Chapter Text
The trees grew thicker the deeper and longer she drove, branches arching overhead like a slow-closing jaw. Sunlight flickered through the canopy in frantic Morse code, interrupted by every pothole that shook her mom’s old white 1993 Honda Civic. The AC had given out halfway down the 401, so she’d rolled down the windows. Her thighs now stuck to the leather seats, and her dyed pink hair—faded at the ends with her naturally blonde hair showing at the roots—whipped across her face in sweaty strands. The air that came through the open window was warm and thick from the hot summer’s day. Her grief weighed down the car more than all of her things that had been shoved haphazardly into it.
As she drove down the winding, and cracked road, she finally saw the first sign of civilization in over an hour. A green sign stood aloof, rising out of the ditch on the side of the embankment. It’s paint chipping and peeling in several places.
WELCOME TO KONOHA
The hidden jewel of the Land of Fire
Population – 4019
Est. 1898
Make that four thousand and twenty, she thought to herself with a resigned sigh.
The outskirts of the town came into view. Sprawling properties with open fields, two were farms while the others simply expanses of unused land. As she drove further, the houses started getting closer, more like the suburban environment she was use too rather than the more rural outskirts of this town. Konoha looked smaller than she remembered. She’d used to come here for holidays to visit her aunt…but that was a different life. Before high school, before puberty and before the huge fight her mother and aunt had that stopped their yearly visits to her mother’s hometown.
Before the funeral.
She’d remembered it being exciting, getting to pet a horse for the first time and seeing how they milked cows. She’d bought her first ever cassette player at a yard sale here when she was eight. She still had it, it was somewhere in the trunk now.
The main strip down Main Street was a patchwork of the mundane and the forgotten. Both things she remembered and places either she’d forgotten or were newer than the last time she’d been here when she was eleven.
A single gas station at the start of the street, the pumps having faded stickers for Marlboro and Coca-Cola plastered to them.
A diner with the name “Anko’s” in a blinking sign. Advertising PIE SLICES $1.75 and NO SHIRT? NO PROBLEM in the front window.
A thrift store with a CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE sign.
A payphone with a no actual phone inside.
A small grocery store, a deli, a bakery, a furniture shop that looked like it was going out of business, several vacant storefronts with FOR LEASE signs hung in the empty windows and finally a Vinyl, CD & VHS shop that she remembered her father spending hours in every summer. Though the name on the front has changed. Once it had been Vi’s Vinyl, now it read Kamui Records.
She recognized the next street to be the one that would lead her to her destination and turned off the radio. Blink-182 had been playing as she took in the sights. Something about growing up. She couldn’t listen to it without seeing her dad air-drumming on the steering wheel.
Two more turns, left then right, and a straight drive down a long street that seemed to start towards the outskirts again. The trees grew denser once more as she recognized the rusting mailbox at the end of a dead-end street. The Civic wheezed up the hill, tires crunching gravel, until the house appeared.
Chipped white siding. Crooked porch swing. A garden overtaken by tall grass. The whole place looked like it had once been charming and then decided not to try anymore.
She parked, switching the car off.
A beat passed, heat overtook her again as there was barely any wind when she wasn’t driving. The silence after killing the engine was so loud, it echoed. She stared at her reflection in the rearview mirror. Flushed complexion, slightly greasy hair as she hadn’t showered on her three-day journey here and an emotionless stare.
She hadn’t cried since the funeral. Not properly, anyway. She felt far removed from the hospital’s fluorescent hallway and her mother’s mangled wristwatch in a Ziplock bag.
Popping the trunk, she stepped out into the evening air. Her red camisole sticking to her skin. She grabbed her suitcase, backpack and duffel bag after shoving aside a comforter set and a box of her childhood teddy bears. She sighed before closing the trunk, vowing to deal with the rest of her belongings tomorrow.
The screen door creaked open before she reached the porch steps.
Her aunt, Tsunade Senju, stood barefoot in cutoff jean shorts and an oversized T-shirt that looked like it had been washed to hell and back. Her long blonde hair was parted into two pigtails that fell over her shoulders, and she held a half empty glass of what looked like red wine.
Her aunt squinted at her through the rays of setting sun. “Sakura?”
“Hey.” Sakura’s voice felt like gravel in her throat.
“You got here fast.”
“I didn’t really stop for too long.”
Tsunade hummed dismissively as she took another sip of her drink. She pushed the door open further and let Sakura squeeze through with her bags.
