Ibiku had, in an uncharacteristic display of kindness and tact, silently shown Sakura and Sasuke into a quiet room away from everyone else.
Sakura sat on the settee, close enough to Sasuke to feel the warmth of his leg next to hers. She watched him, her heart aching bitterly at the sight.
His face was tight with the effort of suppressing his emotions, a tumultuous battle clearly raging within him. His knee was shaking up and down with nervous energy, an atypical gesture for a shinobi. In the whole time Sakura had known Sasuke, he had never had any tells, nothing to express his emotions beyond what he wanted to show. His smirks, his scowls, that was all she ever got. Now, his teeth clenched, his breath hissing in and out shallowly as he struggled with himself. He smoothed his shaking hands across his face and made the smallest of noises in the back of his throat. It sounded almost like a sob.
Sakura didn't say anything. She just reached over and took his hand.
For half an hour she sat there, listening to his breathing slow down, his heartbeat settling back to normal. She felt something during that time, amidst the shared warmth and contact, something that felt like a tugging sensation. She wanted to stay sitting there for hours, just holding each other's hand – for Sasuke had slowly wrapped his own fingers around hers in return – content in their companionable silence.
When he cleared his throat, letting go of her hand, she saw fit to speak up.
"Are you alright, Sasuke-kun?"
He coughed once. He turned away, the back of his neck flushed red.
"Drop the suffix, Sakura." Sasuke said, his voice markedly cooler than before. Sakura took a breath and held it, aborting the reflexive reach her hand made towards him. She snatched her fingers away, embarrassed by her body's automatic response to Sasuke. He was not the boy she once knew, the boy she touched so often (yet never casually), a comforting pat on the arm, a measured squeeze of the shoulder, a desperate clasp of the hand… she no longer had the right to do any of it.
"Excuse me?" Sakura asked, brushing her thumb under both eyes, removing the remaining moisture from her last outbreak of emotion.
"We are not friends." He said. His words were clipped, unemotional.
"Oh yeah?" Sakura said, suddenly angry now, angry he had to spoil something good and honest because of his stupid 'I work alone' mentality, "Is that why I just spent half an hour holding your hand and comforting you? Because I don't care about you? Is that why you saved my life repeatedly when we were young, and I spared yours? Because we aren't friends? Fuck you!"
Something flickered in his fixed expression, a slight widening of the eyes – surprise. At the uncharacteristic profanity, perhaps? He never had seen as much of her temper as Naruto.
"I didn't come back here to re-join Team Seven, or even because I wanted to. I came to speak with him, and now I'm done. So stop acting as though we are something more than we are."
Sakura stared at him, her lips pressed together tightly. She bowed her head, staring at her feet, the green nail varnish, the peach skin.
"You know how I feel about you. Please… stop pushing me away."
"You had a childish crush on me once. You are not in love with me, Sakura."
"Don't you ever try to tell me how I feel, Sasuke!" Sakura seethed, purposefully dropping the suffix, "As if you know anything about me! You haven't been here for years, and even when you were here, you never condescended to have a conversation with me that wasn't you insulting me or trying to tear down my self-esteem so what the fuck do you know about my feelings? Like it or not, you are here to stay, so why don't you use that brain of yours and realise that pushing away your only allies is the stupidest thing you could do? I – I -" She came to a halt, spitting mad and incoherent from the injustice of it all.
"I don't need you," Sasuke said with flat certainty, "You would do better to stay away from me. I don't need your friendship, or your comfort."
"Is that what this is – are you – are you embarrassed?" Sakura asked incredulously, "Embarrassed that you needed comfort and I was there to provide it? You aren't made of stone, everyone needs –"
"I don't." He snarled, "I never have and I never will. Not from you or anyone."
Silence filled the tiny, cramped room, a suffocating presence. Sakura could only hear white noise, her thoughts buzzing static. They had held hands and she had felt something like a bond between them. She was a fool, still too young and too stupid to have any sense. She was twelve years old again, with long, pretty hair and a simpering voice. No, she was twenty-one, a woman and a shinobi. He was traitor who pushed away anyone who tried to help him. He was the fool, not her.
"Then go," Sakura said, the bitter sting of his words puncturing her rage. She caught her breath against the ache beneath her ribs, the numb hurt. Old wounds reopening once more, "Run away. You're good at that."
His movements stilled at the familiar words. She'd said them once before, the time they'd met on the battlefield and he had spared her life carelessly.
