"Okay." Ren chewed on her thumbnail. She got to think of something! Any solution will be fine! "If I was a stereotypical fangirl, what will I do? Ninja? No - I'm already too late for that. Maybe... Should I find a way home? Wait it out? I don't even know how I got here."
The young girl tapped her pencil against her notebook. Somehow, time seemed to fly by so fast when you sleep, eat, and draw all day. Tsunami and Tazuna refused to let her work, and Inari did his best to watch her from a corner or the crack of a door. Like right now, that little shit. Ren threw him a nonchalant glower.
"Can you just sit like a normal person?" The brunette asked.
Inari opened the door wider, frowning. "Well, you're a creep! What kind of normal person talks to herself and stare at the ceiling all day!" He pointed a finger. "And get out! Because of you, my gramps and mom might be in danger."
Ren pretended to yawn. Even though it bothered her, it was what it was. She got injured and they decided to help her. "No." She held back a smirk, watching as Inari shimmer in anger with flushed cheeks. After all, Ren still wanted to repay them for saving her life... Plus, she wanted to see if this was true - the Team 7 and the Bridge Arc with Zabuza Momochi and all.
"Get out." Inari bawled his fists.
"No."
"Get out!" Ren nonchalantly flipped a page.
"I gotta take a dump."
"I said - ew, I didn't need to know that!" The child recoiled in disgust.
Ren sighed. "Inari, can you just tell me what you want today?" The girl tilted her head with tired eyes. Even though she had two older sisters and an older brother of her own, Ren never had a younger brother nor sister before. Which it was a huge pain in the ass. 'Was I always like this, too?' She thought.
Inari pulled down his hat a bit, fidgeting under her gaze. "Gramps expect you to start helping him out with the bridge-."
"-and I already know that," She spoke flatly. Ren chewed on her pencil. Tazuna allowed Ren to help with the construction since her father owned a small construction and landscape business. He asked, 'Where's he at?' 'I don't know.' Ren tried to keep a straight face. "Your mom said that I'm almost good to go, so I need to wait for a few more days before I go with grandpa Tazuna."
"He's thinking about leaving to get ninja from the Land of Fire."
At this, Ren perked up in interest. Without missing a beat, she asked, "how soon?"
The boy shrugged, and he kicked the floor with his head hung low. She would have comforted him - if that was one of her skills, so Ren sat there and hoped for the best. 'What an asshole thought.' Side-glancing, the girl internally sweat-dropped. She felt less like a human today. Inari interrupted her reverie. "Don't know. Grandpa doesn't have enough money, so he's trying to get more before he leaves."
'Just how far is he with the bridge,' nervous sweat slid down her neck, 'I remember that it should be half-way...'
"How far is gramps with the bridge?" Trying to calm her racing heart, she did her best to remain stoic.
It was like kids could smell fear. Fear and anger were what Ren thought. They would keep a close eye on you, and watch you through every crooks and cranny. Maybe it was just her imagination. Ren fought the urge to rub her neck. Because other than the only youngest family member under her auntie's wing, Inari was the only kid she got close to. "Is he, at least, half-way yet?" She asked after the prolong silence.
Thankfully, the boy shook his head, which meant that she still had time.
"Oi, Inari." Ren waved him over. Almost two and a half months had passed since that day, and now, the girl was up and going as Tazuna's little helper. She'd help cook and clean around the house. It was her break time; today, Ren discovered a really beautiful thing in her book bag. Inari sat on the block of planks and said, "what?"
She took out a handful of candies. They were small and protected by green wrappers.
Ren gave him a shit-eating grin, opening one for him. "I looked through the side pockets of my bag, and I found a lot of melon candies in there." Saliva built up in her mouth. The tangy scent of caramelized melon reached both of their noses. Inari gulped, eyeing the green ball as if an exotic specimen.
"You had candy before?" Inari shook his head, which made Ren deadpanned. "Well, that's a personal problem."
"Shut up."
"Don't be rude to your elders."
Eating it, Inari jumped at the sudden bursts of flavor. "It's so good!" He beamed.
Ren nodded and watched as Tazuna approached them and sat down. His shoulders were more slump than they usually were with a layer of sweat covering his entire body. He smelled bad, but then, Ren smell just as bad as he did. She tilted her head lower to look at Tazuna's face, which appeared more grave than usual. "What's wrong?" Ren asked worriedly.
Tazuna shook his head and pinched his nose bridge. "Another guy quit. If this keeps up, then we'll never get this bridge done to save this village."
Ren sat there and watched him. She didn't know how to comfort a guy, given that any ideas and thoughts went poof just like that. What was she supposed to say? How could she encourage him to keep going? Ren stared at Inari with some hope that he got a plan. However, the boy avoided the subject with downcast eyes.
Crap.
"Are you...planning to go to the Land of Fire?" The brunette asked some time later.
Tazuna grunted. "Yeah, although I don't have enough money, I got a plan when I get there." The two children raised their eyebrows. "In a few days, I'm going to be gone for a while." He ruffled Inari and Ren's head. "So-."
"No, you shouldn't go!" Inari shouted. The boy slapped Tazuna's hand away and recoiled. "It's-!?"