“Your room’s upstairs, end of the hall. Bathroom’s acr- you remember. Hungry?”
“Not really.”
“Thirsty?”
Sakura shook her head, her eyes glancing around the house. It hadn’t changed much since she’d last been there, nearly seven years ago.
The door creaked shut behind her. The latch caught wrong and stuck like it always had.
The house smelled like pine-sol, old wood, and something faintly burnt. She drifted past the kitchen and further down the hallway that ran through the house. There were picture frames on the wall, but none newer than a two decades. One showed Tsunade with a light-haired man. Sakura vaguely remembered something about her aunt having a dead fiancée who’d been in the military and died overseas. Whatever happened, she’d never had another partner again to Sakura’s knowledge.
The rest of the photograph’s hung were of various childhood moments. Some were of Sakura’s grandparents and great-grandparents, both pairs of whom she’d never met and many pictures of Tsunade attending celebrations and being handed awards. Said awards having been hung on the opposite wall of the hallway, next to her medical degrees and PHD in Biomedical Science. Tsunade was a Toxicologist, officially. But had stayed in her hometown after her fiancée’s death to be a Physician that they so desperately needed at their hospital.
Sakura traversed up the stairs, struggling with her suitcase as it caught on the steps. The guest room was clean-ish. An old quilt was draped over the single bed; a ceiling fan spun lazily overhead with obvious dust collecting on its blades. One of the knobs on the dresser was missing and an old landscape painting of a beach hung on the wall.
She dropped her duffel on the bed, her backpack on the floor and left her suitcase by the dresser.
Sakura let out a sigh as she sat on the bed. She had never thought she would end up here again. Thought that her aunt had long forgotten about her sister and niece after the fight. Tsunade had stopped calling, had stopped sending birthday cards, and their were no more surprise visits around the holidays.
But the moment she’d gotten the call that her sister and brother-in-law had died, and her seventeen-year-old niece was sitting in a hospital waiting room with no where to go, she’d caught the next flight out of Konoha and was at the hospital within eight hours. That had been over a month ago.
Since then, Sakura’s life had flipped upside down. Being the sole heir for both her parent’s wills, everything was given to her. But with her still being seventeen, Tsunade had been appointed her guardian. She’d let Sakura decide what she’d wanted to do. For over a week, Sakura had shut herself in her room, and mourned. But soon enough, she’d taken up Tsunade’s offer to move to Konoha for her final year of high school.
Her house had been emptied with an estate sale and put on the market to pay for the funeral costs and her parents outstanding debt. While her mom had a cozy job working in real estate, her father had been a man with big dreams but no success in achieving them. There had been countless inventions and business ventures he’d invested in over the years. Nothing came of it except a second mortgage and loans upon loans. Her mother alone could never keep up with all the payments on top of raising Sakura and supporting her husband.
There was more than one time Sakura remembered hearing her parents argue over money or going to the food bank because it had come down to paying the bills or groceries that month.
Her parents had always done their best to give her everything she wanted though. A barbie doll house, a pair of roller skates that she only used for one season then rotted away somewhere in the garage for years, a brand-new bike for her tenth birthday and when she’d turned 15, a red flip phone!
It wasn’t long after the funeral that her house was sold. It made just barely enough to cover the debt her parents had, Tsunade paid for the funeral herself. All Sakura had left was the few things she’d kept from being in the estate sale. Mostly her clothing, personal possessions like her mixtapes, a few pieces of furniture and family heirlooms she could not part with.
She’d watched as the few worldly possessions she’d had left were shoved in into a moving van then she locked up her childhood home with Aunt Tsunade watching from the end of the driveway.
Tsunade had been called back to the hospital in Konoha as she’d been away for over a month and things were starting to pile up in her absence. Sakura hadn’t looked back at the house as she handed the keys to Tsunade who had reassured her she would give them to the agent handling the selling of the home before her flight that evening.
They’d agree that Sakura would drive one of the last things she owned, her mother’s old white car, to Konoha. Sakura watched as Tsunade got into her taxi and drove off. Leaving her alone in the driveway with her whole life stuffed into her car. The moving van having long since departed for the road.
Sakura had remembered her mother saying her aunt was never good with grief. That she didn’t know how to comfort those around her in distress. That her way of showing her condolences was by leaving you be.
How Sakura had wished her aunt had hugged her before getting into the taxi that day.
Sakura was abruptly pulled out of her thoughts by different noises echoing through the house. Downstairs, she could hear the clink of glass against counter. The fridge opening and closing. Tsunade’s casual rhythm of making herself something to drink.