"Naruto pardoned you and your brother. You are a free man." Sakura continued, "You can go where you like. Please… don't feel the need to stick around."
She pushed past him and left him there, in the tiny, cramped room.
xxxxxxxx
Hinata had shown her into Naruto's office with a strained smile, so Sakura knew even then something was wrong.
"No." She said simply, "I won't do it."
Itachi had taken off the cloak of the smirking, flirtatious traitor, and now he revealed what may be his true nature beneath – a stoic man unmoved by everything. He was a man who knew the value of keeping his silence. Throughout all of Naruto and Sakura's furious discussion, he had kept quiet and watched closely. He stood next to Sakura, hands clasped behind his back, spine poker straight.
"Sakura-chan, please," Naruto said wearily, "I know it's too much to ask, I get it, believe me. But he won't work with anyone else, there isn't anyone else who is suitable for it either."
"Then let him live alone in a flat under a different disguise," Sakura argued, "Why does it have to be me he lives with? Wearing my uncle's appearance? No. "
"He needs constant supervision," Naruto said, "I don't care what the Council say, I want to be careful, especially with the last Uchiha confined to the village as well. Until they reach an understanding and the villagers don't want to tear them limb from limb, they will stay under shinobi guard. It's not difficult to believe your uncle would come to live with you. No one in Konoha knows he is dead. Itachi doesn't care where I put him, he said so himself, but I want it to be you, Sakura-chan. I trust you. Sasuke trusts you."
Ah, she thought, so that's what this is really about. Sasuke. Naruto was taking the most complicated route because he viewed Itachi as a complex issue that shouldn't be handled by anyone not in Sasuke's inner circle. After discovering his own Council had lied to him and his predecessor, it made sense he was clinging to his true allies to take care of it rather than a random, more suitable shinobi.
"What do you think about this?" Sakura demanded, turning on Itachi. His face revealed nothing. It was a blank canvas – no emotion whatsoever. It was almost creepy after growing used to his constant smirks.
"I will go where I am bid." He said, shrugging, "It would upset Sasuke greatly if I were to live with you, however."
"He wouldn't have to know," Naruto said slowly, "You would be Haruno Kazuo, someone he would never even have to meet."
"And what are your plans for Sasuke, might I ask?"
"He's going to move back into his old house," Naruto began. Itachi's expression did not change at the news that his little brother was going to live in the house where his family had been slaughtered. "His chakra's going to be blocked and his access to his Sharingan sealed away. He'll be under constant Anbu guard. You will too, by the way. I don't want to take any chances."
Itachi bowed, "A wise precaution, Hokage-sama."
Sakura felt her lips curl into a sneer at his newfound servility.
"Sakura-chan," Naruto looked up at her from his desk, his tanned, still-youthful face taut with stress. His lips pressed together, forming a hard line. Sakura knew what was coming and felt a surge of resentment. "I'm doing the best I can. I need your cooperation – not just as my employee, but as my best friend. You're one of the only people I trust completely. I know what you are capable of."
The problem with having one of your friends from childhood become your Hokage was that it was impossible to take his 'orders' as anything other than 'requests.' Not only that, but Naruto was hardly someone she was used to obeying. If anything, she used to boss him around up until six months ago. How could she take him seriously?
Any other chuunin would have puffed up with pride at having the Hokage personally entrust them with a mission. To Sakura, it just felt like her friend was asking the impossible of her.
She heaved a long, unfeigned sigh of annoyance and, with a put-upon air, seized one of Naruto's spare sheets of paper. She took a second to recall the picture of her uncle that had been clipped to his file, and began to roughly sketch out his appearance.
Soon, with Itachi subtly watching over shoulder and Naruto goggling openly, she had constructed a passable replica of her uncle's features, the messy, light hair, the bags under his eyes – even the small smattering of freckles over the bridge of his nose.
"Here," Sakura said, shoving the paper at Itachi, "Use me as a reference as well as this picture. He had the same colour hair, eyes and skin as me. Transform into him."
Itachi gazed at the paper for half a minute before he blinked, eyes whirring into Sharingan. Naruto shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
Itachi raised his blood-red eyes to scan Sakura's face. She stared back at him unflinchingly, knowing Naruto was powerful enough to interrupt any jutsu Itachi used within seconds, and also instinctively knowing Itachi had no intention of attacking.
His eyes lingered on hers for longer than she felt at ease with, then his hands formed a seal.
With a puff of smoke, her Uncle Kazuo emerged.
