My Heart Yearns

(Sasuke)

Panic rushed through me. There were no lights on. No one was on the streets. I pushed myself forward, my footfalls echoing into the eerie silence. Not again! I skid to the left and I heaved open the large wooden doors in front of me.

I sprinted down the hallway, ignoring the rooms on my side which I knew were empty. I rushed to the weapons room and that's where it happened. All over again. The slash of blood and a scream that I vaguely recognized as my own. Another slash of crimson. The two bodies lay in a heap on the ground. I pulled my eyes up to look at him. The shadow of a person turned his head, showing his face.

Don't run! Stand your ground!

My body ignored my protests and bolted from the room. Tears filled my eyes and I screamed random words that crashed into my mind. Not that way! He'll be right there! The figure appeared in front of me and I screamed again, my throat becoming scratchy and dry.

Words escaped his mouth and I willed my hands to move, to cover my ears. Not again. My body ignored me and the words, so ingrained into my head, replayed like they had millions of times before.

"Foolish little brother, if you wish to kill me, hate me, detest me. And yet survive in an unsightly way. Run, run and cling to life."

Red splattered across my vision and I suddenly saw my parents' deaths another time. Over and over again, in the negative black and white from Itachi's Tsukunomi. My breaths came in small, gasping amounts. My heart hammered in my chest. Suddenly, a sharp stab occurred at my side…and everything became blank.

I jerked awake, gasping for oxygen. When my heart slowed its pounding in my chest, I began to interpret my surroundings. The room was dark with no windows. Across from the bed where I lay, stood a door which was open a crack. I bolted from the bed, ignoring the sweat that was across my brow. I slid behind the door and listened. No breathing. No chakra signature. I let out a small breath of air and moved from behind the door.

No one is there.I pulled a hand through my tangled hair and sighed. I can't believe it still affects me as much as it did the first time. I become trapped in it, unable to inflict my will. Aren't I suppposed to be able to control my own dreams?

It was like each time I had these dreams—no, not dreams. Nightmares. Each time I had these nightmares they were to remind me. Don't forget,I could hear his apathetic voice. Your purpose is to kill me.

A chill went up my spine and the hairs on my neck sprang up. I-I. I paused, taking a deep breath. I'm being ridiculous. I need to focus. I looked to the slightly open door. I need to train. I pushed the door open with a shove, forgetting the sweat that still lingerd on my forehead and the ice sharp pain in my chest.

I do hate you, I detest you...and I will kill you.

---

(Tenten)

I tried to drone out the sound of pedestrians' voices. They openly spoke of me as if I couldn't hear them. I'm orphaned not deaf, you imbosiles. I also tried to not fidget around so many people. Usually I'd lock myself up in my room or stay toward the training grounds during the daylight hours. During the night, there were far less people—meaning far less talk. A person bumped into my side and my eyes narrowed, right hand hovering toward my weapon pouch. I scanned the crowd and found him. Just a normal middle aged man, not even a shinobi.

I scoffed at myself and began walking again. Settle down, Ten. They're not trying to kill you. Yeah, but someone is. People are always trying to kill people. People always hurt people. Whether or not they act upon that impulse, or hide it beneath their guises—it's there. People are fake. They do and say what will benefit them at the time. When it is in their interest to be your friend, they'll be your best friend. When it is no longer in their interest, you'll be dropped to the curb.

That's what 'friendship' is.

"Tenten!" My muscles tightened at the sound of my name. I swirved around to see Naruto pushing his way through the mass of seemingly endless people. His bright blond hair made him a dead give away. Not something a shinobi would want. He reached me and grinned widely. "I've been looking for you."

Really? I thought you were just yelling my name for kicks. Instead I decided on saying,"Oh?"

