Opening lyrics - "Strange Love" - Simple Creatures
things I like - Sasuke, Sakura, drama
things I don't - clutches, clothes without pockets
VIII.
You're just a crater of yourself, and
she's the fallen angel underneath.
.
.
.
The tingling of circulation returns, blood seeking its biological home. Sasuke can feel his hands again, and all he's thinking about is putting them on her.
By the night's blessing and perhaps Ino's, he'll have his chance.
"Pick your jaw up off the floor, go stand with her. This is really at Naruto's request."
Sakura's hand reaches for his and they connect in that instant, always like treacherous atoms brushing in ways they shouldn't. His body's training begins to catch up, always before the mind, arm finding its way around the slope of her waist. He's no stranger to events, dances, traditions, but her presence is always dredging up something different, untamed.
Heat dashes across the back of his neck. Frowning, he watches Ino fiddle with her phone. "Naruto?"
Brandishing it at him in amusement, she tosses her long blonde hair over her shoulder.
"He wanted proof that you'd show up and that she wouldn't stand you up."
Sakura stifles a giggle. Sasuke mutters something under his breath, and startles when he hears the repetitive shuttering noise of Ino pressing the camera button.
"I'll just choose the best ones," she says, anticipating Sasuke's protests.
Draping a hand on his chest, Sakura presses her lips to his cheek — electricity bursts, percussing down each bone in his spine in time with the shutter click.
Ino moans. "Stop being so attractive, you two. That's a great one!"
Toying with his messy hair, Sakura watches him out of the corner of her eye.
"It didn't leave a trace. Good."
It takes a moment to realize what she's talking about. He raises a hand to his cheek and swipes with his fingers, but it yields nothing.
"Ah, your lipstick."
"Just want to make sure it stays all night."
A flicker, overturned coals stoking fire underneath. It escapes in a voice low and rich that surprises him, faltering Ino's indulgent photography.
"I'm sure we can put it to the test."
The faint pink dusting her cheeks signals that his boldness hits the mark — the voracity dancing in her eyes is bountiful, a gift. Alms to those bereft of love.
"It's definitely time for me to go," Ino says, giving Sakura a sly look. She blanches at her phone when she sees the time. Hand on her hip, she raises her chin and opens her mouth, but it's not necessary as the man holding her coat reappears out of the ether, silently summoned or simply quite good at what he does.
"I'm going to be late, ugh."
"It'll be fine; your style makes up for it. Fashionable, you know," Sakura teases. As Sasuke leaves her side, fractures their embrace, there's an odd, lonely pang trembling underneath her ribcage.
"We should head out as well," he says.
Collecting her coat from the solemn porter whom diligently held it, Sasuke follows Sakura and Ino through the lobby and out the doors; they're gabbling as birds, poking at one another and teasing yet somehow deep in discussion in half-formed fragments and finishing one another's sentences, halves of the same whole.
"Do I just—?"
Ino leans from the curb, arm hovering tentatively amidst chaotic night noise. Peering, as if a car will jump out previously unseen.
"Like you mean it," Sakura tells her. "Be as demanding as you usually are."
Ino narrows her eyes, but her redoubled efforts pluck a cab sleekly from the torpid lines of traffic and earns her smile as it coasts to the curb. Folding her arms, her shoulders dance in self-satisfaction at her victory.
"I do quite like it here," she says, grinning. Bestowing a princess wave upon them, a departing royal, she leaves them with a last lascivious and smug expression that could be for either one of them.
"Where's she going, dressed up that way?"
Sakura smiles at him, a mischievous curl of the lips that threaten to numb out Sasuke's hands and soul all over again.
"Found a date. She wastes no time getting to know things — a person, a city. Honestly, it's something I envy about her."
"And me?" he asks, even as his mind tells him to backpedal, "Am I, is this, new for you?"
Lips freezing in place on her beautiful face, etched edges and ice. It seems that it lingers on the chilled, soft contours, everything she doesn't say.
"Maybe." A response with the cut of glass. "But I think it is for you too, whatever this is, so unless you want to lay out all our cards, right now." It's an abrupt end that she doesn't allow to trail off, no space for implication. Her lines, her ultimatums, they're clear: Bare it all, or stick to the dance.
"Not tonight, then," Sasuke murmurs, taking her chin in his fingers. She startles at his proximity and touch, makes a little noise as he kisses her, unusually bold — deep, always a little greedy, forever with an ache.
You could always have this. You could keep him.
Knowing she couldn't, that she would devour him body and soul, that he would try to follow, never the hero, always the shadow.
They hover close, in silent occupation of quiet space amid the city's evening hum; buzzing lights, the pitch and roll of bodies and speech, unceasing.
"Ino, though," she resumes, "she makes things hers, and easily. She's good at that." She pauses, letting the words breathe. "I think you do too, when you finally decide you want to."
Sakura tries to take back her coat; he seems almost offended. She tugs on it again, pouting.
"Chivalrous — but you're also kind of rude."
"I've never heard that before." His tone implies he has, in fact, heard it before.
"Well, you're polite to me, at least. Concerned about my well-being. Always on the edge of wanting to defend my honor, or something. But — humor me, did your family want you to marry a good, socially acceptable girl? One who listens, demure? Or do you like to chase?"
Her smile curls into something on the edge of insolent. Teasing.
