"Did you hear that, Sakura? Sasuke-kun's living with a girl!"
News travelled quickly, and even though that damn girl had only been living with him for one night, all Sakura heard about on Monday was Shinku Kagami. Just the mention of that girl made Sakura's blood boil, even though today was the day. Her day. The day that she'd be assigned a team, and hopefully she'd be with Sasuke...
Curse that girl, she'd never have him!
Sakura was too busy glaring daggers into the back of the new girl's head, and she didn't notice her name get called, and so Ino elbowed her.
"Team 7: Haruno Sakura."
Sakura seated herself in the center seat at the new table, crossing her fingers.
"Uzumaki Naruto."
Naruto beamed, sitting on the table as opposed to in a chair as he should have done. Sakura's expression twitched.
"Uchiha Sasuke."
Sakura's face lit up and Naruto fumed silently.
"Team 8: Kagami Shinku, Hyuuga Hinata, Yamanaka Ino."
Sakura smirked. Shinku deserved those two, as long as she got Sasuke. She turned around and shrieked;
As Neji Hyuuga walked past, he accidentally bumped into Naruto and he collided with Sasuke, lips-first. They were kissing!
"NARUTO!"
Sakura punched him off of the table.
Ino ran over to Sasuke.
"What happened?"
Sasuke looked genuinely ticked off, unlike his usual cold and uncaring demeanor.
"Nothing."
"Report to your team leaders in the morning. You are dismissed."
Sasuke stormed away, and Sakura liked the idea of him leaving Shinku to find her own way home, but then he slowed down to allow her to catch up.
Sakura caught on to the opportunity like a leech.
"Hey, Sasuke-kun!"
She ran to latch onto his arm and look up at him longingly.
Unfortunately, Naruto followed her and she still ignored him. He was irrelevant.
"Do you want to go for dinner at a fancy restaurant tonight? Like, as a date?" Sakura looked up with big, hopeful eyes.
"No."
Sasuke shrugged her off easily.
"I'm cooking dinner tonight. I went to the market yesterday."
Shinku scurried quickly and quietly to catch up with her roommate, who had stopped to stare at his feet.
"You don't have to cook. I'm not broke."
Shinku shook her head.
"I really would like to."
Sakura cut in.
"Shut up, Kagami. You're not his little slave girl, are you? You're so pathetic and desperate. Sasuke can damn well take care of himself."
Naruto sidestepped the tension completely. He was totally oblivious.
"What if we all went for dinner as a group?"
Sakura stared at him like he'd just ripped the head off her favorite teddy bear and she wanted to rip his head off in exchange.
Sasuke looked up and glanced at each person coolly, his hands in his pockets and his eyes lingering on Shinku before reaching Naruto.
"I'm pretty sure we'd all go broke by taking you up on that offer. Especially with your appetite."
Right on cue, Naruto's stomach growled and he laughed nervously. Sasuke put a hand on Shinku's shoulder and began to walk home.
2-ShinkuShinku put the tatami mat aside, slicing the sushi. After scrubbing the unused but dusty dishes to immaculate perfection, she tackled the task of cooking dinner.
She served out the noodles, poured the miso soup, and placed the salmon avocado rolls on a large platter.
Sasuke walked out of his room just in time.
The dinner wasn't perfect by any means. After the mission that killed her parents, she was used to cooking for her grandmother. She used to get stabbed in the foot of her grandmother was dissatisfied with the meal, so she braced for the pain of a kunai, whimpering as Sasuke took his first bite. She mistook his expression for anger, and she dropped to the floor, tears streaming down her face. She had flashes of the past as she sobbed.
"Forgive me."
Sasuke had stopped mid-bite, unsure what to do.
"Please. I'm sorry."
She shook with sobs.
"Don't hurt me."
There was a sharp sound as his chopsticks hit the ground and Sasuke struggled to carry her to the bed.
Her shuddering sobs made him feel an impulse to help, to do something, but there was nothing he could do. He didn't know how to help her, so he sat on the floor of his own bedroom, her sleeping in his bed. It was all he could do to try to protect her, watching the door.
