Pieces
Loosely edited Alternate Universe prompts, featuring Sasuke and Sakura. Mostly dark.
Disclaimer: M for adult themes. Readers under 18 are not advised. This was an attempt at writing a suspense/thriller. This piece might make some individuals anxious. There is romance if you squint. Dark fic.
"Landlord" AU —
Originally drafted March 2021
Sakura lived in a two-flat apartment building. The only other tenant was her landlord, Sasuke.
He lived on the first floor and she lived on the second.
Sasuke was nice and responsive enough.
Her credit had been low for what was requested to rent out her unit, but he'd accepted her application anyway.
He wouldn't accept rent digitally. Sasuke wanted it from her in cash.
She knew this was sketchy, but she let it slide and gave him an envelope full of hundreds, once a month.
She didn't see him much, maybe once or twice every few weeks.
If she had a maintenance request, sometimes he would swing by and handle it himself. Like a lightbulb that was too high up on the vaulted ceiling for her to reach, or the screen of her porch door, falling out of place.
Other things, like the refrigerator breaking or plumbing issues, he scheduled someone to come out and address for her. Promptly.
She had lived in way worse buildings, with way worse landlords or property managers and she was happy with the arrangement.
Sasuke was pretty reasonable and she liked him. Once in a while he was moody, but she didn't find it too off putting.
Sakura selects her landlord's name in her phone, and presses the device to her ear as it rings. When he answers, she does not give him a chance to speak.
"Hi," she says, into the phone.
She hears him sigh, before he says, "The lightbulb?
"Yeah. It burnt out again," she says.
"Okay, I'll fix it."
Sakura lets him into her apartment later that afternoon. Her arms are crossed, as she questions him.
"Are you using old lightbulbs? Why are they shorting so fast?"
He glances up, into the light socket. The sharp edge of his jaw catches her attention, while he surveys the issue.
"The building's old," he says, simply.
Sakura clicks her tongue.
"What does that have to do with the lightbulb, though?"
He looks to her now. Unimpressed.
"Do you want me to change it or not?" he asks, annoyed.
Shifting from confrontational, to sheepish, Sakura says, "Sorry. Go ahead."
He doesn't need a ladder for it, he just reaches up and does it. Unscrewing the old one first, to get rid of it.
She watches from where she's leaned against the doorway of her kitchen for another minute, absently noting the muscles pull in his long arm while he handles it for her.
She turns around, at the sudden whistling of her tea kettle. She'd been in the middle of making tea, before he'd arrived. The burner needs to be turned off to quell the sound.
His eyes focus on her intently as her back is turned. But his gaze has gone back to the task he's completing, by the time she comes back and faces him again.
It had been kind of strange.
Sakura had gone on several dates with different prospects that she'd enjoyed, seeing some of the guys more than once.
Anytime she'd brought them over for the night however, none of them had called her back after leaving the next day.
She was admittedly self-conscious about this.
Was she bad in bed?
She didn't think she was. In fact, she was pretty sure she was above average, so she didn't understand why the men she'd been seeing, all ghosted her after having sex with her.
There had been one guy who had been adamant that they go back to his place. He'd called her back a bunch, but it had fizzled out naturally.
He was just okay.
After a while she'd given up on dating.
If she met Mr. Right, then she met Mr. Right!
I'm not going to force it, she thinks.
Sakura is out running an errand, when she runs into somebody.
It's one of the guys that has ghosted her.
"Hi," she says.
"Hi."
He looks extremely uncomfortable. Sakura shifts her weight from foot to foot, readjusting the reusable grocery bag on her shoulder while she talks to him.
Fuck it, she thinks.
"Why didn't you ever call me back?" she asks.
He looks frightened. With the way his eyes are swiveling around the grocery store, she deduces that he is attempting to escape this conversation.
Finally, he looks at her again.
"You—" he starts.
He shakes his head, vehemently.
"You didn't tell me you weren't single," he says.
Huh?
Her well shaped eyebrows crinkle in confusion, and she licks her lips apprehensively.
