Chapter 7
From atop the fourth story balcony of he and Itachi's hotel room, he swiveled a white, fuming stick between his lissome fingers. He escorted it to his lips indolently, drawing a deep, thick drag from it. Sasuke exhaled and a maelstrom of cigarette exhaust adulterated the fragrant Hawaiian air. He sensed Itachi's presence from behind him.
He held up his lighter behind him and a burst of flame dazzled from it in the moonlit darkness. With his brother's cigarette now lit, he pocketed the device. Itachi's smog converged with his own; the two smokey, cloudy friends gamboled into the night, thinning out the further they danced. The siblings stayed uncommunicative for some time until the oldest perforated the quiet, humid atmosphere with a whimsical tone of voice.
Itachi only manipulated his voice like that when he was goading Sasuke on.
"She's quite charming, isn't she?" Itachi quizzed to no one in particular. He made it seem like it was just the inner ramblings of an infatuated man, because he looked up at the natural satellite of the earth suspended in the sky, not expecting an answer from anyone.
"Indeed, Ino is an attractive girl," Sasuke vocalized, not taking Itachi's bait. The female Itachi was confessing about was a peculiar subject that Sasuke wanted to eschew from talking about with him. He knew from the start that Itachi found Sakura appealing and that he would romantically partner with her if he had the chance, but Sasuke purloined the opportunity from him unexpectedly.
It wasn't that Sasuke was purposefully avoiding discourse involving her, it was just that it was nonessential to his feelings, nor could Itachi do anything about the situation now. Sakura was extraneous to his emotions, and could easily be left out of whatever conversation Sasuke was in, unless it was about making Sakura extremely mad. Before he could receive a retort from Itachi, Sasuke spoke.
"Your relationship with her wasn't the way you and her told it," Sasuke said, effectively interupting whatever rejoin Itachi would deliver to him next. He didn't want to hear his brother's taunts, and decided to deflect the subject back on him.
"How vulgar. She was only a child when we met. I'm ashamed of you, little brother," Itachi exhaled a hazy breath.
"You're the vulgar one. I was simply saying that babysitting was a farce of an excuse to come up with to cover up your true relations," Sasuke said.
"You were obviously implying something more of a carnal nature between us," Itachi inhaled the bolting smoke right back into his mouth. He sloped his elbows on the patio banister, craning his head to face his little brother. His eyes were imbued with an emotion that Sasuke couldn't quite make out. Sasuke followed his gaze back out to the lapping ocean; his eyes first indicated to him the distinct feminine and male footprints in the sand, and as he traced them to the architects who created them, he was unsurprised to find Sakura capering about by the sea's source in an uncouthly fashion.
"Nobody is impervious to the salacious looks you give her daily," Sasuke said, lethargically dragging his eyes around the girl's clumsy twirling form from below. Sakura was slender and small, a would be blessing to a towering gymnast like Sasuke. She wasted her physique as he watched her fall from a turn into the sand below, and discerned with his ears a bubble of laughter from her. She chose to stay in the gritty particles and construct a sand castle instead of getting back up again.
Suigetsu rose from the water and leveled the plinth of her sand mansion. Sakura shouted at the shark-like boy, abrubtly standing and booting a fair amount of beach into his face.
"Sakura is basically impervious to the lustful looks anyone gives her, which is all that matters. I wouldn't want to be her innocence's undoing if I pulled something on her, and I expect the same of you. Don't play with her," Itachi said, quelling the cigarette out with his bare heel.
"Is that an ultimatum?" Sasuke asked, crushing his stick with his heel as well.
"It's not a threat. It's a strong preferance."
"I don't follow you around like a puppy dog anymore, Itachi. I'll do what I want. And if at some low point in my life I want Sakura, I'll take her in any way I please."
Itachi showed his distaste for his brother's revelation with a small frown and a head shake, and went back inside after thieving one more look towards the pair playing by the Pacific Ocean. Sasuke lingered a while longer on the balcony, sharply observing Sakura's smooth, willowy legs frisking about the water's edge. She was clad in billowy shorts which made the appendages he was transfixed with more drawn-out and svelte.
He fixedly decided to have another smoke, because he was feeling extremely stressed at the upcoming competition, obviously.
It certainly wasn't because Sasuke thought his makeup artist's exposed legs were killer.
