Disclaimer: Don't own anything.

Author's Note: Two days left of school and then I am officially a senior. I kind of don't want this year to end. Being a senior sounds like so much responsibility and I don't want it. I like my life as it is now.

I saw X-Men First Class twice this weekend and I plan to go at least once more. I absolutely loved that movie, particularly how they did Magneto's powers and the fact that Azazel was in there. I won't say anymore in case I accidentally spoil something. I also saw Green Lantern, which was awesome-Ryan Reynolds. Need I say more?-but I think I liked X-Men more. Maybe it's just because I'm more of a Marvel girl than DC.

Happy graduation to everyone who did graduate this year. I had several friends who did and I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad for them. A mix of both really. In any case, the words in bold aren't mine. I found them in an Assassin's Creed fic that I can't remember now.

-/-/-/-

Life is easier than you'd think; all that is necessary is to accept the impossible, do without the indispensable, and bear the intolerable. ~Kathleen Norris

-/-/-

Why? To be. To dance between the raindrops.

It was as they were finishing training that the drops began to fall. Neji and Lee both began to retreat beneath one of the large trees that they constantly used for cover when the threat—or promise, as it was in Konoha—of a downpour was imminent.

But then, Tenten looked back at them, her lips tilted into a smile. "Come on, guys. Let's head home."

"It's raining." Neji pointed out.

"So? It's water. It won't kill you. Beside, today was hot and we could do with a cool-off."

She was right, they both knew it. And the rain did look inviting, particularly with Tenten smiling, already halfway to being drenched and her hair coming apart from its usual buns.

Lee was the first to take the steps out. "I shall race you home, Tenten!"

She grinned. "You're on. Neji?"

He just shook his head and said, "I'll meet you there."

It had been a long time since he'd walked in the rain and he wanted to enjoy it.

To eat a strawberry.

It's rarely peaceful these days. The time of summer days being filled with melting ice pops and rain showers are but distant, fond memories. These days, her mind tended to be full of patients and wounds and mustheal and can'tletthemdienomatterwhat.

Except when she's here. Here, she's curled up on an old, squishy couch beside her father, a bowl of strawberries between them as they watched their favorite late-night show. It's a peace she'd forgotten.

So when her father turned to her in a moment of silence and he asked her, "Is something wrong? You're awfully quiet."

Rin could only reply, "Nothing's wrong. Nothing at all."

To feel.

He didn't know what he was looking at. Or rather, he knew logically, but he didn't know why his parents were so proud.

The baby was very pink with pale blue eyes that were slowly darkening to the familiar dark eyes of his parents. Shisui was right beside him, standing on a chair and peering into the cradle.

"Kinda…small, isn't he?" Shisui said.

"I guess. Are babies supposed to be this small?"

Shisui shrugged. "I dunno. Oh, no, he looks like he's gonna cry."

But the baby didn't cry. He just made cooed and reached a chubby hand up. Unsure, Itachi glanced at Shisui before doing what he'd seen his parents do and hold out a finger. The baby grasped the finger, breaking out into a toothless smile.

Shisui laughed. "Hey look, he likes you!"
Smiling along with an emotion that Itachi didn't yet have a word for, Itachi just said, "Well, of course he does. I'm his brother."

To greet the sunrise.

The warmth beside him shifted and there was a quiet, familiar voice beside his ear. "Wake up, Sleeping Beauty."

Shisui groaned and turned over to see Hana smiling at him. "It's too early to be up."

Hana chuckled. "It's almost eight thirty. You're going to be late."

"That's alright."

"Obito was a bad influence on you." She's the only one outside of the family that can talk to Shisui about his cousin. Itachi didn't remember him very well, didn't remember the blinding grin or the awkwardly delivered advice.

"They can survive without me for a few hours."

"Maybe, but I have to get going." Hana slipped away from him and the bed squeaked and groaned as she got out of it.

Shisui buried his head in the pillow. "Just please, don't open the curtains."

Hana stopped three steps away from doing just that. Sometimes, she thought that Shisui knew her far too well. "What, are you not on good terms with the sun?"

"Not this early. We get along better at around midday."

"Do you?"

He smiled at her, lazy and heartstopping. "Absolutely."

To hide in a haystack.

