Author's regards:
To: lil_charat624 ~ I'm glad you love my story and arigato for saying that it's so good. I'll post more as soon as I can.
To: vivian ~ Arigato for the compliment. I'll keep updating, don't worry.
To: Cookie6 ~ Yeah, I know, Sasuke's so cute in my last chapter, but the thing is, I find him too soft!
To: Shy-Lil-Dreamer ~ Arigato for the compliment. Hehehe, it's amazing that I never get tired of hearing people say that Chii is so cute! SasuSaku's not just nice, they're practically fantabulous!
To: Love From Vikky ~ Yup, you're one of my most dutiful reviewers and I'm really grateful for that. Yeah, 'Itachi' loves Chii-chan in a brotherly- sisterly way, not in the 'other' way. What does pedophile mean? I'm too lazy to look the word up in the dictionary- Yeah, Chii's even smarter than Sasuke! Hehehe, I guess it's because you just love to, that's all.
To: Osveanne ~ I'll write more, don't worry and if you terajang me at school if I don't write more, then how am I supposed to write more?! Pakai logic sikitlah! Thanks for saying good luck to me. I'm not a pro lo!
To: Chelsey-chan ~ Thanks for the compliment.
Discalimer: I don't own Naruto. Naruto belongs to the great Kishimoto Masashi-sensei, so please don't sue me because I'm practically broke! T_T
Author's note: Some of the '-'s stands for '. . .'
A Chance to Forgive
Chapter 5
Four days had passed since then and if there was one thing which Sasuke had learnt during that short period of time and yet was completely sure of, it was the fact that he really enjoyed having Chii with him.
Right now, he was pushing the swing of the hospital's playground on which she was on gently, so that she wouldn't accidentally fly off or something.
This was what they'd done every afternoon and although it was the same thing everyday, Sasuke actually didn't mind doing it as long as Chii wanted to do it.
He looked down at the top of her black head, listening to her humming a soft catchy tune, thinking for about probably the thousandth time since four days ago, 'She's such a weird kid.'
Suddenly, she tilted her head upwards to look at him. "Is there something wrong, Sasuke-niichan?" she asked with concern in her voice and eyes.
He was caught off-guard but he quickly replied, "Iie," while thinking at the same time, 'Her senses are quite sharp!'
That answer satisfied her, so she looked back down and continued to hum that tune of hers, not realizing that she had practically caught one of the most powerful ninjas off-guard a second ago.
"Chii-chan, can I ask you something?" Sasuke suddenly said, who was thinking at the same time, 'I wonder why the heck I keep asking her for permission before I ask her a question?!'
"Sure, Sasuke-niichan," she replied.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
"I wanna be like Sakura-neechan!" she simply replied, her onyx eyes shining brightly with determination.
"In what way?"
"I wanna become as strong as Sakura-neechan is," Chii said. "And I wanna have the same job she does!"
"What is her job, anyway, Chii-chan?" Sasuke continued to ask, as he still didn't understand what Sakura had told him before she'd left.
Chii looked up at Sasuke in confusion and surprise. "Sasuke- niichan doesn't know?"
"Aa."
"Well-," Chii began. "Sakura-neechan told Chii-chan that she is a Jounin who hunts down Missing-Nin."
"I know that," Sasuke said patiently. "But I don't really understand-"
"Sakura-neechan told Chii-chan that she is like a Hunter-Nin, but she doesn't destroy the Missing-Nin like the Hunter-Nins do," Chii continued on, interrupting Sasuke's sentence. "She takes them to Tsunade- sama after she makes them become good."
"After she makes them good?" Sasuke said in a tone that clearly showed that he didn't quite get it.
"Sakura-neechan says that she talks with the Missing-Nins she catches and makes them change their bad ways into good ways," Chii explained. "That way, they have a second chance in life and are left to live with Tsunade-sama's permission."
"Oh-," was all Sasuke said in reply as he finally understood what Sakura was talking about. At the same time, he was thinking, 'I wonder when such a job was made?'
"Ne, Sasuke-niichan," Chii suddenly said, breaking his thoughts.
"Hai, Chii-chan?"
"Can Chii-chan ask Sasuke-niichan a question too?"
"Aa."
"Does Sasuke-niichan love Sakura-neechan?"
His heart skipped a beat and his mind had suddenly stopped thinking that he accidentally pushed the swing so hard that it sent Chii flying into the air.
