I clenched my hand around the little velvet box.
It was now or never; I turned to Sakura. "Can we talk?"
Wedding
Dress
"You're late, bro," Kiba called out from the bathroom. I scowled at him as he turned to face the mirror to fiddle with his tie. "We thought we lost you for a moment. Did you turn your mobile off?"
"Obviously," Neji interjected silkily. He was leaning on the wall and a crease appeared in between his eyes when he looked at me. "We were going to tell Sakura if you showed up any later. It's an important day for her. And if anyone, especially you, ruined it..."
He shrugged.
"Hey, Neji, where do you keep your hairspray?" Kiba asked, rummaging through his cabinet.
"I don't have hairspray," scoffed Neji, lighting a cigarette. "I don't need it."
"You shouldn't be smoking," I murmured when he took a particularly long draw. "You know how the girls don't like it."
"Don't worry," said Kiba happily. "I'm armed with gum and deodorant."
Neji chuckled as he nodded at me. "Want one? You look like you could use one."
Could he see my sweaty palms? I looked coldly at him as he held out his carton.
"No," I said curtly. "I quit."
"I see," he said quietly and gave me an odd look. I couldn't tell what he was thinking; or whether he could read my mind or not.
"Where's Shikamaru?" I quickly changed the subject as I sat opposite Neji on his expensive looking leather couch. "I thought the whole point of this was to get ready for the wedding together."
"Which, I might add, is only a tad bit girly, don't ya reckon?"
"He's standing on the balcony, talking to Temari," Neji ignored Kiba's comment. "Apparently my living room lacks in quality phone reception."
"And where's Naruto?" I asked hoping to sound casual but my voice was dry and strained. For a moment I thought he didn't hear me or did, but wasn't going to answer.
"He's downstairs, probably having a smoke. Said that he needed fresh air but I saw him swipe Shikamaru's lighter before he left."
"Hn."
Kiba strut into the room and posed. "What do you guys think?"
"Hn."
"Are you serious, Kiba? Is that a four-in-one knot?" Neji pointed at Kiba's tie. "Looks shit. We're going to a wedding, not some dog-house."
"It just happens to a really bad half-Windsor, moron," snapped Kiba and went back to the bathroom. Neji rolled his eyes and put out his cigarette in his shiny glass ashtray.
"Tenten wants me to talk to you," he said and moved to sit next to me. My reactions to his words were slow; I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath.
"Oh, really? About what?" I cleared my throat as subtly as I could. Neji glanced at Kiba in the bathroom and lowered his voice.
"She wants me to tell you that it's too late to pull out now so all you can do is put on a brave face."
I glared at Neji in disgust. He shrugged again.
"Don't shoot the messenger," he said and yawned. "She thinks that you and Sakura need to talk it out. After the wedding. Tenten thinks that the guests would be able to smell the awkward atmosphere miles away... But I told her not to worry because – well," he looked at me curiously with his piercing pale eyes, "you love Sakura, don't you?"
My mouth dropped open slightly in surprise. Shock. Anger. Fury, that he could ask me such a question. Rage boiled in my stomach. With one final glare, I stood up abruptly.
"Hey, Sasuke, where are you going?" Kiba stuck his head out of the bathroom in time to see me head out the door.
"I need a cigarette," I lied and slam the front door shut behind me. I knew that if I showed up to the wedding in a sweaty suit, the bride's maids would give me a beating during the reception but I needed to work off the anger the only harmless way I knew how. I walked to the end of the corridor and wrenched open the emergency stairs door.
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One Year, Seven Months and Eight Days ago;
"Hey," Sakura greeted me breathlessly. A black camera hung around her neck. "I got some great shots of you. Good game, by the way. The crowd went crazy when you scored. There was this little kid next to me who kept screaming and hitting me whenever you or Naruto had the ball."
I grunted and gulped down the warm water in my bottle. The change room was completely empty but the slight smell of sweat, deodorant, foot odour and urine still hung around. Sakura remained oblivious to the smell of man as she sat on the bench next to me, fiddling with the buttons on her camera.
