Chapter 24

Dark, foggy and nothingness. That's the word you could use to describe the place Yoshi was in at the moment. There's not even a slightest light so he can't see anything, even his hands was barely seen.

Yoshi who doesn't know what to do in this situation just looking around in hope to find something that could give him a clue of this place. But alas, there was nothing at all, just darkness. After awhile of thinking, he decided to do something else, and that was screaming into the darkness to see if there was any object his eyes couldn't reached that might reflect the sound he made. If so, maybe he could go to the said object because it could be a wall. As Yoshi was about to do that, suddenly he was being stopped by a voice that came not far from behind him.

"Hey, hey. I know what you are about to do but just drop it off. It won't work here since this place is not real, at least for now."

Yoshi didn't turned around because he knew who it was, instead he stared into the nothingness in front of him. Yoshi started open his mouth to speak but with cold voice, as cold as an eight year old boy could do.

"Kurayami."

"Woah, woah! What's with the cold voice? You should be grateful to me for letting you live peacefully for three months when you was in your coma, or else I already mess up your mind and by the time you wake up you'll gone crazy!" Kurayami said half yelled and with slightly angry tone.

"Then why don't you do it? Why are you still hanging out around me? You can just finish me off, then all of this would be over! Kurayami, what are you planning!!??" full of anger, Yoshi said.

"Hahaha!!!! Oh, I will finish you off but not now. Yes, you're right! I am planning something, sooner or later it will happen. I'm just waiting for the right time to strike, until that time come I let you feel the torture by the world and by me. Hahaha!!!!" Kurayami said while walking away into the darkness still laughing like a maniac.

Yoshi who heard the footsteps became further and further away had a determined expression on his face.

"I promise I will not die because of that bastard!"

Suddenly, the surrounding became darker and darker and the fog started to became thick to the point that you can't see anything at all. Despite all that happened, Yoshi didn't even panic or feel anxious, instead he closed his eyes and waited for all of this thing to be done. Soon, fog and darkness covered the whole place and Yoshi's figure has been drowned in them.

*********

(Next day)

*Bang* *Bang* *Bang*

'Ugh, so noisy. What is that noise?'

"-shi, Yoshi! Yoshi!"

'Eh? This voice sound fam-' Yoshi's thought was been interrupted by the loud noise, thus woke him up from his sleep.

*Bang* *Bang* *Bang*

"Yoshi! Open the door! Yoshi!!"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm coming now! Stop knocking, gee." Yoshi said lazily while still not fully awake from his sleep.

Slowly he got up from his bed and forced his legs to walk to the door while staggered a little and maybe hit some of the furniture along the way. Once he arrived in front of the door, he open the door and looked up to see who was it that been knocking on his door like it is the end of the world. But it took sometime to figure out who it was since the sunshine hit upon his eyes made him blind for a second.

When his vision already cleared, he looked up again to meet face to face with someone who has a scar that runs across the bridge of his nose, dark eyes and not to say a frowned, a deep one. Yoshi who was not sober up yet, started the conversation.

"Ah, Iruka. What are you doing here early in the morning? Yawn~ need something?"

*Bonk*

"First of all, it's not morning, it is already late afternoon!! Second, it's Iruka-sensei for you!! And third, what are you doing??!! You missed all the classes in your SECOND day!! Now, explain!"

Iruka said obviously angry and his face already red from all the stressfulness. He also smacked Yoshi on the head for the boost and glared at him while waiting for him to answer. Yoshi after hearing the angry voice of Iruka finally sober up and came to his senses.

"A- ahh, Iruka-sensei~ I- I'm sorry for missing out all the classes. I woke up late, or....maybe too late-"

*Rinnngggg*

The sound of the alarm goes off made the atmosphere between Yoshi and Iruka awkward. Iruka just glared at Yoshi with the frowned still on his face while the later stay as quiet as possible. After a while, the alarm stop ringing and Yoshi knew it was a cue for him to talk.

"-or maybe I set...the alarm on...the wrong time??"

'Damn. I thought it was Kakashi.'

The later who heard his answer just sighed while shaking his head. But then, his face turn into a worried one and his eyes looked at Yoshi full of concerned.

"Yoshi, are you okay?" Iruka asked suddenly without thinking the consequence it would bring later.

Yoshi after heard the question had his eyes widened and was stunned for a second. Iruka doesn't seem to notice though.

"What do you mean by that, Iruka-sensei?"

"Well, you know. Maybe you are not feeling good, or...ah! Is there something troubling you? If so, you can te-"

"Iruka-sensei! I'm fine. There's nothing I need to tell you. So if you please leave, Iruka-sensei?" Yoshi said while looking down.

There was silence for a second, but then Iruka spoke.

"I will go. But if there's something troubling you or need my help, you know where to find me." with that last words, Iruka walked away from Yoshi's house with his hands on his pocket.

Yoshi took a last glance at Iruka before closed the door. Once the door was closed, he slide his back on the door and sat down on the floor while repeating the conversation he had with Iruka just now in his head. Yoshi felt wronged for saying things like that to someone who cared deeply about him.

'Well, they can't blame me, right? Because no one ever cared about me before and not to mention, me? Someone asked me whether I'm okay or not? Never!'

