When I was a little less than four years old, for the first time, I was taken to the park and set loose. It was a hot and humid summer day, but the many leafy trees cast lots of cool shade, making the park a very nice place to spend the afternoon. Usually I would bring a book or something to play with and stick close to her, but this time my mom sat on a bench, took my bag away, and gave me an encouraging push.
"Go on, Ukiyo-chan. Go play."
I stared at her like she was crazy. She did not stare back, and instead opened her own book. This went on for a minute or so. Finally I took her continued silence as my cue to leave, and walked away into the strange, wild, uncharted territory that was the neighborhood playground.
I paused and looked out at the park, anxious for the first time in literally years. There were numerous other kids around my age, and lots of potential activities, but I didn't even know where to begin. How do kids play, again? I couldn't remember ever playing unsupervised, let alone in public parks with millions of opportunities for me to get myself cut, bruised, scrapped, burned, stung by insects, trip over rocks, fall, or catch some infection from the kids whose parents didn't believe in vaccination.
But hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I decided to figure this thing out. How hard could it be? It was just a stupid playground. As long as I avoided the kids playing with live weaponry, there was nothing here likely to kill me. Kids with far less life experience than me played their little hearts out without a care. I should be able to find some way to kill a few hours.
And so I resumed my foray into the unknown.
There were swings, but it didn't look like my feet would reach the ground and I pictured myself wriggling on the seat, kicking uselessly at the air, so that was out. There was a slide, but a bit of a line and I didn't feel like interacting with other children just yet. In the open space near the little forested area, there were kids engaged in group activities; I recognized tag, a form of cops and robbers, and other various children's games, but that was a bit closer to the flying pieces of sharpened metal than I wanted to get.
I ended up walking around the playground for a bit, destabilized and bewildered. It was noisy and shrill and hot, and everyone seemed to already have their own circle of friends, or at least no misgivings about going up to strangers and starting a game out of the blue. I guessed it was easy when you were a child with no sense of social awkwardness; just go up to someone wearing a shirt in a color you like, say 'let's play Mary Mack' or 'check out this frog I found' and it would be the beginning of a beautiful lifelong friendship.
The thought of doing that, as an adult socialized to pull out every stop to avoid speaking to strangers (I liked the headphones strategy), was both weird and, frankly, a little creepy.
But I still had to do something.
I came across the sandbox. No one there, at least. I gathered up some sand and let it fall through my fingers. It was warm from the sun, but the deeper layers were pleasantly damp and cool.
I smiled. Yes, this would do.
I ran back to the bench and dug a wooden kunai out of my bag. I figured it'd be better than a stick. For lack of anything else to do, I squatted in the sandbox and set about digging a hole.
It was a nice hole. Eventually I hit the bottom, which was about a foot and a half down. I straightened up and wiped the sweat off my brow, admiring my handiwork. There was sand in my pigtails, the sleeves and folds of my short yukata, in my sandals, between my toes, and underneath my fingernails. I thought there might be some on my face, too. The amount of displaced sand on the side was impressive. I was actually proud of myself. I wasn't so bad at being a kid after all. All I needed to do was . . . whatever felt like it would be most fun at the moment! I could do that. Hadn't I just dug a very nice hole? And for good measure, I was about to dig another.
I stuck the kunai into the sand, preparing for my next masterpiece.
Suddenly I got the feeling someone was staring at me. I looked to the side to catch that dead-eyed kid I'd met a while back (bigger, of course) looking my way. I remembered him, still a little irked by his behavior back then, but he'd been a toddler and those are notorious for 'the terrible twos' so I didn't bear him much of a grudge – it would have been silly to resent a two year old. He was with a group of other kids his age, who moved past him as he stopped to look down at me. He seemed thoroughly unimpressed. His eyebrow rose.
Kakashi left without a single word. I stared at my hole, face turning red, feeling very stupid and self-conscious for no reason I could really name.
But no, I thought with some anger, I wasn't stupid, I wasn't even four. One of the glories of childhood, I realized, was the ability to do whatever wacky thing you wanted without people staring at you like you were a creep. Objectively, a thirty something year old digging holes in a sandbox for hours on end was just weird. But a four year old? Perfectly acceptable. If anything, it was that other kid who was weird for looking at me like I was crazy.
