It was a rhetoric question.

It was a question that he heard from someone one day. He can’t remember from where or from who but he remembers it. And he wonders about it sometimes. However, no matter how advanced his thinking is for his age, a seven-year-old can only think of something for so long before he tires of it and thinks about something else.

Perhaps he will think about the next day and what he would do. Perhaps it would mean having to avoid bullies again—that wasn’t uncommon. It only meant another fight that he would have to go through, a futile try to defeat those bullies, but he never gave up. He didn’t know what would happen if he had stopped fighting back. Would they leave him alone? Bully him even more? But he never found out the answer to that question because he never gave up.

He always fought back.

It simply was who he was.

---

“Haha, run faster Naruto!”

“You can’t catch us!”

The playful banter continued as small feet kicked up loose dirt into the air. Even the floor seemed to choke from its own disturbed debris. But the boys didn’t mind. The dust and dead grass flying about was just another part of their rowdy game of Tag.

Dust caught and clung on stubbornly to the sides of his nose, to the sides of his throat. It itched him and made him want to cough, but he didn’t give up the chase. His eyes watered slightly from the earth flying in. He blinked.

The boy panted heavily as he tried to run faster, his hand outstretched and fingers quivering slightly as he strained to reach that ever-dodging shoulder. He grunted a bit as he tried to lean forward but nearly lost his balance instead.

“Missed me!” his friend yelled, running even faster and leaving Naruto behind in the dirt.

He caught himself, barely, and slowed down. The game had ended.

Long tendrils of wavering shadows flickered over the floor. They were elongated dramatically and exaggeratingly frightening. They looked like the shadows of monsters waiting to attack. But they were harmless. The only thing that those shadows did was take away his friends. But they would always return them the next day.

They were the shadows of adults. They were here already. Was it time to go home for the boys already?

Cries of welcome and moans of disappointment filled the air of the playground as each child recognized their parent coming to pick them up. Eventually, one by one, the children had all ran toward their mother or father and was preparing to walk home again. Farewells tangled into the thin air before evaporating to nothingness.

“Bye, Naruto! See you tomorrow!” his friends called out, waving their hands at him.

And again and again his expression would falter slightly before he smiled too and waved back just as enthusiastically, if not more. And once the last small head disappeared over the steps, his hand would drop to his side.

And he would be alone.

Maybe he would stay there for a while long to look around at the empty playground. He had the entire slide to himself, all the swings, the monkey bars… But what fun would it be if there was no one to play with?

Eventually, he ended up in the small sandbox located at the center of the small playground. It used to be a handsome little thing, with gleaning waxed wood and a smoothed surface of white sand. But after the years, the wood had lost its shine and slowly eroded away with the languid persuasion of the rain and wind. Many hands and feet had pushed the dry, rough sand into haphazardly placed piles and lumps. Even small twigs and tiny bugs now dwelled in there.

He plopped himself down, completely disregarding the fact that his pants and hands would get sandy and dirty. As tediously and carefully as a seven-year-old with undeveloped hand-eye-coordination could, Naruto began to build a lopsided sandcastle. He scooped up fistfuls of sand and made a small conical mound with it before dragging his pudgy fingers over the delicate surface of the grains to leave long marks behind. And then he would pat away the lines, rendering the surface smooth and untouched again except for the finger marks where he patted the sand too hard. Then he picked up a few loose stones, sticks, and leaves and pushed them into the soft, crumbly surface of his castle and left them there, embedded jewels.

But soon, maybe ten minutes later, he would tire of the repetitive and mediocre task. Even his imagination of ninjas trying to break into his impenetrable castle could only keep him entertained for so long. Especially so when the same story was played out day after day once his friends were gone.

What to do now…

He fell back into the sand and laid there sullenly.

And then sneezed from the free-floating sand he sent into the air.

---

The sudden bout of constant babble of young children alerted Sasuke that it was almost time to go home.

