Everything is Strange
The world around them was rather ordinary. There were people around them. The building seemed a little… how should he put it? Definitely not as backwards as the Wizards had been, but maybe they hadn’t yet reached the advancement the muggles in his previous world knew. It was natural that he didn’t recognise much overlapping.
The only similarity he could point out right now is that people are still people. People are still nasty to each other even as he watched how their guard abandoned them for a moment to break up a fight. He looked at the sky and noticed the sun hadn’t even peaked yet. It was probably some version of vice. Even his ‘father’ took pleasure in that thing.
He hated it. Those nights, he would get a harsher beating. He held his sister close and kept an eye on their guardian, keeping him in sight. It was difficult as the people around were murmuring and looking over the situation with disdain. He could hear their tongue lashing, and he wondered why it wasn’t even directed at the drunk but at the Uchiha.
It felt wrong. Even as he watched the Uchiha so he could make up his mind about them, what these people said about them, the force to keep the peace in this place, it didn’t sit right. Yet, he was tiny. He could do nothing, and he could say nothing. He could only keep his eyes open and watch.
The situation seemed to settle, and the person found them staying close but out of the way. The man looked them over, frowned, and motioned for them to follow.
Masaki looked around the place and noticed nothing, but soon enough, he was directed through a gate with a Fan symbol. It looked much cleaner here. He saw different sorts of buildings, like a few with shopfronts and a few that seemed like family homes. Then they were directed to the area with big high fences around, and he almost cringed when the man told them to get inside.
He didn’t dare look up at the man. He looked much more dangerous than their father and had all his hands and legs intact. “Thank you, sir,” he said as clearly as possible.
“Just get inside,” the man said, turned and simply left.
When he turned to the doors, he swallowed hard. He took a deep breath, pulled the door open, and stepped inside. He removed his shoes and stepped up, turning back to help his sister take off her shoes.
It was quiet. It was something he knew, and somehow, it settled his strange anxiety about noise and many people. He could somewhat breathe now, even if it were a location filled with a lot of crap he didn't want to think about.
The two silently wandered around the house for the first time, as they were never allowed to look around before. It was big and had many rooms they had yet to see. When he suddenly opened the door to the Courtyard, he felt a little stumped but then noticed that everything had already been cleared. Nothing seemed out of place.
The Courtyard was simple, with a small stream of water. It was covered mainly by simple grass, with a small stone path leading through it and one maple sitting in a corner where it got as much sunlight as possible. Their ‘father’ didn’t like trampled grass, so he was always made to stand on the pathway, but recently, the path had been too small for him.
He was given a wooden platform to practice on. Unfortunately, the platform didn’t have a stable standing or a standing at all. Under the platform was a wobbly rock, and Masaki hadn’t been given time to figure out his balance before he fell on the grass while trying to do his katas. That had been the entirety of his last month. He hated the man with such passion, and now he was mercifully dead.
He could try to figure out the balance now, and then he stepped on the platform, absently wondering what he was doing. He could just not care about it, but somehow, some old things from his past life came to haunt him, and he simply stayed and thought he should still learn it. Maybe it would become useful at some point in his life.
That’s when he noticed that his sister was with him and copying him. He didn't look or care if she stepped or breathed wrong right now. No one would come and hit them for something they did wrong.
The sun began to sink below the horizon, and Masaki felt his stomach hurt. Then, he could hear his sister's stomach rumbling loudly. He finally stopped his moment and wondered if he had done this the whole day without a break from his free will or if it was just the way his body moved out of habit.
“Come on, let's try to figure out if we can find some food.”
“Food,” she looked around as if expecting it to appear.
“Come on, we have to make it since Mother is in the Hospital. There is no one here to make us food.”
“Okay,” she said meekly and followed after him. They located the kitchen, and Masaki began to look around to see if there was anything they could just eat, maybe something in the freezer, but he found no precooked things or leftovers. Everything looked stupidly clean, as it always was. Everything was put away, and Masaki wondered if there was something in the higher cabinets.
Even after climbing on chairs and other surfaces, he could only find dry things he had to cook. He was definitely missing something, and his stomach grumbled. He huffed and pulled out the rice bag and hoped to find some information on how to cook it. Thankfully, after searching through a few more cupboards, he found a cookbook and picked the simplest thing he had eaten, Onigiri.
Right now, he was even happy with the amount of reading and writing he was required to do, as otherwise, he would not have figured out how to cook anything. Turning on the fire wasn’t all that hard, as the appliances looked almost similar to what Aunt Petunia had, but most of them seemed to run on gas. He wondered where he could get gas if it ran out.
