the greatest trap
Routine was what it was by such a point – the same days repeated over and over again, a never ending cycle. There was a hand running down his head, fingers threading through pastel pink locks as his mother marvelled at how long and pretty it was. Like always. He was intimately familiar with it all, and he had long since learned how to come out unscathed from such an encounter.
Haruno Mebuki was like a leopard, and to survive, one should never make direct eye contact with her. He knew that better than anyone, no matter what his father always said.
You’ll be the man of the house while I’m away, Kizashi had said the first few times he had left him alone with her. Carry yourself high and take care of your mother.
“Girls your age look best with long hair,” his mother said, a brush in her hand, and Sakurai hummed as he let her fiddle about with his hair, allowing her to braid it up in whatever style had taken her fancy right then and there.
The silence was stifling, the knowledge that one wrong move would set her off, the questions about whether she had taken the medication his father procured for her discreetly not leaving his tongue. Do not disgrace the Haruno name, Sakurai, his father whispered in his ear, a ghost of a large hand coming to rest on his head, and Sakurai felt his hands curl into little balls in his lap. He had long since learnt that he was a disgrace to the Haruno name, and it was only made worse when his father caught him dressed in the clothes his mother forced upon him.
I just want to make her happy, was not an excuse according to him. Nor was, Otherwise she hits me and becomes violent. He was a boy, and boys were supposed to be strong. It was his fault if he wasn’t strong enough to fend off his weak mother. That fact had been drilled into him with every backhanded slap and every split lip. It’s just to toughen you up, his father had explained, the words burning his ears even to that very day. You’ve always been far too weak. He was his father’s greatest disappointment, and he was never failed to be reminded of such a fact whenever Haruno Kizashi came home. Though he was rarely home by such a point. He didn’t have to live with Haruno Mebuki. Sakurai did, and he did what he had to in order to live quietly. Even if it meant incurring the stifling disappointment and hatred of his father.
Living quietly and ordinary was good, and Sakurai thought it had worked fairly well up until such a point. Quiet and ordinary was good. Unnoticed was good. He was nothing but a whisper here and there, a silent shadow until his mother demanded his presence.
“You really did inherit the best of me and your father,” his mother murmured, fingers weaving in his pink locks. They looked thin and fragile to most, made for delicate work, as his father had put it. Sakurai knew better. His mother’s slaps stung almost as much as his father’s. “Sakura-chan, you’re so pretty,” his mother crooned, and Sakurai stilled, a reflexive smile coming to grace his lips.
“Thank you, mother,” he intoned in the softest voice he could muster, relaxing under the soft touch which as always told him he had responded correctly. He was constantly getting better at judging his mother’s moods and its many swings, always being told of what a kind and considerate daughter he was.
That word made his skin feel itchy. He had long since been old enough to have a grasp of his own sex and gender. He was a boy through and through, a son not a daughter, no matter his soft features, and the oddly feminine figure he seemed to have for his age. He was delicate, as his mother often told him. Like a porcelain doll. And he had to sit still and look pretty, just like one. He had to let himself be dressed up, and he had to be careful never to let his mother see the few more masculine parts of himself, lest she snap as she sometimes did – mostly when she hadn’t taken the medicine she was always instructed to take by her husband.
Sakurai liked to think he was getting better at getting her to take it. Some days all it took was battering his eyelashes and acting as the perfect daughter he truly wasn’t deep down inside. Some days he had to mix it in with her food and drink, like a shinobi on a secret mission. Some days she took it herself. Some days she managed to fool Sakurai into thinking she’d taken it, when really she hadn’t. Those days were few and far between thankfully, at least since he had grown from the naïve little child he had once been. Naivety and innocence couldn’t survive in the house he had grown up within.
Not when every single day felt like a battle to exist.
Haruno Sakura existed in the eyes of everyone else around him. Haruno Sakurai didn’t. That was the fact of the matter – of the start of all his problems – at the end of the day. He only hoped one day that would change – maybe once he had grown up just a bit. Everyone always said things changed when someone grew up. He hoped that would be the case for him as well. Once he was free from the influences of his mother and father, along with each of their expectations of him, conflicting and confusing as they were.
Sakurai thought adults were strange, especially his parents. Though he had long since learnt never to vocalise such thinkings, since pain was the only answer to something which they didn’t like. Their view of the world was fixed, and Sakurai knew he had to tread carefully around it.
Some people never change.
The whispered hiss made him hum softly – an acceptable thing to do when his mother was around, but less acceptable when his father was. Boys don’t sing, and boys do not hum like some airheaded girl! The harsh sounds of his father’s shouting rang in his ears then, but Sakurai kept humming, a soft tune escaping him before he realised it.
“You have such a pretty voice, Sakura-chan,” her mother murmured, the fingers tangled in his hair ever a precarious reminder of the situation he was stuck in then and there. They hovered there, the threat of them gripping at those long pink strands to shake him back and forth looming before him. “You should sing more often, especially when your father’s home,” she continued, heedless to the pool of dread which welled up in his stomach at the thought.
Boys don’t sing.
“Maybe,” he said softly, relaxing ever so slightly then, even as his mother moved on from one conversation topic to another like a flighty bird.
“That flower arrangement you brought home was lovely,” she said, the tugging on his far too long hair telling of the fact she was braiding his hair. “They are teaching you some good things in that brutish academy of yours, it seems. I don’t know why your father even sighed you up in the first place…”
Maybe this will help you man up, eh, Sakurai?