But upon checking my hands, I saw I'd gotten blisters on my palms. Digging with a kunai was not exactly efficient. Better to stop for now. Since digging holes was a blast, I decided to go out and see what else there was.
I looked over and saw the slide was free. And discovered slides are fun.
I proceeded to slide down at least a dozen times.
Flushed and excited, I spied a roundabout.
I spun on the roundabout until I kind of felt like throwing up; went down the slides a few more times; tried the swings, but no, definitely too high, I couldn't even hop onto them without a good deal of flailing about. I tried the monkey bars, but I didn't have enough upper body strength yet and fell after only two. I hit the ground pretty hard. The impact knocked the wind out of me and I landed funny, but a quick inspection revealed no broken bones. Grinning, I tried again, this time landing with both feet. I straightened up with my hands out for balance. No problem at all.
This was fun. The jungle gym was next. Or maybe I should try the bars I'd seen kids doing acrobatics on? But the slide was so fun! My eyes gleamed as I thought about the possibilities.
Why weren't adults allowed to have playgrounds, again?
The slide was occupied so I went the roundabout again. I spun it as fast as my little legs could make me run, jumped up and let myself fall onto my back. I watched the sky spin overhead, the voices and cries and screeches of kids fading away, white clouds like cotton balls blown overheard by the wind, and thought about being a child again. There were boring and humiliating and frustrating parts; but the freedom to run around and play without a care in the world was most certainly not one of them. For the first time in years I didn't have any responsibilities; nothing urgent to take care of, no bills to pay, no job to go to, no stress, no deadlines, no work, no pressure. Sure, there were physical limitations, and things like bedtimes and having to eat vegetables I could have sworn I loved before but that were just horribly bitter now, but that was nothing when compared to dealing with customer service or having to grind my teeth on my tax return.
It was basically like one long extended vacation, though admittedly one I'd been forced to take. It was nice. It was a bit unsettling to know that I literally had nothing I needed to do, and somewhere in the back of my mind I knew it would end someday, but I was alright with that. I was already an adult after all. Growing up had been . . . unpleasant the first time around, but I knew what I was in for and I could handle it. In the meantime I would just enjoy the pleasant, child's life I'd been thrust into.
I was getting tired though. All that excitement and running around was exhausting and I hadn't had a nap today.
The sun was starting to dip anyway. I figured my mom would want to head home soon, so I ran over to the bench where she'd been reading. I looked around for a minute, but didn't see her. On the bench was my backpack and nothing else. Mom was gone.
I stood there, confused. Where had she gone? Had she gone home? If she had, why hadn't she told me? I couldn't make sense of it. I knew there was no way she'd actually abandon me. She'd be back to pick me up. She must have seen how much fun I was having and decided to go shopping, or get started on dinner. She hadn't told me because she knew I could be trusted on my own.
I just had to wait for her to come back, and everything would be fine.
I gathered my bag and went to sit by the junglegym. The day was winding down, and kids were getting picked up and taken home by their parents. I sat on my own and waited.
I remembered I had snacks I was supposed to eat. It was hard to remember, since I didn't feel hunger pangs. I was really tired though, enough that my legs were trembling a bit, and hunger might have had something to do with that.
I pulled out the box of onigiri and set it on my lap. I ate one and the familiar taste of salmon and rice filled my mouth. I sort of felt like crying. No, no, I wasn't about to cry. I was just tired. I was a child. Children get tired easily.
I didn't feel like eating anymore so I put the box aside and hugged my knees to my chest.
The park was empty now, but out of the corner of my eye I saw someone coming near. Kakashi came to a stop a few feet away.
"It's getting dark," he said. "When are you going home?"
I shrugged. "Whenever my mom comes and gets me."
"When's that?"
I shrugged again and turned my head away.
With a quick leap and a few agile moves he'd climbed to the top of the junglegym. He looked out into the distance like I wasn't there anymore. I realized I'd been a bit rude to him, so I tried to spark some kind of a conversation.
"Do you come here often?" I asked.
After a beat, he replied, "I live near here."
