Title: Thunderbirds
Fandom: Naruto
Pairing: Sasuke/Sakura (Sasuko/Sakura)
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2,691
Summary/Description: AU. She could have loved a thunderbird instead. But she doesn't, so Sakura goes through the motions.
Warning/Spoilers: Genderbending; Sasuke's a chick. No spoilers. Maybe a little OOC.
A/N: 31 days, May 11th: I could be all that you want and more. When I first made up my mind to write high school AU lesbian SasuSaku for WR, I had something humorous in mind. But no. Being me, I wrote almost!angst. Typical.
Dedication: A tad late, but happy birthday, White Rain! You're such a great, intelligent girl, and ILU. Hope your day went well, bb.
Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine. Poetry belongs to respective poets/songwriters.
1.
The first note, she finds stuck to the bottom of her desk in History, glued there with a piece of bright pink bubble gum. Sasuko discovers it by accident, as she is drumming her fingers along the bottom of the desk in boredom. She has already memorised the chapter that Hatake-sensei is cheerfully lecturing on. As such, it is ennui and sheer curiosity that make her grasp the small piece of paper with distaste, scrape off the gum with a pen, and unfold it in her lap. The paper is plain, pale pink, and unruled.
What she finds there surprises her.
Sasuko reads it, and reads it again. Somehow, she knows that it was left there for her.
By who, she can't imagine. A typical note of infatuation is one thing; quoting poetry is another. She casts a sharp, analytical eye about the room. Few are paying attention to the teacher; several are staring at her. It's nothing out of the ordinary; she has long become used to the eyes that trail her steps in admiration and envy; long become used to ignoring them. They don't mean anything to her, because Sasuko tries to make a point of not forming bonds, even if that doesn't always go as planned.
She calculates. Naruto is glaring at the side of her head with smouldering blue eyes, contempt flickering towards whatever else it is the idiot feels for her. This afternoon, they will fight again, and the equilibrium will be restored, like all the times that came before. She ignores him, because it will make him angrier.
Ino, lip gloss in hand, vacillates between checking the pink shine of her lips in the compact in her hands, and angling the mirror so that she can look at Sasuko's reflection from the front. She knows that the brunette can see her; she continues anyway because she's shameless and persistent. Sasuko's upper lip curls. She doesn't care if Ino looks; that is all she will ever do.
Lee, sitting a few desks over, isn't looking at her. He isn't looking at her too much, which makes it obvious that he wants to. But instead, he stares fixatedly at Hatake-san, only stopping to take copious notes in his big green notebook. He radiates the desire to be better.
Kiba might as well be drooling. Sasuko feels nothing but disdain when her eyes rake over him.
Sakura, like Lee, isn't looking at her but she doesn't seem to be paying attention to the lecture either. She's doodling in her notebook, a lock of pink hair curled around her little finger. She looks nervous, and shy.
Sasuko gives an inelegant sort of snort; any which way it goes, she doesn't care. When Hatake-san's back is turned, she raises the note in front of her face, makes sure that they can all see, and crumples it up into a tight little ball.
xxx
Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.
2.
The second one, she comes across in her locker a few days later, and she has to sneer a little at the cliché. Slipping love notes into her locker? Really?
Sasuko almost throws it away without looking, but something stays her hand. It is light green in colour this time, with flowery embellishments in the corners. When it was slipped into her locker, it came to rest right on top of the title of her Chemistry text book, which is where she picks it up from now. She wonders if this is going to becoming a habit.
One brow is arched high by the time she's finished reading. She'd thought poetry was far too sophisticated for most of the boys she knew, but something like this could be right up their alley. However, them being familiar with this verse is predicated upon them paying attention in English Literature, which is as likely as Sasuko deciding to pen back a note to her admirer.
Admirer. Tch.
She reads it again, but stops on the second line when she sees Sakura walking towards her, Ino at her side. They both look secretive, but Sasuko doesn't regard them long enough to wonder about it. She could care less about the delusions of her classmates.
Ino rakes her eyes up and down her body as she passes. Sakura smiles, and blood rises to heat her cheeks. It's a look she wears often; so often that the redness doesn't seem out of place with her hair anymore.
"Good morning, Sasuko-chan."
Sasuko doesn't bother to look at her when she replies with a curt 'Hn.'
There's a trash bin at the end of the hallway. A few minutes later, the note is nestled in between wads of gum and soda cans.
xxx
A hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest.
3.
The third one, she finds Sakura trying to sneak into her bag pack in the gym's empty changing room, ironically, just before fifth period French. Sasuko tightens her towel across her chest, and deliberately thumps her foot against a bench. Sakura jerks her head up from her task, and immediately turns bright red. The peach coloured note is left sticking out of one of the pockets of the bag.
