KiariSohma: Thank you, and sorry you had to wait! :)

HushDon'tLetThemHearYou: I can understand why you wouldn't like it, so I'm so happy that you do! I also really like Itachi, and I'm happy to see you like Haruka. And, once again, sorry you had to wait. ^^

Cat Beats: I'd like to say you didn't, but you did, and you scared me. -_- Oooooohh, you really make me want to say something I'll show later, but that would be a spoiler, so all I can say is that I agree that that is interesting. And, I've been trying to practice writing someone's will breaking, so I'm glad you said it turned out good (hopefully I can keep it going)! Thank you, as always, for your comment! (I also had to look up what Tschüss meant on google ^/^)

OJ: Was she? Who knows... I do, I know, but I can't say. SPOILERS! You'll have to find out ;) Thanks, I was going for cute! And thank you for reading and commenting!

S.A: Haha! It's so fun seeing predictions! I didn't think you guys would put so much thought into it, and that just makes me so happy! And I do hope you ship it, because a lot of the story is focused on them... I mean... That's the whole point of the story. Thank for reading, here's your chapter, and I hope you read this one too! XD

"Achoo!" Haru sneezed while she put her shoes in the small locker, and Sasuke looked over to her.

She didn't look sick, so there was nothing to worry about. But, he asked anyways. "Did you get Nii-san's cold?"

To his surprise, she didn't flinch at the mention of him. "No, I'm fine. It could just be the dust."

He would be more concerned about his sister if he didn't already know that she did rarely ever get sick. They once had to spend a summer at their grandmothers, and Shisui had the chickenpox. Sasuke and Itachi ended up getting sick afterwards, but Haru was perfectly fine like if nothing had happened.

Though, he was surprised how healthy she looked; not physically, mentally. He didn't know what happened yesterday when she visited Itachi, but she ended up leaving the room before her "five minutes" were up. Not only that, but she dashed off into her room. However, she looked fine this morning, and didn't look to be in a particular rush to leave the house. That could have something to do with the fact that Itachi was told to sleep in for a while.

Either way, he expected her more sulky and down, and the fact that she isn't… actually concerned him more.

They started heading off to their class together-she made for a good woman repellent-but they only got around the corner before a certain blonde blocked their way. Said blonde grinned widely atq them both-making Sasuke feel a little irritated.

"Heya! I'm glad I saw you guys here, I wanted to ask if you both were free next weekend?" Ino was never really one to beat around the bush.

Sasuke just kept staring at her with a deadpan look, but Haru actually looked at her curiously. "Why?"

"Well remember how we went to the mall to buy swimsuits? Well, I asked Sai when he was free, and he said next weekend. So, I invited him to the indoor pool, and I told him I'd take some friends. So, you guys wanna come?" Sasuke fazed in and out of what she was talking about, and all he got was that she was inviting them to a pool.

Sasuke wasn't one to really like these kinds of things-neither was Haru-but she kept being very emotional lately so he figured going out would help her. So-like with the mall invitation-Sasuke was ready to answer for Haru and say she was going.

Only Haru beat him to it. "Sure, what time?" She said with a casual smile.

This took Sasuke off guard. He knew Haru had been upset with Sasuke for telling her to go to the mall because she didn't even want to go to the pool. Now, she says yes like if she suddenly thinks it's a good idea. 'What the hell changed?'

As Ino told Haru the details, Sasuke just looked down at her with a slightly surprised look. Eventually she looked back up at him. "Oh, did you not want to go?"

Shaking off his surprise, Sasuke knew he had to go. Not only would that make Haru more motivated to go-though now he didn't know if she needed the motivation-and he also wanted to keep an eye on her to see how she'll be.

"No, I'll go."

Not only that, but the more he thought about what this was the more he realized something. There's a pool, and Haru will be wearing a bathing suit. Since it's a pool, there will be other people. Other people means other boys. And that meant nothing good.