Sasuke's expression rests somewhere between indignant and amused. "Good thing we're not that close. Can't have much of an opinion about it."
"Oh gods, you explained about your brother and parents, I'm — I'm so sorry," she groans. Covers her eyes with her hand. "How awful."
Perhaps to cover her embarrassment, she slides her arm into his and starts down the sidewalk. So close like this, they sense the fledgling anxiety of one another: Clamminess and gooseflesh and orbital energy as they rotate in delicate perigee, the only law of physics present tonight a fragile gravity.
She sighs into his shoulder on the pretense of balance.
"Are you sure you want to walk in those?" Flickers his eyes at her heels, then looks down at the crown of her pink head.
"I'm perfectly capable," she says. Tilting her head up to him, expression drawn in moue.
It's a beat or two before more of his words escape, spilling over the dam as before, questions unasked. "I have a large extended family. We don't all get along. We don't speak much anymore, now. When I was young, I always had a sense of duty to something larger than me, something we were bound in. It's . . . hard to explain."
"It sounds religious. Hierarchical." There's something tart in the words, a sour tinge.
"It's difficult," he concedes, "and we're not known to be friendly or welcoming to outsiders. It's not all of us, though. My brother, he—"
Air catches. Sasuke swallows the last of his saliva into a throat desolate and bone-dry. Why bring him up?
"— he hated it. The tradition. The expectations."
A shiver licks her spine; she feels exposed by a sense of premonition. Sagacity, brushing against danger. She clutches his arm tighter, and their footfalls move toward an unheard paean steeped in dread.
"Sounds like a cult. A clan. Tightly-wound ideologically . . . " Sakura trails off, eyes adrift. Then, she picks up the thread again, resuming: "I'm sorry. I'm ashamed to say I find it so interesting. My mother was very traditional and often weirdly superstitious. It sounds like two sides of the same coin. If both weren't so afraid of the other, they all could have been friends."
Sasuke can't see her wry, hurt smile, but he knows. The gentle barb, glossing over the prick and bleed of failed expectations. They both know what differences lie between, the icy tundra struggling to support its own weight, crumbling instead into inchoate drift.
Coming to the steps of the magnificent venue, Sakura raises her eyes to its imposing affluence and glitter. Drawing back, unconsciously, withdrawing in the vein of an animal with pinned ears succumbing to the biological imperative to bolt. People littered carelessly on the steps, disseminated as prop pieces but ultimately perfectly-formed humans — the easy way they occupy space, essences toiled on by divine gods, modeled in gold and glittering in soft light.
As her heel hits the first step, the buzzing in her head begins. Knees wobbling. Throat tightening, the globular knot settling for her to swallow over, and over.
"Sakura," he begins, "you've been nervous about this. I don't blame you."
Their feet move in tandem as they take each stair.
"But you're stronger than you think you are."
And there are eyes on her, she knows now, on them, and if he didn't have her arm surely her legs wouldn't support her.
"People will try to talk to you, figure you out. Especially once they know you've brought me along."
"Just who are you?" It's a flutter of an ask, and she's not even sure it left her lips.
Sakura catches the eyes of a stranger, refusing to look away. They drop theirs first. Arm still in hers, Sasuke leans closer to say,
"You first."
This event seems frivolous now — the dark alley would be sufficient for them to unwind one another, just anonymous enough and scattered with the dregs of the passing secrets of strangers. The craving and repelling of danger, the apocalyptic rocking of a boat not built for terror.
"Name?"
She startles as she takes in the mass of the security guard, blinks up at him. Her mind sketches the radio in his ear, the device in his hands; commits it to memory, files the details away even in her frozen stupor.
"S-Sakura?" she says.
A flat, irritated gaze signals it wasn't the correct answer. "Your full name, miss? Are you where you're supposed to be?"
For a moment, she falters and wilts, yearns to flee as a classic Cinderella, leaving the fancy shoes behind and forfeiting the evening, returning to drab obscurity. But hasn't she come far enough from that? Swallowing hard, with the grip of Sasuke's muscular arm in hers, she watches the way his chin lifts against others who dare to ask questions, contest his authority — she realizes this is where he's from, this world, these circles. To him, the whispers and stares and formalities are not new aspects of his life but routine annoyances. And the thickness of his shell makes sense to her now, dislodges a million and one thoughts from her unconscious and sends them on the float.
But there's no time for unpacking it, not with the whispers at her back and security about to declare her a headcase.
She lifts her own chin and turns her sparkling green eyes on security.
A smirk plays on Sasuke's lips.
"Pardon, sir," she says, low and slow — the decanting of wine in a glass. "I've been invited as a guest of Neji Hyuuga himself and while I do know he's an incredibly busy man," and she leans into the words, lulling, soft and pliant, "it seems his office erred in providing me details. Could you possibly—?"
Now bashfully gruff, the guard (though in circles like these, they function also as esteemed social secretaries, keepers of keys and secrets) runs his finger down a list. Tapping a name, he holds up that finger in pause. "Let me just check, you understand."
"Oh please, do." Gives him a delicate smile.
Mutterings, whispers twist around them, moving from ears to lips and back again. With Sasuke at her side, tall and firm and with that useful edge of inviolable arrogance, it's almost easy. She can sense it a little, his anxiety; this is not his most natural state any more than hers.
