simplicity, noun: the absence of affectation or pretense.

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Simplicity

by

Kaiserin Firebird

There is a boy, and he is lonely and alone, among a million other things.

He is an overachiever, in every sense of the word. He is a genius, a math whiz, a chess whiz, a prodigy, a virtuoso. His report card is usually filled with 100's, and nothing less. His room is filled to the brim with trophies, and sometimes, he even had to throw some away. You could even drop him into the Olympics at his young age, and he would still win something.

He is just that perfect.

He is just that unreal.

--except that he doesn't want to be. He doesn't like living like this. He hates feeling as if the whole world is watching him—his midnight black eyes clearly show that it should be the other way around. He hates having no purpose other than meeting all expectations, from his family, from his teachers. They just keep on piling up one on top of the other, until the boy is overwhelmed.

He is tired, so very tired. He obviously doesn't want to do this anymore; it almost makes him want to escape. And quite possibly, the only thing stopping him from doing so is the thought of his brother. If he did leave it all behind, if he did run away from home, then his burden would just carry on to his precious brother. He, like any older brother in his situation, didn't want him to get involved in this, especially when he was at such a young and tender age.

So he trudges through his repetitive life like that, his brother being the only thing pushing him forward, and he knows that's the way it's always going to be. He moves around like a robot, accomplishing each and every task given to him with clear-cut perfection, over and over again. But the light in his eyes are gone, there is no passion. They are dead. They are lifeless. Though he hides it well, even his taekwondo sensei notices it.

He only does his duties because he has to, and he feels like he's becoming duller and duller by the day.

He won't allow himself to just lie down and think his self-destructive thoughts away, it was a sign of weakness, on his part. It meant that he was letting them take over his mind, and it easily stung his pride. The only thing he can do is to evade them and force himself to stop thinking about it.

But no matter how hard he tries to run away from them, they just won't leave.

...

There are times when he does allow himself to collapse to the ground and forget everything, and true to his perfectionist nature, he does it at a time when no one would ever notice. He comes at this old, rocky road at the edge of town, and sits on a bench located at the sidewalk.

-four forty-five in the afternoon is perfect. the parents are working, and the little brother is napping by then. no one ever notes his disappearance, and that's how it's supposed to be.-

He likes it. The bench, that is. It's made of polished wood, and it has a very simplistic design carved onto it.

The bench stands on a scenic spot at the outskirts of town. It's silent there, but it's lovely. A variety of trees surround the area, some of them are green, some yellow green, some tall or short. The leaves fall beautifully on the cobbled road in front of the bench, and it's littered with many colorful, differently shaped leaves. He names it 'The Bench.' It's corny, but it works.

For him, it's always worth coming here, be it spring, summer, winter, or autumn.

If I ever run for public office, I would put more benches in places like this, he jokes to himself.

He comes there to escape his ugly reality. His eyes only light up when he is there, and he finally enjoys doing whatever it is that he does, be it playing the flute, painting, or just reading a book. He is proud of his little sanctuary within the trees, where he could be himself, without all the burdens he has to carry.

Where, for even a single moment, he is free.

That makes him glad.

He is thirteen, and it's as if the weight of his troubles is lifted off his shoulders.

There is a girl, and she thinks she's in love, among a million other things.

On her way to school a few days ago, she saw a very pretty, pretty boy. He was not particularly tall. He wasn't loud or boisterous either, but there was a little something about him that just grabbed her attention (along with hordes of other girls at their school.)

It was his eyes.

His midnight black eyes were probably the most striking feature on his face. They were small, a bit almond-shaped, but one thing was for sure.

They were beautiful.

It didn't hurt that he had a good face to match, either. He had a small, sharp nose, and thin (but cute) lips. His face was neither wide nor narrow, and he had black hair. Spiky black hair. He looked like a chibi-bishounen cut and pasted out from a Japanese video game. She recognized him, but his name lurked deep in the recesses of her mind. She didn't remember what it was.

Uchida Sasami?

Uchiha Sadamu?

She was busy looking—gawking—at him when he walked past her.

He smiled, and greeted her a good morning. That was the death of her.

...

When his (beautiful) eyes met forest green ones, she felt special, more special than she ever did in her short life. There was a fuzzy, weird feeling in her chest. She thinks it's love.

...

She only got his name correctly a few minutes after he left. It was Uchiha Sasuke.

The girl thinks she just fell in love with him.

...

The girl doesn't know much about this Uchiha Sasuke, but she assumes that he likes smart girls. Most boys her age did, since they themselves were all dumb, she jokes to herself.

And even if she knows this Uchiha Sasuke is a special boy, he is still a boy.

The girl likes to think she's smart, not 'book-smart' (that would make her a nerd, which she wasn't!), but 'smart-smart'.

