Chapter twenty eight
The fiancée
On Friday, Temari No Subaku came. She was a blonde, beautiful vampire with an air of intelligence and maturity, and the kind of young woman that was meant to be a heroine: unafraid, graceful and excellent at everything she did, but too humble to brag about it. Sakura thought that she and Itachi made a flawless couple. They would make a good replacement for Mikoto and Fugaku in the future.
"I'm very pleased to meet you, Sakura," Temari said after Itachi introduced them in the study. "Honestly, you have nothing to worry about. I have an open mind and stand against all kinds of discrimination. Besides, I am very loyal to this family, and betraying you would mean betraying them. Your secret is safe with me."
"Thank you," Sakura said, smiling. But truthfully, she was irritated. Shouldn't had someone asked her before telling Temari what she was? It was her secret, really, and she was the one supposed to choose who to share it with. No matter how sincere and benevolent Temari seemed to be or that she was Itachi's fiancée and all that, someone should have asked Sakura what she thought.
Still, there was no point in complaining. Besides, Temari had offered to help Itachi train her today, and that was a very nice gesture. Sakura could be mad at Inoichi and the Uchihas later, but right now, she had to be grateful.
"You're going to need a lot of patience, though," Itachi told Temari from the couch. "She doesn't have a lot of experience in physical activities."
"Oh, it's okay," Temari replied, smirking. "She's a vampire, if only half of herself. She'll do fine."
The words echoed in Sakura's head for a long moment. She's a vampire, if only half of herself. Temari was right in a way no one else that knew the secret had ever been. Sakura was a vampire, not just a half-breed, and no one could take that fact away from her. This made her feel sort of happy.
As Itachi stood up, claiming it was time to go outside and commence the training session, the study's door opened, and even though Sakura had her back to it, she knew it was Mikoto before she turned around and saw her, because she had recognized the sound of her footsteps and caught her faint scent – which she found strange, almost unsettling, but more than anything, interesting. Could it be that she was becoming more vampire by each day that went by?
"Oh, here you are," Mikoto said, walking towards them with a bright smile on her face. "Good morning, everyone! I'm glad you haven't started with the training yet. I need to talk to the two of you about the wedding," she told her son and his fiancée.
Itachi sighed tiredly and went back to his seat. "Alright, mother. But only a few minutes, okay? We need to be done with Sakura at one."
Mikoto rolled her eyes and laughed. "Itachi, it's your wedding! We must start planning things out." She turned to the half-breed. "Can I borrow them for fifteen minutes, Sakura?"
"I don't see why not," Sakura answered, smiling.
Mikoto smiled back, but then she gave her a worried look. Most likely, she had just noticed the darkened shadows under the girl's tired green eyes, caused by last night's nightmare – in which the rose hadn't withered, but then she had discovered her naked body was coated with blood. Sakura fidgeted self-consciously. "I didn't see you at breakfast today, honey," Mikoto said.
"I'm so sorry," the half breed said, grimacing. "I overslept again. I still can't get used to the room."
"Oh, dear…" She put a hand on her shoulder and the worry in her dark eyes intensified. "You've been under a lot of stress, haven't you? If you're feeling ill, Sakura, don't be afraid to tell me. I can get you a doctor-"
"I'm alright, don't worry," Sakura lied quickly. "It's just… yeah, the stress. But I can deal with it." She saw that Mikoto was suspecting, so she hurried to change the subject. "Anyways, I'll leave you guys alone and go have breakfast."
"Oh, don't forget to feed!" Mikoto exclaimed. She then walked over to the small fridge in the corner that was supposed to contain snacks for Itachi and Sasuke, since they spent a lot of their time in this study, and opened it. The fridge actually contained many black bottles without labels, all of them surely full of blood: the Uchiha's version of 'snacks'. Mikoto took one and handed it to her.
"Yes, Mrs. Uchiha. Thank you so much." Sakura took the bottle – heavy, definitely full –, and then scurried towards the door.
But before she exited the room, she heard Mikoto call her. "Oh, and Sakura? Let me give you a tip: put the bottle in the microwave. Blood always tastes better warm."
Sakura thanked her once again and finally left. She hurried down the stairs and towards the kitchen as she sipped a bit from the bottle; the blood was cold, but still tasted good. Little by little, she was starting to feel less disgusted of herself and embracing her need of blood, growing used to it. The facts that she didn't have to kill anyone to feed and that the Uchihas only had animal blood helped a lot.
