HIRAETH

(n.) A homesickness for a home you can't return to, or that never was.

Purring from the loud car reminded me of the time I had been locked in the storage room in the gymnasium. Kids didn't like me very much at school, I suppose they thought what they did was a prank. I knew someone would come from me, but I almost went insane in the cold dark just like I was now. It wasn't dark or cold; it was heated and bright from the ball of fire that hung with the sky.

Even though I was falling apart from the intense emotions from losing everything, the world seemed to be a sadistic bastard by throwing in sunshine, rainbows, and some fucking birds why not, the day I was to be sent to the orphanage.

The bright trees that began to appear in the area around me caught me by surprise, at the increasing amount of greenery, I began to wonder if the orphanage was in the middle of a forest since the land was dried out of any large amount of buildings. The man driving me, Sarutobi noticed my interest to the outside.

"I believe you'll like this place Sasuke, I was raised on this land when I was a child myself, the forests were green like emeralds, the air was even better."

Sarutobi was an elderly man, rubbery sling that sagged like a balloon, eyes squinted, and a hunched back; he was a kind man though a little odd, it seemed he also had some dark history through his pained smiles I had seen on him.

The idea of going to an orphanage infuriated me, I wanted to scream and beg to be taken back, however, I had no place to be taken to except for the orphanage; time was continuing with its job, not caring about my grief because I wasn't the only person suffering.

It's clear I was nothing special, but how is it that people could just leave and ignore others who are in pain? My grandfather Madera turned his back on me when the police had spoken with him, Obito had gone missing last year, and Kakashi was out looking for his teacher's kid who was probably dead.

Why did they turn away from me?

I don't know how they could that to me.

But maybe this was life now, I was alone as an orphan, and nothing was going to swoop down and save me like the movies.

The car began to slow, the wheels making a crunchy sounding roll as it stopped on some rocky gravel.

A fox? I got on my knees to look through the back window from behind, a barely recognizable road, wild plants and tall trees, but no fox.

Sarutobi snapped me out of my curiosity when he spoke.

"See something you found interesting?"

Absentmindedly, I replied in a withdrawn tone as I got back to my seat properly.

"Not really, I thought I saw a fox."

He chuckled.

"Well that's certainly lucky, not many foxes roam around here anymore since the people had begun to chase them out."

He unlocked his seatbelt before he got out of the car.

The side door unlocked so I got out of the car, not prepared for the sudden attack of fresh dewy air infiltrating my nose. My mouth nearly went slack when I saw a flick of a familiar red tail on the corner of my eye.

My head turned to the front, and slaughterhouses began flashing in my thoughts, my anxiety had begun covering my anger and sorrow when I noticed the shedding rooftop with rotted coverings, how sunlight evaded the house as much as possible allowing the shadows to hug the house, the white paint peeling off with strokes of black, grass refusing to grow where the shadow of the house touched, and the crows surrounding the house seemed to be all staring at me.

So that's it, I was going to live in a place where people had probably died, it didn't help that there was a church beside it, followed by a field if marble gravestones and crosses.

What idiot decides to build an orphanage beside a graveyard? I thought, my legs almost refusing to move forward.

Sarutobi had carefully noticed my hesitancy and probably my fear.

"It's a withered house just like me, but I'm sure the children will be welcoming. I'll take your luggage to the caretaker, you go have fun."

I nodded and watched him enter the house, surprised the door hadn't fallen on him when he pulled sharply on the knob. The creaks of his steps reminded me of a witch's house.

Some quite chatter had attracted my attention. To the side, a small pace right beside the graves, children younger than me were playing on the fields, there wasn't even a fence separating the property. They were in a circle, dancing and hopping joyfully while singing.

Ring around the rosies…!

I felt something slither around both arms, for a moment I began to panic before I heard two voices sync together.

"You're the new kid! Wow, you're so much cooler looking than the other guys, where did you come from? You're a city boy yeah?!"

The girl on my left asked with a shrill sounding voice.

A pocketful of posies…!

I opened my mouth to politely ask her to get off me, but the other girl refused to allow the words to leave my mouth.

"How do you keep your skin so pale?"

Before I knew it, those two virus evolved to four, then ten, then fifteen, and finally twenty.

Ashes, Ashes…!

All the excited voices were mixtures of squealing and shaking, I felt like someone had tied meat on me and threw me onto a pig's pen.

They were all excited, not sympathetic nor empathetic as to why I arrived to the orphanage. They just saw me as some flashy arrival, I wonder if this was what it felt like to feel alone, I was sure at the moment that at the hospital I felt grief not loneliness. Now, it seemed like no one was willing to take the time to understand my grief. Everyone was blind to my desperate grasp to remain calm and collected, there was a endless abyss below my feet, anytime my hands could let go.

We all fall down.

Cicadas echoed the forests like pitched violins, long and sharp.

I walked forward, the girls taking me through the forest, rather than listening to their senseless blabber my eyes admired the healthy maple trees, until I saw the big oak tree. From the looks of it, it must have been around for a century considering it's impressive size.

A girl asked my name and I answered quietly, which caused a chain reaction of them screaming their names in my ear,

My feet stopped when the same fox had been sleeping on the branch of the oak. It looked far too peaceful to seem real, soon I realized there was someone beside it–weren't foxes feral around here?

It was only the back of the person, but they seemed to be different to the rest. Close but distant to the rest of us, I wanted to join him to get away from these obsessed females.

But the way his back was turned, he didn't seem to enjoy company.

Even though I didn't know him, I wanted to see what kind of face he had with his bright hair that seemed to glow like gold in the sunlight, so different from most people in this country. It wasn't odd for people to have blonde hair, it was quite common, but his seemed different to the rest, but I couldn't quite place my finger on it.

The dragging, which never bothered me, had suddenly become troublesome. For an odd compelling reason, I wanted to gaze at the lonely boy sitting up on the tree and I found myself hoping for his gaze to meet mine so I could ask "What's your name?"

But in this world, I was pushed past him and I kept walking away from him.