#reminds me of once when I was a kid and I suddenly wanted raw carrots so badly that I was literally in tears

[why-bless-your-heart]

Cravings are weird.

[sloshi]

Sasusaku Fanfic - ch. 1 preview

Title: Captain!

Pairing: Sasusaku

Summary: Passing lewd notes in class is all fun and games—that is, until it smacks a certain baseball captain upside the head. Japan!highschool AU [will be Slow burn / eventual smut]

Read the Prologue here

Because this was so kindly received, I decided to post a preview of the next chapter :D I’ll upload to FF.net when I have about 5 or so chapters down and tweak it a little more; enjoy!

Chapter 1

It’s only at her locker that she catches her breath, hunching over with hands on her sock-covered knees, desperate for lost oxygen that doesn’t necessarily have to do with running. Her heart races against her chest. Pink hair falls over her shoulders and into her eyes, when suddenly a pair of shiny black flats enter her line of sight.

“Sakura!” Ino exclaims, exasperated and breathless as if she, too, had taken off running in pursuit of her pink-haired friend. Sighing in defeat, she straightens upright to face her best friend. She’s surprised to see guilt marring her feminine features, but it doesn’t make her feel better in the slightest. “Goddamn, you’re quick! Seriously, how the hell do you run so fast?”

“Are you kidding?” Sakura almost screeches. Several curious heads turn to look at her as they pass through the hallway. “Sasuke-kun just read our disgusting note, Ino!” Sakura drops her voice to a harsh whisper. “Which—by the way, is all your fault—and you’re worried about how fast I can run?” She throws her hands up in disbelief before they slap against either side of her green-and-gold plaid skirt in frustration.

Ino’s perfect brows cinch in anger. “My fault?” She’s defensive immediately, as usual. “How the hell is this my fault! You’re the one who pitched the note like it was a fucking baseball across the room! Suddenly it’s my fault?!” She scoffs haughtily. “Oh, congrats on the home run by the way. And the crowd goes wild! Woo-hoo!” Ino waves her arms hysterically, openly mocking her.

That does it. Sakura jabs an accusing finger to Ino’s collarbone, completely ignoring her stupid sarcasm. (Which is totally not funny.) “Yes! Your fault! If you hadn’t thrown that note in the first place, none of this would have ever happened, Ino! And Sasuke—“ she breaks off abruptly, bottom lip trembling like a leaf as she’s reminded all over again the nightmare of which she has just been flung into. “Oh, gods, Sasuke-kun. . .” Covering her face with her hands, she tries to hide the tears that are swiftly filling her eyes to the brim. She’s so embarrassed, it’s nauseating. “What am I going to do . . .” She finishes with a defeated whisper and a sniffle against her palms.

Ino’s warm embrace surrounds her immediately, comforting and familiar. But it doesn’t help.

“Let’s just go to lunch, and try to forget this ever happened, okay?” Ino’s voice flips like a switch, not a sour note perceptible in her now soothing tone. Sakura blinks, wondering if she’s imagining things, but when Ino pulls away, a bright white smile shines back. Sakura almost has to squint.

(Ino is so weird.)

.

.

.

When they enter the cafeteria, Sakura hides behind Ino’s back, eyes darting around frantically as she shuffles behind the blonde, as if Sasuke will somehow jump out of nowhere and pounce like an angry lion. He’s in here somewhere, hiding in the underbrush. (She knows it.)

“Will you relax, Forehead?” Ino complains when Sakura jumps in fright, dramatically clutching onto the blonde’s shoulders and nearly pulling her backwards as a kid with black hair (not Sasuke) strolls by. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m being cautious, Pig. There’s a difference.”

“Well, can you be a little less cautious so that I can get my lunch in peace, please. People are staring.”

Sakura squeezes her shoulders. “What if he comes up to me?”

“He won’t.”

“You don’t know that!”

“I’ll make sure of it, Forehead, now get off me!”

Sakura groans, but acquiesces reluctantly. Although she steps back to give Ino some breathing room, she trails behind her like lost puppy as they make their way to the lunch line. Every spot of black in her peripherals has her jumping in her own skin. She doesn’t think Sasuke will actually confront her, but she’s not taking any chances, dammit.

But it’s only when she and Ino have their lunch trays in hand and headed towards their usual table that she finally spots him. He strolls through the double doors of the cafeteria coolly, hands deep in the pockets of his beige slacks, expression indiscernible and unruffled as always.

His KHS uniform is in perfect shape—the forest green blazer is unwrinkled, the rich golden tie tucked beneath the dipped V collar, and a stark white dress shirt underneath. The matching gold KHS logo is sewn into the left breast of the jacket. A mop of spiky midnight hair sits thick and messy on his head, moody black eyes just barely peeking through his overgrown bangs, yet somehow it’s still perfect.

Mouth dry, Sakura nearly drops her tray.

“Oh, god—there he is, Ino. He’s right there!” She whispers harshly, terror ripping through her gut, leaning to try and hide her face from Sasuke’s line-of-sight behind Ino’s shouder just in case.

He’s far away enough that she thinks he probably doesn’t see her, but that doesn’t stop her fingers from trembling as her eyes follow his graceful stride to the lunch line behind them. (Even his walk is flawless!) Sakura quickly takes note of the several pairs of eyes following the very same baseball captain she’s basically ogling. She’s surprised, however, when she catches a few angry glares sent her way. She averts her gaze.

“Okay, and?” Ino prompts, unimpressed, as they finish their trek to the lunch table where they join their  typical ring of friends. Tenten, Hinata, and Karin wave them over excitedly.

“And—how are you not freaking out about this?!” Sakura squeaks incredulously, trying and failing to keep her voice down.

“Freaking out about what?” Karin asks casually when Sakura and Ino shuffle in and take their seats, always ready for whatever juicy gossip she can snatch.

“N-Nothing!” Karin blinks at her strange behavior. It’s not like her, Karin thinks, when the pinkette shifts her eyes warily, as if she expecting someone to come up and stab her at any given moment. Sakura casts several looks over her shoulder. What, did she suddenly become schizophrenic overnight?

“Is e-everything okay, S-Sakura-chan?” Hinata asks kindly, pausing in the middle of wrapping stringy ramen noodles around her chopsticks to observe her pink-haired friend with concern.

“Yeah, you look like you’ve seen a ghost!” Tenten adds unhelpfully around a mouthful of rice.

“She’s fine.” Ino says with a roll of her blue eyes.

Sakura doesn’t protest Ino’s remark, and when Tenten and Karin exchange glances with a shrug, they start gushing about a science project (At least she thinks that’s what they’re talking about; she can hardly pay them any attention.) And because all  seniors share the same biology class, just different intervals in the day, Sakura quickly tunes them out.

(Wait—Did they just say project?)

Sakura blinks, but then thinks better of it and doesn’t bother to ask; she’ll just ask Kakashi-sensei about it tomorrow. She decides she doesn’t need another stressor today.

Hinata returns to her ramen, and Sakura is left to stare down at her miso soup, appetite zapped. She knows she should eat something, but her stomach won’t stop flip-flopping. A tiny square of tofu floats lazily across the gold liquid. (She’s gonna be sick.)

Next to her, Ino tucks into her extra-light salad, coated with a light (low-fat) dressing, slivers of raw carrot, and two measly cherry tomatoes. Sakura grimaces, opening her mouth to unleash a lecture Ino’s already heard thousands of times. But really, Sakura worries. All thoughts of Sasuke are momentarily forgotten in light of her friend’s health.

“You should really eat more than just lettuce everyday, Pig, it’s not healthy. As much as you’d like to think so. You need protein—like an egg or something. I swear to god you’re one leaf away from turning into a pile of dust and bones. One day you’re gonna’ wake up and Poof!” She makes an exploding gesture with both hands. “Just like that.”

Ino looks offended, stabbing the lettuce with a little more force than necessary to prove it. “My weight isn’t going to maintain itself, Dr. Billboard-brow. But thanks for the advice, I’d like to check out now.”

“Hey!” Sakura frowns at the mockery of the career she’s chased since she was a child. “I really will be a doctor one day, Ino. And the minute I graduate from medical school, you’ll technically have to listen to me.”

