Before Putting the Ordinary Pen into His Sleeve Pocket

The night before enrollment, Nao spread everything she needed to bring across half the table.

Two ordinary pens, a stack of practice paper, a small cloth bag with her name on it, a clean handkerchief, rice balls for lunch, and the temporary group assignment slip Mine had stuffed into her hands before leaving. Kiyo crouched beside the table, looking at every item as if it were ninja gear.

"Is this pen for fighting?" he asked.

Nao wrapped up the rice balls. "It's for writing."

"Writing is fighting too."

"Then win a few more battles tomorrow."

Kiyo immediately fell silent, as if his own bold declaration had tripped him up.

Che sat by the threshold, turning an ordinary pen halfway around in his hand. There was nothing special about the barrel, and the wood grain was uneven. There was even a small chip at the end. But tomorrow, it would follow him into the ninja academy, sit beside a larger desk, hear an unfamiliar teacher call roll, and hear Konoha children and Uchiha children testing one another.

Saori rested her doll on her lap and rewrapped its bell. She wound the cloth around it twice, then undid one layer and gave it a gentle shake. The bell sounded a little softer than usual, but it could still be heard.

"Is it too muffled?" she asked.

Che listened. "You can hear it."

Kiyo leaned over as well. "It sounds like someone talking under a blanket."

Saori thought for a moment, then loosened the cloth by half a finger's width. The bell rang a little clearer.

Nao watched them busy themselves without urging them on. Patrol footsteps passed outside, softer than usual, as though even those walking through the night knew the children were entering the ninja academy tomorrow. Che put the pen into his sleeve pocket, then took it out again halfway through.

"What is it?" Nao asked.

"It fits too well."

Nao looked at him.

Che switched it out for an older pen. The new pen wrote too smoothly, too steadily. It would be too easy for it to make him forget what he was supposed to write like. The old pen's tip dragged a little, which instead reminded him to slow down.

Kiyo saw this and immediately changed his own pen as well. "I want an old one too."

"Your old pen is old because you bit it," Morita Yu's voice came from outside the door.

Kiyo turned around. "Why are you here?"

Morita Yu stood at the doorway with a folded sheet of paper in his hand. "My dad told me to confirm the route again. Are you going by the water point tomorrow, or taking the side courtyard path?"

Nao let him in. Morita Yu spread out the paper, which showed a simple route. The handwriting was not particularly neat, but it was clear. Kiyo immediately pointed at one of the turns. "There's a dumpling stall here."

"We're not passing by it tomorrow," Morita Yu said.

"The route can be flexible."

"No," Nao said blandly from the side.

Kiyo pulled his hand back.

Che looked at the route map. The side courtyard, the water point, the ninja academy gate, the meeting point—he had already walked through every place, yet the words "official enrollment tomorrow" made them all different. When familiarizing themselves with the process before, they could lag half a step behind, ask questions, or turn back to find a teacher. Once they went through those gates tomorrow, though, many eyes would first fall on their names and clan crests.

Morita Yu said quietly, "My dad said not to argue at the gate."

Kiyo immediately protested. "When have I ever argued at the gate?"

Che and Saori looked at him at the same time.

Kiyo paused. "Sometimes."

"Then do it less often tomorrow too," Morita Yu said.

Unexpectedly, that did not anger Kiyo. He studied the route map for a while, then reached out and smoothed the crease near the ninja academy gate.

Late that night, Morita Yu went home. Nao packed the things on the table into the cloth bags one by one, until only the old pen in Che's hand remained. Before putting it into his sleeve pocket, Che touched the small chip at its end again.

Tomorrow would not become easy just because he had prepared more thoroughly.

But at least this pen did not sit too comfortably in his hand. It would remind him not to write too quickly, not to answer too completely, and not to put everyone into the places they held in his old memories ahead of time.

As Kiyo lay down under the covers, he was still asking, "Will tomorrow be hard?"

"Yes," Che said.

"Can't you say something more comforting?"

Che smoothed his sleeve pocket. "It'll be hard, but we know which route to take, and we know the dumpling stall isn't on it."

Kiyo thought about it. "That really is important."

Saori's bell gave a soft chime beneath its wrapping. The ordinary pen was finally placed in Che's sleeve pocket, resting against the cloth as it quietly waited for tomorrow.

After Morita Yu left, the route map was still spread across the table.

Kiyo lay beside it and stared for a long time. Finally, he pressed a finger to the section by the ninja academy gate. "Will there be a lot of people here tomorrow?"

"Yes," Che said.

"Will people look at the Uchiha?"

"Yes."

