Sorry for being MIA. I hate flu season, don't you? As a token for my favorite holiday (28 days away! Give or take wherever you are…) I've posted this. I hope you all enjoy and remember to leave a review. Maybe that will cure me of my sickness.
P.S. I used the prompts (i.e. my sister's two lines from her play and the 'just like in horror movies' line. As well watching non-stop scary movies) as guidelines to help me write this.
I'll fool you into thinking I am the innocent victim. But you will soon find out I am the Wolf in Sheep's clothing.
—Calliope Endicott's A Lover of Mine Act 1, Scene 1 intro.
just like in horror movies
The light slowly died out from behind the trees. The fragmented sun spots danced on Sakura's open cheek. Once she stopped feeling the sun's warmth on her skin, she knew.
With light came darkness, and with it, the calls of the night. There was something about this night, however, that Sakura couldn't help but be wary of. It was too silent, too still. She could strain her hearing with all her might and she couldn't even hear the croak of a frog. Not even the rustle of the leaves above.
"Sakura."
Instantly she whirled around to come face to face with the person who called her, eyes wide, heartbeat racing as if she had just sprinted after a target. Upon identifying the person as her teammate, Sakura shoved him lightly. Or what she thought was lightly. Her strength was legendary and sometimes she couldn't control it.
Sasuke grit his teeth and dug the heels of his ninja sandals into the earth. His chakra was focused on the soles —everything he had to keep from falling down and looking like some weakling in front of his female teammate.
"Jerk. You nearly gave me a heart attack," she accused.
Sasuke let the chakra he had focused fade as he let out a grunt. "I called your name out several times. It's not my fault you were slow to catch on."
"It's not that," Sakura hissed, arms crossed over her defensively. "It's just…" Green eyes wandered back into the darkness.
Sasuke followed her line of sight and smirked. "Afraid of the dark?" he whispered right into her ear. Sakura remained still this time but Sasuke noticed her shoulder tense up.
His smirk broadened a bit.
"No," Sakura forced out through tight lips.
"Just what lies beyond it."
It's not a question, but stated as a fact, so she does not answer him.
Suddenly, the two ninja hear a howl —a wolf in the distance. Both sets of eyes briefly connect before roving to their surroundings, scanning the area like the trained shinobi they were for any possible threats. Many wanted ninja trained ninja hounds to communicate with one another in case bounty hunters were on their trails and didn't want to be found. Out in the middle of the woods, west of Lightning Country, they were bound to run into some.
"Just like in horror movies." Again, he is too close. Like if he were to exhale, his front side would collide with her backside.
Speaking of exhaling...
Sakura slowly released a breath, one she didn't remember holding in the first place. Being around Sasuke was like being in the middle of a tornado, she imagined: dangerous and disorienting. It was enough to loosen her train of thought.
As if to prove that thought correct, Sakura responded with a non-committed, "Yeah, well…" followed by a shoulder shrug, for a lack of anything better to say, as she let her words die.
The silence of the night fell back into place and Sakura thought it was time to get back to camp. She only left to do her business and do some light scouting.
Sasuke must have gotten worried… or impatient, she thought with a mental hmph. The latter certainly fit his personality well.
Her decision made, Sakura turned to make her way back to temporary base. In her scattered-brain state, though, she momentarily forgot the placement of her second and walked right into his hard chest.
So she was right, after all. He was too close.
"Do you mind? Ever heard of 'personal space'?" Sakura tried pushing his toned body outward using her palms. But the Uchiha heir could be stubborn when he wanted to be. Moving him was like trying to move a mountain. Something Sakura could do in her sleep if her mind wasn't elsewhere at the moment.
"I think the dark is getting to you," he said calmly, as his pink-haired partner grunted her effort. He raised a raven-winged eyebrow. "You're paranoid."
"Am not." Another grunt. Another shove —only to stop in mid push. She heard something. Something that was not a wolf.
From the trees...in the dark...
Abandoning her latest challenge in favor for this new one, Sakura's senses were on high alert and as sharp as ever.
She could hear it, crystal-clear. The distinct sounds of the crunching of leaves, breaking of twigs under heavy footfalls. Closer, coming closer. Like someone coming towards…
"….me, but we should probably start heading back."
The skilled kunoichi ignored her companion in favor for straining her hearing further.
A hand fell on her shoulder and this time, Sakura didn't try to hold back the squeak she let out.
If Sasuke was amused at his partners' outburst, it didn't show in his tone as he stated, "Let's go, Sakura."
And with that, the hand guided her back to camp.
The trek back to camp was a quiet one, Sasuke noticed. Sakura was usually the one to fill the void with her unstoppable babble. However, she was as silent as the night around them. He realized she was probably keeping tabs on her surroundings in case something were to come out from behind the trees.
This thought almost made him want to ask her, but he refrained. It wasn't everyday he found peace and quiet with Sakura, after all. But she had been acting strangely lately.