Home…

His lips pressed together slightly at the thought as he swung his short legs back and forth over the frothing surface of the calm lake. A small breeze passed him to whisper nonsensical mysteries into his ear and to twirl its finger through his hair. He watched a leaf get detached from a nearby branch, twirling and whirling around in its own intricate dance. It fell into the water to send a chaos of concentric circles outwards from its landing point.

“Aah, Father! What is Mother making for dinner tonight?”

“Dad, isn’t it too much trouble to walk home tonight? Can’t we stop by some restaurant to eat?”

The conversations drifted to him via wind. There was some laughing and sounds of running feet. Sasuke didn’t have to look back to the dusty road above the pier to know that the children had run ahead of their parents in a small race.

“Yeah, he’s probably still sitting there…”

“Don’t you think that our children shouldn’t play with him so much? What if…”

The wind gobbled up the rest of the sentence before offering Sasuke another fragment to nibble on.

“… such a monster! I don’t know why the Hokage won’t just…”

The words grew fainter and fainter until even the wind couldn’t relay the messages. They were gone.

Day after day, the conversations were the same anyways. And yet, even a young prodigy like Sasuke couldn’t figure out who or what they were talking about in the first place. He never really bothered to examine their strange words anyways.

He waited for a bit longer. He should be coming down the road any minute now. It was a sure thing.

---

After a few minutes of passing time by imitating one of his friends and watching the leftover clouds of the day, Naruto sat up. He found that there were too few clouds in the sky to make any interesting designs today.

He shook his head to rid his hair of the grains which had most certainly found a comfortable home between soft strands of yellow. Clumsily, he ran his hands over his back to remove the sand that was stuck on his favorite orange shirt. Finally, he stood up and gave himself a nice full-body shake. One akin to an animal shaking off droplets of water.

He pumped his curled fists into the air in a languid stretch. Since no one was around to watch him, he opened his mouth widely and yawned as well. He snapped his mouth shut with a happy ‘click’ from his teeth clashing together and scratched at his chin for a bit.

He supposed that he needed to return to his house as well. Even though it would be a long and treacherous journey, as he had to make it everyday. Still, if the bad news of having to go home made him feel sad… there was always that small fun part of passing that particular person on the way home. Ah, pros and cons.

He weighed them for a couple of seconds before deftly putting his foot outside the boundaries of the sandbox and strutting down the stone steps of the playground. Naruto stuck his hands into his pockets, consciously or unconsciously imitating that particular person.

He was very careful to make sure that he kicked up as much dirt as humanely possible as he went down the dry path. Maybe some of it would drift all the way down to the pier. No, he thought, the wind was probably a friend ofhim. The dirt never reached him anyways.

It only swirled around him like some sort of malevolent vortex.

Down the road he went, still meticulously kicking up dirt, his eyes squinted slightly out of habit. His lower lip was already jutting out slightly in preparation of his daily pouting face. Ah, there was the bridge that extending out to the middle of the lake, he could see it now.

He hastened his steps a bit. When he neared the bridge, he slowed down. Just a bit. Then a bit more. Then completely stopped. He opened his eyes a bit wider and peered down at that person. Sitting there with an air of authority just like that. It made him angry and jealous at the same time. He didn’t want to admit it to himself yet, but a bit of admiration tinged his feelings at the same time.

Maybe he wouldn’t notice him standing there today? Fat chance, Naruto thought to himself. He was psychic or something. Or maybe just psycho. He just knew when Naruto passed by his bridge everyday. Like he was programmed to know.

Really, truly, he wanted to move—move, darn it!—but he couldn’t find the willpower to do so. Not before seeing that scrunched-up face. Some sort of bizarre ritual…

Maybe tomorrow, he would actually be able to walk past that bridge without even hesitating. Or so he kept telling himself each and every day.

Ah, no, there it was… He was turning his head—oh no—couldn’t he move now? Why wouldn’t his legs move?