"Inari." Ren stood up, causing Inari to flinch. She rested a hand on his shoulder and flashed a thumbs up. Her face expression true seriousness and blank as a canvas. "Don't worry. Big sister Ren will make sure gramps is safe during the trip."
"...Big..sister." For some reason, the expression on Inari's face looked dry and chipped. "I don't think so."
This little shit. One day, the girl might just push him off the dock. Ren forced a smile as she pulled on Inari's cheeks. Tazuna crossed his arms. "You're not coming, Ren. It's too dangerous."
The brunette gave him a stink eye. "Sorry, but I'm going." Ren copied his posture. "You saved my life, so I'm staying by your side. I can understand that Inari shouldn't go because he's still a kid."
"You're a kid, too." Inari intervene.
"And your opinion is invalidated." Ren covered his mouth, ignoring the disgusting warm tongue and saliva. He tried to thrash and yank her hands off, but to no avail, her grip was inhumanely strong. She continued, "I'm almost thirteen, so I'm basically almost a real teenager. I can take responsibility."
Tazuna bore holes at the pre-teen hard for what seemed like an eternity. He sighed. There was no way he could convince Ren to stay. Throughout the past months with her, this girl had always been really hard-headed...and insensitive. The risk was extremely high for this journey, and if anything happened during that time, Ren would have been as good as dead. And it would be his fault.
The old man sighed once, again. Ren was looking at him with such high expectations.
Her almost, brown eyes that were too big to be called a native citizen of this continent, her straight dark hair that parted in the middle with blunt ends, and her round-like jawline - Ren may look like a very cute and innocent girl with her soft-spoken voice, but her personality were mine coals. She would not take nonsense as an answer, whether it came to being extra careful in the village to the cashier bartering for a high price.
"Fine, I got it. I got it." Scratching his head, Tazuna looked away.
Somehow, he knew he'd regret this.
"Holy crap." After two weeks of traveling, Ren marveled over the enormous walls that surrounded Konohagakure. The walls were made out of wood and stone, and if she squinted her eyes a bit more, she could see a few bodies watching them from above. In front of the opened gates were two guards, garbing the Konoha's uniform.
Tazuna urged Ren forward as he gave the permission paper to some Chuunin.
Excluding the enormous trees, the organized rows of stores and apartments burst with life as they tried to evade some of the civilian's way. They were also given a temporary map, where it showed all the three rows and columns of division that did a half-circle around the Academy. "This place is huge!" The brunette lagged close to the old man. Her eyes trailed to jumping figures on the rooftop. There was even a team chasing after an orange tabby cat.
Right when Ren opened her mouth, Tazuna interjected, "we can look around after we submit a request."
"Heck yeah!" The brunette grinned widely, springing with each step.
Once they walked through the enormous village, Ren and Tazuna finally reached their destination, the Academy. She couldn't help but to, "oh," and, "ah," at everything that looked familiar. The brown fence that surrounded the academy, the one lone swing attached to a tree, and the red facility with the kanji on the sign - Ren ran up to the swing and sat on it. She breathed heavily.
"This is so cool!" The girl squealed. She rocked back and forth for a minute before she caught up to Tazuna, who was currently drinking cheap sake from a liquor store he bought it from.
The inside smelled like how a school was supposed to smell, and Ren couldn't help but to touch everything in sight. The Japanese-like door, the smudged windows - there was even a kunai laying randomly on the ground of which she poked. Tazuna didn't let her keep it.
And after the flights of stairs, they stopped at a worn double door, which had two ANBU members standing in front. "State your business." The right one asked, eyeing Ren hard.
She was staring at him or her with big, adoring eyes. "Holy crap..." Ren whispered. Her heart raced wildly. It has been so long since she been in a lively place like this. There was no misty days or constant worry for any gangster to ambush them. No struggle with food or money. But this ANBU though. She remembered back when Ren was a bit younger, the girl wanted to be an ANBU meanwhile her siblings didn't care.
They just liked the anime, and one of her sisters liked Sasuke very much.
'Now that I mention it, I wonder what they're going right now...' Ren waited at the office until grandpa came back. It turned out that they have to wait in the waiting room until someone accepts the mission, and since it was only early morning, Ren could get something to eat and maybe go try out some food...
...If they weren't so broke.
Slouching on the chair, Ren sighed heavily.
It has been a while since she could eat what she wanted, and she lost a good deal of weight because of her dietary. No more junk food. No more sweets and Starbucks coffee that her older sister used to buy for her. The girl hugged her legs and sighed once again.
She missed it a lot..
And in order to keep her mind away from negative thoughts, Ren drew on her new cheap notebook that Tazuna purchased and sung songs under her breath. Tazuna kept her preoccupied with talking about the bridge's structures and what was there to do.
The next thing they knew, it was early afternoon and someone accepted their requests.
Clenching her notebook, her shallow breaths, and racing heart made nervous sweat slid down her neck. The hot weather of Konohagakure didn't help so either; instead, they made it worse. She walked down the hallway, rigidly. "Gramps," Ren exhaled, "can you stop drinking for now? You don't want to leave a really bad impression with our employees."
"No way. I haven't drunk for months." The old man grunted.
Does not own the Manga/Anime, but the OCs and future drawing belongs to me.
In need of Editor/Beta Reader! Thank you for reading! Please, Like/Comment/Critic
