Sakura gaped for a full two minutes at the naked body on the stage, under the spotlight, in the center of the room.
Most people in their figure drawing class had been interesting figures in their own way but nothing special. Just strangers.
Itachi was no stranger.
In truth, it wasn't necessarily the toned shoulder blades, or muscular legs taut with tension from sitting before twenty people and being starkers that drew her unwavering attention. No. Sakura's gaze couldn't be torn from his back. The slight curl and stretch of skin against the spine.
All of it highlighted the scars.
The largest was longer than hers. They stretched from his left shoulder to his right hip. He had more than her, too. The white lines stark against his skin from where he'd been pelted by shards of glass and punctured with metal.
Subconsciously her hand went to her left leg. For a fleeting moment, her mind returned to the bloody scene. The screams to get out of the car, and the pain of her leg when she was pulled from it by force. The blurry daze in watching a dead body being pulled from the truck across the way by Naruto. The pounding upon the deadman's chest had rung in her ears, as had Sasuke's quietly whispered words to Itachi to keep his brother conscious. The lights of the ambulance and fire engine, and the paramedics taking Itachi away were like a haze. She could barely remember her own ride to the hospital. She could still hear the tone of the paramedic attempting to speak with her, but she recalled no words or conversation.
She remembered the white walls of the hospital with clarity. How could she not with a four month stay, more than half a year in a cast. Her dreams of ever earning a letterman for track, gone. Underneath that cast, shrunken skin and scars. Ugly. Hideous scars.
She bit her lip, nails gripping into her jeans.
Itachi wasn't hideous. He was stunning. She'd never seen a human so beautiful, so beautifully imperfect. And for a second, just one moment, she wondered if maybe she wasn't half as ugly as she'd originally thought.
A cough from the teacher forced her gaze away. Her face warmed as if she'd caught her gaping. But the teacher droned on about focusing on shadows. Then the sketching began, everyone focused on the task at hand.
Sakura stared at her blank canvas then at Itachi.
Itachi didn't even acknowledge her presence. Although, after being in a hospital room for months with him, she knew the blank and empty gaze had more to do with the fact he wasn't wearing his glasses. He couldn't see her, or any of them. Everything, probably a blur.
Maybe that was why the only tension was just in his neck muscles and not his face.
It took several minutes for her to start, but she cleared her mind. Except she didn't focus on the shadows casted by the light, instead she focused on the scars.
By the end of the class, she'd gotten somewhat there in capturing the beauty in the disaster.
After class, Sakura shoved everything into her bag with haste. She had intended to go up and chat with Itachi, but hesitated. Itachi was currently blind as a bat and naked, she didn't want to make him uncomfortable. Thus she hovered in the hallway debating what to do, listening as several women positioned in front chatted about Itachi's abs. They too were waiting, for a very different reason.
But then their voices quieted.
Sakura turned her gaze to follow theirs. Kisame.
The man loomed down the hallway, coming right for them. The biker leathers, face tattoos and 'I will kick your ass' expression silenced majority of the hallway. The closer Kisame got, the fewer people Sakura found herself surrounded by, until the man stood before her and she was alone.
"Heya," the man said.
"How's it going, Kisame?"
The man showed her too many teeth in his smile. "Perfectly splendid, Sakura."
He then walked right by her and through the door.
A loud whistle came from the room. "Nice ass, Itachi," Kisame yelled.
"One of these days, Kisame. I'm going to kill you."
"See, you lived. And you'll never see any of these people ever again. Don't you feel alive?"
A shaky laugh followed. "Thank goodness. I'm never playing truth or dare again."
Yikes, so Itachi had done all of this on a dare?
Sakura winced on his behalf. Well, there was no way she was going to start a conversation with him now about it. He'd sounded relieved that no one knew him. She bit her lip and looked down at her half done portrait and closed the cover, feeling even more embarrassed.
What the hell had she been thinking? Had she really been about to go up and casually discuss his scars?
Not even when they'd shared a hospital room had she seen them. First he'd also been in a cast, and then the privacy curtain had been up during check ups and wound treatments. She swallowed hard.
The car accident had always been an elephant in the room they'd never openly discussed. None of them had. Not Itachi, Sasuke or Naruto had ever had an open dialogue. Everyone had moved on. Except for her it seemed.
Going up to him would have been such cruel a thing to do.
She ducked her head and hugged her drawing book to her chest. Her eyes burned and she turned away, using the back doors of the building to get to her car. She wasn't willing to risk revealing to Itachi she'd seen him so vulnerable.
But the image didn't leave her head. Not even in sleep. Her hands ran along his scars, feeling the rippled skin that felt like her own. Except there wasn't disgust in her stomach at the touch, just awe. When she woke in the morning, instead of not looking down as she put on her cargo pants, she looked at the once wounds. Her hand hesitated just a moment above the skin. Her eyes stared hard, attempting to see the beauty she'd seen last night.
But nothing. They looked the same as they always had.
All she felt was stupid.
She snatched up her pants and tugged them up, eyes glaring into the mirror at her own face, not willing to take a look at her full form. She tied the pants at the bottom tight, to make sure they didn't creep up.
With a huff, she snatched her book bag and ran for the door.