Their eyes met momentarily—for just a second. One pair narrowed in distaste while the other pair widened considerably in disgust. Then simultaneously, they both turned away quickly (nearly quickly enough to cause a crick in the neck), both wearing the same look of revulsion.

And yet… And yet, Naruto would walk on but secretly peek back at his… friend… Friend? He didn’t know. Just inconspicuously glance back at him and smile slightly—just a bit. He wondered if he was smiling too…

---

Sasuke knew that Naruto wasn’t gone from his sight yet. If he turned back right now, that idiot would still be ambling down the path, kicking up dirt as if he wanted to dig a canyon with his sandals and send Sasuke to his death by the means of asthma… Which he didn’t even have.

Secretly, only to himself, he smiled minutely. He liked seeing that idiot sauntering down that path with his shoulders slightly hunched with his hands stuck in his pockets. It was just something he would unconsciously look forward to each day as he sat there on the bridge.

His own hands were dangling between his thighs, fiddling around. But once that moment, that brief, split-second moment passed, he would go back to thinking about thoughts too-early for him to ever think about just yet. Such ponderous amounts of thoughts, of burdens, of terrors mounted onto his shoulders it was nearly unthinkable.

Ah… Home.

Time to go home.

---

Naruto held his breath cautiously even though he knew it would do no good. Down the lonely, abandoned alleyway. How many times had he already cursed his apartment for being in such a shady place? But it was the only place he could live in. The manager was so kind to leave him a room for free.

Dark, unknown existent and nonexistent creatures grinned at him, yellow eyes gleaming, yellow teeth slick with saliva. Old, graffiti-coated bricks worn with old age, covered in chewed up gunks of gum, who-knows-whats, and who-would-want-to-knows.

He continued to hold his breath. Sucking in his breath would not save him—not from… this.

“Hey, look! It’s Naruto!” a bulky boy shouted out to his little clique. Maybe not-so-little clique…

They almost seemed like they had morphed out of the shadows. Like children of the dark. But Naruto knew enough to know that that was just some ridiculous thought.

A nasty smirk was smeared across his face like jam slapped on with a piece of bread. It was a disgusting smirk that revealed sharp, dilapidated teeth. But worst was the cronies who stood behind that horrendous smirk.

He wouldn’t run.

He won’t run away—won’t give up.

He stood his ground and stared defiantly at the group.

“Oh, acting tough again, punk?” the group laughed.

They always said that, day after aching day.

A few of them craned their necks to see if the young blond had any bruises from the last night. None. Should they not already know better than to search for those nonexistent bruises and cuts? Some of them unknowingly began to scratch and pick at their own bandages.

It only infuriated them further to know that Naruto was fine.

“No bruises, huh? You must be some sort of demon to heal that fast. Maybe we can beat the demon out of you. Oh, my, look at his grateful face. There’s no need to thank us, brat,” the leader laughed pompously. They laughed. He jerked his head at his group.

Eleven against one.

Who was the coward now?

Naruto squirmed and punched, bit and kicked, spat and yelled, hit and was hit.

A knee caught him in the stomach and kicked the breath out of him. It was painful to have his breath choked out. He was pinched on back of his neck, pinched between long, broken fingernails. Blood was drawn. A thwack on the shoulders and something cracked slightly. He cried out.

Then he snarled and fought back.

And he never gave up.

No matter how many of them there were, no matter how tired he was, no matter how badly hurt he was.

Never.

He spat bloody saliva at the nearest face, clawed at whatever arm was clutching at him, stepped on whoever’s foot he could reach. But their punches never stopped, their kicks never stopped, their ‘Hahaha’s never stopped. Not until they were done and through with him.

It eventually stopped. They would get bored and trickle away, one after another. And they would laugh and chuckle, puffing out their chests and pretending that their knees were not bruised or hands not cut. They would leave.

Until he was all alone again.

His knees were bloodied and his shorts torn. Knuckles were skinned and wet with blood, his own and someone else’s. Iron filled his nose and mouth as he gasped and panted for air, making grotesque blood-bubbles that popped and splattered over his face, bruised and cut.