"Is the camera new?"
"Yeah," she smiled, tucking a lock of pink hair behind her ear nervously. "Canon 550d. 18-megapixels, it's not too bad for an amateur like me... Here."
She proudly showed me a picture of myself frozen in midair, the ball having just been thrown from my hand. My hair was whipped back, showing an aggressive look of determination on my face. I could tell why Sakura liked this photo so much; she had managed to capture the glint of power in both my eyes and body.
"It's good."
I wasn't lying. I wouldn't have bothered complimenting it if it hadn't been good. Sakura seemed to hear the sincerity of my voice under the cool exterior. She blushed.
"Thank you, Sasuke-kun."
She shyly turned her camera off and put it away. The room was so peaceful.
"Is the perfume new too?"
"What?" Sakura's hand automatically went to touch the side of her neck, which had also begun to turn red. "This? Yeah."
"Hn. I like your old one better."
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I panted for breath as I mentally cursed Neji Hyuuga for living on the twenty-sixth floor. The man preferred the aesthetics of the view over the practicality of not living on the twenty-sixth floor. I had finally stopped smoking a month ago, when Sakura's father was diagnosed with lung cancer. I promised her that I would never touch another 'cancer-stick' again but it didn't mean that I liked stairs. Energetic idiots like Kiba and Naruto liked stairs. Shikamaru didn't take the stairs because he was just too goddamn lazy, but people like Neji and I were more comfortable waiting for the elevator.
Sakura hated elevators. She hated how awkward the elevator music was. She hated how couples would make out in elevators when they thought no one else was looking. She was scared of being trapped in. She hated breathing in the same air that someone had just breathed out.
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One Year, Four Months and Eleven Days ago;
I had a routine each morning; wake up, shower, get dressed and eat. It was as simple as that, but some people just didn't appreciate the hidden complexity of it. They didn't know how much of a bastard I was if they disrupted something. When I was sixteen, I fired my butler for waking me up five minutes early. So when I lightly stepped down the stairs to have breakfast, my heart skipped a beat when I saw Sakura sitting on a stool, eating my cereal.
"Do I want to know how you got in?"
I vaguely remembered double locking the doors and windows.
"I pried open the window in your study room," she said nonchalantly, eating another spoonful of my Fruit Loops. "You're out of milk, by the way."
"My alarm system?"
"Easily disabled. Speaking of which," she added thoughtfully, taking out my iPod, which I thought I had lost two weeks ago, "you should change your code. I sold it to Naruto for sixty-eight dollars and forty-five cents. Wanna go fifty-fifty?"
I pinched the bridge of my nose tightly and sighed.
"You can keep the money."
"Oh good," she laughed. "I needed a new textbook. Oh, and you're out of Earl Grey."
I sighed again. She knew Earl Grey was my favourite type of tea.
"Should I start making a shopping list?"
Sakura grinned cheekily. "I didn't eat all of your food. You're just as bad as Naruto, you have nothing edible in your fridge or pantry."
"Yes," I replied with a sigh, "but the reason why you can't eat food at Naruto's place is because it's grown grey fuzz."
"Mmm," she said absentmindedly. "I don't believe you don't have Angry Birds. You don't even have Tetris."
I watched her slash a three fruit combo and rolled my eyes. Not only had she beaten my high score, but was determined to ensure that I never beat hers.
"Give me that," I snarled unintentionally and snatched the iPod out of her tiny hands. "I thought I had lost—Are those Hello Kitty stickers?"
"Erm..."
I watched a passionfruit and watermelon fall below the screen and smirked when GAME OVER flashed on the screen. I quickly slashed the retry apple and began to play.
"H-hey!" protested Sakura when I started to walk away. I hid my smile from her. I don't think to this day that she had ever seen me smile. Truly smile. My smile widened at the thought until I felt the impact of something jump on my back. I stumbled slightly under the weight of Sakura.
"Can I play?"
"Hn. Let me think abou—No."
She giggled loudly. "You're such a bully!"
