Knitting Fate (Canon Patchworking with Uchiha Ren Part II)

Eleventh Thread

"People tend to complicate their own lives, as if living weren't already complicated enough."

― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

They're wary of her. Of them. Of course they are – which civilian by their senses would not be wary of child killing machine in-training? They perhaps think they hide it well, but that thinking only makes Ren feel like laughing like a hyena on big dose of laughing gas.

Mebuki does that with distance of a civilian woman, borderline hostile. She spares short glances in their direction – mainly Ren, Hana and Naruto's – when she thinks they won't notice. Naruto might not, the airhead he is, but everyone else? They do. Better yet, Ren and Hana practically feel it. Kizashi, on the other hand, does it with a grace of a man who never really made it past genin. Almost-chūnin, but not quite there. He's harder to notice, but they do fairly soon.

And Ren isn't exactly in mood to be victim of those weary, distrustful glances. Not with the way her muscles ache, dull and distant but present, stained from having to support additional weight. But she still sits, perfectly straight, and smiles, gently, politely and perfectly fake when Mebuki offers her a cup of tea.

(It's not much different, she concludes, from when Renee would visit her family home. It's, in fact, similar enough to cause barely-hidden annoyance and resentment. She's dead to that world, but Sakura is in similar situation than Renee once was. And she's even more determined to help the girl now.)

"They don't like us here," Hana says to her quietly, when both parents leave them alone for a while in the living room, with the table full of sweets.

"No, Hana," Ren shakes her head. "They don't like the fact, that Sakura isn't joking about becoming a ninja."

"This bad?" Inuzuka heiress asks, glancing at the pinkette.

"I heard her mother say, few days ago, that she will have hard time finding suitable husband if she's too muscled," Uchiha whispers back, so quiet that she barely hears herself, but she trusts Hana's doglike ears. She hears and nods.

Ren sighs heavily and looks at the pinkette. Sakura is in process of eagerly explaining something to nearly all the children invited, but visibly focuses on Hinata. Shikamaru is pretending to be napping on the side, but it's easy to notice that he's actually paying attention. Naruto and Kiba, however, have literal sparkles in her eyes.

"Do they even realize that their daughter invited over majority of future clan heirs, and they actually came?" Hana asks, and Ren hums, because the other girl is right. Two Inuzuka, both children of current Clan Head, two Uchiha, the only ones that are still alive and with the Leaf, a Nara, a Akimichi, a Hyūga, an Uzumaki. Most of the people who would become important in ten to twenty years in the future.

"I don't think they do," Ren whispers back. "And even if, I don't think they care."

That was as painfully honest as it was true.

...ooo~(x)~ooo...    

Ren was honestly very, very, very fucking angry right now. And why? Well, that was painfully simple – Mebuki had refused her third serving of (delicious!) cake because lady should take care. And she was fairly certain that, weren't Hana and Sasuke holding her down, she would lash at the woman and tell her just exactly how much of a lady there is in Ren, and will ever be. But the real icing of the cake (pun very much intended) was the fact, that Mebuki refused to let Sakura eat more than one serving – quite a bit smaller than that of anyone else.