.

He waits until he reaches the last one, eyes skimming over it with the indifference they contained skimming over the previous ones. Once he's done, he calmly gathers them into a pile and lights them with a basic katon jutsu. He stares at the flames they burn away and die before disposing of the ashes.

It's only now that he allows the tears to come to his eyes, let's himself feel the cracks each note has wrought. He remembers, with almost Sharingan-like precision how each note looked, the dark strokes making out hateful words, wondering how something so simple as ink and paper can hurt so much. He allows himself to break once a year, and the time is due. He sits on the floor amid shards of glass, vulnerable to all the hate in the world.

He gently fingers one of the glass pieces strewn around him, slowly closing his palm around it until he feels the sting of the edge cut into his hand. As he uncurls his fingers again, he watches as the thin line of red disappears into pink and then back into unmarred skin.

It's strange how things work. Glass is simply there—decorative, useful, fragile, but not necessarily dangerous. But he's been hurt by enough broken bottles to know that's not true. Because everyone knows an animal is most dangerous when backed into a corner. And things get dangerous once they are broken.

And it is in this moment, when he lies defeated and broken, when he wonders why he stays, why he doesn't just get up and leave. He has more raw power within him than anyone else, so what keeps him here?

And each time, he realizes it's hope. Hope for a day where he will be accepted and hailed as the hero he was meant to be. Hope that he will be able to tell people freely without having to worry about their reaction.

But most of all he hopes that he will one day be able to walk the streets as equals with everyone else. That he won't be treated differently because of what he is and what he contains, but by who he is and how he displays himself.

He hopes to one day be free.

A/N: Wrote this pretty much in one sitting, about two months ago. Typed it up in another sitting and then looked it over once before posting it, so it's pretty raw material.

That first section was actually the ending I originally had, which I wrote first, before the rest of the story. However, as I wrote this piece, it led me to a different direction than I had originally planned, and I couldn't decide between the two endings. So I included both.

~chrishuyen

Word Count: 1,256
Posted June 14, 2012