Sometimes life is like an onion. I know, I know, bad simile. But really, it kind of is like one. You peel through layer upon layer, slowly learning more and more. You learn more about yourself, your friends, and just life. And finally, when you're at the end you understand everything. But when you're at the end, you're gone—for good.

I had always been a curious person—always. If I didn't understand something then it wouldn't be long before I did understand it. But as I learned just how a mission with Sai and Ino could be, I felt like I was dying.

One more giggle, pout face, fluttering of the eyelashes, or sudden "tripping" and I was going to kill someone.

I mean, just how much of this is one person supposed to be able to take?

Talking about killing someone…"Sai-kun, it's so cold! Can I borrow your jacket?" I glanced over at my two current mission mates. As if that jacket would warm her up, there's nothing to it! She just wants to see him with his shirt off.

"Is something wrong with your eyes?" Sai questioned her.

"What? Why?"

"You blink really quickly every once in a while." I stifled a laugh. She's trying to flirt with you, dummy!

Ino just stood there with her mouth agape so I decided to cover for her. "You just changed the subject." He looked over at me as we stopped running because of Ino's…whatever she was doing with her jaw dropping to the ground.

'I…think we should stop at the next village to get warmer clothing," Sai responded after some long, awkward moments. I stood smugly in my warm jacket, snuggling into the fur inside. I had dressed appropriately, unlike my two blond teammates. Sai wasn't blond, but sometimes I wondered if he dyed it black. Only a blond could be that—I'm blond.

Psh—stupid genes.

"You're cold too, Sai-kun?" She stopped herself from fluttering her eyes lashes again. Instead she brushed up closer to the poor victim of her attention. "We'll be warmer if we mix body heat."

Ew! That just sounded so wrong! I looked away from the two of them, wishing that I wasn't currently on this mission with them. I would rather be hunting down kittens or cleaning rivers than doing this! Ino didn't take it seriously and Sai took it too seriously.

Hey, opposites attract, right? Maybe they'd cross each other out or something.

Then, I sighed contently. I could finally be at peace.

Life had a different thing in mind, though. Because just as we were about to begin running across tree branches, several ninja appeared around us. I searched each man's face looking, hoping, praying I would see a certain dark haired, dark eyed guy. But I didn't and I felt stupid for my petty emotions. My hand went down to my kunai pouch.

The men surrounding us obviously outranked us. Fear made my brain run and my muscles stiffen. There was no way to beet them. Here we were, three mere chunin and the six men surrounding us were definitely jounin. At least jounin, my brain added.

My brain swam with information.

Two kunai—three o'clock.

Senbon needled—one o'clock.

Katana—nine o'clock.

Bare hands—seven o'clock.

There was the best target. He had neither weapon nor weapon pouch on his person. I looked down at the bulk muscles that were known as his arms. He didn't need a weapon, I noticed. He could probably kill a wild bear with his bare hands. A shiver went down my spine.

I needed to do something, anything.

But I couldn't. It was physically impossible for me to move.

My eyes searched every crook and cranny for some foreign jutsu that may have hindered my ability to move. But there were no signs of anything. My eyes darted over to a kunai that was heading right toward Ino. I noticed that she too was frozen.

I needed…I needed to do something!

The kunai was getting closer and closer to its target and Ino's eyes widened. I'm pretty sure she saw her life flash before her eyes in that second. But I just stood there like the weakling I was, frozen in an ice cold bath of fear. I didn't find some hero locked deep inside of me. I didn't gain some incredible kekki genki that I didn't know about. I just stood there as the closest person to being a friend to me was about to die.

What did I say about onions? What did I say about life?

I…it…when…it suddenly felt so long ago that I was complaining about her attempt at flirting. I didn't know how I was going to survive without her. Sure, she wasn't my best friend, but she was the person that was closest to me. She was always there for me, even though I never relied on her. She always listened to what I had to say, even though I never told the truth to her. She always tried to do what she thought was best for me, even if I never wanted her help.

Sure, I knew that the only reason she wanted to be best friends with me all those years ago was because of my sister. She was searching for popularity and boy, was my sister popular! But things changed throughout the years and well, I don't know, she became the sister I always wished I had.

That's why I thought I was going to die the second I heard kunai embed itself into flesh. I buckled my eyes shut. I wouldn't be able to stand the sight of her bloody form. Not with knowing that I should have been able to stop it.

That's when I heard a definitely Ino-like gasp and my eyelids burst open. She stood there as shock spread across her face, a little blood on her always perfectly pressed shirt. If she wasn't shocked for her life at the moment, she would have whined like mad about it.

My eyes darted to the person in front of Ino. His black hair still swayed back and forth from his quick entrance. I hadn't even seen him. Electric shocks went through my bones. He was the last person I had expected to save Ino—especially by harming himself. It was uncharacteristic of him…and it made me feel a very unfamiliar emotion: jealousy.

Why…?

Why was it Sai who moved so effortlessly in to save her? I found my muscles that second. I sent my kunai toward the weaponless man and like that we just...fought. I lost track of everything but the person in front of me.

Weapons clashed.

Kunai met skin.

Blood poured.

Over—

And over—

I lost count.

Sai grabbed my wrist to stop me from wasting anymore weapons. "They're dead," he told me and I could just stare, finally aware of my surroundings. I had never killed someone before. I've inflicted harm and rendered them motionless, but I've never taken another person's life. It made my brain numb.

And that's why it makes so much sense that I don't remember any of the rest of the mission.

The next thing I knew I was in my bed at home, gasping for air after a particularly clear and graphic nightmare. The room was dark, the moon covered in clouds that night. Only when she spoke did I notice my sister sitting beside my bed.

