Chapter TEN:

What I thought would be the happiest occurrence in my life ended up being one of the time periods where I questioned myself the most. Not even about serious, important things, say the meaning of life or why I was letting Satori live in my house even though all he said was sarcastic, witty, put downs. No, I wondered why someone hired ninja to freaking plant their garden. Seriously?

It was worse than the academy!

At least in the academy you could have some target practice, now it was: 'Fix my roof!' or 'Cook my Meals.' My brother wasn't easy on us either; it was always work, work, work. We woke up, did five D rank missions and then finally when we were done my brother would look at us. I would imagine him smiling like he once did before, that big goofy sophomoric smile, and he would say something like, 'You guys did a really good job today what about we call it a day and you can all go take a nap?' Yet he was cold as ever. How he convinced anyone to do anything for him was a mystery to me, but then again, every time he told us to go train after our missions we still did it. Grudgingly, of course, but we still did it.

By the next day we'd go to see the Hokage and be bruised to absolute pieces, but we'd be too tired to complain. And trust me at that. You know me, I always have that energy, but I was just…so tired.

It was about a week into the arduous routine that I finally started witnessing some kinship in our group, in that I started to understand my mysterious teammates just a bit more.

Kat explained her jutsu to me, that Chakra Absorption: Shadow Cloak. It was a unique and very difficult jutsu that involved the complete molding of one's entire self to the very small trace amounts of chakra that lurked in the shadows, and by very small I mean incredibly, incredibly small. After she molded to the shadows she was useable until she reached out of them, at the same time, she could also jump from shadow to shadow based on a certain amount of distance that she was trying to elongate. She had used the ability to zap behind the man who was choking me, though she told me she was terrible at it.

I told her she should try to scare me with it, it would be good training. It ended up being great training for me as well. I subconsciously began to recognize the feel of certain chakra as an attempt to guard myself against her surprise attacks, which she just loved doing to me.

Then there was Satori. I still had no idea what he could do, but I learned a bit about who he was…and to be honest it was a bit…heartbreaking.

It was a quiet night. I had woken up in the middle of the night because I had accidentally hit a bruise against the edge of my night table and realized I really wanted a nice glass of hot tea with some milk. So I got up, I didn't even notice walking by Satori's tense frame. I was really focused on my bruise, I was decently sure that my bruise was bruised in fact. If that was plausible.

I stumbled into the kitchen searching for the tea bags that Kat had been buying for me when I heard Satori clear his throat. I jumped out of my skin spun towards him and was halfway to doing a hand seal for an Earth jutsu before I realized it was him.

"You scared me," I muttered, as I held my chest in surprise.

He didn't look well. His mask was off revealing a simple boy with thin lips and an intense frown.

"I want to tell you something."

I honestly jumped to some very strange conclusions, but that sad look in his green eyes, the way he stared at the ground, I knew it was something important, not something strange and trivial like Kiba or Choji would ask me.

"What is it?"

"Well…thank you."

He gave me the words on a plate he had not fully decided to give to me. In fact it seemed like the words he forced himself to let go, however there was no doubt he meant them.

"For what," I asked, "What did I do?"

"For letting me stay here."

He glared hard at the wall beside him with a clear inability to be a part of the conversation we were having.

"I don't want to be thought less of for not ever having a home; its just-it's just nice to feel like I have one. I think."

I watched him, mouth slightly open in surprise eyebrows creased in worry.

"Are you sick or something?"

"SHUT UP," He shouted and stormed into the dining room through the archway.

I poked my head around the wall and saw him in the dark room, his arms crossed, clearly brooding.

"Don't mention it, Satori, we like having you here."

He smiled and glanced at me, a little smirk across his face.

"You're so lying."

"Am not, you brat," I groaned giving up on his sorry case as I went back to searching for my tea.

It was quiet for some time as I found the small box in the corner of one of the cabinets, a little hidden place. I opened up the new package and grabbed out one tea bag.

"I-um," Satori started.

I stopped moving, dropped what I was doing to listen.

"Your brother picked me up off of the streets, I was homeless. I tried to pickpocket him."

"Did it work?"

"Of course it did he's slow as shit," Satori bragged, "But then he took me in, brought me here, then you and Kat took me in."

"So?"

"I don't know," I could almost hear the shrug he must have done as he spoke, "I just feel like I'm not homeless anymore and it's thanks to you."

"If you don't cut it with the awkward mushy stuff you might end up homeless," I teased.

I heard him laugh from the other room and leave. We didn't talk again for a solid week besides falling back into old argumentative habits, but at least I knew now. He had been without a family, and now he had one, that was the difference he was feeling, and he just didn't know how to deal with it.

Hey, at least one of us was happy with our life decisions. I wasn't happy until about two weeks had passed and my brother came in one evening and told us it was time to make the jump to C rank missions.

The first one: It made me realize something, something life changing….