.
"Why were you so late coming home today?" Mom asked at dinner. Dad was still at work. Despite what he said about the hours at the hospital slowing down, recently they seemed to be adding up again. He was never home anymore, and any chance that mom's anger could be redirected was gone with him. "I told you I needed your help at the shop today."
"Sorry," I shrugged. Hurrying up to eat so I could escape further confrontation. "I had to retake a test."
The dry rice clogged up my throat, and I got up to fill my cup with iced tea from the fridge. It was hot in the kitchen, from the small interior to the oily residue that clung to every surface. I filled up my cup twice, chugging down a full glass before feeling truly satisfied. Recently it seemed as if every little thing bothered our mom. Like there was nothing we could do that would make her pleased or less upset about everything. I didn't want to tell her about what I really stayed late for. Not just because I feared her reaction, but also because I hadn't fully processed what happened. Or what would now happen to me.
I had once described myself as someone who takes well to bad news. As someone who could be easily placated with the way, things were versus the way they ought to be. Yet, as I stood there, drink in hand taking extremely long sips of bitter iced tea, I couldn't bear but feel a certain kind of terror. This blistering feeling that sat in my bones一 one that had been there for quite a while, but was just now making itself known.
"Hssh," I released a silent shaky breath, recapping the tea, and pretending to wipe my mouth.
"Sachie," mom suddenly spoke, in an incredibly calm voice, yet when I turned to look at her, there was such an ugly expression painted across her face. "Did you just drink the rest of the iced tea."
"No," I opened the fridge to show her. "There's still some left."
"There," she spoke every word as if it was being forced out of her. "Is nothing left."
Mom got up in such a rush I'm sure she used chakra. With this same wild energy, she leaped to the fridge and pulled out the bottle of remaining iced tea, holding it high up in the air as if she were hanging decorations. Yet her ruthlessness with the bottle destroyed any illusion that this was going to end in celebration. Instead, she began to shake, sloshing around the tea I had left up and down like an earthquake.
"You're just so selfish," she spat at me. "How can you be so selfish?"
"And how many times," she continued. "Do I have to tell you to not put away empty containers? How many times?" She asked again for extra emphasis. Then threw the whole bottle in the trash.
"I just don't know why you insist on doing this to us. Sachie, you cannot fail the academy." Her tone suddenly turned more somber, as if a switch had been flipped. "I really don't know how I'm supposed to put up with you sometimes. You just always act like一" She turned to me with an expression I'll never forget. It was like someone had destroyed her most beloved object before her eyes. And her response could no longer be anger, and not sadness either, but utter despair. Then she turned around and began speaking again in a quieter, but firmer tone. "Like nothing matters to you."
There are a few sounds universally experienced. Whether it's the effects of a sudden wind or the commotion of one object against another, you can be sure to hear these usual noises so much so that they all but disappear to the back of your mind when they actually occur. All this leaves in its absence the true shared occurrence of muted silence. A quietness that in some ways continued indefinitely, as who's to say when one period of time begins and ends? In reality, it's just as if it's been paused.
I can't hear if my mom said anything more than night. Her voice blended into the background, with the closing of the door, and the sound of my own footsteps running down the hall. Another door closes and opens. The same brisk wind draws across my body, filling my lungs with cold wet air. It's raining and I sat on the cement steps leading up to our apartment building.
Everyone must be finishing up work and heading back home, I think longing after my father who I know will only return once or twice this week. It's that time of spring when the nights are just starting to get light again when the daylight grows longer and longer until your perception of night and day begins to shift. Yet with the rain it's impossible to tell whether it's meant to be light or dark. Whether the sun has just started to set, or if the moon is already high above.
Ahead of me, only a meter or so is visible in the limelight. Raindrops fell like diamonds, forming impossibly bright puddles on the ground. A sharp contrast to the blackness that surrounds it.
I want to disappear, I realized gradually. Maekawa-sensei came to mind, her face of disappointment at the very end twisted knots in my stomach. Time's up, she had said, and it really is isn't it?
Rin and mom must still be upstairs, eating in the same silence that embraces me. I close my eyes, once, twice, blinking back tears. I wanted my father right then so desperately, it was all I could do but not run out in the rain aimlessly searching for the bright white of Konoha's hospital.
Maybe I shouldn't have, but I reached out into the rain, each drop splintered across the surface of my skin like painful thorns. My fingers longed to reach further still. Into that depthless void beyond it. I felt my heart thump against my chest as a shape emerged from the darkness. It was a brown shoe, the same color and style of my father's loafers. The ones he used to wear of the weekends to venture the shops of Konoha, or stroll the parks. The kind he always walked with such a leisurely gait as if we had all the time in the world.
I pulled my arm back so suddenly I stumbled backward, nearly slamming my head on the cement beneath me, had someone not grasped me by the shoulder at the last minute.
"Careful there," a familiar voice emerged. "You should take better cover if you want to be out in this kind of weather."
The figure of a man and an umbrella was cast upon me like a curtain that covers the sunshine. And although I found his voice to be increasingly familiar, I couldn't place his face at all. Involuntary I slapped his hand away, then apologized, and then apologized for apologizing.
"Your perfectly fine," he dismissed opening the door to our apartment building, yet still bracing the umbrella over the both of us.
"You live here?" I asked in surprise. The whole complex was made up of twelve apartments. I knew the residents of five or so. The rest were completely unfamiliar to me.
"Yeah," he nodded. "D3."
"Oh," I said, then "ohhh-"
"D2," I pointed to myself as if this explained everything.
It certainly did have a distinct effect of his expression. He scratched the back of his head sheepishly, "I hope we're not too loud upstairs."
"No," I shook my head. Memories of his muffled voice filled my head. "Not at all."
"Well, nice to meet you," he took a step away from me, anticipating going into his home. "You going to be out here much longer?"
I shrugged
He extended the handle of his umbrella towards me, "you can keep it if you're going to sit out in the rain like this."
"I don't need it," I responded, hesitant to accept his offering.
"Just keep it until you go back inside," he said. "You can leave it outside my door when you're done."
Involuntary I accepted the umbrella. My small hand clutched the handle quite greedily as I got a full hold of it. My neighbor only smiled, as if this pleased him. Then he turned around and wasted no time going inside. Now that no one else was around I made myself comfortable on the landing, leaning against the brick wall and shunting the umbrella in front of me to obstruct the neverending waves of rain. Someone else will come, I convinced myself, my father will come.
It would have meant the world if I could have seen him that night.
.
.
"You passed," Maekawa-sensei pulled me aside the next day before class, and told me this very plainly in the hallway where just about anybody could have overheard.