When Sasuke turns his glittering eyes on hers it's searing, peels back a layer of skin: the intensity of his interest. He's willing — no, eager, if he's ever been such for anything — to dive in and drown in her, tonight and every night to follow.
"Yes, she says you invited her personally—"
As security has a stumbling conversation with his earpiece, Sasuke's voice comes to her in a tenebrous tone, at once an echo of voices she's heard but somehow a deviant half-step from the major key.
"People will want to speak with you and I, and not always together. You will be something exotic for them, and I come with baggage."
"Pink?" The guard glances at her. "Ah, yeah, it is."
"Remember Sakura, this is strategy. These are not friends."
"Sir, I — I didn't know." Sakura's eyes flicker back to the guard as he stammers; she feels guilty that he's being reprimanded. Sasuke's eyes draw her back, commanding her to look only at him.
His stupid smirk.
"I suppose you'll use your interesting brand of charm. You're certainly smart enough."
"Yes, I'll let them up right away. Indeed, she has a guest."
"Sasuke—"
"After all," he says quietly, "you've already done it to me."
And they're escorted in the manner of debuting royalty, waving off security's apologies and drawing the attention of those milling in the lobby, sailing to the elevator drunk on the giddy façade of clout.
"Dresses should have pockets," Sakura sighs, waving her clutch. "These are just impractical."
"We can always have them made for you." He glares again at the third passenger in the elevator, a stoic redhead sporting a red birthmark above one pale eye. The stranger's expression holds mild curiosity at best, but Sasuke watches him watch her.
"Didn't I say no more gifts?" Sakura's weight settles into one hip and thigh, brilliantly curved in her bright red dress. "I should have left this in my coat. I like my hands free."
A soft ding! interrupts the even softer music floating through tinny, gilded elevator speakers. The doors open, and both men nod her over the threshold.
Sakura twinkles at the pale redhead on her way out, prompting a narrowing of the eyes from him and a grunt of annoyance from Sasuke.
Down another sweeping hallway, carpet plush. Glitter and shine from every angle, catching the light of chandeliers. Sakura's wide eyes try to take in all sights, sounds, and snatches of conversation. Still, she feels eyes and can't help feeling the whispers are pointed, deliberate; Sasuke continues along, unruffled sans the stern set of his jaw.
She's discomfited when they pass over the threshold, the grandiose double doors open to let people move as they wish: Small circles of conversation reforming and collapsing as microorganisms in constant changing shape, well-dressed garcons weaving among them in silent service. Sakura spies the glass doors indicating balconies, hears pitched peals of laughter dancing to the impossibly high and coffered ceiling; but it's in the way they carry themselves, fitting into the space which offers them loving deference.
And she feels exposed, bare, an erroneous glitch.
"Miss Sakura?"
When she realizes the man on her arm is not Sasuke anymore, oh no, but rather the same man that invited her in the first place, she arranges her face into what she hopes passes as an excited smile.
"Oh, Mr. Hyuuga—"
"Please, Neji," he says, leading her to fuck knows where and she tries not to look angry at the fact that her dumb date already ditched her to do fuck knows what. "No need for the formalities."
"Ah, really?" She lifts her clutch to the surroundings, indicating the room.
A chuckle, a note of arrogance. The twinge in her stomach and dryness of mouth confirms her naive compulsions for a certain type of man. Entangling with the same sort, always. She relaxes minutely, hates him a little less. Just a little.
"You're witty," he says, still directing a gentle glide across the floor, nodding at people as he goes. "In an odd way."
It feels like a polite way of saying quaint, provincial, or something less than genuine politeness. Finally they stop moving, and it seems as though they're in the very center of the floor. Like magic, magnetism, a silent and sleek waiter materializes with a tray, handing a drink to Neji.
"What would you like?"
They're both watching her, and she stumbles over words.
"Ah, I'm really — whatever is — I don't—"
"Simply tell him," Neji says, waving a hand, already bored.
"Gimlet," she says firmly, recovering. "Please."
The unknown server disappears. Sakura finds herself staring at Neji's brunette locks, thinking he could give Ino a run for her money on shiny, soft hair.
"Didn't you have a companion, I heard?"
"I did." Her tone rings tart. "He seems to have disappeared already."
"Pity," Neji says, in a voice indicating otherwise. "But our conversation at the station, I'm still interested in the end of that. You poor thing, so busy working in the middle of the night."
(In fact she had begged her call screener, Yamato, to make up any excuse to extricate her from the conversation.)
"Well, I suppose it's my job, to bring entertainment and a friendly voice to those listening. I enjoy it, anyway. People's lives are interesting, and there's a vulnerability to it that you can't discover during a daytime conversation."
"And what did you say you used to do?"
She wishes desperately for a drink in hand for the luxury of a pause. "I used to — well, I wanted to be a doctor. But life doesn't always work out how you want."
The expression on his face is genuine confusion, as if not getting what one wants is an impossibility beyond comprehension.
"Your eyes tell me that's what you want. So why aren't you doing that?"
The waiter returns with a cold glass, and she considers kissing him for his timely arrival. "Thank you."
Again, the furrow of Neji's brows at her kindness to nobodies. He's about to speak when an arm snakes through his, brushes the lapels of his jacket; wide eyes and two brunette buns hover above his shoulder.
