I Dream of Dance
By annee loves sasusaku
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Genre(s): This is technically a Romance/Angst/Friendship/Drama/Horror fanfic. x_x Because I could only have two genres, I only put Romance and Angst. (laughs)
Full summary: Sasuke has always been dragged down by family and their expectations; Sakura has always had a past that was shrouded in mystery. He found her, a girl who grew up with only dance and loneliness—eventually he learned to love them both.
Author's note: The rain and (for those of you who know) the movie Step Up (the first one)inspired me. :) And a certain quote did also.
And! This is for SasuSaku month! :D And Sasuke's birthday present! ^_^
Rated T for language, angst, and dark themes, including topics such as death and slightly suggestive words.
Recommendation for better story reading: As a little heads-up, there's going to be a lot of scenes involving rain. So, if you want, during those scenes, you can go to rainymood(dot)com, and listen to some rain while you're reading. Just a suggestion. Tell me if you try it!
AND! You should also listen to some sad, cello music while reading and listening to the rain. :) It's absolutely amazing.
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Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass; it's about learning how to dance in the rain.
The first time she tried it, she loved it. All it took was the first step, the first twirl, and the first look at her black tutu to make her fall in love with the entire thing itself.
Her pink hair would always manage to whip around her face, despite the fact that it was tied up in a tight bun, her green eyes sparkling with terrible, contagious happiness and a smile that was practically carved onto her face while she moved.
She was the definition of grace—no, scratch that. She was a cherry blossom. A fragile flower. And this flower belonged in a field of her own, a field where only she, and she alone, could dance, pirouette and breathe her own tune.
She was a cherry blossom, a Sakura, who danced to no other song but her own. She was fourteen-years-old.
The first time he saw it, it disgusted him—he hated it with a passion. All it took was the first look, the first song, and the very reason of why he was subjected to watching it to make him despise it with all his guts.
He would always hide behind his raven black bangs that framed his scowling face, despite the fact that the rest of his hair stood at an unnatural angle in the back like a chicken's butt, his eyes darkening with a moodiness that was uncommon for any teenager his age and a sneer of contempt that seemed to have been etched on his face since he had seen them move.
He was a block of ice, hardened by experience and as stubborn as a girl about sweets (of which he hated both in equal respect) when it came to things like this. And it seemed to everyone who knew him that he would never unfreeze from his icy, unwelcoming frozen land.
He was an icicle, cold and unwelcoming. He was an Uchiha that should have never learned to love or appreciate anything. And so far, at fourteen, he hated dance and hated life itself. And most of all, he hated her.
You dance anywhere, even if only in your heart
Sasuke fidgeted in his seat, bouncing his leg up and down, his arms across his chest as he slumped against his chair, dark hair framing his face as if to cast shadows over his sinfully handsome face. Although he was seemingly calm, inside his blood was boiling, his temper nearing the snapping point. He really never wanted to come here in the first place and stay stuck in a dinky little dancing studio to watch little girls and gay guys in tutus dance to the Macarena or something.
But, of course, his parents, the ones who were, in fact, a part of the wealthiest of families in all of Konoha, insisted, dragging him along to this stupid place and forcing him to watch one of their sponsors' dancing routines—in other words, it was either he went, or they cut off his supply of tomatoes and money.
Another fidget of his leg sent him slumping a little further. It was surprising that he hadn't already slipped out of his seat by now.
He had so much to do at home—study, go to after-school clubs, do projects—and yet, here he was. Stuck. Here.
What the douche.
He felt a swift sting at his knee, forcing him to stop his knee-bouncing. Biting back a flinch, he scowled at the young man next to him of about nineteen years of age, a young man who looked almost like him (how he wished he could burn his face when everyone told him that), the only difference being the more brownish tint to his brother's eyes and the tail of hair tied at the base of his neck. "What, Itachi?" Sasuke said, crossing his arms over his chest as he noted his brother's existence with the drone of his voice and a quick, charcoal-filled glare.
"Stop fidgeting, otouto." Itachi flipped to the next page in his magazine, returning Sasuke's ebony-brown gaze with his own sharp brown eyes. A smirk appeared on his face as he took in his little brother's displeasure. "It's not polite to scowl at other people. Didn't Mother teach you that?"
Sasuke snorted at his older brother. "Shut up. I didn't ask to come here in the first place, anyway."
"That doesn't give you the right to put everyone else at discontentment, otouto."
Another snort. "Hn."
Itachi flicked his younger brother on the forehead. "Just watch them. You'll be intrigued by one of the girls, I'm sure."
Yeah. Right.
That was another thing: the girls. Those giggly, smiley, extremely scary things of the opposite gender that seemed to want to be attached to his side everywhere he walked. They were always so happy, always so annoying, and carefree—and they always thought that they knew him better than anyone else, even though they had no clue about what was going on underneath.
No. They didn't understand him at all.
All they could be were stupid, giggly, ignorant wretches who complained about the stupidest things in life. And that was all they could ever be.
Sasuke set his eyes hard on the dancers, wishing dreadfully how he could burn them all up with a simple, evil stare—and repeated his favorite word. "Hn."
How he hoped that one of them tripped.
And, as if the world had allowed for his wish to come true—something did.
In the middle of the routine, a small-looking girl (was that pink hair on her head?) stumbled in her attempt to take her step to the air. She took to the ground, tumbling over herself and nearly sprawling all the way across the floor, the bun that used to be tightly bound to her head now loose and disorderly. The girls behind her tripped and fell, the intense dance line now broken at the rosette's false footing. The dance studio was riddled with fallen girls.
A girl with raven black hair gritted her teeth as she pulled herself off and brushed at her tutu. The glare she sent down at the pink-haired girl would have melted two tons of lead. "Watch it, Pinky," she hissed as the other girls behind her—now all sprawled across the floor—murmured exasperated slews of eloquent words toward Pinky.
"Ugh, you just messed up the entire routine, stupid. We've been working on this for weeks."
"Yeah," said another girl as she placed hands on her hips. "If you can't dance, then don't."
The pinkette—who had now managed to sit herself up and retie her bun—stared up at them with shining green eyes. Her lips were set in a determined line. Pushing herself off the wooden floor, she stood, back straight and head held high, and leveled her gaze.
And for the moment, Sasuke found himself trying to read her, searching for any bitterness or despair that touched her.
But there was none. Instead, the pools of apple green were filled with utter indifference and calm pride, even as the entire class glared daggers at her face. If she was intimidated, she didn't seem to show it.
"Sorry," she said in a voice too brusque for her appearance. "I slipped."
The raven-haired girl sneered, placing her hands on her hips. "Don't do it again."
Sasuke waited, leaning his chin on a hand as he averted his eyes the other way, glancing out of his peripherals for some kind of sad face or dramatic burst of tears to come from the small pink-haired girl.
But instead, she smiled up at her brightly and shrugged her shoulders. "No promises!" Then, she disappeared with a light step to the restroom.
"Hn—she's already got your interest, ne, otouto?" Itachi's voice hit Sasuke like a slap to the face and brought him back to reality.
The raven-haired boy straightened stiffly, staring out into the sea of gossiping girls. "Hn. Whatever," he merely deadpanned before shifting his gaze elsewhere so that his older brother couldn't see his thoughts. "She seems like a real brat." That was one weird chick; any normal girl in the face of drama queens and sass would have broken down immediately. They weren't supposed to smile and act as if they didn't do anything wrong and then prance out of the room like a friggin' fairy princess. How old was she—eleven? Twelve at most? Probably, considering how she acted toward that other girl. He replayed her image in his mind again, gnawing at the inside of his cheek. Pink hair, green eyes, small stature and delicate frame. Were those genetics even natural?
Sasuke scoffed, waving away the thoughts. Whatever. For all he cared, he hated this place, hated the girls, and hated how light-hearted and carefree all of them could be (why on earth would you worry about dance when there were more important things in life to care about?) while he had to suffer and work his butt off for a future they probably didn't even have. All he knew was that he wanted to be free from the fetters that kept him here—and he wanted out now.
Out of where, he didn't know—but as long as where was somewhere he could breathe for once, he didn't care.
Sighing, he pushed himself out of his chair and sauntered across the wooden dance floor, ignoring the glares from the dance teacher and the fond gazes of the girls. He willed himself to concentrate as he winded through the halls, forcing himself to think about the lessons that he had in class that morning and going over the numerous accounts of business tactics that his father had taught him—
—and managed to stumble right out of his thoughts. Literally.
He hadn't seen her there, tying the laces on her pointe shoes in the middle of the hall. And so, he tripped. And fell. And heard a strange noise akin to the girlish squeals he always heard in the hallways as he walked through school.
It took him a few seconds to realize that there was a girl underneath him, but, when he felt a small pair of warm hands shoving themselves up at his face, he seemed to have figured it out fairly quickly when he bit his tongue.
He hissed and jerked off of her, sitting up abruptly and startling the girl to the point that she had morphed herself into an awkward fetal position away from him, her clear, wide green eyes staring up at him.
"What the hell?" he grumbled before his attention snapped back to the girl he had fallen on. "What's your problem?"
Like her act moments ago in the dance studio, she sat herself up and stared at him before she crossed her arms across her knees. She shrugged. "I was just tying my pointe shoes when you came along. What's the big deal?"
"Who the hell ties their freakin' shoes in the middle of a hallway?" he retorted back with a tint of frustration.
Her lips crooked up in the corners a good centimeter or two in the same, stiff way that she did to that other chick. "I do."
Touché. Alright then—two could play it that game. Sasuke forced himself to calm down; he would not let some tiny, pink-haired freak get the best of him. "Hn," he responded, picking himself up and brushing himself off as he waited for her to stand up and challenge him.
She didn't. The girl just went right back to tying her ballet shoes as if nothing had happened between them.
Not finding any more reason to stay, he pivoted on his heel to walk back the way he came (he could always go to the bathroom later, it didn't seem like much of a deal), ready to go back and punch some random wall outside the studio—
"Hold up a minute."
—before the girl's voice stopped him.
He looked over his shoulder, indifference plastered all over his face as if it were copyrighted just for him, his eyes glancing back at the pink-haired girl who was now brushing herself up off the floor and now raising her eyes to meet his.
Such green, green eyes. Was that even a normal shade?
Sasuke shook his head mentally at himself. God, what on earth was he doing? He was analyzing this chick (a fairly strange chick, but a chick nonetheless), and he didn't even know her. The smartest thing that he should've done in the first place was drop everything that she said and totally ignore her from the get-go. So everything that he did beforehand—the challenges, the curious stares, and the hallway incident—were all very big no-no's.
"You know, you have the awkwardest face when you space out."
His attention, once faithful to his thoughts, turned point-blank to the girl who had managed to come up to him without his realization. Her forehead was scrunched together in thought while her bottom lip protruded in a pout. Those shiny green eyes that were once filled with waves of indifference were now staring up at him in curiosity. She didn't hold any vicious body language—no hands on her hips or arms across her chest—the only emotion she showed was in that expressive, heart-shaped face.
He stared back at her indifferently, pretending that he had not been, in fact, dancing off mentally somewhere in La-La-Land. At a certain degree, her gaze became uncomfortable—so, in response to her silence, he raised an eyebrow."Nandayo?"
It seemed as if her entire being softened at his question. Her hard green eyes shifted to warm pools of hopeful emerald as she turned her gaze away; the hands by her sides were now fidgeting with the fringes of her tutu as she gnawed at her bottom lip. "Um…" Another tug at the fringes. She looked up at him—
Those eyes, why in the freakin' world were they so green?
—and nearly sunk her entire gaze into his being.
He forced himself not to fidget.
Before he could blurt out another What is it?, Pinky jerked her head up at him in such a way that it reminded him of a robot that didn't have its joints oiled.
"I'm sorry," she responded a little too quickly—could someone say awkward?—and shifted from one foot to the other. "I didn't—mean to be so rude." She stuck out an awkward hand. "I'm Sakura, by the way. What's your name?"
Sasuke stared at her. Hard. He didn't move or reach out to grab her outturned hand. "Are you bipolar?"
With a huff, Pinky gritted her teeth. The hands turned to fists that threatened to wrinkle the already puffy tutu wrapped around her waist before she threw her hands up into the air as if in a prayer. "God," she muttered, pulling at a muscle on her forehead before grinding her stare back into him, "That was supposed to be an attempt at being polite—"
"Hn. I don't need your boot-licking," he murmured in response before turning his attention away from said rosette. "I get enough of it from those leeches outside." As he walked away, he heard a noise that sounded like an upset cat.
He heard a huff of breath from behind him, trying to focus his mind on the click of his shoes and the tremendous amount of studying that he had to do to catch up with his home studies.
"You ignorant, obnoxious, arrogant buttface!" was what he heard. "What's wrong with caring about people now and then, huh? Why don't you just suck up whatever's on your mind and actually talk to someone instead of being a friggin' jerk?"
The raven-haired young man whirled around on his feet, expecting to stare right into the face of a pink-haired girl and give her a piece of his mind about who the ignorant and obnoxious one really was—
—but he didn't see anyone.
Where the girl once stood—she was gone.
Whether you're with the wind or without the wind,
Follow wherever your heart will leap;
Don't ever worry about what the consequences may be.
The mansion was drenched; raindrops pounded on the tiled roof, sliding down to the numerous windows and washing off the dirt. His parents had gone out on their anniversary night, and Itachi was out with his friends. The youngest of the family sat in his room, stuck on an irritating calculus problem that seemed to exacerbate every time a drop rocketed down on the roof. His leg was a tapping mess, jiggling at a probably seven miles per hour while he pinched the skin between his eyebrows in an attempt to relieve himself of some of the stress that was plaguing his mind.
Oh, dear mercy…
Why?
He was only fourteen, for crap's sake! Calculus wasn't supposed to be normal until he was a senior in high school.
But here he was. Sitting here. On a weekend. Doing calculus homework while he could have been off with his friends. And the sad thing was that this had to be finished unless he wanted to stay stranded in the house for the rest of the year. God… his parents were impossible; they demanded so much from him, forcing him to try and follow in Itachi's brilliant footsteps—the footsteps of a genius child who mastered all academics at the age of five, managed to finish high school at twelve, and get his business degree at fifteen—even though they knew that attempting to place him, Sasuke, on the limelight would have been a longshot.
Sasuke knew that he had to face it—he was a slow learner. And the fact always seemed to irritate him. The raven-haired boy took a breath as he struggled to keep his tight fist from shaking and toppling the small table over.
Small table… his parents were too cheap to even buy him a new desk.
Before he could practically smash the poor wretched thing in half, he heard a familiar, frustrated noise—it sounded like an upset cat. And it seemed to be right outside his window. Sasuke stood up, walked over to his window and pulled the curtains open, staring past the rivers on his window to see an astonishing shade of pink overwhelming the sidewalk and the gray, outside world.
