Pack Rats and Garbage Heaps

Theme I: Impulse

It was just one of those days, he figured. Not the kind that made you want to do something, not the kind that was just shitty by nature, but the kind that had absolutely nothing remarkable about it. The weather could be sunshine and rainbows or five mph short of a hurricane and somehow, somehow, you would still describe it as mediocre. As the man lumbered down the street in a semi-casual almost-slouching manner, he wondered just where these days came from. Because besides being able to be completely forgettable, these also happened to be the days that he found himself the most restless. Or, restless in a sense that he figured it would be good for him to just leave the house out of boredom.

So that's how, on a day bordering between spring and summer, did he find himself walking through the pointlessly winding sidewalk of the city park. The oaks around him were tall and leafy, spreading splotches of shade on the evergreen grass spaces that were neatly trimmed. Far on one end of the park stood a playground in a pit made covered in woodchips and the shriek of laughing children penetrated the air, and by default his ears, even at his current distance. The entire thing was rather scenic, and he grimaced at the thought. He mildly thought if his companions saw him now, they would too.

In short, he did not fit his surroundings. Dressed in ratty dark denim jeans that appeared to have gone through a knife fight, a black muscle shirt, and black combat boots, he marched down the sidewalk and turned a few heads. His silver hair was long and slicked back with enough gel that he could be considered a greaser, even though the term had gone extinct a while back, and many of his tattoos sported crude terms or language that made many cringe. His black leather jacket was slung over one shoulder, two of his fingers hooked in its collar to keep it in place, and the other hand was shoved deep within his pant pockets, fingering the switch blade that he always carried on his person.

A few mothers noticed him and pulled their children in a subtle, but protective maneuver that placed them well out of his reach and out of his line of sight. He paid them little mind; things like that were common in places like this. At least when he was around. He snorted. His usual companion had it worse than he did.

As he walked through this unremarkable day, he spied something that wasn't entirely…normal. Naturally, seeing potential to make this day something of a day and less of a limbo, he gravitated towards a gathering of children. They paid him little heed, their little heads turning this way and that as their chubby fingers pointed out things that they found interesting. The two women that were watching the group of…say, twelve children were far too busy with their tasks to notice him. So he contented himself with leaning up against a tree and watching the small ameba of tiny bodies swivel in and out of an abstract shape. The women seemed frazzled, distracted even, as they tried to garner attention and conduct a game. He found it strange that such a gathering was occurring. School was out for the year and he didn't know of any local organizations that would prompt a field trip, so he wondered just who they were. Eventually, they got the children to settle down in a circle for a round of duck-duck-goose, but that wasn't what really held his attention anymore.

Instead, it was an even smaller group of children, four by the looks of it, hiding themselves beyond a cluster of bushes and the obstructing view of the only weeping willow in the park. He tilted his head at them curiously, their heads coming into view periodically like little specks of color amongst the green. He knew they were from the first group of people because, hey all the other kids were attacking the playground and the only other people around were him and an elderly couple napping on a bench. Napping or dead. He couldn't tell. But the fact remains that they obviously were a good distance away, and obviously didn't want to be seen. So, obviously, he made his way over to them in a languid fashion, making himself out to be a harmless passerby just out for a stroll. He pulled it off rather well and before he knew it, he was within earshot, but out of sight, of the children.

He didn't like what he was hearing.

"You're such a stupid girl!"

"Yeah, you can't do anything right!"

"I haven't done anything wrong!"

"Stupid!"

"What kind of freak has pink hair?"

"It's not my fault! I don't—"

"I bet your parents were freaks too. They probably had four arms—"

"And eight eyes!"

"Like a spider!"

The insults rose to a crescendo until they were nearly shrieking, three with glee, and the fourth with a pitiful mix of anger and sadness. The man wrinkled his nose. He wasn't one to bother other people's business, certainly not children's at that, but something made him move around so he could see the situation clearly. Call it impulse, he supposed.