The likeness was frightening. Sakura blinked back a shocked tear at the sight of her own eyes staring back at her. Her father's eyes, too. She hadn't seen another person with those eyes beyond a mirror for too long. Now an imposter wore a dead man's… it was not a pleasant feeling to witness.
"Well?" Itachi drawled.
"Perfect." Sakura whispered, turning away.
"How old was he?" Itachi asked, his voice gentler now.
"Thirty-four."
"Ah. Did he have no visible signs of ageing?"
Sakura cursed under her breath, remembering the streaks of grey at his temple. "You need a few slices of grey here," She said, turning back to face him. She used the pencil to lightly draw lines onto the illusory pink hair, her hand brushing against Itachi's face briefly as she did so. She scowled, yanking the pencil away to demonstrate on the picture.
"Other than that, it's perfect. Naruto, do you want me to take him back to my flat now?"
Naruto had been watching them with an immensely curious gaze, his brows furrowed. "Yeah, if you can. Show him around Konoha while you're at it – it's changed since he's been here last."
"Hokage-sama, I have actually returned to Konoha many times in the past few years – either under Akatsuki's orders or to report to the Council – so I do not believe a tour is wholly necessary."
Naruto grimaced, "Look, while I'm Hokage, do me a favour and talk normally please? You're making my head hurt. How hard is it to say, no sweat I've been here loads of times?"
The slight downturn of Itachi's lips made Sakura think it would be very hard indeed for him.
xxxxxxxx
"With respect," Itachi ventured mildly after several minutes of frosty silence, "You are very different from how I imagined you would be."
"Sorry to disappoint." Sakura said tersely, turning another corner, on the well-worn path from the Hokage Tower to home.
"That's not what I meant. I had – and still have, I suppose – a host of spies in my employ. When I discovered the root of Sasuke's change of heart, I wanted to know more about you. Brotherly concern, you could call it. All reports claimed you were a bright, cheerful girl with a mild temperament. That was a while ago, so I understand that you may have changed, but… I wonder what triggered it."
"Do you always need to know the cause of things?" Sakura snapped, ignoring a clothes merchant beckoning to her, claiming to have just the right fabric to make her 'pretty eyes pop.' "I grew up. I stopped wasting my time on frivolous things. Is that a crime?"
"So defensive," Itachi remarked, studying her with an aside glance, his gaze intent, "Was that a sore point I prodded there?"
A shadow crossing their path made them halt, Sakura's retort never leaving her lips.
"Sakura." Neji nodded, his tone even. The two of them got along pleasantly enough, but had never really spoken properly. Sakura had seen him without his shirt off on one memorable occasion, when the hospital received an unprecedented level of new patients and he had been shoved at her, still just a rookie back then. It had only been a few broken ribs and a nasty gash along his side, enough so that his beauty was unmarred, causing Sakura to conduct the entire affair with a red face and stuttering voice. Neji, with his perceptive Hyuuga eyes, had been discreet enough not to mention it.
Still, seeing him suddenly usually brought that memory springing back to mind and now was no exception.
"Neji." Sakura coughed, her face hot. Itachi tilted his head, ever so slightly. Tenten stood next to her teammate, a bag slung over her shoulder. Her brown eyes warmed upon seeing Sakura.
"Hey. I've been meaning to ask you, can we hang out the next time our days off match? Ino never seems to leave work, so I've had no one to pretend to be girly with." She gave a rueful smile. On the few occasions the kunoichi got together, Tenten had never quite fit in. Her anecdotes were usually about stumbling upon a secret cache of weapons, or that time a man had tried to force himself on her and she had emasculated him quite literally.
"Of course." Sakura couldn't help but smile. Tenten's awkwardness out of combat never failed to be endearing.
"Who's this, by the way?" Tenten nodded at Itachi. Sakura felt her lips tighten – she'd hoped she could merely stash him away in her flat and not have to help perpetuate this ridiculous farce. To lie to her friends, to spit on her uncle's memory… to have her failure rubbed in her face for the foreseeable future… She felt another surge of bitterness towards Naruto and hoped this fool's game wouldn't end up souring their relationship.
"Haruno Kazuo," Itachi said smoothly, smiling brightly at his clueless former guard, "I'm Sakura's uncle. I've come to stay with her for a while."
Neji's pale eyes scanned Itachi's face. Sakura took the half-second he spent on that to school her own features into a carefree look. Though she despised this mission, she'd be damned if she'd compromise it because she couldn't keep a micro-expression off her face before the eyes of a Hyuuga.
