8He hated them; he hated every single one of them. He hated them all because they were smiling, he hated them all because they were hugging, and he hated them all because they were happy. Why did they deserve happiness and not he? Why couldn't someone have killed everyone in their family instead of his?
They all sickened him, Sasuke thought as he entered academy. Seeing all the parents kiss and hug their child goodbye. Some children would return the affection, while others would recoil in disgust.
Those fools, if only they knew.
If only they knew what it was like to never again be able to receive a hug or kiss from a loved one, then they wouldn't be recoiling away. If only they knew what it was like to spend the past year completely and utterly alone.
As much as he hated coming here and seeing everyone's faces, he knew this was a necessary step in order to achieve his goal. He has to get stronger.
He has to defeat him.
.
.
.
"Okay," Sakura thought. "In three, two, one… now!"
She didn't move. She continued to stare at her notes in front of her.
"Okay, well maybe not now," she contemplated.
She looked up to see Iruka Sensei had written a few more things on the board. She quickly began to copy them down into her notebook.
"This time for real Sakura," she thought as she scribbled away. "Just turn and look, just turn and look, one quick peek and no one will notice."
She decided to take ten deep breaths, then after that last exhale that's when she'll do it.
She deeply inhaled a large amount of air , held it in for a few seconds, and then slowly released it form her nostrils.
"One."
When she got to the ninth one she started to panic. "Oh gosh, this is it! I'm going to do it riggghhhhtttt…Now,!" And right after she let out her last deep exhale she turned to her left and stole a glance as him.
Sasuke Uchiha.
He was sitting two rows and three seats over to the left of her by the window. Gosh was he so cool looking. He too was copying down what Iruka Sensei was writing on the board into his notebook. He's so smart and so strong.
And his hair always looks so nice and soft. His skin was the palest white. He was so pretty.
"—kura! Sakura!"
Sakura snapped out of it. She turned to the front and saw that Iruka-Sensei was the one who was calling her name.
"Is there something interesting outside Sakura?" He questioned her.
By now everyone in the class had turned and was staring at her. Gosh why couldn't the ground just swallow her up? She shook her head no in response.
"Then I would appreciate it if you would focus your attention up here please."
She heard a few snickers throughout the room. She nodded her head.
Somebody please kill her now.
.
.
.
"Mine's a pretty pink color with red trimming all around."
"Mine's purple with blue butterflies on the side."
"Mine's—"
At this point Sakura had drowned them out. She was walking out of the academy with Ino and her friends. They were discussing what color yukata they were each going to wear for the first day of the Obon festival tonight. Her thoughts wondered back to that incident this morning. It was so embarrassing! She almost cried! Thankfully though, everyone thought she was just staring out the window and not at—
"Sasuke-kun! Sasuke-kun!" a few of the girls in her group squealed out. She turned and saw him exiting the front door. This time more girls in her group joined in and started shouting his name, trying to get his attention. He however either didn't hear (unlikely considering how loud they were being) or just chose to ignore them and continue on his way.
As usual, Sakura noticed, unlike most of the kids whose parents or a relative always comes and picks them up, no one was here for Sasuke.
No one's ever here for him.
.
.
.
Sakura double checked the list her mother had given her one last time; just to make sure she had everything. Her mother had sent her to the small shop a little ways from her house for her to pick up a few items. In her basket she a good amount of cucumbers, eggplants, a pack of wooden chopsticks, and a few other miscellaneous items that her mother needed.
She then proceeded to the checkout counter. She saw that there were a few other people in line also buying these last minute items for the festival as well. It is customary that on the first night of the festival that you make a makeshift horse and cow using the cucumbers, eggplants, chopsticks and whatever items you deem necessary to decorate them. . You then place these animals at your front door or gate and light an incense for them. Your ancestor's spirits are supposed to ride from their world back into this one on the horse and cow for the festival.
Once it was her turn, Sakura lifted her basket onto the counter and stood back as the cashier rang up her purchases. Once the total came up she carefully counted the sum from the amount her mother had given her. After she was given her receipt, she exited the shop. Right when she was about to turn right and head back home, she decided to take a left and take a detour through the park in an effort to avoid the crowd.
