"Hi, Uzumaki-san!" Hideki chirped as he sat beside her.
Karin barely held back a groan. Today was a horrible day, and the chipper boy's presence wasn't easing it. Already she'd tripped over a board and skinned her knee, accidentally spilled her tea all over herself, and now was trying to mitigate a raging headache.
"How are you today? It's beautiful, isn't it?" He asked, swinging his legs. "I can't believe our luck has been so good lately considering the rain on our way here."
When she said nothing, he looked over, confused. "Are you alright?"
"No, I quite obviously am not," she spat. "I'm fighting a headache. How on earth can today be good?"
"Every day is what you make it, that's what Mom always used to say." He shrugged. "I'm sorry about your headache. Do you need anything for it?"
"All I need is for you to stop being so damned excited. What do you have to be happy for? Your parents are dead and you have nobody who loves you."
She regretted the spiteful words as soon as they left her mouth. When she glanced over, she saw the boy flinch back, hurt filling his face at the question. It was no secret to the others that he spent most of his nights sitting alone after nightmares (sometimes with Daitan if she was up), and even rarer, crying himself to sleep in his sleeping bag, and the boy generally just wore his heart on his sleeve. You could see every emotion that flickered through his eyes, and his face further expressed it. The tears that pricked at the corners of his eyes made her suppress a tired groan.
Karin, more unfortunately, had a certain ability that caused her to be able to feel peoples' chakra signatures. While ones such as Itachi's felt like a stormy day and crows, Hideki's felt more akin to Temari's - more of a warm spring breeze than a flowering desert cactus, actually. She could practically smell the lilacs that radiated from the very center of his being. All the more guilt welled up in her chest at the thought.
Even as he stuttered through his answer, he kept staring at her with a quiet bewilderment, his voice cracking. "Uh- I- um- well, I- I just-"
"Great going, Karin," she sighed to herself. "You made an innocent kid cry. And you mentioned his dead parents. I bet you're real proud of yourself."
"I… I'm sorry," he quietly replied. "I'm just… trying to see the good in things."
"No, kid, I'm sorry." She shook her head with a heavy sigh. "That wasn't just uncalled for, that was horrible of me to say."
She winced when his chakra presence rose, and his emotional hurt jumped out at her. It must still have been quite intense, given the fact that she was able to feel most of it.
"I just…" he swallowed harshly. "I… it's okay, really, but..."
"Listen to me, don't brush off what I told you." She turned to him with a serious expression. "Don't get into the habit of just saying 'it's okay' when someone says something like that to you. It's not, and I don't want you to pretend like it is. Okay?"
He shakily nodded, wiping his wet eyes. "Sorry, I just… habit."
"Yeah, I get that." She muttered, rubbing her aching temples again. "Look, how about I teach you something? Get your mind off of it? I know you're not the only one trying to put on a brave face here. Getting busy will do wonders for your mental load."
He nodded, trying to quiet a sniffle. His back trembled a little, but as she ran her hand over it he began to calm a little.
"Ever since Dad died," he began, staring straight ahead, "Mom was... inconsolable. A lot of me thinks she blamed herself, but it- it wasn't her fault."
His voice cracked, "A- and part of me feels like I should've done something. If I'd done something to prevent his death, then maybe we could have been happy. Maybe I'd still-"
"It's okay, I know..." Karin bit her lower lip for a second. "... I'm sorry."
He raised his hand to his necklace, a mirthless smile spreading on his face. "Mom's only want was to see us happy. She told me more than once she just couldn't wait for the day I came home with a girl that I loved."
His fingers clenched around the emerald. "... guess it's too late for that, huh?"
A single tear slipped down his cheek, and he wiped it away before it could dribble down his chin. "I couldn't even save my own mother from suicide. I'm not a good son at all."
"You are a good person, Sato-san," Karin consoled. "You're so young. For someone your age, I'd have expected you to be more bitter about it."
Slowly, he shifted his wide-eyed, watery gaze to look at her, gray-blue meeting red.