Sasuke was aware Haru could take care of herself, but she tended to also be oblivious.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Haru sighed as she walked back over to sidelines after she was done with her match. She took her usual seat between Sasuke and Naruto, and Sasuke looked back over to her sparring partner. Choji was a typically good fighter, but she left him on his back panting for air, and the match was only a minute. What was worse was that Haru looked perfectly fine. 'Strong as ever I guess.'

Kakashi didn't rush Choji off the mat, and it wasn't because he was in another mood-because he surprisingly wasn't-it's because he said it was the last match.

"Well Haru, you're as frightening as ever, good for you. That's it for today; everyone go and get changed." Kakashi said a little rushed. No one even had the chance to give him farewell because he was off quickly towards the exit.

As Sasuke wondered what was going through their teachers head, he looked down at his sister. She looked confused, but it wasn't by their teacher's sudden disappearance. "'Frightening?'" She mumbled to herself as everyone began to get up to their feet.

He gave a quick nod to Haru as he followed Naruto to the boy's locker rooms-to which the knuckle head was going on about the pool trip Ino also invited him to. He only half listened as he opened his locker, and all his attention left once he saw his phone was flashing that he had an unread message.

Once he pulled it out he saw it was a message from Itachi, so he quickly opened to phone. The first message was a link to an local newspaper article about there being shady people in the area recently, and the next message was a text that read: "Oto-san and Oka-san are busy, but they wanted me to pick you two up when they saw this. I'll be waiting in the parking lot."

Sasuke's first thought was Haru. His second thought was; 'Isn't he sick?'

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Haruka always felt sticky after changing, and all she wanted as to go home and take a refreshing shower. So, she was a little impatient while waiting for her younger brother to hurry up so they could walk home together.

As she waited she just thought of this morning, and how all she wanted to do was just focus herself out of all this mess she'd been getting into lately. After she freaked herself out yesterday with how emotional she got-and after mentally scolding herself for hours-she just woke up tired. Just mentally tired from it. At this point she was looking for distractions.

Taking more notes, asking more questions, talking more with friends, asking teachers if they needed help, and even trying a little harder at in her fights. She even agreed to Ino's thing just because she wanted a moment to just have her thoughts on something else. She just didn't want to think about what happened, so she hasn't given herself the opportunity to think… Up until now. Already just thinking about not wanting to think about it has made her suddenly tired.

'I liked it better when I wasn't thinking…' Then she looked up and noticed Sasuke walking towards her, so she perked up. "You took longer than usual." She commented as he made it to her side.

"I got a text in there." Was all he said.

Haruka was ready to start walking, but Sasuke looked a little glued in place. So, now seeing there was something going on she faced him. "What was it about?" He didn't look at her, but she could tell he was thinking something over in his head. 'Is it really that bad?' Feeling a plummet in her stomach when she realized not what, but who it might be about, Haruka quickly grabbed Sasuke's phone from his pocket-earning a loud 'What the hell!' She already knew his password, so once she punched it in she was immediately shown his messages.

. . .Once she was done reading the short conversation from just a few minutes ago, she didn't know what to do… After a long moment of silence, she quickly handed back the phone to its owner. She put on her best poker face as she began to walk towards the exit. "Well, come on, I want to get home already."

She really was just tired of all the anxiety and worrying. All she wanted was to just ignore it, even if she could hear her heart pounding away in her head, she just wanted to ignore it and get this over with.

However, she couldn't the first thought that came to mind when she read the message. 'Isn't he sick?'

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Haru didn't have to tell him to sit in the front, he just quickly walked over to the passenger seat and sit down next to his brother. When he looked over to his brother he was greeted with the all to familiar smile, and he noticed that he looked better than yesterday.

'He may get sick like a normal person, but his recovery speed is abnormal.' "Hi Nii-san." He was casual with his greeting, but he also looked at Haru through the corner of his eyes. She was sitting behind him-like always-and was just looking out the window. If he didn't know her so well, he wouldn't have noticed her eyes flickering from the window to Itachi's face.

Said person just continued to smile as he began to pull out of the parking lot. "Hi Sasuke." It was a quick moment of half comfortable and half awkward-thanks to Haru-silence. Then, he turned out of the parking lot with perfect ease. The streets were quiet as ever at this time-since most people left before clubs started.

