A/N

I'M NOT DEAD! I'M SO SORRY! I KNOW I SAY THIS LITERALLY EVERY TIME I POST SOMETHING, BUT I'M SO SORRY! I HAD SO MUCH STUFF GOING ON, I WAS FALLING BEHIND IN SCHOOL... Sorry guys. Like... really. I've been so freaking busy, and writers block is such a hoe.

You still love me, right? RIGHT?! ;-; ;-; ;-;

LOVE ME!

Play With Your Dolls

Mom is still in the hospital. She still hasn't woken up, and they won't tell me why. The doctors think I'm too young to understand. I believe, from what I have read, that mom damaged a lot of her brain cells due to her excessive alcohol consumption. I don't know that much about the subject though, just that one sentence that makes me sound smart.

Naruto is supposed to take care of me, but he's never around. He's taking mom's whole hospital thing pretty hard, so he's been smoking a lot more lately. I guess it makes him feel better. I don't see how hallucinating and being really hungry would make you feel better, but to each his own.

The thing that's making me feel better is sleep. I sleep as much as I can, because it's a nice little escape from my life, right inside my mind. When you dream, you get to be who you want to be. You get to do what you want to do and be with who you love. Real life isn't like that. It's nowhere close.

Sleep is easy for me now. Easy as laying down and closing your eyes. It's actually harder to stay awake. My eyelids are always threatening to close, and I just feel so drained, physically and emotionally. It's so strange.

There is a plus side to all of this, though. Neji is around a lot more often than he used to be, which means he practically never leaves, so I'm never really alone. I'm excused from school since apparently everyone in the world thinks that if I leave my house I'm going to have a mental breakdown. Neji says the news has spread around the entire town, and that most people are sympathetic.

I'm sure that me not being at school isn't stopping Elsie and Kenzie from spreading rumours.

"Kyarra's mom is a drunk." They're probably saying, "That must be where she got her crazy from."

I'd prefer that, actually. I don't want everyone's sympathy, I don't want their pity. They pity the poor little girl who's mother is in the hospital, the poor little girl who can barely bring herself to get out of bed, the poor little girl who's all skin and bones and will probably break if you touch her. Well, the poor little girl doesn't want the attention, she doesn't want everyone pretending to care or even looking at her, and she never has, because all she wants for once in her life is some GOD DAMN PEACE AND QUIET IN HER OWN BRAIN, IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?!

Breathe, Kyarra.

You can't have a breakdown now, Neji or Gaara will be back soon.

Oh yeah, Gaara is around a lot too, buying cookies for me and then eating all of them. That's okay, I didn't really want them anyways.

I'm getting better (worse?) with my eating, but only because Neji is forcing me to eat three meals a day. I look in the mirror and see that I practically take up the entire room with my fat, but I can't do anything about it.

I know he does it because he cares, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. He says that eventually I'll get used to eating normally again, and I'll start to feel better about myself.

Yeah, right.

But still, I don't know what I would do without Neji.

Speaking of my knight in shining armour, he just went out to buy me a coffee with the money Naruto leaves for me whenever he's home. I am in my attic, as I always am, brushing my Kyarra doll's hair. I keep finding the other dolls outside of their house even though I put them inside. Maybe they don't want to be inside anymore. I understand the need for a change of scenery every once in a while.

So I put the mom and dad doll by the small window in my attic, letting the dad see what the weather is today while the mom takes a nap next to him. The dad looks sad, while the mom looks tired and weak.

The Naruto doll is on the other side of the room, next to some old match boxes and empty chip bags. Some boxes sit in the corner next to him, probably some old junk we never threw away.

I put Kyarra doll in the living room with a few small pieces of paper that I cut up and stapled to be her sketchbook, and a piece of broken pencil lead as charcoal to draw with. She's the only doll that never leaves the house. I always come up here to see her asleep in her bed or on the couch. I stand and stretch, not knowing how long I had been sitting down for. I walk to the attic door with stiff, aching legs.

As I am about to leave the attic, I notice a flash of colour, an object hidden half-underneath a box. I bend down and pick it up, inspecting it carefully.

It's a doll I've never seen before. It has long brown hair, tied off at the end, and purple-grey eyes. Despite the long hair, I can definitely tell it's a boy. It's cute.

It's Neji.

"Where did you come from?" I ask it as if it would answer, smoothing down it's hair. He smiles his painted doll smile back at me. It makes me feel happy, and I'm not really sure why.

"Well, welcome to the family!" I hug it to my chest, then bring it over to my dollhouse.

I make Kyarra doll and Neji doll sit on the couch together, holding hands. They smile at each other.

I wonder how I never noticed him before.

Ending Note!

This literally took me months to write, so I'm sorry for everyone who probably forgot about this story that is now getting a notification and is like "wtf is this" and then they read the story and they're like "wtf is this"

Okay, I'll try to post more of all of my chapter stories soon, since I'm on break and I have slightly more time to work than usual.