What are you supposed to do when the world changes?

Do you try and adapt yourself to fit it?

Do you try to resist the pull of evolution and battle the differences?

Or do you just stay the same?

I hope you made the right choice, whatever it is.

•••

Konoha was very different from Uzushio. Where once there were whirlpools that fizzed energy, now there were rolling hills that crashed into one another in explosions of forested foam. Tentative fingers of sunlight streaked thought the surrounding foliage, setting your city aglow.

It could have been a heaven, but it wasn't mine. Your world was cut off from the rest of the universe, submerged by the surrounding knolls and guarded by wooden sentinels. Your walls served as bars. Your smiles wore hardly-concealed pity.

Itachi was the worst. Your older brother was the most depreciating of them all, with his sad smiles and patronising conversation. His eyes were yours, yet not sharp but mellow with repressed memories. The lines set under his eyes claimed that he too knew sadness, but he couldn't, not here, not in your personal heaven. His pretences and masks were too much; I avoided him when I could.

However, I was willing to spend some time with you.

As soon as I had laid eyes upon you that autumn, I knew you were the closest to a friend I would ever have. Although I preferred my solace, my grief and my self-pity, you drew me to your side and said, with your eyes alone, 'Don't worry. It'll get better. The pain will fade. I promise.'

I didn't know whether you really felt that way or if I was just seeing things that I wanted to. And I wasn't sure if you had experienced enough to know for certain. But I decided to listen to those eyes anyway.

We took things slowly at first. Despite waking up at dawn, I would only rise and head downstairs at eight or nine. I would sit near the end of the elongated table and wait for the servants to bring breakfast.

"Good morning," they would say with wary enthusiasm.

"Good morning," I would reply.

Once a week, they would string out this half-hearted conversation a little longer, "How are you?"

And I would shrug.

Sometimes, you would stumble into the room with hair ebulliently askew and seat yourself beside me. We wouldn't talk, and it was comfortable that way. Other days, you would come in fully-dressed, light the candle over the mantle, then leave. It was a strange ritual that I couldn't quite comprehend.

When I had eaten, washed and dressed, I would head out into the grounds of your compound. Every so often, I would come across your parents and be obliged to wander with them awhile. Usually, I would ramble alone. However, you were slowly learning where I was to be found, and you'd appear a couple times, but not enough to intrude. We didn't talk in the garden either, unless we found Itachi between the hedgerows and had to escape his presence.

I could tell you doted upon your older brother by the way those eyes illuminated when they saw him. But you were perceptive enough to see I disliked him, and kind enough to favour my company over his. As soon as I was gone, I would always see you venture back to his side.

If it rained, you were more willing to spend time with me. With barely any regard to my privacy, you would glide into my room, chest board tucked in the crook of your arm, and place it down on the low table by my bedside.

"Let's play," you would announce, and I had no choice but to join in.

It was riveting watching you play. Your eyes alight with intelligence, and your head resting upon your knee, you would ponder each move with utmost care. I tried to copy you, but I could never wrap my head around the complexity. I would move whatever piece got me closer to you.

Still, we didn't talk, until that inevitable, smug, "Checkmate, Uzumaki."

Every now and again, you would hand the win over to me. You tried to conceal it, but there was something in your demeanour that made me suspect otherwise.

Sometimes, we would play cards, but I was even worse with that. I could hardly even beat you at snap.

And then lunch would come, cutting our game short. You would seat yourself between Itachi and myself and though you only spoke with him, I didn't mind.

Even in autumn, the midday heat was still almost overbearing, and we would retreat to our rooms for a few hours. But sleep always gave way to grief. If you heard my low, keening wails, you never remarked on it. And I respected you for that.

Rarely, I would remain in that state for hours on end. Otherwise, I would head downstairs to try and find other means of occupying my time. It wasn't a difficult task, since your family owned almost everything one could own.

Afternoons would fly by and be subtended into dinner, by all means a quiet affair compared to the Uchiha standard. And dinner would be replaced by night, and an invite to sleep.

So I slept, and I dreamed.

I dreamed red. Red like sunset. Red like fire. Red like blood. Uchiha red. In my dreams, there would be tears and rain and storms, there would be screams of indiscriminate age and gender. I would dream of hope and watch its body bleed. But most of all, I dreamed of people. Corpses. An orange mask.

And when I awoke, you would be by my bedside, cool, porcelain hands wiping the horrors from my mind, "It's alright. It didn't happen."

"It was real."

"But you're fine now, aren't you? You're safe."

"Am I?"

"I don't know. You tell me."

"...yeah."