A different shade of dark established itself in the tropical land; it was the night of the tournament, and Sakura could almost reach out her hands and tangibly feel the anxiety in the air of her group and Sasuke's members as they weaved themselves to their respective rooms. Sakura laced herself through the gymnast and coach mob to try to locate a door with Sasuke's name on it. She knew Sasuke was waiting inside, as he was the first to be drawn and put in the upcoming match.
She heard the warble of a loud speaker. The emphatic, manly voice radiating from it instructed that the makeup artists had 20 minutes to find their gymnasts, and then 2.5 hours to complete their presentations on the performing gymnasts before the first set would compete. After time was up, coaches would seek out their trainees and shepherd them to the heart of the nature made stadium.
After sweeping almost every entrance she could see, she finally unearthed the door, noting the striking print his name was engraved with. The other doors she scanned through were nowhere near as eye-catching or prominent. She wrung the knob gently and was overwhelmed with the sight arranged in front of her.
After days of fasting, his body was much more delineated than before.
Helplessly, Sakura's eyes were led down to Sasuke's naked torso. They first started on his swan-like neck, which flowed into arched shoulder blades with elongated collarbones. A distinct pack of 6 muscles marbled his stomach, along with a complimentary v shape where his hipbones formed at. Her face went febrile with hot red embarrassment. Sakura was not oblivious to the fact that her client was a human sculpture that an innumerable amount of girls would have fawned over. Before her eyes could voyage any further downwards, Sakura pivoted quickly to face the door, standing rigidly comical.
"I'm going shirtless the whole competition, so you'll have to turn around eventually," Sasuke said from behind her, ruffling what sounded like clothes to Sakura.
"Nonetheless, I thought knocking was a basic human function. I'm impressed at your complete lack of civility," Sasuke recommenced. Sakura felt her face grow more feverish at his wordly prods and decided to counter with some of her own; she revolved back around and was more even more bewildered that Sasuke had taken off more clothes. He was clad only in light, khaki colored shorts with a white drawstring now.
Sakura systematized herself together and took a few steps forward only to be impeded by an exasperated hand block from Sasuke. Her face had evacuated the crimson from it's skin and she was now just perplexed at the unexpected motion.
"What you're wearing isn't acceptable to my team, or society on that note" Sasuke claimed. He plucked unadorned but still exposing pieces of clothing off the back of the chair facing the mirror and held it in front of her. Sakura perceived that the fragments of the articles wouldn't cover enough as she'd like, so she shook her head in reply. They looked tight as well.
"Like I said, if you wanted the fashion and makeup, you should've chose Ino. Do I have to repeat it again so you'll understand better?" was Sakura's riposte.
"I hoped that maybe you'd miraculously come to your senses within the past day and realize what you've been wearing doesn't flatter your body shape," Sasuke said. Sakura scoured his face and eyes for any evidence that the statement was his version of a compliment but found none; all she procured from his expression was idle indifference to if she chose it or not. Then again, the Uchihas had never been good at expressing their feelings, much less letting them transpire on their faces.
"At all."
Sasuke drifted towards her with that uncanny gymnast sophistication he carried with him and somehow she ended up in front of the full length mirror within a few steps as he backed her up by it. He positioned himself behind her. Sakura viewed his tall, barren form in the mirror expectantly as he looked back into the glass with her. He began a succession of eye paths down her body, sometimes stopping on a particular part, and then spoke.
"You've got such an impressive, tight little body that it's shameful to hide it from a crowd of partygoers and perfomers, much less the general world."
Maybe it was the balmy air in Sasuke's private room that was filtered in by the nearby sweltering beaches, but Sakura's physique altered into a smoldering mess at Sasuke's concession. His eyes never concluded their chain down her body even when he was talking. Sakura combated the compulsion to eclipse his eyes from roaming her form anymore, but that would be giving in to his strategy.
Sasuke was referring to the age old adulation strategy to coax Sakura into doing what he wanted. It was highly probable that this method was successful with all the other girls he performed it on, but Sakura wasn't buying into his hoodwinking ways. She may be a reddening disarray in front of him, but she too could play this game, and hopefully irritate him in the process. She restrained her embarrassment.
Sakura was not to be made a fool out of by Sasuke Uchiha.
"You know, Sasuke... I only hide it because I'm saving it for the eyes of that striking young man to come along and sweep me off my feet," Sakura said, steadily turning her body to come face to face with him. Sasuke's face flickered surpisingly for a moment, but it rapidly composed itself again as she forced him to move back towards a flower printed couch with an unfaltering stalk.
