Chapter 2
Everyone could say that Sakura was a very capable young woman. She was smart and strong and had devoted herself to learning and training to become one of the most remarkable medic nins in the Fire country. She excelled at anything she put her mind to…
But when it came to love, it was a different story.
Her skills in that area were lacking and her friends, especially Ino, took a special interest in bullying her about it. She had a bad eye for love, Sasuke being the one and only crush she had ever had and would ever have, as she had promised to herself. So it was surprising and rather shocking to realise that her heart had suddenly decided to throb for another man, and it was even more unsettling that said man was his brother.
The uncharacteristic frown in her forehead only deepened as she thought about the older Uchiha.
He was one of the most sought after bachelors in Konoha, and if it wasn't for his intimidating aura, his fanclub would be even scarier than Sasuke's. He was also the strongest shinobi she knew (and she knew plenty), smart and efficient, he was the kind of prodigy that could only be seen once in a lifetime.
In other words, he was unreachable.
He also happened to be the loved and worshipped older brother of who, only days ago, she thought was the love of her life.
The pained expression on her features was not so subtle as she poured the third coffee of the morning in her customised mug.
Soon it was lunchtime and she moodily dragged herself to the usual ramen place.
As she sat on a stool and patiently waited for the food to arrive, she wondered how on earth she developed such feelings towards none other than Uchiha Itachi.
She began an intense recollection of memories in hope to find a clue, anything that would explain her sudden change of heart. She found one that particularly caught her attention.
It had been a week ago. They were training as usual, and the task of the day had been to stealthily move across the forest in order to retrieve a scroll. Itachi and his clones had been the ones chasing Team Seven, and thus the task became incredibly more difficult.
She thought she was doing perfect, not even once had she encountered the black haired man and the target was very close. She jumped from a branch to another and the beacon was already in her line of sight. She didn't expect to get caught in mid-air and being roughly pressed against a nearby tree.
She didn't fully realise what was happening until her front was flat against the bark and her arm was being painfully twisted behind her back by a much stronger Itachi. He pinned her hard against the tree, effectively immobilising her, only allowing her to turn her head to the side to catch a glimpse of his collarbone and neck.
Only then she noticed how close he really was.
It was his scent, she concluded.
Something like soap, or shampoo, but mixed with sweat and something uniquely his, strong, intoxicating and utterly delightful.
That had been the lethal strike.
All of a sudden, she felt the warmth of his body, the raising temperature of her own, and how with a little twist of her head she could easily grace his skin with the tip of her nose.
She unintentionally inhaled the addictive scent and her knees became water.
"Such a pity, you were doing so well", he commented in a low, almost whispered tone that finished throwing away the last remains of her sanity.
The whole sequence didn't last more than a few seconds, but in her mind it was a lifetime. Even after he released her, her heart wouldn't stop racing and her face wouldn't lose its redness.
That's where it all started.
Sakura felt her face heating up for a reason that had nothing to do with the steaming bowl of ramen she was eating.
It was at that moment that she heard her name being called from her right.
"Sakura chan! What a coincidence!", Uchiha Shisui, with his wide smile and warm eyes sat in the stool next to her. She greeted him back with a polite smile.
They weren't close or anything, but she had treated his wounds on multiple occasions in the hospital, and for some reason he seemed to like her. He always treated her with such familiarity.
"Shisui san, how is that arm feeling?", she glanced at his arm, remembering how it had looked when he arrived at the hospital four nights ago.
"Very good, thanks to you as always", his tone was playful, his smile was effortless and his whole aura made her feel at ease.
"It's odd to see you by yourself, Shisui san, how is it that Itachi san is not with you today?", she teased back but was received with a questioning look that left her puzzled.
"What are you talking about? he's right behind you", he supressed a laugh when her eyes widened in surprise.
'It can't be…'
With deliberate slowness she turned around in her stool and felt the air leave her lungs as the figure of the before mentioned Uchiha came in sigh bit by bit.
"Hello, Sakura", he said simply. She felt her cheeks warming up again and cursed herself for not noticing him before.
Maybe she had thought so much about him she had ended up calling him with her mind.
"Itachi san….", she muttered with her best effort of a polite smile. Reality was that she was as stiff as a stick and her countenance seemed frozen in place.