“S-She’s right, you know.” Hinata says quietly, supportive as always, pearl eyes blinking innocently under her dark purple fringe.

Ino sniffs, lifting her chin in defiance. “I don’t care. I’ll eat what I want, how much I want, and when I want. And none of you—“ she sweeps an accusing manicured nail at each girl at the table. “—can stop me.” With that, she pops one of the only two cherry tomatoes in her mouth.

Sakura rolls her eyes, but gives up. (For now. She’ll try again tomorrow.) Ino’s so stubborn it almost hurts. But she’s skinny—the forest green and gold KHS uniform that once fit her snugly just a few weeks ago is noticeably looser. It’s more than just being an aspiring doctor, she cares about her best friend’s wellbeing. Sakura has seen the magazines plastered on Ino’s wall; the one-hundred pound American model women posing fierce and beautiful. But gods, so underweight. She really hopes Ino knows better than that.

Sakura opens her mouth to change the subject, when a boisterous laugh erupts through the cafeteria. Even though loud noises normally wouldn’t bother her (or even catch her attention, honestly, because it’s the cafeteria and it’s always loud.) She’s already on edge, on guard, and she jerks her head and cranes her neck, searching for the source of racket.

A few tables away, she sees it in the form of blonde hair and mirthful blue eyes. Not the pale blonde hair or baby blue eyes like Ino’s, no. His colorings are saturated; full of color and light. He’s laughing so hard he’s wheezing—though at what, who the hell knows. But it’s not Naruto Uzumaki or the several other impossibly cute guys in his groupie who has her heartbeat skyrocketing instantaneously, it’s the onyx haired man sitting right next to him. Sasuke looks irritated, if not totally pissed off, as he tilts his head back and sips his water bottle.

Sakura inhales sharply, heart leaping into her throat, because the second she blinks, his dark, dark eyes somehow catch hers just as he’s tipping his head down, lowering the plastic bottle from his lips.

“No!” Sakura squeaks, dropping her eyes to her lunch-tray so fast she has to blink furiously to bring herself back to reality. It happened so fast—so fleeting and quick she has to wonder if he even registered their brief eye contact.

(But he’s a genius, stupid. Of course he totally caught you eyeballing him! Pull yourself together!)

“Forehead? You good?”

It takes a second for Sakura to catch her breath, anxiety sweeping her whole frame and filling her stomach with tingles that she’s not quite sure feel good or bad. Its his eyes, she thinks. They’re so . . . Intense. So dark and strange and filled with something she can’t explain. It makes her feel like jelly all over.

(And technically, that’s the second time he’s ever looked at her!) Sakura mentally drops her head in shame. So pathetic . . .

“—you okay?” All of her friends, except Ino who sits next to her, blink at her from the other side of the table, concerned.

Sakura snaps back to earth and smiles a little too brightly, waving her hands as if to dismiss their worry. “Y-Yeah! Totally fine. Peachy. Absolutely perfect.” She laughs nervously, palming the back of her neck with a twitching smile.

Karin’s expression turns serious and Sakura almost reels in surprise. “No, really Sakura. What’s up with you? You’re being all . . .” Her lips purse in thought as she tries to find the right words to describe her mousey pink friend. “Skittish and weird.”

Tenten and Hinata bob their heads in sudden agreement, as if just now realizing Sakura’s strange behavior themselves. Ino merely sighs, parting her lips to fill them in on all the details when she is rudely interrupted.

“Sakura! Sakura!” A feminine voice shouts (shrieks) from behind her and Sakura jerks her head over her shoulder in alarm, long pink hair—pulled halfway back and fixed with a yellow ribbon—whipping Ino in the face.

A girl with short purple hair runs full speed towards her, huffing and puffing when she makes it to their table, as if she had ran across half the country just for Sakura. The pinkette blinks in astonishment. For a moment she considers covering her head, because surely the sky is falling. “Ami?”

Still huffing, bent over with hands upon her sock-covered knees, she breathes quickly. “You—I can’t believe you threw a love letter at Sasuke-kun’s head! What the hell were you thinking, stupid! Have you even heard what everyone’s been saying!”

Several chairs screech backward when Sakura—along with Karin and Tenten—leap like frogs from their seats, palms slamming upon the table. Her forgotten miso soup sloshes over the rim when the surface shakes.

“What!” They all scream in unison, sharing the same horrified expression.   Hinata merely squeaks.

The cafeteria immediately falls silent at the outburst. Even though every head is turned in their direction, Sakura becomes hyper-aware when she knows without a doubt that Sasuke is looking at her—all loud and obnoxious, she wonders how she can ever redeem herself in those dark eyes that are burning holes onto her face right now. She doesn’t even dare look.

(God, he’s judging you so hard right now.)

But it’s not like she could help it! She totally did not give Sasuke a love letter, dammit! Sue her for being upset; she should have known rumors would begin to circulate. It wasn’t like she was fucking subtle about it when she nailed the side of Sasuke Uchiha’s head with a wad of paper in front of the whole biology class of forty-five people.  

Hinata looks like she wants to run to the bathroom in humiliation at the sudden limelight, and Ino is slack-jawed, speechless. Tenten and Karin exchange disbelieving looks before turning back to Sakura slowly, carefully, as if afraid of scaring her off with their next sentence. “You. . . You did what?”

When not-so-hushed whispers and stifled snickers start to erupt all around them, Sakura plops back into her seat, properly mortified—again. Heat fills her cheeks, lips trembling when she whispers: “I didn’t. . .”

The second Karin and Tenten settle back into their seats, Ino stands abruptly, chair scraping noisily against linoleum. “What the hell! Sakura didn’t give anyone a love letter, it was for me!” She snaps at Ami, who edges backward at the rage in Ino’s voice. “We were passing a note back and forth and Sasuke just happened to intercept! Tell your little friends to stop spreading false crap and get your facts straight or i’ll—“

“Ino!” Hinata gasps when the blonde starts rolling up her uniform’s sleeves. But Sakura is already laying a hand on her friend’s forearm in warning.

“Ino, you’re causing a scene!” Sakura bites out through clenched teeth, nearly groaning out loud in irritation. Just how many times is she going to draw attention to herself today! “Sit down!”

“I—I’m not trying to cause trouble, you idiots! I came here to warn you.” Ami casts a shifty glance from side to side before dropping her voice so that only their table can hear. “I overheard it in the hallway; everyone’s saying you smacked him in the head with a love letter. Somebody else said it’s because he rejected you.”

Sakura’s mouth flounders in incredulity. “That did not—what! That’s not even . . . “ She glances around the cafeteria and its only now that she notices the waspish looks being thrown her way. Glares. So many of them. And they’re whispering. Sakura groans, shoving her tray away and crossing her arms over the table, burying her head. Because not only has she ruined any chance of being in good graces with Sasuke ever, she’s also drawn a big fat target on her back.

Why me . . .

“There, there, Forehead.” Ino says lightheartedly with a pat on her back as she sits back down. “It could be worse.”

Sakura straightens up at this, her face awash with disbelief. “How?!”

Ino simply smiles. “He could have actually rejected you.”

She tries to think of a nasty retort, but Ino’s kind of right. (For once.)

“Yeah!” Tenten chimes in cheerfully. “Besides, it wasn’t actually a love letter right?”

Sakura shakes her head, sick to her stomach. No. It was so much worse. At her sudden change in expression, Karin takes over carefully, crimson eyes narrowed in uncertainty. “Sakura. . . What exactly was in that note?”

.

.

.

Her locker is jammed.

Of course it is, she grumbles sourly to herself, because clearly she can’t catch a break today. Her fist bangs against the cool metal in frustration.

Breathe, Sakura. Just breathe—

Her mood plummets even further when a trio of girls she’s never even seen before pass by, pointing and sniggering at her expense.

“—the girl Sasuke-kun rejected.”

“No way, I would hate to be her.”

“Did she really throw a love letter at his head? How embarrassing.”

Sakura scowls at them darkly, but instead of scaring them off like she hoped, they only laugh harder behind their manicured nails before disappearing down the hallway corridor.

Filthy witches, Sakura seethes inwardly.

