Family Day

The riverbank was empty.

Stone lay against stone, warmed by an entire afternoon of sun, a little hot underfoot.

Normally, Naruto would probably have been crouched by the water at this hour, skipping stones. Two out of ten would skip. Not today.

Today, there was no one anywhere along the river. Even the women who washed clothes had gone upstream.

Half an arc from a skipped stone still lingered on the shallows across the river, left by someone the day before yesterday.

There were no new ones today.

Kiyoshi stood on the embankment for a while.

The breeze came off the water, carrying no particular scent.

Someone had a birthday today.

The whole village was celebrating something else.

He hitched his small bag higher on his shoulder and turned toward the clan compound.

The Uchiha held Family Day in the compound's main courtyard.

By the time Kiyoshi arrived, three charcoal grills had already been set up. Their smoke slanted in the same direction, toward a wall where a row of children's outer jackets hung drying.

Sasuke led him inside.

More precisely, Sasuke had been waiting at the courtyard gate. When he saw Kiyoshi, he turned and walked in, looking back every three steps to make sure he was following.

It felt like being escorted under guard, but not quite.

Guards didn't look back that often.

"My mom said you should find somewhere to sit," Sasuke said.

"Okay."

Sasuke didn't leave. He stood there, as though trying to put together a sentence he didn't particularly want to put together.

"The Clone Technique yesterday," he finally said. "Your hand seals were half a beat slow."

"Okay."

"Mine weren't."

Then he left to help carry baskets of charcoal.

Kiyoshi stood there and turned those words over twice. The information conveyed was approximately zero, but the attitude was very clear.

He remembered how fast or slow every beat of yours was.

People with low cooperation scores spent all their memory on things like this.

No one pointed him toward a seat, but the moment he entered the courtyard, he knew where to sit.

The bench with the fewest people, against the wall, with a veranda pillar behind him and the exit in front.

He had spent half a semester choosing spots like this. He could find one with his eyes closed.

Mikoto came over from the veranda carrying a plate of sliced persimmons. "Sasuke didn't pick on you, did he?"

"No."

"Then he did, and just didn't get caught." Mikoto set down the persimmons and sat beside him for a while, in no hurry to leave. "Your parents didn't come with you today?"

"They're on duty. Both of them were scheduled."

"I see." Mikoto nodded and asked no further questions. Instead, Kiyoshi found himself at a loss for what to say. Before she stood up, she nudged the largest piece of persimmon on the plate toward him. "Eat. They're sweet this year."

The clan's children ran between the charcoal grills, the older ones leading the younger ones. When a little one fell, their crying barely started before a piece of grilled rice cake was stuffed into their mouth to quiet them.

An auntie in an apron carried rice cakes from bench to bench. When she reached him, she glanced at the expressionless child holding a persimmon, gave him an extra piece, and asked nothing.

Several elders sat talking at the far end, their voices low. He couldn't make out what they were saying, nor did he need to. It would be the usual: harvests, Security Force schedules, whose children ought to be betrothed.

One sentence slipped between the others, spoken even more quietly. Kiyoshi caught only its final word. It sounded like "village."

Just one word. He stopped listening.

A six-year-old sitting here ought to look exactly like this: holding a persimmon, hearing nothing.

He wasn't holding a persimmon. He was counting people.

Since coming through the gate, he had counted everyone in the courtyard twice.

How many men, how many women and children, how many in Security Force uniforms, how many in ordinary clothes.

Among the elders at the far end, he could match two faces to the Security Force roster.

He had looked through that roster a while ago, never imagining then that it would be useful today.

Now that it was, he felt no pleasure in it.

No one in the courtyard mentioned what day it was.

The Uchiha shut their doors and celebrated their own occasion. The three charcoal grills burned fiercely, all their heat drawn inward, none drifting outside.

Sasuke returned after moving the charcoal baskets, two black streaks on his fingers.

Mikoto's gaze swept over from the veranda. He put his hands behind his back and returned to where he was supposed to stand, his back ramrod straight.

Kiyoshi watched the whole thing from the bench. No one needed to voice the rules in this courtyard. They were all written in people's eyes.

Fugaku came out of the main house once.

Even walking through his own courtyard, the clan leader carried an air of authority. He gave a few instructions to several middle-aged men, then swept his gaze over the courtyard. It lingered on Kiyoshi for half a moment before moving on. He didn't come over.

The clan leader's household had plenty of guests today. An unattended child from a branch family wasn't high enough on the list to merit a word.

Someone else stood at the other end of the veranda pillars.

He was young, his posture straight, helping take down the dried jackets and folding them one by one.

A child ran too fast and crashed headfirst into his leg. With one hand, he lifted the child upright, turned them around, and set them back down, never stopping his work with the clothes.

When clan members passed and spoke to him, he nodded, smiled briefly, and continued folding.

Throughout it all, he never once looked toward Kiyoshi.

No, he had.

The instant Kiyoshi lowered his head, he caught a glance in his peripheral vision. Quick, like a night watchman checking a window.

Uchiha Itachi. Eight years old.

In the original story, the pen that entered the people in this courtyard onto a death list would later be held in this very hand, the one folding clothes.

Kiyoshi finished his persimmon.

It really was sweet.

So sweet it made his back teeth ache.

There was something he had never told anyone: he knew in advance what would remain of this courtyard in the future.

He couldn't remember the whole list, but he remembered the names that weighed heaviest.

Some of those people were here today.

He took out the signature slip and glanced at it.

Guardian's signature: blank.

A stub of charcoal pencil was offered from beside him.

Mikoto had come back at some point. She didn't take his signature slip, only held out the charcoal pencil.

"If you want it signed, I can mark it as acknowledged for you," she said. "To prove someone looked after you today and didn't let you go hungry. Whether I sign is up to you."

Kiyoshi thought for a moment, then folded the signature slip back up.

"No need," he said. "I'll have my parents sign when they get home. It's just one field. One more night won't matter."

Mikoto looked at him for two seconds, then smiled.

This time it was a real smile, not the gentle warmth she showed guests.

"All right." She stood and patted her apron. "Then keep that paper safe yourself. If you lose it, you'll have to write it all over again, and it's a lot of words. That's what your teacher said, wasn't it?"

Iruka's exact words, down to the last one.

Kiyoshi froze for a moment.

This auntie's information network was faster than crows.

As the sky darkened, one of the charcoal grills was put away.

He rose to say goodbye. Mikoto didn't ask him to stay, but tucked a handful of roasted beans into his small bag, wrapped in paper and still warm.

"What time will your parents be home tonight?" she asked.

"It depends."

"If there's food in the pot, eat it. Don't just make do."

He glanced back as he left the courtyard gate.

Two of the three charcoal grills had been put away. There was less smoke, but everyone was still there.

The wall side of the bench was empty now. The spot where he had sat was as clean as though he had never been there.

The people he had counted today would be counted once a year from now on, fewer each time.

He shifted the paper packet of beans to his left hand and walked toward the Naka River.

It was evening. Someone by the river was waiting for a gift he didn't know whether he ought to open.