Connection Between Puppets and Plants

Disclaimer : I do not own Naruto nor any of the characters in it. They belong to Masashi Kishimoto.

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~Haruka’s POV~

I had been going to Sasori’s house every day, and I had also got to know him better. But I never dared to go inside his room, since the puppets that he made always freaked me out. When Chiyo and Emmi left the two of us alone in the house, I just hung out at the living room while Sasori was inside his room. We only talked when we were having lunch and dinner together, which had been prepared by none other than Sasori’s grandmother.

Once again, my grandmother dropped me in Sasori’s house, but this time, I had to stay in his house until tomorrow. Emmi and Chiyo were going on a mission for 2 days, I had no other choice but to have a sleepover at Sasori’s resident.

“I’m sorry I have to leave you here for a while, Haruka-chan. I know it must be hard for you to not celebrate your 5th birthday with me.” Emmi said while patting my head.

“It’s okay, obaa-sama...” I sighed heavily.

“But maybe you could get Sasori to celebrate it with you! That would be fun, right?” she cheered me up, which only made me more depressed.

i]Yeah right, knowing him, he’ll probably treat it like other regular days...I thought, rolling my eyes.

My grandmother gave a knock on Chiyo’s front door as soon as we arrived there. Chiyo greeted me cheerfully, like always, and let us both went inside. It wasn’t long until she and my grandmother left the house. I sighed and took a seat on the couch.

After 10 minutes of rolling over and over on the couch, I decided to go upstairs to find Sasori. Who knows, maybe he was feeling as bored as I was!

I knocked on the door while calling out his name. “Sasori! It’s me! Can I come in?”

“No.” Came his stern reply.

I grunted and crossed my arms in front of my chest. “I’m gonna tell Chiyo baa-sama about this when she gets hooomee!” I threatened. I heard a cursing noise from inside the room before Sasori finally unlocked the door and let me in. He closed the door behind him and stared lazily at me.

“What do you want?” he asked, knowing that I would never go here unless I had something important to tell him, which was never important to him at all.

“Do you know my date of birth?” I asked cheerfully and he only shook his head uncaringly. “November 10th! You know what that means?” I asked again, hoping he would realize that today was my birthday.

“It makes me 2 days older than you.” He replied before proceeding on going back to his previous work. My eyes widened at this and I quickly ran up to him.

“Your birthday was 2 days ago???” I asked and he merely nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me? We could’ve celebrated it together!”

He put his screwdriver back on his desk and looked back at me. “Why should I? It’s not like it is important or anything...” he answered.

“Of course it is! Gosh, Sasori, why do you have to be so indifferent! C’mon, let’s go outside and buy a birthday cake for both of us!” I exclaimed while taking his arm in my hand.

“No.” He said and yanked his arm away from my grasp. “If you want to celebrate some stupid birthday with some stupid cake, go do it yourself. I’m not joining you.” He trailed off before heading back to work on his puppet.

I stuck your tongue out at him and walked out of his room. “Suit yourself then!” I said and slammed the door behind me. I quickly ran downstairs and picked up my tiny bag, taking out my money which had been given by my grandmother before she left me on her mission.

I’m gonna celebrate it myself, alright!I thought and quickly exited the house. Unknown to me, Sasori was looking toward where I was going from the window in his room. A smile was formed on his lips as he immediately thought of a brilliant idea to celebrate my birthday.

She’ll never going to suspect it.He thought to himself

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It was 6 pm already, and what made it worse was that it was raining outside in Sunagakure. I held the little box in my arms, protecting it from the rain, while attempting to run as fast as I can back into Sasori’s house. Despite the rain that was pouring heavily on me, I couldn’t help but to smile while holding the box tightly in my hands.

I finally arrived back at Sasori’s house, my clothes were dripping wet from the rain. I went inside to find all the lights in the room were off.

“Sasori! What happen with the lamps?” I yelled out, hoping that Sasori would hear me. I slowly walked in the darkness, trying to find a light switch to turn the lamp back on, but suddenly, I felt something cold was grabbing onto my right leg. I squealed in surprise and immediately jumped away from it.

“Sasori! This isn’t funny!” I yelled again, stomping my way toward the stairs. When I was walking upstairs, I heard a noise from behind me. I turned around and squinted my eyes a bit to get a better look at it. My eyes widened when I saw what it was.

A giant hairy monster!

“AAAAAA!” I screamed and ran upstairs in a speed of light. I stopped in front of Sasori’s room and tried to turn the knob, only to find it locked up.