"You look far too young to be an uncle!" Tenten observed, smiling oddly – was that – oh what, Sakura groaned internally, this was too much. Tenten, the Anbu soldier, was attracted to the guise of Sakura's dead uncle who in reality was her former criminal charge, Itachi. Fate truly did have a sense of humour.
Neji's eyes swept straight from Sakura's face to Tenten's. His lip curled in derision at her interest.
Itachi swept his light hair back, self-consciously smoothing away the grey streaks. He seemed to inhabit her uncle like a second skin. He was clearly a born actor. Shinobi like him had always fascinated Sakura, appealing to her latent academic nature. He was always completely in control.
"We need to meet Lee." Neji said quietly, pale gaze digging into the side of Tenten's head.
"Oh, right." Tenten said sheepishly. Neji shook his head slightly, his silky hair spilling down his back with the movement.
"Uncle and I need to get back to the flat anyway," Sakura said, forcing a smile, "I'll see you both later."
Tenten waved as they left and Neji managed a slow nod in farewell. Itachi watched them go with curious green eyes.
"How could I be too young to be an uncle?" He asked, his brow furrowed in mild confusion, "A baby can have adult siblings who in turn have their own –"
"You honestly don't know what she was doing?" Sakura stared at him incredulously, "She was – in her own way – trying to flirt with you."
Itachi frowned, "Surely she knows she's far too young for me?"
"What? She's twenty-two!" Sakura said defensively.
"And I," Itachi adjusted his shirt, "am thirty-four. I would have thought she would have known better, considering how sensible she seemed as my guard."
"Tenten's no gushing fool," Sakura said severely, "She paid you a compliment and, by the way, I'll thank you not to judge her worth as a shinobi based on her interest in older men."
Itachi merely made a thoughtful hum, resuming his slow, unhurried pace at her side as they took off once more.
"She ought to look a little closer to home," He said finally when they'd left the market and arrived at the crossroads, "That long-haired man is clearly in love with her."
"What, Neji? Neji is way too serious for stuff like that," Sakura dismissed, "He's in love with training, if anything. I've seen him look at Naruto more fondly than Tenten."
Itachi hummed again, a little smile playing about his lips as though he knew a secret he wasn't telling. Sakura was uncomfortably reminded of Kakashi.
Something struck her, "Hey what are you really like? Personality wise?"
Itachi's face gave nothing away. He continued to follow her obediently enough and he never strayed out of her sight, but he did not answer her question until they stood outside her flat.
"Ask Sasuke what I was like before the massacre," Itachi said simply, "I could always be myself around him."
"And you can't around me?" Sakura raised her eyebrows in question, slightly offended, "Or anyone else?" She added to avoid seeming self-centred.
Itachi's shoulders twitched, ever so slightly. He took a deep breath and Sakura watched his act as Haruno Kazuo wash away like water sluicing down a drain. The line between his brows vanished. His mouth quirked up in a sardonic smirk. His eyes curved up in amusement. He looked ten years younger, yet he still retained all of her Uncle Kazuo's features.
"I did play around a bit with you, yes. It's not often I get the chance to cut loose and act foolish, tell jokes and the like. It was… pleasant. So, please do not feel insulted that I couldn't be myself with you. It was an agreeable change from the previous persona I used. After Akatsuki disbanded, however, I did have the time and opportunity to be myself. Would you be more comfortable if I behaved as such around you in future?"
Sakura turned her key in the lock with a decisive twist, automatically kicking the base of the door when it got stuck. It swung open wearily, its hinges giving a mournful creak.
Itachi followed behind her, his borrowed eyes sweeping the room with unfeigned interest.
"You can be yourself in a contained, uncompromised space," Sakura replied wryly, "In all other areas, you need to act like my beloved uncle."
With that, she placed her hand on the door, palm outwards, and concentrated her chakra to filter through the grains of wood and flakes of paint. The world narrowed until it contained only the door, and she allowed her chakra to seep into it, colouring the world around her. She took her palm away and blinked away the molecular structure with practised ease.
The door now pulsed with her chakra, invisible to anyone's eyes but hers. Well, she glanced at Itachi sourly, hers, any remaining Uchihas and the entire Hyuuga clan.
"That will alert me to anyone entering the flat," Sakura explained, "I'll need to renew it every few hours, but it should prevent us being taken by surprise in the event of an attack."