The warning bell trills through the emptying halls. She’s going to be late if she doesn’t get this stupid thing open. Her chemistry notebooks are in there and unfortunately, that’s the one class she actually needs to take notes in. Cursing, she yanks the locker handle, hiking her foot against the wall for better leverage.

(Come on, come on, come on—!)

By some miracle, the locker finally bursts open. She stumbles backwards while everything inside spills to the floor in a waterfall of loose leaf papers and notebooks. Yanking on her long pink tresses in aggravation, she tries not to let out a high pitched scream. She huffs, bending over and attempting to scrape the papers up off the floor when a sudden (large) tan hand shoots out.

Sakura jumps back, startled.

“Woah, hey! Relax—I just thought you looked like you could use some help.”

She blinks stupidly, eyelashes fluttering several times in succession before she takes in the friendly cerulean eyes, strange whisker marks and sunshine hair.

“You’re—you’re. . .” Her mind stutters and she swallows hard. He’s taller than her, she notices immediately, the tip of her head just reaching under his nose. His shaggy blond hair falls carelessly over his crinkling eyes and Sakura can’t help but feel starstruck by his charming presence.  

“Naruto.” He introduces cheerfully before laughing at her baffled expression. It’s a sound so genuine and pure that Sakura’s mood lightens immediately. She’s grinning before she can help herself.

“Ah—Right, right!” Shaking out of her daze, she quickly bows to introduce herself. “I’m—“

“Sakura Haruno,” he finishes for her, taking her by complete surprise. She straightens up and cocks her head to the side.

“Y-Yeah . . .” She drops her gaze bashfully, toes curling inward. “How’d you know?”

(Since when do popular guys know who she is, anyway! She’s a nobody!)

He scratches the nape of his neck sheepishly before bending down to sweep up the rest of her papers. “I—Well, I don’t know if you’ll remember but,” Sakura leans down to help pick up the last few pieces of paper before he passes over the rest of her stack. She cradles them to her chest, nods in thanks and listens intently. “freshmen year we were in math together. I really sucked at it, you know?” He chuckles uneasily and Sakura can’t help but wonder if he’s somehow nervous. But that’s not possible because why would Naruto Uzumaki ever be nervous around her? “But one day I was stuck on a certain question, god it was so stupid, but you were sitting in front of me and Iruka-sensei wasn’t looking so I tapped your shoulder and asked for your help. You were the first girl who ever bothered to help me. You know, before I joined the baseball team that is.” His grin turns sheepish and there’s something about it that suddenly makes him look like a child. His cheeks are pink. “It’s . . . kind of hard to forget something—someone—” he corrects quickly. “—like that.”

Sakura thinks there’s no way she would forget something like that, but considering Naruto hadn’t really risen in popularity until Sophomore year, she supposes it would make sense that she hadn’t even bothered to remember his face. As terrible as that sounds, it just wasn’t a striking memory. She feels bad.

Sakura bows apologetically, pink hair spilling over her shoulders. “Please forgive me. I don’t remember—“

A firm hand on her shoulder has her squeaking in surprise. Her head jerks up, green eyes wide. “It’s okay, really, Sakura-chan.” Pink eyebrows raise in astonishment at the sudden endearment, but his smile is so contagious and it sounds so natural coming from his deep raspy voice that her shoulders slacken a little. “I just figured I’d tell you, you know, so I don’t come off as some kind of a creep.”

“Of course not!” She blurts with a little more volume than necessary.

(Because, gods, this is Naruto Uzumaki! The man who helped win KHS’s national baseball tournament three years in a row! And practically Sasuke’s right hand man. He’s so cool, how could he ever think he was a creep?!)  

Sakura voices none of these inner thoughts, but flushes immediately at his puzzled expression. “S-Sorry it’s just—“

“Hey, wait a second. . .” He begins suddenly, face inching closer as cerulean eyes squint in scrutiny, studying her like she’s a curious specimen under a microscope. Her heart picks up the pace and she takes a hesitant step back. (Because why is he looking at her like that!) She immediately shrinks, uncomfortably vulnerable beneath his hardening gaze. “You—aren’t you the one who threw the love letter at the bastard this morning?”

Sakura nearly chokes, heart thumping  like a war-drum inside her chest. (I guess this is my life now.) She flushes several shades of red before stuttering out: “No! That wasn’t—I didn’t—!”

He looks taken aback by her discomfort, and he quickly waves his hands defensively. “Relax, Sakura-chan! I wasn’t going to tease you or anything. In fact, I was laughing so hard when I heard I nearly fell off my chair! I wish I hadn’t been sleeping in Biology, I would have paid to see his face!”

Sakura grimaces, cheeks pink, clenching the papers against her chest tighter, as if it could protect her from this humiliation that has so quickly ruined her life. “It wasn’t a love letter.” She grumbles sulkily.

He simply laughs. “You should have seen the bastard’s face at lunch when someone brought it up. He was so embarrassed!” So that’s what he was laughing so hard about, Sakura muses with dread. But then her heart twists painfully when she registers what Naruto just said.

‘He was so embarrassed!’

Oh, man. Sakura screws her eyes shut. (I’m so sorry, Sasuke-kun!)

“T-That wasn’t my intention.” She says earnestly, hoping Naruto understands.

Naruto smiles brightly, shifting to shove a lazy hand in the pocket of his slacks and waving dismissively with the other. “Oh, he’s fine. He’ll get over it. It’s definitely not the first time he’s gotten a love letter,” he pauses in thought before adding with a cheeky grin: “although, I’m pretty sure it’s the first time one’s ever been thrown at his head.”

“Well, I’ll see you around Naruto.” She abruptly spins on her heel, intending to walk away before he can make her feel even worse. Cute, popular guy be damned. She doesn’t even bother putting the rest of her stuff back in her locker. She’ll carry her whole damn academic career in her arms if it means escaping from the blond who is so clearly poking fun at her misery.

“Wait! Sakura-chan, I was just kidding—!”

Sakura walks faster, picking up the pace when she hears his dress shoes clacking against the linoleum behind her. Nope. Not happening. And when she feels him closing in on her, she breaks out into a run (she’s going to be late and she needs to get away from this guy before she spills ugly fat tears!)

When the final bell rings through the hall, she careens down the corridor like she’s being chased by a rabid dog, frowning when she still hears his footsteps behind her.

Naruto pumps his legs wildly, desperately trying to keep up with Sakura’s incredibly insane speed and he can’t help but stare after her in amazement. God damn this girl’s fast!

Running even faster, she bolts down the next hallway, huffing and puffing, before she swiftly rounds the corner—

“Uaah!” She slams into something hard.

Sakura flies backward, arms flailing, papers bursting into the air and fluttering like snowflakes all around her before they float innocently to the ground. Her head smacks the hard tile and for a moment everything goes white. Stars swim across her vision.

I’m dead. I’m dead. I’m dead. I died. I’m dead.

There’s a soft, pained grunt a little ways from her, but her vision isn’t clear enough to see what—or who—it is. Slowly, she struggles to sit up, rubbing at the lump forming on the back of her head underneath her satin yellow bow. She moans quietly when the pain shoots from the back of her head to the base of her spine. Yup, definitely a trip to the nurses’ office.

“O-Ouch.” She mumbles.

She cracks an eye open, only for every muscle in her body to freeze.

Because there, sitting on the ground in front of her, is Sasuke Uchiha.

(Yeah, she’s definitely dead.) .

.

.

“You.”

Sakura tenses like a coiled spring, bristling with a hurricane of emotions.

Because first of all: ‘you.’

(Not: ‘Are you alright?’ ‘Are you hurt?’ ‘I’m so sorry’ ‘Let me help you up’)

Nope. Just a very deep, accusing ‘you.’

Sakura’s not sure what hurts more; the fact that he hadn’t even addressed her by name, (because he definitely knows it by now.) or the fact that he bypassed her wellbeing completely in favor of glaring muderously at her. She stiffens when he rises effortlessly to his feet—he really is tall—and has to crane her neck to look up at his scowling expression from her pitiful position on the floor. He impatiently wipes the dirt from his spotless uniform.

She gulps.

There’s a desperate clack-clack-clack growing ever closer, the sound of shoes against tile echoing in the barren halls, and it’s only when she hears the obnoxious “Sakura-chan!” that she winces. “Sakura-chan, are you—oh.”

