So sorry. Oh so very sorry for the EXTREMELY late chapter. I had MAJOR writers block. x[ but... thanks to LINKIN PARK my writers block went away. Anyways. forgive me please... And, I think that I'm going to be updating every two weeks. if not less then two weeks. And if something happens I'll be sure to tell you guys. :
-i dont own-
Chapter 6: The Perfect Imperfection
I found myself taking out my anger on the padded trees rather then just training. In the beginning, I started out hitting the trees at a steady pace. I kept trying to hit harder each time. My pace began to slow, and I tried to bring it up again. Every time I felt myself wanting to stop and rest I pushed myself even harder. I wasn't going to give up this time.
My arms started getting numb, so I started running laps around the training ground. I didn't even get halfway through my first lap before I felt a need to stop and rest. My heart was beating uncontrollably, making it feel like it was going to jump out of my chest. I kept running, though. Except, instead of finishing my lap, I ran toward my house. I tripped a few times and my heart started beating faster. I could barely breathe now too. When I got to my house I leaned over on the door and tried to slow my pulse.
When I finally got my breathing and heart under control I went inside and took a shower. I didn't want to look at myself in the mirror, so I kept my gaze down at the ground. My eyes trailed off and looked at the scale. After one small glance at it I looked away. I didn't want to know my weight either.
I walked back into my room and lied on my bed. My arms and legs were spread out. My eyes and head were heavy. I shut my eyes slowly and fell into a deep slumber.
Things seemed like they were going back to normal when everyone met at the bridge. Naruto would greet everyone and start talking about ramen. Kakashi was late, as usual.
"The chunin exams are coming up soon. So… Today, instead of regular training, we're going to do a chakra control exercise." Everyone looked over at Kakashi curious. "Let me explain. You're going to focus chakra down to your feet," Kakashi made a hand sign, and I guessed that he was focusing his chakra.
"And you simply run up the tree." I looked at Kakashi wide eyed. He was standing upside down on the branch.
"Use these kunai to mark the highest you can go, and build up until you get to the top of the tree." He threw 3 kunai in front of Sasuke, Naruto, and me. "You may begin."
After watching Naruto and Sasuke and seeing that they only got a few feet up the tree I thought the exercise would be hard. Turns out, it was actually pretty easy. I finished going up the tree in about an hour. After I came down and gave Kakashi my signed permission slip, I was ready to leave.
Kakashi stopped me before I took a step. "Sakura, how about training with me for a little while? It doesn't look like Sasuke and Naruto are going to finish anytime soon."
"I," I was thinking of refusing, but there was nothing else to do. "Sure Kakashi-sensei. Why not?"
We sparred a few times, and he beat me every time. Occasionally I would look to see how far Sasuke was. By the end of my third spar with Kakashi, Sasuke was pretty much done with the exercise. I looked over to Naruto and he was going at about the same pace.
"I think that's enough for today Sakura. Naruto and Sasuke are almost done anyway. Nice work, you've improved a lot."
Kakashi took us out for dinner after Naruto and Sasuke mastered the exercise. My hunger now was worse then before. We all walked into the restaurant and I was surrounded by people happily eating and enjoying themselves. My stomach growled and I could tell that my mouth was watering now. I mentally shook my head, denying my hunger. I was following everyone to the table wordlessly. I didn't notice that we were ordering until I felt all of their eyes on me.
"Sakura, do you want anything else to eat?" Kakashi asked me.
"Oh, I'm, um, I'm fine." I didn't think that I would be eating.
But then I thought about the last time I went out to eat with the rest of team seven. Kakashi kept looking at me, Naruto was the same, but Sasuke didn't even glance in my direction. My thoughts trailed off to try and figure out what everyone ordered. I was too busy trying to convince myself that I wasn't hungry that I didn't even hear what we were getting. I didn't even know what type of restaurant we were in. The thought of food made me hungry again.
"Ne, ne, Sakura-chan! What did you and Kakashi-sensei do while me and Sasuke were running up the trees?" His voice was loud and eyes full of curiosity.
"We were just training…" I tried to keep my voice normal. I really didn't feel like talking today. I could tell Naruto wanted me to go more into detail.
Lucky for me, the waiter came out with our food. I was trying to keep my eyes away from the food, but once I saw it I couldn't look away. It was the same food I ate last time we went out. I remembered how I could barely control my eating. I remembered the burn in my throat after I threw up.
And, most importantly, I remembered my mom. The worry that shown in her eyes when I came into the kitchen, her unsteady voice asking if I was okay. That was the last time I saw her, and she wasn't even smiling.
I stood up quickly knocking into the table a little. I wanted to leave now more then ever. I wasn't going to lose control over myself again. I worked too hard.
Kakashi raised his eyebrow.
"I'm leaving," My voice quivered.
"Aw, Sakura-chan! You haven't eaten anything yet! This is all Kakashi's treat!" Naruto's loud voice interrupted.
"I-I'm not hungry… I can eat something at home…" I tried to make an excuse.
"The food's already here though! Come on Sakura-chan!"
"Naruto, I'll handle it." Sasuke suddenly spoke out and took my arm.
"Sasuke-kun… let go…" I tried to break his grip, but he tightened it. "Let go!" He ignored me and took me to the restaurant entrance.
"Sakura, look at me." I turned slowly to Sasuke and made eye contact. His eyes were lifeless and black. "Now, I don't know what it is you're doing, but whatever it is you need to stop. I already told you, everyone is worried about you, and when I say everyone, I mean everyone. I only want to say this one last time. Stop trying to impress me and start eating."
I didn't know what to say after that. If it was someone else telling me that and not Sasuke, I probably would've ignored it. Coming from Sasuke, it actually mattered, and he made it sound like he cared.