The sight that greeted him had caused a severe case of déjà-vu. Under the mournful watch of the willow, three children had backed a fourth into the tree trunk, placed in a semi-circle around her. Two of the attackers were girls, and the third was a sniveling boy who looked mighty uncomfortable being there but was feeding off of the bullying and creating a false bravado that didn't suit him. The girl they were picking on, though, is what was really catching his attention. She stood rigid and firm, like a tiny ball of stress just ready to be released and zing all over a room, her tiny hands balled into fists, and a shock of bright pink hair shadowing her face. He didn't have to see it to know she was grinding her teeth, he'd done the same thing when people pissed him off as a kid.

The ring leader, a girl with long brown hair and a scowl set upon her features was standing with her hands on her hips, leaning forward to deliver a round of scathing remarks that stunned the man for a moment. Since when did children even know what a whore was? And since when did they have the maturity to properly deliver insults in the manner that they were? As far as he knew, that kind of verbal sparring was left to middle-school kids and up, not four to five year olds. He scowled in confusion and aggravation, personally thinking that back when he was a kid, he would've just popped the girl and knocked out a few teeth. But as angry as the pink haired child looked, he sincerely doubted that she would. Girls didn't really do that sort of thing. Just when he decided that he would go over there and scare some sense into the bullies, because honestly it was like a scene from his own childhood, they drew the final straw.

"Ha! I bet you're too weak to stand up for yourself. I bet that's why your mommy and daddy left you. They thought you were weak! The weak freak! That's why you didn't even have a na—"

WHAM!

The man was startled to find that, despite her small frame, the girl could pack quite a punch. The blow sounded like someone had just swung a board rather than a bony fist, and evidently the victim shared his thoughts. Or, at least the sentiment. The ring leader burst into tears, her cohorts suddenly very nervous in the face of the terror that lay before them. The pink haired girl was breathing heavily, her fist still clenched and white knuckled and her stance wide. Blazing green eyes were shadowed by the tree, and she looked all too ready for a fight. With a brazen stomp of her foot and a lung, she yelled at them. "Get!"

They fled easily, stumbling into one another as they hustled back to the relative safety of the supervising women, wailing like banshees all the way. The man let out a low whistle, causing the girl to whirl to him with a frightened intake of air. He studied her at a distance, from her boyishly cut hair, to the plain grey shirt and ragged jean shorts, to a pair of ratty tennis shoes that looked like they'd played the hand-me-down game far too long. She looked to him with startled, wide green eyes before turning at the sound of an angry call. "Koharu!"

The man watched passively from his spot a fair distance away as one of the two women stalked angrily up to the girl. "Koharu! What have I told you about hurting other people?"

"It wasn't my fault!"

"Not your fault? Then who hit Yui? Are you telling me that wasn't you?"

The girl was silent, giving a sound between a whimper and a grunt when the woman took her arm and began to half drag half lead the girl away. "We've talked about this Koharu, and it can't happen anymore!"

"She was calling me names! Why do I always get into trouble? She deserved it!"

"You can't just hit people when you're angry." Hidan snorted at that. Funny, whenever he'd tried it they never came back for more. The girl seemed to voice his opinions. "They told me I was a freak and that my parents didn't want me. Well maybe that's true but they didn't want her either and I bet it was because of her big. Fat. MOUTH!" At the end she pitched her voice so that her attacker could clearly hear every word she said, to which she responded with bursting into tears. The woman rounded on the little girl, harshly shaking her arm in a bruising grip as the other children were rounded up. The man watched this all with an air of apparent indifference. On the inside, though, he watched the girl with ever familiar eyes.

After a moment of contemplation, he followed them until he'd caught up with one of the women, the one that hadn't reprimanded the pink haired girl called Koharu. "Hey!" she turned to him after putting a child back on the ground from her hip. After her eyes had raked him from head to toe, she smiled a smile that he was used to seeing. Deceptively polite but inwardly saying that she really didn't want to talk to him. He wrinkled his nose at her but stifled the urge to bare his teeth. Instead, he asked a question. "You guy's some kind of an organization? It looks like a field trip but schools out."