She knows she's fooling herself.

If she were really 'smart-smart', she could've thought of something to say to those (mean, ugly, evil) bullies who kept on teasing her about her wide forehead. She could've told them they were wrong, that they should just mind their own business and leave her alone. If she were 'smart-smart', she wouldn't have to rely on her blonde best friend to comfort her whenever she cried, right?

But she isn't 'smart-smart'. As much as she tries to deny it, she only has her 'book smarts' to rely on.

It makes her feel terrible, and she resolves to do something about it. Even though the reason is as petty as wanting this Uchiha Sasuke to notice her—after all, many girls were in love with him—or as noble as wishing to stop those bullies from taking advantage of her, she would do it.

She wouldn't stop until she did.

...

There are those days when she finally breaks down. She won't do it in front of her mother or best friend, because she feels embarrassed. She didn't want them to worry over her.

She does it in front of this bench. It's embarrassing, she knows, but it works for her. Her (inanimate) shoulder to cry on sits near the edge of town, and it's very secluded and silent. No one ever sees her there, so no one knows she's crying. She thinks it's lovely.

The bench is made of shiny wood, and there is a really, really old road right in front of it. There are tall trees all around the place, all of them definitely taller than her. Leaves fall from the trees high above, and sometimes, she could even see some deer run around the forest. The girl thinks it's cute.

However, the girl doesn't only cry there (because, according to her, that would just be stupid), she also plays. She sometimes plays with the leaves, throwing them all over herself. She carves shapes on the bench with a pen, though it doesn't exactly penetrate the wood.

The bench is like a little haven for her, and she wouldn't exchange it for anything else.

She is at peace with herself. She doesn't have to bother coming up with another comeback to those other bullies who were also in love with Sasuke, she doesn't have to study for the next exam, she doesn't have to do anything.

She doesn't have to be anything anymore.

That makes her love it even more.

She is eight, and it's as if Mother Nature herself is wiping away her tears.

The girl's mother tells her daughter to go outside the house for a while, as she needed to clean the house. She gives her a small amount of money, enough for a light afternoon snack. She then reminds her to come back for dinner at six, and to stay safe.

The girl is confused. Where would she go?

The sky is a clear blue, and the birds are chirping in the sky. They're loud today, she thinks.

She quickly spots a cotton candy vendor at the sidewalk, and she's happy. It is her favorite snack, after all. She scurries over to the man and buys some. The candy is a light, bright pink, the exact shade of her hair. The man thinks the same, and good-naturedly points it out to the girl.

She laughs and smiles, trying to hide her disappointment. She hears that joke one too many times already. Those mean people at her school hold this weird idea that her pink hair is funny, and she doesn't like that. She likes it the way it is.

She walks and walks for a while, weaving through the Friday work crowd effortlessly. She tears out pieces of cotton candy and stuffs it into her mouth. She always had a different way of eating food.

...

She stops after a few minutes. She had unconsciously reached her little sanctuary in the trees.

The girl freezes in shock. Who was that guy napping on her bench?

She closes the distance between the man and her easily, and she takes a better look at his face. It's covered by a thin looking book; it reads, "An Overview of the Cold War." It doesn't hide his hair, though. It's long and black, silky and smooth looking. It's tied in a ponytail, by the looks of things.

She looks at the rest of his body.

One long leg bends at the knee, and its partner stretches outward. His hands are folded on his stomach, and they seem like the hands of an artist, long and thin. He is not really big, but he certainly was bigger than her by more than a few inches. A cream wool sweater covers his upper body, and he wears loose denim pants.

It's logical. It's autumn, after all.

Should she wake him up? She debates on that question for a few minutes, still munching on small pieces of cotton candy. It wouldn't be polite, but he wasn't polite either! He just came and sat on her bench without her permission!

So she decides to wake him up.

She carefully treads closer to him, closer and closer. When she finally reaches his shoulder, she shakes him hesitantly.

He doesn't seem to wake up so easily, and her shakes grow harsher by the minute.

When he does wakes up around half an hour later, the first thing she says is, "Mister, can you please get up? You're sleeping on my bench."

She is obviously irritated; and the expression is plastered all over her heart-shaped face.

The boy feels her presence the moment her boots first crunch the leaves. He is 'weird' like that. Taekwondo lessons make one extremely alert, aware of all the things around you. It makes the person hear everything, the sound of crickets, the rustling of leaves, and all the other small sounds of nature. He doesn't understand why the girl is there, though. People rarely, if ever, passed through this road.

He is surprised when he feels a small breath fluttering his hair. He wasn't expecting someone to sit in the bench. It feels like a child's breath, just like his brother's. He snaps his eyes open under his book. It is time to wake up; manners dictate so.

