Sakura was lying on her bed looking absently at the ceiling. Her fingers were interwoven over her stomach. It grumbled with months of starvation.
It was another less than stellar day after a mission. 1. Team 7 got a mission. 2. An enemy ninja popped up. 3. Naruto and Sasuke handled it while Sakura stood idle in a corner somewhere. 4. Kakashi congratulated them without sparing her a glance. 5. The mission is completed and they all go home. It was all so draining.
The vast difference in power dynamics of her team had only grown since the Wave mission and Sakura just knew that she would never be able to catch up to them.
Always cursed to be the one left behind, huh?
Sakura rolled over to her side. She looked around her room. It was just so childish. Stuffed bears, impractical girly clothes that did nothing to help her during missions, and overwhelming amounts of pink.
She sighed to herself. There was no way in hell she was fit to be a ninja and she was too stubborn to admit it to herself for so long.
Even her infatuation with Sasuke was fading. She only continued the act at this point to keep a sense of normalcy.
Sakura guessed that this all started with her and Ino's rivalry. Ino had mentioned one day in passing the year before that she was slimming down nicely. The ludicrous idea of two 11 year old girls being on a diet did nothing to deter them, especially the competitive Sakura who wanted nothing more than to prove that she could succeed at something. Much to Ino's ignorance, Sakura had continued this "competition" and it was affecting her greatly.
For the first six months, no changes were present in her body. Sakura was untrained, ill-informed, and lacked the discipline to eat a specialized meal plan for more than a day. It was frustrating and it was something that she reluctantly let Ino win. The diet was forgotten for a while until she finally started Team 7.
While she rejoiced being on a team with Sasuke at first, she was beginning to realize how detrimental he was to her self-esteem and confidence. It would be hard for anyone to integrate into a team with the son of the Fourth Hokage and the esteemed Uchiha clan. Others might have fared better than her though. She was just an insecure girl with no familial affiliation with ninjas or outstanding skills. She was a brilliant girl, but susceptible to following those she thought better than her.
Sakura balled her fists together until her nails dug into her skin until she drew blood. She watched it drip down her hand until it dropped to the floor. Tears collected in her eyes. She wiped at them furiously, but that didn't stop the pathetic whimpers she let out.
She thought it was a cruel joke to have put her on a team like this. She didn't stand a chance at becoming a ninja.
Kakashi, as acclaimed as he was in the ninja world, was far from teacher material and he knew it. Sakura hated seeing the way he was so dismissive of them, especially her. It was obvious he didn't expect much of her and the only time she would be trained was if she happened to be in the same vicinity as the rest of her team. Never one on one as her teammates got to do.
He noticed she was smart but wrote her off as some lovesick girl with no future. Even if it was true, she felt that there was still no reason to neglect teaching her since that was his job now no matter how much he obviously hated doing it. The most he ever asked her to do was intervene when Naruto and Sasuke started arguing. She hadn't had the energy to do it lately and her resentment towards Kakashi was growing every day.
The mission to Waves was the beginning of the end for her. He noted her proficiency in chakra control, but only as a sexist ploy to motivate Naruto and Sasuke's training. Once that exercise was over, he made no move to give her something else to occupy her time and she ended up back at the resident's house to cook. It hadn't bothered her at the time, but just being alone with her thoughts for a moment thinking about all the ways he failed her made her stomach drop.
It didn't make it any better that Sasuke's tongue cut like a knife. He'd find any and every way to belittle her. She took his comments as constructive criticism, but no matter how much she tried to train on her own he was just relentless. Standing back and finally looking at the boy she told herself she loved was hard. All those things she'd idolized in him before were now markers of his insensitivity.
She guessed she couldn't blame him though. Living in your more successful, prodigal older brother's shadow had to be hard especially with pressure from his family and high expectations from outsiders.