"I am though…" she responds, trailing off.
Giving her a forced smile, he says, "Right."
Then, he's turning away from her to leave.
"Well it was nice seeing you," he says.
He's gone.
Sakura is confused. Her interaction at the store has left a bad taste in her mouth.
She's sitting on her porch, in a deck chair. Having coffee. Aimlessly, she stares at Sasuke mowing the backyard lawn on the ground floor below.
It's hot out. He has removed his shirt, the garment tucked in the back pocket of his jeans. He turns the mower off.
Looking up at her, they hold eye contact.
She frowns down at him.
Neither of them wave.
Sakura gets up. Leaving her mug behind, she goes back inside.
He's still staring, unmoving, as she does.
Sakura thinks she is hearing strange noises in the middle of the night on some evenings.
They start after midnight and last for about thirty minutes before ceasing.
She thinks it might be a mouse in the wall, but she is thrown off by the fact that it occurs at the same time, on the same couple days of the week, every week, rather than at random.
She calls her landlord.
He doesn't answer.
A minute later, she jumps, at the knock on her front door.
She doesn't think it would be anyone else but Sasuke, so she opens it without looking through the eyehole or asking who it is.
"You don't check who's at the door before you open it?" he asks.
"I figured it was you," she shrugs.
He comes inside without being invited and looks at her expectantly.
She is unnerved by his behavior. He couldn't just answer the phone?
"I've been hearing some weird sounds late at night. I feel like maybe it's a mouse? In the walls? Or something?" she says.
He looks uninterested in her complaint.
"Could be," he says, arms crossed.
Sakura gives him a tight lipped smile and looks away from him, to point at where she thinks the sounds are coming from.
He looks her up and down a couple times while her gaze is elsewhere. Tracking the movements of her body. When she turns back in his direction, his eyes are focused on the area she'd been pointing at.
The power is out. Sakura texts this to her landlord.
It's out for the whole block, he responds.
She looks out her living room window. Sure enough, the entire block has gone dark. The street lamps included.
She furrows her eyebrows.
What the fuck? She had things to do!
Your unit has a generator, it's in the utility closet outside your door.
I don't know how to turn that on? she responds.
I'll come up, he says.
Sakura waits for about ten minutes, but Sasuke never knocks on her door.
She frowns and turns the flashlight brightness on her phone higher, then opens her front door and peeks out.
She doesn't need the light here, a backup floodlight has turned on in the stairwell, so it's dim lit.
Noticing the door to the utility closet slightly ajar, she steps forward, into the hall.
"Sasuke? Are you in there?" she calls out.
Her hand reaches for the door, but then she freezes; her heart beating wildly at the abrupt sound of his voice, coming from the foot of the stairs.
"I'm over here," he says.
She turns to look at him. He is standing in the only spot of the landing that is poorly lit. He had a good angle of her front door from where he was located though.
How long had he been standing there?
"You scared me!' she exclaims.
He shrugs.
"Sorry."
She sighs, frustrated.
"Did you turn on the generator?" she questions.
"It doesn't work I guess," he says.
Sakura grumbles, and turns her phone light off to preserve the battery.
"Shit," she says.
Her features are pinched. She looks agitated.
"The one for my unit works though. I have power," he says.
He is still standing in that dim lit spot while he talks to her. She backtracks on her bare feet, so she can see him better.
"Can I charge my phone and laptop in there?" she asks. "I have a presentation for work tomorrow. I really needed to finish it tonight. I am freaking out," she exclaims.
Staring at her for a beat, she notices the whites of his eyes standing out, in the dark.
"Sure."
Sakura has only been inside of Sasuke's apartment once. It was when she came by to hand over her renter's application.
The listing had made it seem like it could be signed digitally and submitted online, but when she'd pressed submit, the application kept timing out and returning an error.
"That's weird. You could just drop it off in person, if you want. I'll waive the application fee for the inconvenience," he had said.
