Chapter 13: Howl at the Moon
Sakura sat on the edge of her bed and twiddled her thumbs. She had already showered, dressed, made her bed, and stared out the window for an estimated two hours. At this point, she was bored enough to consider rearranging the furniture. She could stare out the window more in hopes of noticing patterns or gleaning information from townspeople from afar, but she found it depressing to watch people enjoy the sunny day while she remained caged inside.
Deciding that she could deal with this no longer, she walked over to the wall on her left and knocked twice. As she waited for a response, she began to pace back and forth—boredom made her antsy.
Finally, Itachi entered the room, staying near the door after closing it behind himself.
"You knocked, Sakura?" His voice held no trace of his frustration from breakfast, but his demeanor seemed more standoffish than usual.
Still pacing, Sakura responded, "Yeah, I knocked. I need something to do that doesn't involve practicing cartwheels in a confined space or neurotically rearranging the furniture."
"There's nothing in your bag?"
Sakura rolled her eyes and huffed, "I brought supplies to kill and supplies to heal—I didn't think I'd have time for entertainment."
Itachi crossed his arms. "OK, well, what do you want, then?"
What Sakura really wanted was to go outside and train under the swollen sun, but she knew that she was more likely to succeed if she made her request realistic.
"Books. Do you have any books I could borrow?"
"Do you have any preferences?" he asked.
"No. I'll take anything at this point."
As quickly as he left, he returned with three books in hand. Sakura took them from his arms with excitement pumping through her veins—she would finally have something to do.
Itachi looked away and reminded her, "Knock again if you need anything else." He disappeared before she had a chance to thank him.
With a sigh, she walked over to the bed and laid the three tomes out for inspection. The one on the left read "Medical Uses of Indigenous Flora: Suna Edition." Sakura chuckled—no wonder that one was so thin. The title of the middle book was "Poisons and Potions: A List of Uses and Recipes." She suspected that if she flipped through its pages, she might find whatever concoction he had used on her back during their first encounter.
As Sakura's attention moved to the final book, she discovered that it had no name. Its mystery piqued her interest, so she lifted it from the bed to browse its contents. Underneath its worn navy canvas cover, it appeared full of handwritten poetry. She decided to indulge one at random and chose a poem titled "Howl at the Moon."
Clearing her throat, she read aloud:
The little wolf padded home
at the end of evening's light.
Just as a raven's caw
called out through the night.
Scent of blood in the air,
kin nowhere to be found;
Instead of playful paw prints,
only angry red across the ground.
Feeling frightened and alone,
the little wolf whined.
He searched for Mama and Papa,
but there was no one left to find.
Scampering along,
Followed by the old raven's croon;
There was nothing left to do,
but to howl at the moon.
Just as an intuitive chill set in her bones, she looked up to find that Itachi had entered the room during her reading. Sakura bit her lip nervously.
"I just came to tell you that I gave you the wrong book." He held out another navy book titled, "Anatomy, Physiology, and Chakra"—the book looked similar enough to the one in her hands that he must have mistakenly given her this nameless tome instead.
"I've actually read that one already. I'm tired of medical texts, anyways—poetry's a nice change," she reassured. Moreover, she enjoyed the author's style. Even though a complete stranger scribbled its words on the page, "Howl at the Moon" felt personal.
He paused. "Well, I was in the middle of that one…" When he saw her face fall, he added, "But, you can keep it until dinner if you'd like."
Sakura beamed, "Thank you!" Time seemed to ease the tension between them from their previous disagreement. He seemed hesitant to lend it to her, but probably acquiesced out of the guilt he had professed earlier—even if his guilt was unnecessary.
"I'll be back with your dinner later." Then, he left Sakura alone to bond with the stranger's words.
She walked over to the sunny window and smiled as she turned the page to a poem titled "Blood Brothers."
