Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto in any way, shape, or form.
Wow...
Amazing...
I wrote a Naruto story that isn't AU...
Okay, it is slightly AU...
---
Onyx eyes watched as a young woman dressed in a black and white kimono bowed to the large grave. She then placed a bouquet of white daisies on the first level and turned to leave.
---Evening---
Watching the star-dotted sky from a tree branch, he sighed and stood up. Looking at the open window near the tree trunk at the same height he was at, he smirked and reached out a hand and grasped the closed curtain.
He stepped inside and saw the same woman that had been at the graveyard earlier sitting on her legs at a traditional Japanese table that was low to the floor. The scent of chamomile tea reached his nose.
"Well?" He asked the kimono-clad girl.
"What." Her answer was more a statement that a question.
"What, no greeting? You really know how to treat a guy, Sakura." He chuckled slightly. "Especially the one who you said you loved."
"Note the word loved." She replied, tone mimicking ice.
"So you don't love me anymore?"
"Of course. Now what do you want?" She asked coldly.
"Can't a guy visit his former teammate with no strings attached?"
"Leave. I am in no mood to scrub blood off my walls tonight. Besides, I just had them re-painted."
"Nah. It's rather comfy here." He shook his head.
In a moment, she was in front of him, a steaming porcelain cup of tea mere millimeters from his nose. "Tea?" She offered.
His smirk widened. "Tea from the master tea-brewer? Tempting, but no thank you." 'Of course not. You most likely poisoned it.'
"Are you sure? I just made it."
"I'm sure." She stepped back and took a sip of the steaming liquid. "See? No poison."
"Never eat or drink anything offered by an enemy, Sakura, unless they take a bite or sip first." His eyes narrowed a bit. "But of course, never take up the offer even if they do taste it first, if it's from a medic nin that can pass poison through their body without an after-effect from the poison."
"Smart as ever, eh?" She smiled lightly and then splashed the scalding liquid onto his face. While he wiped it from his eyes, she pulled a kunai from the checkered obi wrapped around her waist. She flung it at him. He caught it.
"Sakura, Sakura, Sakura. I can't be fooled by something like that, you know," He scolded.
"I know." She put a hand behind her back and pulled on the invisible string hanging from the ceiling. Multiple kunai and shuriken embedded themselves into the floor where her opponent had just been.
"You missed." A voice whispered into her ear, tickling it.
"I can see that."
"So, Sakura." He pinned her to the wall, her back against the cold plaster. "Why is it that you visit my grave every year, even though I'm clearly alive?"
"That's simple. Because everyone else believes you're dead, because of the grand funeral Tsunade-shisou ordered for you, because she thought you had died honorably, and you were my teammate, were you not?" As she spoke, her hand crept to his back. "I'm surprised you still wear your clan symbol on your back."
"What do you expect?"
"This." She tore out the emblem, leaving only bits of it on his shirt. "You shouldn't be allowed to wear it, since you betrayed our village."
"Blood is blood, Sakura." Those were his final words before their faces got closer, inch by inch.
And guess what?
This happened every year on July 23rd.
---
Can you guess who the mystery man is?
...Yeah.
It's Sasuke.
The way that it's slightly AU is the fact that Sasuke staged his death and left a dead clone before going to Orochimaru, and Sakura saw the entire thing, instead of that "Thank you" scene in the anime.
Do you follow?
Good.
Please review!
