No time for rest. No pillow for my head.

The first time that she, Hatsue, met Sasori of the Red Sand was no more ordinary than the sand flying to one's eyes. She closed them for a moment and he was there, with his mousy red hair, hazy look in his eyes, wearing green robes and a poncho. She was seated all the way back from him and out of all classmates she saw that day, he was the most interesting. It was probably because Sasori was quiet even with the obvious favoritism of their teacher towards him, he never gloated. When he was praised, he replies an obligatory thank you as flat and as uninteresting it is as the sands under their feet. Sasori was a prodigy, a genius or in her five year old wisdom, she described Sasori as a really smart boy. She described him smart because he gets high grades in class and it was no secret that he could already control puppets, a size of an adult. It took her years to say something on this compelling boy who seemed to respond with everything in vapid enthusiasm.

"Sasori." She called out.

The boy, 7 years of age, looked back and stared at the girl with dark, ebony hair and brown wide eyes. He doesn't know her name but he is not embarrassed, not curious, nothing. He should probably wonder why the girl called him out since he never got to know any of his classmates, with him building puppets inside his grandmother's spare workshop, he never got to play Tag, you're it or Hide-n-Seek, he should wonder but instead, he stared and waited.

"Congratulations on graduating!" Hatsue grinned her pearly teeth and offered a handshake. Pride swelled within her chest for being able to pronounce 'congratulations', it was a difficult word for her age, most children would opt for 'congrats', not her though, instead, she wanted to say the word in its original and complete form because he did not deserve anything less. She pronounced it perfectly.

Sasori, surprised, looked at his grandmother Chiyo, who smiled at him as gentle as she had always been with him and nudged him towards the handshake.

The handshake was childlike for their age. One wanted the handshake to be proper like adults do while the other took him by surprise again and shook his arm with great vigor. And the result was that Sasori pulled his arm enough for the girl to fall on her bum.

Hatsue's parents immediately pulled her up and dusted the sands off of her with coos and 'Does it hurt?' and 'It's okay's. And seeing this, Sasori's eyes burned, they could probably tore a hole on her if only eyes could. He tugged Grandma Chiyo's hand; He feared he'll get scolded by the weird girl's parents. Seeing this, Hatsue whispered to her dad to let her down. She took a paper crane from her robe's pockets and placed it upon her palm, covered it with both hands and concentrated her chakra to pool inside the paper crane. She prayed to Kami to please let it work. She opened her hands and blew on the paper crane. It glided towards Sasori in a straight direction hitting the boy between his brows.

Oops.

And to their wonder, the paper crane flitted its tiny paper wings, almost like a heartbeat but instead it was the chakra rapidly leaving the paper crane. Sasori knows because he sees the chakra just as he sees it when he tried to control his puppets, so he opens both his hands as if to cup the paper crane as it landed. He might not be the most friendly kid in Suna but he knows that this tiny paper crane and the way it was delivered to him was something sublime. Not wanting to be outdone, he pulled out a tiny puppet from his robes, the first wooden puppet his grandma Chiyo gave him before he started making his own puppets. Attaching chakra strings on it, he controlled the little puppet and made it walk towards the weird girl. The movement was mechanical and awkward like this meeting between them and the girl knelt while opening her arms to embrace the little wooden puppet and called it 'cute'.

"Thank you." Hatsue bowed towards Sasori and the elder grandmother with much gratitude as she can, for she knows she is the only one to have ever received something from her smart classmate. She knows how he never stays to play at school or never made any friends. Sure, some kids wanted to play with him but after seeing him so uninteresting or sullen or like a puppet all the time, they stopped being friends with him. He was not isolated on purpose. He chose to be.

She wanted to say something to him, anything. She wanted to be friends with him. But alas, she had nothing left to say. She had said her congratulations and she had given him the paper crane. And so, she watched him leave with the elder grandmother.

That night, Sasori was building another puppet, a new one, maybe a puppet that has shurikens inside its stomach. Sleep had rarely come for him now, and he wanted to finish this puppet so he didn't mind. Besides, Grandma Chiyo had work tonight and left him all alone so he can work all night until morning. He was about to change his poncho when the paper crane fluttered on the floor. He looked closely and saw an ink peeking out on its fold. He picked it up and unfolded the paper to see an art that cause him to stop and forget to breathe for a moment. It was a flower with a little petals that curls upwards but upon closer look the petals were actually fishes. Here in Suna, the sand village, flowers are rare, fishes are even more so. And the weird girl painted it so like there was breath of life on this paper. Had she seen one before? And is she stupid? This artwork, this breathtaking painting shouldn't be folded into a paper crane. It should be framed and be hung upon a wall.

And that night, he didn't work on his puppet, instead he used the spare wood for a frame. Carving the frame, he held the chisel steadily with great care and wondered what kind of carving could compliment the painting. And he thought of the sand, the sand that looked like a great yellow sea in its barren form. It covers miles and miles and that is what all the citizens from the sand village has seen their entire life and he wonders if anyone, like him, pretended that the sand was a sea like the way it was drawn in books. He continues and waves appeared on the wooden frame with a lone shell on one corner.