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"Hey, Sasuke," Naruto said softly when I emerged, slightly breathless, from the emergency staircase. He was sitting on the concrete path, leaning on the door to the community pool and spa just opposite me. I immediately noticed that he was wearing his suit but his tie was loose and the top two buttons of his shirt were undone. "When are we leaving?"
I shrugged. "Kiba's having trouble with his tie."
"Aah..." He was smoking. I said nothing as I sat next to him and loosened my own tie. I didn't care if I looked pathetic. Naruto offered me one of his cancer-sticks and I stared at it for a while before shaking my head once.
"You shouldn't be smoking." I was sick of telling people that but Naruto nodded unlike what Neji had done.
"I know," he said, throwing his cigarette butt on the ground, "but weddings make me nervous. Like, what do I do? When am I allowed to talk? How loudly can I breathe without pissing someone off? Remember Asuma and Kurenai's? I musta smoked an entire pack that day."
He took out another one and lit it with Shikamaru's zippo. I watched him inhale deeply and blow a smoke ring.
"Jiraiya taught me that trick," he chuckled but sobered quickly. "Remember how I was trying to impress the girls at Asuma wedding and I basically sent a plate flying into Tsunade's face? I'm scared as hell that I'm gonna do the same again, ya know? I still have marks from when she threw a plate back at me—"
"Don't mess up today," I warned darkly, restraining myself from grabbing his collar so that he would even look me in the face.
"Yeah, I won't," he said softly, staring at the glowing embers. "Even though I reckon the whole wedding ceremony is kinda...pointless. I sorta wanna strip down and steak during the reception."
"Please don—Nobody wants to see you nak—If anyone at the wedding manages to even have a glimpse of your privates, I'll kill you."
Naruto nodded and smiled reassuringly at me.
"Ah, Sasuke, you're a more eloquent speaker every time I see you. You should become a motivational speaker," he noted jokingly and laughed softly. I looked away. There was the sound of splashing coming from the direction of the pool. "Sasuke...You're a great guy, you know? Sure, you're a bastard—"
"Don't push it."
"—but you actually did heaps of stuff for today. That's amazing, yeah? I've always thought wedding planning was a girly thing and that all that the men had to do was just show up," he grinned happily at me. I shrugged.
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Eight Months and Fourteen Days ago;
The airport was buzzing with life. The announcements could only just be heard over the squealing of reunited friends and family. I sat next to Ino, with my arms crossed tensely, glancing at my watch every few seconds. I tried to calm my rapidly beating heart by reaching into my jacket pocket and fingering the little velvet box I had bought six months ago, reassuring that it was still there. I looked at my watch again.
"They're late," I snapped at Ino, who rolled her eyes.
"I know that, genius," she replied just as viciously and opened up her copy of OK! Magazine, which she had read about four times, cover to cover. "I miss Sakura, too, you know? Stop freaking out. She's fine. Naruto and Tenten both promised to return her in one piece."
I stared at her in amazement.
"No one's heard from any of them in four months, isn't that odd?"
It was Ino's turn to look at me in shock. When she closed her mouth, she looked at me suspiciously and said slowly, "Well...I know that Naruto dropped his Nokia off the Eiffel Tower to see how durable it really is and hasn't replaced it since...and Tenten didn't bring her phone...but..." Here she looked at me cautiously and continued just as carefully, "Sakura's been sending me regular emails and text messages..."
I blinked at her and looked at my watch again.
"Oh," I said. Was Sakura avoiding me? No, I was just being paranoid. The three of them had been backpacking around the world and the chances of them finding the time to send messages to all of their close friends was small. Ino was chewing on her lip, looking as though she was wondering whether to tell me something or not. "Did Sakura say anything interesting?"
"Not really," Ino said unsurely, though the look in her eye told me otherwise. "I mean, she keeps talking about telling me this big thing that happened when she sees me again and...yeah..."
"Oh," I said again, still looking at my watch. Suddenly Ino jumped up and tried to pull me up too. "What?"
