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.

Itachi

It's you.

I stare down at my little Petal —at her disheveled hair, her rosy cheeks, but no matter how much I study her, I find it hard to process her words.

"It's me?" I repeat.

She pushes away from my embrace and sits opposite me, her slender legs tucked beneath her.

Her green eyes shine with child-like excitement and realization. "When I was young, my mother and I were always hidden, somehow. Dad visited us and it seemed like he didn't want to show us to the outside world. One day, he told Mom I should remain hidden, and I was like four. I didn't even understand what it meant, but I felt it. That day, Mom threw away all my dresses, cut off my hair and painted it, then she told me, you'll be a boy now, Saku. If anyone asks about your name, it'll be Sakumo. Although I didn't understand it, I loved the idea of not having to brush my hair anymore. At the tender age of four, I became a boy, and since I was a child, it was believable to everyone else. All that time, I thought Mom wanted a boy and I was just playing the role of one for her.

"After she disappeared two years later, I was taken into a boys' boarding school and the woman who took care of me told me to never, ever shower with the other boys, get close to them or even talk to them. She always tightened my pants, cut and painted my hair, and watched me all the time, making sure I stayed as the boy Mom wanted me to be. I was too scrawny at the time, though, so scrawny and innocent for what was going on in that school. I wanted to have friends and play with them, but the boys didn't feel the same. They hit me and tried to drown me, they pulled my hair and tore my books. I always cried in the corner on my own because Mom told me boys don't cry. I was so alone and scared and looked over my shoulder with every step I took until…"

Her bottom lip trembles. "A boy rescued me. He was taller, older and had a better build, too. He scared the other boys by just showing up there. He gave them a fright and beat them to a pulp in the middle of the playground. He sat with me when I was reading, a bit behind so he didn't disturb me. He was silent mostly, but he protected me, he let me smile again, be myself, and forget for a moment that I lost my mom. But he didn't know I was a girl because I couldn't betray the promise I gave my mom. No matter how much I wished to open up to him, I couldn't." She swallows. "Until now."

The entire time she speaks, I'm unmovable, I'm surprised I can breathe evenly in the first place.

Sakumo is my little Petal.

My little Petal is Sakumo.

That small weak boy with no fight in him, the one I wanted to protect because he was about to be eaten by wolves is the same woman sitting in front of me.

Green eyes.

He had the hugest, most mesmerizing green eyes I've ever seen. Why did I thought they were blue or gray? When he first looked up at me with tears in them, thinking I'd hit him like the other bullies, I felt a connection, an inkling, it's the same one I felt toward my little Petal that day at the hospital's parking lot. That her smile felt wrong. That's not how Sakumo used to smile before; his smiles used to be carefree, liberating, and contagious.

I might have kept him close for that smile alone.

Then the system robbed him of that smile, that soft innocence.

And now, he's here. Or she is… or what-the-fuck-ever.

Chiyo was the one who kept her hidden in school, making sure to protect her identity as a boy. She must've known she's now a girl, but she never uttered a word about it to Senju or to me to mislead us.

We were looking for a man, but she's been a woman all along.

Sakumo Senju is Sakura Senju.

She interlinks her hands at her lap and watches me through her eyelashes. "Say something."

What am I supposed to say? I have to kill you? It's either your life or mine?

Or maybe I should tell her that her mom didn't disappear, and that her father isn't just someone who kept her hidden. Maybe I should tell her she's the Senju heir and her uncle is after her life.

"How did you know it's me?" I ask instead.

A small smile lifts her lips and I'm trapped it in it for a second, I'm caught hook, line, and sinker. All I think about is to pull her into me and devour that smile, feast on it, cage it and keep it for safekeeping.

"Your eyes," she says simply.

"My eyes?"

"I might have forgotten a lot of things due to how strange my childhood was, but I never forgot your eyes and that black color and mean edge. I never forgot the boy who sat beside me as I read and let me pick daisies before telling me not to be a girl." She laughs, the sound soft and easy. "I wanted to tell you that I was, but I was scared you'd hate me like the others, and I couldn't afford that."

"I wouldn't have hated you." I don't know why I say the words, but I just do. It's the truth and it slips from between my lips so easily, it's alarming.

I wouldn't have hated Sakumo whether he was a boy or a girl. At the time, he was the only bright thing in my pitch-black life.

My childhood was bitter and angry. I had so much energy I had to purge with fistfights and shower fights. And fights, in general.

After Sakumo came, I had better control. He was slowly filling up that bottomless black hole.

Until he didn't.

Until he left.

My little Petal inches closer as if the distance between us is a burden. Her knees touch my thigh. "You really wouldn't have?"

"No, you would've been annoying either way."

"Hey!" She hits my shoulder with her small fist. "You were one of my happiest memories, don't ruin it."

"Happiest memories, huh?"

"Yeah, you were the number one person in my life back then."

Something clenches in my chest. I don't know what it is, but it just does. I didn't know I needed her to say those words until she actually did.

