Chapter Five

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A small figure of blue darted in through the sliver of an opening in the door. Fear erupted on her face as she glanced at the building she happened to find herself in, only to slowly tiptoe over to the back where she sat down looking as though she had broken in. Even though the sign on the door clearly announced that the store was open. In fact, there was already another customer enjoying his hotcakes and tea, not that anyone could tell as his mask prevented any onlookers.

"Hello, do you want to order anything?" Yasuko asked, his notebook in hand and customer smile on his face.

"Uhm... can I h-have what that man is having, p-please?" she said with a red face, avoiding eye contact with Yasuko.

"Of course! Our hotcakes are very popular in the morning, what toppings do you want?" Yasuko questioned, writing down the order on the notebook.

"Er..." she mumbled, poking her fingers together.

"There's fruits, whipped cream, chocolate sauce and syrup," he said.

"F-fruit, please," the young girl said, her eyes becoming wet.

"Hey, hey. What's wrong?" Yasuko asked as he bent down to the girl's height.

"I don't w-want to make the wrong choice," she said, tears dripping from her eyes. "I'm sorry!"

Yasuko patted the young girl's blueish hair, her lilac eyes were filled with tears that she attempted to withhold. "There's no wrong choices, only what you want. So don't worry, just pick what you think will be the most delicious for you!"

"But... what if I don't know what will b-be most delicious for me...?" she asked, her eyes looking into Yasuko's with tears that gathered and doubt of herself.

"Well, if you make a wrong choice then you just have to fix the choice you made, okay? Don't worry too much about it," Yasuko chuckled, ruffling her hair, "You shouldn't doubt yourself so much."

Those words reduced the young girl to sobs and whimpers as she curled into herself as though she wanted to disappear from this world. It was heartbreaking. Such a young child who was too scared of doing anything wrong, too scared not to be perfect. His kaachan had always told him that it's harder to start or do something if you expect it to be perfect, to always look for improvement or experience rather than perfect. Perfection didn't exist she said.

"I... want everything to b-be perfect," she sobbed rubbing at her eyes.

"Hey, let's go for a walk and calm down, okay?" Yasuko said, looking at the consumers who's meals were disturbed by the scene.

"Okay..."

Yasuko quickly popped into the kitchen to tell his kaachan about the new development before guiding the young child to the village training grounds, away from the busy village that would become a nuisance. One of the training grounds was always empty compared to the others, Yasuko knew as he would sometimes frequent it as he trained in secret. It's for self defense he told himself, not because I want to pretend that I'd become a ninja like touchan. He really didn't want to, it was just the only memories he had of his father.

"So, why don't you tell me what's wrong? Talking about it might help," Yasuko said soothingly while they slowly walked around the training ground area.

"I always mess everything up!" she said, her voice stumbling over words like someone who never spoke, "Otou-sama always g-gets upset at me because I c-can't get the... clan techniques right... I always mess everything up..."

"You're a kid, kid's mess up. Nothing will ever be perfect," Yasuko cooed, "my kaachan always said that if you aim for perfection, you'll be stuck like a high brick wall that no one can climb because it doesn't exist, or you'll be stuck even before you get to the brick wall because people give up so they won't have to deal with failure. Everyone is different which means people can never achieve being perfect, otherwise everyone would be the exact same! That's why as long as you try your hardest and be yourself, that should be close enough to perfect."

"You're so nice... thank you.. That makes se- .. sense," she sniffled, wiping away at her tears. "I'll practice hard e-everyday on the t-techniques and make sure I can d-do them really g-good!"

"That's the spirit. I would offer to help but I'm not a ninja nor part of your clan so I would not be of any help. Good luck!" Yasuko said, patting the girl's soft hair that got ruined from her crying fit.

Her face flushed a deep red as though she had only realized what she had done, "i-i'm so sorry, I shouldn't h-have cried.... I shouldn't have cried like that in front o-of a stranger."

The young girl gave a deep bow before rushing off, now allowing Yasuko to get any words out. He mused to himself about the odd encounter with the young girl, he hadn't got her name nor what clan she was in. Not that it mattered, he was glad he was able to help her but in the end, Yasuko did not want one more kid added to his plate.

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