"I-" I felt my eyebrows raise in disbelief. "I only got one of them."
"It wasn't about whether you could solve any of them, It was about how you handled a problem you couldn't solve."
"But," I started, ready to blurt out all the parallels from that message to my life. From my mother's work to my dream with Rin, to Jiraiya's book. It was all there. It had been on purpose. I was sure of it. Then I met Maekawa's eyes, they glittered like mica discs, dark and inscrutable with the hint of something truly vile.
"Your deductive reasoning skills proved beyond what anyone would expect from a second year, on par with Kakashi Hatake." She continued without missing a beat. "Beyond that even, since you managed to figure one out. Ohashi-san also informed me that you've successfully used grappling techniques while sparring. That's not something expected until the third year."
'Everyone tries to get ahead in taijutsu,' I nearly screamed. But I no longer had the energy for words. If anything this seemed much worse than dropping a class level or even having to do a year over again. I would have jumped at the chance to be chewed out by my mom, rather than having to speak with Maekawa for another second. Suddenly I felt a surge of anger. I had been cheated. I had never bragged about myself, to begin with, that had been Hifumi. I hadn't wanted to take any assessment of my skills.
"You used a genjutsu on me," I accused her.
"I did," she didn't deny it.
"What was it supposed to show me?"
"A bad memory."
I didn't feel any particular emotion from that. "It helped me figure out what to do."
"It wasn't supposed to."
"I just got lucky then…" I explained. "It was a fluke."
"Even if you hadn't you would have still moved up a grade. All of your teachers report similar findings of you excelling in certain areas, despite being weak on the core foundations. If anything, the fact that you managed to dispel my genjutsu only proves that you have better functional use over your chakra than the passive exercises used in class."
That actually made sense. Because I had spent so much time earlier in my life wasting my chakra like crazy it was easier for me to send out large bursts, and in that sense dispelling simple genjutsu that hadn't yet invaded my chakra system. Especially if they were obvious and had something from my previous life.
"The fact that you did solve one encryption removes any doubt about you being incapable of skipping third-year material. So, starting next year you'll be going straight into the fourth-year."
Then before I could catch my breath and form any sort of protest, Maekawa-sensei went back into the classroom, leaving me in the hallway to contemplate all of this. I sat out there for a long time, even as the class emptied out for the day the only thing that could draw me out of my own thought was the obtrusive manner of Hifumi Yamanaka.
Seeing me sitting out there piqued her interest to new heights, and at once she was demanding to know all that had happened. Explaining to her what Maekawa told me didn't ease her curiosity at all. In fact, she appeared absolutely shocked, and a bit horrified. Whatever trick she intended to play obviously backfired horrendously.
"Got you," I said.
Hifumi turned red, whipping around and storming off in a rush. Rin who had also waited behind the rest of the class for me didn't seem as surprised as I'd thought she'd be.
"We can't be late to the shop today," she commented after a moment. "Mom will be mad."
I nodded but didn't have the energy to move.
"Com'on, Sachie," Rin urged. "It looks like it's going to rain again."
"I have an umbrella," I said.
Rin didn't doubt this, but there did arise an appropriate amount of disbelief from my statement.
"Sachie一" she began only to stop herself abruptly. Then Rin crouched down and gave me a warm hug.
"Just because you're a year ahead doesn't mean we can't still have good times," she whispered in my ear as her cheek pressed against mine. "It's not like we can't see each other anymore. I'm sad too, but we'll just be one floor down from each other. You know? It's not very far at all."
"When did you become the big sister?" I mumbled into her shoulder. Attempting to coax myself back into my usual good humor when I was with Rin.
"What do you mean?" She asked with faux disbelief. "I've always been the big sister."
"As if," I rolled my eyes. Rin broke out into a true smile, and I didn't stop her from pulling me up to my feet. She squared my shoulders and zipped up my coat. I pretended to not notice her attentiveness, and for my sake, she didn't chastise me about it. She took my our neighbor's umbrella in one hand and held mine with the other.
When we walked to the shop that day I couldn't stop thinking; when had Rin grown up so much?
In my mind just the other day it was the springtime of our first year at the academy. Images of the white somei yoshino petals flashed through my mind like the pages of a novel. And then my thoughts would turn to the bookstore, to how back then Rin was too shy to speak to adults, or how I'd always be the one leading us around. I must have missed the part where the roles inadvertently switched. I guess all that time I spent walking forward I never took the chance to look back and see Rin along with me every step of the way.
Our roles would go on to switch, many times from moment to moment. In a blink, one of us could go from a motherly figure to the one being comforted. Whether it was a blanket being pulled over me on a restless night, or kisses on my knuckles and nose, Rin never let me forget we were family.
It's what I loved best about her.
.
.
That summer Rin and I spent five days a week working at our grandfather's grocery store, while our mother spent every day pounding on the pavement for a job of her own. I still hadn't told her about my moving up a grade. I was actually pretty sure she wouldn't believe me unless she heard it from Maekawa-sensei herself. Every night when we had dinner Rin would send me these expectant looks, waiting for me to drop the bomb, but I never did. I never brought it up and neither did she.
Dad had all but completely stopped coming to the apartment. He was always at work now. I guess what mom had said all those years ago was right. Whenever you get something you lose something too. And while he wasn't on the field in immediate danger, he was never at home either. I knew this pattern wouldn't stop until the war ended, and that would be a while.
I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against the fish tanks in the back. The carp gave no indication that they knew what I was, or if I was there. They kept swimming back and forth. Like what they say about sharks, how if they stop swimming they die.
Of everything I remembered from my past life, these meaningless little facts struck me as the most odd, and the most perfect. They just appeared, in the forefront of my mind, at any given occasion. There wasn't enough knowledge about them for time to damage the meaning. How to move numbers across a sign. The law of energy conservation. What's equal and opposite and the same.
And it's weird. It's very weird for someone my supposed age to be able to grasp math and science at that level. Even more so in a society that puts little value on those subjects to begin with. I hadn't bothered hiding it, or my "deductive reasoning" as Maekawa put it. When I was seven the first time around I spent my class time pretending to be a cat and eating paper. My peers weren't all that better. The kids who did that in Konoha were punished, they dropped a class level or got kicked out entirely.
Let me make it clear, being a cat and being seven again are not different in the way you think it is. I don't mean it on an intellectual level. Or even on a level of maturity. It's like Theseus's ship. Day by day pieces of the wood are taken off, until one day every part of it has been replaced. It begs the question, is it still Theseus's ship? Is there something else, something special that keeps it from becoming something completely new?