"Who's this?"
"There you are," he says, sounding cross. Though, that could be his usual disposition. "Are you showing off for people again?"
"It's good for parties," she says, grinning. "Don't be so stuffy."
"You're not a street performer." Now his attractive face seems sour, but it doesn't bother the newcomer. Instead she pokes him in the ribs. With the same finger, she points at Sakura. "Who's this?"
"Sakura," she supplies, making a motion to shake hands. Realizes one hand has a drink and the other a stupid clutch, and she's loath to relinquish either.
"Sakura who?"
"I told you, the young woman who works the overnights for the station."
"Which station? You own like, several."
"I fear you don't listen to much of what I say, Tenten."
"Maybe you're boring," she snarks. Leaves his side to walk in a strange, slow circle around Sakura, sizing up a wild animal on the dusty plains as prey.
.
.
Several feet away, Sasuke's shouldering his way through pockets of people, scattering them in flocks as a tall brunette woman follows, hot on his heels.
"Aren't I a little out of your age range, Mei?"
"You're firmly in it, handsome."
"I'd call that cradle-robbing."
"Ouch, I'm wounded."
Now she takes his upper arm, more like a stern mother than a girlfriend. "But what are you doing here? No one has seen you for a long time."
Shaking her off with his arrogant frown, he scoffs. "Everyone's so concerned, huh? You just want gossip. Our families aren't even close — why do you care?"
"Sue me, I'm nosy. Also curious as to why two of the most marriageable, handsome brothers drop off the radar, and how a boy disappears so suddenly."
"So I am too young for you. As for the rest," he hisses, "it's probably the dead family thing."
Mei falters, observing the angry bright red of his neck as he stalks away. A flash of color snags her gaze; he's in temperamental pursuit of a girl with pink hair? held hostage by Hyuuga Neji and trapped under the gaze of his pseudo-girlfriend.
A smile kicks up the corner of her lips.
.
.
"So you know how to fight, and you're a DJ-therapist? She's way better than your other stuffy friends," Tenten admonishes. Neji looks sour, as if she's stolen his thunder. She continues hovering around Sakura as if watching a rack of meat, slowly rotating under hot lights. "You're pretty, too."
"She's an employee. Though yes, she's already met my cousin under interesting circumstances." Sips his drink as Tenten continues to pluck at Sakura's dress unbidden, lacking boundaries.
"Oh, is she here?" Sakura perks up, sashaying in what she hopes is a surreptitious manner out of Tenten's reach. "Hinata?"
"Yes, somewhere," he sniffs. "She's always hiding at these things. I don't think she enjoys them, except it's her job to."
Sakura suppresses a scowl with a twist of the lips instead; the scathing tone isn't endearing.
"Is your hair real?"
Sakura's about to answer when Tenten's face changes, mouth forming an unabashed, round O. Neji's contorts into a strange look of surprise, then glides into bristling arrogance.
Sakura feels him behind her: The trail of his fingers just above the curve of her ass, skirting the close edge of gallantry as they settle into the small valley of her back. Heat, the touch of him releasing pent-up pressure from beneath the skin.
Looking at him over her shoulder, she deliberately looks him up and down with glittering eyes, sharp with hunger and anger.
"You disappeared."
"Someone caught up with me."
"It wouldn't be the first time." Neji's words pull the attention of all three of them, especially with the unexpected mean streak underneath. "Well, well, you've crawled out of wherever you've been hiding. What brings you here with the rest of us mere mortals?"
Sakura feels a crackle in the air, a tension. Tenten's eyes are darting between her and Sasuke, processing.
"I'm sure you don't care about anything I've been doing." Sasuke's thumb presses flat against her spine. It's shaking. "You seem the same as ever."
"You're her date, are you?" Neji laughs, but it's mocking. "That's interesting indeed. Tell me, how is your brother?"
Before she can stop herself, Sakura cuts across Sasuke's retort. "That's not appropriate, is it?"
Green eyes bore into pale ones. She lifts her chin like it will make her taller, channeling an undercurrent of anger on Sasuke's behalf.
"Excuse me," he says, frowning. It's difficult for him to say, and it's certainly not an apology. "You're right, miss. It wasn't."
Now Hinata appears at Neji's other elbow, opposite Tenten, in a sweeping floor-length periwinkle number and matching clutch, red in the face.
"N-Neji, hello. I'm sorry, I've been — oh!" She takes in Sakura and Sasuke, blinking rapidly as if warding off the bright sun. "It's nice to see you both again."
"He said you were here!" Sakura tucks the clutch under her drink arm and reaches across the stunned circle to summon her; as with everything in her orbit, she's lured easily like a spell, and Hinata finds herself at Sakura's side.
"Ah yes, you're already familiar," Neji says. To Sasuke: "Were you there when that . . . incident happened?" Rings with a note of distaste, and Hinata casts her eyes to the floor. Sakura feels another ripple of irritation.
"No." Sasuke's curtness is brusque, a slap to the mouth. "Sakura said she handled it, and called me after."
"I have something to ask you, Hinata. I'm borrowing her," Sakura says to them, taking her by the arm and gliding away with the same affected, snobby air she's been subjected to all evening. The hint of mockery at the edges doesn't go unnoticed, but Tenten waves a hand and turns to go, perhaps to seek more amusing antics, and Neji glowers under Sasuke's dark, glittering gaze.
