A swing is more important than you?

'How do you ground chakra so that it flows through the circuit like electricity or water in a pipe though?' I wondered swinging myself on my hammock.

It had been a few days since we had shifted to the new house and everything had been unpacked and a few new things had been bought to decorate the living room. One of them especially mattered since it was the new soft cotton cloth for a hammock into which I slipped into, lying under the rays of the sun through the day hanging from the window frame, but today I was rudely woken up by mum against my wishes.

"Kaa-san!! What happened!?"

"Wakey wakey Sakura-chan! Your friend's coming home! You need to freshen your self up."

"Friend? Suika? Suika's back!?"

"N- no Suika-chan will be- yes will be back later!!" Mum said with shifty eyes with a little sorrow in her voice.

'Suspicious, what about Suika would make mum sad? Huh, wait a second I haven't seen Suika since the Kyuubi incident... ah... she died didn't she... and here I just thought they were still around, maybe recovering from financial or physical injuries. Better think about something else I don't want to ruin my mood so early in the morning.'

"Then who's coming today!?"

"She's someone who you used to play with when you were just a wee little baby!! The both of you always had fun together by eating sand!"

"I did?"

"Yes!! You definitely did." Mum said with that same confidence in her voice that the flex tape guy has when he demonstrates his product by sawing his boat in half.

"I did?" I asked narrowing my eyes, trying to figure out if mum was trying to feed me some bull or if someone actually erased my memories somehow without my knowledge.

"You did. Didn't you?" Mum asked narrowing her eyes to match mine.

A spark flew out of both of us and met in the middle. Seeing mum was unrelenting and didn't want to take back what she was feeding me I gave up.

But both mum and I knew I was not letting this slide. I'd use this as a point to recover a favor from her later when I need it, inconvenient or not.

Brushing my hair, cleaning my face and moisturizing it by applying the most fragrant homemade cream I was made ready by mum to be presentable to the guests. Dad reached home sometime later and freshened himself up and wore his best clothes as well.

It wasn't long after waiting in the living room all of us turned to the door upon hearing a knock.

*Knock* *Knock*

"Hehe, who's there?" I whispered, failing to resist the urge to try and make a knock knock joke.

"Hmm? Say something Sakura-chan?" Dad asked as mum reached out and opened the door.

"Nothing, pops."

Dad stood beside mum as she opened the wooden door, allowing more afternoon light to flood into the room brightening the cream coloured walls further.

"Hello, please come inside!"

Mum and dad moved back as they greeted the other couple that was on the other side of the door, inviting them inside.

The couple was wearing a typically Chinese attire, with the woman wearing a blue shimmering qipao, while the man had a bamboo hat around his neck and was wearing his hair in a pony tail, he was wearing a grayish brown Hanfu.

I watched from behind the walls as the couple slowly stepped out of their outside slippers and stepped into the provided house slippers. Behind them stood another little girl in light pink sleeveless qipao-style shirt and dark blue shorts, she had two buns on the sides of her head along with some hair let down like twin tails.

She was a little taller than me and was holding onto her mother's dress as she removed her sandals using her hands and slipped the tiny house slippers in the genkan.

As she stood up after having changed behind her mother, she noticed me looking right at her as our eyes met.

The both of us looked at each other for a few seconds which she broke by giving me a sweet smile, I smiled too and then waved my hand to tell me hi.

The adults noticing our interacting smiled a bit before collecting themselves in the living room on the sofas where mom had arranged a few fruits and nuts and was busy serving hot tea.

"Hi-ya! I'm Tenten." the girl introduced herself, the poor girl that had less screen time than Naruto's swing in the anime.

"Hello, I am Sakura." I replied softly as the girl sat beside me on a single person sofa that could fit us both on the same seat since we were both tiny kids.

Tenten had black hair and soft gray eyes that quietly eluded to the joy contained within them with the subtlety of a cat rubbing itself on its owner while flicking its tail in the air, making everything seem admirably amicable as if a meeting between close friends.

"Mommy said we were best friends~~!" Tenten said pointing between the two of us, even she knew her parents were bullshitting after looking at me.

"Do you want to be my best friend!?" I asked her back.

"YES~!"

"Hehe, then let's go! Follow me!" I said as I jumped off of the sofa off of which my legs were dangling.

"Wait! Sa- Sakure?"

"Haha that's Sakura for you Ninenine!"

"It's TenTen!!"

"HAHA Okie dokie Ninenine!"

Tenten ran all the way behind me to my play room on the upper floor which would later be used for my sleeping but right now since I currently slept with mum and dad on the same bed it had become a drawing and painting room. The room had lots of papers with ink drawings on them with toothpicks dipped in charcoal-oil inkpots on the floor.

"Waaa!!~~~ What are these?!"

"Haha!! Behold!! The famous artworks made by the Great Sakura Haruno!!!"

"They're sooo pretty!!!" She exclaimed looking and pointing at the artworks stuck to the walls.

"So wanna paint?!"

"Sure!"

I brought out a couple of my slightly older writing pads with large A3 size papers clipped onto them along with brushes, toothpicks and ink pots.

Placing the ink pots between us I sat down on the ground and invited Tenten to sit with me.

"What do we do now?" Tenten asked me innocently like a child would.

*AWWWW* I couldn't help gushing over how cute she looked like a tiny ball of energy and curiosity.

I went over to her and held her hand from behind with the brush and showed her how to dip the ink and get rid of the excess and then lightly placed the brush on the paper to draw a few mountains and trees with a pond and a sun!

"Ha! Look at how pretty what you made is!"

"YEAAA!!!!!" Tenten forgetting that she was older than me by a year and got caught up in the enthusiasm.

But then she looked up at the paintings on my wall and got a little disappointed when she compared it with her own.

