Beauty and the Beast - An Uchiha Madara Love Story [Edited]

Chapter 9 - Madara's Visit

Harumi pov:

I hummed a slow tune to myself as I washed soiled dishes in the kitchen sink. Grandpa and I were just done with lunch and he had gone out to the neighboring village to buy some pottery tools. I was highly against him going by himself but he insisted that he would be fine and needed a break from babysitting me – for which I had yelled at him because he was being mean – but I had finally given up and agreed on his insistence. However, I had nagged him to be careful and not talk to suspicious looking people and all that which had resulted in me getting scolded for being too noisy.

I shook my head with a smile while remembering his scolding again. Having finished washing the dishes, I wiped my hands and headed to the backyard to make some ceramics. But before that, I had to knead the clay that I had collected to get the air bubbles out of it and make sure that it was in the right consistency.

I had stayed at home today instead of going to the shop. I wanted to take a break from sitting in the stall by myself all day long, bored and with the almost zero inflow of customers. I decided to work on some unique ceramics instead – ones that were a little complicated to make and took time but would turn out to be absolutely stunning pieces of art. I had also decided to make some daily use ceramics for home since the ones we had been using had begun to wear out, with some of them even chipped a bit. I was wearing shorts so I didn't have to wear an apron or worry about getting mud on my clothes when I worked today.

I spread out a cotton cloth in the backyard and dumped the clay I had collected just yesterday evening onto it. Since the quantity was large, I couldn't knead it with my hands and had to use my feet. I stepped on the clay in circular motion to knead it well, getting air bubbles and lumps to go away.

A little more than a week has passed since I revived Madara san. Much to my surprise, nothing had changed and nothing strange had happened since then. Kisame san had come by once to drop off firewood like usual and that's about how much of interaction I had had with the Akatsuki since that day. I was probably just being paranoid when there was no reason to be so.

Everything was peaceful beside the fact that the villagers continued to avoid me – well, I was sad that they didn't talk to me but happy that they didn't try to hurt me again. Kabuto kun had visited once to buy some ceramics but his visit was short. He seemed a little troubled and had told me that there were some complicated things beginning to take place when I asked him if he was alright. I had attempted to coax him to give me some more details but he avoided it...although, I was almost sure that he mumbled something along the lines of a war that would happen soon.

It had worried me momentarily but I dismissed the negative thoughts assuming that I had just misheard what he had said.

I came out of my thoughts and looked over the clay that I had finished kneading. I had gone around twice so I was sure that there would be no air bubbles or lumps left. I picked up a major portion of the clay and put it in a big airtight storage jar but kept aside the amount that I was going to work with right now. I kneaded the smaller portion a couple of times to get it into a blunt cone shape. I got a trough of water and placed it next to the wheel and then sat down to get molding. I threw the cone shaped clay onto the wheel so it was stuck and then dipped my hands in the water. I pushed at the wheel with my feet to get it spinning at the desired speed and I placed my hands on the clay and pressed down on it.

>>Timeskip

I flexed my shoulders and stretched as I looked over the six ceramic items I had just finished making. They were rather big pieces and thanks to my bad habit of wanting things to always come out perfectly, I had spent a lot more time than usual to make these. Well, I wanted them to be perfect because I was the one who would be using two of them. It's not that I didn't want to make perfect pieces for other people but if I saw even the smallest dent or mistake in the ones I used every day, I would feel annoyed at myself for not doing a perfect job.