Chapter 6: A Scribbled Message

Haruno Sakura

"Hey, Sakura!" Ino called my name loudly and banged loudly on the wooden frame of the rolling door repeatedly.

My eyes opened gradually and I found that my back still hurt like someone had just shoved needles repeatedly in my back and then poured alcohol over my wounds without any warning. Okay, maybe I was being a little over dramatic but it did hurt like a bitch. I opened my jade green eyes and groaned when I realized that I had fallen asleep on the wooden chair from underneath the messy writing desk. Ino's annoying banging continued and my head throbbed wildly with every harsh bang, as if some invisible force thought it funny to pound my head into oblivion. I stood up and stretched languorously before dragging myself over to the shojo screen, rolling it open reluctantly.

"I thought you'd never open the door!" Ino huffed in annoyance and I yawned widely, too lazy and too sleepy to cover my yawn.

Ino made a face and stuck her tongue out, "When was the last time you brushed your teeth, forehead girl? Your breath smells like Naruto's socks."

Something in me clicked and I forgot all about my sleepiness, straightening up and pointing an accusing finger at her, "I brushed my teeth last night, thank you very much. I just woke up, Ino."

"That's no excuse," Ino retorted and took a step past me into my room.

She put her hands on her skinny hips and whistled at what she saw inside. She threw me a glance over her shoulder and asked, "When did you get so neat? Your clothes are usually everywhere and where's that cute little teddy bear you bring around with you all the time?"

My eyes narrowed at her and I explained curtly, "I have a lot of free time on my hands nowadays and since I'm rooming with a guy, I'm not about to throw my clothes around anymore. And, Wolfie is back in Konoha."

Ino raised a perfectly plucked blonde eyebrow and questioned sceptically, "Wolfie? It's a teddy bear, Sakura."

"Shut up! I can call him whatever I want," I snapped irritably and Ino shrugged indifferently.

Her sky blue eyes scanned the room critically and they eventually came to rest upon the silent man sleeping on the windowsill. She began to walk towards him and I followed her quickly, doubtful of what Itachi would do to her if she tried anything. He was one to wake up easily.

"Hm…so this is Uchiha-kun, huh?" Ino didn't even look at me as she asked, her crystalline blue eyes were fixed on the pale faced Sharingan master.

"No, you're staring at Kisame," I told her sarcastically and she leaned in closer to Itachi. My breath hitched in my throat and I feared for Ino; Itachi could just reach out and snap her neck in two and I would be powerless to do anything.

"I'm so jealous of you, he's so hot! Just get rid of those scars and he's perfeeect!" Ino whined and began to hop up and down on the spot lightly; the wood didn't make even the slightest sound as she bounced excitedly.

I stared at her. "Itachi-san…hot? He's a killer Ino."

"So? So are we! And since when did you start calling him by his first name?" Ino smirked at me knowingly.

I opened my mouth to protest and she waved a hand at me to shut up. "Anyways, forget about that for the moment. What's he like? Has he got a hot personality to go with that sexy face? Come on, you've got to tell me!"

I burst out laughing at her ridiculous question and had to sit back down, clutching my stomach as my laughing was beginning to hurt my stomach. When I had finally calmed down, I answered her question, "Think of Sasuke and his 'I'm so much better than you so you should go die' attitude. Think of his arrogance."

Ino nodded. "Uh-huh."

"Think a million times worse and two million times more prideful," I finished.

Ino's bright face fell and her eager expression became one of utmost disgust; the kind of expression you have when you hear a squelching noise and look down at your shoe only to realize that you've stepped in doggy doo doo. She made a vomiting noise and shivered, seeing Itachi in a new light all of a sudden.

Then, she clapped a hand on my shoulder and sighed, "Well, I can't help but feel very sorry for you. Look at the bright side, you're shift is almost over so in a couple of days you'll be able to go back to Konoha and never see this prick again!"

I shrugged and looked at Itachi, my face softening as I looked at him. Ino's perfect jaw dropped at my expression and when my jade green eyes returned to hers, she had a wide grin on her made up face.

"Did you just smile at Uchiha-kun?" She demanded hotly, grabbing me roughly by the shoulders. I looked at her petite hands in surprise and started at her sudden change.

"I…I think so," I stuttered uncertainly.

In a hushed whisper she asked me, "Sakura, do you like him?"

"No!" I yelled loudly and Ino put a slender finger over my lips, pointing at Itachi.

She then began to chant quietly, "Sakura's in denial, Sakura's in denial, Sakura's in denial because she likes Uchiha-kun."

