Chapter 11: Determined; Desperate
There is a saying: all things good eventually fade. Winter stars that fall from the sky- that bring a chilling beauty to the ground- eventually melt. An event one could promise at the time never to overlook- one that comforts the heart- eventually is forgotten.
A friend who would smile and finally melt from the coldness brought upon her from her own thoughts- a friend who finally could feel the sensation of being free from expectations-...would eventually lose that reassurance.
And so would Sasuke's feeling of accomplishment, as Tenten's absence from school stretched from one day, to one week, to three weeks. This was the first time she had missed school in years, but she was still keeping up with schoolwork, because every single time the test scores were released on the bulletin board, her name would be at the top.
Since that day of the convention, the day she had finally let herself go, she had been excused from school. Nobody knew why she was gone, some said that she most likely had gotten in trouble for slipping up in something small. But Sasuke knew that wasn't possible, her father wasn't focused on her grades anymore. He knew that it was probably herself, or something else.
Sakura, being the simple-minded girl she was, came to the conclusion that Tenten probably took a vacation. Lee never commented on her absence, but Sasuke assumed that he knew, because each time Tenten was missing from the group of friends under the large tree, Sasuke would see less of him. It seemed that in a way, whether it was completely unintended and unwanted at first, Tenten had created her own niche. Almost like the tiniest, thinnest thread in a weaving; no matter how insignificant it seems alone, if taken away, the colorful threads fall apart as well.
Neji continued to stay, but he never brought up anything. His expression would always be the same at the mention of her; his face would cloud with dark thoughts- it was never an angry look, only stony with concern. But Neji, like Sasuke was good at confining his thoughts so that it was difficult to tell if he even cared.
Sasuke pushed in his chair and walked out of the computer lab, taking his graded rubric for the video project with him. Neji strode past him, with his rubric in his hand as well as quickly screened over the A+ grade. He didn't look like he was planning to make any motion to talk to Sasuke, since he looked like he was in a hurry. But Sasuke figured that he always looked that way, so when Neji stopped by at his locker, he stood at the corner to ask, "Have you visited yet?"
Although the question was vague, there was no doubt Neji knew what Sasuke was referring to. "No."
"Do you plan to?"
Could pale eyes grew stormy gray. "No, not really."
Sasuke looked at him. He thought that Neji wasn't like the other people; the other people who went on with their lives obliviously. Those were the ones he hated most. Those would be the ones who could look at Tenten and say: "Wow, I wish I were like her. She's so lucky!" without really knowing what they were saying. They never bothered to look. Because if they did, they would take those words back and be thankful for what they had. They don't bother to she her, and find that there was someone trapped with sorrow inside.
He gripped the paper harder, crumpling the words. It was the same for him. Everybody in the school went on with their lives, passing by him, saying how cool he was, how perfect. They didn't know. They didn't know anything.
But Neji knew about Tenten, he could see something. He could see everything. He wasn't blind. He chose to walk away, and to Sasuke, that was even worse. To not look and to no know was bad enough, but to look and choose to ignore was unforgivable.
"Do you care?" Sasuke kept his voice in reserved coldness.
Neji turned his head and looked Sasuke in the eyes. "Do you think I don't worry about her? Do you think it doesn't bother me that my closest friend is isolating herself, ruining herself? She actually wants to stay this way. So no what?" He started to walk off. "Don't think I don't care Uchiha. But you can't change a personality if there's nothing left to change."
Sasuke quietly heard himself respond, "No."
Then his words echoed in the empty hallway.
"But you can give someone a chance to have something to change."
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Standing on the doorsteps, waiting for the plain white door to open, Sasuke felt awkward. But it didn't feel as bad as it did the first night he had stood here. He waited patiently, with his hands in his pocket. The lack of company and human conversation allowed the swoosh of the passing cars seem louder. It also made the waiting seem longer, to the extent where Sasuke started to doubt if he really had rung the doorbell. His mind was just starting to plan on making himself break his self-constructed rule of not ringing doorbells twice (it seemed clingy and dependent on other people) as he began to reach to the side of the door when it slowly pushed open.
The person who had answered wasn't Tenten, but her father.