Genma and Hayate were next door neighbors since about the time they could walk. They lived far on the outskirts of Konoha, away from the hustle and bustle and out where there were generally more cattle than people.

They were playing find me-catch me. Genma had been all for hiding in the barn, way high up, saying that the other kids would never think to look there. Hayate followed him, the old wooden ladder creaking beneath their feet as they climbed up. But they heard laughing voices, familiar ones and they were getting closer.

Hayate didn't think, just grabbed Genma's arm and tugged him into one of the many haystacks that were up there. It was itchy and scratchy and uncomfortable, mostly because Hayate's bony knee was jabbing into Genma's ribs and Genma's shoulder was digging into Hayate's collarbone, but they weren't found.

Afterwards, they're picking straw from each other's hair and clothing when Hayate said, "We make a good team."

Genma had agreed. "The best."

To invent.

Deidara liked to watch Sasori work. There were many rainy days—no storms. Just an endless torrent of rain—when Deidara would lean back on the pillows with a piece of clay to fiddle with and keep his hands busy and watch Sasori tinker away with his puppets.

To be honest, Deidara did think that they were beautiful pieces of art. Sturdy, practical, deadly and with such precise detail that it couldn't be anything less than art. Not that he'd ever admit it.

There have been times—not many, but a few—when Deidara would peer over Sasori's shoulder (the puppeteer hates it when people do that, but he stopped snarling at Deidara for it a while ago) and ask, "Ne, what's that?"

And Sasori would look at him with unreadable eyes for a few moments before explaining. Deidara didn't know how Sasori's mind worked so quickly all the time. It was constantly buzzing with new ideas. There had been times when, in the middle of a conversation, Sasori would pull out a small pad of paper and a pen he kept in his pocket and jot something down.

More than once, Deidara has taken that pad of paper and flipped through it, reading the precise handwriting and studying the careful and sometimes hasty sketches in an attempt to try and understand the thought process involved, but he couldn't.

But that didn't stop him from trying.

To jump in a puddle.

Kiba was the impulsive one of them. The loud one. The vibrant one. He was the first one that people noticed. He was the one that went for the bendy straw, that made faces at Shino during their arguments.

He was the one that would tug on Hinata's hand and say, "Let's try this!"

No one had ever done anything like that for her. Hyuugas were reserved, either by nature or by nurturing. No one had ever run in the rain with her so that they slipped in the puddles or snuck to get a midnight snack of something chocolate coated, covered in sprinkles with whipped cream with crunchy cereal at the bottom.

He threw snowballs and danced with her. He was childhood personified in mischievous grins and warm hugs. Hinata knew that her father and the other elders didn't approve of the Inuzukas in general and Kiba specifically, yet she couldn't bringer herself to be bothered with their opinions when she was with him

To keep a secret.

He wasn't supposed to hear about it. Wasn't supposed to know or suspect anything. But he'd been returning from a mission—a gruesome one if the state of his clothes was to be believed—and he'd wanted nothing more than to turn in the damned report and take a shower.

He'd stopped automatically when he heard the voices of the Sandaime and Itachi. He didn't hear very much, but he heard enough. He knocked loudly, pretending that he'd simply just walked in and handed the Sandaime the wrinkled piece of paper before bowing and heading for the locker rooms.

He'd been under the hot spray of the water for several minutes, trying to wash the grime off, when a familiar quiet voice said, "You heard it, didn't you?"

He doesn't turn towards the boy—for Itachi was still a boy, still all of thirteen and Kakashi doesn't want to look at him because he's reminded of Obito every time. Not because they look alike, although they do, but because Obito had died at thirteen, had never gotten to do so much—but he doesn't deny it.

Itachi doesn't come into the shower, doesn't move past the shower curtain, but Kakashi can see his blurry silhouette that was probably leaning just against the opposite wall. "…I don't know what to do."

Kakashi tried to imagine what's going through Itachi's head, but he's sure that he couldn't come anywhere close because Kakashi had never had a clan. He'd only had a dishonored father and a pack of half-grown dogs. For him, the choice is simple. The village over the clan.

Itachi doesn't speak to Kakashi about the mission any more that night, or ever again. Beyond the two of them, the conversation never existed.