"Sasuke… I-" he cut me off before I could say anything else.
"Sakura, don't get your hopes up. You're nothing more to me then a teammate." I mentally hit myself. What was I thinking? Sasuke cared for me? Yeah right, only in my dreams.
I broke away from his gaze and made my way back to the table with Sasuke following behind me.
"Sakura-chan! So you're going to eat right?" Naruto was still as hyper as ever.
I smiled at him and picked up a pair of chopsticks. Everyone ate in peace. Naruto started most of the conversations and he was the last to talk. I started off nibbling on rice and made my way to the meat. No one bothered me about eating, because there was no need to. I was already stuffing my face. It was just like last time, except I wasn't hungry today. I was starving.
I could barely walk after dinner. I was too full. My mind was full of pictures of me eating. I could barely recognize myself. I was a monster. A monster with no self control whatsoever. The tears started coming on, and I made no effort to stop them. I was trying to figure out a way to get rid of all the food. The first thing I thought of was throwing it all back up again, but the burn in my throat would be too much for me to handle. There was also the option of working it all off, but that would take a long time. I could also take a laxative or diet pills of some sort, but that was out of the picture.
The only reasonable choice was to work it off. I grimaced at the thought. It was going to take a long time to work it all off. Not to mention it wouldn't be easy either. After all, lately I was getting tired easily.
My plan was to start working the weight off the second I got home, but I ran to the bathroom mirror first. At first I looked exactly the same, but gradually I saw myself with more extra skin hanging on the side of my stomach. I looked down toward my stomach and tried to pinch the side of it. There was less excess fat then before, but there was still some there. I looked back up to the mirror and glared at my self. Then I looked over to the scale.
I walked over to it to pick it up. I looked at it for another moment and screamed out. The scale came flying out of my fingers and hit the mirror shattering it to pieces.
"What's wrong with you!?" I shouted at myself. "I can't even look at you! Do you know what you've done to yourself?! You just threw away all of your hard work! Do you want to be a failure!?" I kept yelling and screaming out.
I stomped out of the bathroom and into my room. The exercise mat was put up against the wall. I snatched it from the corner and slapped it to the floor. I started with simple sit ups and I found a shoebox under my bed. I looked to see what was inside and I found multiple types of candy and cookies. The box held all my favorite sweets that I would pull out and eat when I was depressed.
I held a chocolate bar in hand and thought of when I first became genin and Sasuke called me annoying.
I opened the chocolate bar, took a whiff and took a bite. I felt it melt inside my mouth. The memories started coming back to me.
A longer time ago, when I didn't know Ino, kids would make fun of me because of my oversized forehead. I would come home crying and my mom would ask me what's wrong. I told her the same thing every day and she would kiss my forehead and tell me it was perfect the way it was. Then at night I would take a handful of hard candy and eat all of them.
I picked up my favorite flavor lollipop and stuck it into my mouth.
And there was also the time I found out my dad was killed. My mom wouldn't talk very much, and I worried about her a lot. Sometimes I would hear her sobbing in the living room when I couldn't sleep. Then, the next day I would come home from the academy and eat spoonfuls of my favorite ice cream: chocolate chip cookie dough.
I dug around for a cookie and stared at it in my hand. My vision became blurred from my tears, and I took a bite out of the cookie.
My eyes started to swell up, but I went on thinking about all the times I pulled this same box from under my bed. I tipped the box upside down and the contents spilled out. Looking at the candy was like looking at a rainbow. There were different colors showing the different flavors. I brushed my hand over them to spread them out evenly and smiled slightly to myself.
'I can eat some right? It can't hurt me that much. It'll be nothing compared to dinner. I'm going to end up working it off anyway'
'Just eat it Sakura. You know you want to!' The devil inside of me began speaking. 'Look at the food Sakura! It's all of your favorites! How can you give up something like this? It would be a waste to throw it all away!'
I looked away from the candy. 'Yes, it would be a waste…'
'Well then at least finish what you took a bite of! Look at it. Smell its sugary goodness. It's even better when you taste it.'
'Look what it has already done!' I walked over to the long mirror in my room. "You see this?! You see what it has done to me?!" I didn't notice I was screaming out loud. "You see what food has done to me?! All it has done was mend the old problems at that time and create new ones just so I can mend those too! And what happens then? I become this." I pointed at my body as I spoke. "All the fat piles up all over." I pulled at any hanging skin I could find. "And then I get depressed and eat some more." I picked up a handful from the stack of candy. "What happens then?! I get fatter!" I threw the candy at the mirror.
"And then, I look around me, and everyone else except me is perfect. I feel like an outcast. Like everything about me is messed up. People constantly make fun of me, and I go eat more. Then people make fun of me even more." I sat down in front of the mirror looking at myself as I was talking. "I want this…I want this so bad…but it's so hard… But I'm not like anyone else. I'm the complete opposite. I've always been. Why can't I be perfect too? Why can't my life be perfect like theirs? They get everything they want. They live happy lives. But why don't I?" I stood up and looked down at the ground.
I curved my mouth to form a smirk. The muscles in my face felt stiff. "I know what I'm perfect at…" My mouth opened to show my teeth a little. I looked up at myself in the mirror and whispered the next few words. "I'm the perfect imperfection."
I know I took a while on the chapter... and I'm not exactly happy with it... I wanted to get this one up. Even if it is kind of like a "filler." The next chapter is called 'Determination' and here's a little overview of it because I updated so late.
-There's going to be more talking about the chunin exam (and the exam is going to be a little different then the anime, so let's see how that goes)
-As you can see through the title, Sakura is getting more determined.
here's a quote from Sakura
"There was nothing in the world that was more important to me. It was my only reason for living."
Thanks for reading!
