Pressure
Kisoku no Yanagi
Inspired when I got mad at my mom just before a party and ended up having to paste a smile on my face the whole time. Good thing I'm a decent actor.
Written from Naruto's perspective.
Every morning, I meet you two at the bridge.
Every morning, I greet you, Sakura, with a huge smile. And every morning, Sasuke, I greet you with a scowl.
Every morning, you'll hit me for being impolite to Sasuke. And every morning, you'll ignore as you always do.
And every morning, I will stand there, as always, beaming my false smile at your oh so gullible faces.
Oh, it's fake alright. It's definitely fake. Deep down, there's nothing I'd want more than to ignore you Sakura, you with your incredibly high-pitched voice and obsession with Sasuke. And I'd like nothing more than to ignore you, Sasuke, with the same intensity and single-mindedness that you have been ignoring me with for the last year.
Did it not ever occur to you that my smile was fake? No. No, you, like most others, cannot conceive that someone like me will act, will deceive, will be able to so perfectlyl fool you. And so even as I wear my emotions on my sleeve, I rewrite them to my liking and yours.
I think Kakashi knows it. He's as fake as I am. I know I can't compare my pain to his, losing his only friend so soon after they were friends. I know that his grin and sheepishness and foolish excuses are simply a smokescreen to keep us from finding out the truth. And I know that you can see through my facade, as surely as I can see through you.
I think Iruka knows it as well. No one knows me as well as he does. He understands me, and he is the only person around whom I can drop my smile. Gaara too, but he's in Suna, isn't he?
I know the old Sandaime knew it. He never missed anything. That's probably why he forced me to enroll at the ninja academy. To try to restore my faith in humanity, I mean. But unfortunately, it did the exact opposite.
But you don't care about that. You care only that I remain the idiot and the buffoon, and like the buffoon I should be, so I cater to you, falsifying my only true possession for you.
And I don't believe I can take the pressure.
I can see why Gaara went crazy. He didn't have anyone to fool. He had only himself, and apparently his uncle, and the latter tried to kill him. So no. He had no purpose, no niche, no goal other than to rend and destroy, for death is the only certainty in life, and as long as he dealt that certainty to people who in no certainty deserved it, he had a purpose, a reason for continuing with relative sanity.
I respect Gaara. He found his purpose, though it was a bit twisted, and he found it on his own. And I can't blame him for wanting to kill. Having been the victim, he decided to turn the tables, just as I plan to not so long after I record these thoughts here.
But until then, I will serve my purpose, as your dummy, as your buffoon, as your completely fake optimist.
So until then, I will meet you in the morning at the bridge and act as you think I should.
So until then, I will continue to wear the facade of stupidity.
And so until then, I will continue to serve my purpose by fooling you with the illusion of my happiness. Until then...
Owari.
Ahhhh...such a relatively dark fic. I dunno, it struck me as funny that a guy can keep remaining so glaringly optimistic. Everyone is gone, purupuru.
Please, review. Flame, even.