"You," Sasuko says simply, coming to stand near Sakura, looking her up and down. It's not as if she's surprised. Her hair is plastered to her forehead; she slicks it back with a hand.
"...Me," replies Sakura, putting a finger between her lips. It's a shy, telling gesture that's completely at odds with the way Sakura looks her directly in her eyes. She's embarrassed, yes, but somehow determined to be dignified.
Sasuko blinks balefully. She has no time for this. It's been a week since the second one; she'd almost thought they'd stopped.
"This is ridiculous." A shiver or two travels down her damp back from the cold; she controls them carefully. "Just... stop it."
If anything, Sakura straightens a bit more. One of her hands is curled into a fist, and it shakes a little.
"I… I like you, Sasuko-chan," she says. "It's not ridiculous."
Sasuko grabs another towel and begins rubbing her hair vigorously. She has to admit that she's vaguely surprised that Sakura is being so direct about this. She would have expected her to lie about it a little, try to come up with a plausible excuse, and trap herself in a fib. Owning up and confessing doesn't seem like the Sakura Sasuko knows... but then again, she reminds herself, she barely knows the girl, and doesn't really want to. She has no idea how Sakura's changed over the years.
Still, the lack of affected subterfuge makes this less annoying than it could have been.
"And what do you expect this to achieve?" she asks flatly, draping the towel over her shoulder, and finally reaching across to grab, open, and read the note. Sasuko almost rolls her eyes; all the melodrama that this encounter lacks can be found between the lines of today's quote. How French.
The blood had been draining from Sakura's face; it begins to creep back in. She takes a deep breath before speaking.
"Well... I wasn't about to approach you like one of those boys… any of those boys who do it all the time." She looks a bit discomfited at saying that. Sasuko herself feels it's a bit late for self-consciousness. "These are some of my favourites, and even if you don't like them much, I thought you might be the kind of girl who... I don't know. Appreciates subtlety."
She taps her fingers together. Sasuko observes, wondering why she's still even speaking to the girl. A dismissal would have been so much easier a few minutes ago.
"Do I look like the kind of girl who likes other girls?" There's an edge of cruelty to her voice that she doesn't bother to temper. Sakura's colour heightens yet again, and she swallows, emitting a soft laugh.
"Well... I don't know. But I had to try."
Sasuko stares into eyes the colour of rich celadon. She doesn't like the shine of admiration she sees there. She doesn't like that fire of quiet determination. She doesn't like the glimmer of love.
Slowly, purposefully, she pulls her index finger and thumb apart. The note flutters to the floor, with Sakura's eyes trailing after it. Sasuko turns her back; finally, a dismissal.
"Stop wasting my time, and yours."
She doesn't hear when Sakura leaves. It's possible that she stays the entire time; Sasuko changes into her clothes and leaves through the other door without ever turning back around.
xxx
Tant de flambeaux pour ardre une femelle !
De toi me plains, que tant de feux portant,
En tant d'endroits d'iceux mon cœur tâtant,
N'en est sur toi volé quelque étincelle.
4.
The fourth one, she is in the middle of reading when Sakura slides into the seat opposite her in the cafeteria. This provokes some actual shock; Sasuko doesn't think that anyone has ever sat down with her at her table. Naruto used to, frequently, but they've had different lunch hours these past years.
Irritation sharpens the edge of her bluntness. She drops the note onto the table and uses it as a coaster for her water bottle.
"You're annoying."
The other girl's face falls a little, but it's barely perceptible. Sasuko gives her a blank look, and wonders why she's still here.
"I didn't ask you to sit here," she continues.
Sakura takes a bite of the apple on her tray, and wipes away some juice that gets caught on her lips. Amazingly, she is smiling again.
"You didn't ask me not to."
After pinning her with a wintry look, Sasuko decides to ignore her. She concentrates on her home-made bento. She's not that good of a cook, and most of the time she'll order in or eat out, but she's taught herself a few things over the years. The apartment gets cold and lonely with nothing to do when she isn't at school, or the dojo.
She bites into a rice ball. The crunch of Sakura's apple is distracting. Sasuko glances around, searching for an empty table that she can move to, and her eyes fall upon the note, under her cold water bottle. After a moment, she jerks her chin towards it.
"Why don't you love one instead?" Her voice holds the barest hint of a sneer, but not too much. She doesn't want the other girl to go thinking that she cares.
Sakura seems surprised by the question; her smile, when it comes, is weak, but almost kind, which confuses Sasuko.
