Tale of a setting sun

Chapter 20 - Foreboding Skies

He plodded down the path, looking with some disbelief at the hand that was pulling him along. It was warm and felt nothing like anything else he'd ever held before, but it was...it was nice, he supposed.

"What's wrong?" The girl stopped to look down at him, but the sun was high in the sky and shone too brightly down on them for him to make out her face.

"N-nothing," he said quietly. "Where are we...we going?"

The word 'we' felt alien to him, and he had to say it twice to confirm to his brain that it was indeed, the word he was looking for.

"You said you've never played hide-and-seek before, right?" she said, tucking a length of hair behind her ear. "I found a fun place to play it, and thought you might like it too!"

"Play?" he asked shyly. "I've never done that before...with, with someone else I mean."

She laughed. "You're so weird! Who's never played with someone else before?"

When he didn't respond, her smile slowly faded from her face. An odd look flashed across her face. Her mouth began to open, and he squeezed his eyes shut, afraid that she'd say something awful and leave him there like everyone else, when suddenly, another voice called out to them.

"What're you doing? And who's that?"

He opened his eyes and saw an older boy walking across the street towards them. He had a curious look on his tanned face.

"This is the boy my mom's taking care of," said the girl, raising a hand in greeting. She gestured back to him with her other hand. "Come on, say hello."

"H-hello..." he murmured nervously.

"Hold on, I know him..." said the boy, leaning right down to stare at his face. He shrunk back. "Yeah...he's the one Kayumo's mom told us to stay away from."

"Really? Why?"

"I dunno," the boy shrugged, crossing his arms behind his head. "She got mad at Kayumo for letting him join our game of tag."

"Why would she? He's just a kid like us." The girl smiled down at him again. "Right, Naruto?"

Naruto's eyes flew open.

Faint motes of light was streaming through the half-open window and for a long minute, he looked up at the ceiling. A tattered string dangled from the lone light fixture, and as he watched, it swayed in an invisible breeze.

Only when his heartbeat had slowed down, did he get up; as Naruto got to his feet, the thin blanket he'd been sleeping under fell off, and at the soft sound, the others in the room began to stir.

Stretching his arms, he silently walked to the window and pushed it open the rest of the way. They had spent the night at Tazuna's seaside house, and from the window, Naruto could see the waves jostling gently against the dock. And just barely, he could hear the sound of seagulls.

The first time he'd visited the sea on one of his missions several months back, he had been taken aback at the high-pitched wailing sound. It sounded nothing like the birds around Konoha, and even more startlingly, it was accompanied by the underlying deep crashing noise of the waves as they pounded down on shore. But he'd quickly come to enjoy it: despite the cacophony of each separate sound, together, they melded together and somehow soothed him. Being near the sea was an experience completely alien to Naruto, having grown up in a landlocked village like Konoha, but somehow, it felt familiar to him, as if he were meeting an old friend.