Sasuke usually never paid more attention to others than what he felt was necessary (after all, he shouldn't care. They were them. He was him.) Yet he couldn't help but see how pale his face was, like he had been frozen in ice for years, depleting all the color away. His eyes were red around the edges and shadows laid underneath them, result of fatigue. Judging by how he was coughing, Sasuke could tell he was extremely ill.
"Ahem...Uchiha-kun, how nice to see you." He coughed. Sasuke was surprised that he still had the energy to talk, but maybe it was just the determination in him to try to seem healthy in the others' eyes. Or maybe just his daughter's.
Before he said anything else, he ushered Sasuke inside. Like all polite hosts, he still began to brew tea for him even in his condition. As Sasuke sat and waited, he noticed how the house was still abnormally clean despite that Tenten's father was sick. As he settled down and placed the tea on the table, he coughed and took a sip of tea.
Finally he spoke, answering the invisible question that hung in between them, staring at the table. "Tenten-chan had just left to grab more cough drops..." he coughed, "She's been so worried about me, she's taken time off from school. Even though I insist that I'm fine." He held the teacup in his hands and made small, slow circles with his wrists, stirring the tea gently. "She refuses to listen. Taking care of me has made her so busy..."
He chuckled tiredly. "I must have frightened her when she returned from the convention that night. I was washing the dishes and suddenly felt so tired. I must have fallen asleep..."
Sasuke could see it in his head. Finding her father lying unconscious at the kitchen tiling at the sink unconscious after coming home from and outing with friends late at night. Tenten must have been scared. But that wasn't the emotion Sasuke was thinking about the most.
She must have blamed herself. While she was having fun and enjoying herself, her father had been sick the whole time at home. He remembered telling her that it was okay to stay longer and she looked at him unbelievingly but took his word. He was apparently wrong, and she brought it upon herself to think that she had failed her father; this time it wasn't just what she thought was shame from a grade.
He coughed again. It seemed heavier- showing how right Tenten was not to trust her father that he was healthy.
And as if the last cough had haggled his voice away, the words that came from him were in a small whisper. It was so strangled, so rasp-quiet, that any person not playing the closest attention wouldn't have noticed anything But Sasuke hear. In his mind, h heard it perfectly clear.
"I'm so worried..."
Sasuke knew that he had many things to worry about. He could've been worried about his illness. There was no doubt that he was severely sick, and Sasuke had even seen people die slowly from these types of things. And he still had a job to work at, a house to supposed even while being ill. There was much to worry about for himself.
But that wasn't it. And Sasuke knew that.
The garage door swung open and Tenten's father got up, about to greet his daughter. She rushed over and settled him back into his seat. She gave a fleeting, mechanical smile for him to soothe his worried face, but it didn't work because even though he might've smiled as she started to prepare the medicine and measuring the doses over the kitchen counter, his eyes still seemed un-eased.
"Ah, Tenten-chan, why don't you take a break and join our guest? Uchiha-kun has come to visit us."
Her head slowly raised as she finished mixing the prescriptions and brought it over to her father. She looked at Sasuke. They met eye to eye, and he could see a fear and hatred hollowing her. She said with vacant iciness, lacking her usual courteous smile, "But I'm sure Uchiha-san is in a rush today, so he must be going now."
She showed him to the door, leaving her father in peace as they stood in the empty hallway in the front of the house.
"I'm not busy, and you need a break." She said this in a quiet voice, but he knew that she already got that.
She didn't reply, and coldly opened the door, waiting for him to walk out so she could close it.
He kept his ground. What happened to the girl he saw at the convention? The one who had her own feelings? The one who had a personality? She stood here now, like a lifeless doll. As if nothing had happened since the last three weeks. Why would she try to change back?
He started, "You don't need to be per-
"Please leave," She interrupted him, her voice grew louder. He looked and saw her clearly. He saw something fighting inside her, trying to be free. But the could, barrier tried hard to hold it back, as if the thing was a monster, and there were already fractures in what was supposed to be an invincible wall. And she was scared, she knew that side in her was growing stronger and break though because of Sasuke.
The amber flashed in her eyes showed fear for that self inside, hatred for her weak self, and anger at Sasuke. "You can't be here. You're ruining everything." Tears welled up. "If you keep doing this," She spoke as if he was poisoning her, tormenting her to death.
"She's going to kill again."