His apartment is clean and modern. It's undoubtedly nicer than hers and slightly more renovated.
He lives alone and she doesn't think he really ever has any guests over, though she could be wrong. She is not entirely sure what he does for work and she has not really bothered to ask him.
Sakura trails after him as he holds the backdoor open for her. She'd come from the porch stairs, after going into her apartment to retrieve her things. He'd waited for her at the bottom outside, so he could lead her, in the dark.
He's looking over his shoulder at her, telling her gruffly to watch her step over the threshold.
As he stated, his power is intact. She looks out the window that's over his kitchen sink as she walks in, mindful of her step, as advised. The frames of the windowpane are newer than the ones in her unit.
The rest of the block is still dark through the glass, however.
She verbalizes her agitation of this to him as she sits at his kitchen table, plugging in her devices.
"The city says it will be out until midday tomorrow," he mentions.
Sakura's eyes bug out.
"But what about all the food in my fridge!?" she moans.
Leaning against his pristine counter, arms crossed, he gives her a response.
"If you keep the door shut without opening it, it should retain the chill."
Sakura nods at him worriedly, then looks away. She needs to get to work.
Turning his back to her now, he opens a cabinet housing cups.
"Do you want anything to drink?" he asks.
Sakura's eyes are fixated on her laptop screen. She doesn't hear him.
"Do you want anything to drink?" he repeats, frostily.
At the harsh edge to his tone, she looks up at him, sharply.
"Huh?" she asks.
He seems frozen in place, a hand on a glass that he's not pulling out.
Turning his head to the side, he repeats himself slowly.
"Do. You. Want. Anything. To drink?"
She frowns at his back.
"Sorry, I got distracted. Sure, water is fine. Thanks," she says.
Sasuke breathes in and out deeply and grabs two glasses out of his cabinet, then shuts it.
Her eyes snap up at the loudness of the closure.
She watches him fill each glass at the filter on his refrigerator door. He is suddenly very stiff.
He places one of the cups to the side of her laptop for her, staring at her face, unblinking.
"I'll be in the other room. Let me know if you need anything."
Then, he walks out, gripping the other glass tightly.
"Okay…" she responds, uncertainly.
It's a couple weeks later and Sakura is at home alone, stewing, after another date gone awry.
She doesn't think it's a good idea to start sleeping with her landlord. But... she does it anyway.
Mad and getting desperate, she texts him around 11:00 p.m.
It's too late in the evening for her to want anything realistically related to maintenance. And it's too late for her to be reaching out to him, just because.
What are you doing? she texts.
I'm sitting in my living room. Why?
She gets nervous now, unsure where she's going with this. She doesn't respond, instead staring at her phone screen while messing with a lock of her dusty, pink hair.
Her phone vibrates again in her hand and she reads his short message.
Come down.
Sakura stands outside of his door for a minute.
I can still turn around, she thinks.
But then he opens it and they stare at each other intensely, before she lunges at him.
His eyes are hooded and he is kissing her with a surprising amount of passion and care for someone she's noticed to be stoic and unemotional.
The sex is great.
Afterwards, he acts like nothing has happened.
He is still handling her maintenance requests and collecting her rent.
When she sees him for these interactions, she looks at him with a little bit of confusion, but otherwise does not bring it up.
Maybe he didn't like it either? Just like the other guys?
She feels put out again. Was something wrong with her?
He is changing her lightbulb again, when she attempts to confront him about it.
"Did you not..." she starts, trailing off.
He looks at her as she starts speaking, the intensity of his focus causing her to fumble on her words.
"Never mind," she says.
He looks away and leaves shortly after swapping out the bulb.
"Be careful on those dating apps you keep using!" Ino tells her, a month later. "I read an article today that people are like, going missing after dates."
Sakura rolls her eyes. She's on the floor of her room; wiping nail polish off her toes with a cotton ball, her phone pressed between her ear and her shoulder.
"I'm not like those stupid women, Ino. I don't go home with anyone after a first date," she supplies.
