IV
I hadn't realized that the relationships I made during my few weeks of training was far beyond professional until the day Deidara came by my home later on in the week. I naturally wasn't as accepting as I was welcoming, and by that I meant that despite welcoming Deidara as a new friend of mine, I had not accepted him as a close and personal one as I did with Naruto and Sasuke. There was substance to our friendship that I had not developed with Kisame, and the many many people that I have known for years. I meant that in a way that was deeper than swimming, drinking, and shitting on the very existence of the older Uchiha together.
To put this in perspective, there are a rare few that will ever reach that level of acknowledgement from me despite how many kids I had gone to primary, middle, and high school and shared birthday parties with. They were people that I barely glance at if, by the rare chance, that I wonder around town and we were to cross paths. Deidara, on the other hand, was approaching that level of friendship faster than most had in the past. It took Naruto and Sasuke and I years to come to this mutual level 100 of friendship—years and a lot of fights, sacrifices, and blood—but Deidara had already accelerated to level 20 within a month and was someone who I looked forward to seeing.
Such a lame explanation of levels, I know, but you know what I mean.
"Hey, Sakura-chan!" Said level 20 friend called from the driveway he had grown used the driving in and out of over the last two weeks, seeing that sometimes he would pick me up instead of Kisame or Itachi when they end up being held up by meetings in the office. "Wow, you ride?"
He found me as I was checking the brake pads of my bike in my garage, ready to spend what I thought was supposed to be my day off in the city running errands that I had neglected while I spent my nine to seven at their cottage with no means of transportation, and was then inwardly panicking that I misheard or confused the dates.
"Yeah, I was about to head out." I said offhandedly, putting away my tools and, being too consumed in my panic, did not acknowledge his amazement at my ability to ride a motorcycle. "Were we scheduled to meet today?"
Had I not been in such a hurry, I would've smiled at the similar reaction he had to Naruto when my other blond friend found out that I completely ditched getting my driver's licenses and substituted it for a motorcycle one during our junior year of high school. Since I was the oldest of the three of us, there was this ungrateful expectation that I would drive them around once I acquire that pretty little card with an unflattering picture of me a couple months ahead of them. To their dismay, I got a bike with only one backseat which made for very amusing Monday mornings when they fought over who would be my passenger for that week instead of being driven to school by their parents since limos had been banned from our High School entrance.
Nonetheless, they were still amazed that I was bold enough to ride.
I got my driver's licenses eventually, mind you, as it was evident by the truck sitting behind me in my garage, but nine out of ten times I preferred to get the most of my bike for the ten months of the year that it didn't snow.
Deidara's blue eyes sparkled just as Naruto's had and he was reduced to nothing other than glitter and amazement like the first time I had my first run in with an orgasm. When he finally noticed that I was staring at him with an impassive face which rivaled that of the Uchihas with my helmet in my hand, he finally composed all the mushy part of himself and became a functioning human being again to see I was in a hurry to leave.
"No, Sasori wanted me to come over to drop over some clothes for you, yeah." He ducked under my half-opened garage doors and came back with two bags of clothes—two bags of designers clothes which Sasori had fully intended to replace the "hideous", "average", and "painful" clothes that I have now. Or so he so politely puts.
"Oh, thanks." I said with as little resentment in my voice as I could muster out, and handed them to an ever fidgety Shizune who had been hovering over me all morning to make sure I went through all my procedures to make sure my bike 1. wouldn't blow up from under me, and 2. I wouldn't end up in a threeway collision.
That meant a lot of "are you sure?" and "what about?" All the I sent off with a "yeah", "sure", and "uh huh."
"So, where were you headed?" Deidara asked carefully, almost hesitantly as he probably assumed he had overdone himself when he nearly licked my handlebars when he thought I wasn't looking.
I guess it was a rare thing—as you can probably tell I pay very little attention to things that do not directly concern me—but Konoha was more or less very underpopulated with the motorcyclist population. I don't know why, now that I think about it, seeing that we could actually create more spaces for parking and roads if more people did switch up their means of transportation.
There was this closed-mindedness and rarity when it came to cyclists. Despite the cyclist friendly weather that was here ten out of the twelve months, people, who only fucking drove alone anyways, would prefer a five seat, large driving contraption that takes up half the road instead of a motorcycle which could edd in two or three more lanes both ways.
But you do you my friend. You just can't blame me for every time I meet a motorcyclist virgin that I would be annoyed with how up close and personal they got with my bike.
"Just out, in the town." I said, lifting the garage door up to meet the force of the storm that had not been there when I had started.
Maybe if you had seen the dumbfound expression I had on my face you would've laughed, but I'm sure there was such disinterest, despair, and disappointment, and the inability to express it all properly at once that my face contorted into a disinterest blank with a sprinkle of "fuck." The rain, as I had done so well to drown out until then, violently slapped against the metal of Deidara's car that I could almost hear it crying out in pain.