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She. Who was "she"? Was someone threatening Tenten? Pressuring her?
As he started to know her more, he was getting more and more confused. He knew that she was a near flawless girl; one who sacrificed her dreams to make her father proud- to be perfect. Yet along the way, she lost herself, her opinions, her thoughts...her.
She used to be a cheerful, energetic, and very opinionated. She loved fun and didn't care so much about grades. Being perfect wasn't her life before.
Something must've happened in between.
But what?
A couple week passed by, Tenten started to face. Where she used to matter as friend to all of Sasuke's group, she slowly started to wash out from the importance of their minds'. From being an actual person with life, she turned back into merely an image- a phrase of the mind. From "Tenten" to "that girl", "the perfect girl".
Sasuke grew frustrated at how Tenten stayed away from the group and read in the library every lunch instead. She was purposely avoiding them. And he knew it wasn't really because she was busy. It wasn't even that she didn't like them either.
She was afraid.
That was what caused that storm of thoughts raining inside him to thunder. Nobody was really denying her from being free, but herself. To Sasuke, she seemed like two people: the doll she was on the outside- dull, lonely, strong- and the little girl she was inside- lively, lighthearted...- but trapped. Now, that little girl was starting to find her way outside the shell, pushing through so that the armor that was supposed to be made of resilient oath was cracking.
Someone in there wanted freedom.
But the other wanted to stay trapped.
She was suffering though, and that wasn't fair. Sasuke knew that in order to save her, that little girl inside her had to fully hatch and take over. But for that to happen, the other girl- marionette- needed to willingly leave, to come to peace.
But he left her alone. He couldn't find a way to reach her without seeming awkward. His facade still mattered to him, and that Uchiha side of him hadn't completely been free from his mind. Revenge still mattered, meeting expectations still mattered, being an Uchiha still mattered. It just didn't matter as much. Like Tenten, he still tried keeping himself the same. He found himself checking on whether or not he was acting too friendly or social, which was good, but it was disturbing to him that he actually had to make sure of it. Whereas he used to be independent by nature.
So going up to a girl and talking to her first was against his rules, and he refused it. It was for them to go to him, and for him not to care- not the other way around. He wasn't even supposed to care in the first place. But he did.
The ceasing of winter season meant tennis season as well, and Sasuke tried taking his mind away from his friends'- no not friends, classmates'- problems by joining. It was in the Uchiha expectations to excel in at least two or more athletics, and Sasuke's was basketball and tennis. He started tennis when he was really young, taking lessons since he had first lived here. He liked it better because it was a single person sport- he didn't have to depend on anyone.
He went to the office to pick up a health form for tennis and to sign his name up on the signup sheet. Standing at the desk, he flipped the pages to see the other names written down. He was surprised to see how many tennis (wannabe) players were in the school, and he was pretty sure he could easily defeat any of them. Except for one, and that was the name he was surprised to see the most.
Right above where he was supposed to fill his name was in a thin, neat cursive: Yin Tenten.
Behind him, Sasuke even heard the tensing of muscles behind him. And then he heard a furious mutter, "You're kidding me."
He turned just in time to see Neji hover over him have his eyes rage over the same name. When Neji finally got a hold of himself and realized that Sasuke was noticing his anger, he said in a quiet voice. "Just a couple seasons ago, she damaged her shoulder from over practicing...she wasn't supposed to play ever again." He veered around and walked off in his own cold frustration, as if he couldn't bear to have the sight of her name reminding him that she was planning on hurting herself.
Because Sasuke realized, that was what she was really doing. There was a reason why doctors would ban her from playing is because it injured her to play, and yet she was playing again.
After listening to the rest of the school gossip, it was apparent that Tenten had been an excellent, national-ranked player. But she had been pressured (most likely by herself, he added on in his own thoughts) to practice too much for a world-wide youth tournament, causing her shoulder to dislocate right in the middle of her match. According to some students, the paramedics had to drag her off because she was sobbing with devastation and refused to forfeit.
She hadn't done any tennis activity for two years and went through surgery and physical therapy to fix her shoulder, but it was clear to doctors that it was a permanent injury. They had made it clear that she wasn't to play seriously anymore; her hobby as a competitive tennis player had went down the drain. Which was good for other players because she was supposedly incredibly skilled.
