Konoha is a warm place. I've always known it to be so, ever since I found a dreamer in the forest. He'd had warmth from that place, the village where you could have trusted your precious person to never leak your love on their hands. The dreamer, a child at the time, had told me later that my assumption was no truth…But I've never had reason to believe him.
When I'd resided with the warmth for some while, the others brought the cold with them; it chilled the dreamer and poisoned the Sharigan's child. It slung the memories in a scarlet web for anyone that knew – and I could not deny its call.
There is nothing left for someone when they've lost their precious person, for the star upon which your life is hung crashes; buried in the ground on a solitary hill. There are others (the dreamer, perhaps) who chase the other stars until their own dims forever; then there are stars that are doomed to plummet, intertwined so with that of their precious person. The dreamer wanted me to find a new star…and I would have, had the cold not come. It swept the warm village until the embers were concealed from me. I could not have found them, had I tried, and turned, a puppet of the scarlet silk, to what warmth hid in the earth.
It's well past the time of cold, and Konoha is waiting for the day of cheer. I wait in my solitary apartment, like a child awaiting the presents that are to come on the morrow. The blankets that bundle me away from the snow-globe (I saw one once in a shop window; Zabuza-san had to explain why it snowed in the plastic) conditions outside irritate my skin; I itch when I'm not watching the clock or the incense on the mantle. The digitized numbers say that it's 10:50 PM. The lines, resembling minute blades this night, glow eerie neon in the dark. The shadows from my neighbors' lights dance a solemn waltz in the corner. My Zabuza-san taught me to always be observant – but this night the details whisper a secret that my eyes can not see.
11:20 PM and the dreamer must be home. He trains much too late, and some days I worry that his star will fly away with him upon its tail. He laughs and says that I'm funny. The clock ticks past the hollow digit and I can remember Mother. She smiles and glows behind my drooping lids, but her screams jolt me awake. I cuddle into the blankets; but it's silly. There is the smell of warm somewhere – but when I look up, there is only the mantle. A soft wind hushes away a plume of smoke billowing from the incense, but it returns, persistent. The apartment suddenly feels bare, the smooth floorboards suddenly founded from a sickly slime, the shadows residue of a monster's evil. I secure the blankets about me and shuffle to the door. The number on the clock changes again; I can hear it click an imaginary tick. I don't remember…
Remember what? It's cold outside, and I drop the blankets in the doorway, fingers stiff. Konoha is coated in a layer of sugary snow, and I'm reminded of the snow globe again. The fake flakes pelted upon a cherry plastic scene that night while outside of its faux display eight men died at my hands. Zabuza-san soothed the hurt away with a view of home, clear in his eyes as we clung, a puzzle solved…
The snow is stained, I an angel in the black pure. I watch the havens, indigo at this hour; the snow continues to float down like gentle fingers. It's like the old days - I smile now, cheeks ripped rosy by the cold - it's just like scarlet down your fingers. Because I remember now, because my star is gone; they scream and gasp in the sheets, but is that not home? The tents in the fields of white, the silk tangled about my legs, hiding my head from the sun, were never home –
"It's cold, Zabuza-san…"
I hear myself mumble nonsense, and I cringe. I roll up into a ball. Dreams. I don't have dreams anymore.
The snow falls down, faster now, louder now. It's picked up, and by morning, perhaps the children will look out and see a land of devastation and their parents will shield them and tell them it's okay and they can just open presents and make glee and smiles and not care about me in the death.
And then I'm up, even though they don't tell me too and "It's too cold out, come inside Haku-chan," and so many things that I don't want to listen just because there's a pretty girl there that blushes when I say her name but all I want is Zabuz-
Stumble. Groan. My feet are bare and cold and frozen against the snow, but it's so soft and I do want…
Too many things left unfinished, too many cords left snapped in a fury. The memories are unlocked, were unlocked already but never known, and pelt about, down upon me, like shards of a breaking mirror, as I fall. A dreamer comforts me, as blood explodes and the last breath is taken and He forgets me, I can feel it, lost to flames and horror below,
But maybe now he's come for me and it'll all be better? Because it's too late now to leave and the train is going and we're still running and there is an ice cold hand that lifts me up and lets me in, just like an old film that I've never seen but recall, and He's there, just sitting like he always did, always does, and suddenly it's all gone and I feel the warm kisses down my spine but they feel like ice now and it's all gone…There is only the music and the dancing, and then there is nothing, numbness, as I lie, reality blackened against all that is white and snowing.
You're there, and I'm home.