Assonance
Assonance: repetition of the same or similar vowel sounds within words, phrases, or sentences (literaryterms.net).
OoO
A few months after Sakura turns three, she’s allowed to go past the House gates with Isamu. Sakura skips alongside Isamu, swinging their hands between them.
They’re out in the market doing what Isamu calls an ‘errand’ for Eiko-san, who needs more things for dinner tonight when Sakura sees kids she doesn’t recognize from the House. She barrages Isamu with questions about them, confused. Who’s taking care of them if they don’t live in the House? Where do they stay? What do they have to eat?
Isamu lets out a chuckle, holding out his hands for her to stop. “Do you want me to answer your questions, Little, or would you prefer to continue bombarding me with them?” Sakura looks up, alarmed at the thought of not getting answers and snaps her mouth shut.
Isamu grins at her fondly and puts on his thinking face. Sakura imitates it, scrunching her forehead in a picture of concentration.
“Well…you know how Eiko-san, Rai-san, Hisa-san, and Katashi-san take care of us?” Sakura crinkles her nose in distaste at the mention of Katashi-san. The old caretaker is mean and yells at Sakura a lot. She doesn’t like her very much. Isamu laughs, “Come on, Little, Katashi-san isn’t that bad. She’s all bark and no bite.”
Sakura sticks her tongue out at Isamu in response, folding her arms across her chest.
He lets out one last teasing laugh before continuing, “Other kids are taken care of by adults like that too, adults they call Otou-san and Okaa-san, who are their parents. We’re special because we have four parents and live in a big house filled with siblings! Not everyone has an Otou-san or an Okaa-san to take care of them, and that’s when they’ll come to live with us, and they’ll become a part of our family. Does that make sense, Little?” At Sakura’s thoughtful nod, Isamu grins and ruffles her pink hair, ignoring her responding scowl and attempt to swat his hand away.
“So everyone in the House is part of my family?” Sakura asks, and she falls quiet at Isamu’s cheerful, “Yep!”
It’s only after they’ve turned back from the market, having purchased the herbs Eiko-san asked for, that Sakura speaks again.
“But-" She pauses, searching for the right words to say. She’s always known it’s important to be careful with talking, aware that one wrong word could earn her a swat on the wrist. She thinks back on everyone at the House, the mean girls who pull her hair and poke her forehead when Isamu isn’t around, how Katashi-san always wears a frown on her face and yelled at Sakura once when she hadn’t made it to the bathroom on time for an emergency. She remembers how Isamu came running when he heard what happened and helped her clean up as she tried not to cry and then held her in his arms and pretended not to notice when she finally broke down. How when he’s around, he makes sure that no mean girls push her and how he holds her hand and makes her feel safe.
She doesn’t like anyone in the House other than Isamu, and it strikes her suddenly, that it must be a truly terrible thing to dislike those in your family. An uncomfortable, hot feeling wells in her at the thought, but it’s not enough to stop her from asking, “What-if-I-don’t-wanna-be-family-with-everyone-in-the-House?” The ugly words leave her mouth in a rush as she looks to the ground in shame. Sakura refuses to meet Isamu’s eyes, fearful of seeing reproach and disgust in his kind face for her selfish words.
It’s quiet for a second and then Sakura hears a gentle crunch of leaves and looks to see Isamu kneeling, his soft green eyes looking into hers. She remembers believing that he was her blood-brother because they shared the same eyes. An older girl had laughed at her cruelly when Sakura made the mistake once of calling him her nii-san. Isa-san didn’t ask any questions that night when she crawled into bed with him, body shaking from tears. He had held her close and hummed a quiet tune into her ears until her breathing slowed down and she fell asleep. Like then, he doesn’t say anything now, just holds out his arms, and she tumbles into them.
“I don’t-" Sakura hiccups, hating herself for crying so easily, “I don’t wanna have everyone from the House in my family. Am I bad for only wanting you in my family?”
Isamu’s hand stops rubbing her back for a moment before resuming its calming motion, the only indicator that he heard what she said.
Sakura waits for a reply until, realizing she won’t get one, she makes a heroic effort to suck all her tears and snot back in her face where they should’ve stayed in the first place.