But now she was playing again.
He knew why: her father.
But did her father know?
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At the first practice, they split into groups of boys and girls. Sasuke discovered that Neji had joined as well, most likely to monitor Tenten, even if he didn't want to admit it. Lee signed up as well, and Sasuke had to admit, he brought a more relaxed mood to the team with his hilarious attitude.
Sasuke warmed up and found that he was right that most of the players sucked. He took in all the compliments from the team members and the impressed nods of the coaches. That was the way it was supposed to be. But Tenten took up some attention as well, with her accurate and powerful strokes (for a girl.) Sasuke told himself that he could beat her if he warmed up just a bit more.
But he wasn't so sure.
Inside, he didn't want to admit that he felt grateful that girls were separated from guys, because if word got around school that Tenten beat him in a match, he would be humiliated. He still felt the same way after a few weeks, and that frustrated him. Most of all, it felt confusing to hate someone for being better than you, yet not being jealous at the same time. He didn't want to be like Tenten.
But then he thought: wasn't he already like her?
Wasn't he supposed to have no emotions?
It didn't surprise him to find himself selected to be in the official school team along with Neji, Lee, and Suigetsu. For the girl's team, it was Tenten and three other girls. To Sasuke's annoyance, they made mixed doubles teams as well. Having a team member brought him down, and Sasuke felt that his teammates were always useless.
Unfortunately, yet fortunately at the same time, he had Tenten as a partner. It was fortunate because she wasn't useless; in fact she was just the opposite. But that fact was also part of the unfortunate part; she was good enough to match him, which wasn't supposed to happen. She started to make him wonder who was the better player, and that frustrated him because he was supposed to be better. It didn't really bother him inside as much he expected it would once he thought about it, but it bothered him as by how people would see him compared to her.
At their first practice match together, they played Rock Lee and Neji (Lee's partner skipped). Tenten made her serve, Sasuke noted how she paid no mind to how her shoulder made an odd pop and hit even harder when she noticed it.
He could also tell that Neji wasn't hitting as strong as he would've if he was playing someone else, and he was glad for that. Not for himself, but for Tenten. But she didn't seem to care. Lee, Sasuke had to grudgingly admit, was actually strong. He was strong in a scary way, he hit harder than Sasuke. But Tenten was able to return them. She made it seem like nothing, but Sasuke saw a little waver of strain in her eyes.
He wanted to tell her to stop, but his pride stopped him. He couldn't tell her in public.
When practice ended, Sasuke felt the tension in him release. He realized that tight feeling was worry when he saw Tenten massaging her right shoulder. Walking to the street with her, he said quietly, "What are you planning?"
Because he was somewhat confused. He didn't understand in some degree, why she would love so much, that she would suffer herself. He wanted to understand.
She walked away, slinging her duffel bag across her shoulder.
"To cleanse some of the sins I've committed."
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Daylight unrolled its illuminating colors in the sky, gently nudging night's dark twilight later and later. Tennis practice was beginning to grow more serious, since the school team was getting close to its first, district-wide tournament. Sasuke practiced on his own later, but he would never practice as late as Tenten.
No matter how hard Sasuke would try, even to the extent where it seemed impossible to push himself any further, Tenten would always beat him at effort. Even with her injured shoulder, it seemed like the upcoming competition meant everything to her. It was exactly like the math competition. And this time, she wanted to make sure that there was no room for flaws.
She always ignored her injury, pretending that it never happened. It looked like she didn't care that she was hurting herself, like she was hurting herself for a good reason; as if that if she went through all the pain, something good would come out of it. That everything would come to an end and she would be able to look back and smile upon the memory.
But that was just it; nothing was every enough for her. So when was it going to stop?
When was she going to be able to look back and smile?
Sasuke grabbed his iced coffee from the vending machine and popped open the lid, leaning against the tennis court fence to relax. He sipped his coffee and then threw on his sweatshirt, planning to walk off when he noticed that there was still one of the lights still on, beaming on one of the courts. He had already turned off his court lights, and he saw that there was only one person on the other courts, a shadow against the black sky.
Tenten continued serving. The clang of the balls pounding against the fence was rhythmic as she consistently hit them over them the net, as if it was not her plan to stop. But eventually she did pause, and packed her rackets to leave.