"Do you think it's safe to ride in this weather, yeah?" The blond muttered with an air of hesitation, no doubt from his inexperience with two wheeled motor vehicles in general.
My face soured immediately, staring at the muddy country roads I would no doubt slip and slide through before skidding on top of the puddles building up on top of the paved road. Did I want to test my luck with death that day? Well, I wasn't particularly in the mood to do so. Every other day, maybe, but not on days when mama was expecting me in one piece and would no doubt drag me back from the dead and beat me to death before she would face any sense guilt that it was her fault that I ended up under a commercial truck on the freeway.
"No, definitely not." I sighed, darkening the garage with one strong thrust of my arms as the doors closed with a very audible slam that was the only real display of my frustration. Of all days that it had to pour like God was crying for all the forsaken souls who have ever been so unlucky to deal with me, it had to be the day I had to myself. Deidara quickly followed as I returned back into the house, maybe because he didn't realize he could just lift the garage door and let himself out, maybe because he cared for wellbeing and waiting on to hear a better solution to my predicament, who knew? I was only grateful that he did in the end. "Do you think I could call a cab?"
Shizune, having forgotten the clothes at the door when she was overcome with fear that I would ride out in this weather, stared at the road thoughtfully before saying "would that be too risky for the paparazzi to follow?"
One would think that having encountered them as often as I have that I knew better ways to avoid them by now. But seeing as there were only so many roads leading in and out of Konoha—and only being able to utilized one from where I lived—and how infrequently they were traveled because the next closest city was about a day drive in one direction while the other lead you off a cliff, there wasn't much I could do to hide travelling into town if it wasn't taking a secret back way with my motorcycle.
That was the only downside to living in the very quiet, and secluded countryside.
"We could always just call Kisame." Deidara stopped me in my tracks, and maybe he took the way I looked at him as a good thing because he continued playfully: "If he's not too busy guarding the Uchi—"
"No." I damn near growled, my eyes automatically narrowing at such a stupid idea to get Itachi a whiff of my personal life. Had I needed Kisame to drive me anywhere, I surely would have asked him sooner than now. I had realized my mistake of projection my frustration onto Deidara when he stopped in his tracks too. Luckily one of us was better at reading people than the other. "No, I don't want to call Kisame."
An awkward silence filled the space in my foyer as Deidara, for the first time, encountered a small fraction of my temper. Very rarely will it peep through, but when it does you better follow Naruto and Sasuke's example and run. Shizune, amongst many, have commented—or complained, kind of the same thing—that it was one of my many traits I had inherited from my mother and I'm just going to tell you what she's told everyone else, "I don't have a temper; I just have a very little patience and a low tolerance for bullshit."
"Perhaps we could reschedule?" Shizune suggested weakly, knowing damn well that I had rescheduled countless times over the course of the month to make room for training with Itachi.
I already had my phone out to scroll through the dates where rain was not going to be as deadly as it was that day and, if I was lucky, find a day where there it didn't rain. Seeing that it was already November now, which meant the sky was trying to snow but the climate would not let it, Konoha was bombarded with liquid propelling from the clouds instead of innocent white, and cold fluff.
"I could always drive you, yeah…" Deidara mumbled hesitantly, afraid of being on the receiving end of my wrath once again, and this time, very skeptical of what I was trying to hide.
The possibilities were endless with this one, considering my every growing track record and criminal history. What is Haruno Sakura going to get herself into this week? Stay tune and find out because she always manages to somehow.
It really, really, also didn't help that I asked "promise not to tell anyone about what you see today?" before accepting his offer, even he looked at Shizune for some sort of assistance only to see that she had disappeared to tend to my clothes now that she knew I was not testing death with my "dangerous, two wheeled, contraption of death" as she likes to call my metal baby.
"Okay, let's go." I nearly dragged him out of my house and into the storm, flipping my hood on to hide my terribly vibrant hair, and sliding on a pair of sunglasses to hide my equally terribly vibrant eyes. There was a stiffness in Deidara's movement as he followed me to his car and slid into the driver's seat. Had he offered to take me because he knew what he was getting into? No, he probably thought I was going off to sell drugs or attend an evil underground organization meeting set on my revenge for my incarceration. But I can only speculate now that it was probably because he just wanted to help me out—even if he was blindly following me into the devil's nest. "Stop looking at me like that. It's not as bad as you may think."
You could only guess his surprise when I had him pull out the route to Konoha's general hospital—even more so when he couldn't come up with any malice motives which involved this type of institution. Was I going to dirty their drinking water? Was I going to pop all the "get well soon" balloons? Couldn't be. I had nothing but my keys, sunglasses, and phone on me. Also, would I really waste all this time and energy for something as Naruto-basic-pranks as that?
So, instead of playing twenty-one questions with himself, he just asked.
"Oi, what are you doing there, yeah?"
May I also add that he didn't try to hide his surprise of my innocence when he did as well?
