Hoshigaki

Safest in the Background

July

The sun was almost too bright, but she managed. She stayed inside if she could, sat in the shade if she was ever outside, and liked to keep her curtains drawn shut if she was ever alone in her shared room at the orphanage. The other kids called her weird at worst and made small talk at best, but she was the new kid in a new village whose smile almost looked... predatory. Like a shark, almost.

But the matron monitored things so that nicknames and teasing never escalated to bullying, asking little Sakura if anything the other kids said hurt her feelings.

"No," she replied to the kind old woman who ran the center. "S'not like it's gonna hurt me or anything."

"Even so, Sakura-chan, tell me any time you're feeling uncomfortable and we can get that sorted right away."

She nodded. Then tipped her head to the side. "When can I join the Academy? Yamashiro-san said I could."

"The new school year starts next month, dear," the matron smiled. "A couple weeks before it starts, someone will come to take you down to the school and ask you some questions before you get enrolled in your proper year. Now, the others have gone outside to play. Would you like to join them?"

Sakura glanced out the window at the twenty or so other kids that lived at this particular orphanage. She could see their smiles and hear their laughter, but she couldn't say any of it really caught her attention. The only people she saw on a regular basis were Papa, Konan-san, Kakuzu-san, and Leader-sama. None of them ever played... tag or kickball or whatever everyone else called those games. 

"Can I stay inside and read?"

The matron sighed and pat the girl's head. "If that's what you want, dear."

::

Kisame stepped into his apartment and called out an "I'm home!". He waited for the pitter-patter of feet and an exclamation of Papa! in greeting, but he received no such thing.

First, he wondered if something was wrong.

Next, he remembered.

Then, he shut the door behind him with quiet click and breathed in the air of his deathly quiet home.

August

The test papers in front of her reminded her of the ones Leader-sama had given her on more than once occasion, only they weren't nearly as hard and were worded more like picture books instead of textbooks. Sakura felt the watchful eye of her examiner to her right as she scanned the thirty questions with a sharp eye. If she answered all of them quickly and correctly, she'd be put above her year and probably be watched since she was the "victim" of a recent mission, raising suspicion. But if she got too many of them wrong, they might start her over from the beginning and she'd again be the odd one out and would never fully settle.

"Twenty more minutes," the examiner informed. Sakura tapped her pencil three times against the table before steadily and deliberately answering twenty-five of the thirty questions right. After the examiner checked her paper once time was up, he smiled down at her. "If you follow me, we'll start on the physical tests."

He reached down to pick up his clipboard and tucked it against his side, but not before she spied the average for a mile lap for an Academy student her age.

Four to ten minutes.

She figured she'd stick to nine minutes and be safe, and as she ran, she counted down precisely from five hundred and forty seconds until she reached the finish line at zero seconds remaining on the dot.