DISCLAIMER: I DON'T ANYTHING RELATED TO NARUTO EXCEPT FOR YUI-CHAN (sort of...) AND ASAMI-CHAN!
What was love? That was a question that plagued me for quite some time. After 19 years of living in the world I once called home, I still hadn't figured it out. I used to preach that I knew exactly what it was. The basic definition of love was caring for someone enough to put up with them your entire life. That was it wasn't it? Truth be told, I'd never held a boy's hand, I'd never kissed one, I never went into the dating scene like all my other friends did during their time in high school and so on. Why? Well it wasn't exactly like I didn't want to, and it wasn't like I couldn't get into it, I was pretty enough and I had the right attitude. But I suppose the inner anxiety I possessed stopped me from making any sense when the topic of dating came up, which it came up a lot during my later years.
But alas.
Now that I had somehow gotten myself into a world where knives were thrown indiscriminately and children where weaponized to fight during their childhood, topics such as love and dating were irrelevant.
"Yui-chan? Do you know where the ten o'clock papers are?" I momentarily broke from my thoughts to search for them. Yup, this was the situation I ended up in. My college life was short-lived and I ended up in another world where I served as the primary assistant to a powerful man named Sarutobi Hiruzen who currently held the title of Hokage. Or at least that was the gist of it. Apparently there was someone who was even stronger than the current Hokage and I found that hard to believe. Mr. Hiruzen himself had sat me down to talk about him one day and showed me a picture of him. And oh man, was he handsome, I could hardly believe that someone so young and good-looking could be so strong, in the world I lived in, good-looking people weren't allowed to have everything.
"Here they are" I tidied up the papers before handing them to my secretary to give to the Hokage. While it wasn't normal to not have the assistant in direct presence of the Hokage, Mr. Hiruzen had granted me my own office since I decided to take half of his work load (actually it was more like three-fourths of it since I handled the common papers while he went over confidential work). He had said it was only right that I have my own space since I had given him life again. I wasn't quite sure what he meant about that but I think it was simply because he was always slumped in paper work that he would somehow lose himself in them. It was to be expected since the man surely had a lot of papers to review over and there were more than a couple of times I had to stop him from 'accidentally' burning the papers from 'accidentally' pouring his ashes on them. He had succeeded a few times but that only led to more papers, since I began to make copies of most of the papers. He was revolted that I would do such a thing but I had given the oh-so-powerful man a stern lecture about taking his work seriously. He had sulked at that and told me that I had no heart for him.
I sighed, there was only so much I could go over in my head before I burned myself out. I stretched my arms out and brought them back down to look at the papers in front of me. I let out an internal sigh, I could understand where Mr. Hiruzen was coming from. Taking on nearly all of the man's work was a task as, 'great as battling all the Kage's at once', is how the old man would put it. I didn't get the reference but it seemed about right.
"I suppose I should make some tea"
I went over to the miniature kitchen I had installed in my office and brought together all the necessary items. It was weird at first, being in a whole other world. I hadn't quite adapted into it until I was around 10 years old when I decided to stop crying about it. It wasn't like I particularly missed anyone with my family being an exception as well as a few select friends. But even then, I wasn't particularly close with any of them once I started college. I had lost contact with my closest friends and while my parents were only a phone call away, I came to realize that I needed to live my own life. That hadn't worked out well for me. I wasn't going to lie and say I didn't cry every now and then when I thought about my mom and dad but it wasn't as bad as it was before. I suppose I cried over the idea that I was beginning to let them go rather than missing them.
I placed the kettle on the stove and turned the stove on while I continued to muse over my thoughts. I adjusted my glasses and took a closer look at the kettle as it began to heat up. Seven minutes. I turned to look at the only photo I had in my office. It was a photo of a younger Mr. Hiruzen with his hand on my shoulder while a shorter-me clutched to a makeshift teddy bear. I began to think about the first time I met the man who knew it all.
