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Chapter 30 - Nightmares, laughs, and Streaming
🕑 Added 2024-05-03 11:19:02 +0000 UTCSasuke's a diiiick! Haku's cute, and uh, Sakura is too.
Have a chapter.
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Sakura opens the door to Naruto’s room, knocking gently just in time to catch the boy’s eye open. “Sakura, what’s going on?” Ninja are good at that, even with their close friends or family. She’s never been snuck up on in her sleep from what she can tell - not that she’d know if she was truly snuck up on - and she’s pretty sure she couldn’t ever sneak up on Kakashi no matter what his state. That guy could be put into a chemically induced coma and he’d still shoot up to greet her if she was trying to sneak up on him. In fact, she’s going to hold that in her tool box for if he ever does get seriously injured and needs to wake up.
“I had a bad dream but I’m mad at my parents so I decided to bother you instead.” Sakura admits. Their scolding the other day, and subsequent threatening is still heavy on her mind. It’s sad she’s spending so much of her time home not hugging her parents, but she just can’t bring herself to get over it as quickly as she wants. Iruka didn’t help much, she wanted help understanding why her parents threatened to put her out on her ass and he just told her to talk to Kakashi.
Why would Kakashi have the faintest clue what her parents are thinking?
“I don’t think teenagers do that, Sakura.” Naruto says, eying her a little, in the doorway. One eye is still closed, the other is halfway open and not happy about it.
“How would you know? You’re not normal either.” She refutes, crossing her arms a little and walking into his room without invitation. She’s got on bunny pajamas, she thought they’d be cute, they even have pointy long ears. She likes them enough that she hella won’t be bringing them on a mission. She has learned, clothes don’t last even a few days on a mission. She’s not sure how the boys managed to keep their outfits the entire freaking time. She’s also looking into sealing scrolls so she can have tons of back-up outfits in random places so if she gets stabbed again her pack isn’t the only refuge of her items. She’s learning, one tragedy at a time.
“That’s… yeah.” Naruto palms his face a little, blowing out air.
“Besides, this dream was relevant to us.” She plops down on the bed beside him with a titter to her tone, her charm is high enough she can hear a little of her own playful nuances. You know how bad you have to be to miss that you have nuances? She does. “I dreamt I messed up badly, and Wave died from drought…”
“Sakura, Wave is an island nation, they have water.” Naruto points out between groans of, well she’s not exactly sure what, but it’s not a smiley face on the chart.
“Yeah but… do they have enough water?” She asks her teammate, looking directly into his crystal blue eyes with her own emerald gems.
“Yes!” He throws his hands up, then lets them fall and smack him in the face again with a thwack.
“Huh, so maybe Timberborn is a bad practice module.” She decides. “I thought it’d be cute because of the beavers but they keep dying!”
“Have you made progress on the reading?” Naruto asks.
“Yeah but, it turns out city planning is really complicated and a random girl - even a smart one - can’t just learn everything there is to know in a week at the library… Especially not with all the procrastination I’ve been doing.”
“Why are you procrastinating, I thought this was important to you?”
“I’m procrastinating because it’s important to me, jeez, it’s like you’ve never struggled…” She says, the blush hitting her because of how ridiculous that is before she’s even done her sentence. “Motivationally, I mean, obviously you’ve struggled in a real sense.”
“Sakura…” Naruto grumbles, “please go back to bed.”
“Nope, too late, passing out here.” She teases, closing her eyes and taking in just how comfy his sheets are. She needs to upgrade hers. Technically he has the better bed because she hasn’t changed hers in like ten years so it’s all worn out and slightly broken, and they bought the guest room beds like last year.
“Fine, I’ll go back to your bed.” He grunts, slipping out.
“That’s not fair!” She mumbles to herself, grabbing onto his arm before he can flee. “Come back to me!”
“Noooo!”
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The two new siblings with extra quotation marks arrive at the new job site with a set of bright smiles and their tools in tow. “This was a good idea.” Sakura admits, referring to Naruto’s suggestion this morning. Mainly, it was that she should get out of the loop of going to the library and staying home to read and play games and struggle with all her new nonsense. Wave isn’t going to die in a day, and learning to clean with him at the job site could be really good for her mental health. Her entire life lately has been read, relax, D rank mission, game, train, sleep. It’s nice to have more than two items on that list, but that’s not impressive anymore.
She can’t help but be thankful that so many of the people in her life are looking out for her. She’d be a little suspicious that he’s trying to use her for free labor if it wasn’t Naruto. If he really wanted an extra set of hands he’d just make one, it wouldn’t be hard for him. It was harder to convince her to come help than it would be for him to make a hundred extra hands.
