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Little Lily

"I promise to love her with all my fault."

"Good. Now, be a good brother...Kakashi..."

...---...

He couldn't remember what he was doing, where he was going, or why he was so far away.

But he remembered what he felt. What he saw.

What it meant.

He remembered her figure flashing before his eyes, blocking his sight. He remembered her holding his hand as they went through the market, searching for ripe tomatoes.

"If they're not mushy, then they're perfect!"

A smile graced his masked lips as a smile of her own crossed onto her face, and as fast as it came, the memory was gone.

He remembered frowning when he wondered why the memory came to mind.

He remembered the bright evening sky, turning orange as the sun set.

The news rolled down the street in a matter of seconds, and he came running back come.

But he was too late.

Fifteen days later, there was a funeral.

...---...

Their father fell into depression,

Subsiding under an endless ocean of regrets,

Guilt suffocating him,

With chains of sadness pulling him deeper.

And deeper.

During the time his kids were busy at school,

He was at the pharmacy,

Scheduling appointments,

Looking for therapists,

And buying pills--

Pills.

The day of his death, they found a bottle of pills in his hand,

Three days expired.

And she was only five years old.

She stood there, and she was wondering, when will he wake up?

She asked her brother where their father was, and he responded, he's with mommy.

That only made her wonder even more. But mommy's six feet under the green ground with all these other people that are under the ground. Daddy's in our house. How could he be there?

And her brother, at the age of nineteen, screamed at her to shut up because she was so naive.

Naive of the world.

Of sadness.

Of grief.

Of loss.

Of guilt.

Of pain.

Three hours after their father died, they stood outside the house,

Watching these tall men empty out their own house of furniture, books, items.

A man dumped Sakumo's drawer of drawings ok the ground,

And she screamed at him, Those are my dad's drawings! Don't ruin them, and don't take them! Or else my dad will come back to find that everything is gone!

At such a young age, she never understood why he sent her such a sad glance.

And so they stood in the pouring rain, with lighting trailing behind them,

With an empty home,

An empty heart,

A broken drawer of rain-soaked drawings,

Without a father.

"It's just you and me, Sayuri."