But the pain didn’t last forever. Not too long after that, his skin began to stretch back over his knuckles, his knee stopped bleeding, his nose righted itself. All that was left was the caked-up bits of blood, some wet, some dry.

Once, twice, he coughed into the ground, kneeling there as if worshipping some deity before him. He spat again to rid himself of the leftover blood in his mouth. He hated the taste of blood. Rubbing furiously at his forehead and eyes, Naruto sat up.

He carefully examined his clothes. A few bits were torn out. He scrounged the dingy floor for the remnants of his shirt and shorts. Tenderly, he scabbed them off with short, dirty nails and stood up.

If he ran now, maybe no one would be able to see him, beat up and torn.

He went off.

---

Clink. Shhhh. Clink. Shhh. Creaak.

The porcelain plates were carefully rinsed and stacked up together into the dish-holder. Soapy water trickled down his wrists and arms, soaking into his sleeves and sending chilling shudders down his spine.

Dinner, as usual, was lonely and quiet. His simple meal was filing. But still left some sort of hole in him. It was a feeling he couldn’t shake off. It was some other kind of empty, though he couldn’t understand what it was. Nonetheless, he shrugged it off, causing even more water to slide down his arms. He glared at the small pile that was left for him to rinse.

Silently, Sasuke reprimanded himself for neglecting his chore of washing the dishes for two days. He faltered slightly as his ankle gave way from his long action of tip-toeing to reach the high sink. The dish nearly slipped out of his hands but he was able to grip onto it tightly. He breathed out a bit in relief and set the plate down in its holder gingerly.

The water was shut off and he reached for a towel to dry off his arms. With slender fingers, he ran through the back of his hair roughly, creating an even messier look to his oddly angled hair. After frowning a bit (a hard habit to break) he threw the towel back onto the tiled countertop and reached behind him to untie the knot to his plain, unsoiled apron.

He walked patiently to the end of the kitchen and hung up the apron on its hook, again tip-toeing a bit. With a last sweeping look through his kitchen Sasuke flicked off the lights and went upstairs for a shower.

He’ll have to do his laundry later too.

---

A needle was held up precariously up to the flickering light as an orange thread was being coaxed through the small hole at the head of the silver needle. Naruto’s tongue stuck out slightly between his teeth and his eyes were even more squinted than usual in his bout of concentration.

Once he had gone home, he had scrubbed himself clean of all the grime from earlier activities and gulped down a cup of instant noodles, the only thing he could afford to buy. He had tried to clean out most of the murk and blood from his shirt and shorts too. They looked fine, except for a few obscure blotches here and there. No one would notice… They never did. Or if they did, they never told him.

Now, with his face slightly flushed from his too-rough scrubbing, he sat cross-legged on his bare floor.

He sighed frustrated when the thread simply refused to go through the hole for the seventeenth time in a row. He dropped his arms and sighed once again.

Again, he lifted the needle and thread and tried to fit them together. He cursed his clumsiness.

With one last, futile try, he jabbed the thread and needle together.

He grinned. It finally went through! Carefully, carefully, he pulled the thread through until it was the right length to work with before snapping it off and tying a knot. Then he looked about himself to find the miscellaneous scraps of cloth he had scavenged from his scuffle with the bullies. He couldn’t find the right place to put it in so he placed the needle between his lips and spread the scraps of cloth and his torn up clothing articles out on the grungy floor.

Like a really sad game of puzzle pieces, he flipped and pressed each scrap onto the many holes located throughout his clothes. Once he found the right place, or somewhere near the right place, he would take the needle and thread from between his lips and start sewing.

Over the years, he had gotten quite good at needlework.

---

Silently, he sat there. A small leaf had drifted to him, right there. Idly, he wondered if it was the same leaf from yesterday. Then he thought to himself that it probably was not. That leaf would have sunken to the bottom of the lake already.