"Yeah, I wanted to get ramen…but I don't like going alone and I was thinkg hey! Tenten would be…" And like that I droned out the rest of his endless rambling. I took a small step backward. I wouldn't admit it, but Naruto made me jumpy. His hair had grown out and his cheeks pulled in, going from childish and chubby to manly and lean. His eyes were just as blue and his hair just as blond, but just the differences in his face scared me.

He was becoming a man…and it scared me.

I let him drag me to his favorite ramen bar, but my muscles were tight and the movement was awkward. I couldn't help but feel like the Sasuke replacement. I mean, didn't he used to drag him to this same ramen shop? Naruto must have seen the look on my face and his mood dropped. He suddenly became serious and I saw pity in his eyes. Pity! I scoffed. But not at him—at me. I was embarrassed of myself. Of what I was becoming.

So I smiled my old goofy grin at him. "Yeesh, I haven't had ramen in such a long time! How long has is been?"

"Mmm, for me? About a day." I laughed and broke apart my chopsticks with enthusiasm.

"Well, not for me. I'm excited," I said and looked up to the man who ran the shop. "Hey, old man, is your cooking still as good?" He laughed, rumbling low from his belly. It was kind of nice…seeing someone laugh so light heartedly.

"I'll let you be the judge of that." I laughed, too. I just hoped it didn't look forced. Because it was. I took a tentative chopstick fool and made a face. The man at the counter's face became still and uncertainty flashed across his face. I laughed.

"Just kidding! It's still really good." Naruto smiled hugely and gave me a thumbs up. He looked happy to have me back to normal. Not that we had been really close before, but he seemed to remember me as the always happy and positive one. Which, don't get me wrong, I most definitely was. Nothing could bring me down. No force pushing against me would ever win. Because that force may have pure talent, but I had sheer willpower.

Where had all my determination gone? When had I become so depressing? Huh, maybe when your whole family was murdered in front of your very eyes? I bit my lip and looked guiltily down at my bowl. But when had I become so bitterly sarcastic? To the point it hurt?

"Tenten," Naruto's voice called and I blinked out of my thoughts.

"Hmm?"

"You going to finish that? Because it's getting cold."

"Naruto! Stop eating so much! I need food too!" I yelled and he rubbed his neck sheepishly.

"Hey, I was just asking."

"Nuh-uh, you were going to take it!"

"Only if you didn't respond," he admited.

"You can have it," I gave in. "I'm not that hungry."

"No," he shook his head. "You need your food."

"No, I d—"

"If you don't eat it, it will just prove you are on a diet…just like Sakura and Ino all the time." I scoffed.

"Fine, I'll eat it."

"Fine."

"Fine."

"You make it sound like eating it's so terrible!" The ramen man roared with a laugh.

---

(Hana)

Today's dilemma: shopping. Yes, shopping was a totally regular thing for a house wife to do. You go to the store and pick up items that are on your list, usually spending twice as much as budgeted and buying tons of stuff you have no real purpose for. That all is true. But there is also another side of shopping I had never known of before. If only someone had warned me.

I began the day by looking at myself in the mirror. Okay, Hana. This is it. Your first official day of being a house wife. I pulled on a pair of dark caprees and a baby blue top. I groaned when I looked in the mirror. I don't look like one. That started my day of tearing my room apart. Finally, I found a light green and white dress and pulled it on. Perfect. It had a spin affect at the bottom of the skirt and went to my knees. It was a plain square neck with the light green fabric shaped in the form of a tank top. The white went past it and ended at my elbows.

I looked at myself in the mirror and nodded in approval, giving myself a thumbs up. Then I noticed it reminded me of Might Gai and grimaced, pushing my hand down to my side. Next I pulled my hair into a bun. There was a small lump on the right, making it so it was uneven. I yanked it viciously from the ribbon and started again, pulling my hair roughly with the comb.