He slept on the floor that night.
3-NarutoAfter Kakashi, his mentor, finished testing them on the first day of training, Naruto saw a slightly familiar figure at the edge of the bridge.
Kakashi had disappeared already as Naruto shouted.
"Hey! You!"
The blonde ran across the bridge and part of the way down the hill to meet her.
"What's your name?"
"I'm uh... K-Kagami. Shinku Kagami."
"I'm Naruto."
He chuckled.
"But I'll bet you probably already knew that."
"I live in your building, right?"
"I thought you lived with Sasuke?"
"I do. In your building."
Naruto turned to where Sasuke had been, but the black-haired boy was already halfway down the hill, Sakura trailing after him.
Shinku flinched as Naruto placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Welcome to Konoha."
"I'm from here."
"What?! Then how come I've never seen you around?!"
"I, um..."
Shinku ran to Sasuke, not talking to him or touching him, just silently walking next to him. Sasuke glared at Naruto, pushing Sakura aside and turning toward home, pulling Shinku there by her black knit sweater-covered forearm.
"Baka."
Sasuke mumbled in Naruto's direction.
Naruto caught Sakura by the arm, and she rolled her eyes.
"I'm not some rag doll you boys can throw around."
Sakura grunted, wrenching herself out of his grip.
4-SasukeSasuke walked through the garden, headed to the market by a shortcut, thinking. He didn't have to look behind him to know she was there. It was just one constant in his life now. She was probably just afraid of getting lost. What other reason would she have for following him around all the time? Not that she was clingy or anything...
Sasuke looked back and saw that she'd disappeared. He heard a rustling noise above him and saw that she'd climbed the tree.
"If you fall, I'm not catching you."
Shinku smiled and giggled, climbing further. Petals fell in her hair, and she plucked a flower and spun it between the forefinger and thumb of her left hand.
"Sakura," she whispered.
"What?"
Sasuke looked confused. A rare show of emotion.
"It means cherry blossom. I... I want to be... Her friend."
She let go of the flower, and it fell to the ground. She dropped gracefully beside him and smiled.
There might be petals in her hair, but there were more in his. She ran her fingers through his hair and laughed.
"She loves you," said Shinku.
She skipped away, and continued down the path.
Whether he meant to step on the flower she dropped, he'd never know. It just happened.
Sasuke took off through the trees, catching up to Shinku easily. She laughed, and he smiled, if only for a second.
When they got home, he realized that he hadn't gone to the market after all. Shinku pulled bread down from the kitchen cabinet and began to make a sandwich. Sasuke looked up, cool and calculated. There were still flower petals in her hair.
"I didn't know you went shopping."
"I did," Shinku replied. "I said so yesterday. Didn't you hear?"
He had, in fact, heard her when she said it yesterday, but he asked anyway to make her think he'd forgotten. He did that to put people off, stay distant.
Cold, stoic. Was it a pretense?
Uncaring, maybe. He only cared about getting his revenge one day.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Maybe it was a good thing he'd gotten out of that house instead of walking past those bedrooms every day and staying out as long as possible just to avoid the flashbacks.
He gripped the edge of the table. Hard.
"Sasuke?" Shinku looked over at him, concerned. "Sasuke, please don't break the table..."
Sasuke let go after he saw the first cracks start to form. Shinku sliced the sandwich perfectly in half, placing it on a plate and pulling his hand from the table, holding it in both of hers.
"Sasuke, you're brooding again."
Shinku opened her mouth to say something else, but shook her head and walked away.
She didn't make anything for herself, Sasuke noticed.
In fact, she rarely ate at all.
He followed, standing in her doorway and handing her the other half of his sandwich. She hesitated, looking up at him.
When she finally took it, she thanked him and he turned to leave.
"Oh, and Sasuke?"
He glanced behind him for a second, stopping in his tracks.
"Thank you... For last night. I noticed you slept on the floor."
Sasuke stood silent, giving a single, almost imperceptible nod before returning to his room.
Shinku didn't cry that night.