Adopted: Book 1 Refracted Sand [REWRITING]

Adopted Ch. 22 A Gap in the Sky and the Trapped Voices

The young child fell back onto his bottom and ogled up at the equally shocked Suzume standing above him.

The whole class was struck dumb by the unspeakable that has transpired. The teacher's spectacles slipped down her nose and her jaw was slackened.

Suzume just won her first sparing match.

_ _ _

Temari was getting worried.

She saw Kankuro come back home with a rental movie bag in his hands and a resolute look set into his face. He then proceeded to head in a beeline to the living room, pop the VHS into the player and sit back to watch a romance movie. A romance movie. Kankuro with a romance movie?

For the rest of the day, he played the movie, fell asleep, woke up at the end, look dissatisfied with something, and repeated the same routine over and over again. Temari wondered if it was a new naptime custom.

At the fifth rerun, Temari finally confronted him.

"I'd really appreciate an explanation," she said as the movie began its prologue.

Kankuro paused the video and ran a hand through his hair. "Did we ever know a sixteen year old guy with black hair and eyes?"

She knitted her eyebrows. "No?"

"Here." Kankuro patted the empty space next to him on the couch and reached into his back pocket.

Temari sat down and watched him unfold a piece of paper. He handed her the paper and she began to examine a rough sketch of the person she could only assume was the guy Kankuro was talking about.

The edges around him were marked sharply like Kankuro made it his job to solidify him onto the paper. The boy had a slender face and slightly wavy, black hair. But what caught her attention the most were his eyes.

"Those are Suzume's eyes," she remarked.

"Yeah," Kankuro rubbed his eyes. "Yeah, they are."

"And this has to do with why you're watching the recent Fujikaze Yukie film because...?"

"When I went to watch it with Suzume, I fell asleep. When I was asleep I saw him," Kankuro stared distantly at the sketch. "And he looked like he was making a huge decision. After deciding on the decision, he looked at me again and told me, 'She is the world herself. Nurture her with love and compassion if you don't want to see her crumble.' Which, according to Suzume, was dialogue from the movie."

"And you thought if you watched it again you'd be able to meet this mystery guy," Temari summarized.

"That was the general idea." He leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. "I know he's important somehow. He's undoubtedly related to Suzume and if he is how did my subconscious dig him up. Do I know him from somewhere? Have we met before? And I'm pretty sure what I think he said wasn't what he said, just the movie intruding at the most crucial time."

"I don't remember meeting him," Temari informed him. "He isn't a Counsellor or tribe member either. He could be someone we met on the street?"

"So Suzume's from civilian descent," Kankuro mumbled.

"It would certainly explain her inability to fight and the unused chakra system."

Kankuro grunted in agreement.

"Well, we can record the information in the Project Suzume file," Temari ejected the movie and replaced it in its case. "But I'm cutting you off. Watch it once more and you might never wake up."

Her brother snorted and only looked back up when Temari waved his drawing in front of him.

"I'll give you back your dream boy," she sneered.