A big thank you to the people who reviewed the first chapter! You guys are awesome.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or anything associated with it. All rights to Naruto belong to Masashi Kishimoto and the other proper entities.
Summary: Sakura had been by his side since he lost his family, following him around since they were seven years old, trying to ease his loneliness in whatever way she could. He didn't even know why he allowed it. He just silently allowed her to claim the seat next to him at the beginning of every term.
Rating: M
Genre: Friendship/Romance
Pairings: SasuSaku / eventual light NaruHina
Rays of Spring Sunshine
Chapter Two
As the years passed, Sasuke became withdrawn and sullen. It was to be expected, the adults said. He'd been through a lot. Being one of the last of a prominent clan put pressure on people, and with the reputation they'd gained before the incident… well. It was no wonder.
Sasuke spent most of his time alone. He lived on his own. He cooked his own meals and did his own laundry. There was a lady that came every afternoon to check on him for the first month, but he usually ignored her until she went away. He never had guests. Most of his classmates, when he'd returned to the Academy, had been put off by his abrupt change in demeanour. He'd retreated inward, snapping at the least provocation and becoming fiercely independent.
He had only one person that he would consider calling a friend, and even then he didn't know why he allowed it. Sakura wasn't a particularly interesting girl. She wasn't good at taijutsu or ninjutsu, and made a lousy training partner, no matter how hard she tried to keep up with him. He supposed she was smart, but so was he. He just silently allowed her to claim the seat next to him at the beginning of every term, and if another girl tried, he would simply get up and change seats when Sakura entered the room.
It was probably, he thought, that her mother was the doctor that had looked after him in the hospital. He hadn't realised it until the day the Hokage had visited him, when Doctor Mebuki had come looking for her daughter when she didn't find her in the break room after her shift. To say that patient and doctor had been surprised wouldn't have been quite accurate. Sasuke was annoyed that he'd been caught crying all over some girl, and had shoved Sakura away violently. She had crashed to the floor and landed on her chin, and Mebuki had dived for her, hands flickering with weak green chakra as she sought to soothe the bruises that had yet to show on her fair skin.
"I'm okay, Kaa-chan." Sakura had, bravely, pushed herself to her feet, sniffling back tears of pain. Sasuke remembered, vaguely, being impressed. Mebuki had shot him an inscrutable look, but had simply bid him a good night and taken Sakura out of the room. He'd never apologised, but he'd allowed Sakura to stay and work on her homework with him for the rest of his stay in the hospital. He didn't talk to her, but she kept up enough chatter for two, telling him who got into a fight with whom on the playground, or a silly joke that Iruka-sensei had made. She didn't stray too close to why he was in the hospital, and her inane chatter distracted him.
The Haruno family had, on his release from the hospital, begun inviting him over for dinner every Friday night. He thought they did it out of pity. At first, he had refused when Sakura waited for him by the Academy doors with her mother's invitation on her tongue. But Sakura was nothing if not persistent, and she eventually ended up following him home and sitting outside his apartment door until he finally relented—"just this one time. I just don't want you hanging around outside my house."
He mostly tuned out Sakura's chatter on their way from the Academy to her house. At twelve, she was all playground gossip and celebrity news, and "Oh, oh! Sasuke-kun, did you hear…" He supposed she was useful for keeping the other girls away from him, at least. Only a few of them ever bothered him when Sakura was around.
"…won't pass." She was saying glumly one afternoon, almost sulky.
He turned his head slightly in her direction, slightly frowning in confusion.
She noticed. "Honestly, Sasuke-kun," she sighed, "I don't know why I talk to you. You never listen."
"I don't know why either." He shrugged.
"I said," she said slowly and deliberately, making sure he was paying attention. "I'm worried that the exams will test something I'm not good at, and I won't pass."
"Hn." He scoffed. "You'll pass."
"You don't know that." Sakura shook her head. "I'm not good at things like you are." She complained. "My parents are genin. They never trained me right." The unspoken words 'like your parents did' hung between them. Even now, Sakura was sensitive enough to know that mentioning his family was a touchy topic. It hung heavily between them whenever conversation strayed a little too close to home.
"Your mother is a doctor." He grit his teeth, ignoring her implication.
"A civilian doctor!" Sakura protested. "She flunked out of the med corps."
"Quit your whining. You're annoying." He declared in a flat voice, ending the conversation.
He could sense Sakura sulking as they reached her home. She unlocked the door without a word, toed off her sandals, and disappeared up the stairs for a few moments. He could hear her shuffling around upstairs as he made his way into the dining room and took a seat on one of the cushions arranged around the low table. His homework was already out on the tabletop when Sakura reappeared, dumping her homework on the table, and marched past him into the kitchen.
She emerged a few minutes later, with a tray containing a teapot and several onigiri that her mother had prepared beforehand. She carefully placed it on the table and took her seat across from him, pouring the tea into small cups and pushing one toward him. When she was done, she divided the onigiri based on filling; she preferred sweeter fillings, whereas Sasuke detested them, and her mother knew that, making sure to properly indicate which had which filling.
Sakura settled across from him, sipping at her tea and making a face at him over her cup. He ignored her. It was a comfortable routine that they had developed early in their friendship, all the way back during his stay in the hospital; they sat in silence for the most part, with Sakura making the occasional comment about the homework, and Sasuke felt some of the tension in his shoulders ease. Classes at the Academy were a trial to get through, full of noisy children and incessant badgering by his many admirers. Here, in the quiet of the Haruno household, he was able to relax. He sipped at his tea and picked at a rice ball, but most of his attention was on the worksheets in front of him.
"Done." Sakura threw down her pencil an indeterminate amount of time later, stretching and looking toward the clock on the wall. "Kaa-chan should be home soon."
