Uno Kaede, a young girl of nineteen, sat at her desk late at night, cradling her head in her hands in frustration.
"Among the Higure Hizoku theives, there was a boy..." Kaede read aloud, tapping a pencil against her temple now. "No, aomng them was a man..." she corrected, then sighed.
"Who am I kidding, this'll never work..."
She glanced wearily up at the clock and groaned. It was well passed four in the morning. The sun would be raising soon.
Kaede pushed back her chair away from the desk and stood up,"We'll continue this later then..." she sighed again.
She pulled out the low pigtails from her orange hair as she wandered off to the other room for sleep.
Kaede awoke a few hours later to the loud chirpings of the birds outside and the soft purring of the small cat that rested on her face.
"Kuri..." Kaede's muffled voice said.
The cat lifted his head at the sound of his name. "Would you please get off?"
Ignoring her request, Kuri silently laid his head back down.
"Kuri!" Kaede shouted, startling the cat off of her face.
Kaede sat up then, rubbing her eyes roughly to wake herself up. Kuri jumped into her lap, curling up as he tried to go back to sleep.
"Kuri..." she complained. "Not now, I have work to do..."
"So then do it later.." Kuri muttered, not bothering to lift his head again.
"I can't, though! I have-" She cut herself short. "D-did you just...talk?" Kaede asked, wide-eyed.
"Looks as if the secrets out..." the cat sighed.
"How the hell...? How long have you been able to talk?" Kaede stammered.
"I'm not too terribly old, so not very long. Now shut up and go back to sleep..."
"So lemme guess..." Kaede started.
Kuri rolled his eyes. "Here we go..." he muttered.
"If I tell anyone about your freak ability to talk, I be cursed with enternal damnation until the day I die?"
"Hmm? No, nothing like that."
"So I can tell anyone I'd like?"
"Feel free. Though, if you wouldn't mind telling your neighbor, she has a new female cat..." Kuri said, grinning.
Kaede glared down at her pet. "Pervert cat..." she muttered.
Kaede picked Kuri up off of her lap, Kuri yowled in response. "Off with you, I need to get to work."
"Humans..." Kuri sighed as he stalked off.
Kaede rolled her eyes, and rolled off of the mattres. Kaede wasn't exactly rich, only being able afford a mattres in place of an actual bed. It was hard enough to get Kuri some food, the small thing ate more than a pig.
Kaede's gaze fell on the door that lead to the next room. In there, her desk and work waited for her.
Kaede had been writing a story, something of a romance book, but after two months, she hadn't got passed the first paragraph.
"Kuri!" she shouted.
The loud sound of pots clattering to the ground came seconds later. "What do you want?" Kuri asked irritably.
"What were you doing in there...?" Kaede asked nervously.
"Don't... Don't worry about it. What do you want?"
"I was just wondering if maybe you'd like to go to the park?"
~*~
Kaede sat on the park bench with a notebook and pencil in hand. Kuri laid on top of her head lazily, playing with a lock of bangs.
"Why do you always bring that thing wherever you go?" Kuri asked in boredom, batting at Kaede's bangs still.
"Incase I get any ideas while I'm out and about, I can jot them down," Kaede answered, smiling.
"Hum... What do have so far?"
Kaede opened the book to the first page. "It's not much..." she began.
"I can't read, you know..." Kuri sighed.
"So then how can you talk?"
"With the way you talk to yourself all the time, you shouldn't be surprised."
"Ha ha. So then why didn't you start talking before today?"
"No real need to."
"And there's a need to now?"
"Not really, but now that you know, there's no reason not too."
"Oh."
"You like getting the last word, don't you?"
"Hai."
"I can tell."
"Can you?"
"READ!"
"Gomenasai!" Kaede looked back down at her notebook and read aloud what she had written.
"Not so long ago, in the streets of Konoha, there were a group of theives, the Higure Hizoku to be exact. And among the Higure Hizoku theives, there was a boy with relatively long hair. He was a very cultured boy, enjoying any form of art," Kaede read.
"That's it?"
"So far..." she sighed.
Suddenly, Kuri stood up, alert.
"Hey, watch it with the claws!" Kaede complained.
"Somebody's coming..." he said, then quickly jumped down off of her head and into a nearby bush.
"Where are you going? Who cares if someone comes...?"
Minutes later, two people both donning the same black cloak with red clouds walked out of the forest, their faces concealed behind a bamboo hate with white streamers.
Kaede paid no attention to them as she glanced back down at her notebook, racking her brain for possible ideas as to what could happen next in her little story.
She hadn't realized that they stopped in front of her until one of them spoke. "Excuse us, but do you know where we might find Uchiha Sasuke?"
"You shouldn't associate with the civillians, Tobi..."
"Sasuke-kun?" Kaede asked, looking up. "No, I can't, sorry. He left quite a long while ago," she answered.
One of them was considerablly taller than the other. Kaede couldn't get a good look at their faces though, as the bamboo hat was still on.
"Make sure to not tell anyone that we were here, un," the shorter one said.
"May I ask why?"
"Sempai and I are bad guys," the taller one answered, holding up a peace sign with two fingers.
"You baka!" the shorter one muttered.
Kaede giggled, "You guys don't have to worry. I'm not very well liked in this village anyways," she shrugged.
"What have you got there?" the taller one asked, pointing towards her notebook.
"This? This is my notbook, my story."
"Story?"
"Yes, writing is my art," Kaede answered, smiling.
"Writing is hardly an art, un," the shorter one scoffed.
"Oh, like you would know anything about art," Kaede snapped.
"More than you obviously do, un."
"Humor me."
The shorter one jerked the hat off of his head and held it out to the taller one. "Hold this, Tobi," he muttered, glaring at Kaede.
Her eyes grew huge, though. He looked exactly how she pictured one of the main characters to look in her story.
He opened his fist, revealing a small sculpted owl made of clay.
"Wow... Did you make that yourself? It's so detailed..." Kaede awed, leaning closer to get a better look at it.
"Uh, yeah, un..." he said, taking a step back away from her. He then threw it out towards the forest where it exploded into a much larger version.
Kaede stared in wonder, "It's so pretty..." she mused.
"Well, Tobi and I have to go now, un..." he muttered, snatching the bamboo hat out of the taller one's hands.
"It was a pleasure metting you, uh..." the taller one started.
"Kaede," she answered, smiling again.
"Right, nice meeting you, Kaede," he said, then turned to leave.
"Sempai!" he wailed as the shorter one had already taken off on the clay owl, "You forgot Tobi again!" he yelled, running after him.
Kaede giggled again as she watched. Kuri then jumped out of the bush, landing next to Kaede on the bench.
"I don't like them..." he said quietly.
"Oh, don't be such a spoilsport, they seem nice."
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Chapter notes: I haven't done fluff before, so don't expect the very best... ^^;;