The woman gave that same smile again, although a little more acrid at his brusque way of questioning. "Yes, we are an organization and this is a bit of a field trip. We're with the Konoha Orphanage, and I'm one of the supervisors." He stared after the retreating children in a new light before turning back to the woman who had changed her expression to match one of impatience thinly veiled by civility. He nodded his thanks and walked away, throwing one last glance at the pink haired girl and drifted into a contemplative silence.

Four days later he stood in front of a window, peering out at a small playground as a nice looking lady praised various children on their behavior, politely informing him on ones that his eyes lingered on a little too much. He thought it was a bit creepy and belatedly realized that she had sharp eyes, either that or she'd been doing this a little too long. The children were ignorant of his perusal and continued on with their small games during the recess they were granted. Upon entering the orphanage, he realized that it not only provided rooms and everything that was needed for a regular household, but it commanded a rather impressive number of classrooms, as cramped as they were, as well as a small area for recreational activities. It certainly was kept in good conditions, and the children looked happy, but his violet eyes still searched restlessly. After a while, he frowned.

"Were you looking for someone in particular, perhaps?" the old woman hedged cautiously, but not unkindly. He slanted a glance towards her, a little uncomfortable with her intense stare, and nodded. "I saw a field trip of a sort a few days back and saw some of the kids."

"Oh?" she looked surprised. "I didn't know someone had interacted with them."

"No," he said quickly. "I just watched." There was a bit of an awkward silence between the two of them as both wondered on what to say. The old woman out of social grace, and the man out of knowing that if he'd said anything about his lack of experience in children, she wouldn't take him too seriously. He internally winced at that too because he hadn't dressed up for the occasion. It had been impulsive to come here, just as it had impulsive to look up the address on the web the day before, and he was dressed like a city punk with a more dangerous edge. If it weren't for the fact that he'd managed to restrain himself to intelligent speech and absence of obscene language, he had a feeling they would politely ask him to leave. As it was, he was far out of his element and only his curiosity was driving him now. He just had a feeling he should see the girl for some reason.

"Well," the woman looked markedly confused. "Do you happen to have a description?" He pondered for a moment whether or not he should just leave, but then that nagging feeling came back and he surrendered to its powers. "Pink hair. The girl had pink hair. I think her name was—"

"Koharu," the woman finished flatly. The man looked cautiously for a moment while the woman mustered up the will to be polite and cheerful once again. "Ah, forgive me. Your…choice took me by surprise. Most of the potential parents," he shuddered at the word. "are a little taken aback by her rather…vivacious nature. I suppose that she would be noticeable. But if you want to see her," she drifted off, gesturing vaguely towards the classroom door. "Please," he said cordially. It almost sickened him at how polite he was being, but he supposed that swearing up a storm wouldn't go over well here. Truthfully, he didn't know why he cared.

The woman led him out of the classroom filled with small, midget sized desks and through a hallway. After a few turns and one door later, it opened up into a fair sized room. He slowed as he approached the doorway. The room that it opened to was what looked like to be the recreation room for some of the less energetic children. Blocks of all sizes, mathematical toys and puzzles littered the floor, thinking games lined the shelves, and hands on projects were sectioned off to a tiled area where paint, putty, and crayons would be an easily cleaned mess. A few women lingered around the walls, chatting as they kept watch out of the corners of their eyes. The children, fewer than there were outside, paid them little mind and went about their business with excited, though subdued, chatter.

The silver haired man was a little surprised to find the pink haired girl from yesterday curled up in one corner of the room, a book in one hand, and a pencil and notebook sitting on the floor next to her. Every once in a while, she would pause and jot down something on her notebook with a look of utter confusion or interest written across her face. "She's a bit of a loner," the old woman started, surprising the man with her loose slang term. "And slightly volatile, but extraordinarily intelligent. She spends most of her time working with puzzles or mind games, sometimes even going into the math section when it's quiet."