It was her.
She stood there, board-straight on the sidewalk as the rain poured down from the sky around her, seemingly creating a halo of mist around her. Her pink hair was completely soaked, sticking in some large, some small strands on her neck, back and face. Her arms were outstretched, covered in black lace and topped with a just as black poofy shirt. The black tutu seemed to droop from her waist as her pointe-shoed feet were in a staggered position. Only her green eyes hid from him, probably staring at the way her lips formed numbers as if she were counting her steps.
He heard another frustrated groan from the outside. Still stood standing. And watched.
"Oh, screw it all," she shouted up at the rain. "I'll just dance the way I want to!" So she did. Her back arched into a graceful form as she let her hands out to each of her side in the air like a plane, letting one leg come up off the ground to make a good angle from one pointed foot to the other. She moved gracefully from one part of the sidewalk to another; the way she danced, moved her limbs, and let her facial expressions change were so expressive that… that…
She almost looked like a work of art.
Sasuke didn't notice his intense grip on his desk as he watched. Thoughts were swirling through his mind. Here he was, in his room on a weekend, doing homework. And that girl was out there—what was her name? Sakuza? Yakuza*?—dancing like there was no freakin' tomorrow. How could she not give a care about anything in the world? How could she be so carefree, so freakin' free while he was stuck inside of this—this mansion, this cage, like a broken bird?
She was absolutely annoying.
And yet, here he was—watching her, intrigued, distracted by the rain and her movements and by his inner turmoil.
A fairly loud thump! broke him from his thoughts and brought his attention back to the girl.
The currently very non-existent girl that he was sure he had seen on the sidewalk before.
The head of pink was nowhere to be seen. 'Probably has a habit of disappearing,' he thought briefly, the image of a fleeting sparrow plaguing his mind before he shook his head discreetly. No—that wasn't it. No person could disappear in the rain that fast. Not even this girl. What if…?
What if something happened? A shady man came by, saw a vulnerable girl and—
His heart thumping in his chest, Sasuke didn't think; he bolted out of his chair, out the door and onto the sidewalk, not caring about his now wet clothes. To the slight, disturbing relief that rose in him, he took in the sight of the collapsed girl, sprawled across the sidewalk as the rain pounded down upon her limp body mercilessly, completely collapsing the normally voluminous tutu and splaying more hair across her face. Her lips were ghostly pale, her entire body seeming to be completely devoid of color.
Without thinking, Sasuke bent down and hooked an arm under her neck and another around her mid-thighs. Propping her closer to him, he lifted her up, expecting a good hundred pounds to weigh him down, only to be surprised when she came up from the ground like a lightweight bag. The crack of thunder brought him back to reality, forcing him to move at God-speed up the sidewalk and into the house. Once there, he settled her down onto a couch.
He checked her vitals. Still alive. Placed a hand on her forehead. Very warm. Burning up, if he could even say so. Quickly diagnosing the situation, he determined that she needed to get out of those clothes and get warmed up in order to not have her catch hypothermia. He hurried off and came back with one of his smaller T-shirts and sweats. Now then…
How to get that tutu and shirt off of her—without allowing the chance of receiving a black eye or bloody nose to come about…
Sasuke took a breath—breathe in, breathe out—and looked over the rest of her clothing. Her tights seemed to be waterproof; well, slightly anyways. They were dry enough already for her to be able to wear them and not catch cold. So the only problem was the shirt…
Come now—what was more important? The girl's life or a little embarrassment?
Another breath of air. Then, quickly taking off the tutu, he slid on the sweats, letting the baggy pair hug her hips before he started on the shirt. He took a good look at her while he slid the white tee on—her face was still gaunt pale, but then again, the first time he'd met her, she was ghostly white. The rosy locks clung to her face in stringy, rain-soaked clumps, still dripping at the ends despite the towel that Sasuke had wrapped around her head to get rid of the excess water.
Although the shirt was one of his smaller sizes, it hung off of her like a dress—was she that skinny?
He took another analytical gaze at her.
Her arms spoke of slenderness with hands that had fingers that were as beautiful as a pianist's. It seemed as if her feet were her hands her entire life. Her feet, in contrary to her hands (as Sasuke noticed when he slipped the pointe-shoes off), were bruised and almost completely red. They looked as if they'd been abused by all sorts of nature, rain, snow, sun and wind. And yet, they seemed just as slender as her arms, the toes, although red with sores and blisters, like second smaller fingers. She was completely small—almost fragile. And utterly, utterly skinny.
Sasuke let out something that resembled a sigh. Just his luck—he's stuck in the house, wishing for something exciting that would get him out of doing math, and, as if his prayers were answered with an ironic twist, he found this girl practically dead from dancing on his sidewalk. He re-placed her onto the couch, making sure that she seemed comfortable and watching her as the fire crackled behind him.
The light threw shadows onto her pasty face. Her hair, now drier than before, stuck to her face from the beads of sweat that threatened to trickle down her cheeks. She shivered and rolled into a ball, clearly a sign that the rain had gotten to her before Sasuke had.
He rolled a quilt over her and tossed another piece of kindle into the fire, watching the flames roar to life and reach out as if to touch his face. Sitting back in an armchair that was a good couple feet away from Pinky, he pinched at the bridge of his nose. God, he really didn't want to go back to those Calculus problems. They made no freakin' sense whatsoever; how in the world did Itachi even find the mental capacity to master such dirty jargon at such a young age?
'Because he's a genius—unlike you…'
The thought made him clutch tighter at the edge of the armchair. The side of it creaked. He chuckled sarcastically at himself. "Hn—yeah," he murmured, pinching at the black locks that were dangerously close to his eyes. "Itachi's always had it good."
Yes. Itachi—the bright one, the intelligent one, the genius, the heir. He was wonderful at everything and everyone knew that he could do so much with his life.
And where was he? Where was Sasuke, the little boy lost in the shadow of his older brother? No one knew him by his name—it was always "Itachi's brother," "Little Itachi," "Saucy-kun." And yet, everyone expected miracles out of him, miracles that they had seen with his brother—it was as if they were waiting for him to do something inhuman, hoping that another Messiah would breach their standards.
And if he couldn't create a miracle, if he couldn't become the next Uchiha Itachi…
'They'll all act as if I didn't even exist.'
His hands itched to toss a brick out of the window, to climb out over the broken shards and to just run out into the streets, into the rain and hope that someone would find him and just take him away from this madness.
All of this freakin' madness.
A soft moan snapped him from his trance, and he jerked his head in its direction.
The girl.
That was right. She seemed to be the only one who didn't expect perfection out of him or treat him like he was some almost-god that was meant to be put on a pedestal. She saw him as just another boy, cursed at him when he was being impolite and didn't flock about him like the other girls. One could almost say that she hated him, especially upon hearing her absolutely eloquent word use toward him when he had managed to trip over her in the dance halls. She saw him as an actual human being. For the first time in a long time, he chuckled. His obsidian orbs watched her, tracing over her features for the umpteenth time that evening.
Her lips and cheeks regained their color, a shy, pale pink tint that made her seem almost too innocent. Her face resumed a glow that looked healthy and made her cheekbones almost shine.
Sasuke noticed rapid movement under her eyelids. So, she was having a dream? He grunted to himself. Probably a dream about something about cookies and sugar plum fairies—or whatever else girls seemed to dream about. Assessing her improvement by pressing a hand to her forehead, he nodded once to himself. Good—her temperature seemed to resume normalcy. He didn't need to watch her anymore at this point. Now if only he could get himself something to eat…
But before Sasuke could push himself up and out of the chair to grab a tantalizing tomato from the fridge, the girl whimpered in her sleep, clutching at her pillow. Her brow furrowed and the corner of her lips turned down.
Sasuke froze in realization—she was having a bad dream…
…so what was he supposed to do?
Something resembling a choke of sound broke him from his thoughts. He noticed that her cheeks were wet.
She'd been crying.
"M-Mama…" Her face seemed to crease even more when her nose crinkled.
Sasuke watched as more tears slipped down her face, unable to move.
Another choking noise. "Mama, don't… leave…" The small girl seemed to crumple into herself, rolling herself into an even tighter ball as she mumbled, still crying in her sleep.
The only other words that Sasuke could make out were Papa…
…miss you…
… cancer…
At the last words, he couldn't breathe. He went as numb as if he were the one who had been out in the rain, soaking up water into his bones.
… die dancing…
His mind went blank. "Hey, you," he said, trying not to hurt her as he held her shoulders in his hands. "Snap out of it."
Her eyes flew open, giant pools of green flooding Sasuke's senses. She trembled, eyes wide, face flushed and hair tousled beyond recognition. It was a moment before she realized that it had all been a dream. She breathed hard, struggling to keep herself from gulping down air. Where was she? She'd remembered running in the rain before she found a good place to dance after that happened... remembered being exhausted and then closing her eyes for one moment. She looked around, her breathing back to normal. Tall ceilings, burgundy blinds, large windows, a fireplace… and a familiar chicken-butt-haired guy that she definitely remembered seeing somewhere before.
The light from the fireplace did wonders for his looks. His skin looked creamy and soft, a stark contrast with the black eyes and his raven locks and black shirt. The way he sat in that imposing armchair, staring at her with those smoldering eyes, made her sweat despite the cold.
She tried to ignore the incessant pounding that seemed to make its way up to her ears and took a deep breath. "Do I know you?" she managed to murmur as she sat back against the pillows.
To Sasuke, that seemed about the weirdest thing that a girl could say to him. He frowned at her, knowing that there was definitely something wrong with the girl if she couldn't remember a guy like him and the fact that she felt comfortable in a stranger's home. "Hn," he said in response.
At his one-word response, her memory flew back to the guy who had tripped over her in her dancing studio while she was tying her pointes. She laughed quietly, something that Sasuke strangely liked to hear. "Oh, so you're that guy." She turned to look at him with a pointed gaze. "Is there any particular reason why I'm lying on your couch right now? And why this house is like, completely empty?"
"You ask a lot of questions," Sasuke said back at her, his eyes never straying from her face.
She shrugged. "Just wondering, is all. You're not obliged to give me an answer—though it'd be great if you managed to actually did."
"Hn."
With a huff, the pinkette rolled over onto her side and into the back of the couch.
There was silence. The crackling of the fire was all that either of them could hear beside the raging winds outside. Droplets of rain pecked at the rooftops, giving a comforting, lulling sense of security to the house.
Sasuke rested his face on a hand and looked toward the window that was being bombarded by sheets of rain. "You collapsed. Didn't want you to freeze to death, so I brought you in here."
"You were watching me?"
Sasuke stiffened. Pause. "It was hard not to notice a girl with pink hair right outside my window."
"… Oh." There was another pregnant silence before she rolled back around to face him. A small, serene smile graced her lips and brightened the pools of apple green. She didn't notice Sasuke's sharp breath intake. "Thank you, stranger," she murmured, keeping his gaze with her tired eyes and her smile.
"Sasuke." When her brow furrowed in confusion, he said quickly, "My name is Sasuke. Uchiha Sasuke."
That was when she laughed. "Oh, sorry." Another small smile. "I'd shake your hand, but I'm kind of cold." She stared at him for a while as if she was searching for something; it made him feel slightly uncomfortable. "Have I told you my name yet?"
Sasuke nodded his head slowly, still trying to rack his mind for her name before he gave up and decided upon telling her the truth. "I don't recall though. I apologize."
She shook her head at him weakly. "It's fine; I didn't expect you to remember it anyways." A sly smirk made its way across her lips, vaguely reminding Sasuke of his own trademark smirk—only with a lot more evil intent. "I'll just make you guess."
He snorted in a fashion that seemed to say, What makes you think I'll do it?
The smirk on her face seemed to grow even wider. "Bet you can't."
The challenge made the blood of his man side calling, unable to resist a dare. So he spent his time guessing her name, his eyes never straying from her face as he played the guessing game with her instead of going about his business as he planned.
"Dude, I don't think it should be that hard," she said, laughing. She lifted a feeble hand from her chest and pointed to her hair. "This should be a great hint."
"… Pinky."
"No!" she shouted, tossing the pillow she had behind her head at him.
It smacked his face with a sound Poof! Jeez—how could someone who was suffering from mild hypothermia a while ago be so strong in throwing a pillow? Sasuke grunted in reaction before picking up the pillow and handing it back to her, the corner of his lips twitching up in amusement at the light shade of pink on her cheeks that was surely not from the heat.
She sighed in exasperation, pinching at the skin between her eyebrows. "I'll give you another hint—it's a type of flower."
Flower. Pink. A pink flower. "… a laelia*?"
The girl looked like she wanted to strangle him. "No," she said once more in such a clipped toned that it made Sasuke want to flinch involuntarily. "Guess again."
So—a pink flower. Something other than a laelia. Sasuke let his gaze travel to her face. Soft, light cherry pink hair. Fresh, blooming green eyes that resembled leaves. Lips that looked like petals. That was when he had it.
"Sakura." It was obvious. Jeez, how could he have not seen that before? "Haruno Sakura." The Cherry Blossom Tree.
At the sound of her name on his lips, she beamed at him. "Nice. Didn't know that you had it in you. Not many people have managed to include my last name in it either." She gave him a thumbs up. "You definitely get ten thousand cool points."
For the first time that evening, Sasuke gave her a smirk. One of his real, bona-fide, make-you-melt-into-a-puddle-because-I'm-so-sexy smirks. "Hn," he simply said, knowing that he would have gotten those cool points regardless. Maybe this girl wasn't so bad; it was interesting to talk to her. Not as annoying as the blond dobe, and yet absolutely intriguing in her own way.
Just as he was about to actually try to start a conversation, she pulled herself out from underneath the blankets and scratched her head, tousling the long pink hair that flowed down to the center of her back. "Hey, where'd you put my tutu and stuff?"
The question and her actions themselves were so abrupt that Sasuke had to frown. He hn-ed again, turning his gaze away, feeling almost offended that the girl would rather tend to her dancing uniform than speak to him. "They're in the dryer right now."
"And where does that happen to be?"
He pointed to a door down the encompassing, intimidating hallway and watched her disappear for a moment before she reappeared with her clothes. He frowned again. "What the hell are you doing?"
She had already managed to change out of the clothes that he had put on for her in exchange for the wet clothes, fixing her tutu and puffy black shirt. Her pointe shoes were in her hands. At his question, she raised her gaze to hold his not-so-intimidating charcoal eyes that seemed to burn into her soul. She gave him a shrug that consisted of her shoulders simply moving up and down. "I'm dancing."
The last of her pillow talk words seemed to hammer right back into his skull. "Not in this weather." The vicious pounding of rain seemed to emphasize his words.