After a minute, a voice floated up: “You want a cold drink or something? Got ginger ale. Beer if you pretend I didn’t offer.”
Sakura took a deep breath and padded down the stairs barefoot.
The kitchen was yellowed linoleum and mismatched appliances. There was a grocery list on the fridge written in Tsunade’s handwriting—loopy and nearly illegible—and a Polaroid of a dog Sakura didn’t recognize.
As she took a seat at the dining room table, Tsunade handed her a glass. Ginger ale, with ice and a blue bendy straw.
She took a sip. The fizz hit her tongue and for a moment it was like being seven years old again with a stomach-ache, curled up on the couch while her mom put cool hands on her forehead. The memory hit her like brick wall causing her chest to tighten and her eyes to sting with tears threatening to shed.
That had been happening a lot lately. Random memories surfacing while she’d been doing the most mundane things. The first time it had happened was a few days after the crash. She’d gotten out of bed to do chores, hoping to keep her thoughts busy. The loud noise of vacuum cleaner had helped distract her but the vivid memory of her mother always telling her to vacuum under the rugs caused her to double over and violently sob.
Sakura placed the glass down on the table gently and blinked backed the water gathering in her eyes.
Tsunade leaned against the counter, a beer now in hand. If she’d noticed Sakura’s…moment, she didn’t mention it. “Movers’ll be here Thursday—maybe Friday. Depends on traffic. They apparently blew a tire and had to wait to get a new one.”
“That’s fine. I didn’t bring that much, anyway.”
“Still. Helps having your own stuff. Anchor points like photos, keepsakes. Whatever shit makes it real.” Tsunade sipped on her drink as the silence stretched between the two. Sakura just ran her finger over the glass, looking out the window to see the sky had darkened considerably since she arrived.
Tsunade lit a cigarette from a drawer stash and nudged the screen door open with her foot. “Porch is cooler. You can come if you want.”
She did, taking the ginger ale with her.
They sat in lawn chairs that squeaked every time you shifted weight. The windchimes above them jingled out of sync. The sound of a dog barking echoed from somewhere at the end of the street.
It was a long time of just silence that stretched between them. Sakura almost snorted to herself as she thought about how emotionally repressed they both were and how difficult living here may be. She turned her head as a soft breeze rolled over them, wafting some of the smoke admitting from the cigarette into her face. Her aunt had always been a strong and career driven woman in Sakura’s eyes. She’d admired her for that, idolized her even. But sitting here now, watching her drink and puff on things that would slowly kill her, Sakura realized she was just a heartbroken person like herself.
“I’m not gonna make you talk about it,” Tsunade said eventually, smoke curling up from her lips. “Just so you know. I respect your decision to not have me know what you saw that night or how bad the crash was. But she was my sister, Sakura.”
Sakura stared out at the woods. Then down at the condensation trailing down her glass. Her voice came out low and raw.
“It was raining.”
Tsunade didn’t flinch; her eyes fixed on the gravel drive past the porch.
“They were coming home from dinner. They hadn’t been out to eat in a while so Dad suggested it.” Her grip tightened on the glass. “Semi-truck ran the light. Wasn’t even going that fast. But the angle—”
Her throat closed. She remembered being brought in to identify her father…how mangled he was as he lay on the hospital bed—
Tsunade exhaled, dragging Sakura out of her spiral. “Fuck.”
Taking a breath, she continued, “I was supposed to go. I stayed home to finish a lab report.”
She watched out of the corner of her eye as her aunt took a longer swig of her beer this time. “The police showed up at the house around 10 o’clock. I’d been getting ready for bed thinking nothing of them staying out later than they said they’d be.”
Sakura’s hand itched to hurl the glass into the yard. She wanted something to break. Instead, she placed it gently on the side table that sat between the lawn chairs.
The wind picked up, the sound of the trees shifting with the breeze surrounded them.
“Mom died on impact.” She whispered, her voice catching on a sob that bubbled in her throat. “They brought me into identify Dad in the ER. They couldn’t find any identification on him in the carnage. He was…barely recognizable. If his phone hadn’t rang, I would’ve never known it was him.”
The vivid image of his phone, cracked with blood splattered on it, ringing on a counter top that was in the ER room. ABBA’s Take a Chance on Me garbled through the nearly destroyed speaker as her father lay dying. She couldn’t listen to that song to this day without being ripped back into that very moment.