They all knew the drive from the school to their house was only a few minutes, and the walk was only about twenty minutes-on a good day. So, the ride wouldn't be that long, but that's if you didn't have someone in the car going that was pretending they weren't there.

"I saw Kakashi walk out of the school. I wanted to say 'hi' but he was quick to getting in his car and driving off. Has he been like that lately?" Itachi was genuinely curious, which would be weird if Kakashi wasn't an old friend from high school.

Sasuke sighed at the question-his homeroom teacher had been a headache. "Today seems to be his pick me up day. Just yesterday he was on a streak of just being depressed and gloomy. It was more than a little annoying." 'If you're not going to teach properly than just stay home.'

Itachi quietly laughed at this, and he had a knowing look on his face. "Well I'm sure he has his reasons." He said this, but he clearly knew what the 'reasons' were.

Sasuke slightly narrowed his eyes at his brother-almost forgetting Haru was even in the car. "Nii-san, has Kakashi told you something?" He knew the two talked occasionally-especially since Itachi got back.

However, Itachi still just gave the knowing smile as he refused to meet Sasuke's eyes. "Nothing much."

"Uh huh." Was all Sasuke said as he leaned back in his seat. Right as he did so he felt his phone vibrate. He pulled it out and saw it was a text… from Haru. 'When did she text me?' He'd thought he was keeping a close enough eye on her, but he didn't notice her pull out her phone once.

He just opened the phone and looked at her message, and he almost felt a vein pop when he read it. "Ask him why he's driving when he should be in bed. It's hard to tell from back here, but does he look sick? Ask him if he feels sick."

As he was getting flashbacks from Haru's pestering yesterday, he just shoved his phone back in his pocket, and noticed he could see their house already. "Nii-san."

"What is it?" Itachi asked without looking at him.

"Aren't you still sick?" He asked very uninterested.

Itachi was silent for a moment. "I'm fine now, don't worry about it." Sasuke would have thought nothing of the answer-it was about what he expected-but he noticed two things. One was that Itachi's eyes quickly looked over at Haru-as she tried pressing herself against the door as much as possible-and that he had an almost amused smile when he said it.

Sasuke stared curiously between the two of them for a moment, before he looked out the window, and he noticed they were home.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

'And so X equals 4/6.' Haruka wrote it down quickly on her paper. With that she was done with her homework, so she sighed with satisfaction as she closed her text book. As she stretched her arms up she heard a knock on her door.

She got up from her chair-in no rush at all-and walked over to her door. Once she opened it, she only glanced at who it was and made her way over to sit on her bed. She already knew who it was, and she found it funny that he knocked on her door when she just barged into his room all the time.

Her bed lightly bounced as she all but fell on it and looked up at her brother. "What is it?" Usually he'd only come in here if there was something he needed to say-since his room was where they normally hung out.

Sasuke took a seat on her zabuton at her table, he faced her and leaned back on the table with an expression that didn't scream anything. "I just talked with Nii-san."

Haruka tried not to flinch to that, but she couldn't stop the inward shiver. Trying to just push it aside she looked Sasuke straight in the eyes. "And?" Her voice was-for the most part-even.

His gaze somewhat dropped; not in a way they would if he was hiding something, more so that he wasn't fully committed to the conversation. "Apparently there are some reports of shady people, and Oto-san and Oka-san did see them. Oto-san can't move around his schedule a lot right now." For a few months now, their father has been busy with "work", but they're not allowed to know about it. All "work" stuff is to be strictly hidden from everyone but their mother. That was only because she went with him a lot to "meetings." "But Oka-san said she can, so she'll be picking us up until winter break."

On one hand, Haruka was uninterested in this whole situation; and, on the other hand, she was relieved it was her mother picking them up now. Especially since, if she knew him at all, she was expecting that he'd insist he could do it. 'Though… Maybe he'd like it better this way too. He never liked the idea of Oka-san going with Oto-san to those things.' She remembered overhearing a fight between him and their father a few weeks before his leave to college.