Here's another fact I remember. By the time you're seven, every cell in your body has been replaced, you're brand-spanking-new. Facts like that are easy to remember, easy to repeat. It's only when I had to 'figure it out myself', that I discovered the true sense of these memories. The part of me that stays with me forever, irrespective of how many years of seven pass me by. Irrespective of whether I'm a cat or a human, or something else entirely.
People like me had never really got a chance to figure themselves out. I never really got the chance to do anything, and by the time I started to realize life was going ahead without me, my own life was already gone.
The door jingled open erupting me from my thoughts. It rang three times against the top rail. Ding. Ding. Ding. Rin was out doing the deliveries, so I was supposed to be manning the cashier but it was unusual for people to come in during midday. Everyone had to work these days so most people did their shopping during the evening or early in the morning.
When I pulled my head away from the fish tank a smudge of my forehead oils was left on the glass. I wiped it away with the edge of my shirt, as the din of the bell died out.
"In the back," I called out just in case they had any ideas of stealing anything. Then I made my way to the front of the shop, ready to personally assist whoever had come in.
Only, the customer who had come in was Obito Uchiha.
He looked at me as if he recognized me. As if the day before we were sitting beside each other in class. This is not to say he smiled or started to wave or anything like that. No, it's much much worse. His eyes dropped to the damp spot on my shirt hanging over my crotch. And he asks with his eyes "did you pee in your pants?"
Bathroom creeper. Bathroom creeper. Bathroom creeper.
The thing is he doesn't even look like he's joking or that he thinks it's funny. He looked at me as if he is actually concerned like we're friends because I gave him a pencil once.
I don't know whether to shake my head 'no' or turn around and walk out of the store. After a long period of silence, I finally ask, "Is there something you need?"
He shrugged, looking around, as if just now realizing where he is.
"What are you doing here?" I tried again not having to force the exasperation in my voice. On the very long list of people I didn't want to see over the summer, Obito was at the very bottom.
That made him look up. He seemed to be asking me something. He did that a lot, I realized. Said things with his eyes. Asked for things he wouldn't voice. But this time I couldn't tell what it was he was trying to say, or maybe I didn't want to know. I wanted him to have to explain why he was here and get out.
He turned his head. Suddenly no longer trying to be my friend and started examining the shop seriously.
"Obaa-san sent me to get ginseng," he said to his shoes. No longer able to look me in the eyes. I didn't know whether to be grateful or terrified that one day he'd remember this and take it out on me.
"The ginseng's in the back," I point to the left corner where the herbs and medicinal ingredients are kept.
He nodded, although whether it's to himself or me is left unclear. Then walks to where I instructed without another word.
Good, I thought vindictively and leaned my arms against the counter. I put my head between my elbows and sucked a breath from the wooden surface. Stay back there forever if you'd like.
I didn't mean it. Obviously, he had to come back and pay at some point. I just wanted him in and out of the shop with as little interaction as possible. But after twenty-some minutes passed of him being back there doing god knows what I began to worry about Rin coming back and finding him. She would be all but too happy to help him with whatever he needed.
What bothered me most was the silence. There was no crinkling of plastic packages or squeaking of sandals against the linoleum floor. I was pretty puzzled to what he was up to back there. I would have felt odd to be caught going over and spying on him, so I grabbed the broom and dustpan and began sweeping the floor row by row. I had to clean the shop every day before closing, but I don't think sweeping really made much difference. There's a certain dirtiness that can't be cleaned out of an old building. This is not to say we neglected the building or slacked on our duties. When I first started cleaning seriously I very meticulously scrubbed every nick and cranny under the harsh supervision of my mother. If she ever saw me slacking at the cashier she'd list ten things off the top of her head that needed to be done, so I always kept myself busy when she was around, wiping one thing or another as an excuse. With all the dirt I found I thought the place had been seriously neglected, but the truth is even an empty room will collect dust with time. And our store was far from empty, the back especially was nearly buried with stuff. Plates, cups, toiletry, and homegoods were stacked up to the ceiling. That's why I found it especially impossible for a kid like Obito to be absolutely silent. Yet as I came across him he wasn't doing anything special, only standing there with a forlorn look cast to the top shelf. I followed his gaze to the dried ginseng, and vaguely felt the precursor of a budding migraine.
All this time Obito had silently and patiently been waiting for help, my help apparently.
Truthfully, if I had known Rin wouldn't be returning anytime soon I would have turned around and left him there to figure it out by himself. Who spends twenty minutes staring up at something out of their reach? I would have given up or started to climb the shelves. Obito appeared as if he had taken up residence. As if he'd already been forwarding all his mail to aisle six of Minami's number one grocery store, and spent this time getting acquainted with his neighbors; the frosty aisle seven of frozen foods, and the hot-headed aisle five of spice powders and cooking sauces.
What a ludicrous idea.
"You wanted the ginseng right?" I asked setting aside the broom and dustpan.
Obito whirled around as if I'd just interrupted a very important conversation going on in his head, and it took him a moment to catch his bearings.
"Oh yeah-!" he rubbed the back of his neck before meeting my stare bashfully. "Ginseng…"
I suck in my cheeks and blew a breath through my nose. Fighting the urge to shake my head at him with his ridiculous expression. It's just like he's this naughty little kid who's been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
He didn't know what he was doing here at all. Then it occurred to me, distantly that he didn't know how to ask for help. This sudden awareness unsettled me, and I quickly walked back to the storage room to escape the feeling. I came back with a ladder propped between my hands and set it up underneath the aisle. Obito stepped aside as I climbed up wringing his hands behind his back.
"Here," I tossed it down to him. He caught it with a gasp.
"Come on," I said, ready to go back to ignoring his existence. But something caught his attention. I should have known. I should have been prepared. Murphy's law, you know? Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. And here's when things go very very wrong.
In the front of the shop all the seasonal wears are displayed in long rows of open cardboard boxes. Brimming over with bright summer colors to catch your attention. I passed by it so many times I day I can hardly differentiate one object from another. The flippers, swimwear, sand buckets, floaties, and goggles all blend into one. Like a rainbow that diffuses on the horizon. It's full circle is interrupted by the observer's limited position. And here I am, on my own two feet unable to see the full picture until Obito, running up in front of me, catching the radiance of pots of golds, of orange and yellow and lights so brilliant I can hardly believe it escaped me earlier. There tucked under swim trunks and plastic water toys are these bright awful goggles, flashing like emergency traffic light.