"No kidding? So do I."
He looked down at me like I was stupid. "I know. We're neighbors."
That made my head snap up. "Really?"
He raised an eyebrow. "You didn't know?"
"Well, I've never seen you around, so . . ."
"We live on the same street. We see you guys all the time. When you go out for walks and stuff, you pass by our front yard."
"Huh. Small world." He did not dignify that with a comment.
"Is your dad coming?" I asked.
"Yes."
"I remember him. He looked like a nice person."
"Hm." Kakashi grunted in response. I wasn't one to fill silence by small-talking to someone who didn't want to answer and I didn't have anything else I wanted to ask, so I settled in for a quiet spell.
Then he abruptly said, "You remember him?"
I glanced up at him. "Yeah?"
"Nobody remembers stuff at that age."
"You do," I pointed out.
He seemed to consider that food for thought. Enough that he didn't say a word until his father swung by to pick him up. Sakumo waved at me as they walked away, pretty much the same as I remembered him from two or so years ago, and Kakashi shot a final, slightly quizzical look at me over his shoulder but didn't otherwise throw out so much as a parting word.
I was left alone on the playground.
Seriously, where did my mom go off to? I wanted to go home now. I knew the way to my house, but it was a long way away for a child, and I was tired.
I remembered my hole and went back to check on it. It'd been filled in already. I sat by the side of the sandbox and scratched hiragana characters in the dirt with my wooden kunai. My name. I drew a family of three, me in the middle, parents holding my hands on both sides. And then I added two more figures, bigger than me. And one more adult.
I stared at the childish drawing of my family. I'd been several years, but I still felt pangs in my chest when I thought about them. It had gotten better over time, as grief tends to do. Honestly, I couldn't even remember what they looked like. Or what I had looked like, beyond basic details like 'my hair was dark' and 'I was kind of short.' When I thought 'parents' my mind automatically furnished the faces of those two people in strange clothes with strange colored eyes who loved me instead.
I wondered what those other people were thinking now. And whether or not they still resented me. The thought of that was terrifying.
I erased the additional figures, so the picture was back to three.
"Ukiyo!"
I heard my voice being called and looked up. A smile split my face.
"Papa!" I yelled as I ran over to him. I caught a glimpse of his tired, worn-out face before he swept me up in a hug.
"I'm so sorry, sweetie. I'm so sorry. Mama had to go away on a mission today and won't be home for a while."
Dad had been out of the village and was only supposed to come back tomorrow, so I was delightfully surprised to see him here, but his clothes were dirty and rumbled, and a cut had stained his sleeve brownish red. Had he rushed back?
"I'm fine," I said. "I played lots today. I dug a hole, went down the slide, and spun on the roundabout."
"That's good, Ukiyo. Get your things, we're going home."
I got my bag and dumped all my stuff in it. He picked me up and I clung to him like a koala as he carried me home. In the sunset-lit streets, I dozed off, feeling safe but with a nagging edge of doubt on my mind.
Why had my mom left so suddenly? Couldn't she have taken me home first? What could have been so urgent she'd leave me behind? How could she do that?
I couldn't get it out of my head, so I asked.
"Papa, why did mama leave?"
I heard a sharp intake of breath. A moment stretched before he answered.
"Mama was . . . They needed mama for a mission only she could do."
"Who's they?"
"The village, honey. The village needed her."
"It was important?"
"Very important."
"More important than me?"
Dad was silent. After some time, he said, "Ukiyo, you want to become a ninja, don't you?"
I hummed my agreement.
"Well, ninja have to do everything they can for the village. When you become a ninja, you'll understand."
I couldn't wrap my mind around that. It was what parents always said when they didn't want to explain: 'you'll understand when you grow up.' But I was already grown up, in my head at least, and I could understand far better than he gave me credit for. If becoming a ninja meant sacrificing everything, including your children, then I wasn't sure I wanted to become one.
"Ukiyo, mama and I both love you very much. That's why we want to protect the village, so you can grow up to protect it too. That's part of what being a Konoha ninja means. Do you understand?"