"I'm visiting my mom." I said impassively, staring at the busy downtown road ahead of us to keep an eye out for any human with a giant camera extending from their limbs. It was much easier to sleek through with a huge helmet to cover my pink head and entire face, especially since I had switched the bike I rode during high school and now so I was less likely to be identified, but something told me Deidara's tinted windows only drew in more attention than it did keep our identities safe.
"You mean Doctor Tsunade?" He asked excitedly, almost running the yellow-turn-red light.
"Ya, she's the one." I chuckled half-heartedly, already used to everyone's attitude when I mention my famous doctor of a mother. I'm not going to lie, very few associate me with her despite being her adoptive daughter for almost twenty years. It wasn't that they refused with utter persistence and disgust my whole life, but had only begun to do so once they realized that mentioning me, her fugitive daughter, lowered her value as a famous doctor. So, was I really upset that Deidara suddenly remembered that Tsunade was my mother? Nah.
"Oh my god, Sasori's going to flip!" He continued, completely oblivious to the way I turned my head to glare holes into the side of his face through the sides of my sunglasses. "His grandmother taught your mother in Medical School! He's always talked about—"
"I thought I made clear that no one was to know."
Silence once again consumed us and this time a thoughtful look crossed his usual carefree face. I think this was when I knew our relationship took a turn with something with more promise, more so than when he knew he could've been offering his life and he did so anyways. There was my relationship with Itachi, which meant nothing, my relationship with Kisame, which meant amusement, my relationship with Sasori, which was strictly professional, and my relationship with Deidara, which was genuine. It was nice meeting someone who wasn't interested in me because of what the tabloids wrote, but because I threw a person onto him.
"Ya, but I don't see why it's so bad that you're visiting your mother."
There was a care for my livelihood and feeling that extended far beyond the concern of Itachi's success and my ability for follow through with my role as his window-display wife. There was a care for my livelihood and feeling because it was personally valued which was rare to find nowadays.
My face softened as I turned back to the road, deciding that if I was going to ask for more car rides in the future and if I was to fully accept his friendship—the first one in many years after my release from jail—that it was only fair that I allowed him to see a piece of me that I only held exclusively for Naruto, Sasuke, and the many few who did not judge me for what I did years ago. Besides Sasuke, Deidara was the only one true person I had with me who was real on this journey to twenty grand of month.
"She's sick." I whispered.
It's needless to say that Deidara hadn't told a soul about my visit to the hospital. I had initially thought that was the case with how skittish and anxious he was around me, but after I had cornered him and demanded what he thought he was doing, he just said he felt weird knowing that I had someone close to me that was dying. That reason was understandable enough, considering how emotionally constipated I felt around Sasuke a little after I had signed the contract to be Itachi's girlfriend in the wake of Fugaku's declining health. Most days, I considered running away with the circus and living a carefree life away from paparazzi's, sociopaths with dying fathers with lots of money to tempt me.
Deidara eventually got back into the groove of our relationship, finally getting over my mother's cancer and understanding that regardless of how he acted towards me, it wasn't going to change anything. I think what he was most worried about was offending me, such as if he didn't grieve a little and pity me that it showed he didn't care for me or my feelings—which in theory sounded just, but I wasn't that type of person. The more he pitied me, the more I felt hopeless and awkward. I'm the type that if I can't do anything about it, I ferociously repel it or at least the thought.
Most days, I try not to think about my dying mother and Sasuke's dying father. Most days, I override those depressing thoughts with the many approaches I can take to annoy the hell out of the Uchiha Brothers. You know, get them a little angry, make them feel a little bit, make them live a little more outside their monotonous, stoic, boring life.
Surprisingly enough, the change in the relationship I had with Deidara didn't go unnoticed by the other three who occupied the cottage. Sasori either didn't care enough or understood his boundaries enough not to question us about it, and I really wasn't all that surprised to see that he was perceptive enough to notice. But Kisame, on the other hand, openly asked if we frickle-fracked together and if I had broken his heart afterwards.
That didn't go over so well for the three men—three meaning Kisame, Itachi, and Deidara.
To my every growing surprise, instead of directing his anger and dissatisfaction towards me for breaking the contract, the hormonal Uchiha turned to Deidara in a fit of suppressed rage. It wasn't until I threw the larger man to the ground and asked what type of rumors he was trying to start that Itachi let up in his pursuit to castrate the blond. Even so, that didn't stop him from interrogating me on the ride home to my house that evening.
Any normal, and clearly delusional, woman would think that it was because Itachi had developed some sort of emotional attachment towards me that it would cause him to react in the way he did. Was I normal though? Have I ever led you on to think I was? No. Despite how prime and proper the aristocrats wanted to appear to be, and do appear to be in papers, we are probably the most weird of them all with our addictions, family, and the money to indulge us in our weirdness. So, because of my exposure to the great Uchiha Clan, as well as the Hyuugas, and snippets of the Inuzukas, I knew that normal and fantastical assumption was not true. Because I knew better, I knew he was just competitive enough to not want to lose something that was never his to his enemy-friend.