"What's she doing now?"

"I'm not too sure," the woman admitted, then turned towards him. "Would you like to find out?"

He gave her a baleful look. He'd asked the question because he wanted to know, but she'd phrased her answer in a way that clearly hinted he should go find out for himself. Letting out an inward sigh, he stepped into the room of children, trying to hide his discomfort as efficiently as possible. He wasn't used to seeing so many kids, and once they noticed him, all eyes turned to him while hushed whispered exploded all over the room. He resisted the urge to rub the back of his neck out of nervousness, but to his surprise the whispers disappeared nearly as quickly as they had come and the children went back to their business, albeit aware of his presence.

Koharu looked up almost as soon as he was next to her. "You're the man from before," she said simply as he sat down next to her, leaning his back against the wall like she was. Her eyes were curious and a little wary, and suddenly he understood why all the kids here seemed to have a little more knowledge to them. It's because there was nobody to coddle them quite like a parent could. He nodded and extended his hand. "I'm Hidan." Her little hand disappeared under his, but she put up a brave front. "I'm Koharu." For some reason, Hidan thought that the name didn't fit her at all. Looking down at her other hand, he noticed its immobile state and gestured towards it. "How's it feel?"

"O-okay," she said, fingering the bandage that had been wrapped firmly around her knuckles. He would say she looked a little bashful that he'd caught her in the act, but after she shot a scathing look into space, he figured she wasn't feeling particularly guilty about her actions. She shook herself out of it, though, and turned to him. "My thumb hurts though."

"Your thumb?" she nodded, looking down at her book. "Make a fist," he instructed. She did, and he laughed. She let the fist drop hastily, bending over her book with a red face as he chuckled. "Well no wonder it hurts! You're doing it the wrong way."

"Th-there's a right way?" Koharu hadn't really thought that there was a right or wrong way to hit someone. You just made them hurt, didn't you? He held out his own fist and made something that reminded Koharu of the rocks lining the playground. He pointed to his thumb as she stared. "See this? You have to put your thumb on the outside of your fingers, not the inside. You could break your thumb if you hit too hard the other way."

Koharu looked panicked and stared down at her hurting thumb. "It's not broken is it?"

"Chill, there's no way it could be." She relaxed instantly and a silence descended around them. Before it could get too awkward the man jumped for a topic. "What are you reading, anyway?"

"Oh, i-it's just something that I picked up." The man lifted it for second so he could read the cover and raised his eyebrow. "Pride and Prejudice? Isn't that a little advanced for you?" Isn't that little advanced for anybody nowadays? Just what the hell was a book like that doing in a place like this? "Well," she started shyly. "I don't really understand it. Mikasa-san let me borrow it because she finished it and told me I wouldn't but…"

"But," he prompted. She looked around, like she was scared of being overheard. When she thought she was safe, which the man found extremely amusing, she answered. "It's kind of the point." He blinked at her, perplexed. "To not understand?"

"Mm-hm," she nodded. "I can learn like this. See?" she pointed to the notebook and pencil between them and he found that it was covered in words. Most of them he understood, but there were a few that he had no clue what they meant, much less how they were pronounced. "I read, and when I find a word I don't get, I write it down. Then, I go to the dictionary," she pointed to a thick textbook a little ways a way. "And figure out what it means. I don't always remember the words I learn, but I do learn."

"That's pretty cool. Most kids your age wouldn't bother. Hell I wouldn't bother with that kind of stuff even now."

"Is it weird?"

"Nah," he shrugged, noticing her soft worried tone of voice. "It just means that you'll be smarter than everybody else, which is always a good thing." She grinned at that and the two began a conversation anew, chatting away as the other children realized that the man wasn't going to mingle like the usual adults would.