But when he hears a girl's voice mumble, "Who does he think he is? Napping on my bench like that," he breaks his plan. This is his bench.

Maybe he would just observe this girl, and see just how much she valued 'her' bench.

...

She begins to shake him. Slowly, at first, then faster and faster.

This was to be expected, so he didn't even bother responding.

In a move that again, surprises him—che, this girl seems to be full of those—she shakes his shoulder like a madman, and mumbles "Stupid guy! Why won't you just wake up?!" under her breath.

This little girl was annoying, but she did seem interesting.

Fifteen minutes later, she begins to grab his ponytail, pulling it harshly.

This girl was weird, was she easily agitated or something? It was only a bench, she could just come back later when he was done with it.

Twenty-five minutes later, she begins to grab his bangs. "Mister, can you get up? I need my bench!" she says.

This girl is just like his brother, except his brother is a male, and she certainly isn't. He begins to like her a little bit.

Finally, thirty minutes later, she screams out of exasperation. "WAKE UP!"

He decides it's finally time to wake up.

He wants to find out just who this girl is. She is certainly very stubborn, he thinks.

He pulls the book out of his face quickly, and his very open eyes meet hers.

She begins to sit on the ground beside the bench, the leaves crunch below her.

The girl is pink-haired, and it is the exact shade of cotton candy sold at the carnival. Her eyes are a brilliant forest green, and they are angry. But that isn't exactly what he is looking at right now. He continues his perusal. She wears a red dress; it's hardly formal, though. It looks frayed and tattered at the edges, and he concludes that she was probably shooed away by her mother and told to come back for dinner.

His thoughts are broken when she looks at him with her big eyes, and speaks to him in a sickeningly sweet and polite voice, "Mister, can you please get up? You're sleeping on my bench."

He is amused, and he acquiesces to her demand, standing up and moving to the opposite edge of the three-seater bench.

He gives her a small smile, and laughs.

The girl quickly gets up, dusts off the leaves, then sits on the bench. She looks him in the eye.

"Thank you," she breathes.

The girl is relieved.

Right then and there, she realizes he was awake the entire time. People who were just shaken, hair-pulled—was that a real word?—and screamed at didn't just get up and laugh. Normal people would shout and get mad at her.

She freezes, and the boy beside her notices.

She stutters her question. "Y-You were a-awake the entire time?"

He spares her a glance, then his eyes quickly return to the forest right in front of them. It is autumn, after all, and the leaves look beautiful at this time of the year. It is his favorite out of the four.

He gives her a one-word reply. "Yes."

The girl's face reddens with anger, and the boy inwardly smirks to himself.

"How dare you!"

...

She continues to be like that for a few minutes.

"You deserved all the stuff I did to you! You tricked me!"

"You're such a mean guy!"

"Why would you do that? Do you have some sort of sick sense of humor?"

"I took all that time to wake a guy who was already awake?!"

He doesn't bother to reply, his only response is to pull out his history book and read.

It irritates her even more.

...

She finally stops after a few minutes, and her anger dissipates. She never could stay mad at someone for too long.

Only then does the girl take a real look at the boy right beside her.

She sees his eyes.

They are beautiful, maybe even more beautiful than Uchiha Sasuke's.

Feminine lashes surround his midnight black eyes, and they are long and slightly curly. His eyes dart left to right; she knows he's ignoring her words on purpose. The boy seems focused on the book right in front of him. Was it that interesting? She reads the title again, then frowns. Wars weren't exactly one of her favorite topics to read on.

"Mister, why is that such a nice book?"

Silence.

"Oh well, whatever. It isn't as if you'd be talking anytime soon."

A few moments after her first question, the girl begins babbling.

She begins rambling about all the trivial things about her life. She talks about all the bullies around her, the way they tease her endlessly on her forehead, and her likes and dislikes, then a bit about Uchiha Sasuke.

He hardly knows how to answer her, so he remains silent and reads his book.

The girl continues to chatter, as if she were talking to air, and not to him. His silence doesn't matter to her, and she grows used to it.

It's like talking to a person who understands what she is thinking, and that makes her feel as if something heavy were lifted out of her chest. As it were, the bench wasn't living, and it certainly didn't respond or even listen. She knows he is like that too, but at least he is human. And sometimes, that is all that matters.

The girl thinks the boy beside her doesn't even know how much he had already helped her.

The boy thinks the girl is just like his brother. Weren't most kids like him too?

She proves him wrong, completely and utterly wrong.

One, she doesn't ask him for anything—not that he was annoyed with his little brother, he was just pointing out differences. She doesn't ask him to help her with anything at all, nor does she ask him to do something for her. She's just there.

