Disclaimer

Neither the characters nor the story are of my property, they belong to their respective authors.

This story is a dark stalker romance with extreme dubious situations.

Please proceed with caution.

Sakura

I´ve been stuck in my apartment for two days now.

Two days of Itachi relentlessly fucking my body until I promised him everything in the world for the taste of pleasure, a lick of what he kept away from me for hours that felt like years.

He started by fucking my body, but now, he's progressed to fucking with my head.

By the third day, I'm a fucking mess. The night before, Itachi showered me himself, spraying my body with bursts of hot and cold water until I was a confused, dripping mess. He put me in bed himself. I don't even have makeup on, and my hair is a wavy tangle, but he doesn't seem to care. He stares at me like he's about to fucking devour me, and as for me... I'm living for every second of it, not that I'd ever admit it to my captor.

"Ita." My mouth is so dry it feels like it's cracking with every word. "You're fucking me up."

"Just the way you like it," he replies. "Now go to sleep, Petal. Dream of pretty, wonderful things that you can't have anymore."

My eyes close and I let the darkness pull me under.

Suddenly, I'm in a world I've tried to shut down for years. A world of darkness, shadows and secrets being whispered on every corner – a world I can't pretend to understand any longer. My mama's there, still alive, still breathing, holding me close to her heart and telling me everything's going to be alright over and over again.

"You're okay," she whispers in my ear. "You're okay, my darling girl, I'm going to take care of you, I'm going to make sure nobody ever hurts you again."

I believe her. I'm a little girl again, except I'm not a little girl, I'm a little boy, and I like picking daisies and the older boy who takes care of me.

I startle, my eyes opening again as I whimper and my hands seek out Itachi for comfort. He's next to me, his body stiff as I latch onto him, holding on for dear life.

"You're scaring me, Itachi," I whisper. "You're doing something to my head, you're fucking with it, I can't even see straight anymore."

"Let it take you under, Petal." His dark voice soothes. "It's the only way you'll get rid of those anxiety attacks."

I allow the pull of the memories to start taking me away from him again. I don't want to remember, but I need to. To save myself, to save Itachi.

Remember.

Remember.

Remember.

I don't know how he's doing this, but events I've tried to sweep under the rug for decades are coming back in full technicolor glory. My eyes water as I remember a beautiful woman with green eyes that looked just like mine. red hair, frail, thin body, green eyes. My mama.

She took care of me. She loved me. She was the only person I had.

Until she was ripped away from me.

I'm traveling back now, back years in time until I'm small and fragile and young, sitting on greener grass than I've ever seen. I'm in a garden, a garden of daisies. The little white flowers litter the ground, sprouting from the most unlikely of places and making me smile, putting dimples in my chubby cheeks.

I shake my head, groaning.

I don't want these memories.

I don't want to remember.

But why?

The woman is singing in a beautiful voice, Italian words that I don't understand blending together in a soothing lullaby. She's trying to comfort me, but as she sings, her voice begins to shake and tremble, and the melody loses its meaning.

"We have to go now, little one," she tells me, grabbing me and gathering me in her arms. The flower crown I'd been making out of the daisies falls to the ground.

"But I'm not finished," I complain. She pays me no mind. She runs along the grass. Her feet are bare and streaked with green, and so are mine. We're in our own world. A place where we're safe, and happy, and good, until we aren't. Until someone barges into our fantasy with a bang. Bang bang bang.

"Mama!" I cry out, little arms extending for my mother. "Mama, don't go!"

But she's being pulled away. She reaches out for me, and then there's a loud noise, bang bang bang, again and again, over and over again. Rosettes of deep scarlet bloom on my mother's chest and she stumbles back, having never quite reached me, her last chance of comforting me being cruelly ripped away. She utters my name, but no sound comes from her lips. They open to shape the letters of my name and then darker red, almost black liquid spills from her lips.

I don't know what's happening, but I know something's wrong, and I start to wail. Mama falls to the floor and I crawl closer to her, watching her gurgle blood, trying to speak and tell me something that could save my life. But there's nothing. No words come out. She reaches out for me, but her hand falls midway, her arm brokenly lying on the grass and her eyes lifeless, staring into nothing.

"What's wrong, Mama?" I ask, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "What's going on, why won't you talk to me?"

I'm too small to understand, too young to comprehend it's over, it's done. She's dead, and I don't know it, so I keep sitting there, absentmindedly picking daisies that grow in the grass around her unmoving body. I tuck them in her hair, filling her red mane with flowers.

I snap out of it with a sharp intake of breath, and Itachi is there, but Mama is nowhere to be seen.

With a start, I realize it was nothing but a memory. A memory I've been keeping under lock and key, because it's just too much to deal with daily.

Mama.

My mother.

Dead, next to me.

Only now I'm understanding the significance of what I've remembered. Someone killed her, shot her, and left me with her dead body in our garden, where the daisies grew.

My hands form fists at my sides as I look at Itachi. "She's gone."

"Who's gone, Petal?" For once in his life, he actually looks concerned. I'm afraid too, because it seems as if he's finally pushed me enough to break me. I'm remembering things I haven't thought of in years, and as Itachi's words blur into nothing, I go back in time, to a simpler, kinder place.

I'm sitting in a garden again. I'm wearing dark clothes, and there's a boy next to me, an older boy, who's picking daisies with me.

My mouth forms a scowl, because I don't like daisies. They remind me of Mama and what happened to her. How peaceful she looked lying there with flowers in her hair and blood leaking from the wounds on her chest.

Thoughtfully, I pick the petals off the flowers, softly chanting the words as I go.

"He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. He loves me not."

The memory is intense and painful, and I blink my eyes open and closed again and again, lost somewhere between the past and the present.

My eyes lock with Itachi's, and I furrow my brows. "What are you doing to me, Itachi?"

"What have you seen?"

It hits me then. Those eyes, these eyes.

Once upon a time, there was an older boy who took care of me. Who never picked on me. Who teases me in sweet, kind ways, and protects me from the mean kids in the playground. I remember the boy who protected me when no one else would.

My savior.

My stalker.

My tormentor.

"It's you," he whispers.

HERE WE ARE! Well, as I said in the beginning, these story has 31 chapters, so I´m calculating that Saturday I´ll be finishing this work, that same day I will upload the introduction to the second part "He Hates Me Not", which will be in a different story but will be a continuation of this one, so don´t forget to check it out.

Thank you all for your reviews! Yo have no idea of how difficult this week has been, but reading and knowing that you are actually liking the story keeps me motivated to do my best and continue with this adaptation.

Take care!

-Your sleep depraved friend Vitali.