I didn't. I absolutely didn't. Adult mind or not, the concept was completely alien to me, and when I started to consider the correlations of absolute, unquestioning loyalty to a village, I scared myself so badly I had to stop thinking altogether.
"Yes," I lied in a small voice.
When mom came back, she apologized profusely and made it up to me by buying me more books and taking me out to a fireworks festival. It was a beautiful summer evening. I got my face sticky with cotton candy, and I caught a goldfish at a booth that I set free in the canal on our way home. Her leaving me by myself was never mentioned again.
I went to the park quite often, and played my little heart out; once I'd gotten over my initial social awkwardness, I sometimes joined various groups of kids in their assorted games; the rotation of neighborhood children was extensive, and so were their tastes. I soon figured out that one game that was extremely popular was 'playing ninja.' It was basically cops and robbers, with the addition of cardboard shuriken and kunai. No actual live weaponry, thank God for that.
Kakashi frequented the park, but we didn't run in the same circles. He had his own friends. I wasn't too put out by this, because his aloof attitude and occasional condescending glances made me feel like an idiot for acting like a kid. Running around pretending to be a ninja, digging in the sand, swinging as high as I could – I enjoyed all that. Being a kid with no responsibilities was fun. But every so often, I would catch the odd disbelieving, or even disgusted look he shot my way. Like that time I ate a bug on a dare. Or let the group bury me in sand. Or when I jumped off the swing at the high point and went sprawling face first in the dirt, tasting grit.
Every so often our groups would mingle for a mass game of tag, hide-and-seek, or kick-the-can. Kakashi approached every game with a kind of self-important seriousness, like this silly childish pastime deserved every ounce of his skill, and inevitably won. It was infuriating, doubly so because no one else seemed to notice his attitude. Kakashi was wildly popular among the kids, who could not stop blabbering on about how cool and fast and strong he was. He took it in stride, and though he never boasted (openly at least), he projected this aura of self-assuredness I couldn't believe hadn't already transformed into an inflated sense of his own importance. No, Kakashi was just plain good at whatever he decided to do, and knew it. Honestly, it felt like he was the adult trapped in a child's body, not me, and what that said about my own attitude wasn't flattering. Should I be spending more of my time studying? Should I really be spending my time playing around? I didn't like feeling bad, so I generally avoided him in general and ignored him when we were placed on the same team. On and on, the strange looks kept coming my way.
One time, he brought a thick book to the park and sat by himself reading it. Curious, one of the kids wanted to investigate and dragged me along. When we looked over his shoulder, the girl exclaimed that she couldn't understand, and how it was amazing that Kakashi could read already blah blah while I mumbled something in agreement even though I could read it perfectly well. It was a history book on the five great ninja villages. I had the exact same one, actually.
It might have been my imagination, but I could have sworn the look he shot me, and only me, over his shoulder, the raised eyebrow and slight gleam in his eye said 'what, you really can't read something this simple?' He snapped the book shut and walked away.
It wasn't like I slacked off on the academic front, especially for a kid my age. I split my time between reading and writing practice, some basic exercises my parents showed me, and playing at the park. It seemed a given I would take the Academy entrance exam next spring, and I wanted to get into shape as fast as I could. Who hadn't wished they could go back in time and hit their child selves upside the head for not continuing with lessons of some kind (piano; I wished I'd continued piano)? My motivation for performing daily exercises, I had to admit, had a little less to do with 'it'll be useful later' than the sheer joy at the idea of being able to eventually perform the splits, stand on my hands, or do a backflip, none of which I'd been capable of before. Heck, even a cartwheel had been too much for me. I wasn't about to waste this opportunity.
I practiced at the park as well, when no one was around. I got banged up some, but nothing that didn't heal in a day or so.
That was the strangest thing. God had kept her word. I healed fast. Small bruises and scratches, which were all that I had sustained so far, disappeared far quicker than they ought to. It made me wonder how bigger injuries might fare, but I was terrified of injuring myself on purpose and having my incapacity to feel pain discovered so I didn't experiment.