Sakura can hear the screech of metal hangers, sliding against clothing racks through the other end of the line. Ino was out, clothes shopping.
"It's not women… it's men!" Ino exclaims.
Sakura gasps.
"What the fuck?" she questions.
Her friend laughs.
"Right!? Is there a murdering temptress out there!?" Ino says.
Ino comes to Sakura's house a couple days after they've spoken on the phone. She looks uncomfortable as she walks in.
"Hi!" Sakura says, excitedly, as she lets her inside.
Ino had not visited her here yet, and Sakura is eager to host.
"You said your landlord lives on the first floor right?" the blonde questions.
Sakura shuts the door and leads Ino to the couches in her living room.
"Yep. Why?" she responds.
Ino sets her bag down on a cushion, then drops herself into a seat.
"Huh," Ino says, wiggling her nose.
Sakura's hands are on her hips while she watches her friend get settled into her apartment.
"Does it make sense for him to have a key for both mailboxes?" Ino asks.
Sakura eyes Ino with uncertainty, then drops into the seat adjacent to her.
"I mean, I think he has a set of spares to my unit? He probably has one for the mailbox too," she offers. "Why do you ask?"
Pulling her phone out of her bag, Ino glances at it, then places it on Sakura's coffee table.
"He was looking through both of the boxes in the entranceway, when I walked in," she says.
As an afterthought, she adds on, "And he gave me a funny look too."
Why was he looking through my mailbox…? Sakura thinks.
Brushing it off for now, Sakura decides that she is not going to let this one go. She'll bring it up to him. Later.
For now, she attempts to placate her concerned friend.
"He just looks like that. He's kind of a recluse," Sakura says.
The sunlight from the living room windows reflects against Ino's unblemished face, as she side-eyes Sakura. Ino is looking at her like she's being a fool.
"No one else lives in the building right?" Ino asks, slowly.
Sakura shakes her head, no.
Ino crosses her long legs, admiring her own shoes for a minute, before looking back at her pink haired friend.
"I don't know, Sakura... He kind of gave off creeper vibes."
Sakura scoffs and makes to stand up.
"You saw him for like two minutes," she comments.
Ino's eyebrow raises, and she stands too, following Sakura into her kitchen for a drink.
"That was enough. I know a creep when I see one," Ino says.
Sakura ruminates over the mailbox incident for a week after that, unsure how to approach it. Instead of confronting Sasuke about it, she decides that his standoffish behavior after sleeping with her, coupled with his overstepping of boundaries, is enough for her to warrant a change.
She calls him.
"Hi!" she says.
"Sakura."
"So... I think I'm going to move once my lease is up," she says.
"Why?" he asks.
"Just—just for a change," she stutters.
He's silent for a full minute. She cannot hear him breathing, which is odd.
"I see," he says, quietly. "Is the rent too expensive?"
Sakura bites at her nail, then drops her finger from her mouth.
"No. I just want to move to a different neighborhood."
Sasuke offers to lower her rent by $300 and she finds it hard to refuse.
She renews for another year.
It's been about a month and a half since she's slept with Sasuke, and a week since she renewed her lease. She receives a text from him at 11:30 p.m.
Are you awake? he asks.
She waits exactly ten minutes before responding.
Yes. Come over.
This time, he's a little frenzied with her.
Her back slams into the wall, as he lifts her up and holds her against it. On reflex, her legs wrap around his waist.
They're naked.
"You didn't say anything after last time," she pants. "I thought—"
He does something behind her ear with his mouth and something else, between her legs, with one of his hands; cutting off her sentence.
It makes her scream.
"—I thought maybe you didn't like it," she continues, moaning.
He doesn't respond. Instead, he transitions her to the floor, arranging her on her hands and knees.
Smacking at her ass from where he's now kneeling behind her, he says, "I liked it."
The next day, Sakura wakes up in his apartment. In his bed.
Disoriented.
Hadn't they—hadn't they been in her apartment last night? When they'd gone to sleep?
Her eyes are wide and unblinking, as she stares up at his ceiling.