"Didn't you just hear the announcement? Flight 776 has just landed," she mimicked the announcer's monotone. "That's them!"
She jumped up and down excitedly.
"Did you happen to hear which terminal they're at?" I asked irritably as I slowly got to my feet. Ino pursed her lips and glared daggers at me.
"Of course," she said and rolled her eyes. "Come on."
By the time we got to the correct terminal, there were only a few groups of people standing around.
"Fooorreeehheeeaadd," screeched Ino and threw her magazine and handbag at me before bolting to hug her pink-haired friend. I sighed and walked over to the group. Though they were probably only ten yards away, I felt like with each step I took, they only got further away.
"Hey, teme, you ok?" Naruto's voice wrung loudly in my ears. "You look kinda pale."
"Paler," Tenten corrected quietly. I looked at her but she refused to make eye contact with me. I knew something was going on but I dug my hands into my jacket pocket in an attempt to look calm. I clenched my hand around the little velvet box.
"I'm fine," I said coolly. It was now or never; I turned to Sakura. "Can we talk?"
She was still being embraced by a slightly tearful Ino, who was whinging about how much shopping she hadn't done since Sakura had left. Sakura laughed lightly as Ino moved on to hug Naruto. Tenten was finally looking at me. Her eyes contained something more serious and anxious than their usual twinkle.
"Hey," Sakura said quietly as I tore my sight away from Tenten. Sakura looked exhausted but happy nonetheless. I picked out a bit of fluff in her hair.
"Look, Sakura, I lo—"
"Sasuke, I'm going out—"
We stopped at the same time and Sakura laughed nervously. My breath sped up. I needed to say something before I had a cardiac arrest.
"You go first," Sakura offered but I shook my head.
"You go."
As she began to speak, I fumbled with the little velvet box, trying to get it out of my pocket.
"—it was just after he dropped his phone—"
My fingers had gone numb and were clumsily trying to pull the velvet box out. It seemed as though my pocket had shrunk.
"—it was just so romantic and he was so sweet—"
When my brain finally registered her words, I looked up at her. She looked apologetically at me. She might have been crying but I didn't look too closely.
"It was just for fun at first," she said quietly. The little velvet box remained forgotten in my pocket. "But after we stopped by in Peru, my feelings...s-started to—"
I blinked just as Naruto came over and punched me on the shoulder playfully. Sakura took the opportunity to wipe her eyes.
"Heya, Sasuke-teme," he crowed cheerfully. "How was staying home?"
He chuckled.
"Fine," I responded curtly as he threw his arm over my shoulders. I miss the days when he was shorter than me.
"Oh really? You should have come with us! Man, the world is like, huge but like really small at the same time," he babbled to me though I wasn't looking at him. "And you know what? Absence really does make the heart grow funky—"
"Fonder," I corrected automatically, not taking my eyes off Sakura. She refused to look anyone in the eye.
"—yeah, man. I missed you buddy. I'm really glad you can be here for this. I'm glad everyone could be here for this. For me. And for Sakura."
"Sasuke," Tenten piped up. "You should...leave those two to talk."
But I ignored her. Naruto was no longer talking to me but a surprised Sakura. He took his arm off me and turned his head towards Ino.
"Did Sakura tell you that we're going out?" he exclaimed excitedly. Ino's hand flew to her mouth, her eyes darting between me, Naruto and Sakura. Tenten sighed and looked away.
"Oh. Wow. Congratulations! Oh, my God," Ino finally said. "That's really...Wow! H-how long?"
"Since Paris," Naruto told her proudly. "I asked her out on the Eiffel Tower."
I couldn't move. The numbness in my hand had spread to the rest of my body. I could hear what the others were saying but they sounded so distant. I felt like throwing up.
"Y-you two make a cute couple," laughed Ino. I could feel her eyes on me but I ignored her lie. "How come you didn't tell me, Sakura?"
Ino laughed again. It was sounded so fake, but it seemed to satisfy Naruto.
"I guess she wanted it to be a surprise," he said softly and went to hug her. "I'm glad I have your blessing, Ino."
