Sakura dashed down the alley with the grocery bag wrapped tightly in her right arm. She only had another ten minutes to the meeting with Tsunade-sama, and she really did not relish the experience of having to listen to another lecture about punctuality.
"Sakura, you are late! Being punctual is just one of the basic virtues I would expect from you! You probably think that I am being too strict on you when you are only late for two minutes, but what if the person waiting for you was a patient? Two minutes can mean life or death! … Would die… A waste of time… Good ninja… Good doctor… Understood?"
The memory of the previous lecture by Tsunade-sama inadvertently caused a boost in her speed as she rounded the corner. Thump! She crashed into a villager who happened to be coming from the other direction. The recoil from the crash scattered the oranges in the grocery bag.
Of all days, why did this have to happen today?
She scrambled after the oranges that were rolling in all possible directions. Just as she was about to pick the last one off the ground, she detected something on the nearby wall surrounding the building that housed the Hokage's office – inscriptions that seemed to have grown faint over time.
The mysterious message she had found at the Ninja Academy suddenly came to mind. That had been six months ago. If not for this reminder, it would have totally slipped her mind. Still, to be honest, she had not consciously tried to remember it.
She edged forward to make out the words.
"Did I do something wrong? Why does nobody like me? But, I want to laugh with everybody else too!"
They were simple words – no beautiful expressions, no flowery language, and no poetic images conjured. Yet, the sense of loneliness exuding from them was deep, far deeper than anything she had ever felt from reading any piece of writing.
In a way, she could understand where this child was coming from. There was a point of time when she felt the same way. But thinking back, rather than being ostracized by other children, she avoided them consciously because of her inferiority complex. Thanks to Ino, her situation changed for the better and she was able to break out of her shell. Even though she would never admit that Ino was her best friend, she could not deny that she was an important person in who made her who she was and could be…
It sounded like there was no such person in this child's life. What he had said was a reflection of the cruelly oblivious nature of people; his parents did not seem to be with him, and yet, instead of showering him with love, the people around him had forced him into a corner. What did he do? What could he have done? He was still too young to have to understand or feel like that; nobody deserved to be treated like that.
Hopefully, this child could also meet someone like Ino. In fact, anybody would be fine. His wish was a simple one, anybody who wanted to would be able to help him fulfill it. It could even be her, as long as she figured out who he was. That gave an additional reason for figuring out who the sender of these wall messages are, on top of her curiosity. To crack the mystery, she needed more clues and so more messages. There was nothing she could do but wait for more messages to appear.
For now, it was no mystery what would happen if she was late. As she sprinted all the way to Tsunade-sama's office, a sudden thought flashed through her head. If she just waited passively, how was she different from those cruel and oblivious people? She must try to hunt down more messages when she could. That was a promise.
She stopped in front of a door, caught her breath and knocked.
"Come in," Thankfully, she still sounded calm. Relieved, Sakura went into the office, and closed the door behind her.