Hisao laughs and puffs out his chest as he stands on one of the bigger rocks, "The legendary sannin are so cool! When I'm a ninja I'm going to be Jiraiya the gallant and I'll get all the girls!" His earlier worry is forgotten once he's heard about the recruitment drive that's going to be happening in our village.

He points at Daiki, "You can be Orochimaru since you're very smart. And you have black hair like he does."

Daiki just raises an eyebrow and crosses his arms, "Okay. Then Toru is-"

Hisao points to me and makes an evil face, "Toru can be Tsunade. His hair makes him look like a girl! Nyeh." He sticks his tongue out and waggles his fingers to taunt me.

I pout, "Well, Tsunade-hime is strong and powerful. So I don't mind being her. But for saying that I look like a girl. I'm gonna get ya!" I jump and tackle him to the ground. We struggle and brawl in the dirt, Hisao grinning as we traded blows like a pretend ninja fight. Daiki just grabs our wrists and flip us over on the dirt, falling beside us in a pile of laughter. Daiki is really mysterious like that, he's much more stronger than the two of us combined but he doesn't look like he's strong.

We're all lying down in a circle now, heads touching as we look up at the late afternoon sky.

"So it's a promise then? We're all going to become ninja?" Hisao clenches his fist and pushes it up to the sun.

"Yeah!" I say, mirroring his gesture. Bumping the side of my fist with his. I turn my head to look at Daiki, waiting for him to join in.

Daiki is silent for a while but he eventually lifts his arm to complete our circle of fists, "Yeah, we're all going to be ninja."

The three of us stay with our fists up in the air for a while before dropping them to watch the clouds.

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"Hey, does my hair really make me look like a girl?" I pat down the sides of my hair, feeling very conscious about my appearance, "Is it the colour? Is it the length? I'll get Kaika-nee to cut it for me."

"Yes." Hisao says.

Daiki shakes his head, "No."

They both give each other a very heated stare before turning away with a loud hmph. "It's very pink," Hisao nods, almost sounding like a wise old man, "And it's quite long."

"Only because you don't have hair," Daiki points out matter of factly, "Toru's hair is shorter than mine!"

"Hatsuga-nii's hair is pink!" I say.

"Hey don't make fun of my do, it's all the rage in the village." Hisao says rubbing the top of his stubbly head.

"Hatsuga-nii's hair is a dark purply-red. Kaika-neesan's hair is pink. Not the same pink, but pink." Daiki says to me, then turning to Hisao, "Yeah, it's all the rage in your family."

Hisao rolls on top of Daiki and proceeds to tug at his hair.

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We play and joke around until late evening, dinner time. In our excitement about the radio broadcast we completely forgot about lunch. It's always fun to play ninja with them, too much fun. I come back home with a lot of dirt on my face and stick and leaves in my hair. Kaika just brushes them out of my hair with a laugh and tells me to take a bath. Hatsuga is herding all the animals back into their pens. Moe is grabbing the air by Kaika's lap.

After I take a long bath and coming out all nice and clean, we begin eating dinner. I see a bit of meat on the table and some mushrooms on the side which comes as a surprise to me. We don't usually get to eat meat or mushrooms. There's some leftover tamagoyaki from lunch that was supposed to be mine, but at least I get to eat it for dinner.

Hatsuga flashes a V sign at me and puffs his chest out, "I caught some pheasants and gathered some mushrooms from the forest today. Are you proud of me kaa-san?"

"Yep, very proud!" Mother pats Hatsuga's purplish-red hair with a smile on her face, "You're the man of the house now, after all."

"Uwaah," Kaika places her finger to her lips in mock surprise, "How cool of you, Hatsuga."

Hatsuga turns almost as red as his hair and elbows Kaika in the waist, "Shut up."

"But tou-san is the man of the house?" I say, blinking my eyes at them.

The table gets quiet all of a sudden. Mother purses her lips, quickly covering the shock that flashes on her face with a strained smile, "Y-yeah, you're right Toru-chan." Hatsuga looks down into his rice bowl with furrowed eyebrows. Kaika just continues eating like she didn't hear what I said.

"Where's tou-san by the way? He hasn't been home since last night." I put a mushroom into my mouth and start chewing.

Silence. Kaika is the first one to break it, "Your shuriken kimono. We're going to have to wait until the traders come back next week for the fabric. Hasumi-san didn't keep any in stock."

"Aww, that's too bad," I say, "It's okay though. I can wait."

Kaika smiles and takes a sip of her miso soup.

"You didn't forget about the letters you're going to write to your brothers, did you?" Mother says.

"Nope!" I say shaking my head, "I didn't forget!"

"Well eat up! Then we'll get to the letters," Mother smiles, showing me her teeth, "I'll even teach you how to write our family name!"

"Yeah!" I cheer.