He washed the rice and then added it to the pot with water, but the measuring unit didn’t make much sense to him, so he added a bit more. How can they write a measuring unit of one finger joint? He was tiny, which was probably not meant like that, so he put at least two and then hoped for the best. He looked at the clock for the time rice was supposed to boil.
He had just checked the rice. It looked satisfactory to him, and he put out the fire, but then someone knocked on their door. It was shocking; no one had ever knocked on their door before, and he was a little, nope, he was startled by it a lot, probably in shock as he wasn’t able to move for what felt like a damn hour. It might just have been a moment, but it simply felt like an eternity.
He left the pot and moved to the door, cautiously peeking through it. Then, he noticed an old woman wearing what he started to assume was a clan symbol—the Fan.
“Hello?” he greeted, asked.
“Hello, my dear, are you Masaki?”
“Yes, Uchiha-san,” he said and blinked, wondering who the old woman was.
“At least I found the right house. Now, I am here to help you and your sister figure things out. Unfortunately, there weren’t any relatives to take care of you.”
“That’s all right. I… we can manage with the two of us.”
“That is good to hear. Can I come inside and show you a few things.”
“O-of course, Uchiha-san,” he said, finally pushing the door open, revealing his little sister standing just behind him.
“Oh, your sister looks so lovely. I, myself have a ward, do you mind if he is around and sometimes pops by when my health gets bad.”
“It’s okay, Uchiha-san. I’m a quick study.”
“Good to hear, now…” she looked about and then stopped on someone some distance away, “Obito!” she called out, and a bit later, the said boy skidded to a halt beside the woman and just like his sister, the boy hid behind the old woman.
It made him scowl, something he had nearly forgotten how to do but mastered in his previous life. He let it smooth out of him and eyed the arrived boy, and he could somehow understand that the boy was aware of something about him. He knew that look in his eyes, and he didn’t want anything to do with the boy any more.
He pulled on his indifference mask like nothing mattered and tried his best to tolerate the boy. He invited them inside, and the old woman told him to take them to the kitchen.
The old woman frowned when he noticed the pot and walked closer to it. She looked surprised by what she saw when she lifted the pot lid.
“Do you know how to cook?”
“No, Uchiha-san. I just did what the book said.”
“You can read?”
“Yes, Uchiha-san.”
“Well, that will make things much easier. Now, what were you thinking of making.”
“Onigiri, it seemed like the simplest and easiest thing to make with the materials we have.”
The old woman huffed amusedly and showed Masaki how to make that triangular rise. Then she began to show him how to make filling for them. Masaki ate a few in between and made his sister eat them as well. The old Uchiha-san showed him much more, and he was so busy that he didn’t notice that his sister had fallen asleep.
“Oh, dear, Obito-kun, do you mind taking the little one to bed.”
“Sure, Obaasan,” the boy reached for his sister, and Masaki saw red. Not literally, but it was like something in him snapped. He couldn’t move, and his hands were suddenly shaking madly.
“Don’t touch her," he said quietly like it was usually allowed in the house. No loudness. It had been nice with just those two people, and he could get used to it.
But then his hand touched her, and she woke up. She looked up and probably didn’t see what was before her. She probably saw something else. She pulled away and pulled inward. She looked around the place and settled on him. Then she moved very quickly to him without paying attention to what was on her way, just to get to someone she knew was safe.
Her hands were around him, and his hands wrapped around her. “You are okay. It’s okay. It’s okay…” he continued to say simple things to calm her and himself. “It’s okay. There is no one here to hurt us. He's not here. He's gone. He won't come back. I'm here. He won't come back…” he simply continued to mutter to her hair, and slowly, he began to calm. He didn’t care for the two other people in the house. He couldn't care less if they took anything. He didn’t want to see her going through this again.
Logically, he knew it wouldn’t be the last time, but he promised he would try his best that she wouldn’t have to go through something like this ever again. He pulled her up to his chest and picked her up, leaving the kitchen behind. He didn’t return to his room, nor was it her room. He deliberately picked another room that he knew had been empty. He pulled a blanket and a pillow from the closet and laid them down, huddling into the blanket.
He began to tell a story of meeting Ron. Only, the story was altered to a much simpler version.
“I like Ginger,” she mumbled after a while, her eyes heavy once again.
“Sleep, my kitty,” he mumbled to her and held onto her hands, letting the tiredness overtake them. They slept, holding each other's hands.