13 views for the first chapter is a lot more than I had hoped for, so thank you :D
Itachi kept busy with our new home, settling business here and there while looking for a new school for me. Truthfully, we had lived overseas for so long that Japanese had become a struggle for me, and I was sure that my once above-average grades would soon drop dramatically, so I myself kept busy at home, spending my time studying my soon to be subjects in the language I would be taught in.
There would be times when I would just sit at my desk look out the window at the children playing in the streets, admire the students that walked to and from school every day, and watch with pity as an emaciated dog walked by the house. I could feel my body become frail and brittle. The lack of sun and exercise was turning me into an insipid creature, void of the gentle twinkle of the eyes and slowly becoming sickly. Itachi would stop and gaze at me now and then when he had time to come to the meals that Mr. Butler would prepare for us and comment momentarily on how I need vitamins. Of course, I would only nod.
Finally, the schools went on summer vacation. I began to see more children play on the streets and teenagers prowl them at night. Truthfully, it was different from the life I had known back in the States. I had never seen so much youth out on the streets like that before, and it surprised me that they would even be allowed to be out so late at night. I tried to ignore the laughs and constant loud music that followed them and seemed to always fall near my window, and at times it made me wish that we had an enclosure to our home. In truth, I knew that all the hate I had towards them was actually aimed at the jealousy I had towards them. They were home, while I was not.
Itachi became slowly consumed by his work, and I rarely had the chance to see him. I kept to my studies as the summer vacation drew itself along, the blazing sun soon becoming a bother as it lit my window with excess light, and I soon found myself in my front yard, sitting under the protection of a patio umbrella with constant refreshments from our butler. Slowly my skin began to retain its light glow, and soon I began to notice the elongated stares that the locals were giving me, and as much as it bothered me, I didn't try to stop going outside for my daily study sessions. It would mean that I allowed them to get to me.
Dogs began to prowl my yard at the smell of the snacks that I was given, and I can't say that I minded very much. It wasn't long before I began to feed them and give them shelter. There were so many races and variations of sizes, and I must say that they were all my favorite. Creatures that seemed so rough and violent slowly approached me and as I extended my hand for it to be smelt, they would bow their heads and allow themselves to be pet. Even those that seemed so skeletal would allow me to take care of them, and I was more than happy to help. In the desolated world I was confined in, there was solace in the company of those that had no home.
There were so many faces now that followed me when I would go outside to study and take a break amongst the herd of dogs that now called my front yard home. I felt violated yet amused at the same time. I had never been to this town before. My old home had been near Kyoto, not here in this valley of wilderness. Even so, going back to that place that was once my playground would bring the same effect. This world was still alien to me, and I couldn't get accustomed to it whether I was in Kyoto or Konoha. Even in the turmoil of the excited crowd that tried to get peeks of me during my routines, I noticed the presence of one local that with his inebriated stupor would often lean against a tree not far from my dog houses and stare at me with those blood-shot eyes that glowed red from the distance. He would often walk by when he was still sober with a gang so called friends, and in those moments one could truly admire the golden shine of his hair under the summer sun and the sky blue eyes that were still a bit scarlet from the beer he had drank the night before.
Though his appearance was breath-taking, his flamboyant, thunderous presence and his misplaced love for clothes that were obnoxiously orange and baggy was enough to deter any thought of mine to perhaps befriend him or even just speak to him. His voice was loud after he had had a couple of drinks and he would always be fooling around with his friends, making crude jokes and pranks and whistling at the girls that walked by.
Yet there he was. Every day after his little adventures with the bottle, he would stumble all the way up to the cherry blossom that stood between my yard and the concrete sidewalk. He would stare at me with those ruby eyes, irritated from the alcohol in his system and the smoke from the cigarettes that he smoked. It pitied me to shoo him away when he would fall against its trunk and fall into a drunken slumber, especially since the dogs seemed to like him an awful lot.