An Unexpected Love (Book 2 of the Unexpected Series)

Ch. 7 - Making A Friend

Summary: Kokoro meets new people and finally figures out how to interact with Kirigakurans.

For once the day was bright and the sun was able to shine through a few cracks in the clouds. It was rare weather for Kirigakure, and many residents were taking advantage of it. More people were outside moving about than ever before. It was the increase in volume that awoke Kokoro that day. Kokoro woke up in better spirits than usual and began humming cheerfully. She opened her curtains a bit and basked in the beautiful day. She closed them once she got enough vitamins and moseyed over to her closet to get dressed for the day. She rummaged through her fridge and found a container full of leftovers from last night. She heated it up and put the kettle on for tea.

In the corner of her humble abode were two plants begging for water. They were watered dutifully and words of praise were given to them. One particular plant had a slight shading of blue-green that reminded her of someone she missed. HIs letter was endearing and made her swoon just a smidge when she read it. The fondness she read from the letter was strong and unexpected, and she wanted to reciprocate it. Hearing how hard Gaara had been working was motivating, and she was so proud of him for taking the chance to show everyone the amazing and caring person he really was. Now that they were on good terms with one another, Kokoro felt like she had her best friend back. It was weird thinking of him as her best friend. The amount of time they spent together was slim, yet she felt so connected with him. She couldn't help but to care for him and to want him to succeed. She wanted to tell him everything that happened with her, she wanted to help him through his times of need, she wanted to be there by his side.

She slapped her cheeks as they heated up with a blush. She knew what she was feeling, and she was utterly mortified by the thought. What kind of person had a crush on their best friend? It felt like she was crossing an invisible boundary. She filled a cup with tea, dished out her leftovers, and sat down to try to clear her head. It wasn't hard to do so. She was excited to start her day. She finally had a day off from her training to do whatever she wanted to do! It felt like a once in a lifetime chance to explore the village more and interact more with the community. She knew it would be hard, but she wanted to put her best foot forward to be on friendly terms with the people of Kirigakure.

Kokoro wasn't exactly sure how she should. It was one thing to go up to people and start conversations with them when they were friendly enough, it was another to do the same thing when the people despised your entire being. It was like trying to crack open a rock with just your hands. It'd be better if she had a jutsu that could cut open even the strongest materials; she needed leverage. Leverage was usually seen as a bad thing because it meant you had dirt on someone. It meant you knew something no one else should know. Maybe it was an affair with the next door neighbor, maybe it was a trade with an illegal dealer, maybe it was a murder, maybe it was theft of an important item. Everyone had secrets. And no one wanted them to be aired out. If a civilian used leverage against another citizen, then they were considered evil. In a civilian's eyes, you weren't supposed to use leverage against someone. You were considered manipulative and cruel. Kokoro didn't understand civilian logic. If you were a shinobi, though, other shinobi didn't particularly like it when you used leverage against them, but they respected you for having found that information and for using it when you could. Using leverage, trading secrets, and bargaining were positive things in the shinobi community. It was kind of like a touché.

Leverage would help significantly with infiltrating the shinobi community in Kiri. She'd have to find something to help her make her way into their ranks and into their trust. She needed to trade information. The problem was that she didn't have any information. She didn't have any connections to anyone to gossip to or to exchange anything. If she got in with the shinobi, it'd be easy to get in with the civilians. In Kiri, the civilians use the shinobi to measure who is trustworthy and who is not. If you fit in with the shinobi, you were trustworthy enough to fit in with the civilians. That didn't mean the civilians would want to talk to you, it just meant they didn't give you death stares every time you came around.