Just because of ego.
"Hey! Brat! Wake-up—holy shit!"
And somewhere between that awkward encounter to now, Itachi decided that it was suddenly okay for Kisame to wonder into my house and my room without knocking—for all I know checking to see if Deidara and I were naked in bed together.
I hope he won't be so disappointed to find that it was just me, naked, in my bed, by myself.
"What the fuck are you doing in my room?" I groaned, rolling over onto my stomach to glare at Kisame in what I hoped would be intimidating when I sadly only looked like a blinded rabbit—a face I have come to make a lot because I refuse to wear my glasses. So much that my teacher made sure to not only seat me in the front, but wrote as minimal and as closely to where I was seated as possible.
"Why are you naked?" He howled, covering his face for all my shame like the virgin that he probably is. He even subtly inched back over to my bed from the door he was hiding behind to finger the blanket back over me.
"Because I sleep naked! Why they fuck are you in here? Get out!" In my very successful plan to shoo him out of my room, I carelessly threw the covers off my body. There was a half-second delay, I will admit, where he stood rooted in his spot and flourished the limb in his pants, but he was out by the time my foot touched the floor.
Unlike my sensei, I wasn't usually, if not at all, this tardy. On regular days, when I was expecting the arrogant Uchiha and his sidekick to come pick me up for training, I would've had breakfast and been waiting in the foyer by now. But, as anyone can conclude, I was not expecting their vile presence that morning.
After a string of curse words that I muttered under my breath, every single one but the first one muttered in a language I had made up, I slipped on a pair of shorts and T-shit and dragged my tired ass down to the dining hall.
"G'morning." I think I said—or at least hoped. It was that or a dying whale noise that came out of my barely coherent self as I crawled onto my chair and sat across from a very amused Uchiha. If I had the energy, which I had not from coming home and getting sleep only three hours before Kisame got all up in my naked grill, I would've launched the vase of flowers at his head for finding amusement in my fatigue.
"Nice to see you are decent." He said, sipping the tea Shizune brought for him before she scurried back into the kitchen to get me a glass of warm almond milk.
"Suck my ass, Uchiha." I snarled, glaring at Kisame who no doubt confide in the Uchiha in all his distress of seeing his very first naked woman in person. But my eyes ended up drifting downwards to the bulge the sprouted and I smirked, maliciously. "Kisame loved it. The thing between his legs says so."
Ever so slowly, and comically, both men slowly turned to look at the tent in Kisame's pants.
"So it does." Itachi said nonchalantly, doing his best to act unfazed by 1. The reaction itself, and 2. The size of the reaction. Kisame, on the other hand, scooted behind the chair to gift god generously blessed him with.
"What do you want, Uchiha." I demanded after the warm liquid warmed my belly, my face, no longer representing a tired fluff-ball, and I glared into the depths of Itachi's empty soul. "I thought I had today off."
He studied me of course, as he had been doing so since the day we were forced to be around each other. What he was trying to memorize and figure out, I didn't know. I honestly don't even know how much more he could study seeing that there wasn't much to me but my pink hair, green eyes, and being 100lbs of pure whoopass and sass.
"You did. However, a trip as been planned for us to travel to my summer home."
I almost snorted at "summer home." Almost, but didn't, so you have to give me credit there. It was really summer eight out of the twelve months, where it got kind of spring/fall for two, and for the other two it was 98% rain with the very rare 2% of snow.
"Who is 'us'?" I asked instead of criticizing his capitalistic, pretentious lifestyle that dictates his need for a summer home in an already summery city to demonstrate his wealth.
"The five of us." He said curtly, eyes sparkling with evil as my face soured dramatically with the thought that this was not a vacation, but more of training. "Do you not wish to go by the beach? I find you in the waters most of the time so I'm surprise you would decline such an offer."
Was I supposed to say I would rather not go because I did not want to train? Of course not. Despite having these established rest days, it was not exclusively stated that I had them in the contract.
"Well, Uchiha, unlike you I have to work for my money." Which was not entirely a lie. I did work, but I was did not have a set schedule where I was required to go in any time soon.
"You're working for me right now, aren't you?" He said oh-so-arrogantly, completing ignorance that I could probably break both of Kisame's arm and puncture his lungs with his ribcage before any of them see me move. "As I recall, I transferred a healthy sum of money into your account just last week."
"And what did you think I was doing up until you so graciously walked into my life?" I retorted evenly, the weight of suppressing my anger grumbling in my chest as the only indication of murder were in the darkening of my green eyes. "I worked for it."
"Well, I'm sure your boss will understand if I called in for you, wouldn't he?"
"It's fine, I'll let him know."
I pulled out my phone to text Kiba, letting him know not to book or expect me to pop on by the bar in the next couple of days. My anger had begun to cool down by then, my mind finally processing that despite whatever mediocre training he might put me through, we were going to be in a pretty summer's home by a nice, beautiful beach.