Giving one last sniffle, Sakura pulls back from the hug, ready to pretend she hadn’t said anything, but she’s stopped by Isamu’s hands on her shoulders.
“Isa-san?” Sakura asks, wondering why he hasn’t let go, when she looks into Isamu’s eyes. “Isa-san! Why are your eyes red? Are you okay? I’m so sorry, I promise I won’t say things like that again!”
“No,” Isamu lets out a breath, almost like a laugh, looking to the ground. Sakura’s panic begins to subside at the sound of his voice. Isamu shakes his head, laughs again, and when he looks at Sakura, he says, “No, that’s not it. I – Little, I would love to be your brother. And I’m sorry for upsetting you. I thought you’d like the idea of a big family, and I didn’t want to assume, I - People like us, we’re lucky, you see, because we get to choose our families. We don’t have to stick with the ones people tell us we belong in. We can make our own.” Isamu smiles then, and Sakura, vibrating with delight, lets out a squeal.
“Isa-nii!” She shrieks as she bowls into him once more, holding his shirt as tight as she can. Smiling into his chest, she offers a quiet, “I’m glad you’re my brother.”
Standing and offering his hand to Sakura, Isamu lets an easy grin take his face. “And I couldn’t have a better sister. Now, how about a race to the House? I bet Eiko-san’s real anxious to get these herbs in her kitchen, and she’ll give whoever gets there first a cookie.”
Ignoring Isamu’s hand, Sakura jumps to her feet, excitement making her antsy. “I’ll get there first!” She promises, already toddling fast as she can towards the House.
Isa-nii laughs behind her, a bright sound. “It’s the other way, Little!”
“I know!” Sakura turns as quickly as she can, but stumbles over her feet. Running as fast as she can, Sakura hides her answering grin to the playful taunts Isamu throws at her as he gives chase.
Sakura keeps her promise and gets to the House first, and Eiko-san does give her a cookie. But because Sakura is kind, and because Sakura is the best little sister to ever exist, and because she thinks that maybe, just maybe, Isa-nii had let her win, she splits her cookie with her older brother.
OoO
Sakura spends the time after that day hanging around Isamu even more, feeling a thrill every time she calls him nii-san and hears him respond.
Sakura is the happiest she’s ever been, and she hardly notices the changes in the wind as winter arrives and blows over and spring arrives. This time, when her birthday passes, she doesn’t mind that it’s only her and Isa-nii celebrating.
Her bubble of happiness is rudely popped one day - not by one of the mean girls, who have been leaving Sakura alone since she and Isamu decided they were family, apart from some extra-mean looks - but by her brother, who asks her if they can talk for a minute.
At first she doesn’t understand.
“What d’you mean, nii-san? You’re going away? Are you getting food for Eiko-san?” It’s normal for her big brother to leave during the day without her, especially now with the rules that don’t let her out of the House until the weather warms. Last time she went outside, she came back to the House with a fever and couldn’t get out of bed for a week. It was horrible because Isa-nii looked so scared that whole week, and mean Katashi-san yelled at her for being stupid, and Sakura couldn’t do anything about either of those things because she was shivering too much to talk.
Isa-nii looks terribly sad now too, and Sakura hates it. Anything that isn’t a smile on her nii-san’s face looks wrong. She flounders, trying to think of a way to comfort her brother.
Isamu kneels down and brushes a hand through his brown hair, and a pang of alarm runs through her. Isa-nii only plays with his hair when he’s nervous. And he’s only nervous when he has to tell Sakura something he knows she won’t like.
“Nii-san?” She asks again, still unsure about what’s happening, but determined to understand.
“Sakura, I-“ Isamu stops, and Sakura feels a hot thread of panic snake through her chest. Isa-nii never calls her by her name. She can’t remember the last time he called her Sakura. He’s going to tell you that he doesn’t want to be your brother anymore. Those girls were right, you’re too annoying, and - “Do you remember the couple from yesterday that played with us?” Oh.
Sakura nods. Isamu was trying to teach her a game he called ‘Shogi’ and Sakura had been struggling to understand the rules. She had been about to cry when two old people sat with them and offered to help. Sakura ended up watching the old woman play Isamu as the old man sat beside Sakura and asked her weird questions about food.