She placed a hand on her hip, still keeping his glare as she glowered back at him, putting on her pointe shoes with purpose while she edged toward the door. She didn't even notice how fast he was until she realized his lack of presence in the armchair and gasped when she saw him at the door, staring down at her.
He sighed in a huff. "Sakura…"
First time she'd ever heard him use her name. She stopped at the door, unable to move, thinking about how naturally her name slipped of his tongue; just like that.
"Don't dance."
She didn't turn around, feeling her breath hitch up. Who was he to tell her what to do and what not to do? Dancing was all that she knew at this point—and she sure as hell wasn't going to stop doing the only thing that kept her sane. "It's not a choice for me," Sakura said through her teeth, rubbing at her eyes in frustration when she felt a familiar stinging sensation behind her eyelids.
Sasuke wanted to snort at her comment. But instead, he chose silence. And listened.
After a moment, she huffed in annoyance and scuffed her foot with the floor. "You don't get it, do you?"
"Not at all."
Something inside of her exploded at his words. And, unable to contain such raw emotion, she let it loose. "You know what, Sasuke-kun," she said, adding the suffix with a sneer as she stepped toward him and stared up at his stoic face, "I can see why you don't get it. I live for dance; there's not one single day that I go by without living for it, doing it, or breathing it." She shoved a finger at his face. "Of course, you probably wouldn't know what it's like to be passionate about something; you're a self-centered, egotistical brat who doesn't take the time to look around and appreciate the things that you have!"
"What the hell are you talking about?" he asked roughly, exploding right back at her. What was wrong with this chick? After he had rescued her from potential death, given her warm shelter and comforted her, this is what he had going up in his thank tank? One moment, she was smiling and laughing at him, and now she was going all up in his face! He forced himself to calm down, his voice managing a very soft, strangled tone. "You're the only brat around here, Haruno." His eyes flashed dangerously at her. "You're the one that doesn't appreciate anything. You talk to people like you understand what they're going through. Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't talk to people, to me, like you get it," he said, gritting his teeth, "because you don't."
The word presumptuous and asswipe seemed to hang in the air beside them, suffocating them in their own unsaid sentences.
She stared back at him, narrowing her green eyes. With a prolonged exhale, she raised an eyebrow in silent request that he get his ass moving before she moved it for him. Her eyes held him steady in her gripping, glowering gaze, watching him sidestep the door. Before she closed the door behind her, she looked back at him.
He was seeing her off.
Then, she smiled—a soft, ironic ghost of a smile that made something ripple through Sasuke. She held up a hand in good-bye. Didn't shake it; didn't move it. She let the rain speak for her. Then, she pivoted on her heel and walked away.
Sasuke watched as her figure disappeared into the rain, his eyes tracing the pink of her hair through the sheets of water that seemed to attack the sidewalk. As he made his way back to his room, resettling himself into his chair and refocusing himself back onto that difficult calculus problem, he couldn't help but think about how her silent leaving seemed to beckon for him, calling for his attention like how the scent of good cooking would reel in a hungry traveler. She was unsettling, unreal even…
… and yet, he realized, she wasn't to blame.
The way she spoke and cried in her sleep, the way she danced to exhaustion in the rain.
Even the way that she held herself and seemed that she could care less about what people thought of her didn't seem to be her fault.
There was something about her, something she was hiding.
And it could be the entire reason why all she could do, would do, and wanted to do was dance.
He didn't realize it then—but it was the night that Sasuke had decided to become involved with the girl, the girl with pink hair, green eyes and a ghosting smile—the girl named Haruno Sakura.
We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.
He never thought that he would ever have set foot again in that seemingly wretched studio that seemed to be crawling with crazy girls, yet here he was—sitting in the studio in the very same seat that he had occupied the first time that he had been there.
The girls in the studio tittered, mindlessly babbling about random stuff or talking about their routines while secretly, briefly asking each other about why in the world was that "one hot guy" back again. Did he have his eye on one of them? Who was the lucky girl?
It didn't hit Sasuke that the now frantic hair-tying and tutu-brushing was all from the assumption that he was here for one of them; in fact, he didn't even notice that the other girls were even moving. His eyes—though seemingly focused on a manga book that he had brought along—remained solely tied to the girl with pink hair.
She was practicing in the corner, speaking softly to another girl with lavender eyes and black-blue hair. Her lips moved as she worked on her technique, every so often blowing a stubborn strand of pink out of her face. Her friend chuckled before pinning Sakura's bangs to her head with a spare bobby pin, acknowledging Sakura's thanks with a nod.
Sasuke felt the corner of his lips twitching upwards when he saw Sakura proceed to do what the studio instructor had called a "fouette." He watched as she spun, balancing herself on one leg as she twirled around, her other leg creating enough momentum to bring her around one, twice…
Soon, he lost count, probably thinking that she was up to her twenty-ninth. By pure observation, he knew that she was a very good dancer. She stayed in place as she executed every fouette cleanly, keeping herself straight and in place while swinging her leg around at the right time. Just before she reached thirty-three, her supporting heel seemed to tremble. He saw her stiffen, her face punctuated with a swift jolt of shock before she lost her balance, landing on her two feet with a thud!.
"Sakura-chan," said the other girl, holding Sakura steady. "Are you alright?"
The other dancers glanced over their shoulders, noses upturned and chins held high as they gathered their hair into discreet buns.
"Ne, that Haruno girl's causing commotion again—attention hog."
"Hmph. She's just trying to show off to that cute guy."
"Yeah, I know, right? Jeez, what a floozy."
Sakura didn't seem to hear them. Managing to keep herself from shaking, she raised her head and smiled at her friend. "Don't worry about me, Hinata-chan. I'm fine. Just had that sudden urge to piss, you know?" She laughed, straightening up and making her way across the room to the other side, flashing a peace sign. "I'll be back before you know it." In a flash of pink, she disappeared.
But Sasuke didn't miss the way that she stiffened as she walked, her left foot unable to reach the floor the same time her right foot came up. She never rested either of her heels as she walked, but with the way that she covered it up, it was almost unnoticeable. Dog-earing a page of his manga, he set it down on his chair before he pushed himself off and walked toward the door that Sakura went through.
When he pushed the door open, he stopped. Closed the door behind him carefully. And stared.
Sakura sat in the middle of the floor, only this time, without her pointe shoes. There was a bowl of ice sitting in front of her where her feet were buried in. She leaned back against the wall and sighed, wincing when she moved her feet slightly in order to completely incase them in ice. Her face was gleaming from a sheet of sweat that clung to her, her breath coming in harsh pants. The skin of her arms was prickled, giving away her state when she shivered.
"Sakura."
At his voice, she jerked her head up at him, meeting his strong gaze with a blink. She hadn't even been aware that he was there. "Sa—Sasuke?" She pulled her feet out of the ice and started to stand before she winced. She bit her bottom lip in order to forget the pain. "Wha—what are you doing here?"
He wasn't listening. His gaze was drawn to her feet; he had been right when he thought that there was something wrong with her. His eyes traced over the increased number of blisters that seemed to have formed on the fronts of her toes and the sides of her feet. There were bruises everywhere, varying from purple to yellow to blue; there were even broken toe nails that seemed to scream pain.
Realizing that his gaze was set on her feet, she fidgeted, managing to only hide one foot behind the other. "Um—"
"What happened to your feet?"
She stopped. Placed her foot back on the floor and stared down at her abused feet. "I was going to get to that," she said, her voice barely audible. She shifted back to her former position, sitting back against the wall while soaking her feet into the cold, soothing ice. "See, this," she said, pointing to her feet, "happens when you dance." She shrugged, her gesture hanging all in the shoulders. "Dancers get this all the time."
The image of her bruised and battered feet attacked him again. "But not to that extent."
"Well, you wouldn't know!" She didn't mean to snap, really she didn't; but this guy was so irritating. He always butted his nose into things that didn't involve him. She just wanted him to leave her alone so that she could do what she wanted. "Why are you here anyway?" she asked, too tired to waste any more energy on pushing him away.
His black eyes seemed to bore into her. "Had a nagging feeling that you were hurt."
She didn't bother to look up at him. "Oh." She watched as he settled himself down next to her, against the wall. The two of them sat, without a word, watching each other out of their peripherals as Sakura soaked her feet. After adjusting the ice in the container, she turned to him. "Sasuke?"
He grunted.
A pause. Then, she murmured, "I'm sorry that I snapped at you and called you names." She gave him a small smile and chuckled. "Even if you kind of deserved that." She paused again. "I knew what you meant when you said that I shouldn't dance—you know, that one day." She turned to look at him, right in the eye. "I won't ever stop dancing, you know," she said softly. "But I'm glad that you care. So—arigatou gozaimasu."
At first, he didn't respond, sitting there, staring at the ice bowl in silence. It wasn't until she felt him place a hand on her head that she heard him say, "Hn. Baka." That single word seemed to cover everything.
It's okay. I forgive you. Please don't do that again. I won't be merciful next time.
And, to her surprise, she understood his little gestures. She laughed this time, giving him a good show of her teeth and lung power; she didn't remove his hand from her head, but instead continued to smile at him, even while he turned away and muttered for her to "stop laughing" because it was "annoying." They spent their time arguing and talking and enjoying themselves, taking glances at her feet every now and then. And she noticed, every single time that he insulted her, she kept getting more and more energized.
It was different.
Soon, she was ready to get back on her feet. The swelling and bruises had died down to a dull, healthy looking pink. There was nothing she could do about her broken toenails, but they didn't hurt as badly as the blisters.
The rest of the dance session, she smiled and laughed and had fun with the rest of the class, leaving everyone to wonder what had happened to her while she was gone behind those wooden doors with that guy.
When Sasuke left, nodding at a wave that Sakura gave him in goodbye along with one of her smiles, he realized something—Sakura had thanked him for caring about her. Under normal circumstances, Sasuke would have denied it completely. But now, now that he was walking home, hands stuffed in his pockets while he hid behind his scarf for warm shelter against the stinging cold, he realized that he never did deny it. He had accepted it, that small fact that he cared for her, in silent recognition.
And strangely, Sasuke didn't seem to care.
Are we human or are we dancers?
"Ne, Sasuke-kun, are you sure?"
Sasuke swiveled around on his chair to face the small, pink-haired girl, abandoning all thought on his calculus homework that Itachi had demanded he finish. Weeks had passed since their first meeting; after that, the two of them became closer, silently accepting the other as a friend. Sasuke began to spend more time at the dancing studio, studying the dancers and the techniques, and after each session, Sakura waved him off, watching him walk home through the cold. They started to notice each other at school (it was surprising that neither of them had noticed before), began to eat together during lunch, and even started to hang out—whenever either of them had the time, of course. Today was just one of those days that Sakura had decided to come over to Sasuke's house after school and bother him.
Not that he minded, of course.
He hn-ed at her question and crossed his arms over his chest. "I think I should be able to decide my own extracurricular activities."
"But what will your parents and Ita-nii say about it?" she asked, rolling over on her stomach to face the male, reaching out to him to flick a stray strand of hair away from his face. "They're really strict on your academics."
Sasuke batted her hand away and lifted his shoulders in a half-assed shrug. "I'll figure it out."
She smiled. "You do know that you actually have to know how to dance, right?"
"Hn." He watched as she stood up from his bed to raid his mini fridge, admiring her small frame and the ever-growing pink hair. "I've been watching you guys dance—learned a little bit."
She looked over her shoulder from the fridge and smirked. "Fine. Show me what you've learned, Sasuke-sama."
With a smirk, he took her by the hand, ignoring her startled look as he led her to the living room—which closely seemed to resemble a ballroom. Sitting her on one of the couches, he pressed the play button on the stereo and waited for his cue.
The sound of a metallic clank echoed from the boom box, like a robot moving its metal arms. Sasuke, acting as the robot, moved—well—robotically, letting his torso lean back and forth as his arms stood stiffly up, his feet following the movement of the metal noises. At an explosion of music, Sasuke straightened, head down. His feet began to move in a series of complicated steps, one seeming to nearly trip over the other before he stopped, leaning from the left to the right. He pumped his chest out once, his arms beginning to fall into a snaking formation.
Sakura's eyes widened. He was tutting*. Moon-walking. Doing the robot. Popping. She sat there in silence, her mouth opened silently as she found his eyes underneath the shag of his bangs. Ludicrus's "Yeah" began to play. She recognized the dance moves—the one-kneed form, the air scissors…
At the end of his routine, she couldn't even speak.
He plopped onto the couch across from her, trying to breathe as he brushed his bangs out of his eyes. At another harsh intake of air, he managed to smirk at her. "How was that?" When something whooshed through the air, he startled, catching the can out of reflex. He glowered back at her, silently threatening to wipe that smirk off her face. Then, he stared down at the tomato juice in his hand, almost choking on his spit when he heard her say:
"You should have had a V8."
There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everyone a great deal of good.
Weeks passed.
Sasuke, after his little performance, had started taking private lessons from Sakura, learning how to properly move his feet and learn how to organize his own choreography. He learned about a great deal of music from her, about rhythm, about his body—just about everything that one could possibly learn from such a small subject.
And he found that he liked it—not only the dancing, but the lessons themselves. He liked anticipating her, coming over to his house. He liked watching her burst through the door with a flushed face, babbling out excuses about why she was late (all at which he snorted at, of course) before she got down to business, teaching him new steps and different dancing styles that weren't from UniqueTube (something that she had fun teasing him about—how was he supposed to know that he was tutting backwards?).
And always, always, always the little sliver of time that he had with her afterwards; that was something that he (reluctantly) admitted that he always seemed to look forward to. Sometimes they crashed on the couch, too exhausted to go anywhere else outside Sasuke's living room-ballroom; other times, they liked to go to the kitchen, have dinner if Sasuke's parents were on one of their very frequent trips and talk of small things and tease each other (in most cases where it was Sakura teasing Sasuke). Sometimes they would even hang out in Sasuke's or—if his older brother allowed it—in Itachi's room.
It seemed to have even solidified into a tradition.
So when Sakura had decided to leave so very suddenly after a session with him and a surprising phone call, Sasuke couldn't help but stop her at the door.
"Sakura," he called to her, still tired from so much dancing. He looked over to her, managing to find traces of worry and relief planted inside her eyes.
Her breathing seemed off, almost as if she were anticipating something frightening, her eyes shining and red around the rims. Her hands seemed to tremble way too fast.
Sasuke moved toward her, forgetting his fatigue. "What's wrong?"
She didn't answer. She turned away quickly, hiding her face behind her bangs as she pulled on her sneakers, trying to tie her laces with shaky hands. It didn't work. She decided to keep them untied instead. When Sasuke stepped up to her and blocked her way through the door, she stared up at him, letting him see those scared eyes. "I have to go," she told him, pushing past him as she grabbed her stuff. "I'll see you at school tomorrow or something."
