pre-story notes: hehe. This chapter is for Blackrose642, because she has been telling (pestering) me to update this story for 5 months. And to Ravenheart101 cuz' she's stellar and introduced me to this site way back when in Spanish class last year. XD I really don't know where this story is going, or even if it's going, so yeah. I'm screwing the format I used for the first chapter. I might even rewrite it- I have an ideeeea and I want to see if it'll work out and make me update faster. Yosh, this chapter is short, and it's in Tenten's POV. (kinda duh) enjoy. /
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I remember when I was young, I had my hair down. All the time. I used to let my mom braid it and play with it too. I'd let the wind blow in it, warm and gentle; caressing my locks like a skilled hand.
But that Tenten is gone now.
When I came to Konoha High School last year, I didn't think anyone would mind the knives. The sensei's were too ignorant to see them in elementary; too proud to admit it in middle. Now I'm in high school and that's all they care about.
To me, they are familiar. They were my mothers and fathers lifework- collecting, and bartering, and polishing. Nothing can beat the gleeful (painful) nostalgia that the cold, shiny alloy the knives give.
Except, maybe, Sasuke.
I met Uchiha Sasuke when I was nine years old. I was three when I was placed in the orphanage. He arrived tired and beat, with his face glistening with tears. His parents died too.
He told me (actually, I kind of overheard him speaking to the owner) that he had a brother, named Itachi. Apparently, Itachi ditched him here and went to live with some friends. I've always thought of him as a jerk. Sasuke didn't seem to like him much either. He'd always eat me when I mentioned him.
In the orphanage, Sasuke roomed in the 'dorm' across from mine. The institution was, and still is, too cheap to have gender separate hallways. The bathrooms are co-ed too. I usually pee in my trashcan when I have too.
But anyway.
I didn't talk to Sasuke until I was ten and he was nine. I had stuff to do, videogames to play; knives to sharpen. I watched him, of course, to no end. He'd sometimes sit in his door jam and do homework, or run outside until he looked like he was going to collapse.
I watched the way he'd ignore everybody who wanted to talk to him. I watched how all the young girls favored him out of all the boys. I even watched him and his morbid grin when he saw a young bird falling out of a tree once, in spring.
Then, the orphanage's owner decides that he's going to torture us even more than he actually does and holds a Fourth of July barbeque for all residents. That year, when I was ten and he was nine, we were paired together. Long story short, I tripped during the three-legged race, sprained my ankle, and we lost.
I limped up to my room furiously, half from pain; half from embarrassment. Sasuke came up an hour later to present to me the 'you suck because you came in last' award that we received.
He smirked.
I frowned.
He smirked some more.
I laughed.
We've been not-so-much friends ever since.
I don't know the reason Sasuke's in counseling. Perhaps, it's about his dead family. Or his very much alive brother.
Or maybe it's because he cuts himself.