Kiyo buried his face in his arms. "Why are you being so honest today?"

Nao put the rice balls into a cloth bag. "Because tomorrow won't become easier just because he makes it sound easy."

The words left the room quiet for a moment. Patrol footsteps passed outside, and somewhere in the distance, someone shut a door, the wooden panel thudding once. Kiyo raised his eyes from his arms and looked at the route map, as though finally admitting that tomorrow was not an ordinary outing.

Saori placed her doll beside the route map. It happened to cover the corner marked side courtyard.

"It's going too?" Kiyo asked.

Saori nodded.

"Does it need to enroll?"

"It's responsible for listening."

Che glanced at the doll. Its ears had been sewn unevenly, and the bell was wrapped in the hem of its clothes, sounding softer than before. Something like that would be seen if it entered the ninja academy, and someone might ask about it. Saori had not hidden it. She had only made it ring just loudly enough for herself to hear.

That was a kind of preparation too.

Nao had each of them practice leaving the next morning. They did not go out onto the street; they only walked from inside the house to the doorway, put on their schoolbags, checked everything they needed to bring, and then came back. Kiyo thought the exercise was strange, but he was the first to stand up.

He nearly crushed the bag of rice balls when he put on his schoolbag.

Nao looked at him.

Kiyo immediately moved the bag to the other side. "Tactical adjustment."

"Rice balls aren't bait," Che said in Morita Yu's place.

Kiyo glared at him. "Don't imitate him."

When it was Che's turn, he moved more slowly than Kiyo. He put the old pen into his sleeve pocket, the papers against the inner side of his schoolbag, and the handkerchief somewhere easy to reach. When he arrived at the doorway, he suddenly stopped.

The road outside was familiar, so familiar that he could find the water point with his eyes closed, know which paving stone would wobble, and know which household would pour out water first in the morning. But tomorrow, that familiar road would lead to an official ninja academy classroom, to more names and more eyes. A familiar road did not mean an easy one. It only let him know where his nervousness began.

Nao asked, "Did you forget something?"

Che lowered his head to look at his sleeve pocket. "No."

"Then why did you stop?"

"Just checking."

Nao did not press him. "Once you're done checking, come back."

Saori walked the slowest. When she reached the doorway, the bell chimed once. She turned to look at the room, as though memorizing the dining table, the low cabinet, and where Nao placed the bowls. Kiyo had been about to hurry her along, but Che gave him a look, and he shut his mouth.

Once Saori returned, Nao folded the route map and handed it to Che.

"You're not responsible for everyone tomorrow," she said.

Che's hand paused as he took the paper.

As though she had not seen his reaction, Nao continued clearing away the bowls. "Kiyo can walk on his own, Saori can listen on her own, and Morita Yu knows the way too. You only need to be responsible for what you should be responsible for."

Kiyo immediately cut in. "I can be responsible for the rice balls too."

"I'm responsible for the rice balls," Nao said.

Kiyo wilted.

Che put away the route map. Nao's words stung more than the route itself. In a situation like tomorrow's, he would easily keep everyone within the corner of his eye. Would Kiyo rush in? Would Saori be questioned? Would Morita Yu get caught in the middle? Would Keisuke clash with someone again? But if he seized everyone's path in his hands from the very beginning, he would only throw the group into disorder.

That night, Kiyo could not sleep and kept tossing and turning.

"Say, if the teacher asks why I want to enter the ninja academy tomorrow, how should I answer?"

Che lay on the other side. "How do you want to answer?"

"I want to say it's because I want to become a really powerful ninja."

"That works."

"Isn't that too ordinary?"

"Ordinary isn't wrong."

Kiyo fell quiet for a while, then asked again, "What about you?"

Che looked at the paper window. The moonlight was faint, and the patrol sounds had already faded into the distance. In his old memories, the ninja academy had only been a beginning, with many major events lined up afterward. But for him now, tomorrow was not the beginning of something great. It was sitting in a classroom, taking out an old pen, and writing his name on a sheet of paper.

"I want to sit steady first," he said.

Kiyo clearly had not expected that answer. "That's it?"

"That's it."

"Then I'll sit steady first too, then become a really powerful ninja."

"Not a bad order."

Saori gave a soft hum beside them. She was still awake. The bell was wrapped in cloth and did not ring. The room grew quiet again.

Che closed his eyes and touched the old pen in his sleeve pocket. The small chip at its end pressed against his finger through the fabric. It did not hurt, but it made it impossible to forget. Tomorrow, he would enter the ninja academy with that little inconvenience.

That was good.

Things that fit too well made it easy to write too fast.