“What did you think about them?” Isamu asks, and Sakura frowns. Why was her nii-san asking her about the old people from yesterday?
“They’re nice?” She says, the statement curving up at the end like a question. “The weird old man asked me a lot of questions about what I like to eat, but he was nice too. Why?”
Isa-nii’s forehead smooths out slightly, and he seems to relax a little before saying, “You know you’ll always be my baby sister, right, Little?”
“Of course!” She says, putting her hands on her hips like she’d see Rai-san do sometimes when she tells them to clean up. “We’re family, and family’s forever!”
“That’s right,” Isamu chuckles, his easy smile returning to his face as he reaches out to ruffle Sakura’s hair. She swats his hand away, like she always does, but instead of teasing her, Isamu’s face drops into a serious look again. “Little, they want me to live with them.”
“What?” Sakura feels the world stop around her, and her heart drops in her chest, making it difficult to breathe. She can hear Isamu talking but none of his words get through the voices in her head murmuring no no no nonononono. Sakura scrunches her face and pinches her arm. The voices quiet, the world coming back to her in a rush of pain.
“ – married twenty years but never had a son or daughter of their own. They’ve been so lonely, you see, and they moved to Konoha only two years ago, so they don’t have any other family with them. They came to the House a week ago, Little. They run a food stall in the market, and they recognized me from all the errands I run for Eiko-san and we started talking, and they came here yesterday to finalize everything, and I didn’t tell you because – well, I wanted it to be a surprise, that we were getting out of the House, and that we were going to be together, but they just realized yesterday that they can’t, you-” Isamu takes a breath, and finishes with a quiet, “They don’t have enough money and space to adopt you too.”
Sakura stumbles back a step, short legs giving out as she falls to the floor. “You’re-” She shakes her head, the noise in her mind overwhelming her thoughts. “You’re leaving me?”
“No!” Isamu says vehemently, eyes pleading. “No! I would never! I – The Hayashis understand that I’m used to being independent, and they don’t want to split us up. I’ll have one day a week when I can visit, and then we can play and you can tell me everything about your week, and I promise, Little, I promise, that I will never, ever, leave you. You’re stuck with me, alright?”
He crouches on the ground, eye-level with Sakura, waiting to speak until she looks up. “Little, no matter what happens, no matter the distance between us, we will always be family. Family doesn’t just stop being family because of something so silly as living in different places. As long as we care about each other – and I will never stop caring about you – we will be family. You still care about me, don’t you?”
“Yes!” Sakura says, surprised by his question. “Of course! I just –“ She looks down again, embarrassment coating her words. “I’ll miss you.”
“Oh, Little,” Isamu says, warm and gentle, “I’ll miss you too.”
This time Sakura doesn’t wait for Isamu’s invitation, and lunges into his arms, holding onto him as if planning to never let go. Isamu lets out a surprised oof, falling onto the ground. Slowly his arms raise to hold Sakura too, and Sakura stays there a while, content in his embrace and unwilling to part with him.
Eventually Isamu speaks up, “Hey, Little? I know that I make a super comfortable pillow, but this floor isn’t exactly doing it for me. How about you help me pack? You know I’ll forget something really important, and you’re so much better at organizing –”
Sakura cuts him off, jumping to her feet. “Of course! You’re so forgetful, Isa-nii, I don’t know how you’ll live without me.”
“I don’t know either, Little,” Isamu grins, following her as she leads them into the room they share with six other kids, determined to make sure her big brother would have everything he needed when he left.
The morning that Isamu leaves, Sakura cries so much that she thinks she would see a puddle underneath her feet if she looked down, filled with her tears. Isa-nii holds onto her, whispering promises of all the things he’ll bring her when he visits, and how she better swear you won’t forget me and go off and grow up all without me.
The old man - Hayashi Daiki, Isa-nii had told her – steps forward after a minute of this, his own face a little wet. “Well!” He says in a booming voice, “I hope to see you at our stand every now and then, Sakura-chan! It’s clear this boy wouldn’t know what to do without you, and I, for one, would certainly love to finish our discussion on the merits of apple juice as opposed to apple cider!”