"And don't worry about packing." But then he spoke, and my thought of sunbathing on the beach and watching the sunset and sunrise turned dark accidently running him over with a speedboat. "Sasori has you covered in that department."
I had gathered enough energy to climb out of my chair, the thought of sleeping the whole car-ride encouraging me with the idea that the faster we get going, the sooner I was able to rest. The bastard, of course, had other ideas than to let me continue on peacefully with his "though I do suggest changing and brushing your teeth," and if I had a little more energy, I would've launched Tonton at him than grumbling a very weak "fuck you," which he must have been accustomed to by now.
Nonetheless, I did just as he so snobbishly suggested. Did I curse his name through the patches where I was conscious and wasn't asleep on the toilet while brushing my teeth? Yes. But I followed through, didn't I? You can imagine how dead I was the second my butt touched the leather of the backseat, so much that I hadn't even woken up for when Deidara and Sasori got into the SUV.
I woke up to the dampen fabric of Deidara's sweater on the shoulder I had rolled my head on in my four hours nap. He was asleep when I had woken and I was fortunate enough to enjoy about fifteen minutes of serenity where Itachi had classical music playing on the radio—that nerd—but of course a little drool on your shoulder is something to throw a fit about. Sasori and Itachi were quick to shut him up.
It only took another thirty of classical and paved road and tall trees with an every bright sun shining in my face before I could no longer take the insanity that was no doubt forming inside me.
"My grandmother drives faster than you," I huffed, leaning forward and resting my elbows on the shoulder of Kisame's and Itachi's seat. "And she's dead."
The two obviously made an effort to ignore me while Deidara snickered from beside me. Was being ignored and turning up the volume on Beethoven going to stop me? No. So, in an effort to voice my concern for how slow Kisame was driving on a very empty freeway, I continued to pester him with remarks about the speed of turtles in comparison to how very fast we were actually going.
"Hey, one more snarky remark out of you and I'm dropping you off on the side of the road." He finally barked, glancing up at me through the rear view mirror and glaring at me over the top of his sunglasses.
"Oh please," I made a point of rolling my eyeballs so far back I saw the top of my brain, and smirking, I said, "At least I'll make it there before you do going negative five miles an hour—are you even going the speed limit?"
"I'm going ten over, you little brat!"
I sighed.
"My poor grandma is weeping from her grave."
I had to admit that was pretty fast, but if I could make out the pattern of the bark on the tree it was not fast enough. It was a little alarming that he didn't have a retort to my insult, which he usually did, and what I was also hoping on to get me through the next however long I didn't know it was going to take. Instead, he pulled over onto the side of the road.
A small part of me really believed he was going to drop me off on the side of the road to walk my way there, or back, but the logical part of me knew that wasn't going to happen with Itachi there—unless he was too annoyed with me and was going to drop me off, but I was hoping on Deidara if he still wasn't mad at me for drooling on his sweater and Sasori liked me enough to defend.
"If you think you can drive better than me, why don't you come up here and give it a go?" He growled, throwing off his seatbelt with the keys still in the engine.
"Kisame—" Itachi was obviously quick to shut that idea down, being the cowardly nerd that he was. Rightfully so, too, I had to admit. Who wanted an ex-con with the bad habit of getting into trouble and barely sat behind the wheel driving them around, especially at 110 plus kilometers an hour.
"You bet your ass I can drive better than you!" But of course I wasn't going to be stuck in the backseat, sandwiched between my two trainers for the next couple hours, listening to classical music so I obviously shut down Itachi's shut down quicker than he could shut down.
I climbed through the middle and into the front seat, and poor Sasori, having sat behind the driver's seat, was forced into the middle seat as Kisame climbed in. I will remind you that I do have my driver's license, but I can't promise I drove as well as or as legally as I rode.
"How long does it usually take to get there from here?" I asked, pulling back onto the road without even having put my seatbelt on—again, out of bad habit.
"Three hours." Kisame grunted from behind me, voice straining as I accelerated rapidly once I the wheel centered.
"Three! Where the hell is your summer home? On the edge of the continent?" I asked Itachi over the sound of modern music, pop music, that was probably rotting my brain. He paused from reaching over to pull on my seat belt to glare at me, not even bothering to answering me in the end. "Fine, I'll get us there in two."
"I volunteer Sakura-chan to drive us back, yeah."
I don't think it was possible to get us to the Uchiha's remote summer home any faster than I did. Kisame's persistent plea that he let himself resume his position as driver while Itachi was half-amused and excited about the illegal speed I was going and half-scared out of his mind by how firmly he was gripping his armrest fell deaf to all ears, as Itachi was clearly enjoying this small wave of adrenaline and Deidara stuck his head out the window to get himself a free blowout. You would think that an older man like Kisame, living and risking his life as a bodyguard to the heir of the Uchiha Corporation that he would enjoy the adrenaline rush I had pumping through his veins, but you could understand the disappointment I felt when I realized that wasn't the case and Kisame was, in fact, just a really big chicken of a man.