He wanted to call out to her, to pull her back into his house and tell him what was wrong, but when he pivoted on his foot, his eyes already caught the head of pink disappearing into the dark.
And, left with a numb feeling, he realized how much that this was like their first meeting.
.
.
.
The dinner table was quiet that night.
Sasuke couldn't shake off the uneasy feeling that he had when he saw the pain and the fear in her eyes. Was it family trouble? Did something happen? What was it? As he swallowed his rice, he asked himself the most important question: why did he care? It was obviously none of his business if she had family problems; she was just his dancing instructor. There was no reason at all for him to butt his nose in. Hearing his father's grunt, he looked up from his rice and snapped out of his thoughts before he reached across the table to grab a slice of tomato from the fish-head soup.
Fugaku cleared his throat. "Sasuke," he said, catching his youngest son's attention, "I heard from Itachi that you were taking dancing lessons?" The last words caught on his tongue and were drawn out as if they had some stringy cheese specimen attached to them, and needed to be pulled apart.
Sasuke didn't speak. He had a feeling where this was going. His eyes darted over to where Itachi sat, and he glared at him, taking in the smug smirk that was plastered on his lips ever-so-subtly, watching Itachi raise a cup of coffee to his lips.
That weasel.
Fugaku didn't seem to notice Sasuke's menacing glares directed at his brother. "Now then, Sasuke," he said, "would you mind telling me why you've decided to enroll yourself some private dancing lessons when you know fully well that you should be focusing highly on your studies?"
He didn't want to look as if he were affected. Itachi would win if he did. "I wanted to be able to get away from the stress," Sasuke said, unfazed by his father's harsh tone as he calmly slurped at his soup. "Considering the large amount of stress I've endured recently, I think it would be fitting if—"
"Fitting?" Fugaku emphasized the word lowly, placing down his chopsticks and bowl. "Fitting, you say? So, it is fitting if a young man as yourself would involve himself in fanciful affairs such as prancing around in a leotard, begging for attention?" Although his father said such words calmly, his words carried poison, and it bit Sasuke right in the butt.
Mikoto stopped eating. "Fugaku, I think that's far enough," she said, her voice soft but firm. "Extracurricular activities are just as important as academics."
"I know that," his father said once more, folding his hands into a bridge and settling his lips upon it. "But what I don't understand is why an Uchiha man would choose such a hobby." His eyes narrowed. "Only women dance—men do not."
Sasuke didn't say anything. He could only clutch at the napkin in his lap and shut his eyes, willing himself not to do anything until he was able to hold a normal conversation.
"Yes, Sasuke-kun," Itachi droned, taking another sip of his coffee. "You are shaming the Uchiha name for men because of your foolish choice. Not to mention that your performance in academics is waning."
"Both of you, stop it." His mother clutched at the napkin in her lap and stared at the other men with brutal force.
Neither of them seemed to notice her.
A fire burned in his throat as he forced a tomato into his mouth. It needed to be released, to be set upon someone. He didn't want the stress anymore; he didn't want the studies. Hell, he didn't even care about pleasing his father or his brother anymore.
He just wanted out.
"You know what?" he said, standing up from the table. "I think that I'm done here."
His mother looked up at him, her brow furrowing in confusion. "Sasuke?"
Before he could stop himself, his temper exploded and he smashed the china bowl into the ground, watching in bitter satisfaction as the fragile thing shattered against the kitchen tile. Sasuke barely heard his mother yelp in surprise. "I'm done with this crap that I've been getting," he said. He kicked the pieces around with his naked foot, not caring about the cuts that burned into his sole. He turned back to look at his brother. "You know, I've always been under your friggin' shadow ever since I was born," he stated with steely eyes. "Everyone expects for me to live up to your legacy, and they treat me like a Messiah just because they believe I'll turn out to be like you," he sneered, his foot twisting into the china bits. "I never wanted to be you, Itachi; I wanted to be different. I never wanted anyone to treat me as a shadow, to see me as Itachi's little brother or little Itachi."
"Sasuke, stop, you're hurting yourself," his mother said, approaching him. Her black eyes were large with worry, and it made Sasuke so angry for some strange reason.
He didn't want to scare his mom—she was miserable enough in this household as it was.
But he couldn't stop himself.
"Like it fucking matters anymore!" he shouted, kicking up the glass bits into the sink. "Nothing fucking matters anymore."
Itachi didn't move. Instead, he put down his coffee cup. He narrowed his eyes at his little brother. "You're acting foolish. Don't you ever think about anyone other than yourself, Sasuke? Ever think about how people feel when you act like this, like a child?"
The question seemed to strike a nerve to Sasuke. He stopped. Stopped moving. Stopped thinking. Stopped breathing.
The room went quiet. Fugaku didn't open his eyes; Mikoto didn't look at her husband or her eldest son; and Itachi didn't say anything else.
"Sasuke, I think you should leave," Fugaku said behind his hands, his eyes still closed. His brow was furrowed and his jaw was clenched so tightly, Sasuke thought that he could even see a vein. "Don't come back until you learn to respect us."
Sasuke didn't say a word—he couldn't.
His mother's eyes widened, letting Sasuke see the tears that were about to fall. "Fugaku—"
"Leave now, Sasuke. Take whatever you need and leave this house."
It was a while before Sasuke could move, but when he did, he pivoted on his torn heel and walked out of the kitchen, packed his things, and slipped on his shoes. And he left without a sound.
The only traces of him left in the house were the bloody tracks of his feet.
Sakura made it back home, practically having to wade through the rain that had started ever since she stepped foot out of Sasuke's house as she walked up the porch steps and slipped into her home quietly. It was still afternoon, but she knew that he was probably sleeping; she didn't want to wake up Daddy, but just as she stepped into the house, the lights flicked on.
"Sweetheart?"
The sound of his voice from the far end of the hallway reverberated to her ears and made a familiar sting come into her eyes, remembering the phone call just fifteen minutes before. She didn't want for him to see her cry, so she put on her very best little girl smile and walked down the hall to him. "Hi, Daddy," she said as she gave him a kiss to the forehead. "Did I wake you up?"
Her father sat back in his wheelchair, brushing his white hair (what was left of it) back as he shook his weary head. "No, sweetheart, I was just worried about you." An old soul smile graced his lips. "Couldn't help but wonder where you were."
"Where's the caretaker?"
He waved her off with a brittle hand. "She's just out to buy some groceries. She'll be back in a while."
A sob-like laughter passed her lips as she met her father's green gaze. They were both silent for a moment before Sakura said, "I just heard that you had been discharged from the hospital today, so I rushed home. I'm sorry that I didn't get to come home sooner, Daddy."
Her father hummed in understanding, though. "That's fine. You're a teenage girl; you need some time to yourself." He lifted a frail arm and touched her face softly. "I'm an old man, darling. We practically live in different worlds." Despite his condition, he laughed heartily, trying to show his daughter that he was still a young, healthy man at heart.
She swallowed, smiling with him as she took his wheelchair in her hands and wheeled him into his room. "Did the doctors manage to treat your ulcers?"
Another hum and a weak cough escaped from his throat. "Yes, they did. I'll have to come back for another visit soon, though. After this week, I'll probably be going away for another month or so."
"That's fine, Daddy. I'll wait for you." She smiled again. "Let's get you into bed, though, okay? I'm sure the doctors mentioned that you need some rest."
A gentle hand stopped her from picking him up. Mr. Haruno pushed himself out of his wheelchair and, using his daughter as support, he managed to crawl his way into bed, completely out of breath; he was sounding more and more tired each day.
"Nice job," Sakura said to her father as she placed a kiss upon his forehead. "Your motor skills have been improving." She didn't know why she always felt like lying when it came to her father; perhaps it was because of the fragile condition he was in or the fact that she was so scared of losing him. She had already lost her mother…
Her father's coughing tore her away from her thoughts, and she grasped onto his hand. "Daddy?"
He waved her worries away, barely able to lift up his hand. "Don't call out to me like that; you make me worried for myself," he said with a chuckle. His green eyes were the only thing that sparkled with life. It was calming to stare into them and reassure herself that he was still alive and with her.
Even if only barely.
"You know, sweetheart, you remind me more and more of your mother each day."
Although she had heard those words hundreds of times—whether she had a month with him or a couple of hours—the lump of emotion still formed in her throat. She swallowed it down. "Oh," she simply said to him.
Mr. Haruno smiled up at his daughter, squeezing her hand softly in loving grace before he turned his attention up to the ceiling.
Sakura recited his next words in her head; she knew his speech by heart.
"I remember when I first met her—she was dancing, and I was playing my cello like always. Played her a little number, you know, while I watched her dance." There was that little shuffle underneath the covers that was always after the third sentence. "I can still remember the way she looked at me. Had the most gorgeous gray eyes ever, she did. Frizzy red hair, spicy attitude. That's why I fell for her, you know?" There was that cough that always seemed to punctuate his rhetorical question. "I remember the day we got married. It rained."
The pitter-pat of the rain seemed to punctuate his sentence. Sakura watched with empty eyes as the sheets of rain that slid down her window pane.
"Of course, life never had its happy endings for us." Her father's voice always got softer at this part, almost as if he was talking to himself. "A month after we had you, she found out that she had ovarian cancer. Did all we could to fix it. She cried." Her father had a ghost of a smile, but of course, the slight variation in his actions while he made his speech didn't surprise her. There was always some variation. "I kind of thought the way that she died was like suicide. Did I tell you the way that she died, sweetheart?"
'Yes,' Sakura thought, closing her eyes. 'Hundreds of times.' Instead of telling him that, she shook her head, about to listen to the worst part of his speech. She didn't want to hear it.
But it was for her father.
Her father had the faraway look in his eyes before he spoke his next sentence, not realizing that Sakura was quietly reciting it to herself. "She danced herself to death."
Sakura waited in the silence that she had cried through so many times. Where her father comforted her and kissed her softly on the forehead while he tried not to cough. She thought her father would notice her lack of tears.
But this time, he didn't.
"She hid her despair in dance," he murmured. "It got worse when she found out my condition. Blamed herself for my ulcers." The life that Sakura always loved to see in his green eyes dulled. "Finally, she did it. She locked me out of our room and didn't answer to me, even when I called to her. Her feet didn't look like feet," he said, his head starting to loll. "Arms were too strained and red to be called arms. Her body was all bones."
Sakura didn't move. She couldn't. The tears she willed herself not to shed were falling down her cheeks against her will. She didn't make a sound, but her hands clutched tighter at her father as she spoke the last lines of his speech to herself.
She felt his frail hand come up and touch her cheek and wipe away her tears. "It made me sad, though, hon," he whispered with a cough. "The fact that she left without telling me." His thumb came up again to wipe away another tear. He smiled. "But she left me with the most beautiful gift of all."
Sakura started to furrow her brow and clench her jaw in order to stop her tears. It only seemed to make it worse. She wished that her father was an abusive father, someone who yelled at her and made her want to run away from home, instead of a kind, gentle man who unconditionally showered her with his love. She wished that she could hate him so that she couldn't sit there and listen to him speak, wished that she was selfish so that she didn't have any conscience if she left him to die.
But she was none of those things; she was Haruno Sakura, caring, loving, completely selfless. And she was there, sitting by her father's side.
It was her turn now, to ask the question she always asked when she heard him say those words. But just as he was about to ask him, someone seemed to ask him for her.
"What was the most beautiful gift of all, Oji-san*?"
.
.
.
Dancing sprouts you angel wings.
Take your wings and fly.
.
.
.
Sasuke didn't plan on being there, on making his way to her house. He had never been to her house before, he knew that, and he never asked Sakura why she never invited him over. He didn't know that she lived alone with her father, or the fact that her dad was never really home with all the hospital appointments that he had to make because of his condition. He thought it was because she was embarrassed of her folks or because her house was always a mess. But when he saw the beautiful home, he knew that neither of his two hypotheses was correct.
He never thought that he would search for her house after his father tossed him out, but he had to hurry to somewhere, else the rain would catch him. He remembered seeing her walk down the street in the rain after she left, so he knew she lived nearby. He asked the neighbors of her, and they all pointed him down to her large white house.
He had managed to climb to the window that he thought was hers, hoping to have her open her door and invite him in after he explained why he was here…
…but instead of finding only her in the room by the balcony, he saw an old, frail-looking man struggling to breathe in a warm-looking bed.
His eyes had widened when he heard her father speak of his past, about Sakura's mother. He watched from the ledge of the balcony in the fading light of day as Sakura began to silently cry and as her father reached out to comfort her.
And when he heard her father say those crucial words and saw how her father reached out to touch her face, Sasuke couldn't help but walk into the room and ask the lingering question himself. "What was the most beautiful gift of all, Oji-san?"
Sakura and her father turned toward him, their eyes widening. The pinkette quickly rose from her father's side and approached him, her eyes wide and frantic, the tears still spilling.
"What are you doing here?" she asked him, completely breathless as she tried to stop her tears. They kept coming. Why, why, why did he have to come at such a terrible time, when her father was just recovering? Daddy didn't need this! He would panic at the sight of a stranger in their house! "How the hell did you get up here, anyway?"
Sasuke kept her stare and pointed to the balcony with a jerked back thumb. "Balcony."
She managed to stutter for almost a full minute before she asked, "Why are you here?"
His full gaze stopped her voice in her tracks—and her heart.
And then, he said something that came out so swiftly, so surely, that it sounded honest—even to himself. "Because I wanted to be here."
At her shocked silence, he didn't say anything else to her, simply walking past her to sit by her father's side. Taking her hand and smirking softly at her gaping mouth, he tugged her down on her knees to resume her seat by her father's side.
Mr. Haruno stared at him before glancing back to Sakura with wide, green eyes. "Sweetheart," he said, "who—"
"My name is Uchiha Sasuke, sir," Sasuke replied, his black eyes firm as he stared at her father. "I know that I've come at a terrible time. Please excuse my presumptuousness."
For a moment, Mr. Haruno regained his senses and stared at Sasuke, holding his gaze hard. "Why are you here?"
Sasuke thought about lying, about saying that he was Sakura's boyfriend who had come to stay the night, so that he could have a free night before he could head out to Naruto's house and crash. But he stopped himself—and decided on the truth. "My parents threw me out, Haruno-san," he murmured, ashamed at himself, bracing himself for her father's angry wrath and exclamation for him to get out of his home.
But Mr. Haruno didn't do anything. He waited, staring at him expectantly for him to continue.
So he did. "For a while, I've been taking lessons from your daughter—about dancing," he quickly added before he continued. "My father didn't approve, so he sent me away until I could think otherwise." Sasuke didn't think that he had spoken so much in his entire life. "I didn't know where else to go, so I came to Sakura."