It was the middle of August, so the trees were still a bright green color. There was a warm breeze going on. She looked down in an effort to adjust the bag in her hand, since it was getting kind heavy. In the process of transferring the bags from one hand to the other, one of the bags slipped and fell out her hand, making the contents spill out all over the ground.
"Oh dear," she quickly bent down and started to gather all the spilled items. Once she thought she had gathered everything she counted them just to make sure. She noticed that she was short an eggplant. Looking around the ground she saw that it had rolled a little bit down the path, away from her. Right when she made her way to go and pick it up, someone had beaten her to it.
She froze when she saw who it was.
Uchiha Sasuke.
She's never seen him outside of the academy, dressed so casually; she felt her face heat up.
He looked up at her and then he took a glance at her grocery bags, then back to the cucumber in his hand. After a moment he held out the cucumber towards her. Hesitantly she took a step forward, careful not to make eye contact, and took it out of his hand.
"Th-thank you."
She expected him to leave and walk away, so when he spoke it surprised her.
"Is it true what they say?"
Sakura looked up at him confused.
"Excuse me?" she answered.
"That the dead spirits of your relatives ride back into this world on horses and cows made out of those," he said while motioning to her bag.
Sakura faltered a moment before answering, "That's what my mother says."
It got silent between them. Sakura began to fidget under Sasuke's intense gaze. Sakura began to feel her face heat up again. She looked down to the ground hoping he wouldn't notice her harsh blush.
"Would you…" Sasuke began. Sakura snapped her head up.
"Would you mind, if I made one?"
Sakura's eyes widen realizing the question.
"O-course you can Sasuke-kun!"
He nodded before he turned his back towards her and started walking away, confusing Sakura for a moment.
After a few steps he looked back at her and said "Are you coming?"
Nodding vigorously she followed after him.
He led her over to a nearby picnic table a little ways from were they were at, but secluded from view. Once there Sakura began to take out the necessary items from her bag, and lay them out across the table. When she was done, she took the seat directly across the table from where Sasuke sat.
Sasuke looked up at her expectantly, clearly wanting her to take the lead, which she hesitantly did so.
"I-I guess we can make the horse first," she said trying to break the silence.
She started off by grabbing one of the wooden chopsticks and breaking it in half, and then grabbing each of those pieces and breaking them in half as well, so in all she 4 pieces of wood. Sasuke followed her example and did the same.
"Now pick a cucumber and decide what side is going to be your top and what's going to be the bottom," she explained to Sasuke.
She then grabbed a cucumber and inspected it trying to decide what side she liked to be her top. This cucumber had a slight curve to it, so she determined that the side that curved away from her was going to be her top. Sasuke picked a rather straight one so he left his untouched.
"Then just grab your pieces of chopsticks and poke two of them in the upper half of the bottom side of your cucumber and poke the other two in the bottom half of that same side."
After watching her demonstrate hers, Sasuke followed suit with his.
"Then flip it over, and it should stand on the wooden legs."
When Sakura flips hers over, hers remained perfectly stable and balanced. But when Sasuke tried and flipped his over, his wobbled quite a bit. Sakura instructed him to make sure all the legs are sticking out at the same length cause that was probably why it was so wobbly. Sasuke flipped his around and readjusted the legs so they were all the same length, then this time when he tried to stand it up it was pretty stable.
"Let's go ahead and do the eggplant as well, it's going to be a cow," Sakura said. Then just like they did before, they broke a chopstick up into four wooden pieces, and then they stuck them into the eggplant in pairs again in the upper and lower half of the eggplant. Once flipped back over both of their eggplants stood up just fine.
"Is that all you do?" questioned Sasuke, surprising Sakura since he's remained pretty quiet throughout the whole ordeal.
"Uh, w-well you still have to decorate them," She responded. "You have to give them ears…and a face ….and stuff," she said while shrinking back slightly suddenly getting embarrassed.
