(AU)
Title: Jumping to Conclusions
Rating: K
Status: 420 word Drabble
Time taken: 30 minutes, minus revision.
Background: Written for Story Challenges involving Sango forum. Challenge being a Sango/Sasuke pairing with theme: Childhood.
Disclaimer: I don't even own the forum this was posted for (that would be Verde Aries). And not Inuyasha or Naruto either.
Jumping To Conclusions -Clemency Lime
"Hit her boy, hit her!"
"Use your feet Sango!"
Wap!
Ten year-old Sasuke cringed, backing off a step to avoid another slap of his opponent's rod. His opponent was a girl, (a younger girl!) but her lashes came faster as he tried to calculate her next move.
Wap wap!
"Urr…HIT HER!"
Sasuke's father's face was puckered with rage. He stood feet away, hands fisted and visibly shaking as he contained himself enough to stay beyond the fight limits.
The girl bounded back and exhaled shortly, panting. She threw a glance at her own father and was rewarded with his proud and besotted gaze. Sasuke moved in as she now tossed her heavy brown ponytail and leered, snorting and pawing the ground, horse-like, to bring a laugh.
Sasuke's own father hissed his son a definate warning. He was not to lose the match; there would be more than dignity or even his supper hinging on a win. "Faster!" The apprentice fighter Sango goaded.
His hands were slipping on the rod; his palms were damp with sweat. She overtook him and the wood of her weapon cracked against his shoulder. In a searing flash he imagined the pouch of coin dangling from his father's fist.
Sasuke growled with humiliation and flung down his rod. Her eyes narrowed in triumph. "Ha." But before her head could nod in a bow to complete the spar, Sasuke stuck his foot between her ankles and in a sucession of movements, knocked her planted feet into the air. A burst of breath came from her mouth, the grin replaced by a wide O.
"Hey!" Sango's father protested. Sasuke did not need to turn to be aware of the displeasure issuing from his own.
From her spot on the hard dirt of the training square, Sango looked at the elder boy with a brief, shocking, exasperated smile. She rose to her knees, and patted herself off, and said diplomatically, "I guess you weren't done."
Humbled at this unprecedented forgiveness, the youth squared his shoulders and gave her his hand to pull the small jovial girl to her feet.
Behind them, the men began to argue about the owner of the purse. Boy and girl exhanged shy looks.
And, "done?" Sasuke wondered vaguely, gazing into that expansive grin, that looked for all the world as if he had just done the most charming thing she could have thought of. He shook his shock of black hair and screwed his own mouth into something of a smile.
But looking back at his father, a lurch in his stomach and a tightening of his chest stoppered the warm words that almost came from his heart. Instead, he stepped closer and squeezed her hand, black clouds gathering overhead. "Sango," he whispered urgently, as the ferocity of his eyes captured her breath. "We'll never be done."
Canon shows Sango's father is supportive, I don't have personal knowledge of Sasuke's father and apologize if he is OoC.
Further info., the fathers made a bet on which of their children would win in a match. Neither family knew the other beforehand, assuming one was passing through the other's village, etc.