The boy in the park

Chapter Two

"Really, you could at least try! Your uncle needs an accountant, and…"

"I'm off!" he was out with another book. He didn't want to be an accountant. He didn't want to be a stall vendor or a grocer. He couldn't stand the prideful or smug looks of people he had grown with —who could mould chakra while he couldn't. Or the fact that those who could not —the ones like him— already had their cliques in which a glass-wearing reader wasn't needed.

He lived for his habits. He lived for the monotony of repeating the same action, repeatedly, without the risk of it changing the outcome. Sure, he knew this couldn't last, and he knew he was wishing for time to stop on its tracks, but he could still live his life the way he wanted to, couldn't he?

Konoha was going through an economic crisis, and finding work was hard…but so what? Did his mother think he was doing nothing? He was reading. He wanted to become something better. He wanted to become a writer.

Like Jiraiya of the sannin, who had penned down quite a string of novels —which he secretly read from his father's 'secret' stash hidden in the basement.

He sat down at his usual bench in the park, and once more, he opened his book to read with the light of the sun. The children were playing as usual, but that didn't trouble him at all. He slowly flipped the pages, calmly letting his mind wander to the vivid description of the accounts of a survivalist walking in the wilds. The man was describing how he had crossed a lake with the use of thin but wide wood panels which kept him afloat, and as he narrated of how he had battled a shark —in a lake, mind you— he heard a sound.

He stopped reading as he actually did hear a sound.

It was the sound of a girl crying.

He carefully placed the book down on his lap and looked at the source of the noise. The blond haired girl with ponytails of the day before was there, and she was apparently trying to wipe away her tears. The kids had resumed playing soccer, but judging by the scrapes, which she had on her arms —a few red— it wasn't difficult to think someone had pushed her down on the ground.

He frowned but did not move. Her parents were probably going to intervene or something like another parent coming to ask her where it hurt would happen.

Nobody came. He felt slightly confused. Maybe the mothers around hadn't heard her cry?

He resumed reading still slightly confused —and quite a bit guilty— when he heard the familiar footsteps of the girl walking and stopping near him. Her eyes were still red and puffy as he watched her look at him.

"Hey! Want to play with me, mistah?" she asked, trying to smile and hold on to it with all the effort she could muster. The way she had said 'mistah' instead of mister mentally made him gag. Was no one teaching her Japanese around here?

"I prefer reading," he deadpanned again. Then, probably due to the guilt, which he still felt for not having intervened earlier, he bit down on his lips and lowered his book. "Are you all right?" he asked softly. So what if he had a glare that could level a mountain? A crying kid was a crying kid, and he had a soft heart for crying girls —he blamed his sister for that.

"Yeah!" she nodded quickly —maybe a bit too fast. "It's nothing ta worry 'bout! I just fell, 'ttebayo!"

"If you say so," he remarked. There was a moment of silence, as the girl seemed to fidget for a moment. He mentally decided to take some band-aids with him the next day, and some disinfectant —especially judging how much the girl seemed to like muddying herself.

"C-Can we read again, mistah?"

He shrugged and made room for her on the bench. He didn't know what it meant, that sparkling look in her eyes as she once more decided to sit on his lap, but he knew there was just a cold chilly feeling settling on his back at it went by.

He knew that gaze. It was the same his sister had that time he promised he'd play with her once.

He had ended up playing for seven consecutive hours, because he had promised to.

He cleared his voice, and began to narrate. The girl interrupted a few minutes later, when she loudly exclaimed.

"But that's stupid! Why does he hav'ta use a staff? Can't he use a cool jutsu?"

"That would defeat the point of the story," he replied slowly.

"What's da point? It's here right? This little dot here is a point, yes?" as she said that, she touched with her index finger a small dot on the paper —that was a full stop. "How does he defeat that?" she asked, scrunching her face perplexed.

"No," he sighed. "It's not like that," he added, trying to come up with an easy way to explain it. "Think…think about…" he exhaled. "A story says something, okay?"

She frowned. "But it doesn't speak!"

"Yes, it doesn't," he nodded, "But…it's written, and we read it, yes?"

The girl seemed perplexed, but slowly gave a tiny nod of her own as she bit her lips in an effort to remain concentrated. "So when we read it, it's like…the book is saying something to us, right?"

She widened her eyes, "Ya mean…like when I think something, and I hear a voice saying what I think in my head, becuz it's my voice and…and all that?"

"Yes," he smiled briefly. It wasn't difficult to explain things then! So it was just his sister who was a moron —that was good to know for the future.

"Wow," the girl muttered. "Ya know a lot of things mistah!" she smiled. "But how does it defeat the point?"

"That's a…saying," he said then, "a way to say something with other words, like…it's not literally 'defeating' a point. It's more of… going against the purpose of what you intend to do."

"Eh?"

"Counterproductive?" he hazarded.

"What's that? Is it food?"

He dropped his head down and sighed. "No," he chuckled. "It's…going left to go right," he said then.

"That's stupid!" she exclaimed affronted. "Why would you go left," she showed her right arm, "To go right?" she showed her left one. "Stupid!"

"Yes," he snickered. He couldn't help it. "That's what it means."

"Ah…so it would be stupid!" she smiled brightly as she concluded by herself. "If he used Jutsu, he'd be stupid!"

"Well, yes, because he is showing how to survive without using chakra."

"But that's dumb," she said slowly. "Who'd ever be without chakra? Duh, everyone has it!"

"Yes," he said then bitterly, "But not everyone can mould it," he commented.

"Mould it?"

"Chakra is the life-force of living beings," he said through gritted teeth. He still remembered his lessons before the test to see if he actually could become a shinobi. "Everyone has it, but it then needs to be moulded to become something like a technique. If you can't mould it, you can't be a shinobi."

"That sucks," she said. There was yet another moment of silence, before she finally exclaimed. "You must be a powerful shinobi, right!?"

There, the dagger piercing his heart was there.

"Can you teach me some cool technique, mistah!?"

"No," he ground out. He would have stood, but the girl was sitting on his lap and it made it difficult to go through —he wasn't still keen on letting the girl fall on the ground again, but he was starting to regret coming to the park.

"Why not!?" the girl exclaimed. She huffed and puffed her cheeks out.

"Because I can't mould chakra," he remarked calmly. He slowly lifted the girl —she didn't even weight much— and dropped her next to him. Then he stood and left.

That was how the second meeting between him and Naruko Uzumaki went.