Fingers running across the edge of the page. Flip.
There's nothing I don't know in any of these books. Reading them is boring. No more boring than hanging out with my mother, though.
Flip.
It's interesting that I have read all about everyone else's parents, but never my own.
I set the book down. It's still only midday; there's no class today, it's the weekend again. Everyone is out and about having fun, but I just don't feel like joining them. Maybe I'll just go grab a crepe and go for a walk.
"Hey, Sarada, where are you off to?" Mom greets cheerfully, pulling out a tray of some of her terrible cookies from the oven. She likes to bake a lot, and the house is always immaculately clean. She's got some issues. Not like it doesn't run in the family, or anything.
"Out," I slip on my sandals and mom follows me near the door, leaning on the wall. I roll my eyes at the presence of her behind me. "What, mom?"
"Are you okay? I know it's been hard for you lately," She is anxiously twiddling her fingers through her cherry colored hair.
"'Everything is okay, everything is fine, it always has been and nothing's changing.' I know." I repeat what she tells me, mocking her slightly by speaking monotonous. I turn to see her purse her thin, pink lips together. "I'm just going out, mom. Please don't worry about me."
I leave. I know she's going to stand there for a few minutes, wondering about what is going on with me; is it puberty? Is training affecting her? Is she depressed? Am I doing something wrong? Maybe a bit of everything else, but not the latter; I know she is doing her best on her own, and mom's always done everything by the book. She's a great mother, more than anyone could ever wish for. In fact, she is such a great mother, that it almost fills the void where my dad would fit in… but it doesn't.
Mom is such a strong woman. I don't know why she is with someone like my dad, who, like always, has never been around. We should leave him behind, but her devotion is unwavering. She wears the Uchiha crest always, and keeps his photo near her bedside. She speaks about him as if he is always near. How I wish I could be a fly on the wall, to discover why she feels such a way.
The warm, summer wind gusts gently past me. I hear a creak a few feet away behind me, halting my pace… Our storage room is unlocked, door rasping slightly; highly unusual, considering this door is locked two or three times over. I realize that I hadn't ever been in this room unsupervised before, and not for more than a moment or two at a time.
I decide to be nosy. I think of an excuse incase mom comes in, that a cat had gotten in and I was trying to find it. Stepping into the dark, restricted room, I'm bombarded by cobwebs and trip over a book, awry from the large bookshelf. I steady myself and hold my breath, so as not to sneeze or make noise to clue mom off.
I come to dad's desk, excessively coated with layers of dust. A frame sat with a wrinkled photo of young mom, dad and our Hokage, with their sensei Kakashi-san. I note that mom looks quite desperate with her expression towards dad, while he remains impassive – not much has changed there. I also note that I'm fortunate that I didn't inherit her forehead.
Feeling extra risky with this chance to be in this room that dad stores his most intimate possesses, I stealthily open the first drawer in his desk; the drawer reveals a lot of….junk. Ink pens, a few scrolls, this really neat looking old shuriken. I pick it up to examine it further when I hear footsteps promptly increase towards the door.
"Sarada?" It's mom, stepping into the room. She squints her eyes from the sudden obscurity of the room, the lack of natural light. I shut the drawer with my knee as fast as I could and hide the shuriken in my back pocket. "What are you doing in here?"
"I was walking by when I thought I noticed a cat run in, and I came in to find it," I shrug and walk past her, stepping into the sunlight. "I guess it isn't in here, though. You might want to lock that door a bit better. Anyways, see you later, mom."
She narrowed her eyes at me, as if she knew better to trust my excuse, but accepted it anyways and shut the door behind me as I hurried away.
"They really don't make them like this anymore," I wondered aloud, inspecting the timeworn weapon better with assistance from the sun. "I wonder if dad used this. Or if it was used by another Uchiha…" I didn't know about any other Uchiha, except for dad. Mom changed the subject whenever I would pry, or beg for a family tree. Dad was never around to ask.
Getting to the point of my favorite landscape, I sat down and rested my back against the trunk of the old tree and held the shuriken high above my head, just over the view of the city of Konoha before me. I was just outside the city, in a hilly area that was occupied with just a singular tree. It was a place I came often to relax, think, read, and just be away… so it was a place I came to often.
I put my finger in the shuriken's hole and twirled it around, watching the damaged edges as they spun, noticing each scuff and nick. Based off of these incisions, and the age, I was almost certain that this had been a weapon used by either mom or dad themselves, probably when they were my age or even younger. Maybe it was from a generation before them. Why keep it, though? Shuriken are so dispensable. I should have grabbed a notepad or a scroll from dad's desk. At least I could have learnt something more useful to me than this.
Sighing, I take off my glasses and lie on my back, shaded in the tree's leaves and clutch the shuriken to my chest. It had been about seven years now since I last saw dad. I'm a Genin now, and he didn't even show up at my graduation. He hadn't been there for anything. I wouldn't even know his face if it weren't for the few stray photos of him mounted around the house, with him and mom and I when I was newborn.
Why have a wife if you weren't going to be there for her? Why start a family when you aren't going to raise it? Did he even want me to begin with? Maybe he had another family he liked more… These were the thoughts I tried to push out of my head so often, it made me sick, especially seeing so many others my age with intact families. I don't even think he would recognize me, if he met me. But despite all of this, I hope when he does, that he's proud.
I feel my eyes start to sting, so I close them for relief. The shuriken I clutch close feels warm, so I pretend that it's warm from the hand of my father holding it with me, and I drift off to sleep… But before I can fully grasp sleep, I hear a voice from behind the tree. The shock jolts me awake. Another female voice responds, both familiar and unfamiliar.
I realize then that I can't speak. I try to jump to my feet, and realize my perception is completely off; the grass is larger than I am myself! I start to panic, and a gush of wind surrounds me, followed by a distinct sensation from my upper back, unlike anything I had felt before – it was unhuman. I can't comprehend what is going on, but I know that something has changed, and I myself was human no longer.
The gusting posterior to me continues – my vision is thrown from the giant grass to above, and I come to the realization that I'm being lifted higher by this windy sensation, as if I was flying. The voices linger nearby. I try to manipulate the air, to take me towards these voices, to try to get their attention for help or to see who had used this terrible genjutsu on me. I move in the direction towards the sound, as the soundwaves echo visibly across my peripherals. Whatever's going on needs to end now.
"I'm not waiting around anymore," He says, his impatience clear. "We've been here for an hour. I have other things I could be doing. He's a joke."
"If we don't do this, we're going to be in trouble. Please, just wait a bit longer. This is something the three of us have to do, and as a team, it requires patience…" She begs, though her tenor is mousy and quiet.
"I don't need teamwork to be a great Shinobi. A great Shinobi doesn't have to deal with idiots, either," His anger persisted. Finally, reaching the other side of the tree, I grasp onto the trunk and peer onto those who had cast this spell on me, but nearly faint after catching a glimpse.
"Sasuke…" Sakura set down her homemade salad on her blanket and stood as if to grab his hand to keep him from leaving, although she froze before she came to close. "Naruto always shows up. Can't you stay with me, and wait, just for twenty more minutes? I packed you some lunch…" She gestures shyly towards a small bento, next to her lunch. Sasuke turns, his eyes meeting hers. Her body trembles slightly as a shiver runs down her spine from the electricity of their silent connection.
He doesn't respond as he clenches his fists and surrenders to the blanket, grabbing the bento. Sakura sheepishly joins him. They eat in silence.
My own limbs are shaking. My mother, my father, before me, younger than I.