The next art class was a lecture and then at the end the teacher dropped the final project on them.
"Your final assignment is a self-portrait. And no, you do not have to be unclothed if you choose not to be, although I'll take off a letter grade."
Sakura's hand shot in the air.
"Yes?"
"Are you joking about the letter grade?"
"No."
"Anyone else have a question?"
Sakura watched the woman in horror, as she began to list all the different things she'd be looking for in the drawing. Positioning, proportion, shadows, and also - "I don't want dick pics. No one needs to show me their genitalia. Position yourself like I've been positioning our models, with some modesty please. Women are more than welcome to cover their breasts or be bare. You've nothing I don't have. But I understand the constraints of society. If you need a religious exemption please come forward after class, we'll talk about an alternate project. Remember, nothing needs to be shown if you don't want to."
Nothing needs to be shown huh? Not everyone had a leg that looked like someone took a butcher cleaver to it.
Sakura did a preliminary investigation that night. It had been a long time since she'd actually looked at herself, full length, naked in the mirror. She stared at the sour expression on her face before looking down. It was just as awful as she remembered.
She took a deep breath and tried again. She straightened her back. She turned right, hiding her left leg in the mirror. Well from a straight on view of her right side, you couldn't see it. But that hadn't been the assignment, without a decent angle it would cost her points. She couldn't lose her 4.0 from an art class. She turned slightly. Even the inside had a scar, she could see it there, just the tip of it.
She turned around and winced as she looked over her shoulder.
Her left butt cheek looked lopsided and gross. Well, it was a good thing she'd been adamant about intimacy in the dark. No way in hell would anyone want that. Not even to slap.
Maybe that was it. Men with scars looked cool and badass, but women with scars were just damaged goods. Well, that wasn't exactly true. Itachi hadn't really looked badass or cool… Part of her wanted to reprimand herself for her thoughts. While she didn't consider herself a feminist, she definitely wasn't a chavenist. And that was exactly what her thoughts had come out as. But all those feminists weren't currently looking at a lumpy, lined ass or a leg in which a total of eighty-five stitches had been used to put it back together.
She sighed and pressed her hands into her eyes.
Why had she let Sai talk her into taking this class?
Technically the teacher didn't know, she could just put someone else's leg in. Yeah, she could do that. Or cast enough shadow on it. She gave a nod, that's what she would do.
But the thought wouldn't leave her mind. During her chemistry class, instead of focusing on the lecture, her pen sketched out long black hair cascading over a scarred back to a hip. From there, she doodled in a toned and strong ass. Beauty. She was capturing it now. Would it be possible to capture it on her? Maybe it was because his butt hadn't been lumpy with tissue damage.
Sakura sighed and refocused her attention on the lecture.
The loose sketch ended up being a far bigger problem than Sakura accounted for.
"Why the fuck do you have a naked sketch of my brother on your notes?"
Sakura sputtered and coughed up her cola during lunch a couple days later. "What?"
The page was ripped from the binder and slammed down before her. Sasuke's face, red in fury. "I spent months of my life applying ointment to his scars. This is Itachi."
Shit. She should not have allowed him to look through her binder to find her linear algebra notes.
"What the hell is this?"
Sakura tried to laugh it off, face burning in embarrassment. "He was one of our models. It's just for a class project. " It wasn't a lie by any means.
"I call bullshit. These are your chemistry notes. Not to mention, Sai already told Naruto the project is a self portrait. Creepy dude needed someone to take his picture in our dorm. He talked Lee into it." Sasuke made a face, "I'm pretty sure Lee is scarred for life."
"Sai isn't creepy," Sakura defended the young man she'd grown to like as a friend.
"Yeah, whatever. I never guessed it, but you might be. I mean really, what the fuck? Should I even invite you to family dinners? What is this?"
Sakura glared, "Look, this is just a misunderstanding." No way in hell would she share her insecurities with Sasuke of all people. Insensitive jerk.
"Well, help me to understand." He leaned in, nose almost touching hers as he scowled down at her.
Sakura snatched up the paper. "Give me a fucking break. I was just trying to understand the shading."
"Well you suck at shading, but you're very good at drawing ass."
Yeah, well maybe because Itachi's ass was whole. She bit her tongue and tasted blood. "Fuck off, Sasuke."
And he did. He whipped around in his fury and stormed through the cafeteria doors.
Naruto looked between the door and Sakura several times.
Of course, this was Naruto. He was going to choose Sasuke. She waved at him to go too.
Naruto scratched the back of his head. "I know it's not really my place, but it is a bit weird that a naked Itachi would be in your notes."
At her deepening scowl, he bolted from the table with his ramen bowl. "I'm gonna check on Sasuke."
Sakura ran her hand down her face and looked at the paper in her other hand. She sighed.
Well, Sasuke was right about one thing. Her shading sucked.
She pulled out her phone, but hesitated on texting Sai. Honestly, she really didn't want to talk about the project with anyone, or discuss with Sai the accident she'd been in. Sai at least wouldn't repeat the words to anyone, but he wasn't likely to understand this. No one would.
She scrunched the paper in her grip before remembering her notes were on it. She quickly straightened the page and put it back in its place. She'd need to re-copy them, without a naked Itachi.
