28. Imperfections
Rating: M
Verse: Modern!AU
Warning: Underage
Inspiration/Idea: me
AN: So, in a consciously risky step from my side, I will address the issue that is often raised up an argument against MadaSaku ship. The prompt Imperfections simply asks for it, and I consciously will try my hand in writing a relationship that shouldn't have happened. There will be absolutely nothing explicit nor non-consensual here, and I believe I had handle this difficult topic accordingly, but, if you have any second thoughts - skip this one.
When he saw her first, on that house-warming party of her brother, he thought she is just petite. Now he knew – she was still growing. That evening a week ago she had quite some make-up, a scant, sequined top and jeans. Now, in the daylight, in a skirt to her knees, cute, buttoned down coat and long hair in ponytails – she looked probably even younger than she was. Shit.
Back during that evening, they danced and talked; exchanged the numbers and set up the meeting and now Madara was taken aback. How old was she even? Surely in school.
Yet magnetism was still there. Magnetism of a correct person in that wrong package. He still remembered how it sparked between them, as if finding an old friend, someone who just clicked with him on all levels. How he wanted to listen, really listen to what she was saying, despite the music booming from the speakers. How when he told her that his thesis was causing him troubles, she didn't ask if that was the procrastination, nor if that was too difficult, or too much work. She asked if he didn't know when to stop digging for information and finally start writing. How he wanted to make her laugh. Normally, in a party-situation, the acquaintance would turn physical rather quickly, but with her, he searched a quiet place not to make out but to talk.
Well, now that he already came for this date, it would be very ungentlemanly to stand her off. So they went, not for a beer, as he initially imagined, but for a coffee. Or rather a coffee for him, a tea for her. He was decided to politely tell her that they cannot meet again. But he didn't.
"I think I have to ask that, but how old are you?"
Sakura was mixing the sugar in her tea. It was long dissolved already, but she kept mixing. "I'm going to tell you the truth, even though I know I risk a lot with it. But take it as a token of my trust. Fifteen and a half."
He wanted to get up and leave right then. It froze the blood in his vein. He shouldn't even be sitting in the café with her.
"And how old are you? Like my brother?" she immediately returned the question, preventing him from standing up.
"Yes."
She hung her head low. So low that her bangs almost touched the teacup. "Hear me out," she said finally looking him straight into the eyes. "If you feel it as well, and I'm sure you do, don't let it slip just because we were born too far apart. This was a chance. A detail that won't matter in couple of years. That won't matter in the perspective of entire life. In a decade it won't matter. Heck, in five years it won't matter anymore. Let's not ruin that. Let's not let this idiotic coincidence ruin that."
Fighting with himself Madara agreed on another meeting.
"I can get you in horrible trouble. I know that. Let's not meet where other people can see us," she told him at the second meeting (or should he call it a date?), in the city park where she came with her dog.
They ended meeting during her walks with the dog, in the forest behind her house. They would spend some 45 minutes a day just walking and talking. Madara realized how much looking forward he was to it each day. How much he wanted to tell her stuff – about the studies, about the exams, about his rather complicated family situation. He never before had such a drive to share what was inside of him.
Declarations of love followed three months later. From her side. It was easy to dismiss them, due to her inexperience, but when he was in her presence, it wasn't easy at all. Was a simple lack of reference a knock-out condition? There always is a first love at some point of time, and exactly then the person lacks reference.
He had a reference. He had loved before. His first puppy love when he was about her age – oh, how he suffered. Then a relationship of two year around the beginning of studies (sadly, didn't work out). So he knew how to recognize love when he felt it. And to her he did. Unfortunately. It took him a month to admit it, first to himself then to her.
He couldn't imagine her not being a part of his life. Going home without seeing her and telling her about his day. Going to sleep without wishing her goodnight. Waking up without a short text. Days without her laughter and that peculiar slant of her eyes when she was grinning at him were significantly worse ones.
When another three months later she asked him to kiss her, he didn't object much, and now they were parting with a short peck at the lips.
"I got a stipend." His last year was almost over and his results just too good to go unnoticed.
Sakura raised her head. "Oh. That's great," he could already hear the alarm in her voice. She was too smart not to realize what a stipend meant. "And where?"
"In Singapore."
"How long?"
"A year."
"When?"
"End of next month."
The words hung like a death-sentence between them. But she didn't stop walking, and didn't comment further. From the tension in her shoulders he could see that she was working hard on analyzing the situation. He admired it in her so much – that tenacity to always try to the end, to never give up. To find a solution. But what was applaudable in her in general, could now mean true trouble for him.
He wasn't wrong. They didn't even reach their usual turning point on a clearing with large oaks, when she made her announcement
"I don't want to wait. If we don't see each other, you will find someone else. You will find a job there, or another opportunity someplace else. There will be different girls, older, better than me. You will pursue your life. I will be trapped here."
