Ensorcelled
She is made of fleeting smoke and flickering light.
Her hair is bright like cherry blossom petals, her eyes like molten emeralds. She has seen seven winters but never its summers. She did not feel their warmth after all.
They say she is a pixie child; small and lithe arms and legs, short slender body splattered with vibrant colors.
There is an older lady with the same eyes as hers, (green… green…green…) but they are frozen and dim. She calls the lady 'mother' but her almost intangible presence never gave the little child an opportunity to utter the word more times than the number of fingers in her small hands. To the little girl with dreams of fairy dusts and marble castles, the woman is an apparition… ephemeral and drifting.
Sakura plays with other children her age. There is a boy with a head full of golden straws and eyes colored like the fair skies above where birds fly..fly…fly freely with their beautiful wings. He has an exasperating persistence and a boisterous laugh. He just seems to be too…. bright and warm like the sun but secretly, she is jealous of him. But he cares. Unlike the lady who simply doesn't.
The girl always cries, a lot.
Hot tears often flood her cheeks like the blood running beneath her skin but she couldn't stop, couldn't really understand the reason for the tears.
Why?
And so, the little child dreams and dreams… of a world with a pink haired child who laughs and a green eyed lady who smiles, hand in hand. She builds them out of dusts and smoke like a delicate house of cards ready to crumble with a single wisp of air.
Mother did neither spare her a glance nor give her a smile.
She wonders if the old lady even knows her face.
The least she could do now is to sew her self a doll with a stitched smile… a smile of skewed lips and mismatched threads. She will hold it close to her until it wastes and fades away, pretty much how everything in her world desiccates with its color.
…
She never found out the reason.
The old lady died a year ago but she still never found out why?
Her mother is maybe with God or whoever she is with but the look of disgust still burns on her skin. It is not hideous or physically visible but the pain burns deeper than her skin and bones. It is a brand that she will forever carry, a special gift from her mother. She called her a monster.
Sakura is a good child, she knows she is. She is silent and stolid… has never done anything that will draw her mother's attention. She turned herself to a statue… an inanimate mannequin of phony smiles and laughs because that's what she wants. But why? Why couldn't she still love her…?
Sakura loves her mother, love her with all her little heart and all of the little knowledge she knows of love and affection even though she hasn't been shown a pint in return.
So… why?
On a dark and rainy day, she threw the last white flower on her mother's grave, a sharp contrast to the black pile of soil and weeping skies above her. She bided her farewell.
The rain fell harder.
By then, Sakura knew that her mother wouldn't get anywhere near the gates of heaven. She wasn't the best person in the world after all.
The little girl thought that they would just have to see each other in hell the next time they meet.
Oh, how love really rests side by side with hate.
…
The girl long since dreamed of polished castles and fairytales. They have crumbled far too long.
She is twelve years old and her hair is still pink. Of course.
There are two things she hates the most in the world. First is the scorching heat of the sun and the second is the orphanage.
After her mother died, she was taken in by the good old lady and she has stayed since. There are many children of her age but their unpolished manners and boisterous personalities annoy her. Sakura wonders if that was the reason their parents left them. Sakura only knows silence and obedience.
But still, why did your mother left you?
Her beautiful eyes narrow and her grip tighten. She breaks the pencil in her hand.
"Sakura-chan, are you alright?"
"Ahh… yes . I'm sorry." She quickly plasters a bright smile, drawn back by the startled inquiry of the girl beside her. She resumed writing on the half- filled paper on the table. They are lucky they are given education, not like the ones in real school but at least there's something. But Sakura is way past them. She read a lot back then.
The girl beside her is one of people who told her that she reminds them of a doll; small and fragile. Everyone around her thinks that a hard grip will make her break and crumble.
She hates it.
…
Today, there's a new child in the orphanage.
It's rare for a new child to come. Usually, the children in the orphanage are victims of repeated abuse, some are abandoned by their parents but the orphanage can't really support many.
