Sakura's dad brings her a bowl of ice water to soak her hand in when she finally stops screaming. He refused to let go of her until then—he wrapped her in a great big hug and whispered sweet-nothings until she calmed down—it's gonna be okay and I'm here and you are such a strong and brave little girl.
He'd given her a similar treatment a year ago when she got chicken-pox. He'd filled an entire tub with warm water and oatmeal, and sat and talked with her while she splashed around in it and tried to keep her mind off of the itching.
The oatmeal smelled the way the blanket around her shoulders feels now—warm and soft and comforting.
"You'll be okay, honey; just let it soak," he tells her. She's still sniffling but her dad is smiling, proud in the way he's often proud of her—without any real reason. "It hurts, but it'll be over before you know it."
He grins wide as the sky, like he's about to suggest they go for dessert again without telling her mom. "The truth is—the way it hurts now is nothing compared to how happy you're gonna feel when you finally meet your soulmate. This? You'll forget about this by the time you go to bed, but the first time you meet your soulmate? You're never gonna forget that."
Sakura sniffs and wipes a stray tear from her cheek with her other hand, the unmarked one. "It feels like it's burning." She flexes her fingers and the skin throbs. It feels like it's being stretched too tight across her palm, though it hasn't begun to peel or blister the way a burn normally would. "It's all over my hand…" she murmurs. "That's weird."
The other kids, she's learned, will find any reason to be mean to her—the size of her forehead, the sound of her voice. The way she constantly trails a few feet behind Ino, clinging to her shoulders or back like a shield.
The other kids won't hesitate to make fun of her for this too, either because her mark is too big, because it's in such a boring spot, or because she's gotten it late, when all of the rest of the kids had gotten theirs months ago.
Maybe because it's too light. She squeezes the ice water in her palm and wonders if it's the cold that makes it look so light. It's almost grey, when it should be completely black.
Her dad leans back in his chair and scratches his chin. His soulmark is a bright pink blob that spills down the side of his arm, the exact spot where - allegedly - her mother had fallen on top of him during an Academy training accident.
"I hope it means that, one day, you're gonna give a man a good piece of your mind, and he's never gonna forget it." He leans forward and taps her chin, angling it up. "You never be afraid of that, okay? No matter what any kid says—no boy, no man, no person in the world—you never be afraid of sticking up for yourself."
Sakura sniffs. "I don't want to hurt anybody, though…" Except she's supposed to be a shinobi, isn't she? "I mean… just… not in that way. I don't wanna hurt people like that."
Her dad grins and waves her off. "Well. You don't have to do that, then. You can do whatever you want, cuddle bug." His nicknames are always sweet and silly like that, half-nonsense but genuine. "Loving anybody—your soulmate, your friends… Even your dorky old dad—loving anybody is the best thing you can do in this world."
Sakura swirls her hand in the ice water and feels the burn ebb away slowly.