Nefarious
(adj) wicked, villainous, despicable.
Warmth seeping into my skin from the sun, soft harmonized Cicadas, gentle wind touching my face softly to comfort my hurting body. It was a good day, it was quiet, peaceful. Until the squeals of girls ruined it.
Unwantedly, I woken up and peered over the large group of girls to see what the large commotion was about. I met a pair of smooth, black eyes.
Rashly, I jumped off the branch and the girls all screamed when I almost landed on one of them.
"Shit, it's the freak, come on Sasuke, let's go before he starts infecting us with his germs. He's not worth anything." A girl from the back whispered to him, though her voice echoed through the forest, silencing the cicadas. Soft anger began to stir inside of me, I however repressed it with a carefree grin since I was the best at that sort of thing.
Carefully I looked at the new kid. Dark hair, and smooth skin. A spoiled rich kid no doubt with how he didn't realize how lucky he was to be accepted so easily in the orphanage; not at all like me. Girls clung to every part of him excluding his crotch.
A pretty boy. I concluded, pleased with my observation.
He kind of reminded me of a human Christmas tree, so I couldn't help by begin to chuckle at him.
His expression which was an odd mix of surprise and– embarrassment? His face was slightly pink when he began to look at my face.
"Laughing to yourself? You're weird." He commented, though I was surprised he hadn't said "freak" like the rest, it almost seemed like he was complimenting me but that was ridiculous so I threw the thought away.
Naturally I had to return the insult with an even bigger one.
"Oh yeah? Well you look like a pale vampire, so who are you supposed to be? Edward Cullen?"
"Tch, at least I'm naturally pale, I'm not the one with fox whiskers." He retorted with a smirk, anger breathed into my lungs and my fists clenched together.
"Well hate to break it to ya, but I was born with these ya ass-sucking bastard."
A few of the girls gasped, and one spoke up to me.
"Well he's not some scum like you! All you have are your words and nothing else!"
The girls hummed in agreement.
I was afraid if I opened my mouth, I might lose my temper, and lash out on her, I didn't need the old hag yelling at me for 'hurting' one of the girls.
So I let her continue humiliating me in front of the new kid.
"You were abandoned because your parents knew you were going to hell. Your own parents left you with a retarded name. Naruto the fishcake. Really?"
The anger was spilling out, I grit my teeth tightly. My name was the only thing I had from me parents, the small hope that my parents loved me enough to name me. To be honest, I don't hit girls, but I was willing to scare them off.
"None of the adults even want to look at you, you're an eyesore, unwanted. Who would miss you?" Bitter words flew right inside me, tearing everything in me.
I chewed the inside of my right cheek, piercing right into the flesh to draw out rust flavored blood, this was a common pattern. Whenever someone new arrives, the other children make sure to go on about horrible my existence was. Whether or not the child believes what they say doesn't matter, they'll want to fit in and choose to agree their claims about me. Otherwise, the majority would no doubt appraise them the same way they regard me.
Punishment out of shallow anger.
No one stupid enough would try to help me.
But before I lost my temper, the boy Sasuke had snapped sharply at the girl.
"Shut. Up."
My blue eyes widened, my mouth lost all muscle and dropped. This guy was a fucking moron. Did he want to die or something? To my surprise, I wasn't happy about this.
His hands were shoved in his loose pockets as he had begun to waltz out of the forest by himself, his eyes a sharp cutting knife.
The girls chased after him, some wandered aimlessly, murmuring "So cool…" Under their breaths.
I knew in my head that I should have felt gratitude to Sasuke, but I only felt frustration and embarrassment. Who did he think he was? This was none of his business yet he spoke up as if he was my friend. I scratched an itchy part of my temple, when I looked at my hand, splotches of claret were present on my skin; the blood was from a opened up scab, shit.
My hand wiped the fluid off my shirt as I watched Sasuke stalk away in a cool stride.
What a show off. Arrogant asshole.