Mr. Haruno sat there. He was quiet. Then, he stirred, waving Sakura off as she reached to help him sit up in his bed. His green eyes held Sasuke. Then, he spoke. "Dancing lessons, huh?" he murmured as he shifted his gaze to his daughter who seemed to have become extremely interested in the floor. Mr. Haruno seemed to think for a moment before he said this: "I'll let you stay here, Uchiha-boy…" Despite his frail stature, his green eyes glinted mischievously. "… if you can show me what you've learned from my daughter."
Sasuke stopped in the midst of his mental happy dance. What?
Sakura verbally voiced his thoughts. "What?"
Mr. Haruno chuckled, inching his way out of bed and into his wheelchair, keeping Sakura at bay by waving a hand at her to keep her away and reassure her that he was completely capable of getting into his own wheelchair. When he wheeled himself out of the room, the two followed, watching as the older man grabbed what looked like a cello from behind the sofa and nestled it between his legs, checking the strings to see if it was tuned correctly before turning back to look at the two kids.
"I'll play you two a song," he said, adjusting the cello in his lap. He looked stronger, firmer with the cello in his arms and more powerful. Was this the same man who had laid in bed just moments before, holding his daughter's hand? He turned to his daughter. "Sakura, please turn on the stereo. I have a recording of the piano and the violin accompaniment on there." Putting his bow in position, he nodded to Sakura. And started to play with the music.
The song took over Sasuke and Sakura's senses, and the rain outside seemed to amplify the emotions. The man with the cello played with his strong arms. No longer was he Mr. Haruno—no, he was a musician, alive, thriving like the spirit in his eyes.
Sasuke, turning Sakura's attention to him, held out his hand. "May I have this dance?" he murmured softly, keeping his eyes on her. Then, when she took his hand almost hesitantly, he took her into step, dancing to the first thing that came into his head—Sakura's soft ballet style.
She twirled away from him, about to take a step back into him when he grabbed her hand and tugged her back to him, holding her up by the hips to spin her around in the air, her legs in a steady, held position in the air.
He let her down slowly, tilting her back and making her expose her entire torso and neck to him, letting him pull her thigh up to his waist. He dipped her in the other direction, locking gazes with her before he let her go, acting as if he were about to drop her but instead catching her again. He did this twice, surprised at himself.
And at her, at how she seemed to trust him with her entire being.
She pulled away again, clutching her arms into her chest before she splayed them out into a beautiful halo around her, forcing herself into a spin as one leg propelled her bottom foot to spin her around and around.
It was then that Sasuke knew his cue; he grabbed at her extended leg, pulling her by the thigh towards him, wrapping her legs around his hips backwards as he spun around himself.
When she managed to steady herself against his hips, she let herself lean back into him, feeling his arms slip under hers, holding her firmly to his upper half. She let her legs slip off of him, wrapping one leg around his waist before she jumped away from him, landing on her outstretched leg, still keeping a grip on his hand.
They danced in sync, in formation, sometimes dancing toward or away from each other. Their eyes never left each other, green against black. Then, Sasuke took a hold of her arm, not wanting to break their eye contact. His eyes were a smoldering molten lava as he stared at her, drawn in by her movements. Sakura felt him pleading, feeling his eyes burn into her emerald orbs as she felt his hands clutching her waist and hand, throwing her away from him as if he were tempting her, taunting her—
—and without realizing it, she jumped for him.
He caught her, her legs wrapped around his hips as he held her tightly against him, watching as she leaned back away from him, making Sasuke swing her slowly, her hair brushing against the wooden floor before he pulled her back up to him.
She waltzed with one leg extended behind her, closing her eyes as she calmly put her other leg down. She let him lead, even if he did do the wrong steps—but it didn't seem to matter anymore to her. They danced with each other, Sakura's face buried into his neck as he held her by the hips with his hands.
The two of them stayed that way for a while, listening to the rest of the song as their foreheads touched. They couldn't move anymore, their breaths coming in steady pants as they held each other's gaze. The couple swayed, their noses almost touching, their lips close, their bodies pressed together.
It was as if it were only the two of them in that room.
It wasn't until they heard the ending of the song that they began to pull apart.
Mr. Haruno put his bow down, breathing a little bit harshly himself. Then, he clapped. Once. Twice. And he laughed. "Marvelous, you two," he said. "Not bad for a rookie, if I could say so myself."
Sakura felt her face flush when Sasuke nodded at her father in thanks before he stared over at her and caught her gaze with those deep pools of coal.
"Well then," said Mr. Haruno with a cough, "Uchiha, thank you for that performance. You may stay with us for however long you'd like."
Sakura stood up and took her father's cello for him and replaced it in its case before she turned back to her father. "I'll show him to his room after I put you to bed, okay, Daddy?"
Sasuke watched from his place on the sofa (he sat down afterwards) as her father smiled up at her with such affection that it made his chest feel a little too tight.
"Okay, pumpkin," her father replied, letting her daughter take the handlebars and wheel him to his room, even though he looked like he wanted to wheel himself.
Sasuke heard some murmuring from the room, watched as the lights went out before he saw Sakura appear again. It felt awkward to look at her now, let alone talk to her after dancing with her. When he felt her take his hand, he had to swallow a little harder than usual.
She smiled at him as she led him up the stairs. "Right this way, Sasuke."
He didn't let go of her hand.
When she swung open the door at the top of the stairs, he stepped in, admiring how the lights turned on by themselves and how simple yet elegant the entire room seemed to be. It was painted a soft, dark blue, and the sheets were a comfortable gray. He stepped in, letting his suitcase fall to the floor as he looked around the room once more.
"So," Sakura said as she flopped herself down on the bed as if she were still at his house, "what happened?"
Sasuke turned to give her a slightly raised brow, as if to say, I have no freaking idea what you're talking about.
She snorted and rolled her eyes in a Sasuke-type fashion, eliciting a twitch from the boy. "I know you well enough, Sasuke, to know that something happened."
Sasuke sat himself down next to her, letting her see his profile as he huffed out a short sigh. "I told them off."
Sakura blinked. Then she shuffled on the bed before she gave him a disbelieving look. "Whoa, wait—what? Who'd you tell off?"
"My father and Itachi."
At his mentioning of them, her mouth formed into a small O, and she lowered her head in understanding. "I'm sorry."
"Hn," he said, kicking off his shoes as he rolled his eyes in a Sasuke-fashion. "It wasn't bad."
"Then how did you get kicked out of—" Sakura stopped. And stared.
When she didn't finish her question, Sasuke turned to look at her, following her gaze before his eyes settled on his own feet. They were still torn from the china bits that he had stepped on and kicked; scabs had already started to form, but there were some parts of his feet that were still bleeding. And for the first time that night, he realized that it hurt. He cringed at the sight of his torn sole and at all of the ripped skin.
Sakura shot her gaze to him, her green eyes wide. "So this wasn't bad?" she asked him, her green eyes suspiciously shiny. "Really, Sasuke?"
"Sakura—"
"You're an idiot," she told him as angry tears slipped past her cheeks.
"Sakura, don't cry, it wasn't bad—"
"Stop it!" she cried, batting his hand away.
Sasuke didn't even notice that he had reached out for her.
She had managed to walk across the room and grab a first-aid kit from the large wardrobe, settling down on the floor by Sasuke's feet as she took out the bandages and the Neosporin.
He watched her as she smeared the cream on his cuts carefully, surprised that it didn't hurt. He watched her eyes slowly beginning to dry as she focused on bandaging him up, her long pink hair pulled back in a messy bun. He focused on her hands, the soft things that were wrapping his feet, pulling out the miscellaneous pieces of china that managed to stick in his skin. Then, he watched as she lifted her head, staring in awe at the surprisingly captivating worry and frustration that he found in her eyes.
He couldn't stop himself from pulling her up from the ground and pressing his lips to hers, burying a hand in her hair and the other in the sheets on the bed.
The kiss shocked her, her eyes widening before she felt herself press back to him, clutching to his shirt in desperation and forgetting about what she was previously doing and where she was.
All she felt, saw, and smelled was him.
"Sa-Sasuke," she said breathlessly as she tried to push him away, "s-stop."
Hearing the word on her lips, he found himself again, his eyes widening as he quickly untangled himself from her, clearing his throat quietly as he stopped himself from panting. He didn't look at her, and they sat in silence, listening to the rain patter on the rooftop.
She stood up without a word, keeping her gaze locked to the floor as if she were counting the number of dust particles that had decided to make the blue rug their home. Before she was out the door, she said, "Your feet are messed up pretty badly, you know."
Sasuke didn't stare after her, afraid that he might lose his control and run after her and hold her again. Instead, he kept still on the gray sheets, gave a small smirk to the headboard before he said, "Hn. Kind of what happens when you dance."
Upon hearing that, she visibly stiffened. And left him there to his thoughts.
Sasuke lay back against the bed, staring up at the ceiling before he closed his eyes and listened to the pitter-pat of rain against the window. It soothed him, gave him something to listen to when he didn't have any music. How many times had the sound of rain made him think, made him able to find answers about why and how he did things? He remembered the other time when the rain had brought Sakura to him.
And the rain tonight was the reason he was here in her house, her home, the reason that he managed to have that dance with her and listen to her sickly father play the cello to a beautiful accompaniment.
And the reason for that kiss…
He didn't even know why he did it. It came to him without a thought as if it were just natural to kiss her like that. A growl came up and out of his throat as he turned on his side. No—that wasn't normal. The girl was going through enough; he didn't need him to be added to the equation.
And it wasn't like he wasn't going through enough problems himself.
His family pushed him out; he was alone now. A lone wolf, stray from the pack. He knew that after tonight, he had to head out and find a different place to go to—he didn't want to go back. It would be impossible; they'd force him back into the same status quo that he never thought would change, and he'd be back under Itachi's shadow.
He gritted his jaw and punched the pillow next to his head. No. He wouldn't have that.
He'd rather die.
Sasuke huffed a sigh, settling himself across the bed, not carrying about the fact that he was laying on the bed the wrong way. He let his eyes slip shut, humming to the song that Mr. Haruno had managed to get stuck in his head.
And then, he succumbed to the sleep that took him.
The truest expression of a people is in its dance and in its music.
Bodies never lie.
Already, a week had passed. Itachi sat by the window, holding his cup of coffee in his hand as he stared out into the cold night. "I hope you're safe, otouto-san," he said as he stared down at the caffeine-wired drink in his lap. "It was risky, but it got you out of here." He coughed, wiping the spat of blood away that seemed to commonly grace his lips.
"Itachi," his father called from his workplace, beckoning the eldest son to him. "Come. We've received the reports from the chief police."
Itachi looked over to his father, noticing the raw, dark circles that seemed to now be a part of his daily look. He knew that his father and his mother were suffering greatly, hearing of okaa-san's nightmares at the breakfast table (Mikoto wasn't a very good whisperer) and of his father's inability to sleep. Itachi himself found a habit of drinking continuous cups of coffee. All the neighbors didn't know what happened; but at the dinner table, when everything was quiet, all of the family members would look over to the empty seat that seemed to plague them every day.
"Hai, oto-sama," Itachi replied from his place by the window. He left his ninth coffee cup, stained by a lip-shaped blood mark, by the window. A dancing manual lay right next to it.
To dance is to be out of yourself—larger, more beautiful, more powerful.
Time seemed to work its way into Sasuke's system, making weeks seem like days and days seem like seconds. Everything passed so quickly.
Sakura and her father had managed to convince him to stay at the Haruno household. Every day was different and unusual for Sasuke, as if it were a treasure hunt; there was a new treasure each day and every day, Sasuke began to expect new, surprising things to happen. The first day was like a welcome to him, an omelet with freshly sliced tomatoes greeting him in the morning. It was like that for the rest of the week. Some days he caught Sakura making breakfast in the kitchen, tossing a spatula at him when he smirked. Other times it was her father, who liked to sit him down at the table and chat. The majority of the week was spent running around the entire house, getting ready for school in the morning before they bid Mr. Haruno goodbye and watched as the caretaker wheeled him back into the house.
Sasuke liked it.
After school, they'd walk back home together, or Sasuke would walk Sakura to her dancing studio. Either way, they ended up at home, Sakura teaching Sasuke new steps and new dancing styles that she learned from her dance studio before they collapsed on the loveseat completely exhausted.
Mr. Haruno liked to watch them, sometimes giving them a song to dance to or just smiling every now and then when Sakura or Sasuke created another work of art together. It was amazing to simply watch them grow.
Although only three weeks seemed to pass, Sasuke began a new rhythm. He started opening up a little bit more, chuckling every now and then when Sakura pulled a stupid joke that he happened to think was funny or chatting a little bit more during dinner time. He felt welcome and free.
It was something that he hadn't felt in the entirety of his existence.
"No, baka," he said, his fist coming down on her head. "See, the red wire and the blue wire are connected here." He pointed to a spot in the little toy car that he and Sakura were working on. They were in the garage, the garage door pulled back for all the world to see from the outside. The sky was a cloudy gray—perfect weather for making toy cars.
Sakura rubbed her head before she pinched his cheek and waved the piece of flesh in her hand vigorously, almost as if she were trying to tear it right off his face. "Don't you baka me! I was only doing what the instruction manual told me to do!"
"Let go of my man-cheeks."
Squinting up at him, she released him, smirking at the sight of two red marks on his cheek as a souvenir from her fingers. "Looks like someone kissed you."
He snorted before he leaned forward into her, close enough so that their noses touched. "Only you would," he muttered, staring into her green eyes and chuckling darkly as she glared back at him, not seeming to be intimidated in the slightest.
She stuck her tongue out at him and made a Nyan! sound. "In your dreams, Sasu-cakes," she told him before she stood up and brushed herself off.
He watched as she walked out of the shelter of the garage and raised an eyebrow at her when she turned to look over her shoulder. "Where're you going?"
"Dancing," she replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Now?"
She nodded at him. "Yeah. I just need to move a little. I'll be back, though—promise." For once, she smiled at him and flashed him a peace sign in reassurance. "Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean that you have to worry about me."
"All the more reason to."
Sakura rolled her eyes at him before she dashed down the runway, turning back only to raise a hand at him in that Sakura-type goodbye. "Tell Daddy that I decided to dance around the neighborhood, okay?"
"Hn. Fine, but I'm following you afterward."
She was gone before he even had the chance to turn around.
He turned on his heel, acknowledging the notable difference in pain that he was feeling as he walked back into the house, searching for Eiji*. He had already stopped calling him Haruno-san, seeing how her father always seemed to complain about how it made him sound so old—so he told Sasuke to call him on a first name basis. "Eiji?" he called down the hallway, following the sound of cello music into a room down the hall. He looked in and saw her father practicing, the bow swinging at such a fast pace, Sasuke couldn't seem to see it. His head was bobbing and his other hand was moving with the strings.
He didn't even notice Sasuke standing by the door until the younger boy cleared his throat.