Sasori, for the first time, wanted to meet a living person, not his puppets or grandma Chiyo. He wanted to know that weird girl that he can't remember her face because he wasn't looking at her properly. He wanted to know the name of the girl who made him dream of oceans, of flowers and of bright colored fishes.

Nowhere to run from this. No way to forget.

She wasn't plain, the red head thought. She was a mystery like any other he hoped to comprehend. Now he starts to wonder why, why did she talk to him? Why did she give him the painting? Why was it, she looked so unattainable when surrounded by her own friends? It was silly. They were standing on the same sands, lived in the same village. So someone tell him why she looked like she was living in a different world than him? He thought he forgot her face since he wasn't looking at her properly. Who knew that as soon as he saw her buying snacks with her friends (he thinks they're her friends), that he'd recognize the same wide brown eyes?

"Oh, hey Sasori!" She waved at him, a bit embarrassed because she was caught by him acting like a kid which is silly because she was a kid and there was no need to be embarrassed by that. But he was so quiet and so... grown up and she thought she should act like one.

As soon as grey eyes met hers for a moment, those pair of eyes immediately looked away and as soon as it did she knew he'll ignore her and that made her panic. She immediately broke away from the circle of her friends and chased him tugging on his green robes which made him stop and turn around.

"I never got to introduce myself!" She said, no she shouted, but she didn't notice because she was breathless and she was still holding on his green robes because she couldn't believe herself. She was a girl and she shouldn't be this strange and fuzzy towards boys! Maybe there was something about being a child... There was little to fear. They only fear the monsters and shadows and tailed beasts but they do not fear what must the other think? They rush head on, charging with naivety and wisdom of their youth and maybe it is something that adults admire, something adults envy as one grows old.

"My name is Hatsue," she looked down, letting go of him and her hands touched her forehead protector, she was nervous but she continued, "Hatsu means beginning and e means painting."

Still, the boy just stared at her. That did not stop her from grabbing his hand again, leaving her friends dumbfounded as she ran dragging the prodigy. "Wanna play with me?" She asked, not really minding how his face showed a bit of reluctance and of course unsmiling as it was.

No answer.

"Where's your forehead protector? The others have started wearing it but others are wearing it around their neck, or their arms. I bet you look good wearing it." She babbled.

Still, no answer. She stopped and turned around to give him the stink eye. She looked stupid talking to herself. The silence stretched between them and they were bathed with sun's glow like a marmalade and made his red hair fascinating. It made her brown eyes looked like golden in that light and made the boy feel light headed.

"Your painting..."

Finally! She thought. He was finally talking to her and so she replied happily, "So you opened the paper crane? I thought you wouldn't but yes that was my painting! See what I did with the flower? It was fishes! but the form was a chrysanthemum flower, it doesn't grow in Suna but I hear in other places where there is autumn, it gro-"

Her mouth was covered by his hands and there was furrow on his eyebrows.

"Are you always this noisy?" He asked, annoyed.

She smiled and he could feel it beneath his palms, her hands went up to his wrists and guided them away from her mouth and dropped them and she was smiling at him oh so cheekily.

"The fishes, what were they called?" He asked, curious. They were not aware of the people passing by, and his voice, not shy, just small, as if they were in a secret conversation that spies have.

"They were koi fish." She answered, feeling smart because she knows things that this smart boy doesn't know. Things like different flowers and animals that doesn't exist in this lonely barren village. "They only live in cold waters so I haven't seen one but I saw them on my books."

"Koi? Love? Love fishes? That sounds stupid." He said because it does sound stupid. (Author's note: Koi is a homophone with love or affection in Japanese. Homophone means similar sounding words that means differently. Ai means real love and Koi is love for the opposite sex or selfish love.)

She laughed. Pure, lighthearted, carefree joy that was expressed in sounds because what he said was indeed funny. And Sasori relaxes into it, because he was in short supply with happiness.

"Koi. Carp." She answers after regaining her composure. "It's a symbol of friendship, you know. The koi fish."

He looked at her again and realizes how this girl is not as simple as he thought, so he tried to ask, maybe he's wrong, maybe but he tried.

"The flower? What does it mean?"

She looked at him and smiled again, cheekily.

"Longevity and rejuvenation."

"You want to be friends with me. You want to have a long friendship with me." He states because he knows he is right. There was no mistaking it anymore. And she looks at him in amazement and wonder and claps happily and delighted,

"You're really a smart boy, Sasori. Yes, I want to be friends with you."

And he looks at her for a long time and thinks maybe this girl wouldn't be a bad friend, just to ease his boredom and they walk home slowly as Hatsue explains to her the story of a koi fish that climbed a waterfall to become a dragon. And she adds that one day, they should visit a place that has a waterfall and they should go together.

What he doesn't know that the crane meant 'the bird of happiness' and Hatsue sent him the first paper crane, they said if you fold a 1000 paper cranes your wish will come true, but she doesn't know how long will that take. And so she'll make sure he is happy. She didn't get to make Sasori smile but she did get him to be friends with him. The wings of the crane were believed to carry souls to paradise and deep in her heart she chants just like how it was written in the book,

"oh flock of heavenly cranes

cover him with your wings."