To need.

It's not something that was ever discussed, or planned. It's not some illicit secret kept behind closed doors. It's almost quite the opposite in fact, because everyone knows of it, even if they don't quite understand it.

They're more than a little broken and they're battered and bruised and all manner of B words. Once, it could have been something like friendship, their own strange brand of it. Not anymore. Once, it might even have been a brotherhood, an odd one that involved a lot of metaphorical trust falls. But that didn't get far.

But when they introduced each other—the rare times they needed to—it was as partners. It was a good word, a solid word, one that put them on an equal playing field, a never-quite-admitted feeling that, sometimes, they needed someone to look out for them and the only people they trusted enough to do that was each other.

When people watch them, see the closeness that is apparent, hear the bright laughter and the tilt of the lips that was always more smirk than smile, they categorize them as lovers, as partners in that sense of the word.

Separate, they would have succeeded, would have shone, had shone. Together, they soar.

Those people never saw the nightmares that could have them waking up screaming in the night, grabbing for whatever was nearest and, if that object happened to be a warm body, they'd latch on and never let go.

They don't see the way they push at each other, challenge and taunt and if one happens to fall somewhere along the way, the other is waiting, always, to catch them. It's them, simple and there, and if they argue constantly along the way, well, it's just them.

To play.

Their adventures span the treetops. They fight invisible enemies and fly among the clouds and have conversations with the birds. They swim in the river and lay against the sun-warmed boulders to dry off. This world is theirs and theirs alone, well away from Real Life and the Grown-Ups.

They're in a friendship the same way that they'd heard grown-ups talk about being in love.

They're sun and sky, moon and stars.

They're childhood dreams balanced on the future waiting in the backs of their minds.

And then their parents will call them home, always the same way. Always, "Itachi-and-Shisui" because that's who they are and where one goes, the other follows. Like a game of follow the leader.

To run barefoot in the grass.

It starts as a challenge at eight years old.

He thought it would end that afternoon at the end of the race, feet splattered with dirt and stalks of grass poking between his toes.

It didn't end because Gai's familiar voice is approximately four feet away, in Kakashi's meager kitchen, making something that will taste horrible, but they'll both eat it anyway because, according to Gai, they needed to eat to keep up their youthful strength.

Kakashi's not quite sure when they evolved from childhood rivalries to Gai having a key to his apartment—only to save the poor door that kept getting kicked off its hinges every time Kakashi didn't feel like getting up to answer the insistent knocking—and them keeping one eye out for each other on missions and off.

Regardless of evolutionary tendencies, knowing Gai's stubbornness, Kakashi doesn't think it's going to end.

To sing into the breeze.

Their mother always kept a rooftop garden. She never understood it, but she kept the garden up after their mother's death. The plants are hardy and tough, nothing like the delicate beauties that she'd seen on her trips to Konoha in that flower shop. Then again, this is Suna and she supposes that the plants here reflect the people.

The boys don't come up here. It's not that they're not allowed, but rather, they know that it's her special place. Gaara came up a few times, to simply sit and watch and Kankuro offered help once, but after the disaster that that ended up being, the siblings agreed that it was better that the middle child stay well away from the garden.

So when she hears the door open and close quietly, she assumes that it's Gaara and doesn't turn instinctively because this was their ritual.

She's surprised when she hears a familiar voice that doesn't belong in the harsh sand and sun. "Never pegged you for a gardener. Particularly the humming kind."

Temari turns to look at him, unembarrassed that he'd caught her. She hadn't realized she was humming, but between them, embarrassment was alien. His hands are in his pockets, his strong shoulders are slouched and his sharp eyes take in everything. She knows that, a year from now, if she asks him to describe the roof, he'll be able to tell her every detail about it.

"You don't think I look like I know how to handle a watering can?"

"From the state of these plants…"

She rolls her eyes. "They're not pretty like the ones in Konoha, I know."

His dark brown eyes aren't focused on her, but his attention is. It's a strange ability of his and it could be disconcerting, even to her. "Oh, I know. But they have their own brand of beauty, I think."

She ignores the potential in what he just said. "And what's wrong with my humming?"

He takes the brush-off in stride, like he always did. "A little pitchy, to be honest, but otherwise, not so troublesome as others I could name."