Shaking off those memories, Haruka just focused on what was happening now. With the thought of her mother worrying over this, Haruka fell back and laid on her back as she stared up at the ceiling. "I don't see what she has to worry about, people are always saying they see 'shady' people this time of year."

"You know how Oka-san is."

"Yeah, I know." Their mother has always been kind and sweet, but she's as stubborn as everyone else in the family. Especially for the family.

Haruka rolled onto her side, and reached for one of her pillows. She held it close to her chest and just thought about how they'd have to hurry out of clubs quicker now that they had someone waiting on them.

"Haru, are you ok?"

It didn't take her off guard to hear that question, but it was odd to hear Sasuke phrase it like that-in an almost gentle sort of way that made her happy but also made her cringe. She thought the question over in her head. Of course not. Of course she wasn't ok. Nothing that has been going on lately was 'ok.' She's been going through constant emotional meltdowns, and she no longer feels in control. Everything that has happened has just felt like the universe was teasing her and purposely trying to make her lose her mind.

But, she knew that wasn't what he was asking. He knew her overall status was not ok, but he wanted to know how she was now. And how she was now is… "I'm just tired…"

Tired of worrying. Tired of anxiety. Tired of emotional meltdowns. And just tired of being pushed over the edge by every little thing. So, she just wanted a moment-just one moment-to forget everything and ignore all the little things. Little things like car rides and late night visits.

With that she heard Sasuke get up to his feet. "I'm going to bed. Goodnight." He said as he walked across her room.

"Goodnight." He left and closed the door to her room. She was left in her room to just stare off. She didn't think of anything, she just laid there feeling a little lost. Then, with a sigh, she just got up and stepped onto the floor. She walked over to her desk and put away her books and pencils.

Once she clicked off her lamp-sweeping the room in darkness-she heard another knock at her door. Without a thought, she went over to the door, expecting to see Sasuke. However, fate was always trying to make fun of her.

She opened the door, and of course it was him. She only looked at him long enough to see he had a patient look on his face, and then she quickly shut the door back up again.

For a moment she was paralyzed and stared wide eyed at the door. The thought hadn't occurred to her that he'd visit her right now, so there was nothing else she could think to do but be surprised. 'Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?' Was repeated over and over in her head.

Haruka didn't know how long she was standing there until she heard a sigh from the other side of the door, and she tried to ignore the strain when she heard it. Then, she began to hear footsteps walking away from her door.

...Without really knowing why, she drew in a breath as she cracked open her door just enough that she could look through it. Once she did the footsteps stopped, and after another moment they walked back over to her-she held herself back from anything.

She knew he was standing right in front of her, and she felt her heart thump loudly in her chest as she felt his eyes on her. Her eyes were pulled closely to the floor-she noticed his plane black slippers. Finally, he spoke. "I know you don't want to see me…"

There was a part of her that scoffed at what he said, because it was the understatement of the century. At this point she never wanted to see him for the rest of her life if it just gave her a peace of mind. After everything that has went on she just wished he'd disappear!... But… But the way he had to say that, made him feel so dejected, that she couldn't help but notice the other part of her that… did…

Either way, he went on. "I just wanted to make sure you were fine, since you slept by yourself." She wanted to be mad. More than anything she wanted to only be mad at him. But, he said it with so much concern that it not only reminded her of when she was a child, but it also made her face feel warmer. "You look alright, but I know how you are sometimes. Did you sleep well?"

...He let the question hang in the air, and he did that thing he used to do. He'd pressure her without pressuring her. With his eyes locked on her, she felt like he was drilling into her; and he would just patiently wait until she gave him something. Even before she was trying to hide her feelings, she hated it when he did this. It made her fidget and shift her weight from foot to foot. She knew either he'd wait there, she would answer, or she could just close her door again but not open it again…

She nodded wordlessly.

Even without looking at him, she could just hear in his voice that he was smiling. "That's good. I guess that means you won't need me then." He sounded so relieved in his tone-she was too-but the tone made her feel an uncontrollable plummet in her stomach.

'Why am I still standing here? Why did I even open the door? I should be in bed right now!' She questioned and screamed, but she couldn't find herself able to move.