Tsunade, after several long minutes of silence, finally stood. “You want to come into town tomorrow? I’ll give you the grand tour.”
Sakura, hastily wiping her eyes, shrugged. “Yeah, okay.”
“I’ve got a shift in the morning, starts a nine so be up by seven if you wanna go.” She paused. “Leftover pasta’s in the fridge, g’night.”
Her blonde hair was the last thing behind her as she disappeared swiftly back through the screen door, the porch light shutting off seconds later.
Sakura stayed outside long after she left. The cicadas sung in waves. Somewhere through the trees a car engine rumbled by.
Sakura gazed up to the sky. The stars blinked as if gazing back at her. The void of blackness around each one reminded her of how she had felt lately.
Venturing back inside sometime later, she went upstairs and grabbed an old t-shirt and underwear from her suitcase and hopped in the shower. Leaving it on cold, the water was welcome blanket over her flushed skin.
Once done, she collapsed onto her bed. Hair still wet, eyes tracking the still spinning ceiling fan as the tree outside her window cast shadows along the bedroom wall, illuminated by a distant streetlight.
Sakura didn’t unpack, just grabbed her MP3 player and headphones from her backpack, letting a random song fill the silence as she let exhaustion overtake her. Slowly but surely, she dozed off in what would be her new home.
Sakura woke to birds shrieking outside the window like they were in pain.
She squinted at the digital alarm clock beside her bed—7:13 a.m. Two minutes before she had set the alarm. Her body ached like she hadn’t slept at all. Her MP3 had slipped off the bed sometime in the night, the headphones with it. She picked it up carefully, a Spice Girls song was wafting through the headset when she powered it off.
Running a hand through her hair, Sakura stood up and ruffled through her suitcase looking for the pair of green capri’s she’d shoved in there days ago. Not finding them, she settled for a pair of overalls she tugged on over the shirt she’d worn to bed.
As she made her way down the stairs, Sakura could hear all kinds of movement. Something landing on the countertop, the sizzling of bacon, a spoon hitting the sides of a mug. Then the slow screech of a chair sliding across linoleum.
Sakura followed the smell of burnt toast and bitter coffee. Rounding the corner, she came face to face with the house in the sunlight. Much of it looked like it hadn’t changed since the ‘80s. Sunlight filtered through crooked blinds, and she caught sight of dust in the air like glitter in a snow globe.
Tsunade stood at the counter, wearing scrubs under a stretched-out hoodie that said KONOHA GENERAL HOSPITAL in cracked lettering. Her hair was twisted into a bun with a pen jabbed through it.
“You’re up,” she said without turning.
“You told me to be.”
“Didn’t expect you to actually listen.” She slid a chipped mug toward her. “Coffee. It’s bad.”
Sakura took a sip and winced. “You weren’t lying.”
Tsunade finally glanced over, a humorous smirk plastered on her face. “You still drank it, though.”
Sakura felt a small tug of her own lips as she sat down at the table, pushing the gross liquid away from her.
A few minutes passed like that—quiet and comfortable, the kind of silence that didn’t need filling. Tsunade fixed two plates of the eggs, bacon and toast she prepared and placed one in front of Sakura. The toast was a tad bit singed. They both ate it anyway, Sakura’s pieces having gracious helpings of blueberry jam to cover the taste.
“You got cash?” Tsunade asked, halfway through the meal. She was in between bits of her egg and sips of her coffee.
Sakura blinked confusedly as she swallowed her last piece of bacon. “What?”
“I’m driving you through town. You need to get your bearings, thought having you walk back home while exploring the town would be a good addition to the tour.” Tsunade waved her hand expressively as she chewed on her toast, “Y’know? Have some cash to buy something or whatever. That’s what teenagers like to do, right? Shop.”
Sakura didn’t know what to say. She’d always liked shopping in her city’s mall growing up. But that mall had had four stories with single department stores that were probably bigger than Konoha…
The thought of her finding anything she might like in the few stores this town had seemed like an impossible task.
Either way, she agreed, “Yeah, I have some cash. Around ninety dollars.”
Tsunade nodded, chugging back the last of her coffee. “Good, go grab your wallet then. We’ll hit the road, kid.”
Sakura handed her plate to her aunt who unceremoniously toss them in the sink, utensils rattling against the metal. She ran up the stairs and rooted in her backpack until she found her wallet and cell phone. Sakura flipped it open to see it was nearly dead. She’d have no use for that today, anyway. Not like she could get lost in this place.