What a self-righteous bastard he must have been, to be egotistical enough to assume I wished for his aid in my desperate time of need when I was cornered. All he did was out of obligation since he probably came from a good family, just following moral rights. Nothing he did today was out of a sense of justice.
Nothing has changed,
Once again, I climbed back up and waited for the Cicadas and quietly stared at nest of birds, the mother and father were missing, but the small baby chicks sat patiently, as if they had expected something to happen.
Just like the birds, I waited.
As if on cue, they arrived with sticks and glass. Coaxing and threatening for me to come down, some attempted to scale the tree to get me, but failed by falling off.
Rare laughter erupted from my chest, they were being such idiots.
"Why don't you give up already? You guys are too stupid to climb up here," Was what I was about to say, until I snapped when they began to ruin the fox kit's grave. Everything bled red when I jumped off the branch, my fist in a ready ball of rage, desperate to cause them pain. Hurting me was no big matter, but to trample on a grave of something that used to be alive was unacceptable.
Maybe I was the idiot.
Maybe I didn't care.
Pale ice, with foggy greys, and a navy layer of color surrounding the iris. Blue eyes that I had never seen before.
Like an icy diamond with a warm amber behind it. Fascination in his eyes made me slightly tremble.
Blonde hair and blue eyes. Naruto.
It seemed the world had begun to feel sympathy for me and somehow called off the leeches off me by allowing the elderly woman to call on them. When the sight of their existence was gone, I turned back to the forest, desiring to see the frozen blue turn into a pleasant deep shade.
Though my heart had been grieving, perhaps life had stirred inside the moment I had witnessed the cruel ostracism against a normal orphan child.
It seemed Naruto had a difficult past like I did, a more traumatizing one that I could empathize with, so when I observed the obvious hatred against him an odd pulse had filled me with anger. This harsh treatment must have been the reason his eyes were so cold looking, from the state of his attire and hygiene, he had been here at the orphanage for an extended amount of time.
Why didn't the moron think of running away? Or perhaps he has tried, and maybe he knew there was no place for him to go.
It wasn't difficult to locate where I had seen Naruto, there was only one oak tree in the forest, and it just so happened to attract Cicadas.
Expecting to see an abandoned child by himself on the branch, I saw the same child on the ground getting beaten into the ground without the slightest of resistance, his eyes were angry, but there was no intention of fighting back, I knew from his rough demeanor he wasn't the type to brush off anything like this, so shock came to me when I realized he was taking the abuse of his own free will.
A bunch of older kids, looking to be about eleven or twelve years old, had glass and thick sticks from the trees to hit him with, the glass was thankfully small, but the twigs they gathered were strong and hard, creating unpleasant sounds when they'd hit him.
My throat tightened, choking my air and words in shock. Horror glued my legs there, yet everything was falling and burning around me.
"He deserves this."
"What?" I asked out of mild confusion, I had flinched when the girl beside me spoke, I never noticed her until now, where did she come from?
Her hair was short and pink, her eyes a similar green to the trees. She was calm when she spoke, but a thin rivulet of tears escaped her eyes.
I knew too well she was lying, she wanted to stop them with her trembling legs and fists. She couldn't though, because she was scared, and all she could do was refuse from participating in the beatings and laughter; I knew this because I could share her self loathing, we didn't have the courage to protect him because we were the cowards.
My brother was right about me, I was weak, I can't protect anything.
A week after I had arrived, I hadn't run into Naruto since, probably because my legs had refused to travel down to the forest where he mostly waited on the thick, branch from the oak tree.
I understood he paused from returning to the orphanage, but the way he had looked as he was being beaten to near death, it seemed as if he was trying to protect something, but what?
Eventually, my guilt, remorse, and worry had reached maximum capacity and I couldn't allow my pride to be an impediment against my other emotions. Hurriedly I ran through the forest, passing by tall, short, thin, fat, dead, and alive trees to search for the tree favored by Naruto
Once again, I was caught off guard to discover he was building something right against the tree instead of hanging on the branches, the hard clash of what sounded like rocks being stacked were the only noise that echoed through the thick forest, even the birds were mute, no buzz from a tireless bee, no sound, no music.