"Oh, hello, Sasuke-kun," he said, relaxing his grip on his bow and stopping the music as he sheepishly grinned at Sasuke. "I'm sorry; I didn't see you there."
Sasuke waved his apology away. "I'm just here to tell you that Sakura decided to dance around the neighborhood, and that she clearly told me to tell you—"
"What?" Eiji's face seemed to contort into a mass of wide eyes and old, old skin. The once mello man was gone. His grip on his bow dropped and the cello in his hand was placed on the edge of the bed. Once his hands were freed, they gripped the wheels at his side and frantically turned them.
Sasuke had never seen him move so fast. "Eiji?"
But he didn't hear. "Sakura," was all he could muster to say, his eyes still wide. "I'm coming for you, Sakura."
At that, Sasuke stopped behind the older man. "Eiji, wait, what are you—"
"It's dangerous!" Eiji finally said, not once turning around to wheel himself to face the boy. "And she knows! I've warned her time and time again not to dance alone in the streets because of the neighbors."
Sasuke couldn't move his legs. Or his mouth for that matter. So it was a surprise to him that he managed to say, "The neighbors?"
"Yes! It's because of the neighbors that it's dangerous! They've never accepted her once in the community because of the way that she looks and—"
"Eiji-san!"
A crash sounded through the entire house and snaked its way back through the garage. Her father, too caught up in wheeling himself to his daughter's rescue, had forgotten about the ledge right at the garage opening. It tipped his wheelchair over and, right before Sasuke could reach him, he fell to the floor, wheelchair and all.
Sasuke dashed towards the fallen man, reaching down to pick him up before her father waved him away. "Eiji, what are you doing—?"
"Go!" he shouted for the first time in his life. "Go help her!"
A shriek in the air was all that it took for Sasuke to propel himself away from the older man. His legs took him far, thanks to the running that he had done in school. But the adrenaline took him farther. He didn't know that Sakura had gone so far in such a short amount of time. Another scream in the distance shook him. "Sakura!" he shouted when he finally caught sight of her. When he saw what was happening, his blood burst into flames.
Sakura was there, on the ground, one boy gripping her pink hair in his hand as two others held her by the waist and arms. She was putting up a fight, managing to throw a leg to one of the boys' heads, making him groan in pain before he tightened his hold on her.
He seemed to be the leader. He sneered down at her, his face up close. "You're gonna pay for that, you freak."
"What the hell do you guys even want from me?" she shouted, ripping her elbow away to connect to another boy's mouth. This couldn't be happening. It had never happened before. So why in the world did the boys choose now to attack? "Go the freak away, you buttheads!"
"I don't think so, Pinky," sneered another as he held her arm, his fingers squeezing her to the point where she winced. "We want to play a little bit with you, seeing how there's always that other guy at your house."
Her eyes widened. She thrashed harder. "No! Don't touch me!" She didn't look like she could last much longer. "Stop!" The next word ripped out of her mouth—she didn't even notice; it was just a subconscious reaction. But she did it. And it sounded so raw, so painful that even the boys flinched.
"SASUKE!"
The scream seemed to heighten his senses even more. He was still running, closing the distance between him and the group of boys who hadn't noticed him until he landed a swift punch to one of the guy's jaw. Time seemed to slow down as everything turned red. He saw another one of them from behind him, turning quickly to smash a heel into his face. When he turned back, he saw Sakura head butt the other boy, watching as the boy crumpled to the ground.
She stopped when she saw him. "Sasuke…?" She approached him, touching his face slightly.
He heard Sakura's gasp when the red in his vision seemed to fade away and everything went back to normal. He hn-ed at her before he took her hand. "Come on. We have to hurry home." He clenched his jaw in order to repress a raw shout that threatened to overwhelm him at what he did, his eyes tracing the limp bodies of the boys before his mind snapped back to Eiji. "Your father's hurt."
Sakura, upon hearing that, made use of her legs.
Sasuke could barely follow her.
They reached the house, seeing the garage still open to hold Mr. Haruno, still lying underneath his wheelchair that seemed to encase his entire, frail body.
"Daddy!" Sakura dashed up the runway and, with shaking hands, picked up her father. She looked over to Sasuke with shiny, green eyes. "C'mon, baka, help him!" Despite her crude words, the sentence barely made it out of her mouth with a croak.
Sasuke walked over to her, abandoning the wheelchair before he took her father into his arms, walking down the hallway and into her father's room, placing him upon his bed. Before Sasuke could move back to where Sakura was, standing by the door, in order to reassure her that he was okay, he felt an old, fragile hand grasp his forearm. "Eiji?"
The older man smiled and coughed. "I'm glad," he whispered hoarsely, "that I have someone here who can care for Sakura. I've been looking for that kind of someone for a long time—never found him until now."
Sasuke's eyes widened. "Wait, Eiji, don't—"
"I can finally rest now." The old man's eyes were filled to the brink with tears, making his dark emerald eyes glow and shine. The salty droplets trailed down his withered face, caressing the laugh lines on his face before they disappeared past his smile. "Thank you, Sasuke-boy."
Sakura appeared at his side in an instant. "Wait, Daddy, stop!" Her voice was frantic and full of emotion; so much had happened to her that day, that week. She couldn't have this—she couldn't. She gritted her jaw, as if she were pushing the tears back into her eyes. "Stop, Daddy, you can't leave me." Her breath stopped when she felt her father push her hair away from her face with the same gentle hand that she had known since she was little, and she held his hand to her face.
"Don't cry for me, sweetheart," he said to her. The smile stayed on his lips, genuine and honest and true. "I'm so thankful to you." When he felt her shake her head into his hand, he let his thumb swipe away a tear. "Yes," he said. "I am. Thank you for taking care of me—I know that I haven't been here for you most of the time because of how I am." A cough escaped from his throat. "But I'm thankful that you always manage to be by my side, sweetheart. Thank you so much."
Sakura couldn't find it in herself to say anything. But when she found her voice, she knew that it was rotten of her to say such things to her father—especially when he was like this. "I hate you, Daddy," she said as she sobbed. "I'll hate you forever if you leave me."
Instead of cursing her or scolding her like she thought he would, he smiled—the smile that always broke her heart. "And I love you, baby girl." His eyes were soft, kind—the life in them was fading. His hand slipped away slowly from her cheek and feel back down to his side. His eyes began to close. "And… I…"
There was nothing. No sound passed after that, except for the ragged breaths that kept coming from Sakura.
Sakura stared down at her father, his body unmoving, the heat slowly leaving him. The smile was still etched into his lips. He looked calm, peaceful—as if he were sleeping.
But the two in the room knew that he wasn't.
Sakura stood up from her father's side and walked out of the room.
Sasuke, whose eyes once held to Eiji, turned to follow Sakura. He watched as she staggered up the stairs, quickly walking up to her, reaching out to her before she smacked his hand away. "Sakura—"
"Shut up and leave me alone." She tried to hide the fact that she was trembling as she ran back down the stairs, shoving the door of the garage open with a loud bang before she dashed away.
With quick feet, he jumped down from the staircase and sprinted out the door, following her steps. When he managed to step out of the house, he tried to quiet his pants, glancing from left to right to try and find her. A bobbing head of pink caught his attention—gotcha. Too tired to run, he jogged to where she was, only managing to find her dancing on the sidewalk.
The sky was getting darker again; clouds began to form.
She was dancing the way she had been when he had found her dancing in front of his house. She was counting her steps, mouthing them out before she stomped her feet and began to dance to her own tune, her arms spread out again, one leg suspended. Instead of that calm, brooding demeanor that she always seemed to have, Sakura's face was covered with salty tears from the happening just moments ago.
"What the hell are you doing?" Sasuke asked her, his voice harsh as he walked up to her. He tried to take her arm, to stop her.
Her movements became rougher, more out of sync when she saw him approaching, and she ripped her arm away from his reach. "Don't touch me," she told him, glaring at him with bright green orbs. "Just stay away from me. Move."
Sasuke didn't. He simple stared back down at her as if challenging for her to push him away.
Sprinkles began to make their existence known as they fell down to the sidewalk, dampening the cement.
"Move it, dammit!" she shouted, her arms outstretched as she shoved him, watching him stumble back a couple of steps before he lost his balance and fell hard to the cement. She didn't want to do it; really, she didn't. But she wanted to do something with that familiar emptiness that she felt—she wanted to dance.
And he was in the way of everything.
She thought that he'd stay down, knowing that she'd push him down again if he got back up—but, her eyes widening, she watched as he pushed himself up, wiping his mouth of blood (he had apparently bitten his tongue in the fall) and getting back up on his feet. She bared her teeth at him, her face flushing as she stared up at him. "Go away, Sasuke," she said as she started going up on her tiptoes, her pointe shoes forgotten in the house. Her feet were bare, but she didn't care, not when there was a slight sting of pain—
"Sakura…"
—or when the first step brought another—
"Sakura."
—not even when her toe nails started to break and bleed from the tremendous amount of stress she was putting on them as she quickened her movements on the pavement…
"Sakura!"
No. She didn't care. She couldn't care.
At least, not until a warm pair of hands wrapped around both of her arms and tugged her into an inviting chest.
It made her eyes widened, made her realize the sharp pain in her feet, and she lurched into him, sending both of them onto the pavement. When she started to push herself up and off him, she felt him hold her again, forcing her back into his arms. In a panic, she started to thrash, feeling the sickening ooze of the blood from her toes. "Stop it!" she shouted. "Let go of me!"
"Shut up, Sakura," he told her, sitting up while he held the flailing girl in his arms. "Not until you stop this crap."
"I will not stop!" She pushed at his chest, desperate to try and get away.
"Why?" he asked her in a grunt as he felt her digging her nails into him. "You're acting like a friggin' idiot."
"I have to dance," she said to him as she pushed at his chest once more in vain. Something like a sob escaped her lips. "I have to."
"No, you don't," Sasuke told her harshly in reply, his emphasizing sounding more like grunts of pain as he fought against her. When he accidentally brushed against her feet and heard her cry out in pain, he said, "See? That's what you're doing to yourself, baka."
She bit the inside of her cheek as she stared back up at him, her eyes filled to the brim with tears. She didn't know why she felt like crying; the tears were just there. "Sasuke, please," she said, "I have to dance."
The rain began to pour, reminding her of the time that Sasuke was kind enough to bring her into his house so that she wouldn't get sick, and how she had simply repaid him by flipping him the bird. She didn't deserve him—or his kindness.
As the rain started soaking them, her tears began to soak her face, blending in with the droplets from the clouds. "Dancing's the only thing I can do…" The tears felt like burn marks on her face; every trace was like a tattoo on her skin that screamed crybaby, loner, and freak to her. She desperately tried to wipe them away with the back of her hands and her palms. "I'm tired, Sasuke." Tired of what, she didn't know—of crying, of being worthless, of breathing—but everything left her mind when she felt herself be pulled back into a warm, welcoming chest. Her breath escaped her in a gasp.
Sasuke didn't expect to do something like that, but the way that she looked, the tear tracks running down her face and blending in with the rain and her statement seemed to strike something in him. And then, when he realized it, he managed to find his voice. "I'm tired, too," he said to her, holding her to him while he held her. "I've been tired." The rain seemed to lull his voice. "I'm tired of doing work to make my dad happy; of trying to be bigger and better than my brother; and of keeping up an image that really isn't me." He buried his head in her shoulder, his lips brushing the juncture of her neck and her collarbone. "I'm tired of everything."
For a moment, she was silent. She couldn't feel the rain for once—and his warm breath on her neck. Swallowing soundlessly, she wondered if Sasuke could hear her breathing before she said, "Yeah?"
"Hn."
She managed to smile at his Sasuke-type response before she relaxed into his arms. "Well, I'm tired of being called a freak. I'm tired of being sad and feeling empty." She subconsciously tightened her hold around his torso, feeling the tears seep back into her eyes. Her voice was cracked and barely audible, and her words seemed stiff and incoherent, but somehow, Sasuke managed to hear it. "And I'm tired of being alone."
Sasuke, for the first time in a long time, felt that urge again—so he fulfilled it by kissing her neck, feeling her tremble underneath his lips. He could almost hear Eiji talking about her mother again, almost revisiting the moment when Eiji finally closed his eyes, just after he told Sasuke his crucial words. He held Sakura to him, afraid that if he squeezed her too hard that she would break. "Baka," he said, his voice muffled by her skin and the rain, "you're not alone." He tore his lips away from her neck, letting her see his smoldering charcoal eyes that seemed to promise so many things that Sasuke would never say aloud. "Your dad made sure of that."
And then, Sasuke did something that made Sakura gasp and made the rain beat down harder upon them than usual.
He kissed her fully, completely, enveloping her in a promising warmth that made her entire body weak. When he pulled away and rested his forehead to hers, he saw the brimful of tears once more. He swallowed once—closed his eyes. "Go ahead and cry, Sakura. Don't be afraid anymore."
When she heard those words, she felt something break in her, letting her lose all thought and spilling those tears that she had held on to for far too long. She held him to her, crying into his shirt as the rain soaked the both of them. She let him kiss her again and again as she stared at him through blurry eyes and smiled with a heartbreaking sob upon her lips.
It was then that the barrier around both of their hearts came crashing down.
There are shortcuts to happiness; dancing is one of them.
When the ambulance came and wheeled her father out on the stretcher, they couldn't help but notice the two kids standing on the porch.
"Hey, isn't that kid the Uchiha's?"
"Yeah—I'd recognize that brat anywhere. What's he doing with that freaky girl?"
And, standing on the porch, they heard. But really, they could've cared less.
Sakura reached for his hand, squeezing it as she looked up at Sasuke.
With a hn, Sasuke squeezed back, not looking at her—she knew him well enough to know that he was reassuring her. That everything was going to be okay. She leaned her head against his shoulder, tightening her hold on his hand.
A police cruiser sputtered up to the Haruno driveway.
Sakura watched as Sasuke tensed. "Sasuke?" Her eyes traveled to the police cruiser's open door; her eyes widened when she saw who it was.
"It's been a while, Sasuke."
Sakura looked over him carefully, noticing as Sasuke seemed to stiffen up even more (if that was possible) before she returned her attention to the raven-haired man approaching; she had never seen him before.
His hair was in raven spikes, though almost unnoticeable because of the shoulder length he grew it out to. He didn't bother to clip any of it back, letting it fall freely. His bangs were eerily like Sasuke's, his eyes the same, smoldering black as his. The only differences between him and Sasuke were the height and the dark circles under his eyes.
Sasuke didn't move. "Oto-sama," he droned, keeping his eyes on the man.
Sakura's eyebrows shot up. 'His father?' She had never managed to catch sight of him before due to his apparently frequent business trips (which always gave Sasuke alone time in the house), always managed to hear about him through Sasuke's stories and daily tales. Sasuke never managed to explicitly talk about his father, but he mentioned him. Once or twice.