Sakura recited to the streetwalkers who could not hear:
Brothers of blood by war
Brothers of blood by birth
Brothers of blood
and hate
and sin
Perhaps blood is all they're worth
Her chills from earlier returned. It was brief but cutting in its message. The picture it painted reminded her of Itachi and Sasuke—they were brothers of blood in every way. She wondered what the writer would think if she or he ever heard the Uchihas' story.
Sakura continued reading, skipping pages here and there to save time, and then suddenly decided to fast-forward to the final entry. There were blank pages that succeeded the final poem, so perhaps the poet never managed to complete her or his compilation. Regardless, Sakura wanted to know how the author ended the composition.
The title of this piece was "Emeralds." Sakura cleared her throat and spoke as if a lecturer to a room of listeners:
She saw
With emerald eyes
She sang
Sweet lullabies
To the sick and dying
Through their pained cries
I looked
With empty eyes
I spoke
With assured lies
Tongue supplying words
Surely meant to incise
Then she looked
With empty eyes
She wore
A sickly guise
Of livid vengeance
And too few goodbyes
Then I saw
Her emerald eyes
I gave
My quiet remise
With full expectation
Of my due demise
At last she saw
With emerald eyes
She cried
For the truth that belies
All of hers and my
Empty lies
Which she saw through
With her emerald eyes
Sakura gulped. The writer's perspective in this piece was lovely—there was clear admiration for the woman in her introduction, descent, and ultimate development. Throughout describing her, the writer developed, too; the poet changed upon connecting with the woman.
Sakura jumped as Itachi's voice broke the silence. "Your dinner is ready." He had been there long enough to set her tray on the table toward the left side of the room.
She knew what dinnertime meant—it was time for her to give up the book. Sakura walked over to him and held out the mysterious text. As much as she wanted to keep it, it belonged to him and she had already commandeered it for the whole afternoon.
Wordlessly, he turned to leave. Sakura could not stand the isolation any longer, though.
"Wait. Please stay for dinner."
"…I already ate," he replied without turning around to face her.
"That's fine. I just need some company. Please stay."
After a brief pause, he turned, walked over to the table, and sat down at the chair across from her plate of food. With a smile, Sakura walked over—probably a little too fast—to sit down and join him. As she inhaled the food's aroma, her stomach growled to tell the world how hungry she was.
She sat down at her chair and inspected her meal: a chicken breast served with rice and vegetable stir-fry. As she lifted her fork, Sakura unconsciously licked her lips.
Bringing a forkful of food to her mouth, she asked, "So, how's your day been?"
Itachi looked at her blankly as if no one had ever asked him that question before. Sakura suspected that no one had asked him that question before, at least not in a very long time.
"How's your day been?" she reiterated.
He blinked. "My day was like most days."
Sakura raised an eyebrow. "It's normal for you to have hostages?"
"Well, no. Sometimes my work with the Akatsuki would require that sort of thing, but that was much different than this."
She suspected that she understood the subtext of his words, but asked anyway, "What do you mean?"
"No one can afford to look merciful in front of the Akatsuki. Not to your own brother, and certainly not to a hostage. Murderers perceive mercy as weakness. And I'm sure you can imagine what happens when your sociopathic cohorts sense weakness."
Sakura grimaced—he did not need to explain any further.
"That's understandable. Infiltrating the Akatsuki is the riskiest of risky business. But I don't understand—how was today like most days, then?"
He paused. "Well, I'm alive and I'm doing things."
Sakura stared at him. He seriously defined his days by his mortality?
"You mean to say that nothing happy, sad, or irritating happened today?" she asked incredulously.
He took an extended pause this time. "I don't understand what you mean."
Sakura thought about how to explain this more effectively. "We disagreed this morning. How'd you feel about that?" She felt like a psychiatrist, but she had no other ideas on how to get through to him.
"Well, I was frustrated."
Her eyes lit up at his progress. "Like frustration, all the feelings you have—good or bad—accumulate throughout the day to give it a kind of positive or negative net worth."
Itachi seemed to think about it for a moment. Sakura prayed to the gods that her explanation managed to reach him.