When she stepped into the kitchen, no one gave her a second glance or spoke to her. Mikoto had told the whole staff that Sakura was now her guest (giving them the truthful-yet-vague excuse that Sakura was related to a good friend of hers and currently going through hard times, so she had given her and her cousin, Shizune, a place to stay temporally). Sakura wasn't the newbie maid anymore, but the madam's respected visitor. She tried not to feel too good about that.
The perk of having experience as a maid there was that she knew where each thing was kept in the kitchen. Discreetly, she put the bottle of blood in the microwave and let it heat up for forty seconds, anxiously hoping no one would question what she was doing. Luckily, no one did.
After she finished the blood – which definitely tasted a hundred times better warm; why hadn't she done this before? –, she took the box of her favorite cereal, a bowl, milk and a spoon and made herself a very easy, yet yummy, breakfast. All the while, she was happily ignored by the staff.
With her bowl of cereal in one hand and the empty bottle she didn't know where to put in the other, Sakura exited the kitchen and headed to the garden, where she hoped she would be able to eat peacefully before going back with Itachi and Temari. However, she had just taken a few steps out of the kitchen when she felt, thanks to her newly discovered vampire senses, someone very familiar coming.
"TenTen!" she exclaimed, hoping she didn't seem as panicked as she was inside. TenTen believed the excuse Mikoto had given the entire staff, but she didn't know details of what exactly were the hard times Sakura was going through, and she never had the time to properly question her or Ino because they had been avoiding her as much as possible. Now, though, Sakura was cornered; she had nowhere to escape to.
The brunette approached her, dressed for work and raising a quizzical eyebrow. "Hey," she said. "I haven't seen you in days, Saks. How is everything going?" She paused and noticed her clothes. "Uh, why are you dressed like that?"
Sakura smiled nervously at her training outfit: a half-sleeved gray shirt, black sport leggings and ratty tennis shoes. "Ummm," she started, hysterically searching in her brain for a believable excuse.
But then, like a female knight in shiny armor wearing a maid uniform, Ino arrived to rescue her. "Sakura!" she exclaimed. "Here you are, my friend. I've been looking all over for you."
Sakura cocked an eyebrow. "You have?"
"Um, excuse me, Ino," TenTen said sassily. "We're having a conversation right now."
Ino mocked a glare in her direction. "Shouldn't you be working, missy?"
"Shouldn't you?"
The blonde rolled her eyes and told Sakura, "Itachi is looking for you. The training is about to start."
"Training?" TenTen repeated, taken aback.
Ino smiled. "Yup. Sakura has decided to start doing exercise. She's finally realized that even though she's skinny and that's totally fine, boys find athletic girls hotter. And Itachi is this sports-maniac, so he offered to train her. Isn't that super awesome?"
"Wow," TenTen said slowly. "The Uchihas are all… really hospitable."
"Yeah, they are," Sakura said, and started to walk away. "Anyways, I gotta go. Nice talking to you, see you around!"
For a triumphant moment, Sakura thought she would get to escape, like she always did. But then she felt a hand grasp her wrist and heard TenTen say, "Oh no, you are not getting away this time!" She spun her around and frowned severely at her and at Ino. "What the hell is going on, you guys?" she demanded. "I'm sick and tired of you avoiding me. You two are supposed to be my best friends, but you never tell me anything! All I have heard from Sakura's situation is from other maids' mouths. Why don't you freaking trust me anymore?"
Sakura saw the desperation and the pain in her friend's brown eyes and, for the first time, she imagined herself in her place and realized just how much they were hurting her. Ino, TenTen and Sakura used to be very close, to tell each other their most embarrassing secrets and share their deepest thoughts. Now, though, they were leaving TenTen out, alienating her.
However, they could not tell her exactly what was going on. TenTen was a human and she could not know the truth about Sakura, because then she would have to know that vampires exist, which was a crime unless she swore in front of the vampires to die if she ever told the secret. Sakura didn't want her friend to be involved in all this madness, or to have her pity, like she had everyone else's, or – even worse – to fear her.
Everything had changed, even their friendship. It had been inevitable.
"TenTen," Sakura said softly, looking at the girl with as much sincerity as she could. "I'm sorry. Really sorry. I should have talked to you before." And then, grudgingly and under her two best friend's confused stares, she lied: "The truth is that Shizune decided to rent our house for a couple of months to get some extra money and to make me quit my job, because it was stressing me out a lot. That's why we had to find somewhere else to live. I was going to stay at Ino's, but there isn't enough space. So when Mrs. Uchiha told us we could stay here, we accepted."