… "Eep!" Haruka gave a small squeak and her hand quickly went up to her forehead, where the feeling of warmth spread from. She couldn't stop herself from looking up at him with surprised eyes, and she couldn't stop the heat from running across her face when she saw that gentle smile of his.

She caught the flicker of his eyes-what almost looked like shock-but whatever it was quickly disappeared and melted into his kind eyes. "Sleep tight, Haruka."

Caught in the craze that was her emotions, Haruka couldn't think of what else to do other than to quickly close her door. Lost in adrenaline, she dashed to her bed and buried herself into her sheets.

Her face flaring, and her heart beating so loud she could feel it in her head. Once she heard the footsteps in the hallway she let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding in. It almost sounded like a whimper as she buried her face in her pillow. Her hand reached up to slightly curl at her neck-where she felt there was a lump growing like a tumor.

Once she was calm enough, she tried to shove down the remainder of her adrenaline away. She promised herself she'd just try throwing all these feelings away. Even if not for forever, she wanted to just send them away for a moment-why is a single moment too much?! She didn't want to do this again tonight. That thing where she stayed up late wondering the 'whys' and the 'whats' until she felt her head ready to burst.

The problem, however, was the same as it's always been. Him. The problem has always been him; or, more specifically, what he did to her. He'd force her emotions into a state that would spiral until it pitfalled into worry and anxiety and self loathing! … 'But… But what if I just don't let it get to that…?' She quietly wondered.

This feeling he brought to her, was terrible in the way it brought in all the horrible other feelings. However, by itself it was… almost warm… There was a sickening to it, but if she just didn't focus to hard… If she just ignored all things that made it wrong… If she just, until she fell asleep, ignored all the reasons she shouldn't feel this way… It wasn't as bad.

Haruka was no longer physically tired, but she was emotionally drained into the red zone. She didn't want to worry over this, or cry over this all over again. And it only went to that if she thought too hard, so she didn't want to think.

For now, just now, can't she just ignore all the wrong things? When morning came she could worry as much as she wanted-or needed-but, with darkness consuming her small space, can't she just forget all the things that hurt?

As she felt herself fall to sleep, her hand lingered on her forehead-where it was still warm through the remembrance of his touch. Ignoring everything else, and not letting her emotions got to the typical pitfall; she just quietly-guiltily-enjoyed the warmth she felt.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Itachi looked down at his hand, and he kept replaying what happened over and over. He knew it was Haruka that was really asking if he was fine when they were in the car-he could tell by Sasuke's tone and because he asked right after his phone went off. Not to mention Haruka's visit yesterday. Even if she wouldn't say it, or show it, Itachi knew she checking on his health in her own ways. So, he wanted to return the favor.

It'd almost slipped his mind that she'd slept by herself two nights in a row, and he didn't remember until this morning when he woke up in his own-empty-bed. Like his mother said, Haruka had a habit of hiding things that hurt, so he wanted to make sure. Since she was little, it was simple enough to tell if she was lying, and she wasn't. It was more than a relief, it meant that she was better now. It was a little lonely now to sleep by himself, but what mattered was that she was ok.

As he rolled over to his side, however, he thought about her as she stood close to her door. There was something about the way she slowly opened her door wider and wider as they stood there-she didn't seem to notice that she was doing it-that made him feel happy. He was also more than a little happy when she opened her door at all after closing it on him. In a way, she was slowly becoming less and less hostile; and, in a way, he knew it was because something in her was slowly breaking. However, he couldn't help being a little selfishly happy that she was because now she'd actually open her door to him.

What he really thought about, was that look on her face when he flicked her forehead. It was a habit that he couldn't stop himself from doing, but seeing that it wasn't immediately followed by a punch made him happy. The look she gave him was similar-but not as exaggerated-as the look she gave him while they were in the car. Her face was red, her eyes were wide, and her hair was a mess all over again. And, all over again, he felt that unfamiliar tug in his chest. A thought came, and it confused him.

As he drifted to sleep-that expression playing on behind his lids-his confusion lingered. 'I've thought she was cute before, but why is this time different?'