"I am planning to return."
"You are planning it now. There is no telling what will you think in half a year. I will fade from your memory and then from your life. You will forget that what we felt."
"You judge me very low."
"Your life is so out of my reach… I cannot go where you go. I cannot drive, I cannot go to a club, I cannot even go to the movies… I don't have my own money, my mum still knows the code to my phone. And she checks it front time to time, I know that!"
"Then how come she doesn't know about us?" interjected Madara. He wasn't aware of that.
"I have you under Mikoto," she dismissed quickly not letting him distract her, "and I delete most of the texts as they come. You see? I not even my own person. How am I supposed to ever keep up with you if you step away? Once you walk away you will never come back."
Madara sat heavily on the uprooted tree trunk. "I can offer only my words. If you don't believe.."
"You can offer more. I decided. I want that we do it." She was standing in front of him, looking him straight into the eyes. "No waiting. Now. Before you leave."
Madara interlaced his fingers and let his head hung. This was a nightmare.
She wouldn't be persuaded. She claimed that becoming intimate would seal the relationship. Madara tried pointing out that people split also after having sex, but she was too shrewd to bite the bait. She knew how deep his sense of responsibility went.
Three days later, she showed up with a bag full of porn, intercalated between the pages of her math notebook.
"I took those magazines from my brother's bedroom," she said pushing them into his hands. "I was reading them. I don't… I don't understand why boys like it. But that's alright. Now I know how it's done. I'm not sure… I'm not sure if I'll be able to do all that what those ladies in the magazines do… probably not. It looks… very uncomfortable. But I get it. I think I'm ready."
"That makes absolutely no sense if you don't understand it. It only means that it is much too early for you."
"It's not! And I want! I want so much. I want to join with you, I want to become one. I don't care how it feels. I don't care if it hurts."
Madara looked at her determined expression. Brows knitted together; lips tightly pursed. A little fighter before the battle. "It is not supposed to be negative experience, you know? It is just an idiotic, harmful myth propagated by crappy literature."
"I don't care! It doesn't matter for me how I will feel and whether I will like it or not. What matters is that we seal it."
He was never so afraid before. There was never so little fun in the act. Sakura's determined expression and eyes shut tight and lips curved into a fine line… He tried as he could to prep her, they've been trying for a good month now. Fingers around her sex, one finger inside, two. She was getting more comfortable, and she was even getting moist down there. But it was far from what he normally expected from a willing partner. Yet she was willing. She initiated all the encounters, all six of them, as she reminded him, listing them on her fingers. She had been apparently counting. Now was the seventh go, the time of the month was such that she for sure, for sure, couldn't get pregnant and they were doing the do. He was wearing a condom that he freshly bought and, in a drugstore not on a gas station as usually. Still, he was never so afraid of getting a girl pregnant. With another, it wouldn't be that much of a big deal – you could get the day-after-pills in the end. With Sakura – that would be damn tricky. He could possibly beg some female friend to got to the pharmacy and lie on his behalf… But in those cases, hours mattered and he didn't even have many female friends he could trust to this extent.
He knew he had to be quick, and forget those idiotic ambitions about finishing her off. The shorter it lasted the better. If he couldn't bring her to the end with his fingers and mouth all that month long, he for sure wouldn't manage with his cock.
She was as wet as she would get, judging from the past experiences. Her panties were off, rest would stay, the afternoon was rather cold, especially in the shadow of this deep part of the forest and the blanket wasn't providing much isolation from the ground.
Her dog, bound to the tree seemed to be asleep. At least that. He would be spared doing that in front of an audience.
"Ready?"
"Ready," she answered. "Don't worry. We're in it together. Even if my circumstances put me at a total disadvantage, I'm here to be a partner to you. And in my head – I am. I really am. Even if it is only in my head…"
He managed it as short as he could. He couldn't tell if she enjoyed it, but she clung so tightly to him and even moved with him a bit, and, as far as he could tell, she wasn't in pain. He withdrew the moment he finished and gathered her to his chest, adjusting her clothing with another hand.
She pressed her legs together and nuzzled closer. "That was…" she paused as if searching for right words. "Very sweet."
He met several very interesting women in Singapore. One worked in the same building that he did. The second he met on a get-together for scholarship nominees. With both he would normally be more than willing to pursuit a relationship, maybe even a one with perspectives.
He didn't. The picture of wide-eyed, skinny girl was permanently in his mind. Permanently in front of his eyes.
They didn't see each other for the entire year. When he came to home, it was exactly during the winter break at school, and Sakura was with her family on some exotic holidays. She told him that she was crying about that two weeks non-stop and he was inclined to believe it. They were texting, calling was very risky, so they managed only couple of times.
When they finally saw each other again in October the following year, it was the best moment in his life.
AN: So? Your thoughts on this difficult topic?