Sasuke noticed her shoulder made an unusual, sudden movement on its own as she slung her bag over her back. She winced, but she refrained from whimpering in pain as she only pounded it back in place with her other hand and walked off.
She took her usual route back home in the beginning, but she turned in the other direction of her street. Sasuke found himself following her, wondering who she could be visiting. She seemed to lost in her thoughts to have noticed that anyone was following her in the heart of the night.
She arrived at a cemetery, with a black wire lattice fence and a matching, tall gate of entwined flowers. Opening the gate, she walked into the area that looked even beautiful at night. She kneeled down at one of the largest marble blocks, the one with gold words that inscribed at the top: Yin Guang Rong.
She dug into her bag and took out a pack of paper money, placing at the foot of the slab.
"How are you, Mama?" She hugged her knees in such an insecure way that Sasuke thought he'd never see in Tenten. He'd always thought the girl she showed in school was like steel armor- sure, strong, and confident. But this girl was dependent, this girl seemed...lost.
"See? I'm being a good girl, I'm visiting you from tennis practice today." She gave a small, blank smile.
Whoever she was talking to Sasuke couldn't see. That person she was visiting, that person was invisible to him. But to her, that person seemed like her world. He could see that as she dug through her backpack and laid her test papers in front of her. "See? I got the highest score possible on every one. I was the best."
Her eyes seemed discarded, but loving as they wavered from the faint streetlights. And as if the gentle blow of the wind against her stress-tangled hair brought a whisper to her ears, the thin line of her mouth curved upward slightly. "Are you proud?"
"Yes, I started tennis again. You know how Baba loved to watch me play?...He would be proud of me..." She rolled back and forth on her toes, lamenting her memories with the same unseen figure she spoke lovingly to, "...You would make me teach lessons to you, and Baba teased about how you were the worst tennis player in the family..." She stiffened, and her nails dug into the dirt, clutching it in a tight fist. She put her head down and shut her eyes tight, as if they could eliminate the water that sparkled against the darkness that welled up in her eyes, "I miss you..."
"But that was my punishment wasn't it? I was such a bad girl."
"Baba's getting sick now too...and it's all my fault, I know... We have a tournament coming up, and Baba will come watch."
And even in the dark night, he saw a tear roll off her cheek and she looked up. Her eyes glowed with amber determination.
"But this time, it'll be different... I won't make the same mistake."
"I'm a different girl now, I promise."
"I won't disappoint Baba."
"I won't let Baba be humiliated to death,"
"because of me."
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A wan, white brightness streaked out in a square shape, creating a faint void of light around the laptop in the apartment. The room was silent, and even the clocks seemed to have understood the meaning of the lack of sound. Color was drained from the apartment as well, making the only form of life being infinite shades of gray, including the pale light trying to slip its way through the blinds.
The darkest shadow was the one sitting in front of the laptop; it was the only living one as well. Sasuke had multiple windows up on his screen, checking each one carefully as if he was performing a research project.
He scribbled down a date on a piece of scrap paper: June 3, and then checked all the other windows that used the same search engine, with the keywords: violin competition, tennis tourny, and school competitions.
None of them were dated June 13.
He tapped his pencil on his desk and saw the scene replay in front of his eyes.
"I miss you."
"But that was my punishment, wasn't it? I was such a bad girl."
"I won't let Baba be humiliated to death..."
"...because of me."
Everything, everything all came down to this. Everything came down to the fact that she loved. She loved her father too much to disappoint him. She remembered how much he loved watching her play tennis, and then she ruined her shoulder. But now, she was playing again.
Yet while it was just a hobby before, this time, to her, it wasn't a game to play for her pride.
She thought she could save her father by winning. No, there was more to it as well. Losing wasn't acceptable, because losing would mean losing everything. She believed that losing would burden her father with humiliation.
A humiliation so revolting, that it'd lead to suicide.
All these nightmares were brought upon by the death of her mother. To Tenten, she had died for that reason. For Tenten, it was all her fault.
Sasuke wondered what it felt to murder someone you cared for. He wondered how much it hurt to know that that person you loved felt so dishonored by your life, that they would end their own because pain was just too much. And then he thought; how would it feel to know that you were the cause of your parent's suffering? That you, you were the reason why they felt degraded.