"Huh?"
Naruto took a step back and looked Sakura in the eyes.
"Say something," Tenten whispered from next to me. That girl moved like a ninja sometimes. I stared at her. "Oh, come on, I know you love Sakura. Everyone knows it. She even knows it. Do something before it's too late."
Naruto sank down on one knee and took out his own little velvet box.
"Oh, my god," I heard Ino gasp softly and Tenten nudged me with her shoulder.
"Sasuke Uchiha! Say something," Tenten pleaded me so quietly that only I could hear. "I've never seen Sakura look at Naruto the same way she looks at you. He loves her, but up until Paris, she had only seen Naruto as a brother, she told me herself. Sasuke, please, I can't watch you give Sakura up so easily—"
"It's none of your business," I mumbled to her.
"It's only been three months," Naruto was saying, "but we have known each other for years. You've made me see life with a new perspective and I am so grateful for that. I love you, Sakura..."
Tenten nudged me again. "Sasuke, so help me, if you do not do anything, I will. Say something, anything...Now!"
"Marry me!"
Sakura's mouth opened and closed. She looked at me with wide eyes before looking at Naruto. Naruto followed her line of vision and looked at me questioningly. Both of us eagerly awaited her answer.
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"Sure you don't wanna smoke?" Naruto offered me the pack again but I rolled my eyes.
"Dobe," I muttered, "didn't you hear me the first time?"
"Ha, yeah, sorry," he grinned happily and tucked the packet away in his breast pocket. He stood up and stretched. "Man, let's go back up. If Kiba's not done then, ya know, suck it up, right? Come on."
He pulled me up and patted me on my arm.
"Thanks for the talk, Sasuke," he said as he tightened his tie. "You're not so much of a bastard."
I shrugged. "That's why I'm your best man, isn't it?"
"Well, it was between you and Shikamaru, and Sakura told me that she would trust you with her life, and besides, Shikamaru would have lost the rings," Naruto laughed. "I love her, you know?"
"Yeah. I know."
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One Year, Seven Months and Eight Days ago;
"Hn. I like your old one better."
"Yeah, same," Naruto loud voice echoed in the change room. He walked in then threw his empty bottle in his locker before crashing on the seat next to Sakura and resting his head on her shoulder. "This one smells too fruity. Your old one smelt like flowers."
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One Year, Four Months and Eleven Days ago;
"You're such a bully!"
I scoffed at her attempts to grab the iPod off me.
"Wooah! You moved all the furniture around! It's been ages since I've visited! Where are you, Sasuke-teme?"
Sakura immediately jumped off my back at the sound of Naruto's voice.
"Woah, you scared the shit outta me, Sakura-chan. What are you doing here?"
Before Sakura could answer, he continued speaking and lifted two loaded shopping bags, "Doesn't matter. I've got loads of food. Toy Story marathon! Wooh!"
And he disappeared off to my living room.
Sakura looked anxiously at me. "Erm, how did Naruto get in?"
I groaned and muttered to Sakura, "Remind me to get a new lock. I forgot he had the keycard too. Or maybe I should just move."
Sakura giggled.
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I told Naruto that I needed a bit more fresh air and that I would catch up with him. After he had entered the elevator, I reached into my pant pockets and took out the little velvet box that had been plaguing my mind since Sakura had gotten back. I could hear children laughing in the pool. With a sense of lost hope washing though me, I opened the box and took out the ring. I walked into the pool-room and the children paused from their game to stare at me in wonder. I suppose it was odd that a man in a tuxedo standing in a poolroom. I walked to the edge of the pool and dropped the ring in and walked away.
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End.
A/N:I'm not sure whether this applies as a true songfic or not, as it doesn't contain any of the lyrics but it's inspired by Taeyang's song, Wedding Dress but based on his MV. I'm not sure how to do the disclaimer, so...
Disclaimer: Erm, YG entertainment (I think?) and Taeyang own the rights to the song and MV. I'm just a kpop fan from down under, don't sue me T T
Also, shout out to Kishimoto. You go, dude.