"Gosh Sakura," she thought, "He probably thinks you look so desperate trying to make him stay, you idiot. Of course a guy like Sasuke-kun would take the first chance he gets to get away from a girl like m—"
Sasuke interrupted her thoughts. "Okay." Sakura looked up at him in surprise. "Let's decorate them." Sasuke added.
Sakura faltered a moment before regaining her complexion, "We'll need some small leafs for the ears, and we can use some pebbles for the eyes and mouth." Then they each set out to collect the necessary supplies, which they just picked up from whatever was scattered around the floor around them. Once done they both sat back down at the picnic table
Grabbing the stems of the leaves she had picked out, Sakura poked one on each side of her horse's head. She then did the same with her cow, but this time with some slightly darker and rounder looking leaves. After observing her for a moment, Sasuke did the same with his horse and cow. Then she picked two of her pebbles that were pretty similar in size and shape, and jammed them into the face of her horse to make the eyes. She then picked a slightly smaller one for the nose and did the same with it. Sasuke of course followed suit.
After finishing decorating their horses they each moved to their cows. The decorating process was pretty much the same for those.
"And then I just place them outside my gate and light and incense for them right?" He questioned her as he began to pack up his stuff, getting ready to leave. Sakura slowly nodded as she began to pack up her things as well, upset that her time with Sasuke was over.
"Alright," he answered and faster than she could blink, his back was already to her as he was bolting away. Cow in one hand and horse in the other. Dejected she continued to pack her belongings, but then paused when she noticed Sasuke had suddenly stopped running and was standing completely still, almost as if in frozen in place. His back was still towards her.
"Sas—" she began to call out to him worriedly.
"Sakura." He interrupted her. This was probably the most shocking thing out of this whole ordeal. She didn't even think he knew her name.
"Thanks," and before Sakura had a chance to respond to him he was out of sight, but not so far gone that he didn't hear her squeal from excitement.
.
.
.
Ducking under the yellow "POLICE LINE: DO NOT CROSS" tape, Sasuke ran the familiar route that's been engraved into his brain for almost ever since he could remember. Past his aunt and uncle's shop, past his cousins Shisui house and he didn't come to stop until he reached the house that held so many memories for him, still though he did not enter it.
He began to pick up some debris that was littered around the front gate and tossed it to the side. He knocked down a few cobwebs that had sprang up and attempted to dust away some dirt with his hands. Once slightly satisfied he placed his cow and his horse on the ground in the center of the entryway. He then took one of the incense from the pack that he had stopped and bought on his way over, jasmine his mother's favorite, then he lit it up and stuck it in the ground between his horse and cow.
After a quick prayer he took a seat up against the wall of the gate and waited.
"Any minute now," he thought. He did everything just as he's heard he was supposed to. So any minute now his parent's spirits will cross over into this world riding the special horse and cow he made just for them.
After about half an hour, the first incense had completely burned out. He replaced it with a new one. Then once that one had burned out, he again replaced it with a new one.
"They'll be here, I just know they will."
He repeated this process several times. Not being the least bit deterred every time one went out.
"Just a little bit longer."
It was a little past midnight when his last incense was on the verge of burning out, but Sasuke still sat up against the wall waiting.
"Please come back," he whispered as he felt the familiar sting behind his eyes. A feeling he swore he'd never feel again.
But when he saw the faint glow of the incense disappear, he couldn't hold back the sob that tore through his throat as the tears starting pouring down his face.
"Please, just please come back."
A/N:Hey guys! So this is my first official one-shot! Which I am so super uber excited about! I hope you guys like it, it inspired by a post I found about a week ago on Tumblr. I'll have the link on my profile. I was not familiar with this particular festival so I did have to do some research on it but if you notice that there was something I did wrong I am terribly sorry.I would gladly send you my sources if you want, but I think this is pretty close to accurate. This is also my first angst kind of one. Hope it's not too bad. As always please excuse any grammatical errors unless they're really just awful, in that case PLEASE let me know! Hope you guys have an awesome and blessed weekend, I will be spending it helping my sister in law with my niece's birthday party. She's turning two! Hope you guys have as much fun as I do! And please Favorite/Review!