Would he have done the same?
He remembered the guilt he felt when he felt his own family's blood covering him. He remembered how much he hated himself for screaming, and leaving them to rot, only fearing for his own life. And he remembered how regretful he felt a few weeks later when he realized he was alone, knowing that his father was right: he was useless.
And then he remembered how he changed, listening to only the recollection of his father's words in his mind. He still had that feeling in him; avenging his family by not only killing, but making up for what he wasn't when they lived as well.
Yet he noticed that somewhere along the way, he wasn't erasing his emotions anymore. He wasn't listening to what he thought his father would say. He didn't care.
Flashback.
"Oka-chan, why does Oto-san like onii-chan so much and not me?" A young Sasuke pouted as he waited for his breakfast at the table. As he thought about it more and more, he felt as if he wanted to cry. He wanted to be loved too.
He wanted to make everyone happy. But he couldn't.
"Nothing's ever good enough..." He whimpered and sniffed as he rubbed the water that was starting to frame his large eyes.
His mother smiled gently and set his waffles down. She knelt down to look him in the eyes, wiping his tear away with a tender thumb. "Sasuke-kun will always be Sasuke-kun, no matter what he does wrong."
"And that will always be good enough no matter what it seems like."
End of Flashback.
He saw the image of the kind, Asian woman with short, curled black hair from the video. In his memory, he paid closer attention to her eyes. No, those eyes weren't like his father's. They were nothing like his father's.
They loved.
He found himself at the town's middle school website on the window where he had searched up school competitions. But instead, it was a list of links that lead to information on the high-scorers of the district-wide mastery tests.
There was also a test taken on June 13th, six years ago.
He clicked on it and scanned the list.
Yin Tenten wasn't on there.
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Sasuke walked down an old fashioned street, with the houses still made of stone. He took one last drink of his canned tomato juice and threw it into the trashcan. Neji walked along with him, with a stiff dark green suit over his dress shirt.
"Tenten's worst performance was on that day." He looked down with his hands in his pockets.
Sasuke looked at him, expecting more from his answer to the question he gave him when they first met up at an intersection.
"Middle school district tests are always just another reason to give the advance kids to compete. It wasn't that Tenten didn't care, she did. But she didn't like math, it was just her parents that were on her back about it. Especially her mother." Neji took a turn and lead Sasuke down another street. "She was already a good student. Sure, she made a few mistakes, but that was common. But she really messed up that day. She didn't even make it in the top ten in the school."
He shrugged, "She wasn't happy about it, and I guess her parents weren't all that psyched either. Her mother happened to die on the same day too, nobody knows why, it's confidential." Once he thought about it, he looked at Sasuke with a question in his eyes. "But I guess that test must have really mattered."
"Because I think after that day, she turned into this."
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The puzzle was complete. Sasuke understood the situation now. Tenten's mother died on the same day of her disappointment on her exams. She committed suicide.
"She's going to kill her again."
"That person shamed someone to death."
"To cleanse some of the sins I've committed."
That person was Tenen, She was Tenten.
Tenten believed that her mother killed herself from the shame she brought upon the family.
But Sasuke knew that she was wrong. She had to be. He gripped his pencil tighter and felt it snap under the strength of his fingers. With nothing to release the tension he had inside him on, he only glared at his desk. Class was almost over anyway.
It didn't seem right for anyone to do something as cruel as Tenten's mother did. It wasn't true, just all in Tenten's mind. She just cared too much, it was just a coincidence. No one could be so selfish as to die leaving their daughter in such remorse. It was just inhuman.
Her mother, she seemed like she loved Tenten. Even though he saw her for only a few seconds, even if it was only an introduction by tape, he could see the difference between her mother and his father. When he saw her look at Tenten, he saw her as someone who placed a piece of her own heart in her, like someone who planted a seed. She wanted to watch her grow, watch her bloom into something that would make her daughter the happiest. Although Tenten may not think it was the best, she knew that she could be happy later...and if she was happy, then her heart would be happy.
Someone like that...someone like that couldn't have possibly planned on committing such a terrible thing to their daughter- a piece of their own heart. She would know that Tenten would suffer, right?