Sasuke and Neji, now left alone and awkward, each take a sip respectively of drinks masquerading as excuses for silence.
"She's smart," Neji says, plain and blunt. "Pleasing to the eye."
Sasuke's raise of the eyebrows functions, apparently, as enough of a response.
"So either the rumors aren't quite true, or she's as crazy as you."
"I don't give time to gossip," Sasuke says, rattling the ice in his glass. "And neither should you, well-known as you are."
Neji snorts, a droll smile surfacing. "Uchihas. Hm. The yardstick for comparison, and the rest of us can't figure out if we hate you or envy you. It's likely both." Draining the rest, he leaves it on a passing tray with a careless flourish. "What doesn't differ between us and the average person, though, is that we all like to watch the unraveling of the rich and famous — even amongst ourselves. It's akin to bloodsport."
"If only I'd get to see that of your family," Sasuke mutters. Slipping fingers under his tie and collar, frowning at the prickling heat and yanking it away from his neck, he pivots to see Sakura and Hinata standing close and in deep conversation. Perhaps feeling his eyes, the former wiggles the tips of her fingers, half-smile dripping like honey on striking, ochre lips.
He knows Neji's gaze is following his line of sight.
"What a problem to have, Uchiha."
"Is he always an ass, or just especially to you?" Sakura asks, holding onto Hinata's elbow. She keeps her smile in place, feeling their eyes.
"He isn't — he doesn't mean to—"
"He is, and he does. Just like he finds me a curiosity — my employment is irrelevant."
Hinata flushes, tucking a dark strand of hair behind her ear. With a shy smile, she responds, "He was curious about your upbringing, with the fighting and all. We keep a traditional martial art in the family, you know. Though I'm not very good."
Sakura regards her a moment, then upon realizing she's serious, collapses into giggles. "He'll be disappointed by my pedigree, or lack thereof. All I did was fight with neighborhood kids!"
Hinata hides her laugh behind her hand. The humor fades off for both of them. In the intervening pause, Sakura inhales deeply and lets it out in measured beats.
"So, I was hoping to see you here because I have a request."
"From me?"
"Yeah. I figured that you're someone I can ask and . . . someone I can trust."
Sakura's jade eyes flicker to the men and back to her again.
Hinata nods her head. "I'm guessing you don't want me to ask my cousin, though?"
"Right. That's the idea."
There's a long pause, and Hinata shifts imperceptibly, blocking their view of both their faces. Playing with the clasp of her clutch, she asks, "What are you looking for, Sakura?"
"I'll be blunt," she says, depositing her empty glass on a roving tray, "I need info. I'm no princess or even a college graduate. I need help finding out about his history — Sasuke's. Because the truth is, it's a secret club, and the information is under social lock and key." She pauses, brushes fingers across painted lips in thought. "For people like me, it's not on our radar; we're blissfully unaware, living our average lives. For your circle . . . it's just an open secret no one looks too closely at."
When Hinata goes rigid, holding the same breath for just a bit too long, she knows she's hit the mark.
"So you've heard things?"
The sound of fingernails, tip-tapping on the metal clasp in a stilted rhythm.
"Ah, well, respectfully, our families maintain relationships for many reasons, and even the loosest bonds are still useful in some way. Though," Hinata hastens to add, kindly, "that does not make most of us 'friends' in a traditional sense."
Another pause stretches between them, delicate, before Sakura resumes. "I need to know what nobody wants to say. But I want real proof; not what gossip columns print. I want the truth."
Still running her nail over the metal, forcing a reedy scraping sound, Hinata closes her eyes against the prospect of such a thing, like it's against her own sensibilities. Biting her lip, she raises her pale eyes to Sakura's.
Weight settling into her hip again, the camber of her hip prominent in the rich red dress. A glimmer in her green eyes transforms her face into an alien, uncanny valley. Unearthly.
"Hinata, I want this. I think . . . I want him."
Why she's spilling things written on her heart to near-strangers, she doesn't know. Stupid. A waiter sweeps into their orbit and Hinata startles, stammering out a request for champagne; when Sakura mentions a gimlet, the bland waiter nods knowingly, as if he's been the fulfiller of all her requests this evening and simply continues his role in the universe. Perhaps it is the same one, and she hasn't noticed.
Close to them, too close, stands a tall woman with sandy-blonde hair, wearing a mulberry-shaded dress. She takes the proffered drink previously ordered from the same waiter with a curt nod and a strong, painted lip, and she's struggling not to roll her eyes at them.
"If you're trying to have a private conversation," she drawls, "there's rooms all over this place for that. Hell, there's balconies."
As she takes a long draught in the face of their apprehensive expressions, her eyes take a full circular trek of disbelief.
"Why don't you just go grab him? He's your date, isn't he? Plus, he couldn't stop looking at you."
Pivoting, Sakura scans the floor but doesn't see either of the men they'd left behind. She curses under her breath.
The woman chokes on her drink, trying not to laugh. "Someone dragged them away a bit ago. You're only palling around with two of the most eligible, handsome young, whatever-the-fuck headlines write about them nowdays." Wincing, she shakes her head. "Sorry for the language. I'm bad at being a public oil princess. Temari's the name."