"Obito-!" It just slipped out of me. His name. Because in my head he's always Obito. Every version of him. The one who wages the fourth shinobi war, and the one who sits five rows down from me in class. The one who's now increasingly concerned about me. Just like when he first entered the shop concerned over the unkeptness of my clothes.
The air changes, it's humid from the recent rain and i'm sweating so bad it's a miracle my whole shirt isn't drenched. "Obito," I say again, swallowing. It's so humid i can hardly breathe, yet all the little hairs on my arms and legs felt frigid and icy cold. A deep feeling of dread settled in my stomach as Obito held up those goggles infront of me, turning them every which way under the sunlit window. Beams of waning orange sunsent casting across the room like a fractured disco ball.
"It's on sale," he points to the sign that Rin and I had just put up the other day. He says it in such a way that it almost sounds like a question, like he can't believe his luck.
"No it's not!" I shouted snatching out from his hands. "It got mixed up in the wrong box."
Deciding I wanted to throw them away I headed to the trash can kept behind the counter, but the goggles burned in my hands and I fell to the ground. It was the strangest sensation as if they had magically set on fire. I whipped my head around towards Obito, half-convinced he had cast some kind of jutsu. But he only stood there in a daze.
Then the sound I had been torturing over the most rang out three times from the top rail of the door. Someone had entered the store, thankfully it wasn't Rin, but the sight of my grandfather's wrinkly face didn't inspire any sense of salvation.
"W-what are you doing here?" I blurted aloud without thinking.
"What am I doing in my own shop?" My grandfather asked ironically, but not unkindly. "What are you doing on the floor?" He asked in turn.
I stood up, brushing my dusty hands against my dusty shorts. See what I said about how sweeping makes little difference? I couldn't stand the sight of myself in front of my grandfather, not like this. I turned away from looking at my hands, or my skinny legs poking out from under my shorts.
My grandfather as if sensing something was wrong took a few steps in approach before regarding Obito. "Sorry about all this," he told Obito, although I don't think a single one of us knew what there was to be sorry about. "What can I do for you?"
"Those goggles are on sale?" Obito asked, pointing at the orange object which lay at my feet. He treated the whole situation as if he were some kind of miser who refused to be cut out of a good deal.
"Yes," my grandfather replied easily, having intimate knowledge of every item in his shop. "They were leftover from last year's summer shipment. We have new models as well if you'd like to take a look at them."
Obito shook his head. "No," he said. "I want this one."
And so all three of us went to the cashier for the next horrible thing to happen. With both the ginseng and the goggles he's 50 ryo short. Now 50 ryo is barely more than a dollar, but we can't just let people off on change. I stand there awkwardly as he searches again for any spare change.
With every search of his person, I feel as if I'm being dropped further and further down a bottomless pit.
Obito pats his shirt. His pockets, his shoes, as if he might have missed a spot. By now it's been well over thirty minutes since Obito first entered the shop, and Rin could come back at any minute. Anxiously I look back between him and my grandfather, grasping at straws. My grandfather sends me this little smile like we're sharing an inside joke. There's a twinkling in his eyes, and while I found no part of this crisis funny, I did understand just then what he was telling me.
"It's fine." I blurted out.
"But I don't have enough money," Obito makes a face that's overwhelmingly apologetic.
"It's fine," I tried to assure him. "It's fine."
I should have added something along the lines of "and I never want to see your face again!" but I don't. I don't say anything more. I cross my arms, trying to tell him with my body language that he should be gone already. That I'm letting him off the hook. That he should be grateful.
He was grateful. I could tell by the way he rocked on his heels. By the fact that he put his goggles on right in front of me, for the very first time. How he looks up at me, waiting for me to be proud. To pat his head, to tell him he's so smart for thinking about protecting his eyes, even though he doesn't have the sharingan yet. Even though he doesn't have anything yet.
For once in my life, I knew all the right words, but I said none of them. I waited for him to become disappointed, or offended. I decided there and then to give him just a little more time. Enough to decide I wasn't worthwhile before he left for good. But he's the one that doesn't give me any time.
He adjusted his goggles. He rubbed the visor. He shyly waved goodbye.
It's no more than five minutes later that Rin comes in. She smiles and does this little pirouette. She always celebrates when all the deliveries are done. It doesn't matter who's doing them. She starts to tell me about everything she saw today. About the woman who invited her in for tea and gave her cookies. She reaches into her pocket and opens a pile of napkins like a present. The pale sugar cookie inside is cut in the shape of a bear. It's smiling at me.
She jumped up and hugged our grandfather, and related to him the further excitements of the day. He spoke of the strange twist of fate that brought an interesting customer to our shop that afternoon. I cut him off from saying too much. I made up complaints about the heat, the rain, and about school which was just around the corner.
These words didn't come out easily. With every sentence, i was drawn further and further into an opposite reality, into a world where Rin and Obito met today. Into a world where Obito fell in love.
.
.
I made sure to be at the cashier all summer long. Obito came back five times. During each of these visits, he went to get tea or herbs or whatever the elderly population of Konoha was craving at the moment.
We didn't really talk. He would send these obvious glances, and I would stare out the window pretending I was absolutely oblivious. On his first visit back he brought with him a hundred extra ryo to pay me back, and I had to explain to him that it was actually only fifty ryo. He scratched the back of his head and made this face like he was trying to recreate the scene. Like he was once more searching his pockets and his shoes for that last bit of money.
"Trust me," I said in the most untrustworthy voice ever. "It was fifty ryo."
He stopped scratching the back of his head and stopped making that slightly constipated face replacing it with this gigantic smile. "Ok, if you say so Sachie!"
He was just like a little kid, tugging on the edge of a grownup's pant leg. Waiting for them to look down and give him attention. My name was the only tool he had. It's just instinctive. When someone calls your name you can't help but look at them. Just as when I had said his name, trying and failing to draw his attention away from those goggles.
I could sense his frustration. How it was almost physically painful that I didn't respond to him the way he wanted me to. Still, no matter what, he would always wave goodbye, like once he left the view of the shop he was going to fall off the earth. Like the world ended right there, ten steps from the door. Five if you were tall.
I could have asked him not to come back. I practiced it in my head. "Hi," I would say, nicely so as to not hurt his feelings too badly. "I don't think you should come around here anymore."
That's all. I would just dump that on him. I knew he would understand what I was saying. He would look disappointed because he hadn't yet learned to hide his feelings. He might even say something back, like "why?" or "how could you?" And I would just smile awkwardly and try to lead him out the door, to the edge of the earth he seemed to think existed beyond this one store. Maybe I would have even waved back for once. You know, because it really would be the last time we saw each other.