Naruto didn't notice my presence, even when I had approached him from behind and waited. Eventually I spoke up.
"Naruto, what are you doing?"
Nearly falling against the tree, his hands saved him from a face plant into rugged bark. Irritated eyes found me and glared. I would have sneered at his immature reaction if it weren't for the bright patches of swollen skin on his face and neck, promising to turn an ugly purple in several days. The cuts made him seem feral, besides the marks that were already on his face.
Treating others with a frigid attitude wasn't a difficult task for me since it had already been chilled thanks to my brother, but seeing Naruto's battered state, I didn't have the cruelty to regard him in a heartless way.
"Do you know how to speak? What are you doing?" I repeated calmly
"Nothing that has to do with you!" he snapped, finishing his stacking the moment his sentence ended, his anger evident on his face and heavier breathing.
"What are you a kid? Losing your temper like that isn't going to make you seem smart." I warmed, stepping to the side to get a better of his rock stack, also noticing scribbled off words etched in the bark, was this why Naruto refused to fight back? To protect some words on some wood?
"Yelling won't make you any friends,"
"Yeah? Well no one wants to be my friend anyway, everyone seems to like you so why are you talkin' to me? You know everyone here hates me." He explained, his fingers began to dig into the dry dirt, his voice sounded bitter.
"I don't like them, they're annoying."
"You're just a spoiled pretty boy, at least you have friends."
His replies seemed to be against me which amused me instead of infuriating my patience.
"If you haven't noticed, they're aren't the best people to be friends with." Mildly amused at his unwavering anger, I felt happy in his company, for once I was drowning or choking in the air of another person, he wasn't trying desperately to get close to each other, he was talking to me for the sake of talking; it was so much easier to breathe near him.
"So what? They're better than hanging with me."
However, it would taste a lie of I insisted I wasn't annoyed with his blind attitude, was it this possible to be this stupidly dense?
"Not true, you don't say bad things about anyone, and you haven't hurt anyone cause its fun."
"Why the hell would I do that? Idiots hurt other people."
Was he dropped when he was a baby?
"So why is it okay for them to hurt you when you haven't done anything wrong?"
For that brief moment, his frozen face made me worried that I had stepped over a sensitive line, but he only kept silent, his face slate, continuing his digging with his nails.
So I sat beside him, taking notice the large rocks stacked up to smaller ones.
A grave.
Oddly, I felt gratitude that he built this, that he respected the dead enough to build one. Curiously, I asked with mild reservation "Who's this grave for?"
He dug his hand into his dirty pockets, my mind wondered if he stored bugs in his pockets with how filthy his physically state was.
"A baby fox I found months ago." He answered immediately, staring at the rocks with intensity, never sparing a glance to me as he brought out his hand and dropped some seeds into the hole he made in the soil before filling it in with the same soil he took out.
The brief moments of when I thought I had seen a fox began to reappear on my head; very soon, I became aware of this off coincidence. The fox that appeared one moment and disappeared the next had led me to him.
A drop of rain hit the dry hazel ground, staining it a rich caramel.
It wasn't rain, it was a tear. Observing Naruto, he seemed to be suppressing his sadness. To be honest, confusion was my initial reaction as to why he hadn't cried without restraint since most children did at our age, come to think of it he looked the same age as me, but I didn't know exactly how old he was–why did I care?
Thinking carefully towards today's events, Naruto was hesitant to cry in front of me out of fear. The idea of Naruto being afraid of me soured and tore my stomach. My hand reached out to him and rubbed his back, it was so warm compared to my hand.
"You're allowed to cry you know." I said, trying to comfort him, surprised that my own voice could still be soft, that I still had empathy inside me, it was very little empathy though–only enough to spare for one person, which happened to be Naruto, the idiot of the town; but somehow I didn't mind.
Once my words reached his ears, he let go and cried away his grief.
He hugged me, but I couldn't hug back.