Sakura moves to shake hands again, groans, then lets her clutch hand fall helplessly to her side.
"These are stupid," Temari says, waving hers. "I'm about to dump it in a garbage can, if I could find one. When your hands aren't free, people lead you by the elbows."
Sakura finds herself grinning at the statement, tipsy and buzzing with heat. Hinata's eyes stay on the ground, but the struggle not to smile says it all.
"I'm Sakura."
"My brother saw you in the elevator. You're here with Uchiha Sasuke." Temari takes another long swig, eyeing her with unabashed interest. "Again, sorry. I'm too forward for my own good. Stunning dress, by the way. You'll lead even a man like him straight off a balcony — if you can find him again." She waves a hand toward the mess, the vacillating biological tango of social interaction.
"At least you're honest," Sakura says. To Hinata, she asks in an undertone, "Do you have a pen? I need you to write this down."
She dictates quietly, though not in such a careful or furtive tone that Temari couldn't possibly hear most of it. Tucking a paper scrap away, Hinata snaps her periwinkle clutch shut and nods, saying she'll get back to her.
"What's with the secrecy?" With a snort, Temari drains the rest of her drink. "Not used to dating in these circles, huh?"
Sakura pauses, debating on how much to reveal; Hinata stays silent. Temari waves again, a broom to dust away the words she keeps spilling.
"You're a common girl, aren't you? Ack — that's not the best way to put it. Just know," Temari says, and now she's closed the gap between them with a grin, "you're more fun to hang around. I always think, 'Are we that hard to be around, people like us?' Probably, huh?"
An exchange of glass once more: Temari's empty for a refresh, a champagne, and a gimlet. Sakura tries to focus on him and see if it's the same man who's been steadily supplying her all night, but he fades into the background.
Starting in on her new one, Temari says unprompted, "I'm not usually this fun. Couldn't bring my boyf— whatever I call him, anyway. Not sure if we're there yet. He'd really hate this whole atmosphere." With a wry expression, she indicates the entirety of the room as a princess illustrates her many subjects. As surely as Sakura knows she's an aberration, there's a kindred emotion in knowing perhaps someone else might feel the same.
All three stand in silence under chandelier light, shifting nervous weight from one heel to the other; it hurts the eyes, feigning warmth and casting a garish pallor. They sip the only available thing to soothe, drinking from what is perhaps the only well of courage.
Sakura frowns into her gimlet, gulps down the rest, and holds the empty glass out for the inevitable, expected man who slips into her space to accommodate. Thumbing away a drop from the corner of her lips, she isn't sure who she's speaking to when she says, "Right, I'm going to find my date."
She heads into the mess, chin high and eyes bright. Temari raises her glass in solidarity, and Hinata ruminates.
Sakura emerges from the throng with three business cards, two more drinks poisoning her blood, and one memorably disgusting, unasked-for kiss on the hand. Cheeks lit up like festival lanterns and still unable to find Sasuke, she stalks down a dim, carpeted hallway in pursuit of a restroom; the plushness mutes the angry stomps she was hoping to soothe herself with.
Heavy and ornate doors flank her left and right — dark wood. The constant low murmur of voices, gossip and drunkenness and thinly-veiled acrimony for fellow social echelons all roiling in one discomforting atmosphere. Pursing her lips at all she's witnessed, she can see why her date decided to vanish but still doesn't forgive him. He did warn her: This would be difficult. And if this is the life he was steeped in before, a person who rarely had time to oneself, it explains some suspicions but surfaces myriad more.
The first door reveals a dim scene, a heavy haze, bodies draped over furniture as melting wax. The smell is familiar, pricks the inside of her nose, and she's a little put out that no one told her about the parties within parties. Scattered paraphernalia. Two men with grey hair participate in a languid disagreement, heads lolling and wrists limp as they take up space like fleshy puddles, spread in a sordid relationship with the couch. The larger man, with fleeting pockmarks on his face wrought by age and broad shoulders, waves a lazy finger at the other; Sakura wonders why the other man's wearing a mask and wonders if he's considered strange, even for these circles.
"But haven't you ever considered the environment failing us before we destroy it? Them coming after us — the frogs? Nature taking it all back. It'd be poetic justice."
"If it'll come anyway," the masked man says delicately, "then it does no good to worry."
They notice her at the same time, struggling to focus on her as she hovers over the threshold.
"Good gods," the first man groans. "They get younger and younger."
His companion shakes his head, raises his shoulders in weak apology.
"Sorry, wrong room. Feel free to resume . . . whatever you were doing," Sakura says.
"You don't partake?"
"In?"
With large hands, he indicates everything within his grasp. She can't quite tell if he's referencing the drugs or his lap. An angry vein pops in her temple; she's apt to make a scene.
"A little out of my age range," Sakura says, wrinkling her nose. Tilting her head at his companion, she considers a moment. "You, maybe not."
"He's an idiot," the latter says, waving her away. "He's sloppy and won't remember tomorrow."
Nodding, grateful for the dismissal, she wiggles her fingers in an awkward wave and shuts the door.
Another moan, this time of wanton debasement.
"Don't bother with the dramatics; I heard she came here with Uchiha Sasuke."
The old pervert opens one eye, grins. "Oh-ho! Now that's interesting."
.
.