She gasps, when his face comes into her view. He's leaning over her, looking concerned.
From the way she glances at him in a panic, he knows that something is wrong with her.
He gives her a hard stare, his face close to hers, expression calculating.
"Are you having that delusion where I'm your creepy landlord again?" he asks, suspiciously.
Sakura's lips part in shock.
"H-huh?" she squeaks.
Sasuke looks tired now. He leans back, giving her space.
"I've been married to you for like five fucking years," he bites out. "I am not your reclusive, creepy landlord."
Sakura sits up, chewing at her bottom lip. She glances down. She's in an ivory colored, matching pajama set that she doesn't recognize.
He sits up too, head turned towards her. He has a thin t-shirt on, but as the blanket falls to his waist, she notes that he is only in boxer briefs. No pants.
"We own this entire building," he informs her.
What?
"You live with me downstairs," he continues.
What?
"We are renovating the upstairs," he lists off.
What?
Sakura's hands clench into the fitted sheet that covers the mattress.
Tossing his long legs over his side of the bed, Sasuke gets up, stomping over to the dresser in the bedroom.
He yanks out the top two drawers, digging through them, pulling out pill bottles.
Turning around, he shakes a couple of the containers at her for emphasis.
"What are you doing with these?" he questions, harshly. "You've been acting like you've been taking them!"
Sakura's hands lift shakily, to rub at her temples.
"I don't know…" she says, slowly.
Shaking his head, he takes a step forwards to grab his phone off his bedside table, then turns his back on her.
"I'm calling your doctor," he mutters, walking out.
Sakura is confused.
Sakura does not understand what Sasuke is saying to her.
Married?
To him?
He's not her landlord?
Was he gaslighting her?
It's a couple hours later, and Sakura has crept out of the bedroom, apprehensively.
Sasuke is hovering near the dining table, looking hawk-like.
Maybe—maybe he was insane? And this was all an elaborate ruse to imprison her in his house. By making her think she was insane instead?
"Look around," he starts, gesturing with his hands. "All of your things are in this apartment."
Sakura's eyes move back and forth in cautious assessment. She notices her pens and her notebooks strewn across the dining table. Some funky cup coasters she found at a flea market are stacked on the living room end table.
There are other things, that are hers.
Plants. A pair of espadrille sandals. There are pictures in frames, nailed to the walls. For now, she doesn't look at those too closely. From where she's standing, it's obvious that the photos are of the two of them.
Her gaze rotates back to him, and she looks at him with mistrust.
His features have shifted to being pained.
"What's upstairs?" she asks, quietly.
Sighing, he approaches her, gently leading her by the hand and out of the apartment.
Into the hallway. Up the carpeted stairs.
When he opens the door to the upper floor's unit, Sakura sees that it is unfinished. She remains standing in the doorway, while Sasuke steps in. His angular face is somber.
Sakura glances upwards, slowly. Looking at the vaulted ceiling that lives in her mind.
There are multiple light fixtures above, but only one with a bulb. It's the one he's always changing out for her.
As he taps at the light switch, that lone bulb flickers ominously as it fights to stay lit.
Wiring. The wiring is faulty. It costs a lot to fix and we don't have the money right now, Sakura thinks, randomly.
She shuffles in after him, her toes cold against the concrete of the floor. She peers around, scrunching her small body in on itself.
No one lives here.
"What's—what's wrong with me?" she turns to ask him, tearfully.
Looking sad, he steps forward and embraces her tightly.
After a month, she's regained balance and a proper sense of what's real and what's not.
She looks at Sasuke, sleeping somewhat fitfully next to her. In their bed. In their apartment. On the first floor.
His hair is messy, his dark locks a contrast against the light grey of the pillow case that his head is resting on.
Sakura loves this person.
He is her husband.
Sometimes, she forgets.
*End Snippet
"Landlord" AU in quotes, because the intent was actually Unreliable Narrator AU! This one was difficult to nuance, which is why it was initially abandoned.