I never did any of that. What's the difference between what you think about doing and what you actually do? I don't think the two are very different at all. I think you end up doing what you think about again, and again. What you can't stop picturing in your head. It was only a matter of time before I said something really terrible to Obito. But one day he stopped coming. And then summer ended. And then I started my fourth year at the academy while Rin started her third.
It was nice to be back in school. It was familiar. Except, the only person in my class I could recognize was Ibiki Morino. Well, I didn't recognize him, I recognized his name. Ibiki himself was practically a different person. No scars, no grumpy mug, no terrifying presence. He was still intimidating. He was third in the class. Behind Ayumu Uchiha, and Kyo Hyuuga.
I didn't plop myself down next to him. I didn't try to become friends with him or excite him with the fact that I was put ahead because of my potential in counterintelligence, the very same department he would get his scars working in.
On my first day, I was introduced as an advanced student and chose to sit in the left-hand corner tucked next to the window. They had all already judged me. They had all already decided what kind of person I was based on that fact alone. I didn't see any point in playing against their beliefs. On changing their minds about me. And it was easier to be the kind of person they thought I was. It was easy to sit in the back and ignore everyone. To pretend like they were all inherently beneath them. To place ninth every time on the class rankings as if it were on purpose. As if I were deliberately holding back because I couldn't even be bothered.
I would get my ass kicked in spars and toss my mud-clumped hair over my shoulder like I had won. Just like Hifumi, I couldn't help thinking, when my hands formed the seal of reconciliation. They stayed like that for a while too long, numbed from the chill. Then I would turn around spitting blood and saliva into the cold autumn ground. A breeze would rattle my bones, and I'd tuck my thread-bare jacket up to my chin. The unwound string felt like fur, like my days as a cat, but birthdays had come and gone. Rin and I were eight now. New again, and I had stopped waiting for explanations. I had stopped waiting for a lot of things, because I had realized how to save Rin a long time ago. Team Seven. I was the one who had to get onto Team Seven.
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One day I went to school to find a group of genin uprooting the metal swing set. In class, it was explained to us that the metal from the swing set was needed for kunai and other new weapons for shinobi on the field. By giving up our swings, Higuchi-sensei would say with this bright bright smile, we were already helping Konoha.
By the next week everyone in Konoha was giving away metal objects. Shovels, pots, pans, furniture, picture frames, anything that could be melted down and remodeled into blades. We got a full Saturday off and spent the morning on the kitchen floor sorting through the cabinets for everything we didn't absolutely need.
Mom was hunched over her steel skillet, rubbing it with the edge of her sleeve. Om mani padme hum, she seemed to say with every rotation. A Buddhist chant, a way for her to be able to let go of these precious items that had spent so long in this kitchen. I studied the tatami mats under our legs waiting for her to finish the 108th recitation. The browns and beiges mixed together when I rubbed my eyes. I rubbed them once more, a few spots clouding my vision until things returned to normal.
Mom pulled her sleeve away from the skillet and looked over at me. "Sachie, Rin, take these things down to the furnace." Then she got up and opened a drawer pulling out some money. "Buy some unagi for dinner."
She turned back around to the empty cupboards and was still staring at them when we left.
The Furnace was a giant, well furnace, that had been set up in a torn-up park not so far from the east-side base of the Hokage monument. All day and all night long plumes of smoke filled the sky as they burned away the impurities from Konoha's civilian paraphernalia.
From a distance, we could see the teams of genin carting in plenty of firewood, and the chunin releasing fire jutsu's to control and temper the flames. As we got closer it got so hot our faces turned red and sweat began to pour down our necks. I took off my jacket and wrapped it around my waist, carefully balancing the weight of the pans and pots in my hands. Rin carried a box of hardware, a ladle, and a spade. She wiped diagonally across her face and furrowed her brows against the heat.
There was a long line to the pile of metal we were supposed to deposit our stuff onto, but everyone moved rather quickly. Only little children stood around and gawked at the roaring furnace. Closer to the perimeter of the heat older civilians would pause, examining the scene as if they were witnessing history. A man with a camera and a hitai-ate took a few pictures before entering a long conversation with a jonin. A spittle of sparks lifted into the air like a bunch of miniature balloons, and the shine from the pile of metal reflected so brightly in the afternoon sun that it hurt to look at.
"Sachie-san! Rin-san!" In line behind us was Gai Maito, and his father Dai Maito. Gai was waving so hard that he dropped the metal pitcher in his arms and frantically scooped it up. "Hey," he said as he approached. "Sachie-san, I haven't seen you in class all year! Did something happen?"
Dai sent him a scolding look, obviously thinking I had dropped a class level. "Gai!" His hand whipped out to give his son a hard smack on the back of the head. "You need a lesson in formality!"
Which was rather ironic considering the use of physical punishment. Rin smiled hesitantly, while I looked up and down the line. Praying for some poor soul to be brave enough to stop this. The Jonin who was speaking with the photographer glanced over at us, he regarded Dai with this strange hard expression before turning away.
"Yes! Tou-san!" Gai pledged, determinedly leaping to his feet. "It will be my new self-rule to stop praying for success and to achieve it through hard work and good manners!"
"Oh Gai!"
"Tou-san!"
"Gai!"
I try to sink myself into the ground right then and there. To miraculously discover a spectacular earth jutsu that can make me disappear. Of course, that doesn't happen and instead, I'm forced to bear witness to Gai and his father hugging it out like any day now it's going to go out of style. Rin wipes away a few sentimental tears, with this pretty smile. Like she's just seen the best ending to a great movie. Here comes the credits, the final fading scene as the smoke and heat roll over us, and Gai parts with his father; unfortunately turning his attention to me.
"Sachie-san," he says, entirely too serious. "Please forgive me for offending you."
I try to wring my lips in some kind of placating manner, but I must have looked majorly creeped out from the look of horror Gai suddenly dawned. It's like I just declared him to be my lifelong long nemesis. No joke, he's standing there with his jaw open, eyes wide一total disbelief.
"I see," he says uncannily severe. "Then from this day onwards, I promise I will make it up to you!"
He seemed to be enjoying himself too much. Even as the temperature climbed hotter and hotter the closer we moved to the furnace.
"Uh sure," I supplied hoping to calm things down. "But I was actually moved into a year ahead, so you don't have to apologize or anything. I'm not offended."
If anything that drove Gai into further disbelief. "Y-you graduated?!"
"No..." I shook my head. "Just one year ahead."
Behind us, a new clump of metal was pushed into the furnace and a thousand sparks flew out into the air. I jumped, realizing in a flash that Hifumi must not have spread the news of my advancement around the class.