Luckily, he was quick enough to react and was just in time to catch her before she fell to the ground by transporting himself there with a jutsu.
"That was fun, can we do it again?!" Chii asked, her face pink with excitement and hope.
A huge animated sweatdrop appeared at the back of Sasuke's head as he said, "Um, actually, I wasn't planning on doing that in the first place, Chii-chan."
"But even so, can we do it again?!" Chii said persistently.
"No," Sasuke said firmly. "Sakura will skin my neck if she knew I'd hurt you."
"Oh, ok-," Chii said in defeat as her excited and hopeful face fell into one of total disappointment as he set her back on the swing. "But Sasuke-niichan needs to answer Chii-chan's question since Sasuke-niichan doesn't allow Chii-chan to do that."
A huge animated tick at the back of his head this time as Sasuke thought, 'Why'd she have to be such a smart aleck?!'
Eventually, he did answer her question after he saw her hopeful face which he just simply couldn't resist.
"Well-," he began hesitantly, "I guess I do love her-but only as a friend, though," he quickly added in an almost panicked tone.
"Oh-," Chii said in reply, her tone much more disappointed than it was earlier.
"Why do you ask, Chii-chan?" Sasuke asked out of curiosity. 'Did Sakura ask her to ask me?' he wondered as his heart suddenly pounded a lot faster than average.
"Because Sakura-neechan told Chii-chan that she still loves Sasuke-niichan."
Fortunately this time, Sasuke didn't accidentally push the swing hard again.
The last sentence of Chii's made him wonder so much that he couldn't sleep and was still awake in the middle of that night as he laid in his hospital bed with her clutching his shirt as she slept beside him, though.
'For Heaven's sake!' he thought in frustration. 'Why am I even wondering why she loves me?!'
'Because you want to know,' his sub-conscious told him. 'Since you don't feel like you deserve her.'
He couldn't deny that inner voice at the back of his mind and that left him to continue wondering as memories which he'd shared together with her in the past flashed in his mind all at once.
'All those times I ignored her-,' he thought. 'And yet she still kept coming back. I barely acknowledge her presence, and yet she'd grace me with that smile of hers.' (An image of Sakura smiling popped into his head at this moment)
'Even though she's the cleverest girl I've ever met, she still says the silliest things sometimes,' he thought, but a small smile suddenly touched his lips. 'But-I've got to admit-those silly words of hers- can actually soothe me-'
His face suddenly flushed as he yelled silently at himself in embarrassment, 'What the heck I'm doing?! I can't believe I thought of Sakura in 'that' way!'
He was about to continue on lecturing himself when he suddenly heard the door of his hospital room being opened slowly, almost silently. Thinking that it was the nurse who would check in on him every night to check that he was alright, he quickly closed his eyes and pretended to go to sleep, not realizing that it wasn't the nurse at all.
Sakura opened the door to Sasuke's hospital room as silently as she could before she stepped inside with light, seemingly silent footsteps.
The first thing she noticed were the two people sleeping peacefully on the hospital bed.
'Aww, they're so cute!' she thought as she looked down at the both of them. Sasuke was sleeping on the right side of the bed and Chii was on the left, but she had invaded a bit of Sasuke's territory as she clutched Sasuke's shirt tightly with her small fists and had her head against Sasuke's chest. 'I wish I had a camera with me!'
She was about to take the blanket off them so that she could cover the both of them equally, but she stopped when she heard Sasuke suddenly say, "No need for that Sakura."
"Ah!" she gasped quietly in shock as she was caught off-guard. "I'm sorry, Sasuke-kun, I didn't realize that you were awake!"
"Never mind," he said as he sat up and got off the bed. "I was pretending to be asleep anyway."
He pulled the blanket gently but quickly from under Chii and covered her with it before he turned over to look at Sakura, asking her, "So, how'd your mission go?"
Sakura sighed as she sat gently on the end of the bed. "The Missing-Nin was a bit hard to defeat and convince, but I eventually managed to."
"Since when has this type of job been assigned?" he asked her as he leaned against the wall beside the bed, his onyx eyes looking at her directly.
'Is it me, or is he acting kind of differently today?' Sakura wondered as she replied, "Well, it started just over a year ago-"
"Oh-," was all he said as a reply.