"But you know what? You bounced back." She squeezed his shoulder encouragingly. "You've become all she would have wanted and more. I don't really know where your family's loyalty was, but... if she could see you now, caring for people, helping people - I do know she would have been so proud."
He smiled mirthlessly, blinking away his tears. "Mom always said that the world can't be saved by one man alone."
"And she was right." Karin mirrored his expression and got up, extending her hand. "I'm really sorry I was so insensitive. I... I guess I'm just not used to someone being so positive even though we're being hunted down."
"No, no, you're right." He shook his head as she helped him to his feet. "I guess the artificial cheerfulness was a bit more harmful than it was helpful. I guess it's just... habit. Dad always faked being happy even when he got sick. I just don't know what else to do when the world is crumbling around me."
"Others have noticed that you've awoken from nightmares and sit alone," she said. "If you find yourself unable to sleep, then come to either myself or Boruda. He may look like a grizzly bear, but he's just really soft, especially for younger recruits."
"I know." Hideki nodded in agreement, wiping away his excess tears. "He was, ah, the one who tried making me go into medical on my first day."
"He'll do that for newer recruits," Karin chuckled, patting his back. "For anyone under eighteen, he'll try to steer them to medical. Hardly any of the adults want mere teenagers fighting as soldiers, but that's life, I suppose."
"Yeah." Hideki shook his head with a more cheerful smile. "I can't honestly see myself fighting... I'd probably freak out and try to heal the enemy soldier!"
The two of them shared a laugh at that image of a concerned Konoha nin getting healed by a worried Hideki.
"Hey. How about I'll teach you how to focus your chakra and increase spatial awareness." She folded her legs together, and gestured for him to do the same. "Were you ever taught how to properly wield your chakra?"
"Yeah, my dad did." He confirmed, copying her sitting stance. "Since I'm Water Nature, I used to help him with the garden a lot."
"Perfect, so I'm assuming you know the basics." She nodded before shutting her eyes. "Close your eyes, and really concentrate on feeling your chakra. Once you hit a point where you can feel it, trace its path - whether it's up or down your arm, your leg, even through your chest, although that one's trickier."
He made a small noise of acknowledgement before shutting his eyes and focusing. Once he found a spot in his wrist that he could feel his chakra flowing through, he concentrated on tracing its path up his arm and to his shoulder. "I… I'm doing it!" He exclaimed with a smile. "Now what?"
"Keep tracing it back until you hit your abdomen, where you should feel it swirling." She instructed, trying to keep her own smile out of her voice. "Focus on that swirl."
He nodded, his nose scrunching up as he fought to find it.
Karin opened her eyes to study him, and a fond smile came to her face. He reminded her a lot of Naruto, eager to please and easily hurt. Her fond expression turned solemn as she thought of her cousin. "I hope he's doing well," she thought glumly. "I miss him… I hope he hasn't done too badly in my absence."
Naruto sneezed, pulling his hand back from the bookshelf for a second as he hid his face in the crook of his elbow. He groaned, blinking as he looked up at the book again.
"Dammit," he sighed, getting onto his tiptoes.
"Are you having trouble, Naruto?" A feminine voice asked from behind, and he turned to see one of the maids, Yuri, standing there.
"Yeah, I guess. Can't get this book down." He pointed at the book in question, its thick brown binding standing out among the different colors of books. "Aunt Mikoto already told me not to make clones in here, so…"
She blinked, standing back to look at it. "Oh, I think I can get that for you. Hold a second."
She gestured for him to step closer and then squatted down, gripping his ankles. In one smooth motion, she lifted him above her head, and he yelped, gripping the bookcase for support. After a second, he realized what she was doing and reached over to grab the book.
"Got it!" He called down, and she squatted once more, setting him back onto the ground.
"Wow, thanks!" He grinned at her, helping her back to her feet. "Sasuke was wondering about it. You're a lifesaver."
"It was no problem," she replied, a sweet smile on her face as she dusted off her apron.
The expression reminded him of Karin, and for a moment, his mood sobered at the thought of his cousin. "I wish she was here," he thought, forcing a smile back onto his face. "I miss her."
A/N: Please tell me what you thought.