He shivered at the reminder, at the memory of that hand which had held his shoulder just a little too tight as he was signed up to attend Konohagakure’s shinobi academy. Not that attending the academy had made much of a difference. Haruno Sakurai was overlooked. Haruno Sakura was a perfect student. What ever a reason would there be to pull out Haruno Sakura’s file when she was such a perfect student? There was none, they thought him female as a result, and he was even being made to attend kunoichi class and learn about the menstrual cycle and other things which would apparently affect his career thanks to him apparently being female.
The misgendering grated on him.
But he knew better than to try and do anything – after all, he didn’t want to lose some of the only few friends he had simply because he was in actual fact a boy.
Boys can’t play with us, Sakura-chan – they’re dirty and smelly!
He looked down at his hands, fine boned and calloused as they were. The hands of a working woman, his mother called them, always scowling at the thought of her precious daughter being forced to work when all she should have had to do was stay home and raise her children. Sakurai sighed softly yet again, trying to relax amidst the grievances which grated upon him.
Truly, everything had started going wrong from the minute his father had tried to take him on a business venture, and it had all snowballed from there until there was no hope of return for him.
Ah, Haruno-san, is this your daughter? She’s very beautiful – she’ll turn out to be quite the looker, much like your lovely wife, won’t she?
His hands clenched into fists, remembering the many times such a mistake had occurred – until his father was too embarrassed to take him on any more trips to meet clients. There was something about him which apparently screamed female to everybody and anybody around him. He couldn’t even try to get rid of it though, what with his mother looming over him, determined to see him as the daughter she had always wanted. His father had never been impressed, and it was all his fault. He just didn’t know how to man up and his effeminate body didn’t seem to want to cooperate with either of their wishes.
“Mother,” he murmured, blinking as he felt a weight settle on his shoulders, a slow, soft puff of air against his neck telling of the fact that she had fallen asleep. Something which she was unfortunately prone to, thanks to her medication, and Sakurai only sighed softly, knowing he had dodged a kunai or two.
Settling her down atop cushions and finding a blanket with which to tuck her in was a simple enough matter, as was starting on the preparations for dinner later that night. The same sort of things he always did, even when his father was there, no matter the disparaging he received for doing women’s work. His lip curled at the memories of it all. His cooking, after all, tasted far better than his mother’s and his father still ate it all, no matter how begrudgingly he did so.
“Sleep well,” he whispered, prep work in the kitchen done, note written to inform his mother of whereabouts he roughly was set down on the table beside her.
Dusting himself off, he stepped out of the house, drawing the door closed behind him with a soft click. Hashira Park was his destination – the place he usually met up with his friends, all of the girl variety of course. Girls and boys couldn’t play together according to Ami, and Ami’s word was generally law around there. Hardpacked dirt pounded beneath her feet as he made his way forwards, a smile pulling at his lips at the sensation of wind in his hair and the sight of the village around him.
There was something oddly freeing about running amok like that, and it was one of the few things his father allowed and one of the things his mother never liked. Girls don’t run about wildly like rambunctious little boys, Sakura-chan. The words echoed in his head, even as he cut down the side of one of the shops of the main street of Konohagakure.
It was a wide street, hardpacked dirt becoming mixed with gravel and then stone, given it had to be a strong road to support the merchants’ carriages which flocked to Konoha when the time was ripe. Though there was no market on that day, and there likely wouldn’t be anytime soon, what with how the heatwave racing through Fire Country was making travel harder, especially for merchants with perishable goods.
“Oh, Sakura-chan…” a soft voice made him pause, turning to face the man who had just spoken – Hashiro, the man who ran the clothes shop where he and his mother shopped, ever a close friend of their so-called family, greeted him with a smile. “You on your way to the park?” he asked, and Sakurai nodded. “Shame the market hasn’t come here yet, otherwise you could’ve brought your mother… I know how much Mebuki-san likes the produce they usually bring,” Hashiro said, hands on his hips as he turned to the direction of Konoha’s main gate. “A shame what happened to the Uzumaki… if they were still around their sealing scrolls would have made transporting perishable goods here a cinch,” he muttered, turning away from him then and getting back to his own work.
Sakurai only shrugged, already well accustomed to the older man and his oddities as he continued on his way to the park, mind ticking over what Hashiro had been muttering about.
Uzumaki.
The name was oddly familiar, but Sakurai couldn’t quite place where he’d heard of it before. He doubted it really mattered in any case. It wasn’t like Uzumaki was one of the names of any of the important clans of Konoha, and from the sounds of things, something awful had happened to them. Yawning, Sakurai focused his attention back on making his way to Hashira Park. He wanted to enjoy some time with his friends before he had to go back and finish off dinner and wake his mother up to enjoy the food.
“Sakura-chan!” Ami called, hands on her hips as he rounded the entrance to the park. “There you are! I was starting to worry you weren’t going to turn up today.”
A burst of awkward laughter escaped him, and he scratched the back of his head sheepishly as he reached his friends. “Sorry about that, I just had to take care of a few things before I left the house,” he explained, brightening then as Ami’s expression softened. “I’m here now though, so what’d I miss?”
“Almost everything, dummy,” Ami grumbled, beckoning him to sit down with the rest of them. “But luckily for you we’ve got plenty of time before we have to go home…”