1K Celebration Story - Borusara

The Lemon and The Lamp Post

Interpreted in the style of a Grimm Bros fairy tale.

Like all good stories, this one begins with our main character, the sentient lemon. He started out as any other lemon, proud and bright and yellow, plucked from the tree, put in a box, and shipped to the local grocery store to be bought.

At first, he had been excited. A woman with short pink hair came along, examined him, and placed him in a brown grocery bag. When he arrived home, he sat proudly in the front of the fridge, right at the edge of the shelf. 

A young girl with short black hair and dark red glasses was the next to pick him up. Ah, he thought, I am finally being used! But when she placed the rest of the ingredients on the counter, he was knocked off. And he fell down, down into a divot in between the back of the fridge and the stove. 

He watched as the girl pushed up her glasses and squinted, searching the counter for what he presumed to be him. Here! I am here! But alas, he was never found. 

The girl procured another lemon from the fridge just as easily as she had him and used it instead. 

Drat, thought the lemon, now I shall remain here until I am old and moldy. 

And that, he did. He watched as the girl grew in both height and stature, and he shrunk enough to fall behind the fridge. And as he sat, he began to learn.  

The girl's name was Sarada. She had a father named Sasuke and a mother named Sakura. Her father, Sasuke, came home every now and again, and on those days, Sakura would cook until her feet were so sore, she could hardly stand. But on days that he wasn't present, Sarada did most of the cooking.

She had a friend, Cho-Cho, who sometimes knocked on the door, but rarely came in, and always seemed to be munching on something crunchy.  

There were times the girl sniffled from the couch, and after some time, the door opened, and a male whose voice was different than her father's would come in, and then she would fall silent, and they would disappear to a different part of the house. 

As time passed, this male, who the lemon learned was Boruto, began to show up more and more often, sometimes when the parents were home, sometimes when they were not. They often got snacks from the fridge together, cooked together, watched tv together, and overall, he seemed to brighten the girl's mood, provided they didn't get into a fight. 

There were other days where not a soul was home, and the lemon sat, relishing in the silence and the hum of the refrigerator's fan. 

One particular day, he began to feel strange small things, worming into his skin and attempting to eat his insides. Stop! Stop you foul creatures, thought the lemon, but alas, there was nothing he could do. In the back of the fridge he sat, maggots eating away at his body until he was misshapen and sad. 

On one particular day, Boruto and Sarada were making popcorn for their movie and came close to where he lay in the kitchen when Boruto sniffed.

"You know Sarada, every so often, I catch a whiff of something in this spot. It smells like..."

"Something rotting?" She finished for him. It seemed that she did that often. 

"Yeah," he said, eyeing the corner with a queer curiosity. 

"You should check it out," she said, padding closer on her bare feet. "Maybe something fell back there."

"Ew gross. If there is something back there, I don't want to know... And I don't want to touch it."

"You're such a baby," she laughed, and peered into the crack. "I think I see something... I'm going to move the fridge."

Here, the lemon called weakly, I am here... Please, put me out of my misery...