He nodded, eyes on his final problem. He finished as she cleared away their tea things, muttering something about wrapping up the rest of his onigiri for him to take home later, and was leaning back on his hands when she re-entered the room. She considered him from her position standing in the doorway, head tilted slightly to the side. He knew what was coming before she opened her mouth.
"Wanna spar?" She asked.
He nodded, climbing to his feet and putting on his sandals before following her out the front door. The Haruno family had no true yard, but there was a small patch of trees down the street that they had used for this purpose before. Sakura was never a very challenging opponent, but she did try. He knew he was a genius when it came to taijutsu and ninjutsu, but Sakura was decidedly average for their age. Still, challenge or not, it was exercise after a long day of nothing but theory in preparation for their graduation exams, and Sasuke was feeling antsy.
He met her first strike with a block, moving to sweep her feet out from under her. She jumped backward, back against a tree, and spun to the other side, out of his line of sight. His eyes scanned the foliage above, and he moved into a defensive position. She appeared from his left, lunging at him, and he caught her fist in his hand. Twisting her arm, he put her into a hold that she had to use force to break, elbowing between his ribs and making him hiss under his breath as he released her.
They traded blows for a while, the afternoon sun becoming rosy around them. It felt good to be moving again. They both knew he was going easy on her, but neither said anything. Sakura was well aware that, if he wanted to, he could have her flat on her back in moments. It bothered her, if the thunderous look on her face was anything to go by, but it wasn't acknowledged between them.
They mutually decided that their exercise was over when they heard her mother calling them inside to help with supper. Wordlessly, they trudged back inside and headed to wash up; she disappeared up the stairs to make use of the bathroom, and he slipped into the small water closet downstairs to make use of the faucet, using a wet paper towel to wipe off the worst of the sweat and dirt from his skin. He dusted his clothes off as best he could, knowing that Mebuki hated them coming in covered in dirt and leaves, and stepped out to help in the kitchen.
"Good afternoon, Sasuke-kun." The doctor greeted him cheerfully. In the four years he'd known her, she'd only ever been friendly to him. He wasn't particularly fond of her or her husband, but he tolerated their kindness—or rather, their pity, his mind supplied mutinously. "It's good to see you again."
"Thank you for having me." He replied automatically, his mother's insistence on good manners still instilled in him even after the nearly five long years of her absence.
She smiled indulgently. "I suppose Sakura is still washing up." She hummed to herself. "Why don't you get started on the vegetables for me? The ones in the bag over there."
Wordlessly, he moved to retrieve the vegetables from the plastic bag and used the knife that she'd left out to peel and chop them. He'd never questioned the fact that she made him help with the preparation of food; his mother would never have done such a thing with company, but he'd made a conscious effort not to think about that too long. Besides, he prepared all his own food at home anyway, and had done for years. He was a more competent cook than Sakura, at least, who tended to burn anything she tried to make.
Sakura joined them ten minutes later, fresh-faced and having changed her clothes. She kissed her mother on the cheek and set to helping Sasuke with the vegetables, chattering with her mother about her day at the Academy. Sasuke tuned them out, focusing on not slicing his fingers open with the sharp knife.
Kizashi, Sakura's father, returned home at about the time they competed their task, and Mebuki shooed them out of the kitchen with a pot of tea and told them to relax until dinner was ready. They seated themselves at the table once again, Sasuke moving their schoolbags to the side of the room, and Sakura pouring the tea for themselves and her father. The man joined them after changing out of his uniform, beaming at his daughter as she presented him with a cup.
The two of them made light chatter as the smell of dinner cooking wafted through the house, and Sasuke realised that he was hungry. He'd only eaten one of the four onigiri that Sakura had presented him with earlier. The other three would probably be his breakfast, or, more likely, his lunch the next day. Mebuki would also load him up with leftovers, like she did every time he came to dinner, so he would not have to cook tomorrow night either.
"And you, Sasuke?" Kizashi's merry voice broke through the veil of calm that Sasuke had wrapped himself in, and he forced himself to pay attention to the man. Not for the first time, he thought to himself about how unsuitable pink hair was for a shinobi. No wonder the man had never made it past genin. He wondered if Sakura would, with an even more garish handicap than her father. "How has the week been treating you?"
"I'm well." It was the same exchange they had every week. If Kizashi tired of it, he'd never let it show.
"Good, good." He took a long drain of his tea, his attention not wavering from the boy seated across from him. "Sakura tells me the graduation exams are next week. Nervous?"
"No." He answered bluntly. He wasn't nervous. He knew, without a doubt, that he would pass. There wasn't much in the academy that he had struggled with, and he knew all the basic jutsu that they'd learned inside out and backwards.
"Ah, I forget that I'm talking a genius shinobi." The tone was indulgent, but held no condescension. Still, Sasuke bristled. "Well, if you happen to be put on the same squad as Sakura, I hope you'll keep looking out for her."
"Otou-san!" Sakura's face coloured. "Sasuke-kun's never looked out for me before! I can take care of myself!"
Sasuke fought the urge to cringe at the shrillness of her voice. She got like that when her parents embarrassed her in front of him, he'd noticed, or when Yamanaka got it into her head that she and Sakura were somehow competing for his attention. The notion was ridiculous. He tolerated Sakura's presence when she was bearable, and told her outright when she was being a nuisance. He did not tolerate Yamanaka. At all.
Thinking about it, he supposed he would prefer if Sakura was on his squad. At least she wouldn't bother him. Or, perhaps, the Hyūga girl. She never bothered him, he supposed.
"Hn." Was all he said aloud.
"Dinner's ready!" Mebuki called from the kitchen. "Sakura, come help me!"