Sighing she pulled out the charger and left it on the nightstand to charge while slipping her wallet into her pocket. Back downstairs, she pulled on her beat-up Converse and opened the screen door to the sound of a vehicle revving to life.
Tsunade’s truck was older than the Civic, probably older than Sakura. The inside stunk of cigarettes. The AC wheezed without conviction, and the radio was permanently tuned to a radio station that seemingly only played The Beatles.
As they pulled onto the main strip, Tsunade pointed out places like she was listing off a hospital report.
“That’s the grocery store. Best produce before noon, unless you want limp lettuce. Pharmacy’s next to it. They’ll screw you on birth control if you don’t have insurance, just so you know.”
Sakura didn’t respond, shrinking in her seat a little. She’d never gone passed first base with a guy, let alone done anything that could get her pregnant.
“Gas station was in the Sarutobi family until old man Hiruzen passed a few years back. His kid sold it after, belongs to that chick Anko that runs the diner. Don’t buy the hot dogs. They’ve been spinning on that warmer thing since spring.”
They passed the thrift store. Closed, obviously. Then a bar with blacked-out windows and a sign that read The Red Fox.
“That’s where everyone ends up eventually,” Tsunade muttered. “Run by Kushina Uzumaki. Good woman, can drink you under the table. Don’t let me catch you there, got it?
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
They passed a record store Sakura had saw the day previous and Tsunade didn’t comment on it.
Then the high school came into view—low brick, sun-faded, with a sagging Land of Fire flag hanging from a pole out front. A few kids sat on the steps despite school being out for the summer.
“You’ll start there in September. Senior year, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll be fine,” Tsunade said, like that ended the conversation. “Avoid the parking lot around lunch. That’s where stoners go to hotbox their mom’s cars.”
A few kids waved at the truck as they passed. Tsunade didn’t wave back.
They eventually turned down a side road and her aunt pointed at the building as it approached.
The words plastered across it read KONOHA POLICE DEPARTMENT. Just a single-story brick building with a cruiser parked crooked in the shade.
“That’s where Uchiha work’s,” Tsunade said, tapping her cigarette against the open window. Sakura didn’t recall when she had lit it, or how, for that matter since she’d been driving.
Sakura glanced to her aunt, looking at her with a raised eyebrow. “Who?”
“Fugaku Uchiha, chief of police.” She took another drag on the cigarette. “He’s got two sons. You’ll probably see ‘em around.”
Sakura inquired further as she turned to look at a dog running around someone’s front lawn. “Are they cops too?”
“No—not yet, anyway. Fugaku probably wants them to be. But I doubt it’ll stick.”
The hospital loomed before them as Tsunade pulled her truck pulled into the parking lot and killed the engine.
Sakura shifted in her seat. “Oh, why? What are they like?”
Tsunade smirked, taking the last drag of her cigarette before putting it out against the dash and tossing it out the window. “The youngest one, Sasuke, is a little shit. Thinks sulking is a personality trait. Causes trouble for attention because he’s not daddy’s favourite.”
Sakura looked up at the white hospital building, looking at the many windows it had as they reflected the rising sun, “Sounds edgy.”
“He’s harmless,” Tsunade said, before stopping for a beat and adding, “Mostly. Itachi’s the older one. Polite, was top of his class. Got into Tsukuyomi University and is studying forensic psychology.”
Sakura didn’t reply, but her interest snagged on that last sentence.
Tsunade climbed out of the truck and slammed the door. “You okay walking home?”
“Yeah, I think I remember the way.”
“Main Street ‘til you hit the mailbox shaped like a cow. Turn left. If you see the rusted truck in the weeds, you’re close.”
“Those aren’t real directions….”
Tsunade waved her off, already walking away. “You’ll be fine, kid.”
Sakura leaned her arms on the rolled-down window and called out after the medical professional. “Got any other advice?”
“Yeah,” Tsunade said, “Don’t talk to any bleach blond idiots named Hidan. Cya at five! I’ll bring home some food from the diner.”
She disappeared through the back entrance.
Sakura sat for a moment, alone in the quiet.
Then she opened the door, stepped into the heat, and began the walk home. The sidewalk was cracked beneath her feet. Someone had drawn flowers in chalk. A kid on a Razor scooter zoomed past her, yelling about Pokémon cards.
And all she could think, as she traversed through the streets of this town, was:
Everyone here already knows each other. Everyone has a place.
Where the hell do I fit?