It was a long time before either of them moved, and when they did, it was for Koharu to show him how to properly operate a stencil. They crowded around a small table, his much large frame dwarfing hers as she explained that you could use stencils to make really cool shapes. He grinned as he watched her pick out a simple oval and looked at the table before them. It was littered with square paper full of singular shapes and he spied the oval on several pages. She came back with her stencil and a piece of paper and proceeded to trace and trace and trace until she had something that looked like an overly complicated flower. He smiled as she measured with her eyes the proper distance from the previous oval to the one she was making and thought that her particular eye for perfection was cute.

He ruffled her hair on impulse when she proudly showed him the completed shape and she beamed at him.

It continued like this for another hour. Her showing him her various favorite stations and places, and he patiently watching her do it. Or, really not patiently at all. Patience wasn't needed when she showed him because without fail, she would have come up with a different, more complicated way of using whatever tool was provided than what the instructions said to do. At one point, he found that she was a bit of a rule breaker too. When he informed her of that she responded with a prim, "Nobody ever learned from doing it right," and continued to use to use the ceramic bowl as a jackhammer to break apart a pair of especially stubborn plastic blocks. His roar of laughter turned a few heads and an amazed stare from one of the women, but he barely noticed.

It wasn't long before they migrated outside and she showed him her favorite place. He wasn't surprised when it wasn't anywhere near the playground, and instead thought it suited her very much to choose a place out of direct line of sight from the supervisors. He was understanding that she really didn't like being around the children here and instead chose places where she could slip away. But, as she tugged incessantly at his hand, he knew she was just starving for the right kind of company. He was strangely proud that he fit the criteria.

She led him up to a mighty tree and he watched as she transformed herself into a monkey and scurried up the trunk, using breaks in the bark as handholds until she reached a branch. "Come on Hidan-san! It's really cool up here!"

"Coming." With a powerful leap, his hands snagged the branch that she was sitting on and pulled himself up until he could shift his weight and instead push himself up. Twisting, he sat his butt on the tree limb and looked to her awed face and laughed. Lifting his hand upwards, he pitched his voice so it sounded unnecessarily heroic. "Onward, fair maiden!" She giggled and climbed higher, her bare feet gripping the bark expertly. He mildly thought that that must hurt, but figured that if she wasn't bothered by it then he shouldn't either. "This is my favorite place," she exclaimed, looking over her shoulder at him. He smiled. "Why's that?"

"It has the bestest view ever!"

"Best," he corrected automatically. "Best or very best."

"Not bestest?"

"Nope." She frowned at him. "I heard two older girls say it, though."

"Teenagers are stupid fu—heads." She blinked. "You were going to say something else."

"No I wasn't."

"Liar."

"Your right."

"So what were you going to say?"

"Well that's for me to know and for you to wonder about."

"I'll find out."

"You probably will."

"Then why hide it?"

"Because it's funny to see you angry." Koharu puffed out her cheeks in anger and instead resumed climbing the tree while Hidan laughed behind her. She was cute when she was angry, he realized. She settled herself in a branch and he did the same to one close to her. It was a bit of a tight fit, but he realized why she liked it up here. It was a safe haven, cozy and secluded. All around you were broad green leaves and the smell of fresh air was abundant. A small gap in the leaves revealed a rather spectacular view and the two of them put their heads together in order to see better. Just a little ways away was a nearby lake, complete with some swans. The lake was surrounded by trees but it opened up a little at the far end to reveal towering skyscrapers that marked the start of the more urban parts of the city. "Sometimes," she said softly. "When I come up here I dream I'm in one of those buildings."

"You like heights?"

"Yeah," she softly responded, nodding her head. "I've never seen the city, but I can see the lights when it's dark. I think it would be really pretty."

Hidan lived in a penthouse on top of one of those skyscrapers, the tallest actually, but he didn't say anything. He didn't know why. It was on impulse. Instead, he examined the girl. She was pretty small, but her spirit was kind of like a little sun. All bright and warm, but she had a kind of cool intelligence about her too that he thought was remarkable for someone her age. Still, something was nagging at him since he started to talk to her and he figured now was as good as ever to voice it. "Say, Koharu?"