Gai was oddly subdued, but his father Dai turned towards me with a big smile. "Congratulations! Your parents must be very proud."
"Yeah," I tried to sound thankful. To agree with this statement of his that should have been true. "Rin is also first for girls in her class so they have a lot of reasons to be proud."
"Your parents are very lucky to have such gifted children," Dai continued kindly.
"Well you must be very proud of Gai," I fumbled, feeling uncomfortable under the warmness in his voice. "When I first met him he was fighting off three genin."
I knew Dai knew about Gai picking fights with shinobi, so this shouldn't have been a surprise to him, yet for some reason, Dai examined me a little differently after I said that.
"Of course!" Dai went on without missing a beat. "My son tries his best in every fight, regardless of victory!"
"Well, I don't think victory was the point," I said offhandedly, adjusting the skillet in my about how it was practically impossible for an academy student to fight off three genin. Gai wasn't on par with Kakashi Hatake yet.
"Yes, the real victory is in protecting what is important to you," Dai spoke in a very calm voice. Then offered to hold Rin and my metal objects for the furnace.
Rin who up until now hadn't said much to either of them shook her head. "These our are mother's things," she explained. "So it is up to us to protect them on their journey to protecting Konoha."
I glanced over at her.
"You are both very wise!" Dai declared. "My son will look up to you both as an example! Right, Gai?"
"Of course!" Gai thumped his arm exuberantly, and in the process once more dropped his pitcher. "Ah! For dropping my father's pitcher I will do one-thousand push-ups!"
He then looked towards Rin and I for approval. Like we were now the judges of his extreme extracurriculars.
"You can do it Gai!" Rin cheered.
"Uh- good luck," I offered lamely.
Gai smiled, clutching his things even tighter and holding them up in the air as if this ball of clutter were a magnificent trophy. And it's true, as he held in there, reaching higher and higher on the tips of his toes, it began to shine. A shaft of sunlight moved out from behind the clouds, penetrating through the smoke and smog, and struck the metal in such a way that it lit up. Held up like this, Gai's scraped garbage transformed itself into this dazzling trophy, and I wasn't the only one who saw it. Rin and Dai blinked, as if clearing their eyes to a mirage, but the vision stayed there. The photographer who had been talking to the jounin hurried over and told us all to smile as he snapped a few pictures.
"This will be nice to display in the culture center," he explained to all of us. "It's great for people to see even kids like you helping out during these times."
Then he walked off the further survey the area, and then it was our turn to throw our things into the furnace. Knowing I'd never seen any of these objects ever again, I couldn't help but feel a certain emptiness inside my heart as they burst into flames. This close to The Furnace the thick smell of smoke was nearly unbearable, and we all hurried to gain some distance from the scene after all our items were deposited onto the coals.
Dai offered to walk us home, and then as far as the grocery store when we told him we had to first buy dinner.
Gai sent me a sly glance although not so sly as to escape the notice of his father, and before I knew it Dai and Rin were engaged in a conversation on medical nin's drifting further and further ahead. I felt odd walking alone with Gai, and he seemed to be having some kind of internal conflict with himself. Debating one thing or another in his head. It wasn't like him to be so quiet. Then I remembered how quiet he's get whenever he was teased in school. Now that I thought about it, even in the show there were moments when Gai would become surprisingly subdued. The first instance of this I could place off the top of my head was during the Chunin exams when Kakashi expressed his disappointment with Gai over him teaching Rock Lee about the eight gates. Going as far as to tell him to leave his personal feelings out of being a Sensei to Lee.
What a loser i am! I thought. How can I be obsessed with a show so much as to remember these things in perfect clarity?
"一loser," Gai said.
"What?!" I squawked in astonishment. "What did you just say?"
"That's what people have been saying about you behind your back at school," he elaborated. "They've been calling you all kinds of names, and telling lies like you dropped a level and even started going to civilian school."
"Ah," I said and laughed in relief. "Ah, haha, that's all? I thought you were talking about something esle. Thank goodness一for a moment there…" I trailed off, thinking about how for a moment there I was half convinced Gai was secretly half Yamanaka.
I guess something about my reaction displeased Gai because he became quiet again.
"Well," I said feeling a need to fill the silence. "I'm sure they won't stop on my account, so they can go on and say whatever they'd like. Those kinds of things are pretty childish anyways."
That was rather rich coming from me, considering I treated Obito no better than a common bully.
By now we had arrived at the grocery store and Rin and I wave goodbye to Gai and his father. They began to walk away together until Gai stopped and turned back around.
"Sachie," He spoke without warning. "You must have worked very hard to get put ahead, but someday you'll be able to look up to me too!"
Then, just as suddenly he ran back to his father and they disappeared down the street shouting one thing or another to each other in loud voices. I had no idea what to say, and yet, after the moment had passed it occurred to me that in some way Gai had become my friend.
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Before New Year's break a guest speaker came into our kunoichi class. Kunoichi classes would end with the year, and full focus would be put on regular classes. Going forward our guests would be specialized ninja's such as medic nin's for resetting our bones, and showing us how to properly break our bodies. It was as terrifying as it sounded. So the period before our break was seen as giving grace. The last time for us to be kids, if we ever had any semblance with the word to begin with.
We'd been preparing the week before, learning poetry, something first taught in civilian schools when introducing children to language. It only became a standard of learning once the printing press took off after the Second Shinobi War. Prior to that, poetry had been cloistered by the aristocracy. We learned that back then, waka form had been the most widely spread, but once the literacy rate skyrocketed and commercial books became cheap enough for peasants and civilians to buy, the alternating units of 5-7-5 and 7-7 syllables of waka were cut down, leading to the haiku 5-7-5 pattern and quickly became the best-known form of poetry.
We had a quiz on it the day before our guest came. The woman who visited us turned out to be Koharu Utatane. Koharu wore her black hair in a bun with a simple kanazashi pin, and introduced her self as the teammate of the current hokage, and the student of the former second hokage, Tombirama Senju.
"Everyone knows Tobirama Senju established the academy," Koharu began settling into a solid seiza. "fewer people recalled that he was also responsible for sanctioning Kunoichi classes. The idea behind it had been to foster loyalty among Konoha Kunoichi, not unlike what you all will come to experience in your eventual genin teams; in this way, it's expected of you to work together as a team a cut above your male counterparts."
