The Thing Left Unsaid
Authors note: this is not connected to Their Eyes Met with Love, but uses two of the original characters Keiji and Sagat, both being manifestations of myself. Keiji is paired with Anko and has the same background as TEML. The character Kiriomi is based on a good friend of mine who this is dedicated to.
Chapter one: Annoying?
Sasuke was sitting alone on the bench thinking of his shocking discovery. It had been only a week since Naruto brought him back to Konohagakure. A lot had happened during his quest for vengeance, a quest which had brought him nothing, but pain and had driven him into loneliness. He was still moving like a puppet on Itachi's string, moving closer and closer to misery. He found that Naruto had fallen in love with Hinata and the two were now inseparable. Sasuke wish he were like that with someone and he would have been that way with Sakura had it not been for the self-destructive avenger inside of him that sent him away from her. The hurt he had caused her had drilled a gap in between them that permanently placed them in the friend zone. Now she was with Gaara, which was actually comforting that she didn't leave him for that big eyebrow freak Rock Lee. Sasuke would have been depressed as hell, but he felt good that it was Gaara since he'd heard about Gaara's help with comforting Sakura.
He looked out into the horizon and watched the birds fly by as he fell in to a daydream. It was Naruto's voice that woke him up.
"Hey, emo-teme, wake up," said Naruto with a grin on his face.
"I'm surprised you had the self control not to shout loser," said Sasuke. He was actually speaking the truth about being surprised. Naruto used to be the loudest ninja, now he was actually quieter than most people. He didn't think of Naruto as a loser. In fact he was envious of Naruto. Naruto had someone to love and someone to return that love, but Sasuke had only friends. He wanted the love of more than friends, someone who wanted to share his hopes, his dreams, his fantasies. "Anyway what the hell do you want?"
"Touchy today aren't we," teased Naruto. "I just wanted to tell you that Tsunade-sama requested your presence at her office and urges you not to be late. Meaning that if you are late you better be ready for pain."
Sasuke would say that he didn't care, but that would be a lie. He had been on the receiving end of one of Tsunade's punches and he knew he never wanted to be on the receiving end of another one of her punches ever again. He hurried quickly to the Hokage Tower, not wanting to be killed because he wasn't fast enough. It would be to embarrassing to tell his clan that he wasn't able to avenge them because he couldn't meet the Hokage on time.
As soon as he entered the Hokage's office, he noticed a girl standing there who was roughly his age, maybe a year younger than him. He thought she was beautiful, a thing he had never started noticing about girls until now, and her auburn hair covered her shoulders making her look like a woman of nobility. Her porcelain skin had a look of softness to it, but her eyes spoke of a hardness and determination that Sasuke found attractive. She had a nervous look as soon as he came in which made Sasuke wonder. Tsunade was sitting at her desk drinking tea, which was the only thing she drank when she wasn't drinking sake. She noticed his footsteps or appeared to notice them, but he was sure that she had known he would arrive at that moment.
"You sent for me Hokage-sama," asked Sauske.
"Yes I did," said Tsunade gesturing to a chair. "I have come to ask a favor of you. You see, I have a friend who wishes to have a tutor for his daughter and his daughter just happened to request you, specifically, by name. Well, you aren't on any missions and this will be a perfect time to regain the trust of the village."
"How does the village know of what's inside Naruto," asked Sasuke.
"You see, when Naruto fought against the Akatsuki to save you, he had to merge with the Kyuubi to gain enough power to defeat the leader. The only person not accounted for is your brother, Itachi."
"That bastard would be the one to get away," said Sasuke. He had tried to get him by going to the Akatsuki stronghold, but was captured and the others in his squad were killed. He had never forgiven himself for that mistake. "I assume that this is the daughter you were talking about."
"Yes, her name is Sora Kiriomi, and she is very talented if I do say so myself," said Tsunade. "So will you accept the easy way?"
"Sure," said Sasuke, trying to play off the fact that he was actually caving in to demands. He put his hands in his pockets and walked towards the door. "Kiriomi-san, please be at the training grounds in an hour and bring the intent to kill."