"The tall, dark, and handsome man with the charcoal hair and ebony eyes, that one. He's got a gorgeous smile, and if he'd do it more often, I'd certainly fall in love with him," Sakura continued, accumulating a great distance while Sasuke was losing his to her. She allowed the loose Hawaiian long sleeve to fall precariously onto one of her shoulders, divulging to his eyes a smooth piece of arm with the white strap of a tank top underneath.
"He's got an imposing gymnast body, ridged with muscles," she said, and Sasuke's bare calves impacted the back of the couch. With that sentence, she extended her hand and daintily pushed against the rock hard surface of his stomach so that Sasuke fell onto the couch she had strided him against. With the shirt dangerously hanging off already, Sakura decided to take it off slowly and completely as he watched her. She gauged Sasuke's reaction before she continued her razz with him.
His eyes were pervaded with insouciance as usual, with his lids in their traditional hooded form. A minuscule tinge of what appeared to be mirth and covet colluded with the apathy in the contradicting cocktail of his eyes. He undeniably wasn't against whatever Sakura was doing because he permitted her to lead him onto the couch. She internally deliberated whether or not to get inappropriately close to Sasuke, but chose against it. She didn't want to take this chaff too far; if she straddled him, there might be adverse consequences. Sakura bent her body down, putting a knee in between his legs and settling her hands on the arms of the couch.
"The man has to have sharp, high cheekbones," Sakura removed one hand from the arm to sketch faint lights over his features with a finger.
"And an aristocratic edge to his jaw," her fingers dipped down to trace the outline of his jaw.
"But most importantly, he has to have full, velvety, kissable lips," Sakura said, ascending her fingers back up to his mouth. She parted his lips with them and slid a finger to the underside of the bottom lip. Sakura didn't elicit a response from Sasuke with this; he remained amused, and let her do what she wanted to him.
"And there's only one way to find out if those two latter adjectives are true."
Sakura lowered her head cautiously to Sasuke's, only inches of heated air partitioning their mouths. She leaned more treacherously close to his parted and awaiting lips.
"Too bad your brother isn't here to verify my assumptions."
Sasuke smiled smugly at her duplicitous act. Sakura's eyes broadened at the recognition that he knew what she was going to pull on him all along; Sasuke wrenched her onto his lap and detained her hips with his hands. Sakura went red and knew that this wasn't her game anymore, and that they were treading a dangerous, taunting line between a playful jest and serious consequences. Sasuke submitted to her an small, open teethed grin before rendering her completely immobile with his words and his hands.
"Then perhaps Itachi and I could tag team you. We fundamentally inhabit the same bodies; you don't even have to look at me. I'll take you from behind," Sasuke said, flicking up too fast for Sakura to register; he had dumbed her down with his confounding statement.
He lightly pressed her body into the cushiony couch. He caged her small frame in with his lengthy hands upon the couch arms from behind her. Sasuke could feel the hotness from her form emanating to the top of her head, and he compressed his body against hers closer. He made no more contact with her than that. Sasuke thoroughly had his makeup artist in tyrannical clutches. He commanded her with steely, hushed words.
"Sakura, put the clothes on."
She quavered at his tone; that was the first time he had called her by her name. She looked for the outfit and found it draped over the couch he imprisoned her on. The presently reprobate boy leaning behind her nudged her closer to it. She shook her head and Sasuke gently shoved her further with his body.
"You lost this little ruse of yours to me. The least you can do for putting me through such an exasperating act is to do this."
Sakura capitulated her defeat. Sasuke had a point, but he was the one who instigated the flattery to begin with. She groaned and extracted the black outfit from the couch's top. He unfettered her figure from his lean arms and turned around to face the wall.
"Calm down. My eyes are closed," Sasuke said to her. She wasn't solaced at this fact, because why would Sasuke give her the decorum and time of day to contemplate her feelings that way? Primitively after her defeat, she undertook the great task of settling the figure-hugging clothes safely onto her body. It zipped in quirky places that Sakura wasn't sure which piece was the top or bottom. After zipping up the last of the maddening outfit, Sasuke turned back around to face her. Sakura collected a neighboring projectile and threw it at him.
He anticipated this, and he sidestepped it effortlessly and glided to his designated chair in front of the mirror where Sakura would work on his face. He sat in in nimbly, with that smug smile still stuccod on his face.
