Recognizing

The weekend was mercifully cooler than the day before. Hazy clouds had blown in that morning, keeping the sun venting its full fury, and the evening breeze had picked up just as Itachi pulled up by the driveway. It was a little before six when his Porshe bounced around mother's tulip garden, his wheels spinning gravel. I stepped out onto the porch, dressed in my faded jeans and a long sleeve shirt, just as my brother was climbing out of his car.

He arrived home surprisingly early and from the smile he plastered on his face, I had a feeling that he didn't get a good meeting today. But who was I to ask about his work when I wasn't done with mine. I dragged my feet back to my room, it was the end of the short break I've rewarded myself with, and heck, my mouth was dry.

When I went back to my seat, I knocked with my knuckles on the empty space in front of Sakura that hasn't been covered with mess from the chemistry project I was working on with her. We decided on making pH indications from red cabbages after discussing and arguing about our ideas and striking off some experiments on her list the whole morning. It only took us after lunch when one of the maids personally gave us our meals. And by the way she was never putting down my iPad to rest; I broke her focus and made her question me with her stare.

"What is it?" She asked, ignoring me as she continued to stick her nose into the e-books she was reading on my iPad. She seemed to be more at ease than I ever saw her in school. It was like the time during the chemistry lesson conducted by Asuka and how she was calm about every single thing she read off the paper even though we were included into Asuka's short time limit. But at that time, for Sakura, she looked like this.

It was as if she lived the moment. And it was just...

It was just different for me.

"I'm getting a glass of water. Do you want any?" I offered as I tried to trail my thoughts off but, like the usual answer, she said she was fine. It was like every offer I placed on the table, she seemed to refuse it. But from the hoarse voice she used to reply me with, I guess I shall just get her one.

I walked off without a word, and took the initiative to go down to the kitchen and grab two glasses and tray to put them on. Surprisingly, there wasn't a housekeeper on sight despite it being the weekend. I was sure that there were usually at least five of them working full-time under our roof.

Maybe mother took them out and taught them how to water her beloved tulips properly or made them go grocery shopping to stock up the pile of food for the week again. I didn't take another second thought of it and pour water on the glasses.

"Do you have a guest?" I heard Itachi ask from behind me with a hint of laughter in his voice. Well, he must have found it peculiar that I was even taking the initiative to serve my "guest" in the kitchen or the fact that I was even in kitchen doing something other than grab a snack to go.

"Yeah," I gave a straight face, "We're working on a project."

I ignored his smirk as I passed my brother to the cabinet full of undesired snacks packed with calories and sugar. I grabbed a bag of Cheetos and sneakily grabbed a handful of Kit-Kats before tossing onto my tray and dashing off and away from Itachi's presence.

For one guy who had an exhausting and terrible day, he seemed to put his nose on my business like it was his own. And when I reached the foot of my bedroom door, I realized Itachi was following close behind. He didn't take another minute's glance at me for glaring at me but who was I to say anything? It's not like I was hiding anything anyway.

It's just Sakura, who is just someone I work my project with and not the one girl who brought me bruises and scars as a welcoming gift to the school. It's not like Itachi knew any of that. The only one who knew half of the story about me getting myself hit on like a punching bag was my mother but she didn't know about Sakura at all.

Besides, I believe I'm in good terms with Sakura right now, with all the deals we made and how we're not in a battle for the death.

"You seem to be nosey today..." I say as I finally managed to maneuver my tray over a hand and freeing my right hand to reach the door knob.

Itachi just shrugged his curiosity with a laugh and never moved an inch even though I cussed him to. I sighed, as I unlocked the door open, only to see Sakura caught on the act of using my iPad as a gateway for her to my social accounts. Her head turned towards me with the speed of light, surprised that the door even opened widely.

"Hey, I saw what you did," I say but my words trail off when I see the expression on her face. She didn't appear to be as calm and collected now as she was when I left the room. But the thing was Sakura wasn't even looking at me. She wasn't caught by surprise that I gave her the favour of bringing her snacks and drinks when she refused or how I saw her taking a stupid photograph of herself and uploading it on my Instagram. No, it wasn't because of me at all.

Her eyes never considered mine.

And when I followed her eyes, the trail ended onto the figure of my brother, standing tall behind me with a very indifferent expression plastered on his face. He even seemed cold to me.

Even distant; despite the fact that I was just standing right next to him.

I bit my lip, figuring out this vibe between them. It was as if the two of them have met, from the way Sakura's expression held. It was as if she recognized my brother or maybe from the way there was this silence screaming into my ears, I knew they had met each other from somewhere. And I was sure that I wasn't happy about it.

I had a terrible urge to break it.

"Have you two met before?" I asked, despite the fact that my hand felt numb from holding a tray of two heavy glasses of water and a bag of chips and calories.

"No," my brother said before he nodded his head towards me and stepped away from Sakura's sight and toward his bedroom down the hall. There wasn't a single word that left from his mouth then before I hear him close the door behind him.

I took a short glance at Sakura, and only did she react to my presence when my brother finally left.

"That was weird," I said plainly, and tried to find the emotions to read off from her face but, she seemed to notice me staring.