Naruto, with more time spent around him, was actually lovably annoying. He didn't bother her as much when she slowly stopped idolizing Sasuke, but he could definitely work on his volume. His father is the Fourth Hokage and known across the land for his immense power and wit. He was currently under his father's tutelage. It didn't hurt that his mother was a member of the Uzumaki clan known for immense chakra reserves and great sealing skills. He was destined to be great and she now believed that he would be.
However, even with all his great assets, he still did nothing to boost Sakura's self-worth. Sakura was sure that his love for her didn't extend past his rivalry with Sasuke. She was just another conquest in his pursuit to best Sasuke.
Although Sakura could now see them slowly becoming great friends, she wished that he would stop babying her. If Sasuke completely denied of her any ninja skill and Kakashi ignored her in favor of his more powerful students, than Naruto hid his disdain for her weakness by his incessant need to coddle her.
Even when Sakura tried to get involved in a fight, he was always there to swoop in in front of her and "save the day". It was hard to be mad with him because she was such a terrible ninja and he had a heart of gold, but she just sometimes wished that he believed in her enough to let her handle herself.
This slow realization of the depth of her inadequacies had lead her into a terrible bout of depression. Her terrible dieting habits from her rivalry with Ino suddenly turned into a beacon of discipline. Since being on the team, she had started stress eating more than usual. Even her mother had made a remark about her weight gain. After an offhand comment made by Ino after a mission, Sakura had gone into overdrive.
She justified it to continue. She was gaining weight and that wouldn't help her anymore since she was already such a deadweight to her team. She reasoned that losing weight would help her team carry her when they inevitably had to save her on a mission.
The first few weeks were the hardest. It was hard to walk, her head hurt all the time, and she was often dizzy. They voiced their concerns, but she always dismissed them.
Not like they really care anyway.
She started by cutting out snacks from her diet. She didn't realize how many she ate until she started going through sugar withdrawals in the first week. Once she got past that plateau, she cut out carbs. She found herself perpetually hungry and had to force herself to stay in her room to avoid getting more food. From then on, she cut out salty foods, then meats, then fats, until she realized that if she could do without all of that, then she didn't need to eat anything at all.
It was a fun game to play. Seeing how far she could she go before she got sick was well documented in her diaries. Being able to go back to read how far she'd come in the past six months was extremely gratifying. But she just couldn't make herself happier. No matter how much weight she lost, it was never enough. There were times where her teammates and peers seemed to be catching on and trying to keep up with all her lies was exhausting.
Take this afternoon for example. It was another mission of busy work finding the cat of a merchant's wife. The entire ordeal was wrapped up rather quickly and it was lunchtime when they reported back to the Hokage. Just like countless times before, Naruto had asked her if she wanted to eat at Ichiraku's ramen shop.
She fixed her mouth to decline when Kakashi, for the first time in a long while, decided to act like a teacher and offered to pay for everyone's meals. Naruto whooped with joy and Sasuke made a slight head nod in agreement. They all turned and looked at her expectantly. She remembered the way she pulled at her clothes nervously. Naruto started dragging her away before she could even answer.
When they made it to Ichiraku, Sakura felt like her heart would burst out of her chest. It had been a while since she'd eaten in front of anybody, much less her teammates, and her anxiety was through the roof. The delicious aroma filled her nostrils and she was finding it harder and harder to resist temptation. She detached her chopsticks and fussed around with her food a little.
When she finally took her first bite, there was no denying the hunger plaguing her stomach. Small bites wouldn't cut it. She'd almost fainted three times that morning during the mission and was running on one granola for the past six hours. She didn't realize how fast she'd been eating until Naruto made a comment.
"Woah Sakura-chan! I didn't know you liked ramen so much."
It was such an innocent statement. She knew the boy didn't mean it like that, he never did, but when she looked into her empty bowl with no recollection of eating besides the lingering taste in her mouth, she knew she had to leave. She dismissed herself with an excuse about her parents being upset about her spoiling her appetite with ramen and left.
She took winding paths and alleyways that would do their best to keep her hidden and ran home. Her vision was blurred from all the crying. She didn't know how she made it home with her inability to see other than muscle memory.