A wind blew across the field and stirred up the dying leaves across the lawn. I held my cheek with one hand, staring out the window while Koharu picked up a calligraphy brush and began to write. She kept what she was writing on flat against the table, maybe she was scrawling across the wood itself. Then Koharu continued her tale. "When my sensei died, Toka Senju revolutionized Kunoichi classes, changing the curriculum to what it is now. Now, not only do your Kunoichi classes entail basic knowledge of the various cultures of each of the Five Elemental nations, but they also required Konoha Kunoichi to learn Kunoichi sign language. To most of you, this is your introduction to espionage."
Most.
I happened to glance forward, and maybe I imagined it but Koharu seemed to be looking upwards too. Never fixing her gaze on anyone in particular, and never stopping the movement of her hands. They operated seemingly from an outside power source, arranging themselves in an elaborate symphony no one else could hear.
Koharu went on to tell us about the time she spent as an oven god in a buddhist temple. An oven god was a term for a woman who lived and cooked in a temple, although the custom was widespread it was also forbidden. For Koharu it gave her free reigns to a resource used by travlers and locals alike, regardless of status. In her time as an oven god she interrupted numerous correspondents and relayed crucial information back to Konoha. Her story didn't focus on these points, her story focused on the details girls my age would react to. Like the fact that she had to dress up like a boy, or worse, shave the hair on the top of her head. Most of us wouldn't pick up that she was paid by the priest, and most of us wouldn't understand what she was being paid for.
As a kind of call back to her days as an oven god she revealed to us girls what she had been writing all these time. On the desk were twenty or so paper talismans, omamori; one for each of us. They were specifically yakuyoke charms, meant to ward off evil.
Koharu had even tied a special kind of knot at the top so we could hang them up somewhere. We were all pretty touched by her effort, but that wasn't the most surprising part. The most surprising part happened the next day when Koharu returned, not to kunoichi classes, but to our regular class, and told us all an entirely new story.
"I have come here today to talk to your class about infiltration," her smile waned and she smoothed her skirt down her thigh with an automatic hand, thinking. "During the last year of the Second Shinobi War, the Earth Daimyo lost his wife and he was left without a male heir. This raised a furor among the lord's retainers because if a domain lord dies without a male heir, the domain administration would be transferred to a new clan, and his shinobi and samurai retainers would lose their employment. The desperation of the retainers made it possible for Konoha to position us right under the Daimyo's nose. Afterall, a woman presented before the Daimyo must know how to carry herself. In the capital specifically every distinguished woman must be gentle and know how to play the koto, play go, perform each of the three arts of refinement, Koda (flower arrangement), Kodo (incense appreciation), and Chado (tea ceremony), and compose and appreciate poems. It was myself and two other Konoha kunoichi that went undercover with the intent of infiltrating Shimane and relaying information of Iwa nins' presence back to the Konoha. It wasn't as easy to get picked up by a retainer as it sounds. Firstly, retainers get their mistresses through employment agencies and an applicant for a mistress job has to have an interview, and if she has no proper clothes, she has to rent them. For 2,000 ryo we rented a white silk robe with a scarlet crepe underskirt, and a mat to sit on in a hired palanquin, and if you are hired you have to pay the agency 800 ryo as its fee. Competition is intense, and candidates try very hard to make a good impression at the interview. In addition to renting clothes, they have to spend 500 ryo for a palanquin and two carriers, no matter how short the rise is. And the woman needs a girl helper a 10 ryo a day and an older maid at 15 ryo. And this is not the only thing the women have to worry about. Well-off merchants from Hamiau and Izu constantly come to Shimane to visit the Earth shrine and pay their taxes and tried to spirit us away. I along with a fellow kunoichi, Yuri, were able to meet the Earth Daimyo, but were questioned by Iwa shinobi. He asked all of the women to recite a haiku, any haiku. One by one all of us began to recite one of the various haiku's we had memorized. When it came to Yuri she spoke lyrically and never stuttered, yet when she finished they dragged her out of the room by her hair. Her red underskirt pulled out from beneath her was all I could find. After I had been living with the daimyo for a few months I learned the reason why Yuri was taken. Haiku from Iwa always contains a "seasonal word" (kigo); the haiku Yuri recited did not. To this day I'm not sure what happened to her."
Those of us who had been in Kunoichi classes the other day felt a certain weight from her tale. The importance of poetry and flowers became more relevant than ever. This Yuri pseudonym could be interpreted in a number of ways. It was no coincidence that Koharu used the flower, Yuri, or Lily, as a name for her real acquaintance. Their white robes, the same as white lily was used to represent purity and innocence in the story, while the red underskirt, all that remained of Yuri, like the red spider lily represented a kind of final goodbye, and even death and rebirth.
Chie-sensei gave a ceremonious applaud. "Well said. Now does anyone have any questions for Utatane-san?"
One by one a few cushions students hesitantly raised three hands but most of us just listened, especially the kunoichi who had been in class the day before.
"Was it difficult to blend into daily life in Iwa?" One student asked.
"Not as difficult as it may seem," Koharu replied. "The common Iwa people share similar values to the common people of Konoha. They care about their families and homeland the same way we cherish our families and Konoha."
This seemed to spur a wave of disbelief through the crowd, as propaganda had accustomed us to think of foreigners as child-eating monsters, deserving of our ultimate contempt.
"Do you ever think about what happened to Yuri?" I found my hand suddenly clutching the talisman in my pocket. I gripped it so tightly that a pain sparked in the center of my palm. Why why why, did I ask such a thing. It was incredibly insensitive, and inappropriate. I hadn't even raised my hand. The words had just escaped from my mouth without any kind of prompt or permission. I could feel several judging stares, but the one which weighed the heaviest was from Koharu herself. She leveled me with a look that was completely empty as if someone had gone and scooped out every inch of flesh beneath her skin. If even the slightest bit of breeze had blown through just then it would have warped her expression into something terrible, but there was no air in that room. Not until the breath from Koharu was expelled as she spoke.
"Everyday," she said, and that emptiness returned like an echo.
That day the colors of red and white stood out to me especially. I pulled out the talisman I'd been given and ran my thumb over the kanji. The paper was red with plump white flowers decorating it. When I looked around outside I began to notice to redness of the leaves, and the whiteness of the steps I sat on.
I waited for Rin underneath the eaves as the school courtyard cleared out. Putting the talisman back into my pocket I listened to the rattling of the bare trees and birds flitting from one place to the next. It seemed then as if everything had someplace to be except for me. Rin still had her kunoichi classes, I imagined what they may have been doing. Perhaps practicing a tea ceremony, or burning incense for the new year. I could smell it now, and deep within my memories, the smokiness of it became synonymous with the smoke from The Furnace.
Then I felt something prod sharply into my back. The door of the academy had been abruptly opened.