The brunette's expression softened little by little. Finally, she sighed deeply and said, "It's okay, Sakura. You seem to be having a hard time. I don't want to make it worse." She offered a small, hesitant smile. "Just remember I'm here for you, okay? You can talk to me about anything."
Relieved, Sakura hugged her friend. No, she couldn't talk to her about anything. But she sure could find comfort in her arms.
"Oh, you guys so cheesy," Ino half sobbed, half laughed, and threw her arms around them both.
When the cheesy moment with TenTen was over, Ino and Sakura headed to the garden. Ino carried a tray with tea and cookies for Kakashi and Sasuke, who sat at the table her best friends and she used to have lunch in when they were all maids. Oh, those good times felt like eons ago…
"Is Itachi really looking for me?" Sakura asked.
Ino smiled. "No. I just said it to save you from facing TenTen. You did well, though. Nice lie."
"Thanks, I guess…"
As soon as they stepped outside, Kakashi looked up from the book before him and smiled under his scarf. "Good morning, young ladies," he said, leaning back in his chair.
"Morning, Mr. Hatake," Ino replied, putting the tray on the table and serving a cup of tea for him. "Morning, Sasuke," she added in a less polite and more sarcastic tone, looking at the black-haired boy, who hadn't bothered to tear his gaze off his book. What a rude, gorgeous bastard. Still, she served a cup of tea for him, too; that was her job as a parlor maid now.
"Good morning," Sakura said. Her voice was too little, too timid, and Ino looked at her questioningly. The girl looked kind of gaunt lately, like she wasn't sleeping and eating well. Ino worried very much, but decided against bothering her cousin with nosy questions. Also, she wanted to believe that it was all temporal, that Sakura would be okay soon.
Right now, though, her cheeks were rosy, her eye twitched nervously, and Ino could almost hear her fluttering heart. What was Sakura so excited about? For a crazy moment, she wondered if it was because of the two other vampires' presences, but Kakashi was too old for her, and Sasuke… well, Sakura had always seemed to dislike the young man, which was understandable because he was a jerk. She definitely wasn't affected by him, was she?
Ino hoped not. One thing was being attracted to a guy that was engaged, and other thing was being attracted to a guy her best friend and cousin also liked.
"What do you have there, Sakura?" Kakashi asked casually, looking at the pink-haired girl's bowl of cereal, before taking a sip of his tea.
"Breakfast," Sakura answered with a small smile. She looked at her other hand and added, "Oh, and an empty bottle of… uh, that. Um, I don't know where to put it. The trash-can seems a very unsafe place."
Kakashi chuckled. "Any trash-can is alright. Just put the cap on. No human is going to be digging around the trash."
"Oh, okay," Sakura laughed lightly. "Sorry. I'm still trying to get used to all of this."
"It's okay." The silver-haired man motioned to an empty chair. "Why don't you sit? You can have breakfast here with us."
Sakura was suddenly way too uncomfortable, Ino noticed; still, she did what Kakashi said after a long moment of hesitation. Ino picked up her tray and watched her cousin a she started eating her cereal. The pink haired girl sat still, tense, barely breathing – and she looked anywhere but in Sasuke's direction. He, on the other hand, was being more indifferent and quiet than usual, and kept his eyes (deliberately?) glued to the book.
Dread made the blonde's stomach sink. Could it be…?
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sudden, unpleasant scent of a very familiar werewolf. "Heeeeey, everyone!" she heard, just a second before a heavy arm hooked around her neck. "How's it going?" Naruto asked, his cheeky grin in place.
"Ugh, get off me, idiot," Ino groaned, shrugging the boy's arm off. She wished her shift was already over so that she could punch him without getting in trouble. "Don't ever touch me again, okay?"
"Awww, I'm sorry, princess…"
"And don't call me that!"
Naruto suddenly gave her an odd look. "Wait. Why are you still a maid? Sakura doesn't need you to watch her the whole time now that she lives here. And I know the whole my-parents-are-punishing-me-for-being-an-spoiled-brat thing is bullshit."
"But not everyone knows it is bullshit," Ino said, annoyed at how stupid he could be sometimes. "I need an excuse to spend time here without those who don't know about Sakura suspecting, because I can't say I'm just visiting my good friend Sasuke, can I?"
Naruto shrugged. "You got a point. And speaking of my favorite asshole…"
"That sounds so wrong, Naruto," Sasuke said, finally looking up from his book.
The blond grinned and threw a black leather jacket at him. "Here. Hinata told me to give you this. By the way, it's so sweet that you give your fiancée your jacket when she's cold. I didn't know you were so swe-"
The clatter of a spoon falling on the table interrupted Naruto's sentence. Everyone's eyes snapped towards Sakura, whose green eyes were suddenly very wide. "Did he say… fiancée?"