Sakura lingers in the shadows from a room upstairs as she watches the other children play outside. She passively looks at their smiling faces, the cheerful sound of laughter passing through her ears. The bright light from the sun surrounds them like air… a cloud enveloping them with happiness, shielding and protecting them from all sorts of awful things from their nightmares. But for Sakura, it is a barrier formed between her and the rest of the world.
How could they stand it…? playing ignorantly and happily. Ignorance is bliss.
She pities all of them.
It's funny how the people believe her façade, the cheery and friendly Sakura.
She has nothing against them but she just can't stand them either.
"Hey."
She jolts on her place.
Her eyes slightly widen in surprise but they immediately return to their lazy droop. She slowly spins on her heels and looks for the source of the voice. She wonders who it might be.
Sakura is surprised to see someone standing beside the door, a small figure leaning on its frame. She can't recognize who it is because of the poor lighting in the cramped room but she knows that it is definitely a boy and he's not one of the other children.
No one dares to go up to this place.
She always hides in this room when she doesn't want to be bothered by anyone and be forced to act sweet and happy.
Then… he must be the new one.
No one is foolish enough to venture up here. It is an old abandoned room and most of the children are afraid of it… terrified of the ghosts that may lurk in the darkness.
"Oh… hello, who are you?" she feigns ignorance and flashes a small smile. It's a bother that someone discovered her hiding place.
She receives no answer. Instead, the boy took silent steps out of the shadows and stands several feet away from her.
He snorts. "Hn. You don't have to know. It's not your business"
Her eyes narrow. No one talks to her like that.
"What are you doing here then?" She needs to keep her patience.
"Why? Is this place yours?" he sarcastically retorts.
He has a smart mouth.
Sakura observes him carefully; he is probably in her own age or a little older. She estimates him with a cool glance and she immediately knows that he is not an arrogant-in-a-pace-of-rebellion-kid like the other children who are placed there for the first time.
He has an almost sickly pale skin and dark hair tinted with blue in the light. Though his slightly rounded jaws betray his young age, his face is defined with delicate aristocratic features. His form is slouched but not hunched; it's more out of confidence than inferiority.
He seems someone who would stick out of the crowd but what catches Sakura's attention the most are his eyes. They neither sparkle like those of the princes' she has read in her fairytale books nor do they dance with twinkling lights. Those are dumb descriptions of what lovesick girls claim to see.
His are deep onyx and they seem to silently burn with liquid silver fire… calm and detached. They are tinged with hidden knowledge that belongs to him alone. It feels uncomfortable to see such intelligent eyes in a mere child much more when they are trained on you. She doesn't find it attractive or compelling.
A shiver runs down her spine.
Fear.
That's when she immediately senses it… but cannot fathom why.
"You're different…" she trails, unsure what more to say.
He just stares at her in return… with his haunting and chilling eyes. He momentarily tilts his head to the side and a smirk slowly breaks on his lips.
The strange flame on his eyes flickers. "My name… is Sasuke."
She just stares back with a blank expression.
Everything will burn.
"I'm Sakura."
And that's how the two of them met.
Inside a dark room with glinting black- silver eyes and bubble gum pink hair.
…
She is somehow intrigued but fear is a foreign feeling for her.
For the first time, there is a child like her who doesn't stupidly spend time to play outside under the scorching heat of the sun. They never talked again after their encounter in the dark room.
Even with her skepticism, she silently watches him eat separately from other children as she pretends to be one of them.
She never saw him speak with anyone even though most of the girls are willing to flaunt themselves around him. He's very attractive. Of course, they'll all be drawn to him. Sometimes, it is amusing to watch him fend them off. She wants to laugh out loud. Once, he even caught her amusedly watching and he narrowed his eyes at her, refusing to be mocked.
Sakura thinks that maybe, he's just one of those anti- social children but she knows that that's not it.
He's really different and unknowingly, she's being slowly drawn too.
..