"I don't like him! Who would like him anyways, he's a jerk, way too prideful, stupid, arrogant, has no sense of common courtesy and…" I trailed off towards the end of my sentence, doubtful of what to say next.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever Sakura. He and you could have this huge relationship thing going on and then you could both escape to some unknown land somewhere together and get hitched. But then, you'd have to invite me to your wedding because you'd look so ugly without my expertise in make up," Ino began to rant, as she always did, and I sighed in exasperation, shoving her out of the open door.

"Goodbye Ino," I told her through gritted teeth and she beamed at me brightly, failing to realize that I was kicking her out of my room.

"And you know what-"

I slammed the shojo screen in her face and huffed angrily, turning around.

"Ino is such a dumbass," I muttered darkly to myself.

Uchiha Itachi

I found myself with far too much time on my hands nowadays. The lack of things to busy myself with was taking its toll and I found my bored mind drifting a lot. It was another one of those gloomy days and I knew without a doubt that it would rain.

"Talk a little, would you? You're so boring," Sakura grumbled and I ignored her, looking out of the window.

She began to mumble something incomprehensible and no doubt offensive before walking over to her writing desk and pulling out a pile of cream coloured papers. I had half a mind to snap something equally as rude back at her but, thanks to my enviable self control, I contained myself. She kept her back to me and I let my gaze flicker to her and her straight, business-like posture. I wrinkled my nose slightly at the sight of her annoying, bubble gum pink hair and continued to stare at her absentmindedly.

"Honestly, this room is so quiet. Can't you sing or something?" Sakura whined loudly and I turned back to the open window, having nothing to say to her.

Me? Sing? Ha, one such as I would never degrade myself to sing for a girl like her.

"Fine then, make me go and take out the radio," She continued her grumbling and stood up to approach the built in cupboard.

I stepped off of the windowsill, knowing that had she taken a couple of steps more I would have been dragged very disgracefully along the cold floor to follow her. The door of the cupboard rolled open and I waited patiently for her to take out the radio she had mentioned beforehand. After a lot of cursing and the occasional startling bang, she pulled out an old, beat up radio that looked like somebody had bashed it to bits and, after a few critical moments, eventually walked over to the writing table to put it down. I eyed her radio warily, doubtful of whether not this girl's music would make my ears bleed.

The radio crackled to life with an annoying buzzing noise and I fought the sudden impulse to cover my ears. As she turned down the volume knob gradually, a quiet guitar solo began and I found that the music had become slightly more bearable. A clear male's voice began to sing, "Please come now, I think I'm falling I'm holding onto all I think is safe…"

I turned my head to continue staring at the transparent raindrops, watching as one splattered helplessly against a large, green waxen leaf. This song was slightly familiar, it had been playing in a roadside restaurant somewhere along the way to the Hidden Village of Sand, but I hadn't really had time to pay attention to it. Now however, I had all the time in the world.

"Seems I've found the road to nowhere and I'm trying to escape…"

"Sounds like Shisui's kind of song," I thought absentmindedly and instantly, my mind began to drift back to old memories.

It was another S Class mission…which meant that there would soon be another pile of corpses. Only, this time it was only me and Shisui.

Shisui wasn't fit for ANBU, everyone knew that. He was the sort of person who couldn't kill anyone even though he was one of the best ninjas in our squad. He would never go for a fatal attack, he always went for an immobilizing attack. I don't think he ever realized the harmful potential that leaving his enemies alive would leave him.

The constant battle had me a little breathless and my opponents dead. Sweat trickled down my face and I blinked twice as it slithered into my exposed Sharingan eyes. My eye began to water and I knew that a stupid thing like that could cost me my life if someone decided to approach me from my left, temporarily blinded side.

"Hey, midget, hit the deck!" Shisui's loud voice called to me.

I instantly dropped down to the floor, hearing the telltale swish of kunai as they sailed over my head and into some unlucky guy's unprotected back. I rolled to my side just as a razor sharp katana pierced the loose dirt ground where my head would have been had I not moved. I kicked out with my feet and caught the person assaulting me in the chest. I pressed off of his chest with a powerful lunge which I landed with a couple of backflips to help me slow down. The man fell backwards and I raced towards him, stabbing him deftly in the chest with a kunai. His white cloth mask hid from me his final expression and for that I was grateful, staring into dead eyes unnerved me slightly. I heard Shisui yell out and spun around in his direction, my fingers whitening around the hilt of my black kunai.