"I think I remember Sasuke and my mother asking me questions like that when I came home from missions. I guess my day was frustrating. But, the good outweighed the frustration, so I think that makes it a good day."
Sakura beamed with pleasant surprise. Not only did he answer her, but his answer was also positive.
"What made it good?" she probed with a smile.
Itachi blinked again. "Nothing made it good."
Immediately, her previous excitement dampened. "Well… How was it a good day, then?" His response bewildered her.
"I already had such a surplus of good things that it would've taken a catastrophe to send my day into the negatives," he explained matter-of-factly.
Sakura laughed at her own concern. She expected him to say something borderline awful and received innocent optimism instead.
He looked confused by her laughter. "Did I say something funny?"
"No," she smiled, "You just said something different."
At the end of her sentence, she bit her own tongue. As much as she wanted to pick his brains, she could not let herself grow attached to him. Once she finished healing him, she had a mission to uphold.
Changing the subject, Sakura asked, "By the way, is there any chance you know who wrote the poetry in your book? I noticed that it didn't have an author listed."
He shook his head. "No. I don't know him, but I wish I did."
"Him?" His wording seemed oddly specific for someone he did not know.
"Yeah. We're distant acquaintances, but it would be presumptuous to say that I know him."
Sakura requested between chewing, "Well, if you ever see him again, tell him I'd love to read more of his work. Poetry's always relaxing to read, but this stuff went beyond that."
"What do you mean?"
Sakura hesitated and then confessed, "Some of the poems felt personal. It was weird because, as much as I enjoy poetry, that's not a feeling that I normally get."
She swore that a faint smile flickered on his face before falling back to its default expressionlessness.
"I'm glad you enjoyed it. How far did you read?"
"Well, I didn't exactly read in order—I skipped some at random. But the last one was my favorite."
His face paled a shade, causing Sakura to wonder if he was disgusted with her amateur lack of taste.
"Why that one?" Itachi asked.
Sakura laid her fork down on her empty plate. "Well… I think it was a love poem—even though it was nothing like your typical love poem. It wasn't about how beautiful the woman was or how he would love her forever…" she trailed off in search of the right words. "Instead, he had regard for her as a person. He celebrated her compassion and insightfulness, but didn't deride her when she struggled through darker days. And, even though it's not from her perspective, the ending really gives you the sense that she had regard for him as a person, too."
Itachi looked down at the table; Sakura suspected that her verbose opinion had bored him.
"Have you read that one yet?" she asked, knowing that the answer was probably "no" if he was in the middle of the book as he claimed.
He looked up and shrugged. "Mmm…probably. I've read the book several times."
Sakura stared at him. "Then how could you not know what I'm talking about?" She was a little peeved that he would not let her borrow it if he had read it so many times, but she would let this one slide.
He shrugged again. "Are you done eating dinner?"
In one sentence, he went from being merely noncommittal in his answers to not answering at all. Sakura sighed at his disinterest in the subject.
"Yes, I'm done. Did you want me to work on your healing now?"
He averted his eyes. "Only if you feel up to it."
She stood from the table and announced, "Then let's get to it." Sakura dragged her chair over to the side of the bed and sat down. She wiggled in her seat like an excited child as she waited for him to catch up.
At last, he lifted himself from his seat, walked across the room, and lied down on the bed. As Sakura inspected the progress of his healing, she found that his wounds already looked much better than when she had first seen them.
"Do you mind if I stay silent while you work today?" he requested.
"Please do what makes you most comfortable. You're the patient, after all," she answered aloud. But, deep inside, she mourned all of the interrogational opportunities she would be squandering.
Letting out a defeated sigh, Sakura moved forward with her work.
Authoress's Note:
Alright, so I figured that I would crank out another update to make up for my spotty schedule over the semester. Also, it comes with bonus poetry. ;) This one was a lot of fun to write (well, they all are), so I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
As always, thank you all for reading! A special thanks to those who take the time to review - I truly appreciate the feedback.
Have a splendid evening,
A