"Like hell, she is!" Kisame growled, popping the trunk open to unload all our things. "We almost died! Twice!"
As much as I wanted to feign innocent to that statement and brush it off as the chicken man's over-reaction, it wasn't at all, not even in the slightest bit, a lie. The only reason it would be is if we had been in those two accidents—both involving two trucks, a head on collision, and a T-bone—and all survived. But let's be real here: going the speed I was going all of us would've ended up dead if I hadn't skillfully maneuvered us to dodge both of them.
The adrenaline was exhilarating, and that is why, ladies and gents, people are wary of me in Konoha. And my arrest in high school, but let's all pretend I'm just this badass instead of the criminal they've painted me to be.
"Relax, old man. I knew what I was doing." I rolled my eyes, turning my attention to the one person who had the final say in the decision—though I would rather cut off my own foot than admit it out loud. Toss my hair in the most seductive way I knew how, I wrapped my arms tendering around my better paying income and fluttered my eyelashes gingerly—however one does flutter their eyelashes gingerly—and cooed. "You had faith in me, didn't you darling?
"Hn." He said indifferently, entertaining my nonsense with the least amount of effort that it took any Uchiha to.
The infamous "hn."
If it was a specialized skills, as I assume it one day would be with how quickly the Uchihas were expanding to take over the world, the ability to translate this newly found language of "hn" would be in definite high demands on resumes. With that being said, Naruto and I have come to study and fully understand this new language in the case our skills are needed in the future we could translate it perfectly. And by that, I mean take it anyway we want to take it and let Sasuke suck on an egg for not communicating to us like a normal homosapien that he was.
In the case of Uchiha Itachi, I took his lack of effort as an annoyed "yes" to settle the case once in for all. Despite the fact that he probably peed himself a bit when the commercial truck barely grazed his side view mirror, he had to admit I added a certain excitement to his life—even if it was as lame as going over the speed limit on an empty highway with occasional stop signs and trucks.
"Then it's settled: I get the car on the way back so suck it!" I hollered over the Uchiha's shoulder, sticking my tongue out in the most lady-like way possible at the older man who was anything but happy at the arrangement and about to chuck the loaded suitcase at my head had I not been latched onto the Uchiha.
My embrace on the Uchiha ceased immediately after I got my way, so you should note for the books. There was nothing I enjoyed more during that time than to keep my distance and personal space from clashing with Itachi's unless it was used in a form of a mockery—just because Uchihas were touchy when it came to their personal bubble.
Unless you are Sasuke, then by then I really didn't care what that Uchiha had to say, I was going to wrap my arms and legs around his head and have him stumble into on-coming traffic just because I felt like expressing my affection in such a manner that day. Realistically, he fell into the pool, but you got the gist of Sasuke is treated compared to the other Uchihas.
In a better mood now that I got to sleep in peace and drive illegally, I shimmied my way between Kisame and Deidara who were more than reluctant to let me through. I hadn't really questioned why that was, then; I only assumed it was either out of spite on Kisame's part and teasing on Deidara's. Little did I remember that these aren't the boys I grew up with, and despite getting a glance of my capabilities here and there, they really didn't grasp the notion that little ol' me was very, very capable of handling herself and carrying in her own bags.
"What are you doing, yeah?"
Deidara leaned into me as his hand nearly engulfed mine, gripping the handle between my two fists which had already latched onto the pink bag which could only be mine—unless Sasori, or either of the boys had a liking for pink that I didn't know about as I have yet to ever see the colour pink around them unless it was for my hair.
I stared him in the eye, unfazed by the new ultra-macho pheromones he was trying give off and the proximity between us.
"What do you mean? I'm carrying my bags in." I stated matter of factly, tugging the bag towards me.
"Why are you doing that? We got it, yeah." He said, except of tugging it back, he let it go.
"Because I have two working arms and legs, and I can carry—ah!"
Sensei would've been disappointed to hear that I let my guard down and not letting my suspicion get the best of me, as it always had in the past. Deidara, being the sneaky idiot that he was, lifted me over his shoulder in one foul swoop.
"Get inside, you dork." He laughed, carrying my away from the SUV and up the porch into the house. "We have your bags, yeah."
In my distrust for him to able to carry me successfully into the house and not drop me, I let go of the unsurprisingly heavy bags of clothes and gripped onto his shirt.
"Deidara, what are you—oh my god!" I didn't miss the way Itachi eyed us though, nor did I miss the way he didn't even offer to help carry in his own bags.
My view of the situation was soon replaced by another glass door, covered by transparent white curtains. Deidara headed straight for the set of couch the sat facing the open kitchen in this very cozy and—dare I say—nicely furnished and not over tacky summer home.
He dropped me onto the couch without a second thought, disappearing before I could compose myself with a simple "stay."