The gray tiles and black outer wall makes her blink for a moment before checking the mail slot beside the door. “Wow.” Sakura says, “I’ve seen this address.”
“Yeah, so have I.” Naruto huffs as suddenly as she says it. He claps two hands over his mouth, before spreading them apart to create a funnel. “Sasukeeeeeee!” He shouts.
Only for a window upstairs to open, and for the boy in question to lean out of it, smirking at them with one of his telltale smirks. “Yes?” It’s about this point that Sakura puts two and two together, and has to take a step back to admire the sheer audacity.
“Did you hire me to clean your freaking house?” Naruto shakes a broom at Sasuke..
“I did,” Sasuke says, “it needs to be cleaned, and I have training to do.”
“You just think me cleaning your house is funny,” Naruto accuses, “bastard.”
“That too. I didn’t expect Sakura, that’s a nice bonus.” Sasuke says in the most monotone way a boy could possibly manage while holding back uproarious laughter. “Enjoy your day.”
At that, he gives her a wink, and closes the window.
“Oh, I’ma get him later.” Sakura grunts, nodding to herself.
“Already way ahead of you.” Naruto says, making his now infamous in their group, shadow clone seal. “Though, first, we have to clean his house.”
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The first thing Sakura had to do to set Haku up properly was have all the equipment delivered, that was the easy part. Next, she had to teach Haku how to smile properly. The boy’s expressions are soft and gentle but they don’t feel genuine, it’s too reserved, too simple. She feels sorrow when she looks at his upturned lips, not joy, and that has to change. She’s not sure she’s the best person to teach someone how to properly move their face when she so recently learned she has basic nuance, but it’s her second job now so she does her best.
Then she has to teach Haku how to play games in their most basic form, which does require being there. She wants his first sessions to be streamed which means that teaching him requires leaning over his shoulder and being included in the initial streams. It’s not a huge issue, but it does feel really awkward for her when someone asks about her in the chat. She’s extremely surprised to find how quickly he gets viewers, she’s heard most people who try this go weeks before there are people chatting, but here he is, an hour in, getting fangirls. It’s fitting.
She’s never wanted to be a streamer, she’s never felt envious of them either. It’s taxing to be in front of a camera, and the idea of participating with an entire chat feels socially overwhelming. She’s a bit of a wimp to social pressures like that, and she imagines she’d end up in a worse place very quickly. Haku’s much better than her, almost instantly taking to a calming vibe that makes the entire stream feel great even while he’s struggling with basic mechanics. He learns slower than Inari did, but his charisma more than makes up for it.
That was a week ago.
She’s had him streaming every day for a week, and checking up on him now…
“Holy shit.” Haku’s got his own cute little fanbase, complete with more than a couple fangirls. “Haku… How have you already made this much money?”
It’s a lot. It’s more than they’re charging Haku for rent. Sakura had already paid his first month rent to her parents, and she expected to have to pay the second or third too to fudge the numbers and pretend Haku was doing great so they’d get off her back, she's not going to have to do that.
Haku is, incredible. “You make more in one day than my weekly stipend.” She trails.
“And you just started. What the actual hell…”
“Is that a bad thing, Sakura-sama?” Haku asks. That’s another thing, Haku’s taken to showing her the utmost respect. He cares for her, he shows her attention all the time, he’s even taken to making her dinner if he finds she’s spent too much time researching or gaming or participating in whatever misadventures have overtaken her recently.
He’s a real friend, or at least a real caretaker. Her parents seem to appreciate her having someone to look out for her. She imagines they probably thought he’d be a second Naruto they’ve have to look after, and maybe that was a part of their problem with him living here, but they’ve taken to liking having someone they can depend on to brush her hair, force her out of bed, force water down her throat, force her to eat, basic stuff. It makes her feel a little bad for being such a hot mess most of her life, but that’s life.
[Charm has Increased by 1]
Feeling empathy is a desirable trait in Charm, who would have guessed. Not her.
Either way, she’s grateful Haku is fitting in so well, even if she does need him to stop calling her by her name on stream lest someone recognize her and doxx him.
More than likely not for the first time, if she’s honest. Using his name is fine, he doesn’t really leave the house, and as he’s explained it, most people don’t know him at all. Using her name? That’s bad, she’s done stupid stuff like run a fangirl club. Hey there’s Ami in his chat!
Comments
Christopher Cummins
That statement made me think this was a more recent chapter. That's funny.
Defracto
Getting increasingly close to academy/average level charm.