He watched it as it twirled around, carefully cajoled into motion by the wind. The always-present wind. It was the wind that brought him information of the next approaching person.

It was him again.

Here, at this moment, Sasuke wondered the impossible. He wondered if he could just… maybe, maybe follow Naruto home? He had done all of his chores last night and he would have nothing to do if he went back now anyways…

He turned back and saw—again—wide, blue eyes. By default, he frowned deeply and turned away again. But today, his frown was mingled with the wondering of whether or not his plan was brilliant or just foolhardy. For, after all, what kind of idiot would follow Naruto home…?

He sat there for a while longer; long enough to make sure that Naruto was beyond his line of vision.

Gruffly, he mumbled to himself, picked himself up, brushed himself off, and went after Naruto.

What strange wantings he had sometimes.

He was very careful to keep a short distance away from Naruto just in case the idiot suddenly found out that he was being followed. Then again, Sasuke thought, Naruto was such an oblivious boy that he could have been two centimeters away from him and the blond still wouldn’t have noticed.

Abruptly, Naruto turned a sharp corner. Sasuke, who had been complaining to himself at the moment, suddenly lost track of him. He paused momentarily, looking around shiftily before running after the boy in an accelerated pace. He balked a bit when he realized that he just got himself into a maze of dark alleyways.

For a few moments, he looked down a few alleys, trying to see if Naruto was walking down them. He almost felt as if he was going in circles. It would be a bad thing if he was to get lost, especially since the sun was already abandoning the sky for the night.

Then—something. He heard a scuffle, a yell, a few cruel laughs. He ran towards the noise, got off track thrice, crashed into a burly looking teen, and then he finally found the right alley. But he didn’t move from that spot. There he stood at the mouth of the grimy alleyway, watching a bit anxiously. Naruto was lying on the ground with his elbow scuffed up and his clothing torn. Even in the dying light and the dark atmosphere, Sasuke could even see a few small fistfuls of Naruto’s hair lying around him in a broken sort of circle. Like some type of holy circle…

He didn’t move from the spot but instead moved toward the side of the small street and even hiding behind the dirty brick walls. He peered at Naruto cautiously and watched. He watched as Naruto ran his dirty fingers through his hair and spit out saliva onto the floor. Then he looked around himself methodically, as if he had done this many times before, and picked up a few pieces of clothing off the floor. He shook his head rapidly before he looked at the red-stained sky and took off quickly.

Sasuke still didn’t move.

---

“Come on, boys. We’d better hurry tonight… Mother is…”

“Ah, watch out there! You don’t want to fall…”

The soft chuckles and gentle chastising floated down to him again.

Today, Sasuke found himself looking behind his shoulder a bit nervously as soon as he noticed that the children were departing the playground. To keep his mind off his anxiety, Sasuke started to pick at his cuticles and the edges of his nails. There was nothing to pick at.

Suddenly, he felt a bit frustrated at himself. What was there to worry about? He shook his head defiantly, pinched his eyebrows together, and frowned. There was a steady, raspy scratching noise that indicated the arrival of none other than Uzumaki Naruto going down the pathway. Sasuke didn’t turn back to glare at Naruto today. He just kept staring forward as if trying to boil the entire lake with his not-yet-developed Sharingan.

With careful ears, he noticed that Naruto had stopped walking after a while, stayed there for a bit, and finally, as if realizing that Sasuke was ignoring him, huffed slightly and walked away. A bit more briskly than usual.

Some minutes passed before Sasuke stopped swinging his legs back and forth over the water and stood up, brushing the back of his white shorts off. He then walked over to a small cluster of short bushes—almost sneakily—rummaged around the thorny branches and dusty leaves before withdrawing his slightly scratched up arm. He overlooked the angry, thin red lines running down the short distance of his forearm and the back of his hands.

He ignored the nagging itch that was creeping up his arms from the slightly poisonous scrapes and checked over the treasures he had taken out from the bushes. Once, he checked it over. Twice, he checked it over. Once he had confirmed that he had everything, he hugged his treasures close to his chest and stood up.