There was a long moment of awkward silence, and then Naruto exclaimed, "Ohhh, goddammit, Ino! You didn't tell her about that, either?!"
"It's not my fucking job anymore!" Ino defended herself.
"You really didn't know, Sakura?" Kakashi asked lowly.
"No…" The girl looked at Sasuke and frowned. "You're getting married?"
"In two years," he replied evenly, but Ino noticed the rigidness of his back.
Sakura's jaw dropped. "Two years! And you have planned it already? That's… Wow. Why? You guys are still too young…, don't you think?"
Sasuke looked away and let Kakashi answer. "Arraging marriages is a very usual vampire custom, especially among powerful clans. Even before they were born, their clans planned on Sasuke marrying Hinata in order to create a stronger bond between their clans, just like Itachi will marry Temari to enforce the bonds with the No Subakus."
The half breed still seemed very bewildered. "So you're saying that vampires force their children to marry people they don't love?"
Again, there was a long moment of uncomfortable quiet, and then Naruto sighed heavily and mumbled, "Goddammit, Ino!"
Sakura and Temari were waiting for Itachi to come back with some things they would train Sakura with. They sat in the furthest part of the garden, where no one in the mansion could see them, so that they wouldn't have to explain any human maid why they're trying to hurt each other. Absent-mindedly, Sakura played with the bright green grass beneath her, caring very little about making Temari uncomfortable with the silence.
Eventually, though, the vampire couldn't stand it anymore. Sakura heard her exhaled heavily and start, "Alright, Sakura, I've had enough. What is up with you? Minutes ago you were being totally normal and nice and now it seems like someone chopped your tongue off. You even look as sad as you would be if you didn't have a tongue anymore."
Sakura cracked a half smile. "I still have a tongue, don't worry."
Temari grinned. "Yeah, that's good. Talk to me. Tell me about you. I'm sorry if I annoy you, but I just like good, time-killer chats."
"You want to know about me?" the pink-haired girl asked, plucking a strand of grass off. "There isn't much to tell, really. I like reading cheesy novels and listening to sad music, I want to become a doctor someday, I'm not a morning person, I love rainy days, I can't cook to save my life – and, oh, did I mention I recently found out I'm a half human, half vampire creature that some vampire hunters want to assassinate and that is supposed to have this big purpose in the world but is too freaking scared and weak to face it, and that the guy I like-?" She cut herself off. She'd said enough. "In resume, my life sucks," she finished quietly. "Your turn."
Temari was, of course, stunned by the outburst. But there wasn't sympathy in her gaze, not exactly. She seemed more like… amused? "Alright," she said at last, nodding slowly. "My turn? Well, I enjoy going to fancy parties, playing sports and watching funny movies. I hate selfish people, boring documentaries, discrimination and papaya juice. I'm the heiress of my clan – and, oh, did I mention I'm forced to marry a guy I am not in love with and there's nothing I can do to about it because my whole clans depends on it?"
Sakura stared at Itachi's fiancée for a long moment. She was smiling, but her pretty hazel eyes were clouded by frustration – not towards Sakura, surely, but towards life itself. Temari knew what it was like to be unable to change your own destiny.
"I'm sorry," Sakura said at last, looking down at the grass. "Sometimes I forget other people have big problems to deal with, too."
The older woman chuckled light-heartedly. "Don't worry. It happens to everyone."
The sunlight was beginning to dim down as the sun lowered towards the horizon. Crisp air blew on them, caressing the grass and their hair and clothes. Sakura listened to the sounds of the early afternoon, hesitated, and then spoke.
"Temari… can I ask you something and you won't get, like, offended or something?"
The blonde smiled softly at her. "Sure. What is it?"
"How's it like to be forced to marry someone you don't love?"
Temari tilted her head to a side and stared at the distance thoughtfully. "Well… it's not very nice, obviously. The good things about my situation is that Itachi is a very intelligent, respectful and mature young man, that having such a strong bond with the Uchihas will benefit my clan greatly, and that there's nobody else I'm in love with. The last thing is the best of them all, to be honest. Can you imagine if I had to suffer through something as tragic as having to choose between my clan and the love of my life?"
Sakura grimaced. "That would suck even more than my life does."
Temari smiled at her. "You know why? Because love is not just the strongest thing in the world, Sakura: it's also what makes us suffer the most."
Notes: Heyyy, I'm still here, still writing and uploading! Pls review and give me your opinion, don't be a meanie.