They were silent for a few moments as Sakura continued to wonder what was wrong with Sasuke while Sasuke was battling with his inner self whether he should tell her what he wanted to or not.
Eventually, after a long period of silence, Sasuke said in a voice that almost didn't sound like his, "Ne, Sakura-,"
"Hai, Sasuke-kun?" she replied, looking at him with clueless eyes.
"I've decided-," Sasuke began when suddenly, the door opened and a nurse entered the room.
"Ohayou, you two!" she said brightly, a broad smile on her cheerful face. "Today's the day Uchiha-san here gets to go out of the hospital, so you two had better start packing! That is all!"
With that, she left the room and the two off them staring at her with huge sweat drops at the back of their heads.
"She should learn how to knock," Sasuke muttered under his breath.
"You're not kidding," Sakura said in agreement. "So what were you going to say?" she asked, looking at him directly in the eye.
"Well-," he began again, but was again interrupted as Chii suddenly sat up and yawned widely.
She rubbed her eyes, saying, "Ohayou, Sasuke-niichan- Sasuke- niichan?"
"Ohayou, Chii-chan," she heard two voices, one male and one female say to her at the same time.
She lowered her hands and saw Sakura's smiling face and immediately hugged her tightly around the waist. "Sakura-neechan! You're back!" she exclaimed joyfully. "I missed you!"
"I missed you too, Chii-chan," Sakura said in amusement as she ruffled the little girl's hair. She looked over at Sasuke and mouthed the words to him, 'Tell me later.'
She saw him nodded in understanding before she pulled Chii away from her and said, "Guess where the three of us are going today?"
"Where?" Chii asked excitedly.
Sakura looked over to Sasuke, who just shrugged, signaling that he couldn't guess where.
"We're going to a carnival!"
"Carnival??" both Sasuke and Chii said at the same time.
Sakura nodded joyfully. "Yep! So we had better get our butts moving, or else we won't get to go there!"
With that, she got off the bed and began to make it up after plopping Chii onto the floor, leaving Sasuke and Chii completely clueless.
Author's words: As usual, I hope this chapter's okay and I'm really thankful that you wanna read this fanfic of mine. Don't forget to send me a review if you like it or even hate it! Ja ne.
To: lil_charat624 ~ I'm glad you love my story and arigato for saying that it's so good. I'll post more as soon as I can.
To: vivian ~ Arigato for the compliment. I'll keep updating, don't worry.
To: Cookie6 ~ Yeah, I know, Sasuke's so cute in my last chapter, but the thing is, I find him too soft!
To: Shy-Lil-Dreamer ~ Arigato for the compliment. Hehehe, it's amazing that I never get tired of hearing people say that Chii is so cute! SasuSaku's not just nice, they're practically fantabulous!
To: Love From Vikky ~ Yup, you're one of my most dutiful reviewers and I'm really grateful for that. Yeah, 'Itachi' loves Chii-chan in a brotherly- sisterly way, not in the 'other' way. What does pedophile mean? I'm too lazy to look the word up in the dictionary- Yeah, Chii's even smarter than Sasuke! Hehehe, I guess it's because you just love to, that's all.
To: Osveanne ~ I'll write more, don't worry and if you terajang me at school if I don't write more, then how am I supposed to write more?! Pakai logic sikitlah! Thanks for saying good luck to me. I'm not a pro lo!
To: Chelsey-chan ~ Thanks for the compliment.
Discalimer: I don't own Naruto. Naruto belongs to the great Kishimoto Masashi-sensei, so please don't sue me because I'm practically broke! T_T
Author's note: Some of the '-'s stands for '. . .'
A Chance to Forgive
Chapter 5
Four days had passed since then and if there was one thing which Sasuke had learnt during that short period of time and yet was completely sure of, it was the fact that he really enjoyed having Chii with him.
Right now, he was pushing the swing of the hospital's playground on which she was on gently, so that she wouldn't accidentally fly off or something.
This was what they'd done every afternoon and although it was the same thing everyday, Sasuke actually didn't mind doing it as long as Chii wanted to do it.
He looked down at the top of her black head, listening to her humming a soft catchy tune, thinking for about probably the thousandth time since four days ago, 'She's such a weird kid.'
Suddenly, she tilted her head upwards to look at him. "Is there something wrong, Sasuke-niichan?" she asked with concern in her voice and eyes.
