empathy (rewritten 2019)

春野サクラ

When she moved out, her parents liked to sit at home, setting the brewed tea on the table, smile, and pretend she was there--there, just younger, happier, full of laughter and smiles. Sakura never thought much of what her mother and father thought once she passed the Chunin Exams. As her team began leaving more and more often on far-away missions, all she was to her parents was a pink, tired blur, moving from the bathroom (to wash off the dirt and blood) to her room (to rest after long missions). She figured that living in an apartment closer to the gates instead of walking halfway across town after finishing her missions would suit her better, and so, after a brief dinner conversation, she gathered up her allowance and pay from her missions and moved out.

Three years after the Fourth War ended, and she still had a full closet, left untouched and forgotten, at her parents' home. She never found the time to revisit her old room and properly pack up; all she had at her new apartment were her uniforms and books. And all she had at home were her two parents, graying and tired.

But her parents paid no mind to it. They never did. If she would visit, they thought, she'd be the same as before; smiling, bright, laughing. If she came back, she would pick her stuff back up, kiss them on the forehead, and leave for another mission or to run more errands at the hospital. And she wrote letters every now and then, for it seemed better to write and receive it days later than to walk fifteen minutes. They'd write back, asking how she was, and she'd say she was fine, how she ate lunch with her friends, took a walk by the fields, completed another mission. After the Fourth War and she, among the volunteers, dusted up the ruins of Konoha, their letter-a-week schedule picked up without a hitch.

She sounded repetitive. I took a walk today and I helped Tsunade with another patient and I love you and Oh, I should go--but they were too idle to notice. When they wanted to, they thought, Sakura is strong. Followed by, she can handle her own problems.

They called her many things. Strong, amongst those, was thrown as carelessly as I love you's between strangers on a street--where it held old meaning, used to mean something, but was now only a word stretched and worn thin. They used to look at her, training for her tests, and worry, thinking she was far too weak to endure such a lifestyle. Now, with her out of the house, they'd think of her and shake it off, believing she was strong enough for it. Something, once she moved out, snapped within their minds. Her presence, gone, and they continued on.

But then, for one week, she dropped by. In the mornings, she would brew them coffee and bring them pastries from a bakery nearby. After her errands by the in the hospital, she would bring them the takoyaki from the evening market and help her mother cook lunch. And each night, she would kiss their foreheads goodbye, offer a smile, and leave.

"You should get a dog," she said on her sixth night. "to keep you company."

"But my dear, we have you," her father said, smiling. "and we have each other."

And that night, Sakura left, walking the moon-bathed streets slow and slower. But no matter how hard she thought, remembered and tried to breathe, she never haltered and she never changed her mind. Whether they were there or not, whether she saw them each week or wrote a letter, it still wouldn't change a thing.

So on the seventh morning, her parents woke and found, on their table, two cups of hot coffee, a basket of baked pastries, and a note. They didn't know then, until Tsunade came knocking on their door in the brisk cold air only days later, that the seventh was their last.