The last bell left his thoughts halted there as he strode quickly out of class. He packed everything he needed for the rest of the day into his briefcase before walking to the locker rooms.
He didn't bother hanging any longer with the other guys who found it amusing to wrestle half naked and spray each other with showering water as he changed quickly and walked out the back door.
The back of the school building was where all the courts were. It was pretty much an open filed with a ribbon pavement on the edge by the school wall for easy transportation. The courts were made of green, standard urban ground pavement white making lines. There were two courts in each section, three adjacent sections total, with each section fenced in using silver wires.
Sasuke had been planning to practice one last time before the tournament tomorrow, but found that (annoyingly) impossible because they were all taken. He would've walked right in and interrupted an amateur group if he hadn't noticed Tenten's father sitting on the risers, watching his daughter practice. He walked over and stood next to him.
He noticed Sasuke and smiled, "Ah, Uchiha-kun, you play tennis as well?"
Sasuke nodded and continued to watch Tenten hit the ball with incredible accuracy and control. Despite it was only practice, it looked like she was playing in a real tournament, like she couldn't afford a mistake- the way she was every time.
As she started to serve, midway with her arm in the air to reach the tossed ball, Sasuke saw her eyes meet his and then to her father. At just one glance of her father, a burst of autumn-brown flame lit her eyes. She leaned forward.
Ace.
The yellow-green streak slammed into the fence, imprinting a clang that echoed the air and leaving only a tennis ball stuck in between the wires. Her opponent stood, still bewildered at the sudden power he hadn't been expecting.
Was it him, or did she just gain a sudden strength when she saw her father watching?
Sasuke looked sideways and saw that her father's reaction was a nervous chuckle, "She's got a strong shoulder...it's almost as if she's completely healed..." But even he couldn't bring himself to believe that as his proud words didn't quite reach his eyes, neither did they hide the worry. But he asked, "Will I be seeing you tomorrow at Tenten-chan's tournament as well?"
He didn't quite wait for Sasuke's answer as he continued to talk more about his daughter, "Her mother and I started her on tennis, we were worried she wouldn't be athletic enough. But, I guess we were wrong." He smiled faintly at the memory, "She loved it."
Loved? Sasuke wondered why he had used past tense, but once he rethought, he realized it made sense. The girl on the courts right now, even if she was sprinting towards every shot and light on her feet...she didn't seem like she loved what she was doing at all. She seemed like she was in a fight for a life, trying to keep a cool composure.
"I still remember that she got into it so much, she told me someday she was going to be a final round in a big competition, and I was going to watch her win. I was going to be proud of her." The look on his face showed a father who cherished everything about his daughter, one who would treasure no matter what.
He stayed there for a long time in silence, until Sasuke wasn't sure if he was really seeing Tenten anymore but the same girl only from the memories he had six years back. Then finally, he got up, seeing that Tenten wasn't planning on stopping anytime soon, even though the moon was already high.
"I just hope she knows, that I can't be any more proud of her than I am right now." He whispered to himself.
He wished Sasuke a good night and walked off.
Sasuke didn't feel like playing anymore, instead he continued to watch Tenten play against the wall. She was the only person left on the courts now, but that didn't seem to bother her. Nothing seemed to flicker in her mind as she continued repeating the same strokes over and over, hitting the ball at the center of the racket, having the fluorescent blur rush into the wall only to bounce back, bouncing once on the ground...and it replicates over again.
Come to think of it, Tenten's life really was just a repeat day by day. There was nothing to be excited about. Everything was really just perfect. She gave up her happiness a long time ago for perfection.
And that perfection, that perfection was for her father. It was for her father out of love. Sasuke wondered as midnight grew closer, he found himself in awe at the melancholy whole prospect:
Love could bring so much more sacrifice than hate itself.
A/N: Post-Happy Thanksgiving! I'm grateful to all of you that read my fanfiction and even more grateful for those who COMMENT. Thank you! It's because of all you people that show that you like my work that I bother to continue.
Vocab:
Mama- Chinese for 'mom' or 'mommy'
Baba- Chinese for 'dad' or 'daddy'
And since I'm feeling so grateful (hey, it's Thanksgiving break, I'm a happy person when there's no school), I give thanks to my sister and my mom and dad, who encourage me to write. And all of my friends too.