"How about your father?" I feign nonchalance. "He never visited?"

She shakes her head slowly. "I think he died with Mom. I never saw him after she was gone."

He's not. He's looking for you.

"And you're okay with never seeing him?" I ask.

"I learnt to be okay with a lot of things since I was young. When you're an orphan and depend on foster care, you can't be picky or difficult. There shouldn't be any food or TV shows you dislike. I hate beans with a passion, but one of the foster families I lived with loved them, and I had to shove them down my throat with a smile. If I didn't, if I started picking trouble because of stupid food, I'd be sent back. I hated being sent back, it felt like being unwanted trash."

Her voice breaks on the last word.

Her eyes well with tears but she takes a deep breath and fans her face to get rid of them.

I do something I never did with another human before.

Placing an arm around her shoulder, I pull her to the crook of my body. I've never felt the need to console anyone, but the look on her face, the way her nose scrunches with her battle to seal down her pain does me in.

The moment I hug her, my little Petal loses the battle. A gasp tears from her throat that soon turns into a soft sob.

Her nails dig into my chest as her lips tremble with the need to hide her emotions.

"Well, you don't have to eat beans now," I joke.

She smiles a little. "I don't."

"Is that why you have picky cats?"

"Hey! Don't go insulting my cats."

"Yeah, yeah."

"How was it for you?" she asks after a moment of silence and her sobs dying down.

"How was what?"

"Foster system."

"I liked being sent back. It meant I was doing a great job pissing people off."

"You were always the rebel."

"Always, Pet."

Her huge eyes fix me with acute curiosity. "How did you end up the way you are? You know, with killing and stuff."

"Someone saved me from the system and stopped letting people send me back."

She appears thoughtful for a second, but she doesn't speak.

"Penny for your thoughts?" I say slowly as if those thoughts might end whatever this is.

"I was just thinking about how different you are between then and now. But not really that different, you know? Back then, you always used violence to solve problems, but although I loved that you were protecting me and still love the boy you were so much, but now, I'm not sure about the man you've become. It's so scary to be with you, to crave you this much, to need your hands on me all the time when I know those same hands ended other people's lives."

Silence.

Long, thick silence fills the space.

Neither of us break it or attempts to. My little Petal is breathing heavily against my chest, probably thinking back over the bomb she just dropped.

She said in no certain terms that she doesn't like what I grew up into, that she preferred the boy from back then over the man I am today.

And why wouldn't she?

After all, I'm the killer pining for her life. Being her stalker is child's play compared to what I'm supposed to do to her —like kill her, maim her, and cut off her head so Tobirama can keep it in his fucked-up collection.

He has eyes and body parts of his enemies tucked away, so he can look at them and feel triumphant about how far he's come.

My little Petal will be just another addition to that, a last 'fuck you' to Hashirama. Another way to ensure he's the only one who rules.

Still, hearing her say those words doesn't bring me the acceptance I'm supposed to feel. A dark cloud hovers over my head, expanding and blackening by the second.

The fact I'm being subtly rejected by her is like being sliced by a knife. At first, you only feel the sting, and then you're bleeding to fucking death on the ground.

I stand up, not caring that I push her off me in the meantime.

My little Petal's face falls.

Petal.

No wonder I started calling her that for no apparent reason at all. It's from the times she was picking daisies and plucking their petals one by one in that stupid fucking game.

It takes me a minute to pull on my pants and throw on my shirt. The entire time, my little Petal watches me from the bed, unmoving, almost as if any motion will trigger a disaster.

I'm halfway through buttoning my shirt when she murmurs, "Where are you going?"

I don't answer her and throw my jacket over my shoulder on the way out. If I speak right now, it'll be ugly. If I let the words come out of my mouth, she'll be crying and I'll be fucking her face-first into her bed.

I'm in the middle of the living room when a soft, but quick padding of feet follows me before two slender arms wrap around me from behind.

My feet come to a halt of their own volition.

"D-don't go." Her voice is muffled as her face nuzzles against my back.

"Why?"

"Just… don't. I don't want to be alone right now."

"And why is that my fucking problem?" I snap harder than I intend to.

She flinches but doesn't let me go. "Itachi don't do this."

"Don't do what? Leave you be as you always asked?"

"But you never gave it to me, why now?"

"The fun is over, Pet. I lost interest in you."

Her hands fall from around me as if she's been electrocuted. There's a fucking tingling in my chest pushing me to say I didn't mean that, that I'm only pushing her away because of what she said, but I kill that part.

That part will be the cause of my fucking death.

I don't look back as I step out of the apartment. A soft whimper follows after me, but I don't turn around no matter how much I'm tempted to. If I do, I'll go back in there and hold her, kiss her, make her feel better. I'll tell her stupid fucking things like she won't be alone anymore and that I'll be there with her.

But that would be a lie, wouldn't it?

My little Petal and I have unfinished business.

Her life or mine.

It's time to make that decision.