Two, his silence didn't bother her. He was mildly surprised by that fact. A lot of people around him would give up trying to talk to him after he replied with nothing but silence. But most of the time, they were so intimidated by his reputation that they wouldn't bother talking. People did say he was smarter than most adults. The girl, however, just keeps on talking, talking, talking, as if he was just a listener and nothing more. As if he didn't matter.

His brother, being the enthusiastic boy he was, would normally prod and prod at him in order to get him to talk (he eventually did so, anyway. He had to.)

Three, the girl, like most of her classmates, likes Uchiha Sasuke, his lovable younger brother. It was understandable, though. His family was comprised of relatively good-looking people. He doesn't think Sasuke is in love with himself, either. That, after all, would be too narcissistic of him, and the boy doubts his brother was head over heels with his own self. He wasn't that old yet.

And to be honest with himself, he almost exploded in laughter when she told him about her crush on Sasuke.

Lastly, she is just an interesting bundle of contradictions thrown into his lap. The moment he first meets her, she seems so mad and furious at him for such a simple thing as not waking up, yet now, she is doing a complete one-hundred eighty turn and telling him her life story, how she was being bullied at her school, how she let herself be pushed around by anyone, how she liked Sasuke. She seemed to be so self-confident, butshe was just as full of insecurities as the next person.

To be honest, the boy thinks his brother is way too predictable at times.

He is annoyed, though. He doesn't understand why the little girl acted the way she did. How can such a strong-willed person like her allow those things to happen?

...

The boy's first impressions are proven wrong, and he is oddly satisfied.

At least he found something that piqued his curiosity now; she was like a breeze of fresh air in his stale room.

She might just be his first friend outside the family.

After a few hours, it is time for the girl to leave.

She doesn't understand why she just told off her entire life to the man beside her. But she doesn't bother trying to know why, it was too much of an effort, and she was probably never going to meet this guy again, anyway. Somewhere in the middle, she thinks this is like being on Oprah, and it feels good to let all of those things out.

She stands up and begins to say goodbye, following what her mother taught her about manners.

"Well, mister, I guess it's time for me to go now."

He looks her over with his black, black—beautiful, majestic, hypnotic, pretty, there are only so much words—eyes, and she feels special.

Maybe even more special than she felt when Uchiha Sasuke looked at her.

For the first time since he woke up, the boy talks. "Where do you live?"

She's startled. "Why?"

"I'll walk you home."

"Why?"

The boy sighs, and he puts his book down. "You might get lost, I'll walk you home."

He might as well guide her home. It was a thing friends did for each other, after all. Though he wouldn't admit it out loud, a tiny part of him did want to know this girl with the ridiculously pink hair better.

She quickly remembers what her mother told her to do; she isn't allowed to let a stranger do anything for her. No matter how nice this man seemed to be, she wouldn't dare disobey her own mother. "It's okay, mister. I know my way home."

She begins to walk away.

He stops her with another question. "What is your name?"

It wouldn't hurt to give him my name, she thinks. She spins around and smiles brightly at him. "Haruno Sakura."

The boy gives her another one of his smiles, just a little curl of his lips.

As the years went by, the girl realized he would only give those kinds of smiles to her, and her alone.

"I'm Uchiha Itachi."

A pause.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Sakura."

She is able to read the hidden message underneath his words.

Let's be friends.

Maybe she could just read underneath the underneath. Unbeknownst to her, that is the only key in unlocking the boy right in front of her.

Fifteen years later, the boy is still reading "An Overview of the Cold War." The girl is still eating cotton candy from a bag.

Both are sitting on the bench side by side.

Both are wearing identical rings.

As usual, silence reigns over them both.

She breaks it, she always does,—the boy (man) loves his silence too much.

"Ne, Itachi-kun? Why are you such a silent man?"

"That's been something I've been wondering about since the day I met you. You don't talk much, you don't smile much—"

He interrupts her by putting his book down, then he looks her in the eyes.

"Because, Sakura, I like hearing you talk."

-finis-

Simplicity is the epitome of elegance.

The main character is not Itachi, nor is it Sakura.

…

You guessed right, it's the bench.

I am sure there are tense errors in the story, but I can hardly identify all of them. This is still undergoing continuous revision, so please feel free to tell me if there are errors.

Thank you for taking the time to read my work, I appreciate it.

Regards,
Kaiserin

P.S. Comments on 'Simplicity' are now posted on my profile page. Enjoy.

Some story stats:

First Draft: May 8, 2008. Eleven thirty-nine in the evening.
First Revision: May 9, 2008. Nine fifty-one in the morning.
Latest Revision: July 6, 2008. Five forty-nine in the afternoon.
Word Count: four thousand, and twenty-two words.