Ayame Haruno (Naruto Various x OC)

Not Knowing

"Oi, squirt," I looked up from the paperwork I was currently doing. "Yes, Anko-sempai?" I asked, keeping my voice monotone and my expression carefully blank. 

"You can leave now, you know." She said, sitting down at my desk table and looking down at me with an unreadable expression. "The required time for you to be here is over for the day. You should head home and get some sleep." I looked back down at the pile of papers that littered my desk. 

"I'm going to finish this first," I replied. Anko sighed. 

"Kid, do you just not want to go home?" She questioned. Yes, I do not want to go home. Day by day that house is nothing more than a place where my parent's ghosts can haunt me. I don't want to go back there, I can never feel calm or peaceful when I'm there. I also know that the time when I have to tell Sakura is getting closer and closer. Lady Tsunade keeps bugging me about it too. Telling me that she can't keep lying about our parents being on different long-time missions to Sakura and that hiding the evidence it futile. It's been almost a year now, and the feeling is eating me away inside. She has to know. But I can't find a good time to tell her, she's already stressed and working hard as it is. I bit down at my lip and tried to focus. 

"No, I don't want to go home,"  I answered, hoping she'd leave me alone now. She didn't. She just stayed there, staring down at me silently. Anko is hardly ever silent. I try to ignore her and continue with my work. After a few minutes of silence, Anko speaks up again, but the words that leave her mouth made my blood run cold.

"Is it because of your parents?" I took a slow breath to stop myself from reaching for a kunai or glaring up at her. 

"And what made you come to that conclusion?" I asked, trying my absolute best to keep my voice from shaking or showing any emotion. 

"I saw their graves." She answered. I was quiet for a second before something clicked. "It was you," I said in a low tone. "You were the one who followed me that night."

"I wanted to see who you were always going there for...I'm sorry." For some reason, I couldn't hold my humorless chuckle. 

"Sorry for what? For following me or for seeing the graves of the people who birthed me?" I gazed up at her, something in me changing. I couldn't tell what it was, but I could tell something about me had just changed, or was changing with this conversation. 

"That, and the fact you lost your parents." I rolled my eyes at her as I sorted out the papers, shuffling them together. "Please Anko-sempai, they stopped being my parents a long time ago. They were Sakura's parents when they died, not mine." I couldn't read the look in her eyes completely, but I could see sadness and a hint of guilt. I chose not to comment on it. I picked up my papers and stood up, clearing my desk. I was going to leave but she spoke again. 

"If that's the case then why won't you tell Sakura." I breathed out slowly. I really had no reason to be angry, so I didn't know why I was. Maybe it was being she was being nosy, or because I could hear the concern in her voice. I didn't need people worrying about me, it only brought back unwanted memories. "If they were her parents, why do you care so much about telling her?" I turned back to glare at her. 

"Because she's my sister. I worry about her even if I don't want to. Her parents died, and I know what losing someone feels like. I'd like to prolong seeing that pain in her, and I wish I could just erase them from her memory so she wouldn't feel the pain." I seethed. 

"But you can't," She stood up and faced me, her expression blank. "You can't clear her memory of them. All you're doing is delaying the pain that is sure to come and it'll only get worse the longer you leave it." I bit my lips. "She's a Shinobi, Ayame. Everyone has to go through this pain sometime, you know that."