Itachi nodded, dropping his disguise instantly. He stood before her in his natural guise, and suddenly the mission became very real. Uchiha Itachi was under her supervision and living in her flat with her. And Sasuke had no idea.
"Would you like a tour?" She asked, completely at a professional loss, resorting to her knowledge of social niceties.
Itachi paused, glancing up at her through his thick eyelashes in a way that, on anyone else, she would have described as coy.
"Yes, thank you." He eventually replied, straightening up in anticipation of resuming his habit of following her around. She sighed, crossing the living room in a few strides.
"This," She gestured widely around her, "is the living room. You can't eat in here or use drinks without coasters. Follow me through here and – here we have the kitchen," She breezed through the doorway, entering the next room with a smile on her face.
Her plants sat on the countertops as though waiting for her return. She stroked a leaf, examining it fondly.
Itachi took in the sight of her little home-grown forest, his eyebrows quirked upwards in silent question.
Sakura took the time to check the moistness of the soil as he tried to formulate a suitable remark.
"…Well, we all need a hobby." He shrugged, "How do you manage to keep them alive whilst going on missions? Such irregular hours – "
"If I'm not here to water them, my friends do it for me. For example," Sakura grimaced, picking up a fallen kitchen knife, "Kakashi-sensei enjoys letting himself in, spraying the plants ineffectually with water to excuse his presence, then wreaking havoc with various household items. And now he has apparently moved on to messing with my cutlery, it seems."
"'Letting himself in'?" Itachi repeated, leaning against the doorframe, his eyelids halfway closed, his bottom lip caught between his teeth, "He has a key?"
"He has done for years," Sakura said indifferently, "Naruto does as well. It's supposed to be for emergencies and convenience, not that that stops him from leaving his filthy literature in various places or rearranging my toiletries."
Itachi smirked, "You trust him with your possessions despite his behaviour?"
"Oh, he sometimes leaves me presents or fixes the plumbing while he's here. I try to think of him as a mild inconvenience with occasional reparations. And Yuki likes him, which is noteworthy indeed."
"Yuki?"
Sakura pointed.
Yuki sat on top of the refrigerator, staring down at Itachi.
"Ah," He smiled slightly, "So that's what I could sense. She's rather lovely, isn't she?"
He stuck his hand in front of her nose slowly, allowing her to smell him. Sakura held her breath. Yuki's nose twitched, her tail flicking back and forth. Itachi's mild smile did not waver for a second.
To Sakura's disbelief, Yuki began to purr, rubbing her face against Itachi's hand shamelessly.
"That means she's accepted me, right? I've never had a cat." Itachi said, his tone a touch wistful.
"Well, Yuki's quite a discerning judge of character," Sakura informed him, her mouth twitching into a surprised smile, "She nearly took a chunk out of Kakashi when they first met, which says it all really."
"Indeed." Itachi's gaze was warm and amused, his strong fingers gently stroking under Yuki's chin, "Do you live alone?"
Sakura started slightly, the question bringing up several unpleasant memories.
"Yes," She said shortly, careful to keep her tone free of emotion, "I have done for several years. You can sleep in my old room." She said briskly, walking out of the kitchen without another word.
"Just when I thought she was warming up to me." Itachi said thoughtfully, rubbing the cat's head absently. He gazed after Sakura, hearing her movements faintly through the walls. Yuki let out a tiny, sleepy mew and slid, boneless, into his arms.
And so begins the tender, heartwarming shenanigans a la sitcom style, friends slowly becoming more over pizza – wait. No. Shinobi. Um, enemies warming up to each other over mutual love of… sharp implements?
Sakura is very, very prickly and cold at the mo. It'd be nice to write her more warmly, but considering everything that's happened, I think it would be a little unrealistic :(
An anon recently mentioned that my notes are too long and don't really say anything important – well, I'm sorry about that, I do waffle on a bit, but you can always not read them? I'm not being sarcastic, just not willing to sacrifice the only place I get to waffle on pointlessly! :)
Yuki, you slut. What about Lee?
Sasuke had a bitchfit. Happens a lot with that poor little dear. Any hint of someone actually caring and he will gnaw his own arm off to get the hell out of there. I will never understand Bad Boy types, honestly.
Aaaaaand the plot begins! *happy dance* I'm loving writing this story so far :)
Quick poll for fun: Favourite fairy tale?
I can't possibly choose myself, to be honest, I'm thoroughly in love with the whole genre as a whole :3