Kiriomi was so happy that her idol, Uchiha Sasuke, was going to be her tutor. From what she heard, Sasuke was just made jonin at the request of Naruto and Kakashi. She was about to made jonin, but she needed to pass the test and who better to help her than someone who had trained underone of the legendary sanins. For a long time she had admired Sasuke's strong features and had actually spoken to him on a couple of times prior to the occasion, but Sasuke didn't seem to remember those. Kiriomi had fallen in love with his cockatoo spiked hair, his strong cool expression, the natural grace he seemed to have, and his changed attitude. She had liked his attitude before, but now she liked how he had torn down some of the barriers he put up. So far was she in her daydreams that she didn't notice that Sasuke had arrived late. It was a habit he seemed to have picked up from Kakashi. He walked into her line of vision to get her attention.
"Hope I haven't kept you waiting for long," said Sasuke running his fingers through his head. "Well then, let's get started by testing your abilities so far. There is an object somewhere around here. Your mission is to find it and bring it back here in one piece."
"Who is my opponent," said Kiriomi. "If you said that I have to survive then that means that you have someone to try and stop me."
"Your opponent is me," said Sasuke. "You had better brought the intent to kill or else you might get broken."
"I don't break easily," said Kiriomi defiantly. Idol or not, no one called Kassuga Kiriomi weak or fragile. "Come on."
Two hours later Sasuke was sitting on top of Kiriomi, reading a book that he had bought. (No it's not Icha Icha Paradise.) Kiriomi would fidget, but she had lost the strength push him off of her.
"You know going over your performance there were at least seven things you could have done better," said Sasuke not taking his eyes from the book. "But all things considered, you really do have talent. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to be helping you increase your taijutsu and genjutsu. You fell to easily to my tricks and I suck at genjutsu. I'm more of the taijutsu specialist in the trio."
"Sakura must be the genjutsu specialist," said Kiriomi. She based it off the fact that she had the most chakra control and was a genius. "So Naruto is the ninjutsu specialist?"
"Actually, he's stronger than any of us in this village," said Sasuke. "Years ago, he wasn't that much different from a regular ninja, in fact he was worse, but now look at him. Fortune favors those with good hearts."
"You have a good heart to," said Kiriomi.
"Maybe, but right now we need to get you home," said Sasuke. He picked her up and carried her home, not noticing the fact that her face was red as a cherry.
Kiriomi's progress was impressive, but he would find the girl staring at him sometimes while he was deep in thought. Other times she would go on about what her friends were doing and pretty much did a good many things that other girls did. Sasuke himself, still carried some of his anti-social attitude, but he felt that he should at least try to participate in a conversation, but he would always just fade into space as the girl just kept on talking to him. It was a habit girls had of trying to chage him that he just found made them unattractive.
"You know you always seem to just stare off into space when we talk," said Kriomi. "You don't even listen to me do you?"
"I listen for about say five minutes then I just think of what to train you in next," said Sasuke. It was blunter than he meant and he wondered why since it seemed too cruel.
"Well sorry for being such a burden," said Kiriomi as she stormed out.
What an annoying girl, thought Sasuke. I should probably apologize, she's alright when she doesn't talk, but I can tell she only talks about that stuff because she was worried about me. Her conversations have more of a point than other girls, I'll give her that. Later tonight though, I have a date tonight.
It was later that night that he found himself wondering why he dated. His date was some medical-nin, she reminded him of Sakura and how he used to think about her. His date talked about the different surgeries she had performed and apparently thought that circumcision was dinner conversation. He decided to leave through the bathroom window, but he left enough money to cover his part of the bill. As he climbed out he saw Kiriomi sitting on a bench looking depressed so he decided this would be the best time to apologize to her. He walked over to her, but found that she was still pissed out him.
"What the hell do you want," she asked. "Did you come to tell me how annoying I am?"
"No I came to apologize," said Sasuke. "This is rare so you know I mean it if I'm apologizing to you. You're not that annoying, it's just you try to carry on conversations about things you don't really care about."