But now, here he was, Uchiha Fugaku in the flesh.
Right after her father died.
Sakura tensed, but before she could even open her mouth to speak, she heard Sasuke.
"What are you doing here, oto-sama?" he asked. His obsidian eyes were unforgiving as he stared at his father from the porch. "I'm busy."
Fugaku stared at his son. There was not a single hint of frivolity in his eyes. "I'm here on business as well, Sasuke." There was no emotion. Nothing.
To Sakura, it was strange to see two people who were so eerily similar in physique and mannerisms to be so cold to each other. It made her uneasy. She watched, eyes wary as Fugaku turned to her.
"Hello," his father said simply, trying his best to give her a smile. The way it turned out reminded Sakura of the way that Itachi's lips straightened every time he smacked his lips while drinking a cup of coffee. "I'm Uchiha Fugaku—Sasuke's father."
Sakura bowed almost hesitantly to him. She tried not to stutter. "Koban wa gozaimasu, oji-san," she said, giving him her good evenings respects.
He nodded back to her, an act of approval in her actions, before he turned back to his son, his eyes unmoving. "So, Sasuke," he said, walking up the porch steps, "how are you this very fine evening?"
"Fine," Sasuke responded brusquely. "Would you mind telling me though, oto-sama, why on earth"—a sarcasm drip could have been felt through the air—"you are here?"
Fugaku stood right in front of him, standing over his son a good five inches or so. His demanding stare seemed to soften ever-so-slightly. "I came here because I wanted to find you."
Sasuke stared at his father for a moment, soaking in the newly said information. His eyes narrowed. "Why?"
"Sasuke," Sakura said, her voice edging on a warning tone. When she saw his eyes flicker at her, she knew that he knew, watching as he gave her an almost imperceptible nod that seemed to say, I got this; don't worry.
Fugaku eyed the small girl beside his son, taking note on how the simple sound of her voice seemed to make him calmer, less stiff before he turned his attention back to his son. "Compromise," he said simply, dubbing it appropriate to give a one-word answer to Sasuke's pretentious, one-word question.
"Compromise?"
"Yes," Fugaku said. "Of course."
Sasuke eyed his father again, unconsciously squeezing Sakura's hand in his, noticing how his father's eyes strayed to their intertwined fingers. "What would there need to be compromise on?"
"Is this girl your dancing instructor that Itachi told us about, perchance?" his father asked, startling Sasuke with his out-of-the-blue question. Fugaku watched as the pink-haired girl tensed at his mentioning of her. He looked her over once, taking in the oddness of her pink hair and abnormally green eyes before he decided that she was a pretty little thing despite her abnormalities. She could possibly be a fine specimen at the hospital that was in partner with his police force. They were looking for a bit more things to study.
Sakura stared up at him almost timidly before she stood up straight and released herself from Sasuke, sticking out a proud hand to the older man. "My name is Haruno Sakura," she told him. "Pleased to meet you."
Fugaku eyed the hand that she offered before he grasped it firmly in a businessman's hold. Shook it once, twice before he let go of her.
It was a cold handshake, she knew, but what else was to be expected?
"Charmed," he said in reply, his patience wearing thin. "Well then, Sasuke," he said, addressing his son, "I'll simply cut to the chase here." His eyes grew cold, hollow and unforgiving. "You are coming back home, whether you like it or not."
Sasuke's mouth was open in slight disbelief. His entire body tensed up again, refusing to relax even as Sakura squeezed his hand. "What?"
"Don't what me," Fugaku said, his voice a mere drone in the wind as his gaze, uncompromising, grew more dangerous. "There's not a single compromise that we're going to do about that."
Sakura knew that this was going to elevate into something dangerous; the way that his father stared at the two of them was frightening. It made her want to scratch at her skin, to make sure that nothing was crawling underneath it. The way Sasuke reacted to his father wasn't any better. She panicked when he ripped his hand away from her.
"I thought you told me not to come back when I couldn't find any respect for you," Sasuke nearly snarled, managing to settle for a harsh monotone instead.
"Hn," Fugaku responded. "You need to learn obedience one way or another. I am simply taking you back in order to teach it to you the old-fashioned way." His obsidian eyes glinted in a severe light.
Sakura, unable to swallow the lump of horror that formed in her throat when she heard those words, looked away, watching as her street began to become a little busier and as the rain made the pavement and the cement slicker than ever. Cars had to drive through a slim section of road due to the semi-road block by her street. A sickening feeling began to form in the pit of her stomach when she continued to hear Sasuke speak to his father.
"You don't need me anymore," Sasuke told his father, fists forming. "You have Itachi, you don't need me!" Before his father could say anything else, Sasuke ran, jumping the porch steps as he struggled to fight the screaming muscles in his legs that shot pain through his joints. He needed to run, to get to somewhere far away from his father. He couldn't take anymore from him.
Sakura's heart thumped in her chest. "Sasuke, wait! It's dangerous! The cars—!"
Car.
That was the only thought that Sasuke could register when he saw a speeding red truck hurtle itself toward him. He could vaguely register the sound of his father's voice, Sakura's voice, and someone else's voice that seemed oh-so-familiar.
But of course, that was all that he could do in that split moment when he saw the car drive right into his line of vision. With the feeling of something slamming right into his side—probably a wall of bricks—all Sasuke saw was darkness.
Dance first; think later. It's the natural order.
Beep, beep…
Sasuke woke to the sound of a heartbeat monitor—his eyes wouldn't open.
Beep, beep… beep, beep…
A trickle of saline solution met his ears.
Beep, beep…
Voices whispered around him.
Beep, beep…
"Is the patient coherent by now? Is he conscious?"
Then, he remembered.
BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP—!
"His heart is in critical condition! I repeat, critical condition!" There was a rustle of doctors' scrubs all around him, but that didn't soothe his heart.
He ached, remembering everything, feeling the throbbing in his side, in his chest, in his head…
He felt a warm, gentle hand hold his. Warm lips pressed against his forehead. "Sasuke, it's okay, I'm here." The hand rubbed soft circles on his. "I'm here."
Another hand joined the other one. "Mommy's here, too, baby." The voice sounded crackled and weak. It broke his heart. "We're here for you, Sasu-cakes."
He was still shaking, shooting up from the bed and ripping off the oxygen mask, terror in his eyes as he turned to his mother. "No," he said, his hands trembling. At first he could barely create coherent sentences. "Itachi—you—for him." His face seemed to twitch incessantly as he clutched at the sheets of the hospital bed, batting away the hands of the nurses that came by to replace the oxygen mask on his face. "Get out of here, kaa-chan," he told her, as brutally as possibly in order to get her away.
His words made tears swell up in Sakura's eyes as she watched the shaken mother nod and stagger out of the room, trying to hide her tears. She closed her eyes, her mind replaying the dreadful scene.
…
…
…
Sakura watched from the porch in terror as the driver of the red truck tried to pull his vehicle to a stop, only managing to swerve dangerously on the rain-slicked pavement. He was getting closer to Sasuke. She couldn't move, watching in horror as his legs began to fall him—he had run too much, too far, too fast; his muscles began to take their toll.
A sickening screech of rubber against cement sounded through their ears.
The car had to stop before—
"Sasuke!"
Sakura caught sight the passenger door of the Uchiha car fly open, a blur of raven black manifesting itself through the air as it headed toward Sasuke.
—it plowed into both of them.
"Sasuke!" Fugaku's eyes were as big as plates, his legs finally managing to work as he stumbled down the steps, nearly landing face first into the pavement. His knees stopped him from faceplanting into the yard. "Itachi," he cried, his eyes taking in the horrible scene before him. He was shaking. "My boys…"
She couldn't breathe. Her hands trembled as she brought them up to her face and covered her face in a sob. Her legs finally managed to move, only barely. They were like jelly as she forced herself to sprint over to the scene.
She didn't notice when the driver of the red car sped up and drove away, frantically trying to get away from the groups of police vehicles that followed. All she saw were them.
Sasuke lay there, under a bleeding mass of black clothing, his face slightly scratched. His left arm was bent at an awkward angle, the sight of bone making Sakura gag on her spit. The rain washed away the trickles of blood, but it didn't stop the small puddle that was beginning to form.
But it didn't come from Sasuke.
Her green iris became a mere point in a sea of white, her breath coming in small, quick pants as the hands on her face seemed to tremble. She screamed, the tears rolling down her face as the police pulled her away from the scene, watching as the medics came and pulled the two bodies onto stretchers.
And when Sakura saw his face, she confirmed it with a horrific sob.
The body on top of Sasuke's was Itachi.
And she didn't know if her eyes were playing tricks on her, but when they had placed the two bodies onto separate stretchers, Itachi's shattered limb seemed to flop lifelessly in his brother's direction, as if—even unconscious—he were reaching out to Sasuke.
…
…
…
"Baka," she told him as she squeezed his uninjured hand. "What were you thinking?"
Sasuke swallowed, too absorbed in his mind to even try to answer her. But when he did, he said, "I wasn't thinking at all." His voice cracked, and he could barely manage another sentence. "Wanted to… get away."
"Hey," she said, her tone softening as she struggled to blink away the set of tears, "you don't have to keep talking to me if you can't."
Sasuke stared up at her, his breath coming in short gasps. His obsidian eyes seemed to melt into that breathtaking, smoldering charcoal that she loved to see. Keeping her hand upon his, he lifted it, grazing her cheek with his knuckles as he wiped away a stray tear that started to fall.
She couldn't stop a sob that escaped from her lips. "I'm sorry that I couldn't stop you, Sasuke."
Sasuke's lips parted, sucking in much needed oxygen into his burning chest before he shook his head, jarring the bones in his neck. He felt sore, but he managed to mumble a couple of words. "…Nothing—you could do." He brushed a comforting hand to her cheek again, stroking her bottom lip as she bit it in an attempt to stop the sounds that were threatening to overtake her. "S'not your fault."
Her jaw clenched at his words, and she nodded, feeling more tears brimming. "Okay. Alright, then."
He sighed and closed his eyes, relieved. Then, he realized something. He craned his neck at her. "Go to… your dad."
She shook her head, her hand squeezing his. "No. They already told me that he's—gone." She swallowed soundlessly. "They've put him in the morgue. The lawyer hasn't come to discuss what'll happen to him yet—or what'll happen to me." She lowered her gaze. "I'm scared, Sasuke. I don't want to go to somewhere far away. It'll make me feel like I dropped off the face of the planet." Her gaze burned into his, making him see the worry, the fear of being unaccepted into anywhere else. "And I don't want to lose you." The tears finally came crashing down on her, and for the third time, she cried her heart out. It was as if all the tears in her life had decided to come to haunt her for not shedding them. "I know that it's selfish," she said as she squeezed his hand, "but I don't want to go—I can't be anywhere but with you." More trails of tears appeared on her face. "You're the only person who's actually accepted me. You actually care about me, and you don't treat me like a freak." She buried her face in his hand and gritted her teeth to stop a sob. "But I can understand if you hate me. I've been a real bitch to you, and I got you in all sorts of shit with dancing and stuff, and I know that I'm selfish, a-and needy, and—" She gasped when Sasuke pulled her down to meet his gaze.
Their lips were only centimeters apart from touching.
"Shut… up… Sakura," was the only thing that he said—and then, he kissed her.
It blew her mind, making her entire body weak as he caressed his lips with hers, kissing her slowly. She could feel the tears leaking from her eyes again, but for a whole different reason this time. It was because of the emotions that he filled her with—so much that she felt like she would explode. She was so thankful when he let go of her, placing soft kisses on her forehead and nuzzling her nose as he wiped away more tears and called her a crybaby, making her laugh.
Sasuke could feel a little bit of his strength returning. "You know," he said, sounding a little bit less out of breath, "I had always been wondering… what the 'greatest gift of all' that Eiji had been talking about when I… overheard you and your father talking." At her questioning eyes, he continued. "It's what your mother left for your father—and what your father left for me."
When she realized what he was talking about, her breathing stopped. But she let him continue, hearing him out to the end.
Sasuke brushed a hand at her cheek again, loving the way that she was starting to blush. He watched, speaking his next words and seeing how they made her tear up again. "It was you," he whispered, his voice hoarse.
She bit her lip. And smiled. "Yeah. I kind of guessed that."
"Eiji sure knows how to give a going-away present," he muttered, wincing when she socked him lightly in the arm. "Ouch."
Sakura flinched when she realized that he was still in delicate condition. "Sorry," she said simply before she laughed for what seemed to be the first time in the longest time. She smiled down at him, letting her eyes close when she lowered her head down to the hospital bed, staring up at Sasuke. "Thanks, Sasuke."
He squeezed her hand softly and closed his eyes, listening to her hum to her father's favorite song to play. "Aa."
In a dancer, there is a reverence for such forgotten things as the miracle of the small, beautiful bones and their delicate strength.
Sasuke had managed to be discharged from the hospital in a mere day. His injuries were minor—some scratches here, some semi-bad bruises there, except for a broken arm and a couple of bruised ribs—but they were quickly patched up, and he was sent out. But he didn't leave the hospital right away.
Sakura knew. "C'mon," she told him, remembering the hallway that she had seen his mother disappear into after she had left Sasuke upon his request. "It's over here." Walking by his side, she beckoned for him to come to a door on the left. She slid it open, letting Sasuke walk through the door first—Itachi was, after all, his older brother. She closed it behind her, and stood by the doorway. And watched.
Sasuke stopped, his eyes finding his father sitting in the corner, holding a hand to his forehead, his eyes shut in an attempt to seemingly block out the situation that he was in. His mother was sitting by the bed, her eyes red and abused by the number of tears that had fallen in the past day. It didn't seem like either of them had moved at all.
But his eyes didn't linger long on his parents.
They were completely drawn to his brother—what was left of him—on the bed.
His older brother wore an oxygen mask, an IV stuck into his vein, blood dripping from the bag that hung nearby. In the other arm, a saline solution dripped. Itachi's eyes were closed, dark shadows emphasizing the hollowness under his eyes and the gaunt, pale shade of his face; Sasuke thought that it was probably the shadows that were created with the help of the neck brace around Itachi's head and the white hospital lights above. His lips were just as pale as his face, and it seemed like he was barely breathing. From the looks of his body, it seemed that his entire left side had surgery done. There were wrappings around his torso, probably to hold his broken ribs in place; his arm was in a tight sling, looking badly swollen up from the numerous fractures in his bone. His left leg was in a cast, suspended by a sling hanging from the ceiling.
It hurt to even look at him.
Sasuke swallowed hard, feeling a sting behind his eyes. Realizations began to seep into his entire being as he walked to the other side of his brother, afraid to touch him in fear that he would wake up and stare at him with blaming eyes—and afraid of the fact that he possibly never would. He swallowed again. Itachi had saved him—taken the blow for him instead. How many times had his older brother done that for him in his entire life?
