Konoha?

Is that word familiar to me? I'm not sure...

Konoha...

I do have memories here.

Lessons learned here are priceless. The fact that I've learned any at all here speaks volumes. However, not all lessons can be recovered from. A sore spot, a scar, an invisible wound that has yet to heal, has been developed on my chest over where my heart would be.

Negative thoughts invade my mind as I pass the front gates. The subject of said thoughts? You guessed it, Konoha.

Arufa quickly finds himself surrounded by a bustling city of faces he vaguely recognizes, but not by name.

Truth be told, I have no idea what I'm doing here. Will I stay? Will it become too much once again? I feel like I have shirked my duties as a shinobi.

I have not yet decided what yet to do with myself. Perhaps I will become a trader? No... that is not who I am.

Who am I?

I am a shinobi.

'I get lost in my thoughts too often to be conceived as helpful,' Arufa thought semi-bitterly. When nothing is going on, he often finds himself in a thoughtful trance.

He looks down at himself. His body is surrounded by a thin black cloak, over simple comfort clothes. A pair of durable sweatpants and a t-shirt more than fit the bill, so that is what he wore.

Arufa reaches in his cloak and pulls out a small tin flask, the contents unknown to any passerby, and takes a quick swig. The telltale smell of cheap alcohol fills the air around him.

'Drinking is my saving grace... Good thing I'm considered an adult. I /am/ a shinobi, after all.'

While his body has harmlessly experienced much, including alcohol, the same could not be said about his mind. Thoughts he wish would never come about recur in his head over and over again until he can only bear filling it with something else. Memories plague his conscious, nightmares claim everything else.

'When was the last time I even had one?' Arufa mentally asked, clearly not expecting an answer.

3 nights before. The same time he last got some sleep.

It then became apparent that he was not alone; Arufa was surrounded by shinobi and non-shinobi alike, minding their own business in their metropolis.

'I'm just going to walk around and see if I can find any new restaurants,' he decided.

Arufa continues his trek down the bustling Konoha streets, doing just that.