Sakura stands quietly, confused by the words Daiki-san is saying, but aware that it is impolite to not respond. She’s deciding between nodding and thanking him when she’s saved by the old woman slapping Daiki-san’s arm and saying, “Cut it out, Daiki! You’re scaring the poor girl!”
“Not at all, Riku!” He exclaims, gesturing towards Sakura, “She knows I mean well, don’t you, Sakura-chan?”
“Oh, uh,” Sakura starts, surprised at being addressed by the big man, “I’m alright, Riku-san.”
“Hm,” the old woman says, giving Sakura an appraising eye. “Well, all right, so long as you say it’s okay.” Turning to her husband, she mutters, “Come now, give the children some space to talk and stop bothering them.” They walk away, continuing to gently bicker.
Isamu turns to Sakura, a sunny grin spreading on his face, his cheeks pushed up from the force of it. “They’re pretty cool, aren’t they?”
“Yeah,” Sakura agrees, pushing down the part of her that’s still upset at her brother leaving her and letting herself feel happy for him instead. “Yeah, they are.”
“Hey,” He says, leaning down, “If anything bad happens to you, you let me know, okay? Family protects each other.”
Sakura’s cheeks burn in embarrassment. She thought she’d done well in hiding the mean girls’ torment of her from her brother. “Only if you let me protect you too,” She says instead of giving into her shame, glaring at Isamu.
Isamu’s face drops slightly in comical shock, before lighting up with delight. “Well, well, Little, with you as my protector, no one would dare bother me!” His hand reaches down to mess with Sakura’s hair, and she lightly shoves at his arm before he ruins her carefully-brushed pigtails.
“You better tell me everything when I come visit, alright?” Isa-nii says, pointing his finger down at her in mock-strictness. “Just because I’m not around doesn’t mean you can go around getting into trouble without me.”
Sakura doesn’t have time to respond before Daiki-san yells, “We gotta go, Isamu-kun! If we stay any longer, Riku’s going to –”
He’s stopped with Riku-san’s hand to his mouth, who looks incredibly unruffled as she says, “Don’t listen to a thing this foolish man says, it’s all nonsense. But we really must be going now, dear. There’s not much time left before the market opens.”
“Alright!” Isa-nii shouts back. Turning to Sakura, he says, “I’ll be seeing you soon, Little,” with a wink that looks out of place on his tear-streaked face. And Sakura watches as her brother walks away from her and towards the people he’s leaving her for, and she tries to feel happy for him. She really does. She wants her Isa-nii to be happy, and around Riku-san and Daiki-san he seems to glow with happiness, in a way she’s never seen.
But all she manages to feel is sadness, and that night, she sleeps in an empty bed for the first time in her life.
OoO
Sakura loves the garden.
It’s one of her favorite places within the gates of the House, full of color and birds who like to swoop in and sit among the branches of the trees. On the days when Isa-nii was out at school, or buying supplies for Eiko-san, Sakura would spend all day out in the garden. Sometimes Hisa-san came out and would teach her things, like how to plant flowers and water them so they could grow, and how, if you saved some of your dinner and brought it out with you and stayed extra still, the birds might come down and eat out of your hand. Sometimes she’d try to imitate the birds’ chirping, liking to imagine that they were talking to her.
Today, though, Sakura can’t find the peace she usually does. Today, she’s not outside with the birds waiting for Isa-nii to come back. Because he’s not coming back.
She sighs, letting her hands trail around the pretty pink flower at her feet.
A memory sparks. Gladiolus, she thinks, also known as Sword-Lily. Represents strength and faithfulness. Grows up to five feet tall. Blooms for only two weeks a year. The simple facts ease her mind, and she mentally thanks Yamanaka-san for insisting on teaching her about plants every time she came into the shop with Isa-nii.
A mocking voice pierces through Sakura’s temporary peace.
“Look, it’s the little princess.” A girl walks towards Sakura, brown eyes focused with cruelty.
Oh no. Not today. Sakura shrinks into the ground. Her hands clench at the dirt under her.
“Heard your nii-san left you,” says the second girl, looking bored as she twirls a strand of hair around her finger.
