Sir, This is a Bakery. Please Stop Crying. (Naruto)

ii. getting terrorised by a brat was not in the daily checklist.

     Konoha was gross.

     No, I was not whining simply because I was a child and children existed to be contrary. I was whining because Konoha, quite frankly, sucked. With the seven hundred chapters of Naruto wanting to become the very best--wait, that was not Naruto. The strongest ever? The, uh, the master of the elements? No, that was still wrong...

     Anyways, that was not the point. When it was Naruto struggling through the world of death and war and politics, it was entertaining. Oddly amusing. Recreational. When it was me getting shoved into that cutthroat world? 0/10. Would not recommend. I wanted my phone and comfy bed and less absurd career aspirations back. Could I make a living writing flowery, probably unconvincing Konohan propaganda in a foreign language that no one else in this world spoke? Was that an option? Was that a respectable option?

     My parents' blank stares made it clear that it was not. The same could be said about mister old man's muffled snickering and brat-Kakashi's confused head tilt. 

     "To have the opportunity to enter the Academy is a matter of pride, Futaba," Himiko, my unfortunate mother, said. "Because of Sakumo-san's recommendation, you've been given an opportunity most civilians never receive. You can't possibly be thinking of declining."

     So my parents, like mister old man, wanted me to fuck off into a warzone and come back in a body bag. They really sounded like they would be genuinely honoured if that happened.

     "But I don't want to."

     "You don't-"

     Father wisely cut mother off. "I'm sure it'll grow on you," he said. "It will be a wonderful learning experience."

     "Does my opinion even matter?"

      "No." Father looked despairingly at mother, but she wouldn't budge. "This is not the time for your petty tantrums, Futaba. You will be attending the Academy and that's that."

---

     It turned out to be even worse than I expected.

     There were expectations. Painfully many of them. Civilian children had to jump extra hurdles to meet the required Academy quotas of murderer etiquette. The days were long, the classes shockingly boring, the teachers downright awful. Not to mention the joke that was kunoichi classes.

     But. But none of those were the worst thing about this.

     The worst thing of all was the white-haired brat always, always, always sitting next to me.

     Every time I dozed off mid-lesson, the brat would rudely drag me back to awakeness with a jab in the ribs. It even became routine. My ribs were becoming sturdier by the day. I doubted this was a certified training method. Whenever I attempted to ditch the once-a-week flower arrangement classes (okay, I might have hated attending the Academy, but I was promised magic and weapons, not some flower code I could have memorised off any random book!), the brat would appear in true shinobi form out of thin air and drag me back.

     We weren't even in the same age group! Why was he flaunting his prodigal genius or whatever it was just to harass me?!

     And the icing on the cake was that, if I ever so much as thought about ditching the Academy, even if it was a fleeting thought that lasted no longer than 0.01 seconds, the brat would know.

     "Buzz off, I'm going, okay? I'll be there! Leave already!"

     "That's not very nice," father said, with no real weight, given the smile he was covering with his coffee cup.