A/N: Here I go again, drop-kicking canon: this time with pink hair! In Naruto canon, we never see people with pink hair. AFAIK, Sakura and her father are the only ones with explicitly pink pink hair. In this fic, much like the trademark Uzumaki Red, pink like Sakura and Kizashi's are trademark of a clan so small they aren't documented in history books. Sakura and Kizashi are going to be the only named members of this tiny clan.
Also, you might notice that quite a bit of this fic has been reused from the original. This chapter in particular felt like it flowed quite well, so I didn't see fit to change it much.
Something about Hayashi Shien was... peculiar, to say the least.
Fugaku had his suspicions of the candy-haired young lady, and it wasn't just because of how paranoid she looked when she thought no one was watching her. Every so often, her mask would crack, and she would look afraid - but of what, he wasn't quite sure. Most of the time, she had this sullen look about her, as if she were in a constant visceral pain that she could not bear to divulge.
He was somewhat intrigued. He knew he'd seen her face somewhere before, but he just couldn't recall where. Sometimes in the right lighting he could swear he was seeing Sasuke's deceased childhood friend, Sakura - but just as quickly as he'd swear it was her face, Shien's own would reappear and dismiss his speculations as guilt from his own hand in her death (he'd heard enough shouting from his son on the topic to have been convinced of his own part years ago). He had asked one of his chief recordkeepers for information about lady Hayashi's home, and still it lead him nowhere. No records of a birthplace, no birth parents on record, no original surname, only her adoptive mother - and the first-recorded instance of an official ID was when she was a young child. Peculiar indeed.
Her latest picture was that of six or seven years prior, and in the photo, her hair was that same baby pink, pulled back into a bun, but her doe eyes appeared turquoise. Most peculiar indeed. Her face was thin with an almost sickly-looking pallor about her, but her gaze seemed kind. Her nose was sharper than it appeared now; actually, her entire countenance seemed to be altered in small ways. Eyes. Nose. Lips. Her eyebrows were notably thicker than the way they looked now, but he excused it as a young girl growing up. A lot could change in several years; he knew it all too well with Sasuke's upbringing. His own son had gone through a drastic change once he started hitting puberty; his chubby cheeks had become more slim and angular, his eternal cowlick lessening as his hair grew, his voice dropping, his build becoming more muscled and toned.
He continued to look through the file, finding where it mentioned that she was to be married to a young soldier, but he was tragically killed in a clash with Riot only a month before the wedding. Suspiciously, the file ended there - no information more of the girl. It was as if she'd went into hiding... or perhaps she had died. When he asked of the whereabouts of her mother, the recordkeeper replied that her family was in good health, and that as far as he knew, the girl was alive and well - and hadn't she come to the castle in search of work before deciding on being a guest?
Still, something seemed off about her. Was it the way she moved about with the kind of demeanor of someone who'd stared Death in its face? Or the way she seemed to gaze at his son with a kind of sorrow when he was turned away, like she'd done something unspeakable to upset him and didn't dare let him find out?
Once or twice, he'd activated his eyes and watched her, but either she carried the Sharingan herself (unlikely, given her chakra signature) or she was a master of deflecting its effects - or perhaps she really did just hold an uncanny resemblance to Sasuke's deceased friend. He could find nothing on her, and after two times he didn't bother to look again. After all, it was quite foolish to continue to search for something he didn't know he was looking for.
Still puzzled, he decided to speak to his son about it. He'd noticed that she spent most of her time with him nowadays, and he didn't even want to think about what kind of trick Naruto must have been cooking up that morning (the boy had been giggling madly to himself at breakfast, a sure sign of shenanigans to come). For the sake of the laundry maids, he wanted to avoid that fiasco when it inevitably happened. Shenanigans indeed.
He walked through the halls of the castle until he found Sasuke standing at one of the floor-length windows overlooking the forest with a troubled face, as always. Few could read into Sasuke's true emotions much like his own family could; his stance appeared cool enough, but his eyes were endless black storm clouds, bubbling over with a sullen rain as they stared at the green treetops in the valley below.
He used to crave Fugaku's attention like one's favorite dessert when he was a sweet, adorable child... but ever since he turned fourteen, they'd been growing apart. He'd long excused it as that omnipresent sense of teenage rebellion, but the boy was almost nineteen and only sought solace in either Naruto or his mother. Perhaps he thought that his father was a cowardly sockpuppet too, a snide voice in Fugaku's mind whispered to him. No doubt Itachi felt the same of you. Why else would he have double-crossed you in that way?
"He has been far too stressed," the king sighed to himself. "Maybe I am wrong to push him so harshly."
"Sasuke," he greeted as he stood beside him.
"Father," Sasuke replied, glancing up at him. "What brings you here?"
"Something that has been troubling me for quite some time now," Fugaku said before turning fully to face his son. "What do you know of the young lady, Hayashi?"
Sasuke startled for a moment before looking away, a deeper frown on his face.
"I..." He hesitated. "I know only of what she has told Naruto. She told me what was necessary to know."
"So she does not trust even you?" Fugaku asked, eyebrows raised.
"It's a sensitive topic," the boy explained with a light sigh. "She has not felt it appropriate to tell me yet, as it seems. I don't blame her for not divulging the larger part of it."
"I see." The brunet nodded. "Would you mind telling me a little of what you've learnt?"
"Why don't you bring it up with her?" The teenager retorted. "What if she doesn't want just anyone knowing her past?"
"Sasuke." Fugaku snapped before he could help himself.
His son stared at him defiantly, a challenge in his eyes.
He sighed heavily, rubbing his temples. "Please."
"I'll only tell you that she's an orphan and that she's adopted by Hayashi Chiasa," Sasuke hissed, folding his arms across his chest. "She's had a rough time of it. Is that it?"
"I already knew that part of it, son," the king answered tiredly.
"Well I'm not going to say any more." Sasuke squinted at him. "Ask her yourself if you want to know so badly. I'm not her keeper."
He turned on his heel, not even giving his father a second glance. "I need to bathe. Please excuse me."
The king watched him go, frowning. Sasuke was much more temperamental these days. He'd thought it would die down as he grew out of his teenage years, but...
He finally sighed, turning to leave. "Perhaps I should give him a weekend at that hot-spring town..."
A/N: Please tell me what you thought!