He was caught off-guard but he quickly replied, "Iie," while thinking at the same time, 'Her senses are quite sharp!'
That answer satisfied her, so she looked back down and continued to hum that tune of hers, not realizing that she had practically caught one of the most powerful ninjas off-guard a second ago.
"Chii-chan, can I ask you something?" Sasuke suddenly said, who was thinking at the same time, 'I wonder why the heck I keep asking her for permission before I ask her a question?!'
"Sure, Sasuke-niichan," she replied.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
"I wanna be like Sakura-neechan!" she simply replied, her onyx eyes shining brightly with determination.
"In what way?"
"I wanna become as strong as Sakura-neechan is," Chii said. "And I wanna have the same job she does!"
"What is her job, anyway, Chii-chan?" Sasuke continued to ask, as he still didn't understand what Sakura had told him before she'd left.
Chii looked up at Sasuke in confusion and surprise. "Sasuke- niichan doesn't know?"
"Aa."
"Well-," Chii began. "Sakura-neechan told Chii-chan that she is a Jounin who hunts down Missing-Nin."
"I know that," Sasuke said patiently. "But I don't really understand-"
"Sakura-neechan told Chii-chan that she is like a Hunter-Nin, but she doesn't destroy the Missing-Nin like the Hunter-Nins do," Chii continued on, interrupting Sasuke's sentence. "She takes them to Tsunade- sama after she makes them become good."
"After she makes them good?" Sasuke said in a tone that clearly showed that he didn't quite get it.
"Sakura-neechan says that she talks with the Missing-Nins she catches and makes them change their bad ways into good ways," Chii explained. "That way, they have a second chance in life and are left to live with Tsunade-sama's permission."
"Oh-," was all Sasuke said in reply as he finally understood what Sakura was talking about. At the same time, he was thinking, 'I wonder when such a job was made?'
"Ne, Sasuke-niichan," Chii suddenly said, breaking his thoughts.
"Hai, Chii-chan?"
"Can Chii-chan ask Sasuke-niichan a question too?"
"Aa."
"Does Sasuke-niichan love Sakura-neechan?"
His heart skipped a beat and his mind had suddenly stopped thinking that he accidentally pushed the swing so hard that it sent Chii flying into the air.
Luckily, he was quick enough to react and was just in time to catch her before she fell to the ground by transporting himself there with a jutsu.
"That was fun, can we do it again?!" Chii asked, her face pink with excitement and hope.
A huge animated sweatdrop appeared at the back of Sasuke's head as he said, "Um, actually, I wasn't planning on doing that in the first place, Chii-chan."
"But even so, can we do it again?!" Chii said persistently.
"No," Sasuke said firmly. "Sakura will skin my neck if she knew I'd hurt you."
"Oh, ok-," Chii said in defeat as her excited and hopeful face fell into one of total disappointment as he set her back on the swing. "But Sasuke-niichan needs to answer Chii-chan's question since Sasuke-niichan doesn't allow Chii-chan to do that."
A huge animated tick at the back of his head this time as Sasuke thought, 'Why'd she have to be such a smart aleck?!'
Eventually, he did answer her question after he saw her hopeful face which he just simply couldn't resist.
"Well-," he began hesitantly, "I guess I do love her-but only as a friend, though," he quickly added in an almost panicked tone.
"Oh-," Chii said in reply, her tone much more disappointed than it was earlier.
"Why do you ask, Chii-chan?" Sasuke asked out of curiosity. 'Did Sakura ask her to ask me?' he wondered as his heart suddenly pounded a lot faster than average.
"Because Sakura-neechan told Chii-chan that she still loves Sasuke-niichan."
Fortunately this time, Sasuke didn't accidentally push the swing hard again.
The last sentence of Chii's made him wonder so much that he couldn't sleep and was still awake in the middle of that night as he laid in his hospital bed with her clutching his shirt as she slept beside him, though.
'For Heaven's sake!' he thought in frustration. 'Why am I even wondering why she loves me?!'
'Because you want to know,' his sub-conscious told him. 'Since you don't feel like you deserve her.'
He couldn't deny that inner voice at the back of his mind and that left him to continue wondering as memories which he'd shared together with her in the past flashed in his mind all at once.