I really needed to stop crying.. Mom and Dad.. Where are you? That was the only thing that mattered to me. A second life? I don't need a second life. I just want to go back. But even after all that I knew it was never going to happen, I was forever stuck in a medieval barbaric world where they recruited kids from an orphanage to train them to kill.
I was scared. I didn't want this. I wanted to go back, but how was I ever going to make that happen?
All the thoughts whizzing through my head only served to make me cry harder as I held onto the teddy bear with all the strength I could muster. I tried to muffle my ugly sound of despair by burying my face into the bear's head. I hated this. I hated that I didn't have anyone in this world. I hated that I felt like I didn't have anyone in the first place. I hated myself. Why exactly was I born an orphan anyway? What kind of second life was that? What exactly had I done for destiny to smite me the way it did.
I broke from my thoughts as a hand gently patted my head. I flinched from it and peered behind the bear's head to avoid showing my face which had fully hydrated itself from my tears.
"Why are you crying little one?" the man wore a fancy looking hat and was clad in a white robe. While I was told not to talk to strangers, I was technically not a kid so I made the exception. I stayed quiet though, I wasn't about to confide in some random man, even though I really needed to let it all out.
It didn't quite work out that way though.
The older man had convinced me to take a walk with him and I eventually broke down once he bought me some comfort food. Damn the man and his over familiarity to my late grandfather, I truly did miss him the most. Damn him as well for cheating the way he did, food wasn't the right way to coax me into talking!
I ended up telling him about being scared. I told him about missing my parents. I told him about not wanting to be a ninja. I told him I didn't want to hurt anyone. As innocent as it sounded, he took in everything I said and I could tell he genuinely cared.
"I suppose I should have you work for me then" I tilted my head at that and he laughed.
"What do you mean work for you?" I asked, with all the cluelessness in the world.
"Well everyone here needs to pull their own weight and provide for the village, and as adorable as you are, you do not make an exception" I winced at that, that was mean.
The kettle screamed for my attention and I was brought back into reality once more. I went through the usual workings of making tea for three. One for me, one for my secretary, and one for the old man. I chuckled for no particular reason as I placed the cups on a tray and proceeded to make the deliveries. Luckily my office didn't own a door so I passed through the corridor to place the cup on the counter of my first consumer.
"Here you go Asami-san" I gave the younger woman a smile.
"Mooooo! Yui-chan! Please drop the suffix! You let me call you chan so its only fair you do the same" I gave the lady a sympathetic look as she transformed into a gooey substance right before my eyes. For as long as I knew Asami, she really did posses all the qualities of what it meant to be cute. I was a bit deterred by the reality that most of the girls in the village were as beautiful and cute as they were, and not to mention the female ninjas were absolute bombshells. If it weren't for the fact that I wasn't well-versed in being in love, I probably would've had a change of heart when it came to my 'liking preference'.
"Alright Asami-chan, is the Hokage busy?" Asami snorted at that.
"As if, he shouldn't be doing anything right now since we've taken care of most of the fishing business papers" I gave a soft laugh and proceeded to head into the Hokage's office.
I opened the door into a scene where the Hokage looked to 'accidentally' pour his smoking ashes onto a messy stack of papers. The old man went wide-eyed and quickly popped the pipe back into his mouth. He took an unnecessary drag, causing him to go into a coughing fit.
"Oi"
I felt a vain pop in my forehead as my hand shivered with heated anger. The man had no shame whatsoever.
—
"Tasty" Asami said as she began melting into her chair, careful not to spill the special drink her senpai had so graciously made for her . I wish I was a man.
—
AN: So just to clarify, I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this, same goes for my first story which I'll probably trash. Hopefully I keep up with this though since I sort of know what kind of character Yui-chan is. And also another clarification, which I'll state more in the next chapters, Sarutobi is more of a father figure here and the timeline is placed after Minato's death but before Itachi goes through with the massacre.
If there's anything I can work on, either grammatically or just ideas in general, please tell me, it really helps.