Naruto skids to a screeching stop when he takes in the situation before him, head swiveling left and right. Large cerulean eyes blink at Sasuke’s arrogantly cocked eyebrow, before Naruto’s expression darkens considerably.

“Watch where you’re going, you stupid bastard!” Naruto chides, immediately at her defense as he helps Sakura to her feet. His loyalty would be endearing if it wasn’t Sasuke Uchiha he was aiming to piss off. When she finds her balance, he begins to fix the yellow ribbon that fell askew during her graceless fall. She can’t help but blush.

“T-Thanks, Naruto, but I don’t need—“

She’s interrupted by a bitter scoff. “She ran into me, idiot.” His dark eyes lock onto Naruto in blatant irritation before they flicker almost reluctantly to hers. She wants to step backwards at the animosity she sees in them, but his intense gaze skewers her in place. “Watch where you’re going next time. . .” The Uchiha promptly side-steps them.

“. . .annoying.” He mumbles as an afterthought when he brushes past her shoulder, continuing his way down the corridor as if he’d never been interrupted in the first place.

Annoying?!

She blinks after him, openly gaping at the audacity. The nerve! The absolute gall of that guy! Her foot stomps childishly before she can help it and she crosses her arms with a huff.

But Naruto, clearly having none of Sasuke’s usual bullshit, swivels around immediately, lips floundering indignantly as he jabs a finger at his best friend’s back. Obviously, he’s not going to let Sasuke get away so easily.

“Now you wait just a minute, you bastard! Get back here and apologize to Sakura-chan right now or I’ll—!”

“Shh! Naruto!” Sakura reprimands fiercely, yanking his accusing arm down. “S-Shut up!” She casts a terrified, fleeting glance at the Uchiha’s back, praying he would ignore Naruto’s unfinished threat and pretend none of this ever happened.

(Because the last thing she needs is to provoke the very guy who could crush what’s left of her reputation in an instant!)

But because she’s somehow subject to torture, Sasuke’s tall form has already paused mid-step. While a brief moment of tense silence hangs in the air, Sakura considers jumping out one of the windows that line the hallway. Since she’s on the second floor, she calculates the possibility of whether she’d die on impact or simply cripple herself.

She stiffens, spine snapping straight as a toothpick, when Sasuke suddenly throws a challenging glare over his shoulder, black bangs flopping over narrowed eyes. “Or you’ll what?”

Naruto reels, clearly taken off-guard by the sudden intensity of the Uchiha’s threatening tone.

Wait a second, aren’t they friends?

Sakura looks between them helplessly, head swiveling side to side as if watching an intense match of tennis, wondering if she should say something to ease the tension when Naruto’s jawline tweaks in anger. He tilts his chin downward and without warning, once-friendly blue eyes fill with pure rage and a raw promise of pain that would send a lesser man screaming with his tail tucked between his legs. “Or I’ll beat your fucking ass.”

Sakura can’t stop the sharp gasp that escapes past her lips. She takes several steps backward because Naruto looks simply terrifying and she swears his pupils shrink to slits.

Lightning crackles dangerously between them as they stare each other down.

W-What the heck is wrong with these guys!

Oh gods, she’s needs to get out of here, right now! (She has a chemistry class to get to, dammit!) There’s no time for this! Before either of the boys have a chance to act on whatever personal ill-will they have towards each other, Sakura skirts around the hallway in a pink blur, scraping up her lost papers and notebooks before scampering down the hall in the opposite direction.

“—WasNiceToMeetYouGottaGo!” She nearly trips over her own feet in her haste but she doesn’t slow down nor does she dare to look back.

“Wait, Sakura-ch—!”

But she’s already rounding the corner at the opposite end of the hall and out of sight.

Seriously, how is she so fast?!

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Thoughts? :D Lmao this is so fun to write, if i’m being honest. Dorky!sakura is the best sakura... 

[abbyisawriter]

Treeless (tw: suicide mention, self-harm, bullying)

Emmanuel tried to hide his sniffles from the the other kids as he leaned his head against the window of the school bus, half watching the trees and houses go by and half blinking tears out of his eyes. It was the first day of third grade, and it had not gone as planned. His mother had told him to behave before she put him on the bus that morning, and he had tried to—he really had. He could hear his friend trying to talk to him from the seat beside him, it was just a joke, Manny, come on, but he ignored them, choosing instead to concentrate on that tight, headachy feeling pushing against his temples and the the back of his eyes and threatening to drip out of his nose in gooey streams of tepid snot.

He dug his fingers into the cracks of the vinyl bus seat, trying to find the worn foam buried underneath that countless fidgety kids before him had picked apart and pulled out as they had been filled with nervous energy or excited thrills on the way through the suburbs to the large elementary school surrounded by an ever encroaching forest. The forest had been creeping closer and closer to the school as long as Emmanuel could remember. It was attacking the suburbs too, he could tell. The little, well-groomed trees the association had planted were dying, and the trees that weren’t supposed to be there at all—trees that lawn care crews kept pulling out and running over with mowers—were growing too quickly.

“I don’t even know where these oaks are comin’ from,” Emmanuel had heard Amir, one of the men that cut Mrs. Malley’s lawn say to his boss one day when he was outside playing with his brother, “It’s like they’re possessed.” “It’s just the fucking squirrels, man,” Thomas had replied. Elijah had giggled about “the fucking squirrels!” for weeks, but Emmanuel had started looking for the squirrels. He never found any. Or any acorns. When he had told his friend, the friend currently sitting beside him huffing about being ignored, that he hadn’t found any acorns even, they had just laughed and, through grinning teeth and bubbly giggles, said, well you wouldn’t, would you? if they’re buried or eaten by squirrels. You’d gotta be a squirrel to find ‘em!

The bus stopped and the doors opened, and a stream of giggles filed past Emmanuel as kids jumped out of the bus. “See you tomorrow, Eli!” the twins, Brooke and Sophia, waved as they picked up matching purple backpacks, “You too, Emmanuel,” Sophia added, prodding his arm and tilting her blonde head sideways to get a better look at him. “Hey, are you crying?”

“Ignore him,” Elijah said, a sneer curling his full lips up in a nasty grimace, “he’s just being a baby.” Sophia shrugged, and she and her twin left the bus and joined their comrades standing on the corner, waiting for the crossing guard to lead them safely to the other side of the quiet suburban street.

“Not a baby,” Emmanuel murmured, rolling his forehead against the glass pane of the window. Only two more stops and the bus would be near the top of the hill, at the corner of Wisteria Avenue and Cedar Street—just a block away from his house and the snack he was sure his mother would have waiting for him. Maybe he’d take his snack into the backyard and eat it on the swingset. Elijah was sure to play with Adrian and Rosie next door, so hopefully Emmanuel could find some peaceful aloneness there. Well, almost alone. He glanced to his friend sitting beside him, who grinned back at him. He turned back to the window scowling; he still wasn’t talking to them.

A few moments later, Elijah pinched his arm. “Come on, you baby, it’s time to get off the bus.” Emmanuel rubbed his arm and turned his scowl to his brother, but Elijah had already picked up his Batman backpack and was walking to the front of the bus. Emmanuel picked up his own Adventure Time backpack and pushed past his friend, who, grumbling and huffing, followed him, Elijah, and several other kids off the bus.

The small ingratitude of children shuffled their feet and adjusted their backpacks as they watched the school bus’ doors close, the stop sign hug the side of the bus again, and then drive off to the next stop—the faces of their remaining friends pressed again the glass in ghastly, ghoulish faces. “See ya tomorrow,” various voices called to one another. Gemma, Fatima, and Leo waved and walked down Cedar, and Elijah, Rosie, and Adrian climbed the rest of the way up the hill on Wisteria, with Emmanuel trudging after them—and his friend trudging after him.

Rosie waved and ran across the street and through a door painted bright red, Adrian said, “Come over after you tell your mom, okay? I unlocked a new character last night—you gotta see him!” before he ran across the lawn and into a blue painted door, and then Emmanuel, his brother, and his friend went through a green painted door and into their home. “Mom!” Elijah yelled, dropping his backpack on the floor right inside the door. “We’re home! Can I go over to Adrian’s?”