"Well, it's not something that I can change, or choose, really. One of those 'take it or leave it' things." She pauses to open up her juice box, and take a long, slow sip. "Besides—" And here, her eyes twinkle. "—I can sort of see you as one of them."
Sasuko disagrees. If one of them had to be the mythical bird of fire that rejuvenated itself in the springtime, it would be Sakura.
But she doesn't say that. She takes another bite of her rice ball, and continues perusing the large room with her eyes. There are no empty tables in sight, so she remains seated, and finishes her lunch. Sakura doesn't attempt to make conversation, and of course, neither does Sasuko.
Though she has more in her bento box than Sakura has on her tray, Sasuko finishes first. She gets up without preamble, and leaves the table without bothering to say goodbye. The bottle and the note remain standing on the wooden surface. Water permeates the cerulean paper, making the ink bleed.
Sakura's eyes follow her as she goes.
xxx
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
5.
The fifth one is delivered to her in person. Sasuko stands outside of the library after study hall, and doesn't take it from Sakura's outstretched hand; she doesn't even acknowledge her. They stand there in the corridor for a full minute, students passing them and watching curiously, before Sakura speaks.
"Sasuko-chan... please..."
"I told you. You're wasting both my time and yours." The line of Sasuko's mouth is razor-thin and just as sharp.
She stares ahead, and refuses to even turn her turn gaze slightly to the side, so Sakura compromises, and steps right into her line of vision. Her eyes are more determined than ever.
"I'm not; I just hope one day you can see that. I could be—"
She never finishes her sentence, because Sasuko starts walking abruptly, with her books cradled in her arms. Sakura, of course, follows her, all the way to her locker. Sasuko used to think that Naruto was the most tenacious person that she knows; she might have to revaluate that assessment now, or at least acknowledge Sakura for managing to pester her so much that it became cause for comparisons to the blond idiot.
Her locker presents a small problem; she needs a hand to unlock it, but her books are too heavy for one arm. Normally, she would just drop them on the floor, but Sakura is here to hold out her arms in offering. Sasuko glares at her a little before shoving the six textbooks into her waiting hands.
"Nowhere," she reminds her as she enters in the combination. "This will get you nowhere." She turns back to glance at the pink-haired girl. She expected her to struggle under the weight of the books, but Sakura is holding them comfortably. She's wearing a tank top; the muscles in her shoulders and upper arms stand out.
Sasuko scowls even as Sakura smiles wanly.
"It's nice of you to worry, Sasuko-chan, but it's okay. I know exactly what I'm doing."
The brunette will not bother to give that assertion the dignity of a response; she simply grabs the top five textbooks out of Sakura's arms, and lines them up in her locker. She slams the door shut, locks it quickly, and holds out a hand for her math textbook, so she can walk to class.
Sakura surprises her yet again by stepping nimbly out of the way, clutching the book to her chest.
"Math, with Yuuhi-sensei, right? I'll walk you."
Sasuko stares. Sakura's teeth sink into her bottom lip, as if nervous that Sasuko is angry. She is, but instead of taking one of the many other options available to her at this point, she simply begins walking swiftly down the hallway. She can hear Sakura jogging to keep up. The brief moment alone gives Sasuko time to think about poetry in action. She has never been more irritated with herself.
At the door to her Math class, she turns around abruptly, and again, holds out her hand for her textbook with stony eyes. Sakura hands it over, not smiling, but not looking timid either. Sasuko is disgusted.
"You're a fool," she says calmly, but coldly, before she walks through the door.
"Maybe," the answer comes in a whisper. "But I'm not blind."
Sasuko wants to ask her what the hell she means by that, but when she turns around, Sakura is already walking back down the hallway, getting lost in the crowd of bodies. Sasuko's eyes flash.
Turning back slowly, she takes her usual seat on the far left, in the middle of the row. Yuuhi-sensei calls the class to order quickly, and begins the lesson. When Sasuko turns to today's chapter, the note is there waiting for her, sunny yellow on crisp white.
xxx
In a haze, a stormy haze,
I'll be 'round, I'll be loving you always.
Always.
Here I am and I'll take my time,
Here I am and I'll wait in line always.
Always.
A/N: Did I just write lesbian SasuSaku?
...Yes. Yes I did.
1 → Maya Angelou – Touched by an Angel.
2 → Andrew Marvell – To His Coy Mistress.
3 → Louise Labé – Ô beaux yeux bruns.
(Translation, by Peter Low.
So many matches to set a girl ablaze!
What irks me is that you can wield these flames
which sear so many wounds into my heart,
and yet you've not been touched by a single spark.)
4 → Sylvia Plath – Mad Girl's Love Song.
5 → Coldplay – Parachutes.
I feel that this is not the last we will be seeing of this AU.