"Why won't it just work with me?" I whined. "Come on, hair! Why do you hate me?" When it was finally perfect I sighed contently and left the room. Of course, not before gravity decided to remind me that I was a klutz. I skipped forward and tripped over a pile of clothes that I had previously dumped on the ground in my fit to find the right outfit. I put a foot forward and caught on a silky blouse. I skidded forward, losing traction with the floor. I skidded a few feet, flailing my arms in the air with my other leg pulled up.

I slammed into the dresser and smashed my hip into the sharp corner. "Sheeghhkkkk!" I screamed, reverting to gibberish rather than cursing. I put my hands down on the dresser beside me and knocked off a vase. I piveted to grab it before it hit the ground, but sadly, the blouse was still under my foot and I slipped backward. The vase crashed to the floor in front of me and shattered. The blouse was now wrapped around my foot and I brought my foot up closer to my face so I could detangle it. While I was doing that, gravity laughed in my face again and I tumbled forward. Right onto the shattered remains of the vase.

Luckily, the foot wrapped up in the blouse came crasing down onto the vase shards and none of them pierced my foot. I could only imagine what gravity could have sprung on me with that opportunity. Attempting to not hummiliate myself more, even thought no one had really seen how clumsy I had been in the room, I walked out of the room carefully. I walked into the living room and saw Kakashi pulling on his Jonin vest.

"Kakashi!" I called and he looked up from his vest zipper to my face. A smile formed on his face with that familiar krinkle of the mask. "Thank Kami you're still here!" I grabbed onto him. "Will you please help me get this off of my foot? Please?" Kakashi loooked down and laughed. I turned a dark shade of pink as he made me sit down on the couch and put my foot up into the air. He got it off easily and continued chuckling. I huffed and scoffed off to the kitchen.

There I found my shoes oddly—oddly for me oddly—in the fridge. Obviously I hadn't just kicked them off in there. But there they lay, on the door where the eggs usually were. I didn't even sleep walk so—wait! I guess I could sleep walk. I really didn't know. It's not like any normal person would know because they're asleep. But I felt like I would at least have a feeling in my gut that said I sleep walk.

I spun around to see Kakashi and smiled, forgetting about pouting and pulled him into a hug. Well, obviously he was like twice my size. He stood at nearly six feet and I stood a little over five feet. Pretty much a foot difference right there. So it was more like me latching around him and him putting his face down to my head, smelling my hair. The tickle of air movement above my head made me smile and burry my face into his shoulder, smelling his sweet Kakashi smell.

"I'm surprised I'm not super hung over, given how much I drank yesterday," I admitted to Kakashi's shoulder. He laughed and his chest rumbled. Happiness clenched at my heart at the feel of his laugh against me.

"Well…"

"Well, what?" I said putting my hand up to twirl some of his hair between my fingers.

"A few sips after you got the bottle of champagne, I dumped it out onto a random plant. No one needed you tumbling around and blurting out things you wouldn't remember—I know you can't hold your alocohol."

"I don't have zero alcohol tolerance! I can't believe you did that," I pouted, pulling away. Of course when Kakashi gave me that look, I couldn't stifle a giggle and a smile crawled its way back onto my face. "Stop giving me that look."

"Hnn?"

"You know I can't fight that look. Stop. Stop it," I pulled my hands over my eyes, as if shielding my eyes from his look.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Kakashi Hatake, I swear, if you don't stop right now."

"Then what?" His breath tickled my ear and I peaked through my fingers, stifling a loud EEK!

"Then…then I'll force you to stay home."

"Hmm."

"And I'll lock you in the room."

"That really doesn't sound so bad actually," he commented. I groaned.

"All by yourself."

"Now that's no fun."

"Kakashi!"

"Yes, Mrs. Hatake?"

"Ugh!"

"Mrs. Hatake, is something wrong?"

"Yes."

"Is there a way I can help?" he mocked concern.

"Yes, it's my husband. He's a down right sarcastic jerk. Always hurting my feelings."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Would you like me to teach him a lesson?"

"Yes!"