He returned as quickly as he left with the other boys in toe. The pink bag, as I had suspected, was dropped in front of me to be sorted while the rest was carried up the stairs to the rooms of their respected owners.
"Your swimsuit is on the side." Sasori said before disappearing, which I could have been taken as a simple suggestion or a snarky remark considering the fact that I basically lived in the river behind their cabin for the last month.
"Is this Uchiha approved?"
Let me tell you something. The piece of fabric I pulled out from the side pocket was not something I would've taken as a swimsuit had I seen it anywhere else—nonetheless something I would've gotten for myself. Be it because of the price or because of my pretentious attitude, I couldn't really tell you.
It was a two piece—a bikini—with gold chains connecting from the center of my top piece to the two sides of my bottom piece. Really, it was just a regular black bikini. But something about the gold chains made it sexier and more unreasonably expensive than it needed to be. Those sinister, over-appealing gold chains of inappropriateness, I'm sure, would not have been approved by mama Uchiha.
"It was a lot of money, so I'm sure it is, yeah." Deidara said from behind me, jumping over the couch and landing nearly on top of my pretty, probably $5000 worth head thanks to all the products and investment made in it over the last month.
"You're just a perv." I was never one to be modest or shy about my body. That's not to say I would openly flaunt it, but something like a bikini with gold chains wasn't going to keep me from enjoying the ocean. "Get changed too and let's go swimming."
"Yes, ma'am."
I quickly hurried to the little powder room tucked under the stairway to change, hoping to making in and out and swim halfway to Western coast of Suna before the Uchiha became any wiser about mine and Deidara's whereabouts.
You could imagine my disappointment when I heard very light, ballet footsteps down the stairs above me that could not belong to the humongous human that was Kisame or Sasori—who was not humongous, but wasn't very light footed from the times I've tried to take a nap at the cottage and was woken up by the footsteps of a hairstylist.
"What are you doing, Deidara?" I heard the arrogant voice through the door, and my eyes, as if conditioned, rolled in annoyance.
"Sakura-chan wants to go swimming." There an unfazed, carefreeness in Deidara's voice that made me smirk, reminding me of a home and a headache that was Naruto vs. Sasuke. I poked my head out the little opening of the door to examine my position from this small little bathroom to the exit and Deidara was quick to give away my position as he smiled at me over Itachi's shoulder. "The lady gets what she wants, yeah."
"Let's go. Let's go. Let's go!" I squealed, running passed Deidara and doing everything I could to block out the Uchiha's aura as one does when any of them are throwing an internal hissy fit.
In the background I could hear Sasori's distress in the carelessness I had towards my body, or so he would tell me every time I don't spend at least 5 hours nourishing it. It went something along the lines of "Oi! Put on some sunscreen!" before a more exasperated growl of "Deidara, make her put on some sunscreen! I didn't spend all that time exfoliating and toning her skin for her to get sunburned!"
That led the blond to chase me down like a distress mama cheetah, a bottle of sunscreen in his hand as he desperately yelled "Come on, Sakura-chan!" as he did not run as regularly as I did, with "this may seem like a vacation, but you're still under training—and a contract!"
After two laps around the large house where he collapse in a heap of boy sweat and cortisol, I finally plopped down in front of him with my back turned and my breathing even.
"Don't get any ideas, now."
It took him another five minutes to compose himself and come back with his own sassy remark. How Itachi expected Deidara to protect me, when he was physically weaker than me, didn't make sense in the slightest bit. Were he to start guarding me and I decided to chase down a train for whatever reason one would chase down a train, I would make it to Suna before he would even make it out of Konoha. And lord knows what would happen to be in Suna. What happens in Suna, stays in Suna, as everyone might say except for the people who live there.
But it was understandable that there was a weird, middle-school awkward trust between Itachi and Deidara, as there was between Sasuke and Naruto. I didn't question their relationship much—not to be able to comment on it loud at least—even when they were at each other's throats and Kisame and I had to pull them apart. Their bullshit relationship wasn't the weirdest thing in my life, and if I really, really had to label it, they only were around each other because they had mutual friends vs. actually being friends out of free will. If I had to take it a step further, and you know I will, I thought they secretly liked the challenge they opposed on each other in this weird, sadist relationship where a little snarky remarks here and there got them going.
"Well, let's say if I did, you would like it, yeah." I flinched then he slapped a handful of cold sunscreen on my shoulder, rubbing it into my skin carelessly that I was sure the cream was as opaque as it was in the bottle. In another life, I had hoped to be a snowman of some sort. Thank you Deidara for making that possible now.
"Oh really?" I asked in low, raspy voice, tossing my hair over my shoulder while untying the two strings on my bikini top to give him better access to my back, however, I couldn't hide that I was also egging him on.
When something cold and white hit my face, you could imagine how astonished I was until I realized what I thought it was didn't come out cold. You know what I'm talking about. Don't act like you don't.