Yoshi monologued to himself while his hands ran through his hair. Few seconds later, he finally accepted the reality that he really said something mean to his teacher. Yoshi stand up and proceeded to walk to the bathroom but after few steps away, there was knocking on his door again.

With an annoyed face, Yoshi walked to the door and open it, almost slammed the poor door just to be met with three boys which one of them had a yellow hair, one was having a lazy face while yawning and the other one was eating chips with the crumbs all over the place. Yoshi tried to calm himself down while keeping a straight face. After he found the so called calmness, started to ask the three boys.

"May I know what are you guys doing here?"

"Yoshi! I came here to ask you to play with me. Can you?!!" Naruto asked excitedly with his loud voice.

"Keep it down, Naruto. You'll disturb the neighbors."

'I'm not surprised he didn't asked the reason why I didn't come to class.' Yoshi thought.

"Then, how about you guys?" Yoshi said while turning his attention to the other two boys, Shikamaru and Chōji.

"I came here to pass you the homeworks we had today. Here's your part." Shikamaru stated while handed Yoshi some papers.

'Never thought a lazy person like him would go through the trouble to hand me the homeworks.' Yoshi think while took the papers from Shikamaru.

Shikamaru whose like knowing what was in Yoshi's head, suddenly spoke.

"Trust me when I say this. It was really a troublesome thing to do, but I can't just rely on a yellow haired boy who might lose them or a boy who always think about chips all the time." said Shikamaru while slightly glanced to his two friends.

"I think about you sometimes, Shikamaru. And also meat." Chōji said then continued eating his chips.

'Right.' Shikamaru thought, weird expression on his face.

"Okay. Well, I guess that's all you have to say, right? Then, on your way please."

Yoshi shooed them away but looked like someone still have business here. And that said someone was no one else than Naruto.

"Wait! Yoshi, you didn't answer me yet. Can we play together today?"

Yoshi was hesitant to accept the proposal so he looked at the two boys. As knowing what that looked mean, Shikamaru hurriedly said.

"Ah, we're sorry. We can't play with you guys today. We promised our father yesterday that we gonna trained with them after school today. As far as I feel lazy to do it, but you know promise is a promise. I don't want to break it. So, sorry again."

Chōji nodded his head as a way to justify what his friend said. After that, they walked away from Yoshi's house and back to their home. And now left Naruto and Yoshi alone. Stared eye to eye with the later has hoped in his eyes.

********

"Ne, Yoshi. You said you were hungry, right? Let's go eat at Ichiraku! It's been a long time since we went there." Naruto who was walking beside Yoshi said excitedly.

Yep, you guessed it right. Yoshi finally gave up and accepted Naruto's offer. But in one condition and that was, they need to eat first or Yoshi need to eat first. Since he just woke up and missed breakfast, so this was his chance to eat lunch.

"Sigh~ I know you gonna say that, but NO! I don't have any mood to eat ramen right now and for your information, we just went there yesterday."

Surprisingly, Naruto didn't even argued with Yoshi about this. Seeing him quiet, Yoshi continued on his way to find something to eat with Naruto walking beside him.

Some time has passed and Yoshi finally found the shop he's been looking for. Since Yoshi was not familiar with the village yet, he asked Naruto about it but Naruto being a child he was, refused to tell Yoshi where the shop was. Yoshi's only guessed was that, his yellow friend was sulking. And so he doesn't have any choice but to find the shop by himself while Naruto just followed him around. Didn't even care even though when they were lost.

"So you didn't have any mood to eat something delicious for lunch, but have some mood to eat something sweet." Naruto said while glaring at Yoshi.

"Isn't dango delicious too. Besides I've been wanting to eat them for a long time. Come on Naruto, be a good friend of mine for a moment and I treat you to ramen tomorrow."

"Yosh! Let's go eat dango!"

Yoshi was stunned for a moment at how fast Naruto changed his mood. Looked like the mention of ramen did tricked him very well. Yoshi then walked inside the shop after Naruto and found themselves a table.

Once they seated, they ordered their portion. Everything was going well, until one of the costumer in the shop started to say something unpleasant, at least to Yoshi.

"Hey, look who we have here. Isn't he that monster? What a monster like you doing here, huh?" the man asked, already stood beside our table.

Yoshi realized that Naruto was feeling uncomfortable just by looking at his face. But Yoshi won't let things went that bastard way, so when he saw the man handed out his hand to grab Naruto's collar, he did something that a good friend should do in this situation.

Since Yoshi was the one who was sitting at the side of the table at where the people walked, so it was easy for him to do his job.

He grabbed the hand of the bastard before it reached Naruto and pulled it towards him. Once reached the supposed distance, he headbutted the man's face hardly. Because of Yoshi's sudden action, the man doesn't have time to dodge so he ended up received the attack. The man stumbled back a little cause by the impact of Yoshi's attack and there was blood coming out of his broken nose while on Yoshi's side, there was no casualties since he's using the top of his head not his forehead. Back to his senses, the man glared at Yoshi angrily, some veins could be seen appeared on his face.

'If looks can killed, then I would already kill him.' Yoshi thought to himself.

"No one messed with my friend." He said while sent a death glare to everyone in the shop including the shopkeeper.