He smirked.
'Why, oh why?!', she thought dramatically as her guts melted.
"I'm sorry, I didn't notice you", she quickly came back to her bowl and tried stuffing as many noodles in her mouth as possible to avoid any interaction with the young man.
She felt the need to run from her spot.
In mere minutes she had finished her food and was already paying and getting ready to leave the place.
"You're leaving so soon?", Shisui asked with a teasing pout.
"Yeah, I… I have to get back to the hospital", she said, trying to sound cool and normal but failing miserably. "Sorry, see you around", she quickly turned and walked away.
"See you later for training", she heard Itachi's voice from behind her and her steps froze.
She couldn't bring herself to imagine training with him after the ridiculous amount of embarrassment she was feeling now.
She turned around.
"I'm sorry, today I won't be able to go training, I have double shifts", she lied with her best poker face and anxiously searched for any trace of disbelief in his face.
"Ok", he said simply and she took it as her cue to finally escape.
Yes, she had blatantly lied to him for the single purpose of avoiding him. But seriously, what did she gain from that? It wasn't as if she could avoid him for the rest of her life…
'Just enough time until this stupid feeling fades away'
After returning to her home she remembered she still had to train. The Jounin exams were getting close, and Itachi or not, she still had a sadistic Shishou that would have her head if she failed.
She decided to go to the farthest woods from where they usually trained, just to avoid being caught by anyone who knew her and started her routine of solo training.
'This is ridiculous', a part of her thought, hours later, when the sun had long ago set and her figure was covered in dirt and bruises.
'You can't be hiding like this Sakura', she reasoned. It was true that she was behaving like a preteen and her state could only be described as full denial, but she felt that too many things were at stake just for the sake of accepting her feelings.
So she made up her mind.
She would avoid seeing him at all costs.
Itachi was observant. He looked, analysed and learnt. His patience wasn't particularly high but he was calm enough as to wait for a situation to develop itself if he wanted to understand it.
In the last week he had learned a few interesting things, one of them was related to the pink haired medic, Haruno Sakura.
She was avoiding him.
He failed to grasp the reason behind her childish behaviour, and it wasn't like he was particularly interested in it either, but he felt curious as to why her attitude had changed so drastically, especially towards him.
The first day she missed training, he knew she had been lying about the double shift, but he figured that maybe she needed to do something and wasn't willing to talk about it. He could respect that.
The second day, he began to feel concerned. It wasn't good that she was missing training, seeing as the exams were around the corner now, so what was so important that kept her away from properly preparing herself?
The next few days, he started realising that it was him who she was avoiding. Every time they would meet at random places; the ramen shop, the flower shop, the street or the Hokage Office… she would smile awkwardly and fly from his side as soon as she was given a chance, and that was only if the situation needed them to interact with each other. She would even go as far as pretending she didn't see him if they crossed gazes in the street.
He felt puzzled.
Had he done something to her to provoke such behaviour?
He figured that asking someone close to her was too suspicious, and it wasn't as if he was that interested anyway.
He opened the bottle of water he was holding and drank its refreshing contents.
"It's been a week since Sakura chan disappeared from training…", Naruto commented lazily as he laid against a tree.
"Hnn, she will be the only one to suffer the consequences", Sasuke said coldly, though he couldn't help but feel a little concerned about their female teammate.
"But I wonder what is she doing? Why is she not coming?", Naruto insisted with a small frown on his brow. "Maybe too much work at the hospital?"
"Probably, though I doubt the Hokage would ask her to stay longer than necessary, seeing as she went through the trouble of releasing us from missions so we could train…", Sasuke offered as he too became deep in thought.
"You're right, it doesn't make any sense…", the blonde stared hard at the ground, searching for possible explanations. Then he looked at the other member of their training group who coincidentally was the only one who hadn't said a word about Sakura's missing presence.
"Oi, Itachi, do you know anything?", he looked at him through narrowed eyes, slightly suspicious that he hadn't said anything yet.
"No", he said curtly, with a dryness that left no room for questioning.
The truth was that now his curiosity was peaking, so after the training session, his footsteps wandered aimlessly around the village without his full consent and with the deep and almost unconscious hope of catching a glimpse of the slippery kunoichi.