Mom walked around the corner to the living room and peered at her two sons over the top of her reading glasses, a wine glass in one hand and the book she had been reading in the other hand, with her fingers holding the pages in the book apart to remember where she left off. “You just got home,” she said.  Elijah waited—he and Emmanuel both knew that wasn’t a no from her. “Don’t you want to tell me about your first day? Have your snack?”

“It was fine. Mr. Alderson said we’re going to study the ecosystem of houseflies this year, and Micah shared his apples with me on the bus.” He smiled winningly up at her, showing the braces on his front four teeth that he had gotten over the summer, “can I go?”

Mom pursed her lips at him, though her eyes were soft with affection, “Has Adrian ask his mom yet?”

“Yeah, Mrs. Cooke said it was cool. Rosie’s gonna come over after she changes into play clothes.”

Mom took a few steps forward and smoothed down Elijah’s hair, momentarily straightening the loose curls against his forehead. “Alright, be home by five.” She quickly kissed the top of his head before he called a “Thank you, Mom!” and ran back out the door. Mom turned to Emmanuel who had been standing by the backdoor, his backpack still hanging off his shoulders, and his head slightly tilted as he had watched the conversation between his mother and brother. “What about you? Do you want your snack? Hey, sweetie, are you okay? Have you been crying?” She put her hands on either side of his round face and tilted it up towards her, bending close to him and wiping at a trail of dried tears on his cheek with her thumb.

Emmanuel sniffled, suddenly reminded that that he had been crying and why he had been. He nodded and pressed his face against her stomach. She cooed at him and lead him into the kitchen, picking up Elijah’s backpack and placing her book, spine up, on a table—she would forget where she had placed it, and Emmanuel or Elijah would run around the house until they found it, excitedly shouting that they had, just as they did every day when she sat down her book. Emmanuel’s friend followed them to the kitchen, making gagging sounds every time Mom said something sweet or comforting. Emmanuel ignored them.

Once Mom had settled him into a chair, his backpack and his brother’s hanging off the chair-back of a different chair, she busied herself with getting the snack from the refrigerator to Emmanuel’s favorite plate—blue plastic with several depictions of Finn the Human and Jake the Dog doing various, laughable things. Her gentle hands occasionally stopping to caress him. “What happened, Manny?”

Emmanuel puffed out his lower lip and sucked in a deep breath, letting the air sting his throat, which was raw from the tears he cried and the tears he still had but didn’t want to cry. He murmured something that got stuck in his cheeks and rolled off his tongue unpleasantly, and his mother said, “Hmm? Speak up, sweetie.”

“They made fun of Sylvester,” he said to the table, watching his fingers draw spirals on the dark wood. His mother sat the plate filled with large, round grapes and baby carrots shiny with the cold moisture from the refrigerator. Emmanuel didn’t need to look up at her to know she was struggling to control her facial expression. He looked harder at the table, imagining lasers coming out of his eyes and wondering where on the table they would be exactly.

“What did they say? Tell me what happened.”

Emmanuel took a long moment to study his carrots, picturing his classroom and the faces of his peers contorted in ugly sneers and menacing grimaces. Blinking back large tears, he told his mom, still looking at the carrots rather than her face, “We were writing a story about what we did this summer, and Sylvester was reminding me of things we did, and Blair, who sits behind me this year, overheard me talking to them, and starting yelling and asking ‘Who are you talking to, Manny‽’, and then Jaya yelled from the other side of the classroom that I have an imaginary friend,” his friend hissed, hating being called imaginary, but Emmanuel ignored them and continued telling his mother the story, “and then class laughed and started calling me a baby and yelling about Sylvester not being real, and then I—then I—I,” his voice broke, and he rubbed his eyes with knuckles, trying to forcibly remove the tears, “I yelled that they weren’t imaginary and I cried.”

His mom bent down next to Emmanuel and pulled him close to her. They sat like that for a while, with Mom squatting next to his chair and Emmanuel crying against her neck, arms wrapped tightly around each other. Once he had settled down a little, only sniffing and snuffling instead of sobbing, Mom stood up and went to the sink. She brought back to him a washcloth damp with cold water, and she washed his face silently, clearing away the tears and dripping snot and cooling and the heated face, cheeks, forehead, eyes.

“I thought we had talked about leaving Sylvester home while you go to school,” she said in a soft, almost whisper. Her voice dripped with concern—a worry that is reserved solely for parents of bullied children.

“He didn’t want to stay home by himself. He would be lonely. He followed me.”

It would be boring to be here just with the wine-mom.

Mom sucked her lips into her teeth and let her breath out again slowly, making a low rushing noise. “If,” she said after a pause, “Sylvester is going to go to school with you, then both you and him must remember that class is a time to be quiet and learn—not to talk to each other and play.” She looked hard at her son. He was small for his age, retaining the rounded fat of toddlership in his cheeks, stomach, fingers, knees as if it was the very essence of life, as if he was afraid to grow out of it. Her first son had shed the infantile chub as soon as he could find a rock to rub his skin against, molting the innocence away and running towards adolescence with enthusiasm and impatience.

She shook her head slightly, clearing muddled thought and pushing her confusion and concern to the back of her mind to be examined later, perhaps over brunch with her friends who had children of similar ages to hers. “Eat your snack, Manny,” she said, turning back to counter where she had left the bags of carrots and grapes to put away in their proper places.

Emmanuel took a deep breath, feeling some relief from the tears finally, and turned his true attention to the food in front of him at last. He took a crunching bite of carrot and looked at his friend who was sitting on the table with their knees up to their chest with the snack plate between them and Emmanuel. “I’m still mad at you,” he said to them.

They rolled their bright eyes dramatically, raising their arms in the air above their head, Don’t see why you’re mad at me. I didn’t call you a baby. Or crazy for seeing me for that matter, like that cunt Jaya did. They looked at him, and Emmanuel got that eerie feeling he often got that they weren’t just seeing him—they were seeing him. You cried at school on the first day, and she gives you carrots? they said, moving the carrots around the plate with one, long finger, Pathetic.

“Carrots and grapes,” Emmanuel corrected, popping a grape into his mouth and enjoying the small explosion of sweet juices.

Mom smiled over her shoulder at him from where she stood rinsing dishes at the sink, “It’s a good snack, yeah? I know how you love grapes.”

“Yeah, Mom,” he looked back at his friend, “Jaya used to have a friend,” Emmanuel remembered when they both would play on the playground together, telling each other what their respective friends were saying and doing. The four of them had fun together—at least, Emmanuel had thought it was fun. But they didn’t seem to be friends anymore, and Jaya denied that she ever had a friend.

Glittereyes Giggleglow Glitterbeam wasn’t real though. She was just pretending.

“Glittereyes wasn’t real, but you are?” The voices of his classmates and brother echoed in his head, and the doubts of his friend’s realness clouded his thoughts. What if Jaya was right and he was crazy?

His friend threw a grape at him, hitting him squarely between the eyes. Emmanuel blinked in surprise as bounced back onto the table and rolled across it until bumping into the side of his friend’s left foot. What do you think, dumb-dumb?

Satisfied with such a response and reassured of his friend’s realness, Emmanuel ate the rest of his snack in silence—though his friend continued to comment on the worthlessness of carrots for cheering someone up. Despite this, they still ate a few carrots themselves, loudly crunching each bite with their mouth wide open just for the purpose of having Emmanuel glare at them. Once the plate was empty and Emmanuel presented the plate to his mother proudly, he said to her, “Sylvester and I are gonna go outside, okay?”

Mom got a tupperware down from the cupboard and took out a large, homemade cookie for him. “I’m sorry you didn’t have a good first day, sweetie, go on out. If you leave the yard to play with the neighbors or go to Adrian’s with your brother, come in and tell me where you are first.”

He nodded, delighted with the cookie he hadn’t known was in the cupboard. His mom must’ve made them while he was at school.

Me too, his friend whined, raising his hands and grabbing towards Emmanuel’s cookie.

“Sylvester wants a cookie too,” he told his mother. She barely repressed a sigh, and got another one from the tupperware and handed it to Emmanuel. With both cookies in hand, Emmanuel ran towards the backdoor and the yard beyond it; his friend following in his wake.