"Aww~ Don't worry about such things! Everyone has things they are good and bad at!"

Although she was consoled she still wasn't as happy as she was before so to distract her I asked her about herself.

"Tell me what do you want to be in the future!?"

"I want to be better than even princess Tsunade and be the greatest Kunoichi to have ever existed!"

"OH!!! Then why don't we throw shuriken!"

"YES!!! But mum doesn't allow me to touch shuriken since I'm not old enough! Have you got any we could use!?"

"Of course I do! They are already here in this room in your sight!"

Then she quickly looked around for shuriken in the room but got disappointed again when she didn't find any.

"Sakura you liar! There aren't any!" She said almost crying! 'Ah! So precious!'

"Hehe! They are here! But you have to make them! Let me show you how!"

I quickly picked up an A3 paper from the shelf and split it in half to get an A4 and then quickly started folding it to make an origami out of it.

Soon I had a paper shuriken in between my fingers seeing which Teten got super excited.

"WAAAA!!!!!! SAKURA-CHAN THAT'S A SHURIKEN!"

"Hehe! Wanna throw it at a target!?"

She vigorously nodded in excitement.

I drew a target at a piece of A3 paper and stuck it on the back of a backless chair and place it on the other end of the room.

Making a few more shuriken, where Tenten helped by copying exactly what I was doing, we had ten shuriken with us and we began to take aim and throw the shuriken at the target on the chair.

Until slowly we were running around the room throwing shuriken at each other and trying to keep score since a stationary target was simply boring and seemed more like training and not playing.

"Haha that makes it nine to two Sakura-chan! I win!!"

"But that's so unfair!!! How are you so good at it!!!"

"Aww~ Don't worry about such things! Everyone has things they are good and bad at!" Tenten used my line against me!!! This girl!! She's fast!!

We both stared at each other for a second before we burst out laughing hitting the floor.

"Sakura-chan! What are you doing!?""Ayumi-chan what are you doing?!"

Both the mum's were at the door looking at us trying to find out what we were doing here in the room that caused so much noise down stairs.

Tenten immediately stood up and looked at her mum in fear thinking she would get scolded for playing with shuriken. 'Hehe, silly little girl.'

"Aunty we were playing ninja with the paper origami we made!"

"Look mum don't these look soo~ very pretty!!" I ran up to my mum showing her the two shuriken in my hands practically forcing her to praise them and sell them to Tenten's mum, I communicated to her with my eyes that this was my payment for earlier.

"Haha yes these are really beautiful!" Mum reluctantly worked as my sales manager and 'enthusiastically' promoted how safe it was to play with.

Tenten was still a little scared of her mum scolding so she hid behind me as her mum examined the shuriken in my hands.

"Waaa!!! Ayumi-chan! You can play with Sakura-chan with this shuriken without getting hurt! How nice!!"

Tenten's eyes widened for a second before she hugged her mum's legs and squealed happily.

Tenten and her family then along with me and mine had lunch for the afternoon for which mum prepared a Teishoku for the guests which is essentially lots of different types of dishes served in small quantities along with one main dish which in our case was a tonkatsu.

"Sakura-chan, why aren't you having meat?!"

"Haha aunty I don't like meat. I only like eating vegetables and rice."

"Haishh….I don't know what I'm going to do in the future. I've done everything to make her have meat but she just doesn't eat it." My mum squinted her eyes and half glared at me.

"Haha Mebuki-chan you should leave her to eat whatever she wants to eat as long as she's not forgetting about her health. But it definitely is a little worrying that she won't eat meat."

"Come on Tenten let's gooo!!!" I said pushing Tenten out of the chair back upstairs to my room as the both of us had finished eating food and washing our hands after.

…

"Hey Tenten!"

"Huh? Sakura-chan what happened?"

"Why does your mum call you Ayumi-chan?"

"Ah! Mum actually wanted to name me Ayumi, but dad filled the form in the hospital with the wrong name using similar characters for the word 'heavenly' in the characters of Tenten since he was in a hurry to hold me and didn't want to spend time away from me and mum."

"Haha!! Tenten-chan has a secret name!"

"Yes Tenten's my code name!"

"Hehe!~"

And just like that we began playing a game of ninja where the Tenten had a secret identity and had to infiltrate the base, which was the room we were in, and get information from a desk about an important document which had the method to make the paper shuriken while I threw out shuriken at her trying to hit her.

Soon the both of us were sleeping on each other's stomachs having contorted our baby bodies to do so in order to rest after having become exhausted.

"Sakura-chan! Sakura-chan!"

Feeling the slight tug at my shoulder I moved around to hold the soft and warm feeling hands in my own as I was still in a silent slumber.

As I took the hands into my own I noticed they were too small to be my mother's and they didn't seem to have any feeling in them so I woke up imagining I had lost my hands while playing with Tenten and was looking for them to attach to my own once again.

"Haha! Sakura-chan! It's just me!" Tenten said in a calm voice patting my head to remind me.

Looking at Tenten consoling me I couldn't help but laugh happily in my mind at the sight of a child consoling an adult.

"Thank you Tenten-chan!"

"Ayumi!"

"Huh?"

"Call me Ayumi! Sakura-chan!"

"Then! Thank you Ayumi-chan!"

We were soon both up and walking down stairs where Ayumi's parents were waiting at the door of the house after having called for us both.

"See you later Ayumi-chan!" I shouted and waved my hands as Ayumi along with her mum and dad walked into the streets under the cover of the evening sun and sky.

"Looks like you had fun Sakura-chan!" Mum asked rubbing my hair and messing it up more than it already was.

"Haha! How could I not! We were playing ninja."

I held my mum and dad's hands and pulled them skipping towards the house.

"Mum! I want to eat something delicious tonight!"

"Hai~ hai~"

-------------------------

Thank you for reading! 

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