"How's it feel to be a killer, sis?" she asked me with a cruel smirk on her face. I grit my teeth together.

"I am not a killer!"

"Really? Because I heard all about how awesome you were having not only your first kill but your first kills."

"I…it's not like that," I whispered.

"Really? Do tell me some juicy part I'm missing then."

"It was either them or me." Her smirk grew into a devilish grin.

"It's a dog eat dog world, sissy," she said before popping up out of her seat and heading for the doorway. She paused right before the door and turned to me. "Keep it up—you're already following in my footsteps."

With that, she was gone.

And I was livid.

I jumped out of the bed and roughly put on a clean pair of clothes, shoving my drawer shut for good measure. I didn't bother with my weapon pouch or the rest of my ninja gear. I just wanted to work out some of my pent up rage.

I arrived at the training ground shortly after, grateful that I had chosen a training ground with a vast amount of wooden poles. I took a deep breath and imagined the poles had faces—my sister's and Sasuke's—and punched.

"This is for abandoning me!"

Punch.

"This is for leaving with him!"

Punch.

"This is for breaking mum and dad's hearts!"

Punch.

I couldn't feel my knuckles get bloody or the splinters embedding themselves, all I could feel was this sharp knife in my windpipe and a tight squeeze on my heart.

"Did you enjoy it when you killed all those people?"

"How about when you betrayed the village?" Tears were streaming down my face now and I wasn't even punching the dummy pole. I had my hands on the pole and it looked like I was holding it in an embrace.

"I hate you…I hate you so much it just hurts," I sobbed. I wiped my eyes with my hand, successfully smearing blood across my forehead. "It hurts to have loved you so much and then you just left me there for dead."

I looked up at the sky to see the sun starting to rise. Oranges and pinks spread across the horizon and birds started chirping in the distance. I lifted myself off of the dummy and ran.

I wasn't surprised I had run where I had. I got some weird kind of comfort from that apartment—even if I refused to believe it was because he was there. He opened the door after a few minutes of me knocking so loudly on the door that even Naruto would have woken up. He was in sleeping attire but I didn't really care.

I didn't bother with a greeting or anything—this is Sai we're talking about—and latched onto him like I had last time. He stood as still as a pole. "You're supposed to put your arms around me, idiot." Slowly and hesitatingly, he did so. I wasn't sure if he was hesitant because of my seemingly bipolar attitude or because he had never hugged someone before.

"Like this?" he whispered after he had put his hands on my back. I shook my head into his shoulder.

"You're supposed to hold the other person like she is the only other person in the world…like you're trying to protect her from the rest of the world that's trying to kill her…like this is the last time you will ever see her and it has to sum up everything you've ever felt for her."

His hands slowly went down from my upper back to my lower back and back up to rest in the crook. The movement sent shivers up my spine and made the hairs on my neck stand straight up. He laid his head on my own and smelled my hair. He locked his hands together and squeezed me so close to him that I doubted there was air between our two bodies.

"Better?" he whispered huskily into my ear. I knew he hadn't meant to sound like that—he had no idea what he was doing. But he had just sounded so seductive…so…so sexy. My mind ran in its place. My body felt warm and tingly. It was like something exploded inside of me. My heart felt weightless, like it could jump out of my chest and run away. Even my hands that were wrapped around Sai's abdomen were sweaty.

"Yes," I gulped. We stayed there like that for a while. I never intended to leave that position—it just felt so perfect. It made me forget about everything else in my life—in the entire world!—and want to squeeze all of my problems into this one embrace. It was Sai who ended the hug and it was only because he had noticed my bleeding knuckles.

He pulled away but did not completely remove his warm touch. He held onto my hand as he led me further into his apartment. A mutual silence fell between us. We both read each other's movement well enough that words weren't needed. At one point he lifted me up and set me on the counter before leaving the room.

My body protested against the loss of his warmth. Seconds later, though, he was back with white bandages and gauze. He set them beside me and ran my hands under the cold water of the sink. I whimpered at the pain but he shushed me with just a breath of air.

When he was done running them under the water, he placed a towel on them and disappeared again. I almost groaned but found the self restraint to hold it in. He came back with a bottle and a pair of tweezers. His fingers were so gentle while he plucked slivers of wood out of my hands. He held my hands like they were made of glass. It made my heart beat fast in its place under my ribs.

When he was finished with the slivers, he dabbed the towel with the antiseptic and dabbed it on my knuckles. I hissed at first, but grew quiet again. He wrapped my hands in the gauze and slowly wrapped my knuckles securely with the medical tape.

"Don't stop," I complained as his hands left mine. He looked up at me on the counter and I swear I saw something in those deep grey eyes. I couldn't tell what emotion it was but I knew it was there and I felt something bubble in my chest.

"Why?" he said with honest curiosity. I blushed in my place—blushed, for Pete's sake!—and put my hand in his. He glanced down at our intertwined fingers.

"Because I like the feel of this. It makes me feel…safe." He stood still for a moment as if he were calculating something that could either save or destroy the entire world, and then he looked up at me again. He grasped my other hand in his own and intertwined our fingers.

"I like your…warmth," he stated, still hesitant. I smiled a goofy grin at him and swung our arms to some unknown rhythm.

"I like your presence." He smiled his smile at me and I felt like I had turned to pudding. It was nothing different than his usual smile he gave everyone even at the creepiest possible times. His eyes closed tightly, the sides of his mouth quirked up, and his cheeks were tinted a light pink. No, it wasn't any different, but it was the fact that it was directed at me and only me that made me melt like a popsicle on a hot summer day.