"Ino?"

A smile plays on his lips. "My mom."

"Ah."

He stays up there while she finishes gardening, and if she finds herself humming, he doesn't mention it again, but acknowledges it with a twist of his lips that's not quite a smile. It's peaceful in different ways than gardening is and she appreciates it.

To weep.

"Where is he?"

The nurse looked at Minato blankly. "He's in his room, sir."

Minato had to work to keep a leash on the rising panic. Kakashi was not completely in his mind right now. "I just checked there and he isn't."

"I'll call for assis—"

"No need." Kakashi shoved his way past them into his hospital room. "I'm here." He opened the door to the bathroom in his room and let it close loudly.

The nurse made a move to go after him, but Minato laid a hand on her harm. "I'll take care of him."

He ignored the grateful look on her face. It wasn't her fault. Kakashi had been little more than a phantom in shades of silver and red since they got back.

Minato found the door unlocked, though the shower was running, and he peered inside. It was a meager shower, little more than the bare basics, but it was more than most hospital rooms had.

"I had to get out." Kaksahi's voice was disembodied in the dark. "Went to the roof."

Minato fumbled for the light switch and had to blink and squint to adjust to the brightness. Kakashi wasn't in the shower. He was facing the wall, arms wrapped around himself and forehead leaning against the cool white tile. Minato hoped he was imagining the way that his shoulders were shaking and hitching. Kakashi had spent who knew how long on that roof, being broken up there alone, and only now he was losing it?

Or perhaps he had been balanced on the edge of the proverbial knife, waiting for something to give.

Minato shut the door behind him gently and laid a hand on Kakashi's shoulder. Automatically, instinctively, Kakashi whirled, hands going up to defend, to retaliate, his eyes—eye, Minato reminded himself sternly. He only had one that was truly his now, that was even visible, because the other, Obito's, was beneath layers of bandages—narrowed.

Minato caught his wrists—thin, far too thin—easily and held his student, his friend, still. "There's no one else here." Minato said as calmly as he could. It was permission and a promise. It was alright, he wasn't going to tell.

Minato watched Kakashi as he struggled to keep going, to fight when there was no one left to fight anymore, but it didn't take long for Kakashi to slump in his arms, forehead leaning against Minato's chest. He watched Kakashi's entire being shudder and watched him break the way that only boys did, like a vase crashing to the floor, the sound of his breaking masked by the pounding of the shower.

Kakashi shattered and broke and buried his face in Minato's shirt, barely able to breathe enough to cry from the terrible tightness in his chest. There were choked words at first—"It's my fault, sensei. All my fault…"—but they soon fade away to little more than wet sounds and watery breaths.

Minato could do little more than hold him tightly, trying to keep all the pieces together, his nose buried in silver spikes that smelled of antiseptic and generic soap and, somewhere beneath all that, of wet dog and blood. He tried not to break himself, because he can remember the blindingly bright grin and the bright orange goggles, the voice that was still young enough to crack and the person that was still somehow sweet enough to pick flowers for Rin and still boy enough to pick fights with Kakashi.

By the time that Kakashi was nearly boneless with exhaustion, the two of them having slumped to their knees long ago and the shower's water must have long ago run cold, Minato figured that he knew why so many people went bitter and snarly and cold.

Because if this is what love and family and friendship—the most wonderful things under the sun—really amounted to, a too old teenager broken before his time sobbing in a bathroom, then there was every reason to be angry and bitter.

To yearn.

He wants it. More than anything, he wants his face on the mountain, wants his name to be known, not because they hated him, but because they respected him. He wants to be smiled and waved at on the street, like he's seen families and friends do. He wants to be called wonderful, brilliant, cool. He wants to be seen so badly that it's a physical ache in his chest.

And sometimes, he thinks it won't ever go away.

To ask.

"Why?"

Jiraiya looked back at his teammate. "Why what?"

"Why do this? It's stupid and reckless and—"

"We're teenagers, Orochimaru." Jiraiya said with exaggerated patience. "This is the only time in our life when we can do things like this."

"I still don't understand the why."

Jiraiya just shrugged. "Why not?"

-/-/-

When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash - at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the "newness," the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.

~Thomas Merton