Pressing the heels of her hands to her eyes, Sakura lets out a loose litany of curses; they come easy after a few drinks.
"This time," she says grimly to herself, "knock on the door."
The second door reveals large-shouldered men of all origins and species crowding around a table too small for them, the exact nature of their endeavors hidden. Knocking hadn't yielded a response, so Sakura opened the door anyway to several expressions ranging from rugged to bewildered.
Glancing at the weapons stacked against the wall, what is that? she withdraws without a single word, curious about their cloak colors but not enough to be introduced to the odd melee of what have to be illegal armaments.
Now holding her head in the hallway, she stamps her feet. Unreal, the lengths she has to go to find a simple toilet; meanwhile, everyone's elbow-deep in illegal everything. This sure isn't a work event — it's a goddamn underground black market meeting of the minds.
She skips a few doors, tries her luck with an unobtrusive knock. Accidentally meeting a pair of glazed, unfocused eyes, the drip and dank of the room confirms it instantly. This is just two people getting some, and it's the least offensive thing she's seen in this hallway.
With a surreptitious thumbs up, she shuts this door too.
Gloriously, she locates relief at the end of another hallway and holds her spinning head in her hands as she contemplates her next move. Under the fluorescence, she muses on why lights in toilet rooms are so awful and sifts through the night so far. She needs to locate her date, who everyone seems to want a piece of, and while she's gathered some useful information, her minimum requirement was to show up and she's done just that, satisfied her boss.
So what's she doing here, really?
With layers of trepidation and denial stripped away in the sting of inbrient, Sakura considers what she wants.
.
.
Only when she's found her way back to the main floor does it strike her — she knows where to find Sasuke.
The only thing worse than yanking back a heavy curtain to reveal him standing on the balcony is the expectant, tipsy way he regards her, as if he's been waiting all night and she's been lost off the forest path out of her own ignorance.
"You fucking jerk!" she hisses. He blinks, bemused.
Skin already searing, and the way his smoldering eyes follow the long, long length of her legs makes her want to punch him in his pretty mouth.
"I've been looking for you everywhere — do you know the people I've put up with, do you know how many fucking—" and here she jerks open her stupid small purse, waving it at him, "— cards and numbers I don't want?" Tossing it on the balcony floor, she advances on him; his underreaction makes her want to tear out his throat, but his stupid, careless grace and the way he leans against the balustrade, so arrogant, spurs an unforgiving heat in her body, low and simmering. "Do you know the things I've seen?"
He frowns. "Ah, should've warned you about that. I just . . . assumed you would understand that business would be done here."
Her laugh comes out chaotic, pitchy. "No, Sasuke, I'm not like you! I didn't grow up like this. I was too busy getting in trouble and trying to be a doctor and figure out my life, but wow did I screw that up, because I'm an idiot."
He comes forward, and she folds her arms as it will pause his advance. It doesn't.
"And I'm still being an idiot, because I'm here coming after you."
And they're kissing again, less gentle than before as he takes her by the hair and there and always, the ever-present ache in his tongue and lips as if he can extract her essence, drink the dregs. It occurs to her there are rooms everywhere here —
"You're annoying," he says against her lips, the ones still red and pristine. "But not an idiot."
His hand comes forward, tucking loose hair behind her ear. He continues.
"I said this would be difficult. My family's history, my life, to people here, is half-truth, half-fiction. None of it's their business, but you bringing me here, being with me . . . people want to know who you are too. But as I said, this is strategy. Use their interest to your advantage; what do you want, Sakura? To be a doctor, a wife? Power, or prestige? What doors," and his voice is in her ear, electricity dancing down her spine, "do you want to open?"
Use them, he's saying, use me.
Placing a hand over his, the one holding her face, she feathers him apart with her gaze.
"Where have you been?"
"Finding information."
She contemplates this, then glares. "The man in the lounge." Without waiting for confirmation, she growls and takes him by his shirt, fingers fisted in the expensive material. "I didn't ask you to do that."
He doesn't confirm.
Releasing him, she hastily gathers the contents of her clutch, snaps it shut and straightens up again.
"I want to make a good impression. Let's see if these people can make good on their lofty promises. I want to dazzle them, pull the strings of their influence." She smiles, readjusting her dress here and there, smoothing it over the maddening, beautiful muscle of her thigh.
Sasuke's eyes follow, and his growl is an animal's, starved and wild. "You're great like this."
They come together again, heads bowed toward one another. Smoothing his tie, she inhales his heady scent and whispers unheard nothings and plans against the apple of his throat, and he considers not for the first time that his life may be blissfully out of his control.
And she's on. Electric. He's the adornment on her arm as she glides through groups and conversations balletic and charming, with a refinement that makes him wonder how she's ever needed defending. She learns fast: Deflects hard questions, rebukes character quips of her date with witchery, and summons gimlets from the ether.
Powerful men peddle wisdom, equal parts useless and magnanimous. One says, "You can have the world if you want," confiding secrets, "with a face like that and a man like him."
Beaming, she presses her nose against Sasuke's cheek and laughs with just the right lilt of modesty.