Give me that, they said once they were outside, grabbing one of the cookies from his hand and taking a big bite. Finally, something better for cheering kids up. Crumbs fell out of their wide mouth as they spoke.

Emmanuel quickly forgot the troubles of the day as he and his friend played. They swung together, seeing how high they could go and seeing how far they could go when they jumped off. “Not fair, you’re flying not jumping!” You can fly too, dumb-dumb, just ask the wind to help. They climbed the pear tree and sat on the branches and listened for birds. “Why are there never any birds here?” You killed the forest that used to live here—the birds are too sad to sing now. They drew in the dirt with long sticks, Emmanuel drawing spirals and smiley faces, “That one is a cat,” and their friend drawing hexagrams and sigils. That one is the Eye of the Forest. Sometimes, the two of them just sat in the grass and talked—occasionally about nothing, occasionally about everything.

They had been friends for as long as Emmanuel could remember. His earliest memory in life was him lying in his crib and looking up to see their grinning face and slanted eyes peering down at him. They had poked him with a sharp fingernail, leaving a dark mark on his upper arm that would never fade away, and they had said, Hey Manny, wanna play? Emmanuel, at the time, was too young to answer with anything more than a gurgled coo and a baby’s laugh, but they had known that this was a yes to wanting to play—and they had been playing together ever since.

Voices drifted through the open window towards the backyard where Emmanuel and his friend were sitting together. They quieted to listen, both tilting their heads to the side to hear the words clearer. Dad was home, and his parents were arguing. Without saying a word to each other, both of them stood up and climbed the pear tree, picking a branch that was close to the window to sit on and listen to the conversation, which was a mix of Dad’s angry loud voice and Mom’s careful whisper.

“He cried on the first day, Jimmy, maybe we should take him out of that school.”

“It’s the best school in town! I pay a lot of money to send the boys there.”

“But the kids are mean to him. He’s such a sensitive little boy.”

“And the kids in public school will be nicer? No, Frieda, he just needs to toughen up. It’ll be good for him.”

“It’ll ruin his sweet heart and crush his imagination.”

“His imagination could use some crushing. He’s too old for an imaginary friend. It’s not normal, Frieda, he’s too old. Eli didn’t have an imaginary friend. He doesn’t even know that it isn’t real. He still thinks the thing is actually there, that it actually exists and eats and breathes and sleeps. You’re still giving Emmanuel extra treats and sweets for it, aren’t you? How do you think that effects Elijah? Seeing his mother favor his brother like that? It’s not normal, Frieda, not at all. You’re not doing either of the boys any favors treating them like you do. Now, come on, Frieda, don’t cry—hey come on, don’t cry. This is where Manny gets it from, you know? Stop crying, please.There, good, thank you, you’re alright. We should send him to someone, you know? A therapist or something.”

“He’s just a child. A child with an imagination. It’s perfectly normal to have an imaginary friend. I had one when I was little.”

“It’s not normal, Frieda, he’s too old. He should’ve outgrown it by now. Maybe he needs medication. Tony next door said that his son is on meds, and it makes him much more reasonable. Maybe that’s what Manny needs too.”

“Adrian is ADHD, Jim, it’s not the same thing.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Can’t hurt though.”

“Yes it can.”

“He needs to go to someone, Frieda, I’ll look up doctors in the area and make some calls. This isn’t normal. And don’t you keep him out of school tomorrow. That’ll make him look weaker than he already looks. He’s got to toughen up, Frieda, he’s got to learn!”

His dad’s voices faded away, with the faint sounds of footsteps going upstairs. Emmanuel knew he was going to his study—probably to look up doctors to send him too. “Dad thinks I’m crazy too,” he whispered to his friend.

They hissed, Fucker. The soft sounds of Mom crying floated through the window. She’s gonna drink a bottle before dinner tonight, I’ll bet you anything. They’re the weak ones, Manny, they’re the problem. Cutting down trees and destroying lives. They built this house on the grounds of sacred forest, Manny, they weren’t ever supposed to be here. And do you know what your dad did when someone told him he shouldn’t build a house here? He laughed and cut down the first tree himself. He laughed, Manny, can you believe? He fucking laughed. And your mom? Not so innocent herself. She went to a witch, did you know? When she wanted to get pregnant and couldn’t, she went a witch and made a deal. Plant trees, the witch had told her, plant trees and with the life that grows from the ground, a life will grow in your womb. This tree, this very pear tree, was the one she planted for Elijah. Do you see how big it grew so quickly? That’s the sacred forest being glad for the life again. But do you see another tree, Manny? A tree for you? There isn’t one. She went to a doctor for you, got you planted inside her without planting a tree in the ground. It’s wrong, Manny, she broke her promise. That’s why all she does is drink wine and read trashy novels—she feels guilty, Manny, as she should. They’re the problem. They’re the fucking problem, I swear, Manny, I want to kill them all.

Emmanuel sat in silence. This wasn’t the first time his friend had ranted like this; they had always hated his parents. He couldn’t quite understand why. Sure, his dad could be a little loud sometimes and wasn’t home often, but they were good parents. His mom was always loving and always gave snacks and hugs, and his dad would take him and his brother out for ice cream and ballgames. They were good parents, but his friend hated them and always pointed out every flaw, every mean word, every drink, every late night at the office.

This is fucking ridiculous, they hissed through pointed teeth. Emmanuel bite his lip, chewing on the soft, pink skin and almost enjoying the feeling of ripping off the top layer of it. His fingers wouldn’t stop picking at a spot of dirt on his pant leg, and his mouth wouldn’t stop tearing at flesh. He was in the backseat of his mother’s minivan, with his friend sitting beside him in the seat his brother usually occupied, and they were on the way to his weekly therapy visit.

He had been going to Doctor Ji-Yeong Kim for a few weeks. At first, Emmanuel had sat shly on the too-big chair and hadn’t spoken to her much, which she had told him was okay too, we can just get used to each other first, okay? His friend hated her from the first time he saw her—does she think she’ll be your friend if she has Legos? Arrogant bitch. Emmanuel found that they were right, she did think they’d be friends because of Legos, and they were. After a few weekly visits where not much was said, Emmanuel and Doctor Kim found themselves sitting on the floor building houses with Legos.

“This one is me,” Emmanuel said, pointing to a little yellow person with dark hair and a green shirt.

“I like green too,” Doctor Kim said, as she pulled the blonde hair off of one yellow head and replaced it with a black ponytail, “Here’s me.” Her’s was also wearing a green shirt, but it had a pearl necklace too. Emmanuel nodded his approval and placed the Lego him in a spaceship. “Which one is your brother?”

Emmanuel hummed and looked around the piles of plastic people scattered around the office floor. Grabbing a handful of them, he arranged several on a pirate themed island. “That one,” he pointed to one of them that had the same hair as the one Emmanuel announced as himself.

“Who are the rest of those with Elijah?”

“His friends,”

“He has a lot of them,”

Emmanuel nodded.

“Why is yours all alone? Where are your friends?”

He looked down at the bricks in his hands and rolled them between his fingers. “Jaya used to be my friend, but I don’t think she is anymore.”

“Why do you think that?”

She’s a lil’ bitch, that’s why.

Emmanuel shook his head, blinking at tears he was too old to shed. He threw a red brick into the pile and sniffled, his eyebrows scowling close together.

Doctor Kim let out the smallest of sighs, “Alright. Your mom says you have a friend named Sylvester—which one is he?”

“They don’t look like any of these Legos.”

“‘They’?” Doctor Kim pushed up her glasses and examined Emmanuel closely, “Is there more than one of them?”

Emmanuel shook his head. He had gone through this with his mom when he had first started talking about his friend, which was the first thing he had ever talked about. His friend had huffed loudly and explained, to a very confused very young Emmanuel, you humans and your obsession with gender! Your fucking languages are made up and limited to your stupid made up rules about pronouns and behavior. Do you know, they had pointed at his mother, that she only had kids because her mother had told her it was her job to have kids because she’s a girl? How fucking stupid is that? No, I’m not more than one person. I just don’t abide by your fucking rules. I am genderless, you stupid cunt. Tell her that! That’s when Emmanuel had learned that ‘cunt’ was a bad word and ‘stupid’ isn’t nice either.