"Well, I just thought you might like to hear conversations that were like the ones Sakura ahd with you," said Kiriomi. "I just wanted to make you feel comfortable."
"Okay first off, they weren't conversations because only she talked. Second, when she talked about all that shit, she actually cared about that, but you couldn't give two shits about any of that gossip. I actually like that because I couldn't give two shits about any of that stuff. From now on just talk about things you actually like."
"There you are," said a voice from behind them. It was the date that Sasuke had unsuccessfully ditched. "Who is this?"
"I'm just a cousin of his coming to get him," said Kiriomi thinking quickly. "His aunt passed out so I've come to take him to the hospital."
"Oh, well he could have just told me without having to sneak out like that," said the woman. "Well go on ahead, I'll call you later."
"Okay," said Sasuke making a quick getaway with Kiriomi in tow. When they were out of sight, Sasuke let out a sigh of relief. "You saved my ass back there. Thanks, I'll buy you dinner."
"How did you know I was hungry," asked the startled girl.
"I could hear your stomach growling like a lion."
They went to Naruto's old haunt and were surprised not to see Naruto in sight. He would usually be here with Hinata, but instead there was Gaara with his first love, Sakura.
"Hey Sasuke," said Gaara motioning him over to join them. Gaara had gotten friendlier since the time they fought. He was now Kazekage and he made great lengths to find some reason to go to Konoha to visit Sakura.
"Hey," replied Sasuke. He couldn't be mad at Gaara for giving Sakura the love he should have given her. "Where's the lovey-dovey couple? They should be here."
"At a fancy restaurant if you can believe it," said Sakura. "Naruto told Gaara to come here when he found out that Gaara had never had ramen before. Keiji's coming over because he never tasted ramen either. It seems like Naruto is trying to convert more people to Ichiruka Ramen."
"I don't mind," said Ichiruka. "I'm honored to have the Kazekage come to my humble ramen shack."
"I can see why Naruto comes to this place every day," said Gaara. "This stuff is delicious."
"I hope that doesn't mean all of our dates will end up here," said Sakura with a sigh.
"Of course not," said Gaara. "I'll take you to any place you want."
Sasuke sighed wishing that it was him saying those words. He wanted to be the one holding Sakura now, but he also wanted someone to hold. He didn't care who it was because Sakura didn't interest him so much. Nothing seemed to satisfy him since he felt those pains of loosing grace in the eyes of the girl who once loved him. He began to doubt himself and he was probably going to return that girls calls. Low self-esteem was his biggest enemy and he needed to find some way to stop it. He ordered a bowl of ramen himself since he skipped out before he ordered his food. Kiriomi had the diet ramen which was popular with girls, but he wondered why she ordered it. She had a nice body already.
"Okay let's switch," said Sasuke, switching the bowls so that she had his pork ramen.
"Hey I'm on a diet," said Kiriomi.
"For what," asked Sasuke. "Your body is fine the way it is. Do not make yourself a skeleton just because most other girls are anorexic. Temari, Ino, HInata, Sakura, and Tenten don't eat diet ramen because they know that they have good bodies. You will not beat me getting less nutrition than you need."
"Do you really think I'm not fat," said Kiriomi. She thought that he might have thought she was fat since he once called her "porky" as a joke not about her size, but about her love for pork ramen.
"If you're referring to that nickname I gave you, I was talking about your love for pork. Your beautiful as you are, trust me I know."
Yeah you do have a nice put and a decent rack. Sasuke wondered where that thought had come from, but decided that he felt it was true. It didn't matter that he found her to be beautiful since he thought that about a lot of women.
"You two seem to be close," teased Ayame at the counter.
"We're just good friends," said Sasuke.
Kiriomi's heart stopped at those words. Sasuke actually considered her a friend and she knew how hard it was to be known as anything other than an annoyance or random person that he knew. He actually thinks I'm a friend.
"Thanks," said Kiriomi blushing slightly.
"No problem," said Sasuke. "I owe you for that save and what are friends for?"