“Oh, please, Haya,” scoffs the first girl – Nagi, Sakura remembers, “They aren’t actually siblings. Little Sakura here just started calling Isamu-kun that and he was too nice to tell her to stop. But we all knew he couldn’t wait to get out and leave her. Isn’t that right, Sakura-chan?” She leans over Sakura as she adds the endearment at the end, savage confidence written in every line of her body.
“No! That isn’t true!” Sakura shouts back with a ferocity that surprises her. But even as she speaks, the girl keeps advancing on her, and Sakura falls back, feeling impossibly small.
“Nii-san – nii-san wanted to take me with him! He would never leave me!”
“Oh?” The girl sneers, stepping closer to Sakura’s prone body. “He tell you that the people adopting him didn’t have enough space, didn’t have enough money?”
“W-what?” Sakura sniffs, daring to look up at the girls as shock courses through her. “How did you know?”
“It’s not true, obviously,” the other mean girl – Haya – says, and the way she looks at Sakura makes her feel as tiny and insignificant as a bug. “Isamu-kun just wanted to get away from your ugly face and had to tell you that so that you’d leave him alone.” She scoffs. “As if you’re anything to someone like Isamu-kun. He’s always been too good for you.”
“No, that’s not – you’re lying,” Sakura says, but she feels her certainty fade with every word the girls say. Her hands tighten even more against the dirt and she feels a snap. It’s the Gladiolus flower. Sakura breaks. Tears run down her face as she cradles the broken stem gently in her hands.
“See?” The first girl laughs. “Isamu-kun would never want to be related to a crybaby like you.”
“Hey!” A small boy with spiky blond hair runs out and stands in front of Sakura, arms spread wide. “Stop being so mean!”
“Oh look, the monster’s come to protect the little princess,” The girl says, sneering at him.
Through her teary eyes, Sakura sees a shudder pass through the boy’s small body.
“I’m not a monster!” He shouts back, sounding desperate and there’s something underneath, something that feels so sad-broken-lonely, that Sakura feels a part of her rise in recognition. “But if you don’t leave, I’ll fight you! I’m not scared!” He raises his fists, so small against the older girls that the sight is almost laughable.
The girls do laugh, but they look uneasy now, eyes weighing the risk of facing the boy’s anger for the satisfaction of bullying Sakura.
“Sounds like the beginning to a story,” Haya says, her voice loud but unsure, “The demon monster defending the spoiled and ugly princess.”
The first girl lets out a dramatic sigh, rolling her eyes. “Let’s leave the two alone, Haya. They’re clearly made for each other’s company.”
Sakura doesn’t breathe until she sees the two girls disappear into the House.
The boy turns back towards her, grins, and says, “Hi! I’m Uzumaki Naruto and I’m going to be Hokage one day!”
Sakura blinks up at him once.
Twice.
She starts crying again. Her ugly, wracking sobs disturb the birds, who fly out of the trees, chirping loudly as if scolding her. Any thoughts of embarrassment are far past her. She holds the flower in her hand tighter and then loosens her grip, growing still more upset at the idea of crushing the petals.
“Uh,” The boy says, clearly unsure what to do. Then, “You like flowers?”
The strange question cuts through Sakura’s tears. She looks up, surprised.
The boy – Naruto – points to the broken flower in Sakura’s hand. Her tears come back with a vengeance.
“Oh! Uh, no don’t cry! I like flowers too!” He waves his hands in front of his face as if trying to dispel the words that made her cry. “’Specially those ones, y’know, that are red? And yellow. Mostly red, but with yellow lines on the red? They look super cool! Kinda like a fire, right? And they’re shaped like this –” He brings his hands together at the wrists, connecting his thumbs and pinky fingers and letting the other fingers fan out. “- and they face up, and they’re super colorful!”
As Naruto talks, Sakura’s tears slow down, and by the end she’s curiously looking at him, wiping her face.
“Flame lilies,” She says quietly. Yamanaka-san had shown her those flowers the first day she’d been in the shop. He told her they were given the name, ‘Gloriosa’, meaning full of glory, which he explained meant something you get when you do something cool. And they can also help when you’re hurt, but she better not try to eat it, because that would be bad.