"The heels for that outfit are in the corner," Sasuke had the audacity to say. With her mouth agape, she looked at the direction he sloped his head towards. A pair of black stilettos clustered the room's edge.
"I wouldn't try to swing at me again. You need to start doing your job," Sasuke said. The bellow of the overhead speaker, this time the one that was in his private room, let the makeup artists know that the 20 minutes of navigating to their gymnasts room was up, and that it was time to begin their presentations.
Sasuke observed the girl in the mirror finalize her work with a seemingly impenetrable amount of setting mineral powder. Sakura had composed herself enough to do a distinguished job on him.
They gazed at eachother through the mirror; Sakura still donned that infuriated expression, but it was milder, because that was hard to keep up for 2.5 hours. Even though the anger towards him caked over all the other emotions on her face, Sasuke could tell she looked gratified in her handiwork.
He blinked and his eyes moved to his mirror produced manifestation. Sasuke looked like a human exhibition of a volcanic inferno, his most prominent features powdered with a discreet coat of light red underneath the top of the heavier makeup. His lids wore a jacket of Pacific scarlet fused with tropical gold, flaring out in the same digree with a line of thin, modest eye liner. Flaxen gold stained his lips and harmonized well with the tan contour rushing towards the corners of them. The markings and bites on his neck were mopped over with a copying concealer that blended into his collarbones.
He made eye contact with his makeup artist in the mirror once again and inclined his head.
"It's acceptable," Sasuke said. He arose from the chair and lengthened his limbs, awaiting the reverberation of the speaker to address he and his opponent, He heard Sakura groan from behind him and a stuck zipping sound of clothing.
"That wasn't fair of you," Sakura said, and the zipping sound turned more irritated.
"You played with me first, and gave me an entryway to get that outfit on you," Sasuke said nonchalantly, elongating his legs against the wall and not looking at her.
"That was unprincipled of you, though, to use the force of boy against me. Why do I even need to wear these constricting clothes anyways? They're impractical for watching. I won't be performing," Sakura said, finally zipping up the last bit of the back of the top.
"Also, I'm going to punch you in the face when we get back to Japan. I can't ruin your face right now, which is unfortunate."
"So, what, that'll be the second time in a few days you start something you can't finish?"
Sakura catapulted a stiletto towards his chest and he dodged it. He let out an amused exhale. The speaker flipped on and publicized Sasuke and another boy's names as the first to rival each other. Someone tapped on the door, and Sasuke and Sakura walked to it. Itachi was on the other side, and Sakura blushed excessively. Sasuke knew that she ruminating about the comment he had made to her on the couch. Itachi looked inquisitively at Sakura, and then to Sasuke. His eyes turned hard when he reached his brother.
Itachi gave Sasuke his performance whips, and walked them up to the foresty arena. A large crowd had conglomerated together by the nature filled, tiki torch lighted arena, and they enlivened the plantation with their cheers and hollers.
Sakura spoke to him before he departed.
"Even though I hate you, Sasuke, I'll still root for you."
Sasuke glanced back at her impassively, but had the smirk he wore while they were in his dressing room. Everyone watched as Sasuke glided up to the elevated, bamboo platform with another boy. The boy had two bamboo poles in one hand, and Sasuke had two lashes in his. They shook hands, and retreated to their respective quarters.
A trio of judges, situated at the front of the platform on a rostrum, gesticulated the performance start with three simultaneous hands raises towards the boys.
Authorr's Note: Thanks for those who pmed me and reviewed saying to get well. :o that's so sweeeet of ya'll. Anyways here's chap 7! Feel kinda weird about this one, because Sasuke was so forceful with that scene, but he wanted to make it a point that Sakura couldn't mess with him, but he could mess with Sakura. Sasuke is the most asshatty Uchiha.
UPDATE:!
Okay so I received quite a lot of flames from I assume the same person for this chapter. I will address said flames in the next chapter, but I did feel that the flamer had a point. The undressing scene was so weird and unusual for me to write; forgive me, I'm a first time writer. I make mistakes. Here is the new and cleaner version. It still contains your typical forceful Sasuke, but it is wayyyy more appropriate. Here is the new and improved version. :)
The new parts are after the first horizontal line towards the bottom before another horizontal line. Enjoy guys, and again I'm sorry. ^^