“SASORI! SASORI OPEN THE DOOR! THERE’S A MONSTER IN THE HOUSE!!!” I screamed while banging on the door like there was no tomorrow. The monster abruptly appeared behind me, which made me scream my lungs out and ran back to the stairs. I couldn’t see things clearly because of the darkness, I just kept running until I arrived at the stairs. But when I was about to run down it, suddenly, I felt something heavy slammed against my back, which I assumed was the monster’s hands. I immediately lost my balance and fell down from the stairs. I screamed while closing my eyes, slowly losing my grip on the box in my arms, as my body finally made contact with the hard floor on the base of the stairs.

‘CRACK’

I felt an unbearable pain on your right leg; I couldn’t handle it, and automatically closed my eyes. Before I knew it, the darkness had consumed me, and I passed out immediately from the painful impact with my eyes hanging half open.

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~Sasori’s POV~

I was holding my laughter while hiding near the staircase. I was controlling the new puppet that I made to scare poor Haruka out of her mind. I heard her calling my names over and over in despair, it only made me laugh even harder than before.

She hasn’t seen the best part just yet! I thought as I was getting ready to surprise her again when she reached the staircase. I moved my fingers quickly, making the giant puppet shove Haruka hard on her back, which made her fall down the stairs with a thud. I laughed again before getting out from my hiding place to take a look at my terrified friend.

“You should’ve seen the look on your face!” I yelled from upstairs. “This is my surprise for your birthday party. Don’t you like it?” I teased her in between my laughter.

I stopped laughing when I heard no reply from Haruka. I expected her to be mad at me and started yelling at me in rage, but I didn’t even hear her move a bit.

“Haruka?” I called out her name while slowly walked downstairs. “You’re not that mad at me, are you?”

I switched on the lamp beside me and my eyes widened when I saw Haruka’s unconscious form was lying on the ground in front of me.

“HARUKA!” I screamed and quickly knelt down beside her. I carefully turned her body around so she was facing me right now. Her eyes were dull and half opened, tears were formed in the corner of her eyes, trickling down slowly on her pale cheeks. Her right leg was indeed broken; it went to the opposite way from where it should be facing.

“H-Haruka... I didn’t mean to... I’m so sorry!” I said, wiping the tears off her face. “Please wake up!”

I checked her pulse, and sighed in relief when I found that it was still beating. Without another thought, I quickly put her on my back and carried her out of the room. I used my chakra strings to help tightening my grip on her, as I began running to the nearest hospital. It was still raining outside, but not as heavy as before. The streets were empty, and the ground was muddy, making it harder for me to run swiftly on it, but that didn’t stop me from taking her to the hospital with me.

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As soon as I got there, I quickly ran inside and headed to the first nurse that I saw. She looked at both me and Haruka, and she looked terrified.

“There’s no time to explain! You’ve got to heal her!” I said while trying to hand Haruka to her. She nodded and carefully put Haruka down on the palanquin and took her into one of the patient rooms. I followed her from behind, but stopped when she told me to wait outside the room.

“I’ve told my friend to call the doctor here. Where are your parents, dear?” the nurse asked me as soon as she got out of the room.

“I... my grandmother is on a mission right now. She’s gonna come back tomorrow.” I explained, not wanting to tell her about my parents.

“Oh, very well then. You should go home and wait for my grandmother to come back. We will take good care of your friend here, no need to worry.” She said, giving me a comforting smile.

“But...” I was about to protest when the other nurse came back with a neat looking man, which I knew was the doctor. He went inside the room where Haruka was, along with the other nurses that were previously standing with me outside. I wanted to check how Haruka was doing, but I knew that I wasn’t allowed to. With a finale glance at the door, I sadly decided to walked back home.

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I arrived back in my house; my clothes were wet from the rain before. I dragged my feet lazily toward the stairs, but I stopped when I saw something lying on the ground next to the staircase.

I knelt down and examined it, realizing that it was indeed a small birthday cake. But it was splattered all over the ground, along with the candle on it. I spotted a little card not too far from it, and decided to read it.

Happy belated Birthday, Sasori!

Hope you’ll like the cake!

Love,

Haruka.

My eyes widened at this, but then I saw a tiny writing at the end of the note. I squinted my eyes to get a better view at it.

P. S. : Sorry if I was always soooo annoying to you... I just hope that you’d forgive me! And I hope we can be best friends forever!

I dropped the card from my hand as soon as I read the last sentence in the card. I wasn’t expecting her to give me a gift on her special day. I thought that she only cared about her birthday, but I realized that I was wrong. My arms fell limp on the each side of my body, as I stared down at the cake and card in regret.

She was planning to celebrate my birthday with her, but instead I scared her badly and ended up hurting her. What kind of friend am I? No, what kind of person am I?

I slowly picked up the card from the ground and put it in my pocket, before proceeding on cleaning the cake that was scattered on the floor. I would definitely find a way to make up for all of this.

Definitely.