One day soon after I'd turned five and winter had come around, nobody was at the park yet so I decided to store my stuff near the benches and practice for a little while. I ran around the park once to warm up. Then I stretched every part of my body carefully, paying attention to how the stretch felt so as to not pull my tendons too far and injure them; arms, wrists, shoulders, hips, calves, hamstrings, and back. This was doubly important because I was afraid of having issues with my joints, again, and hey, maybe stretching could help with that too? It was supposed to be good for you anyway, which was why so many people decided doing yoga in weirdly clingy pants was the right course of action.
Once I was satisfied with that, I went up to the monkey bars and practiced swinging, trying to get as far as possible before the inevitable fall. I didn't really get very far. My upper body strength was still abysmal. My hands slipped, I landed heavily and rolled to my feet, brushing dirt off my knees. I did that over and over again, until I fell particularly heavily on my hand and my wrist twisted awkwardly under me.
I got to my feet and checked it. I shook it experimentally. It was a bit stiff. It wasn't broken or anything, but a bruise was forming. I might've sprained it, but I couldn't really tell. Oh, well, whatever.
I went back to the ladder to start over.
"Doesn't that hurt?"
I froze with one hand on the ladder. I turned around to see Kakashi coming up behind me. He wore his usual plain, dark gray clothing, with the addition of a long scarf wrapped around his neck that trailed down to his hands.
"Hi Kakashi," I greeted him politely.
"I saw you fall on your hand. Doesn't it hurt?"
I glanced briefly at my wrist. The bruise was definitely starting to show, and it was swelling a little. I surreptitiously hid it behind my back. "I didn't fall that hard. I'm fine," I said.
"You've been falling wrong since you started," he said in a bit of a condescending tone.
"How do you fall correctly?" I said. "You're just falling, there's no right way to do it."
"Yes there is. You have to fall right in order to disperse the impact and avoid injuries. Otherwise you'll get hurt. Like you just did."
Okay, now I was annoyed. This was why I didn't want to practice when others were around: avoiding the running commentary. Okay people, not a circus show, nothing to gawk at, now go away.
"Not that it's any of your business, but I did not get hurt."
He raised his eyebrows. "Try doing that again, then." He challenged, pointing at the monkey bars.
I glanced up. And shrugged. "Sure."
I bunched the sleeve into my hand to hide my wrist and climbed back up. I grabbed the first bar with both hands and let myself hang. I swung and grabbed the next. And the next. I reached again but lost momentum and my hand slipped. I hung with one hand, the injured one.
"Bend your knees!" Kakashi called as I slipped.
Without thinking, right when my feet touched down I bent my knees and hit the ground a lot less hard than I usually did. Huh. I'd never thought of doing it like that. Maybe that was why I'd had joint problems before. It wasn't a mystery that I had issues with posture – simply put, I didn't shift my weight when a position got uncomfortable and that put a lot of strain on my joints – but I hadn't thought about how that could affect other movements, like falling.
I looked over at him.
He nodded, arms on his hips. "Not bad."
I dusted my knees off and scowled. "I knew how to do that."
Kakashi rolled his eyes. He held out his hand. "Let me see it."
"See what?"
"Your wrist." Faster than I could blink he grabbed my sleeve and pulled up my arm, exposing my swelling and very purple wrist. I snatched it back.
"You sprained it," he said.
I rolled my eyes and tucked my hand into the pocket of my yukata sleeve. "Obviously."
"Why did you climb back up, then?"
"Because you dared me to."
"That's a stupid reason to do anything. Especially to hurt yourself. You should get that looked at."
I shrugged somewhat noncommittally and crossed my arms. He seemed to decide it wasn't worth arguing with me anymore.
Further exercises would only make him more suspicious of me now that he knew I'd injured myself, so I decided to quit while I was ahead. I went over to the swings and kicked off lightly, not going very far up. Kakashi sat on the one next to me, but didn't do anything. We stayed there in silence, me swinging, him not, until he turned to me and said bluntly,
"Why do you pretend to be stupid?"
I dragged my foot on the ground and came to a stop. I stared at him for a moment, absolutely gob smacked by his directness, and answered,
"Why are you so rude?"
"Don't answer a question with a question," he said, eyes narrowing.
"I'll answer however I want. Maybe I am stupid. You don't know me."
"You're not stupid." He said that with all the finality of a child who's reached a firm conclusion on a particular problem, and never mind the reality behind it.