"Stop that!" Holding the weapon in question in front of my face, he stared down at me almost desperately. I had half the mind to shove the bottle of sunscreen down his throat, but his poor life was luckily spared when I remembered that the sunscreen would come off in the ocean. "You're gonna get me fired, yeah."
I blinked slowly at him, unfazed by his very realistic worry before shimmying up against him to stare up at him in what I think was seductive, but maybe, maybe actually looked like I was having a seizure. "But you would like it."
"Deidara."
In all my sunscreen covered face and further teasing the easily flustered blond, like many of my blonds are, I hadn't noticed Itachi watching us intently before deciding we were getting too cozy with each other and butting in. Again, I will leave it up to you or anyone, really, you think up why he would do such a thing as he liked me as much as cats like cucumbers.
"Oh, hello darling. Are you sure your delicate, pale skin can withstand the sun?" I asked anyway, sticking my tongue out at the less than happy—now whispering profanity under his breath at the Uchiha—blond for ruining my drool covered face.
"Well, darling, as you can see I am much tanner than you."
The way Deidara and I both paused really didn't need any explanation to you, does it? Itachi playing along? What is this? Who paid him more money than he had to do such a thing?
He squatted down to demonstrate. Holding his arm out against mine to show the contrast and surprisingly, he was a little tanner than me. He also obviously had a high dose of melanin as his skin was slightly more yellow than mine, but despite that, he was tanner, making my fairly colored skin look like snow in comparison.
It was during odd times like these that I was questioning the greater forces of the universe and what the hell they were conspiring about in their greater force palace somewhere out there in the galaxy. They think that if the Uchiha became slightly more tolerant and bearable that we wouldn't notice the change within it, but bitch you thought!
Deidara must have been thinking the exact same thing—okay, maybe not exact, exact, but along the lines of something was not right with the Uchiha—and we eyed each other warily. I had the option of either embracing this moment for what it was and countering it with an acceptable amount of sarcasm, or completely reject the Uchiha's attempt to be civil and for him to never do it again. And while I do appreciate myself an honest man, I much preferred a bearable Uchiha who writes my paycheck to stick around instead of his arrogant, prissy former self.
I stretched myself into a smile and straightened my back in farce excitement, willfully stretching my arm out in comparison to his while the other held my bikini top up.
"Indeed you are!" I exclaimed, flipping my arm over to show the underside which, to my much hidden dismay, was ten times paler. I twisted around to face him, wrapping my arm around his as my voice dropped seductively—or overall just dropped. "Why, I just love myself a tan, hard-working man."
"Hn."
In the corner of my eye, I saw Deidara choke on the imaginary vomit her conjured, then falling to his impending death from all the horrors of witnessing the affection between Itachi and I.
Itachi took the abused bottle of sunscreen away from the now-dead blond, squeezing a generous amount into his hand before gesturing for me to turn around. To say I was tense was an understatement, so much so that if I had not schooled myself to not flinch at the next contact he made with my skin, my whole body would have reacted and I, out of poor judgement on my brain's part, would have farted.
He started by brushing all the hairs over my shoulder, making sure to tuck them around my neck before he rubbed his hands together and massaged the UV protectant into my skin. It was surprisingly gentle, to be honest, and I, instead of enjoying the mini massage, readied myself in case he decided to pull a knife on me.
Again, was this really a vacation or another kidnapping of Itachi's part?
When he stopped I didn't move for a good five breaths just to make sure he was actually done and wasn't just waiting for me to turn around and stare into the barrel of a gun. I was only about to turn when he reached his arms over me, fingers tangling themselves with my bikini strings before he secured them around the nape of my neck.
Now, I wasn't the one to let people know I was nervous or uncomfortable, although I did use that as a way of letting people know I did not agree with them rather than just straight out telling them I was scared. So, obviously, I wasn't going to switch up on Itachi and thank him genuinely when two seconds and a nice massage ago, I was teasing him with my make-believe.
That led me to my first mistake where I twisted around and pecked him on the cheek playfully.
It won't look like a mistake now, but in hindsight, this could have been what snowballed Itachi and I into what we became later on. Maybe this sparked something in him, maybe started something in me. I don't know. Overall, what I'm saying is that the trouble we caused each other did not just begin with that contract. Everything was good and dandy until we took things too far.
"Thank you, darling." I cooed, gathering the bag full of beach supplies that Deidara brought out with the sunscreen. "Now, if you will excuse me, I think I'm going to work on my tan to match yours. Sometimes I find it so hard to keep up with such a strong, handsome man like you."
And that was how Deidara and I scampered away: leaving a very puzzled and slightly irritated Uchiha who got sand in his dress shoes just to rub sunscreen on me on the beach.
Hello all. I am alive. I have the whole plot figured out. And I once again apologize for the wait. University weeks go by so much quicker than the weeks in high school, and I wish I was better at organizing the time that's clearly slipping away from me.
This chapter was more of an informative/filler chapter. We can't have things developing too fast, even though this story I looking to be a long one.
All comments and criticism are widely accepted and appreciated.