Twisted

Promises in The Front Yard

Sarada wasn't sure about any of this anymore. The grass and the sky and the clouds wouldn't cry if she looked at them, but if Boruto kept looking at her, he might decide to strand her in a desert.

She thought, for a moment, when she looked into his eyes and he was...smiling...that maybe she wasn't cursed. But just then, when she'd looked at him, his eyebrows twitched upwards. She knew that was the first indication that someone was sad. After she learned that she was cursed, she studied sadness as much as she could, trying to prevent it.

She knew smiles were the opposite of sadness, so she tried to smile at Tsunade, but she was scolded for it and Tsunade left. Sarada pressed her ear to the door and all she heard was sniffling and soft crying. And she knew she messed up.

There was another time when she tried to just glance at her face, just to be reminded of what it looked like. She wanted to know what color her eyes were because she was drawing a picture of them together, and wanted it to be a surprise. She thought maybe their eyes wouldn't meet, and everything would be okay. But in that moment, Tsunade glanced at her, and she was scolded again. Sarada didn't end up finishing that picture, because too many of her own tears dripped on it and made the paints bleed and run into each other.

She didn't want to make anyone cry. And so she just stopped looking. She was content with the sight of her bare feet when Tsunade entered the room. She didn't ask for hugs or bedtime stories, because she knew Tsunade wasn't her mother, and her own mother wouldn't have given her those things either.

Tsunade still ate meals with her, helped her brush through her hair if it was matted, cut it when it got too long, brought her nice presents and gave her books to help her learn skills like cooking and knitting to pass the time. But after a while of being around her, Sarada's neck started to ache from looking down. Her heart would sink with sadness because she just wanted to know what a kind gaze was, what a gentle smile was, what it meant for someone's eyes to light up like she'd read in so many of her story books. But even when she thought that Tsunade was making those expressions... She couldn't bring herself to look.

She'd given up on ever seeing any of those things until the minute she looked into that stupid pervert's eyes and saw him smiling. She thought that maybe, just maybe, he was too stupid to be sad. Or perhaps he didn't know what sadness was.

But when she saw the crinkle in his eyebrows, she knew. Her curse worked on him just the same as it did everyone else. If he hadn't cried before, he was about to learn exactly what crying was. And it was only a matter of time.

She'd gotten enough from him. The pleasure of seeing the sky and how wide it was, the smell of the grass and the dirt. The rush of embarrassment at being complimented. The warmth of the sun, and the chill crispness of a summer breeze enveloping her instead of just passing as a gentle draft through the open window. Laughter, no matter how subtle it was.

And she was grateful.

But now that her hand was in his and she was walking away from her tower... Now that he promised not to look at her... Sarada began to feel something dangerous that she usually didn't allow herself to feel: hope.

If she could just keep their relationship the way it was, if she could just avoid letting him see her eyes, he would show her anything she wanted to see.

She couldn't curl her fingers around his palm, but she also couldn't let it go. So she left her hand like that, limp, tears stinging the edges of her eyes as she realized... This wasn't just some fantasy.

She looked through the cracks of her hair at his back. Felt the soft grass and earth under her bare feet. And when she turned her head to the side, she noticed the cherry blossom tree she'd always stared at from afar.