Naruto’s looking at her with a weird expression on his face, and Sakura blushes and ducks her head back down.
She prepares for him to laugh at her and call her a freak, like the other girls do whenever she says something weird, but instead he says, “Flame lilies, huh?” and scratches his neck in thought. “Guess that makes sense! ‘Cuz they look like fire and everything. You’re really smart, aren’t you? How d’you know all that stuff?”
Oh, Sakura thinks in pleasant surprise.
“Well,” she says, “I used to go to the Yamanaka flower shop with my big brother. Yamanaka-san likes telling about the plants they have there.”
“You have a big brother?”
Naruto’s face is open with amazement, and Sakura hesitates, remembering the girls’ words from only a few minutes ago.
“I -” She pauses. “Yes, I do.” She nods firmly. Those girls are just mean. Nii-san would never do anything like that. “He doesn’t live here anymore though.”
“Really? That’s so cool!” Naruto’s honest excitement makes the shadow in Sakura’s heart disappear and she smiles for the first time that day, a timid and small turn of her lips.
“Yeah,” She says, “It is pretty cool.”
“Oh!” Naruto says loudly, pointing to a spiky green plant. “D’you know what this one is?”
Sakura twists, looking at the plant.
“That’s called aloe vera,” she says, Yamanaka-san’s words coming back to her. He’d given her a whole speech on this plant, telling her it was the key to his ‘beautiful porcelain skin’. Something tells her Naruto wouldn’t care too much about that. “Inside these leaves, there’s a kind of gel that can help burns and stuff like that.”
“That’s so cool!” Naruto enthuses, bouncing on his heels. He turns in a circle, his bubbly exuberance making Sakura giggle. “Do this one!” He’s pointing at a flower near the roots of the one tree they have in the garden.
“This one?” Sakura kneels beside it, looking at the white flower. “Oh, I think this one’s called bloodroot. You aren’t supposed to eat it.”
“Wow!” Naruto looks over her shoulder at the plant. He points to the one next to it. “How about this one! Oh! And this one! This one’s super pretty, does it do anything?”
Sakura laughs, following Naruto as he jumps from plant to plant.
They spend the afternoon like that, Sakura teaching Naruto about the plants they have in the garden. Some of them she doesn’t know, and Naruto will tell her the names he’s given them instead. By the time the sun’s light filters only weakly through the leaves, Sakura has met Ai-san, Miki-chan, Nori-baa-san, and Yoshi-sama.
“Why Yoshi-sama?” Sakura had asked, brushing her fingers across the blue petals.
Naruto examined the flower seriously, then laughed and brought his hand up to rub his neck.
“I dunno, jus’ felt right, I guess,”
Sakura giggled and bumped her shoulder against his. “I get it,” She said, blushing at Naruto’s shy smile.
The two only part when the dinner bell rings. Sakura needs to change her shorts, which have dirt all over them from her sitting on the ground, but promises Naruto that she’ll find him when she gets to the food hall.
She hums happily as she skips into the food hall, feeling an unfamiliar sort of bright confidence. She’d just remembered a plant Yamanaka-san had told her about, one that could trap its prey in its mouth. Sakura has a feeling Naruto would love hearing about it.
But as she looks for Naruto in the crowd, she can’t find him.
She frowns, weaving her way between the legs, looking for that flash of blond hair and blue eyes. When she finally spots him, he’s surrounded by a group of older kids. But something’s off.
Naruto is crouching. It reminds Sakura of when she shrank down into the dirt, trying to make herself as small as possible, as if by taking up the least amount of space she could, the older girls would forget about her and walk away.
It looks wrong – Naruto is supposed to be bright and happy and loud and strong, and he should be smiling. But he’s not doing any of those things right now. He’s small and hiding and his head is braced under his hands like he’s trying to protect himself from whatever’s being said. Only his eyes are visible, and they look so sad, and so hurt, that
Sakura feels her heart twinge a little.
Sakura walks up to the group. No one minds her because she’s so small, but she can hear what they’re all saying now.
Why don’t you just leave?
Everyone knows you’re a monster. Why can’t you leave us all alone?
