IT'S HER AGAIN

The following scene took place between episode 195 events, Naruto and Kawaki had been at Ino's flowers' shop, Sarada had said farewell. The 7th Hokage and his new protégé were walking back home after having lunch at Ichiraku's, then Sumire was passing by at the opposite sidewalk. She waved her right hand and came in their direction with a cheerful smile. She already had caught up with Katasuke about the current situation. As Kawaki saw her approaching, he avoided eye contact and kept an inexpressive face. With mixed feelings of guilt and suspicion, he reckoned: "Damn it, it's her again? She is coming here. Didn't I choke her hard enough to make her keep distance?"

Sumire:
_Lord Seventh! Good afternoon... Humm, good afternoon, Kawaki...

Kawaki ignored her, thinking: "I guess everybody knows my name already. She never said hers though."

Naruto:
_ Hi, Sumire, you have arrived yesterday at the village, right?

Kawaki's thought: "So, her name is Sumire... damn it, why do I care?"

Sumire:
_ Yes, I couldn't come with Mr. Katasuke earlier. . I've started working with him this morning. It's great to be back in Konoha. By the way, I am so glad you could have Kawaki personally under your care, Lord Seventh!

Naruto's thought: "She is really cheerful!"

Sumire to Kawaki: _Haven't I told you Lord Seventh is a very understanding person?_ In her thought: "he is not even looking at me..."

Kawaki:
_ Hum

"She speaks being sure I remember that chit-chat in that ally sitting at the ground..." He thought recalling their moments after aiding the wounded stray dog at Ryutan Village.

Naruto as listening to Sumire's speech thought: "She must have talked with him in that day". He looked concerned at Kawaki and said:
_Well, I think it was the better decision.

Sumire:
_You are lucky Kawaki, I hope you feel Konoha as your home, welcome.

Kawaki looking in the other direction, tried to not show his surprise with her heartwarming speech:
_Tsc.

"How am I lucky? As if!"_ He thought.

Sumire as seeing his reaction and his behavior since she appeared thought "Oh, he is completely avoiding me, not a single word, not even that frowning face. It went out worse than I thought." She said then:
_ I must go now. Good to see you both, bye-bye.

Naruto noticed something was uneasier than usual with Kawaki, " His reaction to Sumire is oddly different" he thought, saying:
_ Goodbye, Sumire. It was good to see you too. Wasn't it Kawaki?

Naruto looked at Kawaki hoping he would say something back, even it would be some acid answer. Kawaki then stared at Sumire fiercely and gave her a sarcastic half-smile, similar to those ones he gave her in the Tech Lab stairs, but he didn't say a single word. "Good to see you leaving" he only thought.

Sumire kept her cheerful smile while she thought "Hawawa, now I got that frowning face"

_ Bye-bye_ She said as she left walking into her previous trajectory.

Kawaki, with an annoyed expression, started to walk again alongside Naruto, who in an attempt to cheer up the boy's mood said:
_Oh, today we have bumped into many ladies, haven't we?

Kawaki:
_Tsc, among all the ones we could have bumped into that one was the worst.

Naruto got intrigued:
_Why is that? Sumire has been so kind to you.

Kawaki:
_As if. I am the one who has been anything but kind to her. I don't know why she keeps playing this role.

Naruto:
_Wait, is this about what happened in the Tech Lab and in the Ryutan Village?

Kawaki looked to Naruto and nodded affirmatively.

Naruto:
_I am sure she doesn't have any grudge against you and there is no role she is playing. Naruto lifted his right arm putting his hand behind his own nape and said: _Actually, at that very day she stood up for you when we arrived in Ryutan.

Kawaki, surprised:
_ What did you say?!

Naruto:
_ When I arrived with Sai in Ryutan Station we met Boruto carrying Sumire that was harmed, Boruto told us you have escaped and gone on a rampage at the village. Then Sumire recovered her conscience and asked for your sake, claiming you were not acting berserk by your own will, she begged me to listen to what you had to say and also mentioned you had the same sad eyes she once had...

Kawaki stared at Naruto with goggled eyes stunned with his speech:
_ This can't be true, it makes no sense.

Naruto looked at him as Kawaki changed his facial expression to a sad look. Naruto sighed and said:
_ Well, I don't know if you remember, but when I first met you at Ryutan I tried to talk through you, I told you that there must had been people that cared about you, I was thinking of Sumire... and also maybe Boruto.