“Sylvester is genderless,” Emmanuel said to Doctor Kim, leaving off his friend’s colorful additions. They sighed from where they stood on Doctor Kim’s desk, surveying the Lego city spread across the floor.

Doctor Kim blinked several times very quickly. “Oh I see,” she paused, her thin lips drawing together into a line. Emmanuel resumed building his spaceship bigger, adding clear, round bricks to the tips of the wings, deciding that must be what lazer beams would look like. Returning to her own project, a giant robot,  she said, “What do they look like?”

A handsome devil. Wait no, don’t tell her I’m a devil—she’ll freak out.

“Uhm,” he looked at his friend, squinting, “they’re about my height, I guess, with green hair and pointy teeth.” They made chomping noises and grinned, revealing the sharp points of their teeth and revelling in the fact that their teeth still scared their young friend.

“Can you draw me a picture?” She gestured to a table in the corner with art supplies on it.

Didn’t your mother bring her all the pictures of me you had already drawn? Why does she need more?

“Mom brought you the pictures I had already drawn of them, didn’t she? They’re proof that I’m crazy, right? That’s what Dad said, and why you had to see them, so you’d know what you’re dealing with.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Sylvester overheard Mom and Dad talking, and they told me.”

They talk loud.

“Hm, will you please draw them for me? Just for me this time, so I can see them too.”

Emmanuel nodded, and they stood up from the floor and went to the table. He looked at the blank white in front of him and then looked up at his friend, still standing on the desk, grinning at him. He grabbed a red marker first and drew a huge, grinning mouth. A black marker added jagged, pointed teeth to the gaping hole between the bright lips. A small, brown line for a nose. Huge, green circles for eyes. Dark green scribbles around it all for hair. His monstrous likeness of his friend stared up at him, and he handed the drawing to Doctor Kim.

“They’re rather frighten, aren’t they?” She said, after a moment of looking at his handiwork. Emmanuel nodded. “Are you scared of them?” Emmanuel bit his lip but nodded again. His friend hissed.

I’ve never hurt you, you coward. I’m your friend.

“They’re my friend, though, they’ve never hurt me.”

“Have they asked you to hurt yourself? Or someone else?”

Emmanuel shook his head, his eyes wide. “No! Never, why would they do that?” He looked into his doctor’s eyes for a long moment. Her eyes were dark, nearly black, and he recognized the same concern that his mother often looked at him with. He looked down at his hands, noticing the colored lines the markers had left on his fingers. “Sylvester has hurt people though.”

“Really? Tell me about that.”

“Yeah, they pushed Elijah down the stairs once.”

He deserved it.

“And I think they kicked Jaya on the playground after she made fun of me.”

Also deserved it.

“They’re not very nice, are they?”

“They’re just trying to look out for me. They take care of me.”

This is boring, and our hour is up. Can we go home yet? I’m hungry.

Emmanuel’s mother quietly opened the door and slipped into the office. “Sorry, don’t mean to interrupt!” She stood awkwardly by the door, unsure whether she should wait in the hallway or stay in the room.

“It’s okay,” Doctor Kim said, “we’re just finishing up here. Thank you for the picture, Manny, and for playing with me.” Emmanuel nodded, chewing his lips. “Is something wrong?” She placed a hand over his. He blinked at it. Her nails neatly painted pink, the shiny ring on her fourth finger, the warm, olive undertones of her skin.

“Are you—” he stumbled over his words, feeling them too clunky for his mouth, “Are you trying to get rid of Sylvester?”

“What do you mean, Emmanuel?”

He looked up at her, “Dad wants them gone. Are you trying to make them go away too?” The intensity of her eyes almost hurt him to look at. He already regretted asking her. His friend had stopped complaining about hunger to listen closely, a scowl creeping across their face.

“I just want to know why they’re here, Manny. That’s all.”

“I know why they’re here.”

“Can you tell me?”

“It’s mom’s fault. She didn’t plant the tree.”

His mother gasped and dropped her purse. Emmanuel and Doctor Kim looked up at her, surprised. “Sorry, sorry!” She picked up her purse, “We’re running late for some errands, though, I’m sorry, let’s go Emmanuel. We’ll see you next week, Doctor Kim, thank you.” She held out her hand to Emmanuel, beckoning him forwards and then ushering him out the door.

His friend tutted, Well someone didn’t expect that answer.

After they were back in the minivan and his mother had been driving a ways, she said, looking in her rearview mirror at where her young son sat, “Will you do something for me, sweetie? Don’t tell your father what you told Doctor Kim today, okay? Don’t mention the tree thing, please. Can we, maybe, not talk about that at all, okay, sweetie? Just don’t say anything, okay? It upsets Mommy—just, please, sweetie, no more talking about trees.”

Emmanuel stared out the window in the backseat of his brother’s little, silver car that their mother had given him for his sixteenth birthday—Emmanuel had been given a GameStop giftcard for his sixteenth birthday; it still hadn’t been spent. Elijah was driving them home from school. It was the first day of tenth grade, and he had cried in a stall in the bathroom by the band-room, which was friendliest bathroom for cryers; experience had taught him that no one would bother him there.

As far as anyone knew he hadn’t seen his friend since third grade when Doctor Kim convinced him they weren’t real. Emmanuel had been going to therapy for a few months when he had decided he couldn’t see his friend and they weren’t really there. His friend had been less than pleased about this decision. You can’t fucking ignore me for the rest of your life, dumb-dumb, I’m not going anywhere. Eight-year-old Emmanuel had thought that if everyone else pretended their imaginary friends into existence, he could pretend his into not-existence. So he stopped answering them, he stopped looking at them, and he told his dad, “Of course they’re not real, I was just playing.” He went to therapy for a few more months before his dad had announced that it had worked and he was an amazing father for realizing what his son needed.

But once he stopped talking to his friend, it wasn’t long until he stopped talking to everyone. It was gradual at first—his already quiet nature got quieter. He spoke less and less, speaking only when directly addressed. Then he stopped talking to his father all together, then to his teachers, then to Elijah, finally, he wouldn’t speak to his mother either. His father put him back in therapy, thinking that Doctor Kim had helped him last time, but Emmanuel wouldn’t speak to her anymore either. He sat in her office, on the plush, tan couch and stared at her. He listened to her coax him and talk to him and tell him he was safe and well and ask him if someone had touched him, and he said nothing. He watched her eyebrows knit together in worry and frustration and her small lips move as she spoke to him, or he looked down at his hands, fingers flexed across his jeans. Emmanuel knew that if he let his eyes wander, they would find themselves looking at his friend, who sat on the floor or leaned against the wall or climbed on the bookshelves or made faces at him or yelled, Why won’t you fucking look at me, you little treeless shit?

Nearly seven years, ten different therapists, more types of medication than he could count, four suicide attempts, his parents divorce, and not a single word spoken. And his friend was still sitting beside in his brother’s car, groaning about Elijah’s taste in music. Can’t we listen to something other than this top-forty shit? Manny, make him change the station. His friend was sitting between him and Rosie in the backseat—Rosie leaning forward to run her hands along Elijah’s shoulders, neck, hair, anything she could reach while he drove—and Adrian was sitting in the front seat next to Elijah. His brother had been driving the four of them to school everyday since he had gotten the car, which was before he had gotten his license. Elijah would’ve rathered to only drive Adrian and Rosie and leave his weird, little brother to take the bus, but their mother had insisted, “He’s special, Eli, he needs you to take care of him.” So he drove him to and from school and ignored him the rest of the time, which suited Emmanuel fine—he wasn’t all that interested in his brother or his friends.

“Jaya is such a selfish bitch, honestly.” Rosie was saying to the two in the front.

“Yeah,” Elijah agreed, his voice gruff and body stiff, warning his passengers of the dangers of the topic of Jaya. Emmanuel wondered if his annoyance came from the fact that he had asked her out last year and she had turned him down or if it had something to do with him—he was more inclined to believe the former rather than the later.

“Did you see Brooke’s hair?” Rosie changed subject, while her hands exploring her boyfriend’s body while he drove, “She dyed it black over the summer—it looks horrible!” Adrian guffawed and Elijah snorted.