"Hmm…too bad." And like that, his masked lips touched my own. I giggled and pulled down his mask, eager to touch his real lips. He tasted sweet and I idly wondered what he ate for breakfast. Pancakes? Waffles? Then I realized it really didn't matter.

"I've got to go," he said against my lips and I sighed, warm breath fluttering on my face and butterflies flittering in my tummy.

"Yeah…" I agreed.

"I've got my team waiting for me…"

"Yeah…" I breathed out. We both just stood there in silence, holding on to eachother for a long moment. Birds chirped in the distance, and I vaguely heard some kind of grating sound, like our neighbors had finally decided we weren't the only ones who could be crazy. After the long silence, Kakashi finally spoke.

"Oh heck, I'm always late anyways."

When Kakashi left I looked in the mirror again. Ack! And I started my hair all over again—this time not in the room. I finally finished and pulled my purse over my shoulder, locking the front door behind me. I breathed in the smell of peace and adjusted the purse strap on my shoulder. See? It's nice out. Peaceful and quiet. It's kind of nice, just doing trivial errands.

I had gone shopping before obviously, but I had never gone shopping officially married before. I stopped in front of a large, reknown grocery store. It was known as one of those large stores that everyone shopped at. I had never been inside and I looked apprehensively at the large glass, sliding doors. I gulped and looked around. Only one exit. Only one set of sliding doors to escape from. I tisked myself and rolled my eyes. It's just a grocery store! Yikes! Grow a back bone!

Hah. If only someone had warned me.

I went through the sliding doors and pulled a shopping cart from the rows of different sizes. Small, medium, or large? I decided on medium. Can't go wrong with a median. I pulled the banana sticky note from my pocket and looked at my list. Milk. Ramen was written down five times, the sloppy handwriting making it hardly legible. Eggs. Bananas was written in Kakashi's neat but to the point hand writing. It was scratched out with Naruto's handwriting saying, Just kidding! We already have one right here!

I burst out laughing. Only my family! When I controlled myself I looked around me and noticed several middle aged women eyeing me oddly. Great, I've been here five minutes and I already don't fit in. I brushed it off and went to go find milk. There was Whole Milk, Skim Milk, One Percent Milk, and Two Percent Milk. I eyed them all. Well, whole was the cheapest…and they all looked the same…I grabbed the red labeled milk and put it in my cart. I heard a scoff near me and looked up to see a brunette woman with a scowl on her face, she motioned toward me to another woman near her.

"Look at her, getting whole milk. So unhealthy for the children. She's a terrible mother." I looked back down at the plastic thing of milk in my cart. Was there really that much of a difference? I met the eyes of the brunette woman and scoffed back at her, raising my head and not exchanging my regular milk for her "healthy" milk. Milk was milk.

I found the ramen quickly, grabbing packages of Instaramen and putting them in the cart. I noticed two different women pointing at me and whispering. Do these people shop in pairs? What is this? Why did no one tell me? I bit my lip and turned around, going to another aisle. I met the same tricky decision with the eggs. There were several different kinds so I grabbed the first one I saw, placing it in my cart gently. No one wanted any scrambled eggs in my cart. I giggled at my own joke and went searching for bananas. I didn't care if it had been scratched out, I was going to get them anyways. I found bananas stacked on a shelf. I grabbed a batch of yellow ones and went to set them in my cart.

"Ew, that's so unsanitary."

"And she doesn't even weigh them. So inconsiderate." I tried to ingore them, secretly seething. They're so stupid! Ugh! I just want to beat some sense into them! I practically dragged my cart to the check out line. When I got there, I placed my items on the register belt and pushed the cart out in front of me for the cashier to be able to pack them into the cart. Not that I had very many. I heard another snotty snort behind me and stifled the urge to grab a near by candy bar and beat the woman to death with it.