His mother, as if reading his mind, lifted her head and stared across the bed at her younger son and smiled. "You know, Sasuke," she said softly (as if she didn't want his father to listen in), smiling a bit, "I had always accused your brother for hurting you. He had always been like your father—always cold and distant, and always seemingly calculating." Her bottom lip trembled. "But… I realized that he cared for you." She smiled, a tear escaping from her eye. "Itachi told me later after you left the house that day—you know, after he had told your father about your dancing?—that he…"
.
.
.
"Itachi, how could you?" Mikoto hissed as she stared at her first-born. She couldn't believe that she was involved with such an emotionless family. Fugaku had always been a bad influence on his sons, telling them that men never showed emotion. Family pride was one thing, but when arrogance involved an entire family, it took an entirely whole new level. But Sasuke had always given her hope. He had always been the boy who had stuck to Mama—not Papa. He was her little boy.
But now he was gone because his older brother had told his father—one of the most sexist men on the entire planet—that Sasuke was taking dancing lessons.
And Itachi had known the consequences.
Her temper shot up even more when Itachi simply stared at her before he turned away. Before she could give him a piece of her mind, he finally spoke.
"Kaa-chan," Itachi said, addressing her in such a way that had her blink at him in surprise. He had never called her Mama before in his entire life, only okaa-sama which was just too formal for her. So when he called her that, she listened. Itachi turned to look at his mother, sitting her down on the couch as he sat next to her, prevalent coffee cup in hand. He took a sip. "Sasuke's been very stressed with his work at school, considering father's suffocating pressures upon him." Another sip of coffee. "I decided that it would have been best if he didn't see us for a while—like a little vacation for him to get him away from all the stress." He glanced over at his mother before he got up, rolling his shoulders once before he headed down the hall. "Of course, okaa-sama, I did it only because I was tired of seeing his irritating, whiny face all the time. It's refreshing not to have him in the house."
But Mikoto, having lived with a man of little open affection and learned how to read between the lines, understood. 'He's just like his father, that Itachi.' And she knew…
.
.
.
"… was doing everything just to make sure that you were happy." The tears fell freely now as she clutched at her eldest son's uninjured hand. "He loved you, Sasuke."
Sasuke nodded weakly. "I know, kaa-chan." He felt something wet on his face, and for the first time, he let himself cry. His voice cracked. "I know."
"Why the hell… are you… crying?"
At the cough that followed after, Sasuke's head snapped up.
Itachi had his eyes open, staring at his brother with shining ebony-brown orbs. There was something that looked like a smirk that was etched onto his face, but Sasuke couldn't tell with the neck brace in the way. Itachi hn-ed. "Baka," he muttered, watching his mother squeeze his hand. "I'm not dead yet."
Sasuke just seemed to notice the heart monitor beside him, giving a good pulse of Itachi's heart at his ears.
Beep, beep… beep, beep…
Finally, Sasuke found his voice. "Not dead yet?" he muttered, watching his father stir in the corner. So, he'd been asleep. "Does that mean that you were planning on dying?"
Just as Itachi had been about to answer, he coughed and winced, his hand tearing away from his mothers to grab at his chest. It sounded wet, as if he were struggling to quell the storm that his insides were creating. Blood seeped from his mouth, and Itachi desperately tried to wipe it away before Sasuke saw it.
But Sasuke did. He stared at his brother, keeping his brother's gaze as he watched him wipe his lip away, staring at the smeared blood on his brother's hand. "How long has that been happening?" he asked lowly.
"For a couple of years now." The voice came from the corner, and Sasuke turned to find his father staring at him, eyes bleary—but he was awake. "Your brother has been suffering from that for a while."
"What is it?"
Fugaku shook his head slowly. "We don't know," he said with a sigh. He looked old and tired.
Sasuke turned back to his older brother. "You've been keeping this from me."
"I didn't want you to know, otouto-san," he said, his eyes steely and determined. "It would have resulted in unneeded emotions—"
"Kaa-chan and oto-sama knew," Sasuke pointed out, his eyes narrowing, the sting behind his eyes becoming worse. "You could have told me—I'm your brother." He glanced from one parent to the other, both of them averting their gazes. "Do the doctors know?" He sounded desperate, he knew that, but he couldn't just let Itachi—hisolderbrother, his only brother—die. Not after he had found out that Itachi really did care about him, and that Itachi's entire life was bent on making his life happy. He was scared; he didn't know what to do.
Itachi's eyes softened, and that was when Sasuke saw it.
He was scared, too.
But he had already accepted the fact that there was nothing he could do to rid himself of this unknown illness.
"No," Itachi said simply. "It's undetectable. I haven't informed them either."
"But—"
"And even if I did inform them, there would be nothing that the doctors could do," Itachi told him, shoving the facts one-by-one in his brother's face, hoping that Sasuke would give up on him. He hadn't planned that things would go this way, hoping that Sasuke would hate him continuously and manage to do so until Itachi had managed to pass away quickly and quietly. Kaa-chan always had a big mouth.
"That's bull!"
The entire family turned their heads to the doorway to find the smallishly-built pink-haired girl standing there, her hands clenched into fists by her sides as her green eyes glinted with frustration. Her outburst rendered the entire Uchiha family appalled.
Fugaku stood up, looking angry and exhausted. "I don't know who you are to decide what the hell is bull and what's not, but I want you—"
"Have you ever been active, Itachi-nii?" Sakura asked, cutting off Sasuke's father.
Despite the serious situation, Mikoto stifled a giggle. No one had ever stood up to Fugaku before and gotten away with it, but she had a feeling that this little girl could. As indiscreetly as she could, she patted her husband on his chest, silently gesturing for him to sit back down and watch.
Itachi stared at her. "Sakura—"
"Just answer the question, aniki," Sasuke said.
With a sigh—not believing that he was being pushed around by his younger brother and his little girlfriend—Itachi said, "Hn."
Sakura's eyebrow twitched. "Meaning?"
"…No."
She sat down next to Sasuke, wiping his face with her palm to clear the tears away while she thought, not realizing the gentle look on Sasuke's face that the others seemed to notice as they smirked in Uchiha-like ways. "Then, I think I can help."
When his father scoffed, Mikoto silenced him by shooing him with a hand. But of course, being the man of the house, Fugaku spoke up and asked, "How on earth would a tiny girl like you help him?"
Sakura didn't falter. Still absentmindedly stroking Sasuke's face with her fingers, she turned to his father and said, her voice professional and full of confidence: "I've been in line to become a dancing therapist, so I've learned a couple of things."
"A dancing therapist*?" Mikoto repeated, leaning across Itachi's hospital bed in eagerness, trying not to smirk when she saw the way that Sasuke was trying to hide a growing blush under the small girl's fingers.
Sakura nodded. "Mm-hmm. Dancing therapists are rarely seen now in communities, but they do come in handy when a patient needs mental, physical, and emotional attention for trauma treatment, especially when normal procedures aren't effective enough." She smiled. "Considering how Itachi-nii seems to have been in a lot of trauma lately"—the nineteen-year-old scowled at her before another wet cough claimed him—"it seems to be a fitting treatment."
"I do not dance," Itachi muttered, wiping more blood away from his lips.
Sasuke shifted away from Sakura's comforting hand to stare at his older brother for a moment, narrowing his eyes before he said, "So you'd rather just die and leave the rest of us here to mourn for you afterward, aniki?"
Itachi stiffened, giving Sasuke the satisfaction to know that he struck a nerve. He turned away before muttering something that sounded like a consent, making Fugaku's mouth hang wide open, Mikoto smile, Sasuke smirk, and Sakura laugh in triumph.
Stifling the urge to dance is bad for your health;
it rusts your spirit and your hips.
A musical laughter echoed through the Uchiha household. It seemed to have come from the newly installed part of the mansion.
"No, Itachi-nii, like this," Sakura said, taking his hands and leading him in the proper step-order, counting for him. She didn't realize that the smirk he was sending over her shoulder was at the fuming younger Uchiha behind her. It wasn't until she bumped into his chest that she noticed his presence and blushed. "S-Sasuke! Hey! What are you doing in the studio?"
Sasuke stared down at her before ripping her away from his brother, glaring up at him with daggers set in his eyes. "Don't touch her, aniki," he growled. Normally he wouldn't have used that tone of voice with his brother, but damn it, Sakura was his!
Sakura's eyes twinkled in amusement as she looked at the two brothers, Itachi staring down at his brother with the same amusement while Sasuke glared up at him, spouting angry sentences.
It was already an entire year after the car accident. After managing to convince Itachi to take a little bit of dancing lessons (of which, so far, he was absolutely failing at—a fact that Sasuke liked to take pride in because it was one of the only things that he excelled at more than his brother), she found that she was right. Itachi's health had begun to soar back up, the wet coughs gone in a month after a rigorous regimen of dancing and taking vitamin supplements. It had taken a while for the family lawyer to finally make an appearance—about a good two weeks after Itachi's beautiful health recovery—but when he had handed the orphanage papers to Fugaku, the father tore the thing to bits, claiming that Sakura was now a part of his household.
So, she was "adopted."
They had used the term loosely, but really, she was just living with them… without having to pay them rent… or food money.
It made her happy to know that Fugaku had finally accepted her and welcomed her—even though he didn't like to admit it and denied everything that she said—giving her a warm home and food to look forward to every morning, afternoon, and night.
Sasuke had demanded that she have the room next to his (giving dirty looks and awkward blushes at his brother when Itachi had mentioned something lewd and just plain awkward about not 'doing dirty things and making bumps in the night'). "We're only fourteen, for crap's sake!" he had told his brother in response.
Sakura had laughed so hard that she had received a horrible blush from him. It was the best thing she had ever seen come across his face.
So now, here she was, happy and absolutely content with her life as a part of the Uchiha household.
"Hey," she said, catching the attention of the two brothers who had managed to find themselves in a headlock—mostly Sasuke. "I have to visit my dad today; can you drive me, Itachi-nii?"
Releasing Sasuke from his choke-hold, he nodded, waiting for her to gather her things before the three of them headed downstairs and flew out the door, only briefly shouting a good-bye to the house and the parents.
They stopped on the way to pick up fresh flowers before making their way to the front gates, passing the sign that said The Garden of Heavenly Rest in large, bold letters.
Itachi parked the car, putting the brake into place before getting out himself, the other two already bolted out of their seats and heading to the site. He walked slowly, enjoying the cool breeze that the land had to offer as he walked to the tree where a gravestone was marked.
Sasuke and Sakura were already there.
"Hi, Daddy," she said softly, replacing the flowers from last month with the ones that she bought. "See, I got new flowers for you—they're sunflowers this time." A soft smile graced her lips as she traced the letters that spelled out Haruno Eiji. "I thought it'd be nice to show you a little bit of sunshine in the flowers, you know?" She was silent for a moment. "It's already been a year since you passed away; Sasuke's taken good care of me, so you don't have to worry." She leaned into Sasuke when she felt his arms wrap around her. "We've both already turned fifteen, so it's exciting to know that we're almost out of school, Daddy. I've been able to help someone through dancing therapy, so I know that I'm on a good start." Another smile. "He's actually Sasuke's aniki. Isn't that crazy?"
The wind blew around them again, letting the sun touch the tombstone under the shadow of the willow tree.
Sakura smiled. "Yeah, I know. I was shocked, too." She looked up, closing her eyes as she felt the cool breeze touch her skin and the rare sunshine grace her cheeks. It felt like a hug from her father. "Thank you," she murmured, "for leaving me with such wonderful people." She opened her eyes, feeling a familiar wetness leaking from the corner of her eyes. "I'm so thankful to have a father like you." She lowered her gaze, making it so that her bangs covered her eyes. "And please," she whispered," tell Mama that I love her, too."
Another soft breeze brushed her cheeks. Another tear dripped.
And she knew that, when Itachi and Sasuke led her back to the car, both of them on either side of her, holding her hand, the soft breeze was a kiss from her mother.
She stared up at the sky, intrigued by the white clouds and the sun that shone down upon her, pulling the two of them along, watching as they both stared at her with curious eyes as she laughed and danced.
It was like the first step, the first twirl again.
And she loved every single moment of it—from start to never-ending.
Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is not mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself.
.
.
.
Fin.
Author's note: CHYEAH! 57 beautiful pages of work. :D So, that's that. I decided to actually edit it this time, and to go and have some dancing advise and experience points on it (THANKS, KARLI!), so it took a little longer than I'd hoped. :) But! It did make it, so I'm very proud of this story. (pats it). Anyways! Explanations. :D
1) Yakuza: For those of you who don't know what a Yakuza is, this is the Japanese word for a gang member or a 'wild person'. It's normally used for those people who are wilder than the 'normal' ones, especially in rumors that tend to spread around Japanese campuses. :D Apparently, Sasuke thought that Sakura's Yakuza material, judging by her personality. Either that or he just didn't remember her name well enough. (laughs).
2) Laelias: Laelias are real flowers; they're a type of orchid and are very pretty. :D And I just wanted to include the mentioning of such flower because my best friend's name is Laelia. (laughs). I LOVE YOU, LAELIA! (gives her virtual huggles).
3) Sasuke's dance (tutting): I'll admit—it was extremely hard to write his dancing performance. Dance is something that you have to watch, and it's just so hard to describe, so I'm sorry if I did a bad job of it. I based his dancing off of (of course) hip-hop "popping," which is where your body dances like the joints are popping out (ha-ha) and break-dancing. It's really interesting to watch but, personally, I don't like hip-hop much, but I couldn't see Sasuke dancing to anything else BUT. (laughs). There's also the 'tutting' part. I think it might be helpful if you looked it up on youtube. :D
4) Writing Style: Inspired by EWHH its Kenna AND DeepPoeticGirl. Great writers; love them, even though they probably don't even know who I am. (sadface)
5) Sasuke's address of Sakura's father: In Japan, it's polite to refer to older men (even if they aren't related to you) as Oji-san, or "Uncle."
6) Mr. Haruno's cello piece: I actually got it off of Youtube when I was searching for cello music. I just typed in 'beautiful cello song' and it was the first one that showed up. It's amazing, but it also includes piano and violins; it's from D.N. Angel, if you've heard of that anime. :) Extremely beautiful piece. That's Mr. Haruno playing it, by the way. (laughs) In my story, anyway. Go ahead and listen to it.
7) Mr. Haruno's first name: 'Eiji' means a couple of things: the first one has the symbols for, 'eternity' and 'next'; secondly would be 'great' and 'peace.' And the last one is 'prosperity' and 'peace.' ^_^
8) Dancing therapist: Yup; this is actually a job option. :D Just google it for the description. It's actually extremely interesting. ^_^
So. Whoever reviews gains 1000 cool points! :D
Review, review, review.