After a long time of walking, he was about to give up but decided to give one last round before going home. Luckily for him, said round happened to be in the same training grounds where a semi unconscious Sakura laid flat in the ground, heavily dirtied and with a laborious breathing.
He approached her silently and stopped a few inches away from her sprawled and messy pink hair. Itachi observed her oblivious form and took in the little details that gave away her recent activities.
She had been training.
One quick look around the field and he could tell that she had really been pushing herself, but that realisation only brought more questions to his mind.
He lowered himself to a crouching position to get a closer look of her face, now decidedly asleep and had to repress the urge to shake her awake and demand answers. Of course he was in no position to do such a thing, since she was under no obligation of training with him.
Still, the uncomfortable sensation that pooled in his gut made him wonder since when he had become so possessive.
"Sakura", his voice came out softer than he intended, so, needless to say, the sleeping girl didn't even flinch. He repeated her name, this time a bit stronger and she stirred softly before opening her eyes to stare straight at his upside down face.
She froze for a few seconds, not really understanding what was going on. Her eyes widened, all traces of tiredness gone.
"I-Itachi… san…", she stuttered shyly, almost to herself. How long had he been there? She had to be the worst kunoichi in the world, seriously.
She realised the position they were in and blushed furiously, almost jumping to a sitting position at a safe distance from him. She hid her burning face from him behind a curtain of hair and a lifted forearm, unable to face him now that he had found her.
He must've realised she had been training, and therefore knew that she had lied. She could only hope that he wouldn't know it had all been to avoid him.
Seconds passed and she only became more embarrassed.
Itachi kneeled on the ground as he approached her slowly.
"Sakura…", he said before grabbing her arm and softly move it away from her hidden face. "Are you alrig—"
He stopped mid-sentence when he took in her expression.
Her eyes were glistening, her cheeks were impossibly flushed, matching almost perfectly with her hair, messily falling in front of her emerald orbs. Her lips were on a shy pout, making them look full and reddened and even with all the dirt and bruises marring her otherwise porcelain skin, she looked…
Enticing.
Itachi gasped softly, not fully believing his own thoughts.
A wave of heat travelled through his body in the most bizarre way, rendering him motionless for a few moments.
Finally, realisation hit him and he released her violently, as if he had just been burnt. The sudden movement made him fall backwards, his arms reaching behind to support his weight.
"I'm sorry", she said with a pained expression. "I've… been training by myself", the guilt could be tasted in her tone. She looked away.
Itachi regained his composure and sat straight before talking.
"Why are you apologising?", he asked serious.
"Because…! You took the time to train us, day after day, even though you had no obligation of doing so and I…", the words were trapped in her throat.
"I did it because I wanted to. You have the freedom of joining us if you want to, but there's no reason to apologise for wanting to do it by yourself", he said matter-of-factly.
He truly believed those words, but there was something in the back of his head that told him that he wasn't being completely honest.
"May I ask why?", he asked after a while. The nagging, he realised, was because he didn't know the reason behind her actions. The truth was that he wanted to know why she had been avoiding him.
She looked at him for the longest time. He could tell she was struggling whether to tell him or not. He vaguely wondered if it was something serious.
He decided to spare her from the torture.
"You don't have to tell me, it's alright", he said finally, collecting himself to a standing position. He absentmindedly shook off the dirt in his knees as he avoided her gaze. "I'm satisfied with knowing that you are preparing yourself properly for the Jounin Exams"
Then he looked at her and the guilt was still clearly readable all over her face. He sighed minutely before a small smirk drew on his features.
"Keep working hard", he said as he placed an open hand on top of her head, his gaze locked with hers.
Sakura's face became red as a tomato, which only made his smirk bigger. Finally, he dropped his hand and turned around to walk away.
She was left in the middle of the field, sprawled on the ground, unable to stand up with her wobbly knees as she stared at the retreating figure of an enigmatic Uchiha Itachi.
'This is getting worse…'
A/N: And the story continues! I would love to wake up to a sight like that any day of the week ʚ ⃛ɞ(ू•ᴗ•ू❁) Is it just me or Sakura is turning out to be a bit of a pervert? :O
Hopefully this will continue. Thanks for your support!
xxx