"Gosh, what the hell!" I exclaimed, jumping in surprise. "Give people a bit of a warning yeah?"
"The shinobi who announces his presence is the shinobi who dies," a monotone voice answered. It took me a minute to fully examine his face.
"You think i'm your enemy?" I asked with a raised brow.
Ibiki didn't respond to this other than giving me a contemptuous look.
"Wow," I uttered sarcastically. "Are you always so suspicious?"
"Only of suspicious people."
Jeez, what a quick comeback, I thought bemused. No wonder Ibiki turns out to be such a hard-assed, interrogating superstar. He was what? Nine? And already scaring the pants off me.
"Then you're definitely suspicious of everyone."
He neither denied nor confirmed this. Instead, letting his eyes slip off of me and onto the ground in front of him, passing by me as if I'd never been there. Maybe I should have been offended by his dismissal, but that afternoon I couldn't bring myself to feel too strongly about anything in particular. Something had jaded me towards the future, towards the whole idea about ninja life. And right then, I was certain that nothing, not even Koharu's story of Yuri, could affect me the way it did everyone else. At that moment there was only the talisman in my pocket, the red and white lilies, and the smell of incense that might have all been imagined.
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The third time Obito visited the shop during that fateful summer, I had been waiting for him.
I found him back at the fish tanks.
It alarmed me. His quiet, almost invisible presence. I knew he was somewhere in the shop but coming across him was like coming across an animal in its natural habitat. I knew the layout of the shop like the back of my hand. That summer you could have put a blindfold over my eyes and I would have walked down every aisle without touching the sides. I would have reached out my hand and pulled exactly what you wanted off the shelf. Put a blindfold on Obito Uchiha and you'd witness a catastrophe. But Obito wasn't wearing a blindfold; he was wearing his goggles.
"What are you doing back here?"
Finding him like this startled me. I could tell that I had startled him too. But in a different way, he looked upset. As if we had been playing a game of hide and seek and I had completely forgotten to look for him.
After a few moments, he turned back around and continued to look at the fish.
"How much?" He asked, but with his face pressed up against the glass it came out more like 'ow muych?'
"Huh? For what? The fish? You want to buy a fish?" these questions shot out after one another without interruption. The exact price came to my mind at once. 150 ryo. It was the same amount Rin and I had paid to take a fish from this same tank to Hanasu pond.
"I don't think you can buy one." I said eventually.
"I have money," Obito pointed out, as if I was the mother who compensated him for his chores.
"It's not about the money." I sighed. "What would you even do with a fish? Eat it?"
"No," he shook his head. "I would keep it as a pet."
This bothered me more than it should have. Seeing any similarity between him and Rin never failed to stir up an infernal kind of anger deep within my heart. If there was any evilness within me, this was certainly it. The fury I got witnessing Obito act like the child he was both disgusted and invigorated me. He kept looking at me as if once again I was the mother unwilling to let her child get a pet.
"These fish are no good," I tried to persuade him. "They're all from this farm on the outskirts of Konoha, and from the moment they're born they are destined to die."
Each word felt like ever crawling lice biting my body. Hollowing out the human in me.
Obito didn't look bothered by it, not as much as he should have, not in the way I wanted him to be. I saw him peek out at me from behind his shoulder. His eyes were very big and wet with emotion.
"That's why I want them," he said. "They're just like me. Nobody wants me either."
I gritted my teeth. It was quite some time before i'd fully regain my usual composure. Obito didn't end up buying any fish. He hovered by the tanks for a little longer and departed from them with these puppy-eyed lingering looks. I went back to the front, heaving myself up on the stool, and played with the keys to the cashier. The sound of the metal clicking against each other drove me crazy but I couldn't bear the silence.
It wasn't silent for long. It began to rain, and the sound of clapping thunder soon accompanied it. Obito looked out the window with a worried expression. I frantically worried where Rin might be, but knowing she was out doing deliveries, it was reasonable to assume she'd take shelter in someone's home until the rain let up. Perhaps my gratefulness towards whoever was occupying Rin allowed me to, at that moment, treat Obito a little kinder than usual. That day he stayed for far longer than I would have ever allowed. His worried expression grew more and more grave with even the slightest rumble of thunder.
Like a dog, the noise seemed to scare him, and the flashes of lightning accompanying it only added to the terror. Even as the rain fell softer he was unwilling to leave.
"Here," from behind the counter, I took out my neighbor's umbrella which I hadn't yet given back. "You can borrow this for now."
Obito glanced from the umbrella to me with an unreadable expression. I frowned, wondering just how long he intended to stay. This time he hadn't even bought anything. It was like this store was now a second home to him. That was really unacceptable. I'd let him come back once more to return the umbrella and then that would be the end of it.
The umbrella wasn't really mine to give away, but I didn't stop Obito from accepting my offer. This time he only looked back once or twice before saying goodbye, each time with that strange unreadable expression. The rain picked up, beating down on him and that umbrella as he ran away.
Coming back to school after New Years' break, the first thing I saw was a swing tied up in front of the schoolyard. Nobody seemed to know who had put it up, or why. Most of the kids ignored it. How could they play with their friends with just one swing? Yet, from time to time I'd see a distant figure propelling themself into the air, like the beat of a falcon's wings leading up to a wearisome flight. This became my last vision of my time at school, and the last time I'd experience a sense of serenity in the months that followed. As it was only the next day when Chie-sensei broke us up into our genin teams and told me I was going to be on an already established team. One led by a young, promising Jounin, who was heading to our classroom at this very moment.
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Extra:
"Gai did his one thousand push-ups today!" Rin slid her shoulder bag over her head. "And Kakashi was there too!"
"Kakashi? Kakashi Hatake?"
"Who else?" she burst out laughing. "I think he was impressed with Gai. Out of everyone there, I think Kakashi might have been the most impressed because he's the only one who can really know how hard one thousand push-ups actually is."
"Wait a minute, wait a minute!" I had another inkling of deja vu. "Did Gai say anything about uh- like any kind of different challenges? Like, I don't know, one thousand sit ups, or something similar."
"Now that you mention it…" Rin contemplated. "He did say something strange to Kakashi. He said he's his rival. I wish you could have been there Sachie, it was all pretty amazing. And out of all days that Gai could have done it Kakashi decided to drop by."
"He declared Kakashi to be his rival?"
"Declared? Bwahaha, who says something like that?" Rin giggled into the corner of her sleeve. "It was just like that though, kind of out of nowhere. Kind of like what he said to you about working hard. Kakashi didn't say anything, he was cool about it all."
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