"I'm glad you think that," I muttered. I didn't even think 'stupid' was the word he was looking for. Maybe 'childish' or 'silly' or 'carefree' might come closer. He was wondering why I was acting like a kid, even though he'd somehow decided that I was, like him, more mature or advanced than my years. That didn't make sense to him, because I didn't act like he did, hence I must be 'stupid.' I wasn't sure how he'd come to the conclusion he had on my mental acuity though.
So I decided to ask him. "What makes you think I'm pretending to be stupid? We've interacted like, three time? I don't count playing as interacting, by the way. All we've ever done is existed in the same general area, you can't know anything about a person just from that."
He shrugged. "Just something."
Yes, that was a sufficient explanation.
I rolled my eyes. "Whatever. Have it your way."
It's not like he was wrong. I definitely acted a lot more childishly than was natural for me, and sometimes it was a bit hard to play along. I mean, I was in my thirties mentally. It was a bit hard to follow conversations with my playmates sometimes, because the logic of children was just weird; ever tried talking to a kindergartener? I swear one time a three year old girl went on and on about something having to do with deer and umbrellas and I could not for the life of me understand what she was getting at. Their interests flitted from one brand new shiny thing to the next so quickly I got conversational whiplash, and they were prone to the most irrationally capricious and jealous behavior. Just the other day, two boys had gotten in a spat over who had tripped the other first; now to me, they'd just fallen on each other during a race and it was darn obvious. But they hadn't spoken to each other since. A kid had claimed to have gotten cooties from a girl in our group, which her friend did not appreciate one bit, and the resulting fight had knocked his front baby tooth out.
So it was definitely hard not to rip my hair out sometimes. I generally responded by walking away and doing something on my own until it all died down. I also didn't actually talk that much with the kids, and I didn't consider any of them my friends. I played with them because it was fun, but they were years away from becoming interesting conversationalists and surpassing the emotional maturity level of an especially bright puppy.
I just wanted to run around and play without getting involved in drama, and that apparently made me stupid in Kakashi's eyes.
"There's no point in pretending to be stupid," he grumbled. "It makes no sense." It sounded a lot like 'you make no sense.' He kicked at the ground and in no time flat he was high in the air. I sat quietly on the swing. I was a kid. Nothing wrong with doing kid things.
A month before the entrance exam, I woke up feeling like something was very wrong. There were voices coming from the living room that I didn't recognize. My dad's came clearly, though in the daze of half-sleep, I couldn't grasp what he said. I sat up in bed, blinking the sleep away and pushing my bangs out of my eyes. The late winter sun came, dazzling, though the window. A ball of anxiety grew in my chest as I went over and looked out at the budding tree with the swing my dad had built last summer. The voices didn't stop.
I didn't especially want to leave my room, but a strange impulse made me move. I pulled my clothes on and walked down the hall.
I froze in place in the doorway, and stared at the scene before me. As I took it in, the black ball of anxiety dropped from my heart to my stomach.
My dad sat at the dining room table, hands covering his face. There were three other people there, one dressed in black with gray armor and a painted mask; one other I'd seen before, the young man with the scarred face and black pineapple hair; the last was a man I didn't know, but who wore the standard ninja attire. He held a red scroll in his hand.
The conversation stopped dead when I appeared. I stared owlishly at them. My dad lifted his face, and I saw tears muddling his eyes. My gaze darted; from the tear tracks, to the man in the mask, to the scroll I saw had the Konoha emblem on it, to the stricken faces of those looking right at me.
Nobody said anything, but I knew.
I turned around and walked back to my room. I sat on my bed. I felt completely numb. The sun was bright and a bird chirped, sounding far off like I was surrounded by a thick cocoon made of water.
And that was when I put my finger on why exactly I felt so regretful over the circumstances of my death. It was the same reason why I now felt like I was going to cave in and be swallowed up by the pit opening up inside me.
I'd loved my family. I really had.
And I'd loved my mother.
I'd never gotten a chance to tell any of them.
Comments, praise, criticism, rants, complaints, requests, random thoughts, reactions to what happened? Leave a review!
Peace out.