Slowly, very slowly (he usually wasn't one to be gentle) his hand wrapped around her small wrist. Her head snapped in his direction, eyes wide, glassy, as if Sakura hadn't blinked in all this time. Almost as if she was afraid to blink for fear she would miss the attack coming —before it was too late.
"Camp is almost in sight," he said, the light flickering in the distance some twenty feet or so away.
Sakura said nothing in return, but slowly bobbed her head up and down in a way of response to show she had heard him. Her head stayed bowed as they continued walking. Sasuke noticed this, frowned, but didn't make any move to comment. He was getting used to Sakura's weird habits, he thought. One more wouldn't hurt.
She was always a confusing subject to Sasuke, even more so than he would like to admit to himself. One minute, she could be annoying. So annoying, in fact, that Sasuke would do anything just to make her stop. Anything. And then the next… well, probably not the right stuff to be thinking about at the moment. Especially when he was (still) holding her hand.
He'd pulled out of his pink-haired-girls-are-confusing thoughts when said hand went taught in his and he realized she'd stopped. Also coming to a halt himself, Sasuke looked back at his partner and was about to ask her why she had stopped, when he got his answer.
A noise, like the ruffling of leaves could be heard. The top of Sakura's pink crown head of hair was still the only thing he could see due to her bowed posture but it was clearly turned to her right towards the sound of the noise. Her straight hair fell on the opposite side, shielding her face from his view like some sort of divider, but he knew. Sasuke may not have been able to see her eyes but he knew she was starring into the woods.
"Just like in the horror movies," he teased once more. Only this time, she didn't fret, didn't call him names like Jerk or Jackass or Bastard. Didn't playfully push, yank, pinch, threaten him bodily harm or all of the above at him.
In fact, she doesn't do anything, but merely stood there, as still as a corpse in their coffin. Now Sasuke was concerned. Not too long ago she was going crazy trying to pinpoint where the sounds were coming from. And now was…different.
With her head still bowed, Sasuke walked slowly up to her, hoping to tilt her head up by her chin and gaze into her true-green eyes. It was true shinobi masked their emotions well. But, somehow with Sakura, Sasuke always managed to read her like a book with just one glimpse into the windows of her soul.
Yes, if he could just move her head up, up, up (he was a whole head taller than her) he would get all the answers he needed.
"Just like the horror movies, eh, Sakura?" He lightly tried joking again, lighting the atmosphere as his hand caressed her slightly cold cheek. Just a little further…
Her face looked different. Sasuke didn't know if it was her eyes, their color, the color of her cheeks (or lack there of) or something as impossible as her bone structure but she was…different.
There was that blasted word again!
And that smile! That was not a smile he'd ever seen on Sakura. That smile belonged on the faces of rapists and serial killers and all around scum of the earth. Not on the face of his incredibly sweet and bubbly teammate.
"No, Sasu-kun." And that voice! What was going on?
Continuing in the same raspy whisper, Sakura responded to his earlier question, "It's exactly like it."
And then stabbed him in the heart with a kunia.
Sasuke bolted up unexpectedly like a spring, scaring the shit out of Sakura and half of the once-quiet forest.
"Fuck, Sasuke," she swore, her hands blurred as she placed them behind her back where they had been originally. "What's wrong?"
Sasuke, still breathing hard from the nightmare, turned wide eyes to his also shaken teammate. "Sakura...?" His voice held uncertainty.
Said girl tilted her head sideways, narrowing eyes in suspicion. "You okay? Did you have a bad dream?"
He wanted to reply, but couldn't form any words. His mouth was suddenly dry, he noticed, but was relieved to find out that he could no longer taste the scent of blood from his dream.
"You look like you've just seen a ghost."
His thoughts were interrupted with Sakura's snide comment. He turned his head to the left to see a small smile on her face. Whether it was aimed at him for his panicked state or his overall ordeal, he didn't know. Either way, Sasuke Uchiha did not like being mocked at.
Frowning, he growled at his companion, "There are no such things as ghosts. This isn't like a horror movie, Sakura," as if everyone knew that, and turned away from her in annoyance.
Sakura stared down at Sasuke, or rather, his back. It was dark but thanks to the moon's glow she could make out the rise and fall of her partner's shoulders. The steadiness of his breathing pattern told Sakura he was fast asleep again.
In his state, Sasuke couldn't have managed to catch the way his teammate's eyes seemed to darken as she scanned the woods. Nor the way she fiddled with the kunia knife that was initially behind her back.
"Not the way I see it," she seemed to whisper to the night lovingly. Moving her sights to set her gaze on her partner again, Sakura's eyes took on a sinister look, only enhanced by the glare of the dagger she clutched in a white knuckled fist. "Not the way I see it at all…Sasu-kun."
The night was quiet once more.
Did you think that for a second you would be free of me? I am your worst nightmare. As you sleep…as you lie awake. Or are you? —Calliope Endicott's A Lover of Mine Act 5, Scene 8