"Yeah?" she moved back a ways to make room for both of them to sit. Once they were comfortable, he broached the topic.

"Back when I first saw you when you punched the girl, good one by the way, she said something that I don't quite understand." That was a lie. He understood, he just wanted clarification. "What, Hidan-san?"

"She said something about you not having a name."

It went eerily quiet and for a moment Hidan was smacking himself because well great he'd just gone and fucked things up. But then she came back from her faraway look and stared at him with eyes that were so sad they tugged on his thought-to-be-nonexistent heartstrings. "I don't really have one," she admitted quietly. "When mommy and daddy put me here when I was a baby, they didn't tell the ladies my name. The ladies never actually saw my parents though, so I guess they couldn't really." She began to pick at a leaf, breaking it into itty bitty pieces as Hidan watched. "All the other kids' parents didn't want them either, but at least they had names. I'm the only one who doesn't, so they just called me Koharu." She shrugged. "It's not a bad name, I guess. I just wish—"

"Sakura."

"Huh?"

Hidan studied her startled expression for a moment, wondering if maybe this wasn't a good idea. But then again, he thought it suited her better. It was prettier, and it matched her hair. "Sakura," he said again. "I think you should be called Sakura."

"Sakura?" She could tell she was a little confused, but she didn't outright reject it which was good. He shrugged. "I think it fits better than Koharu. It sounds better."

He waited for a moment, worried that he'd somehow just screwed everything up, but then she smiled a smile so bright that it lit up her entire face and eyes squinted, glittering like jewels behind the lids. "Sakura," she repeated a flush coming to her cheeks. "I like it better too." Maybe he was undermining the importance of giving someone a name, but it was like he said: it just fit better. And besides, it was on impulse and now that he'd said it he liked it. A lot. He grinned at her and affirmed. "Sakura."

A few minutes later, as Hidan was giving her a shoulder ride back to the orphanage, she slipped and called him Hida-kun instead of her usual Hidan-san. He didn't bother to correct her.

On his way out the door he informed the old lady that he would drop by tomorrow, and with a tight hug from the newly christened Sakura, he was out the door.

He did come back the next day. And the next, and the one after that, and even the one after that until his presence was commonplace. Sakura became happier and happier every time he came and he was becoming more comfortable around her. Comfortable enough that sometimes he'd forget he was with a little kid and start swearing. She would always laugh when he made her promise not to repeat any of his outbursts—it was like a running joke between the two of them.

It wasn't long until his housemates began to notice the change in their once brooding, angry, and explosive partner in crime, but they didn't really say anything.

One day, when he walked into the house he occasionally shared with those same come-and-go type of housemates, he went straight to the computer. One them was already using it, and while there was another computer, he just didn't feel like trudging upstairs. "Move, Deidara."

"Wow, not even a curse. What happened out there? Someone finally decided to use the fire hydrant to wash out your mouth?"

"Fucker."

"Aaand he's back." Hidan rolled his eyes, knowing that he must seems strangely subdued, but he figured it was just a byproduct of being with Sakura. "Just move, asshole."

"What's wrong with the computer upstairs?" Impatient, the silver haired man hauled the blond out of the seat and deposited him, rather unkindly, to the floor. He landed with a yelp and curse. "Dude! What the hell!"

"It'll just take a few fucking seconds," he responded loudly, suddenly realizing just how badly Sakura had him hooked. He couldn't even wait to boot up the other computer upstairs because he wanted the information now. He heard Deidara huff behind him but offer no more resistance. Distantly, he realized that the blond should have started a fight already, but for some reason hadn't. Whatever it was, he hoped it held because he was just about to drop a bomb. One that he was sure even the pyromaniac wouldn't appreciate. "What's so important, anyways?" Deidara complained, falling into a leather couch. Hidan's fingers were typing in the necessary words into a search engine as he answered. He hadn't meant to, but it was out of his mouth before he could stop to think about it. Impulse.

"Adoption fees."

Somewhere in the kitchen, he heard glass break.