Quickly now, he trotted after Naruto. He could remember a bit of the route this time.

---

Naruto stopped in the middle of the alleyway, knowing that the bullies would come out right about now. Frowning deeply, he turned around and stood his ground. Even though he was so much shorter than the young teens, the aura he sent out was nasty enough.

They snickered amongst themselves, shrugging their shoulders nonchalantly; pretending that the bandages and cuts they received from the blond only yesterday was nothing. Feigning disinterest at the fact that even though they were a bit beat up, Naruto was absolutely fine.

The leader of the group took the honors of starting the nightly beating. His fist met Naruto’s jaw in a particularly nasty right hook but he barely took in the comprehension of pain until he realized that the young boy had grasped his thick fist and had bit into it, hard enough to leave deep puncture wounds. The bully howled and screeched in pain, kicking Naruto’s shin and trying to reach for his stomach as his group spilled forward to help.

Without even hesitating, Naruto spat out the blood from his mouth and began to fight. In the flurry of activities, of yells and punches, kicks and screams, Naruto didn’t notice that some of the bullies near the back of the group was also falling left and right, groaning and moaning at some sudden pain. He spun around and around trying to fend off the taller and bigger teens when suddenly he bumped into someone just as small and scrawny as he was. He turned his head quickly and nearly punched the pale, blood-smeared face that he saw. It only took a split second for him to recognize who it was. It took him a longer time to realize why he was there. Too long.

Sasuke grunted and pushed Naruto’s head down as an infuriated uppercut came at the two of them. Sasuke caught the fist and twisted it painfully. Naruto registered the sound of a strangled yell before he scrambled up to kick someone’s shin hard.

One by one, the bullies all left. This time, they weren’t laughing. They were coughing up blood and clutching at wounds. Whoever that kid was, they thought… They didn’t finish the thought as they skidded on the wet filth on the floor and scurried back home.

Naruto choked on his own cough and wiped at his still-sore cheek. Sasuke had gotten up silently after the fight had finished and left.

His hearing ability was impaired by the loud rushing sound of blood coursing through his body quickly, laced with adrenaline. His head pounded and he saw a few white-blue spots flash before his eyes. He glared at the floor in front of him, even more dirty and bloody than before. He knew that everyday, the blood on the floor thickened.

He wondered, almost idly, why Sasuke had been there in the first place. Why he fought with him and helped him… Only to walk away after that. He hacked painfully, feeling as if his lungs were trying to escape his body in a sudden bout of rejection. Still, he couldn’t hear and his vision was dotty.

Alone.

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it still make a sound?

He wondered to himself all of a sudden.

What if he died right there, unlikely as it was?

Would anyone find his body in time to even bury it or recognize him?

After all, there was no one to listen to the sound he would make if he fell.

He clenched his fists together tightly and almost broke the newly reformed skin on his knuckles again.

Suddenly, an even darker shadow than the ones of the tall buildings draped over him. He looked up.

A small, outstretched hand was being offered to him.

He looked up even further.

The hand belonged to Sasuke.

There he stood, with his right hand outstretched in a sign of help. In his left dangled a first-aid kit, a thin blanket, and a bento box. And on his face, one of the deepest, most reluctant grimaces that Naruto had ever seen. His nose, bloody and still bleeding, was turned upward to the sky. And he wasn’t looking at Naruto. Instead, he seemed to be glaring at a particularly high brick on one of the walls on the buildings.

Naruto didn’t tell Sasuke that his hand was too dirty and that he didn’t need the help to get up anyways, or that the first-aid kit was worthless since his wounds were all gone already, or that he had enough blankets to last through the winter (if he fixed up the many holes in them in time), or the fact that he had food to eat today (but not tomorrow since he was on his last ramen cup).

He didn’t tell him all those things.

Instead, he grinned widely.

And he took the hand.