A black clad ninja stood above him, a katana gripped in his hands tightly. He raised it to strike the final killing blow and I ran towards the person, pulling out my own katana as I went, and thrust the sword deep into the person's unsuspecting back. I made no move to remove my katana as the man gurgled loudly and vomited what must have been his own lifeblood. It was only when he stopped struggling against the katana that I pulled it out swiftly, ignoring the red sheen of blood staining its lethal surface like white on rice.

There was a long silence and I began to lower my guard ever so gradually, seeing as the person I had just killed was the last enemy. Shisui was silent and I looked at him when he made no move to stand up.

"Our mission is finished," I informed him calmly and turned to leave.

Just as I turned away, he spun me back around again with flared up angry Sharingan eyes. His large hands gripped my smaller shoulders tightly with a strength I marvelled at, I doubted he was even aware that he was causing me discomfort, and he looked the angriest I had ever seen him. Something in my throat clenched as he glared at me and I found myself unable to speak.

"You had no right to kill those men!" Shisui yelled at me wildly and I stared back at him unflinchingly.

"They had no right to attack us," I retorted smoothly and he shook my forcefully by the shoulders, his blood red eyes narrowed.

"That's no excuse! We were ordered to steal the mission scroll and nothing else; there was no need to kill those men!" Shisui's usually calm, drawn out voice was laced with pure anger and I found myself fumbling for words as I stared into his piercing red eyes. His sudden outburst was stupid, couldn't he see that I had just saved him?

"They would keep coming after us and make our mission more difficult. If we just kill them they won't be able to follow us and we'll be able to return easily," I explained tonelessly and with my words, something inside Shisui seemed to snap.

There was a sudden and sharp pain in my taut cheek and when I instinctively raised a slender hand to it, I was shocked to find that my left cheekbone was broken. Something was trickling down my left cheek, something wet, and when I pulled my hand away I saw that it was covered in blood. His long nails had caught me across the cheek when he had hit me and as an icy wind blew about, my open cuts tingled painfully.

"Shut up! Don't talk about them as if they're only hindrances! You just deprived two men of their lives, lives that could have been long and meaningful, just because they were in the way? You have no right to kill someone; you don't have the right to take a life!" Shisui yelled at me hysterically and I fell silent at his words, protesting inwardly at his words.

I had just saved his life and he was yelling at me like some ungrateful wretch. We were ninja, we were trained to kill people. Shisui released me all of a sudden and he lowered his head, hiding behind his fringe of dark brown hair. He began to tremble and I waited for him to calm down before we left for Konoha.

"There was another way to stop them," He whispered quietly.

I made not a sound because I knew he was right. There were many other possibilities, I could have immobilized them, knocked them unconscious, put them under an illusion…but killing was the easiest and simplest. Shisui suddenly reached out for me and I waited for him to punch me again, closing my Sharingan eyes.

I had never been scared of anything in my life, but now…I wondered if what I was feeling could be classified as utmost terror. I could tell Shisui was incredibly disappointed with me and I had no idea what exactly I had done wrong, the people I had just killed were merely statistics in a book. I was a pair of razor sharp scissors cutting through light, transparent tracing paper; we were nothing more than tools.

However, I was filled with an overwhelming guilt as Shisui glared at me in disgust. I wanted desperately to be in his good books again, I had never wanted anything more than I had wanted this. Shisui…he was important, I needed him, he was the only thing I had ever needed other than Sasuke. If hitting me would help me get back in his good graces, then I would let him hit me as many times as he wanted.

Instead, he pulled me towards him and I opened my ruby red eyes quickly, tensing up. Shisui was still trembling and had me locked in a tight embrace. My head barely came up to his shoulders and I had my wounded left cheek pressed against his broad chest. I ignored the pain that my shifting cheekbone brought and was filled with an overwhelming relief as I realized that Shisui was no longer angry with me.

I knew Shisui was suffering, so I made no move to draw away. It was the only comfort I could give him.

"Itachi…Itachi, you're just a child…"

My knuckles were white, my hands clenched in the fabric of my black pants. I shut the open window, having had enough of the drizzling rainfall, and looked at Sakura and the radio I was barely aware was still playing in the background. The song from before had changed and I grasped the beaded necklace around my neck, running a finger methodically over each and everyone of the beads.

"If I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world? Forget what we're told before we get too old; show me a garden that's bursting into life," A soft male voice sang and I instantly blocked him out of my hearing, not at all interested in a love song.