Sakura went up to her room, slammed the door, and entered the small bathroom connected to her bedroom. She lifted the toilet seat up, pushed her fingers down her throat, and puked until she felt her stomach completely empty. She flushed the toilet without looking and laid on the floor for an hour before she heard her parents open the front door and call out to her.
Sakura cleaned herself up and rushed downstairs to help her parents with the new furniture and decorations for the house. It didn't take long for a light-hearted conversation about furniture to turn into another one of her mother's rants in opposition to Sakura's ninja status.
"I just don't understand why you're so adamant about being a ninja. I remember you coming home from school talking about gossip with Ino and that Uchiha boy, never ninja skills. I think you're doing it to spite me at this point."
Sakura rolled her eyes. Conversations between her and her parents had become tense and strained since starting her ninja career. Her mother was very vocal about her disapproval while her father simply ignored the conversation altogether. On some nights, his indifference hurt worse than a knife.
"I want to be a ninja. It's something I like to do."
"Honey, you're not very good at it. I don't understand why you can't do something more low risk that matches your skills," her mother remarked in her patronizing maternalistic tone. It was a tone she had been taking more frequently. It grated on Sakura's ears.
"I am good. One of the missions my team and I went on even had a bridge named after us."
"How much of that honor was as a result of what you did on the battlefield?"
The room went silent. Her father could sense the tension in the room and tried to quell it before it escalated. "Come on both of you. Let's just put these things away so we can get ready for dinner."
"What does it matter? I'm a part of the team."
"Oh honey…I'm not trying to be the bad guy here or anything, but your father and I, we know your skillset. Maybe if you were on a different team your shortcomings wouldn't be so glaring, but those boys are powerhouses and you'll just end up getting in their way. Just quit while you're ahead and stay here with me, ok?"
Sakura stopped breathing. No matter how true it was, she didn't want to hear it especially not from her mother. This had to be the ultimate betrayal. Sakura started shaking with rage. Her father walked over and laid a hand on her back.
"Let's stop this now. It's only going to get worse."
"YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW ME!"
Her mother rolled her eyes, used to the outburst. "Ugh, not this again," her mother said with a tone of dismissal. "Not everyone's against you just because they're being realistic. I'm only telling you this to spare your feelings."
Sakura's shakes of rage turned into sobs. Before she could stop herself, the tears poured out and she was blubbering like a baby.
"I HATE YOU! I FUCKING HATE YOU!"
Her mother looked taken aback. Sakura could feel her father jacking her up from behind and shaking her.
"That's enough! Apologize to your mother and go to your room!"
Sakura ran straight up the stairs and slammed her room door shut. She could hear her parents' protests from downstairs, but she didn't care. She was just so sick of everyone telling her she was useless without even giving her a fair chance to prove herself.
This was how she found herself on her bed moping. She looked over at the clock. It was almost midnight and her parents were still downstairs just talking. They'd been at the dinner table for hours just rambling about the most mundane topics. However, Sakura's ears perked up when her mother started talking about her.
"I just don't know what to do with that girl. She can be so stubborn sometimes."
"That's where you two are alike. You never back down from a fight even when you're wrong," her father quipped. Sakura heard them laugh with a joy she hadn't heard in months.
"Please! I'm not that bad. Even I know when to quit," she heard her mother reply. Sakura could feel a weight in her stomach drop.
"Well it's obvious you won't be able to convince her that this dream she has of being a ninja isn't realistic, so just let her figure that out herself."
"And embarrass us in the process? I don't think so," her mother comments with a laugh. "It's a pipe dream and you know it dear. She can be mad at me now, but she'll realize I was right later."
"Ah, just let her indulge herself now. Maybe she'll realize she doesn't have the chops in a few more months and then we won't have to worry about this anymore," her father reasoned.
"I hope you're right."
A small laugh ensued between the two ends the conversation. Sakura gets up and stands by the door with half a mind to let them know that she heard what they said and wouldn't be changing her mind. But she could only stand at the door with tears in her eyes and the knowledge deep down in her heart that they were right.