"Your brother seemed to resemble you," she smiled at me, cunningly trying to push my thought of ever finding it suspicious that Sakura had ever perceived my brother from somewhere. And when I was about to ask her something about it, she cut me off, saying, "I almost thought I saw twins."

As much I doubted her, I couldn't let my wary thoughts slip by. I tried to reason with my head that Sakura might have seen my brother on the newspaper or even on the television yet, there was this uneasiness settling in me.

"We don't resemble that much," I prodded once more, trying to find anything to make her feel anxious. Because if I was right about what my gut was saying, then Sakura might spill the beans. But with the way she laughed it off, maybe I was wrong.

However, my dissatisfaction with her didn't settle my suspicions at all. It just made me more sceptical about Sakura on whether I should even trust her words ever at all.

"You're not going to tell me, aren't you?" I ask after I took the iPad away from her. She gave me a glare with her sharp emerald eyes before I felt defeated and slid the iPad back to her direction.

"I didn't say I can't tell you but I also didn't say I can tell you," Sakura sung the sentence as she swiftly unlocked my iPad and continued down researching onto our project.

I groaned impatiently. I noticed recently that whenever Sakura Haruno was caught in any situation she found difficult, she would just give out a riddle. And the annoying thing was that I had to take a pause to think about what she had said to me.

"For you to say that, it means you do know my brother," I tried to make myself feel better, make my dissatisfaction within me feel better but she outright gave me another headache.

"But isn't your family always been on the news channel lately?" She smiled at me, before she made me forget about whatever curiosity I have been thinking of and made me continue with the project by shoving a piece of paper in front of me. Her neat handwriting was accompanied with her scribbled excuse of a table of observations and barked at me to list what could the observations to expect down.

I shrugged, feeling restless and still apprehensive about her but accepted Sakura's little observation table she made for the project we based on anyway.

"You're really annoying," I say, as she stared at me with a stricken face. It was as if it was a first for her to ever hear that. Well, since, the whole school tried to avoid her entirely, then yeah, I wouldn't expect her to be used to be called anything other than "terrifying".

I felt a kick on my calf and heard cackle after. I yelling in pain, screaming and shrieking on how uncalled for it was but, the face Sakura was making had made me pause.

It might have been the sunlight drawing through the translucent curtains in my room and how everything in my room was dyed in the shades of warm autumn colours. She was tainted in dyed red and the big smile on her face just made it intriguing to me yet endearing. Her emerald eyes, in my vision, appeared to be more auburn than any apple-green. Truly, this wasn't the Sakura I was used to.

It occurred to me how complex Sakura was and is yet; she draws an interest for me to what else she was capable of. To be able to see what she could actually do, and maybe to what I was able to witness in the future...?

"Uchiha, you okay?" I heard her say, snapping me back to reality. I take a few moments to question myself what I actually thought about. I voluntarily placed my palm on my forehead, wondering what whether I was ill.

What the hell was I actually thinking?

This was the girl that gave me the impression of "deadly" and she was capable of stepping me and literally killing me with that brutal strength of hers. Even though, I was in good terms with her, since the both us made quite a deal because of the higher ups and the stupid consequences the both of us we'll get if ever, I shouldn't be the one thinking of her any better than just a simple Chemistry partner and someone I need to get information from. I still need to help Shikamaru somehow, right? And really, who was I to be the one to play buddy buddy with one of the two notorious people in my school…?

I quickly stood up, drew the curtains and took another stroll to the porch before going back into the room to switch the lights on. I sat back in front of her with table between us. I took a minute to literally slap myself, that whatever nonsense I was thinking was simply that, nonsense. I urged her to continue with our project but, I knew we were awfully too exhausted to even speak another word about chemistry.

Because for me, the lingering thoughts about what I thought about Sakura made me a little woozy in head.

Seriously?

What the hell was I thinking?

And by the looks of it, I was guessing Sakura had enough with my iPad too because she stood up from her chair, placed the iPad right in front of me before saying she was leaving.

I told her I'd offer to walk her out but like I said before, she refused every offer I gave her –which in this point of time, I didn't bother to argue.

And when I watched her leave the front gate of my home from where I sat, I placed a hand over my temple, making me wonder what the hell I had been thinking.

I glanced at all the bits of planning and sketches left on the table that served as evidence that we actually started off with our Chemistry project before I landed my gaze on my bed.

I guess I must have been exhausted, since I kind of spent my whole energy on a stupid project and had been really thinking of weird things because, I was simply tired from a whole day's worth.

So I flung my body that was still recovering in bruises and painted scars on my bed and attempted to take a nap.

"It must just be exhaustion," I tried to convinced myself.

A/N : Hope you liked this chapter! There's getting more warmth in this fic at least :-D

REMINDERS

1) Updates on the following stories would be ; Her Despotic Rule will be on Tuesdays & Thursdays (for Months: September October), Naruto's Lucky Bet will be soon be updated on Mid October Thank you for your patience !

2) CHANGE OF USER NAME BY END OF OCTOBER

HeirOfStars Hitais

Hope you enjoyed this chapter :)