“She’s doing anything to not look like Sophia,” Elijah took a corner tightly, throwing Emmanuel against the window and making Rosie lean into him, his friend having jumped up to cling to the ceiling of the car to avoid her leaning into him instead.

Watch your driving, dirt-bag.

Emmanuel rolled his eyes. He felt sorry for Brooke. Sophia had been killed in a hit-and-run last year, and since then Brooke had been trying to destroy her appearance because she looked too much like her dead sister. She had cut her hair that had always been long into a short, pixie, she got tattoos, piercings, and she would cut and scratch at her skin, trying desperately to be something other than a half that could never be whole again. Sometimes Emmanuel would sit with her by the dumpster behind the school and pass a joint back and forth between them, neither of them ever saying a word to each other.

They pulled into the driveway and the four teenagers spilled out onto the concrete. Adrian waving a hand over his shoulder and calling, “See ya later, bro!” before running across the lawn’s to his house. Rosie and Elijah weren’t paying attention though—he had pushed her against the side of the car and was currently sucking on her neck, to which she responded with a loud mixture of giggles, moans, and stop-thats. Emmanuel walked passed them and through the faded green door of his mom’s house.

Before heading towards his room, Emmanuel stopped at the doorway to living room and knocked on the doorframe. Mom looked up from the novel she was reading and smiled at him, “Hi sweetie, how was your day?” He shrugged. “Did you make any friends?” He shrugged again. “Is your brother home?” He nodded. “Outside with Rosie still?” He nodded again. Emmanuel gestured with his head towards the back door. “Gonna go for walk now?” He nodded. “Have you taken your meds today?” Another nod. “Okay, sweetie, be back in time for dinner.” Emmanuel gave her a rare smile; it was small and didn’t reach his eyes, but it reassured his mother anyways, who smiled back and took a sip of her wine before turning back to her book, humming as she read.

Emmanuel stopped in the kitchen first, setting his backpack on the table and getting a package of Oreos down from the cupboard. He popped one in his mouth, tossed one to his friend—who caught it in their mouth—and then filled the pockets in his hoodie with several of the cookies. He then walked out the back door and surveyed the yard he had grown up in. The swingset had been knocked down a few years ago, to be replaced by a flowerbed filled with yellow and red roses. The pear tree was taller than the house now, and the men who cut Mrs. Malley’s lawn kept commenting on how strange it was. “Pears don’t grow that fast, Thomas.” “That type don’t grow that tall, Amir.” “Possessed, man, I tell ya, the trees.” Sacred forest, Manny, it’s trying to renew itself.

He slipped through the back gate and wound his way through the suburb towards the edge of the large, and growing larger by the day, forest. Emmanuel knew the paths in the forest well. At first, he had followed his friend down the paths; they pointed out trees to him as they walked. That’s a silver maple, and it’ll turn bright yellow in the autumn. This one is an oak—they’re the king of the forest. But after awhile, he had learned the paths himself, spending hours wandering between the baby trees closest to the suburbs that kept popping out of the ground despite the homeowners’ greatest attempts to remove them or spiralling deeper into the very heart of the old forest rather than sitting in silence while Mom cried over the latest Danielle Steel novel.

Once he was deep enough into the forest he was sure there was no one around, not even the kids who dared each other to go into the old forest, Emmanuel stopped walking and turned to face his friend. He looked at them like he hadn’t looked at them in years, really truly looking at them. They were still small, only about three and half feet tall—the same height they had been his entire life. Their hair was a shaggy mop of dark green moss, and their eyes and mouth were too big for their face. The long fingers constantly twitched and grabbed at things, the leaves they passed, their own clothing, flies buzzing past their pointed ears. “Why did you do that today?” Emmanuel’s voice was a low croak from disuse, scratching uncomfortably against his throat.

His friend’s mouth fell open. Seven years, they said, you haven’t spoken to me in almost seven years, and now you speak? If I had known this is all it would take, I would’ve killed the cunt sooner.

Emmanuel’s fists tightened at his side. He hadn’t actually known that they had done it; he was just guessing that they had. One of the math teachers had found Jaya’s body in the bathroom in the teacher’s lounge after fifth period—her wrists had been slit, but no one had found the razor she had used. The teachers and the cops had tried to play it all down, keep the school from panicking or learning too much, but Emmanuel had overheard the teacher who found her tell a cop with a notepad about it all. “Blood everywhere. I’ve never seen so much blood. And the poor girl, so pale. I had no idea. What will we tell her parents?”

“Why did you fucking kill her?” His voice grew stronger with every word.

Her uncle is trying to buy this forest. This part, the part we’re in right now. He wants to build more houses here. I bet he won’t go through with it now. Jaya was always nagging him about saving the environment.

“You didn’t have to kill her. We could’ve found a way to save the forest without anyone dying. People or trees.”

Really, Manny? We could have? Were you gonna speak up for us?

“I—I could’ve. I could’ve written letters, started petitions online. I could’ve done something.”

They threw their hands in the air, scoffing and disbelieving. Emmanuel heard the lies coming out of his mouth too. They both knew he wouldn’t have done anything. He hadn’t been doing anything for years. Angry at his friend and himself, he turned and walked further into the forest—part of him couldn’t help but be happy at the idea that it would be there longer, that it wouldn’t get turned into more suburbs. His friend followed him, kicking at the dirt and rocks as they went and occasionally muttering to the trees, Can you fucking believe this kid?

When they reached an old, fallen down birch tree, Emmanuel sat down and put his head in his hands. “I thought not talking to you would make you go away. Why won’t you go away?”

I’m your friend, dumb-dumb.

“And if I don’t want you to be?”

There was a long pause. Emmanuel looked up at his friend. They were studying him, eyes narrowed to slits. Do you not know why I’m your friend?

“No,” he replied, surprise coloring his voice higher than normal.

You don’t have a tree, Manny. The witch said Frieda could only have a child if the forest had a tree. I’m your tree.

“I don’t want you to be my tree.”

They shrugged, Too bad, Manny, that’s too fucking bad.

Emmanuel and his friend stared at each other for a long time. Each one understanding each other more than ever before and disbelieving each other more than ever before. “What can I do to make you go away? I’ve tried to die, but every time I try you stop me. Why? Why won’t you let me die?”

Is that really what you want?

“Yes,” his voice was a whispered plea, broken from years of disuse and years of solitude and years of the deepest depressions. “Yes,” he repeated.

His friend made a low humming sound and patted the nearest tree, a squat sweetgum, and said, to the leaves not to Emmanuel, What do you think, friend? They nodded and hummed again, and Emmanuel shook his head and leaned his forehead against his knees.

He sat like that until the light had faded, and it was twilight, with only the dimmest light coming through the forest tops from the retreating sun and rising full moon. He stood up and stretched, “Come on then, I told Mom I’d be home for dinner, and I’m sure that’s over now. At least she should be thrilled I’m talking again.” He let out a long sigh, “If I decide to talk to anyone other than you.”

As long as you talk to me.

They walked together, side-by-side, back the way they had come, leaving the taller trees in the heart of the forest behind and heading towards the saplings that were battling the suburbian landscapers. Rounding a corner which brought him to the top of a small hill, Emmanuel could see something lying in the grass on the path in front of him. He walked closer to it, curious as to what could be here that wasn’t here a few hours before. He walked closer, squinting at the thing in the dim light—it was a person, lying in the middle of the path as if sleeping. “What the fuck?” he whispered, creeping closer. He briefly wondered who would take a nap here before quickly reminded himself that he had actually slept in the forest many times, often finding it more comforting than his own bed.

The forest was the first home, Manny.  He glanced at his friend. They, too, were looking at the person in front of them. All life is more comfortable here, especially trees. Emmanuel blinked, thinking to himself that yes, of course trees are comfortable in the forest, and he took the last few steps that separated him and the sleeping person and looked down at them.

“Oh,” Emmanuel recognized the sleeping person—it was him. His eyes were wide open and glassy, his limbs perfectly still and splayed out, fingers still clutching the grass tightly, with an oak sapling growing out of the center of his chest. Pools of dark red soaked his shirt and the forest floor around where he was laying. He looked up from his body to Sylvester’s face. They were grinning broadly at him, showing the slightly pointed teeth and crimson gums.

You have a tree now.

(circa: December 2017)