Sasuke's unusually rigid, because it's taking every ounce of control not to throw her in one of those orgiastic rooms himself and love her on every available furniture and surface. Their dance of dominance is constant, and she's winning again. Each meeting of the eyes is a sordid communiqué, and they've managed to create that bewitching personal space to ward off wandering hands; it could be the way his arm never leaves the small dip of her back, silent, vile messages tapping her bones in morse code. Her fingers run the rim of her glass and find their way to her own bright lips, dripping liquid, secrets.
"Of course we'll be in touch," Sakura promises, easing her hand from another stranger's. Sasuke steers her away with his fingers still splayed wide across the skin of her back.
Nudging her temple with his nose, he says through gritted teeth, "I don't like him."
"Oh, do you like anyone?"
"He's touchy."
"That must be awful for you."
His fingers drag, lazy and indulgent, following the inlet meandering into the curve of her backside. She hums quietly to disguise what he can't see — the inadvertent swallow when her mouth runs dry, as if the loving tension and heat between her thighs drains her of every other liquid drop.
But he knows, he knows. They can't be in one another's space without generating heat, always on the razor's edge of ignition. And with it all winding down, their presence accepted and less shiny for the hecklers, slipping away like transients sounds nothing less than divine.
There's standing room along the edge of the floor, not so far from an unmarked door. She steers him, weaving him away from the noise.
Lingering near the stairwell exit, they face one another with heads close, enjoying one another's company, tender for the benefit of nosy guests. Sakura takes him by the tie, runs her fingers the length of it, channeling that glamorous and dangerous midnight voice he's touched himself to so many times over. Beyond the edge of the fabric her hand continues, skirts the buckle of his belt—
"What's etiquette, here, sir? Should I bid Neji Hyuuga a good night?"
"Fuck him." The harsh, rich consonants prompt gooseflesh; with his hands on her like this, her arousal is twine poised to snap.
Leaning against the stairwell door, she seems to tumble through, waiting for him to follow.
Sasuke chases her down a few flights before catching up — the clatter of her clutch hitting the floor reverberates loud in the tomb-like space, though not enough to mask their sounds: The cry she pours into his throat when he crushes her against the dank, concrete wall, his soft cursing as she nips his bottom lip with desperate teeth. Panting, and all the breathless anger and taunting in between:
"Jealous, aren't you?"
"I saw them staring." His mouth scalds her, dropping off her lips and heading down the column of her ivory neck. His hand grasps her hip in warning, greedy, and he yanks her forward to press her against his cock. At her collarbone, furious and begrudging praise bursting en route. "You were good. They're weak. Fucking desperate. "
"And you?" Her long leg crooks around his hip, hitching the dress's hem high on her thigh; the heat of her brings noises from him that shouldn't be heard out loud. "What are you?"
He doesn't say it, focuses on his other hand stealing up her dress with the intention of fulfilling stupid promises. A perfect and functional setting waits for them, for this purpose, but he's given up logic when it comes to her and succumbs to all things base and senseless. He knows she takes men's lust into stride, tuning them to the pitch she desires; she knows he hates it enough to love her out of her mind.
I'm yours; says it against her neck as his fingers dive between her legs with alarming precision, stealing a keening pitch from her that's brand new. Skin tasting of liquor and confession.
Even with him pinning her this way he knows each touch is a question, a given gift, his possessiveness still subject to her gentle praise.
"I want this off," he growls, pulling his other thumb across her lips. Hard.
Unusually, she's bereft of words — it could be his busy fingers, composing, responsible for the carnal, sustained song in her throat.
Her eyes are hypnotic; his, predatory. Sasuke stares at her for a moment, then drags that same thumb across her cheek to mark her in vibrant ochre.
Kissing her, crushing her flush against the stone:
"I want you to come."
Voice on the edge of sinister, sound and quality black and fit to choke. He wouldn't know it as his own, if asked later, but together, like this, they're a strange love sewn with something like madness.
Hissing over the whimper of his name —
"I want you to take you apart."
Sakura swallows hard, clawing at the edge of composure for the last word.
"T-try as much as you like."
.
.
There are numerous witnesses: The sleepy young man whose unlucky shifts are overnights, falling asleep over the audit and college textbooks. A porter here and there, milling about for any oddly-timed arrivals in the approaching dawn. The late, or early hour in which the cleaning crew takes care of the floors, the tables, the gilt, the plants.
They burst through the lobby, colorful and crackling with erratic energy. His shoes scuff the floor just mopped and her heeled feet swing at his sides as she clings to his back and points, urging him forward with unearthly laughter and a tug on the soft reins of his tie, loose silk around his hot neck.
Pink hair drapes him in lieu of his missing jacket; she fists the front of his dress shirt with slender fingers, and a button pops off, disappearing. Lost in the lobby, a soft pattering fading to nothing. The crisp air and dusty neon light seem to come in with them, swirling in the cold morning. They attempt a sloppy crush of lips despite the angle, impatience that fails.
No one approaches them, though the laws of hospitality say they should. Instead they glance at one another, watching the couple weave toward the elevator in a cloud of whispers, low and rich and laced with love and sin.
A soft chime signals the doors have closed, that they've gone. It sounds weak, faint in comparison against the loud sound of a heavy, lowball glass hitting the polished wood of the bar.
A man stares at his own pale, shaking hands, chest burning, lips set in a thin, grim line.
I have to tell you I wish I made this much progress with my novel draft compared to this fanfic, but what can you do? As always don't be a stranger!