I heard someone say that you growled at them once and the next day her hands were burned and when she woke up she couldn’t see anything.
Did you curse her?
We’d all be better off if you weren’t here.
With every word, the light in Naruto’s eyes seems to dim, and he curls in on himself. His body flinches at the last comment, and that’s enough for Sakura.
She pushes through the bodies and stands in front of Naruto, hands on her hips, in much the same way he had done for her.
“Stop!” She cries out, hating the way her voice wavers at the word but standing her ground.
The voices stop for a moment in shock. When they start up again they’re louder, hissed warnings.
What are you doing?
You’re not safe so close to him.
He’ll hurt you, you know. He’s not human.
He’s not like the rest of us.
He’s a monster.
“Why are you all being so mean?” Sakura asks. “He hasn’t done anything bad, he’s just a boy. And if you don’t stop, I’ll call for Eiko-san.”
A boy steps forward, hands out soothingly. “Don’t you know? He’s not a boy. Out in the village, all the adults say it. He’s a demon, he’s not safe. If you don’t get away from him, he’ll hurt you.”
“No!” Sakura looks down at Naruto and then back at the boy, outrage flaring from every inch of her small body. “Don’t you see him? He’s exactly like the rest of us, but he’s better because he’s kind and he smiles and you’re hurting him, why can’t you see that?”
The boy hesitates, looking between the two of them before his expression hardens. “He’s a monster, and if you’re protecting him, then you are too.”
Sakura stumbles back, murmurs of monster crowding her head. Her foot is stopped by a warm body, and she sees Naruto, head still down, his gentle, caring face hidden from her view.
She remembers the way he protected her from those mean girls, how he got excited by the plants and listened to her talk. How he smiled and laughed, loud but desperate, like he had something to prove. How those girls in the garden called him monster then too. How he should be standing tall and telling dumb jokes and making Sakura smile but these people, they took that away and now he’s on the ground, curled up in a ball like he’s never getting up again and she feels something inside her burst.
Sakura glares up at the boy, and then makes sure to look at everyone else standing around Naruto.
“I’m protecting him because he’s my family!” She shouts. “And family protects family! You’re the monsters!”
Her words steady her, and she stays in front of Naruto, arms spread wide. When the boy steps forward as if to get behind her, she moves to block him and looks up at his face, giving him her best imitation of Katashi-san’s glare.
It must work because he backs up and hesitates for only a moment before turning away.
Slowly, the crowd disperses, and Sakura refuses to move until the last of them leave, distracted by the promise of dinner and better entertainment.
It’s not until she feels a tug on her shirt that she looks back down.
Naruto is staring at her, awe written on every part of his face. Sakura fights the urge to hide her face. You’re strong now. Don’t look away.
She smiles instead, says, “Hi,” and waves. Immediately she wants to take it back, but Naruto’s face lights up and he smiles, a big, bright thing that takes up his whole face.
“Hi,” He says shyly, and then, “Did you mean what you said? About family?”
Naruto has the same expression that Sakura recognized in the garden, the desperate mix of sad-broken-lonely that called to her, but now it’s tinged with a new edge of overwhelming and delicate hope.
Sakura feels the surety rise in her. She doesn’t quite understand why, but she knows that Naruto is, without any doubt, part of her family now. And family protects each other, and family is forever, and she can choose her family and she chooses Naruto.
“Yes!” She says, and Naruto’s face is like the sun, raw happiness threatening to burst in a show of blinding light, and Sakura can’t help her laugh as she reaches her arms out and hugs Naruto as tightly as she can. “You’re my little brother, now, okay? And you have a big brother too, and we’ll protect you from all those mean people and we won’t let them say anything mean to you ever again. Promise.”
And Naruto holds onto her, and Sakura lets him cry on her shoulder like her Isa-nii had let her all that time ago, and she feels better than she has in a long time.
And when she hears that Naruto sleeps on the floor in the hall because the kids in his room won't let him sleep with them, she takes his hand and brings him to her bed, and tells him he can stay with her.
And that night, as she holds her little brother in her arms, Sakura knows that she will follow him anywhere to keep him safe and smiling.