Kawaki looked at Naruto with a mixed confused and angry face:
_ What?! This is stupid, why them? Who would care about a completely strange?

Naruto smiled at Kawaki and said:
_Well, I cared about you, Sumire did it before me and even before that Boruto cared about you when he first met you fainted in the ground after fighting those marionettes...

Kawaki shrugged and mumbled:
_He gets an annoying way to show he cares... And she... she is even worse, pretending she knows me.

Naruto replied:
_ Usually when you have much in common with someone you don't need to spend much time with the other to feel like you know this person. There is also something called empathy, you know...?

Kawaki, feeling teased and also rethinking about his previous judgment about Sumire intentions, spoke in an, so far, unseen talkative way:

_ Damn it, to have something in common with me is never a good thing; she should have left me alone. She really is a nosey girl! Well, thanks to her big mouth I could use the Intel to get rid of those lame "prisoner keepers" ... although it was harder to get rid of her as I found out she has fight skills in addition to a beast pet that almost pulled my arm off! At least it broke my handcuffs and I managed to escape while she tried to control the beast... she seemed to be shocked when I called her a "monster like myself"! She is a good tracker though... maybe I should also blame that stray dog for making me waste my time. If I wasn't starving...

Naruto looked at Kawaki trying to follow, he was aware of the events from that day due to team 7's and police force's reports and also from the Lab Team report, although he probably would have known more if Shikamaru hadn't dismissed Sumire's individual report she had sent along with the others, the one he considered portraying "irrelevant additional information", the one he didn't put on Lord Seventh desk. Naruto smirked at him surprised with all those messed up information and by Kawaki's intensively expressed words.

Kawaki continued:
_Who does she thinks she is? Just standing up there unfeared by my rage against that dog's aggressor? As if I would be moved by her free will to aid the dog's wound and also my own. As if I believed when she said she was sorry or that I wouldn't be used as a weapon under some powerful leader domain. It is not like I had cared about that crap talk about trust and about her dark past due to dad issues as well... I wouldn't let myself be fooled to take any injection. I just didn't hate her enough to...

Kawaki stopped before he completed the statement, but the following words were already in his mind which would had been "kill her". Then he just remembered the moment he had become a murderer, with all the rage, loath and grudge he had portrayed against Garou. At that moment he remembered not feeling relieved after he had achieved his begging enemy's demise, he felt an emptiness and a pain for becoming what he hated more. Likewise, Jigen and his father once said he was worthless, he felt that it was true. No, he didn't hate Sumire enough to had killed her, maybe he didn't hate her at all. Maybe he just didn't know how to deal with feelings others than rejection and fear. Therefore Kawaki started to wonder: why did he help that dog? Why did he choose to only scare that butcher instead of harming him? Why did he care about a random kid in his fire reach so he deflected his attack? Why he first warned Sumire twice before engaging her at the Tech Lab stairs? Why was he patient enough to listen and talk to her at that alley? Why did he get intrigued when he heard Boruto calling her by "Class Rep" instead of her own name? Why did Sumire ask her pet beast and her colleagues to do not to engage him while she was choking by his hand? How could she have asked Lord Seventh to give him a chance? Was she seeing something in him he couldn't see himself? How could she saw his "sad eyes" when everyone else just sees a potential killer? Well, maybe not everyone else anymore...

Naruto observed that abrupt change of behavior in Kawaki as he went from a confused inflamed speech to a reflexive silence that lasted something about two minutes. After giving this time to Kawaki's introspection, relieved he didn't go through another panic attack like earlier in the Flower Shop, Narutos said: _ Well, it seems you got a lot to think about. Had she talked about her past?

Kawaki answered:
_ Tsc, never mind.

Naruto:
_ Just for the record, Sumire's past was something truly dark that was on the edge of bringing this Village to destruction but she had a change of heart when she accepted the bonds she had made with her friends and she chose her own will over her father's, it was also thanks to Boruto that talked her through.

_Huh, she kinda mentioned that. But it... it has nothing do with me, damn it. _ Kawaki replies rudely. Sumire had let him more intrigued than ever but he wasn't interested in being friends with her, neither he was with Sarada or Cho Cho. For the Uzumaki's, he kept telling himself he was just trying to get along with them for his own benefit especially with Boruto because he needed to get rid of the Karma. About Lord Seventh, maybe he could give him some protection against Jigen...

_ Hmm, I hope you'll think differently someday_ Naruto realized that it was better to be done with that conversation.

Both arrived home.

To be continued