Nameless

Hikari Adams

Disclaimer: Me no own.

“It’s been like this from the start,” she whispered, spidery fingers toying with a leaf as she watched the group of teens move away from her, “I get pushed to the side and ignored by people who call themselves my friends. I just grew up too quickly, I think. Now they don’t know how to deal with me and I don’t know how to deal with them.”

He winced, but not from the pain of her own life. When he had found her sitting on the railing of the bridge, he had been curious. He had seen her before but never outside of a group. She had just looked interesting. He hadn’t been expecting her to give him that as a greeting.

Her words brought back less than pleasant thoughts.

He thought of a sunshine boy who was his only true brother, the same boy who had been abused and demeaned for years because of something beyond his control. He thought of the springtime girl he had treated so harshly, yet she had never stopped smiling at him and the others.

“I just want recognition for what I’ve done, you know?” she continued, almost as if she were ignoring him. She flicked her wrist and they both watched the leaf fall into the rushing river as she began to rock back and forth on the railing, “It’s because of me that my sister is braver. I’m the one who encouraged her when she was beaten. I’m the reason my cousin in the genius that he is. I was the one who broke the rules and taught him what they taught me.”

“No one knows,” he offered.

She laughed harshly, her lavender eyes full of ancient bitterness, “ I hate your brother. He’s the reason I’m never recognized. After what happened, they’re all too afraid to treat me like a prodigy. Now that they’ve seen what can go wrong, they don’t want to risk anything, the filthy cowards. All it takes is one spark to burn the world. That’s what he was, I think. He was the spark and your family fanned him to the point that all the city had to do was add the fuel and everything is dead now.”

“It can’t be that bad,” the words slipped over his tongue and past his traitorous lips before he could stop them.

How could he possibly know? He had always known was it was like to be the center of attention. Since childhood, he had been envied and admired. He had never suffered, never been the pariah. That was his life in the wake of the massacre.

Unlike her. She was the forgotten daughter of the winter twilight. He doubted anyone had ever really taken the time to listen to her, to hear her complaints.

She smiled ruefully, as if guessing his line of thought. It was a pretty smile, he thought. It brought attention to her eyes of lavender pearl, “It’s excruciating. To love and never be loved is a horrible fate. Sometimes I think hate would be easier.”

“Hatred is always easier,” he answered solemnly, cobalt eyes darkened by the memories, “But that’s the beauty of love. It’s messy and painful, but it still gives us a little light.”

She scoffed, “You did not just lecture me about love.”

“It wasn’t a lecture.”

She threw her head back and laughed the sound like pure tintinnabulation on the summer day, “I never knew you were a philosopher.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

Her grin turned playful, though he could see in her eyes that it was nothing more than a mask. She wrapped a strand of his midnight hair around her finger before tugging lightly, “You know nothing about me.”

She released his hair and spun around to leap off of the railing. Her feet narrowly missed him, but she landed silently on the bridge without causing injury. With one last look, she meandered off in the general direction of her home.

In her wake, she left a fuming Uchiha.

He knew nothing of her?

He knew she was broken hearted and alone, sick of the life she had been allotted. She carried on the strangest conversations in the entire town and she was quite discontent. Like the winds across the land, she was whimsical in her moods. She was young and jaded, wiser than any other. She was intuitive and restless. She was human, desiring nothing more than to be cherished and respected. He knew more about her than her own family.

Then he froze, standing tall and silent on the bridge. The wind tugged at his hair, wrapping the sable locks around tiny fingers just as she had done. He could describe her personality, her emotional state of being. He could carry on a rather bizarre conversation with her out of the blue. He could connect with her, but there was one vital thing so very wrong with the whole situation.

He didn’t know her name.

Short and random. This is about all I can do right now.

-Hikari Adams