Moonlit Tears (a Naruto Fanfic)

Chapter 5

~Kurai's POV~

It was a year after Hideaki and I had met on that fateful day, and we were slowly getting used to each other, mainly our quirks, habits and such.

Now, Hideaki and I are very close, and act just like siblings would. But the only difference was that Hideaki listens when I have to be firm with him.

And as the older kid, I constantly put up with Hideaki acting like a kid half his age... which would be about three years old. 

Come to think of it, he really acts like a four year old. Always whining about how his feet hurt, complaining about 'why do I have to do chores?', and stupid things like that. It's really starting to get on my nerves. 

I finally had it one day when we were walking, and I just bagged us a fat rabbit with my bow. I asked him to gather firewood,  and he pouts before whining about how 'unfair' it is. The reason is, he's obviously not allowed to hold a knife, for the last time he did that, he nearly chopped off his hand while pretending to stab at enemies.

I let out a huge breath and suddenly ask, 'Why are you being all childish of a sudden Aki?' 

I was touching him on the arm when I ask this, for we quickly found out that if I wasn't touching him, he couldn't hear me say anything in my head... which lead to significant problems, as you can imagine.

So if I wanted to say anything, I had to grab him. Which, did not go so well the first time some people were after us...

~~~~~~~~~Flashback~~~~~~~~~

It was around Christmas time, Hideaki and I had just finished building a shack to weather out the harsh winter, and Hideaki said he wanted to decorate a Christmas tree outside of our little cave house to celebrate the upcoming holiday.

But, we didn't exactly have the materials to decorate anything, and I was focused on getting us stocked up on food for the upcoming winter. That meant I couldn't spend much time on something useless like decorating a tree, so it would have to be something Hideaki could do by himself. That meant something simple, yet ornate, and with me not taking time to make anything, it meant we had to trade for the materials. 

All we had were some of the roughly cured furs that I had managed to get off of my prey, but no one wanted to purchase them at all. That kind of left us in a lurch, because we only had those furs, the food I managed to procure, and the rest of my gear that wasn't edible.

All of that we couldn't afford to trade for other necessities at some of the nearby villages. i tried my best, but in the end we couldn't trade for paper, or any other decorations. That meant we had to make our own, and fortunately, I knew just how to do it.

I remember faintly recalling a memory of stringing beads, popcorn and little round red berries on strings, and then hanging the resulting garlands around various trees. However, Hideaki and I couldn't trade to get any beads, and the red berries that my family and I used were only found around temperate reigons, so that was a no go. That left the popcorn... 

With that in mind, I went out and borrowed some chicken feed. Yes, that's right, I said chicken feed. See, the type of corn that chickens eat is perfect for making popcorn. It has a hard shell and takes intense heat and pressure to make it pop.

Using some of the roughly cured furs and a slab of wood, I was easily able to fashion a lid to cover the pot. Now that everything was prepared for popping the corn, we needed the main ingredient itself. So, with that in mind, I went out to one of the neighboring villages, and snuck into the first chicken coop I spotted.

Big mistake. The  minute I walked in, the hens and roosters woke up, and squawked up a storm,  attacking me. I try my best to fend them off, but am unguarded, for I'm busy shoveling their food into a roughly made sack as quickly as I can. When I finally get enough of the feed, I scrambled out of the house, followed by the distressed/ angry chickens.