Yes, that's a nice mental image. I sighed and rubbed my temples. Smack. Smack. Pelt. I imagined the womans screaming apologies. I couldn't, however, ignore her snide comment. "She's not even considerate enough to put down a divider. How rude." The woman's voice was pinchy and she let out of an exagerated breath, showing her displeasure.

Oh, I'll show you displeasure!

"Do you have any reusable bags, ma'am?" The cashier asked me and my attention went to him. It was innocent enough of a question…but recyclable bags? Who uses those?

"No, the plastic bags are fine," I told him uncertainly. Luckily, the boy didn't complain and hurridly put the groceries into the bag and into the cart.

"She's so not economical. You know how many ecosystems she could have just destroyed with that plastic bag?" Another snide comment, a different woman. What is wrong with these women? I bit my lip and my fists clenched at my sides. Don't kill them, don't kill them. Just ignore them.

"Your total is nine dollars and thirty-nine cents," the cashier announced. I pulled out my wallet from my purse and handed him a ten dollar bill. Simple. Painless. And there's absolutely nothing they can accuse me of by using a bill. Nothing. Hah!

"Look at her. Just imagine how many trees she killed to get that ten dollar bill. She could have destroyed a whole rain forrest." That was it. That was the last straw! I slowly turned to the two women behind me and sent glaring daggers at them.

"Killed a tree, did I?" I asked them. The cashier gave me my receipt and change and I thrust the change into my pocket, waving the receipt out in front of me. I wripped it in half. "Oh, did I just waste another?" I wripped the halfs into half. "Oh, did I do it again?" Another wrip. "My bad." Wrip. "So sorry." I wripped it one last time and threw the pieces at them.

I breathed in quickly, still infuriated with the stupid women in front of me. I looked around and grabbed a box of tissues that were next to the register. "Do these come from trees too?" I asked innocently before throwing the box at the ground so hard that it broke and crushed. "Is this wasting trees too?" I stomped on it and rolled my foot on it. I ignored the cashier who was standing still in shock. "What about this candy wrapper? Is it made out of trees?" I honestly didn't know and wanted to know, but they didn't answer. That just made me more furious. I crushed the candy bar with my hands and then threw it at the women. The women squealed and ducked out of the way. They weren't trained shinobi, though, so the candy bar it it's mark. "Oh, I'm so sorry! It just slipped right out of my hands!"

I looked around and saw packs of cards on a display. I grabbed them and started deftly shooting them at the women like they were shurikens. They ducked behind their cart for protection. Cowards! I grabbed a box of toothpicks and started pelting them like ninja needles. "Dodge this!" I screamed before shooting them.

"You're crazy!" One lady screamed, hiding behind another display. I formed hand seals and blew out a wind jutsu from my mouth. It sent the items on displaying crashing to the ground and the woman.

"Oh, is this wasteful too? Or unhealthy? Or unsanitary?" The two women went screaming from the store. I huffed deep breaths, trying to calm down my rage. I looked over at the cashier who stood numbly with wide eyes. I took a deep breath, closing my eyes, and calming my muscles.

All over. Just settle down. You can leave now. I opened my eyes and looked at the disaster I had created. Toothpicks were sticking halfway in various walls and products. Chocolate had spread itself across the ceiling and was dripping to the floor. Not sure how chocolate can drip, I mused. I turned my back to the distruction and faced the employee who was still cowaring away from me even though he was a good eighteen years old and at least eight inches taller than me.

"Just ring me up for all the groceries I destroyed," I sighed. Clicks and beeps came rushing from the cash register at a surprisingly fast rate. Woah, did he actually count?

"Five hundred dollars and seventy-nine cents." You have got to be kidding me! I grumbled and complained under my breath but pulled my wallet out.

"I'm going to have to put it on my credit card," I told him, sliding it in the electronic box and waiting for it to say proccessing, please wait.

"I'm going to have to get my manager to put through a transaction this big."

I sighed, glaring at the doors the two women had exited through.

I hate shopping.