'All those times I ignored her-,' he thought. 'And yet she still kept coming back. I barely acknowledge her presence, and yet she'd grace me with that smile of hers.' (An image of Sakura smiling popped into his head at this moment)
'Even though she's the cleverest girl I've ever met, she still says the silliest things sometimes,' he thought, but a small smile suddenly touched his lips. 'But-I've got to admit-those silly words of hers- can actually soothe me-'
His face suddenly flushed as he yelled silently at himself in embarrassment, 'What the heck I'm doing?! I can't believe I thought of Sakura in 'that' way!'
He was about to continue on lecturing himself when he suddenly heard the door of his hospital room being opened slowly, almost silently. Thinking that it was the nurse who would check in on him every night to check that he was alright, he quickly closed his eyes and pretended to go to sleep, not realizing that it wasn't the nurse at all.
Sakura opened the door to Sasuke's hospital room as silently as she could before she stepped inside with light, seemingly silent footsteps.
The first thing she noticed were the two people sleeping peacefully on the hospital bed.
'Aww, they're so cute!' she thought as she looked down at the both of them. Sasuke was sleeping on the right side of the bed and Chii was on the left, but she had invaded a bit of Sasuke's territory as she clutched Sasuke's shirt tightly with her small fists and had her head against Sasuke's chest. 'I wish I had a camera with me!'
She was about to take the blanket off them so that she could cover the both of them equally, but she stopped when she heard Sasuke suddenly say, "No need for that Sakura."
"Ah!" she gasped quietly in shock as she was caught off-guard. "I'm sorry, Sasuke-kun, I didn't realize that you were awake!"
"Never mind," he said as he sat up and got off the bed. "I was pretending to be asleep anyway."
He pulled the blanket gently but quickly from under Chii and covered her with it before he turned over to look at Sakura, asking her, "So, how'd your mission go?"
Sakura sighed as she sat gently on the end of the bed. "The Missing-Nin was a bit hard to defeat and convince, but I eventually managed to."
"Since when has this type of job been assigned?" he asked her as he leaned against the wall beside the bed, his onyx eyes looking at her directly.
'Is it me, or is he acting kind of differently today?' Sakura wondered as she replied, "Well, it started just over a year ago-"
"Oh-," was all he said as a reply.
They were silent for a few moments as Sakura continued to wonder what was wrong with Sasuke while Sasuke was battling with his inner self whether he should tell her what he wanted to or not.
Eventually, after a long period of silence, Sasuke said in a voice that almost didn't sound like his, "Ne, Sakura-,"
"Hai, Sasuke-kun?" she replied, looking at him with clueless eyes.
"I've decided-," Sasuke began when suddenly, the door opened and a nurse entered the room.
"Ohayou, you two!" she said brightly, a broad smile on her cheerful face. "Today's the day Uchiha-san here gets to go out of the hospital, so you two had better start packing! That is all!"
With that, she left the room and the two off them staring at her with huge sweat drops at the back of their heads.
"She should learn how to knock," Sasuke muttered under his breath.
"You're not kidding," Sakura said in agreement. "So what were you going to say?" she asked, looking at him directly in the eye.
"Well-," he began again, but was again interrupted as Chii suddenly sat up and yawned widely.
She rubbed her eyes, saying, "Ohayou, Sasuke-niichan- Sasuke- niichan?"
"Ohayou, Chii-chan," she heard two voices, one male and one female say to her at the same time.
She lowered her hands and saw Sakura's smiling face and immediately hugged her tightly around the waist. "Sakura-neechan! You're back!" she exclaimed joyfully. "I missed you!"
"I missed you too, Chii-chan," Sakura said in amusement as she ruffled the little girl's hair. She looked over at Sasuke and mouthed the words to him, 'Tell me later.'
She saw him nodded in understanding before she pulled Chii away from her and said, "Guess where the three of us are going today?"
"Where?" Chii asked excitedly.
Sakura looked over to Sasuke, who just shrugged, signaling that he couldn't guess where.
"We're going to a carnival!"
"Carnival??" both Sasuke and Chii said at the same time.
Sakura nodded joyfully. "Yep! So we had better get our butts moving, or else we won't get to go there!"
With that, she got off the bed and began to make it up after plopping Chii onto the floor, leaving Sasuke and Chii completely clueless.
Author's words: As usual, I hope this chapter's okay and I'm really thankful that you wanna read this fanfic of mine. Don't forget to send me a review if you like it or even hate it! Ja ne.