Obviously, Sakura wasn't too happy with the song either and she hit the power button on the old black radio. The music stopped instantly and the both of us were cast into still silence, having nothing to say to each other. She sighed and slid off of her chair to crawl underneath the writing desk. I began to stare at her, wondering what on earth she was doing underneath the wooden table. There was a loud bang and a string of curses as she hit her head on the underside of the table. I turned my head away from her; I had expected something like that to happen. I stared at my hands and realized that my red, crimson Akatsuki ring was missing. It seemed as if all traces of my membership had been erased from the face of the earth.

I was dimly aware of a loud click but made no move to investigate the cause. I presumed it was probably Sakura clicking her annoying flowery blue ballpoint pen, she did tend to that when she got frustrated. She was an easy person to read. A piano began to play quietly in the background and I looked back at her, realizing that she must have turned the radio back on. I let my gaze linger upon her tired figure a bit longer than I should have and turned away from her. I could feel my Mangekyou Sharingan sapping up whatever chakra I had left and found that I was feeling more and more tired with each passing day. I listened to the music playing in the background and began to relax.

I closed my tired eyes briefly, listening not only to the skilled piano player but to the sound of Sakura's steady breathing and the sounds the pen she wrote with made as she angrily scratched out various words and rewrote them again tirelessly. I was listening to everything and nothing in particular, it helped me to clear my mind of whatever I found annoying. A soft, clear voice began to sing after a while and I sunk into the wall, leaning my head against it. I bent my left knee and pulled open the window again, hearing the sound of rain beginning to fall.

"How high would I have to fly…until I can't see you again?"

I began to stare absentmindedly at the pink haired kunoichi, watching as she straightened up all of a sudden and then slumped over again dejectedly, letting out a quiet exasperated sigh.

The silence between the both of us was…comfortable.

Neither of us felt the burning need to speak to each other or lash out at each other as we normally did. We had come to a silent, unspoken understanding that only we would be able to comprehend; it was like a forbidden secret.

"If I turn my eyes away, I might feel better…but I always want to be looking at you from somewhere."

Sakura glanced at me over her petite shoulder and she seemed surprised when she found I was looking at her. I stared back at her unashamedly, nothing could embarrass me, and we continued to stare at each other. It wasn't a pulse pounding competition of who would turn away first, it was just a meaningless look that lasted a bit longer than it should have. Her pink lips curved into a quiet smile and her entire face seemed to become an important part of that simple smile. Her jade green eyes softened from their troubled state, her delicate features smoothened out and her flawless skin seemed to gleam ethereally in the dim morning light. She seemed so…happy.

She turned away finally but I continued staring at her.

Uzumaki Naruto

I could hear Sakura's radio playing faintly in the background and lay down on my soft futon, listening to the lyrics half interestedly. I yawned widely and made no move to cover my mouth, staring up at the whitish ceiling. Humidity was beginning to stain it yellow and my cerulean blue eyes followed the outline of the accidental pattern.

"Hey, fish face?" I called the hot headed blue skinned man who looked at me from where he sat beside the breaking writing desk.

The plastic black folding chair he sat on had been nicked from the meeting room, I had no idea who by so I- hey, stop looking at me like that, I didn't steal it! I just…borrowed it for an extended period of time. Anyways, the stolen – I mean - borrowed chair he sat on squeaked loudly in protest as he leaned forwards to look at me with a somewhat curious expression.

His chair squeaked again as he leaned back languorously in it. "Yeah, blondie?"

I shifted slightly on my futon and rolled onto my side so that I was facing him, "You don't seem to be trying very hard to escape. We're all prepared here for Akatsuki to come run in and bust you out but it doesn't look like they're coming…"

Kisame looked at me sceptically and asked, "I thought I told you that Akatsuki doesn't care about their members?"

I scowled at him and snapped, "I know that! But…isn't it a bit weird that nobody at all has come for you?"

"Someone did come, but Deidara wouldn't care if I keeled over and died right in front of him. He'd probably laugh at me for having died so stupidly," Kisame mused to himself aloud and my cerulean eyes widened at the mention of this 'Deidara' person.

"Somebody came?!" I yelled at him in surprise and Kisame shrugged indifferently.

"Yeah. Anyways...I know I'm going to die sooner or later. Why not die now rather than later on?" Kisame pointed out.

"You…You can't say that! Of course it's worth living! Your life can't be that bad! It's got to get better sometime," I protested and Kisame laughed at me, staring up at the ceiling.

"It's weird how optimistic you are, blondie. It's even weirder how much you care," He murmured quietly, a melancholy look in his onyx eyes.

He then smirked and began to pick a fight with me, "Then again, you are a weirdo."

"Shut up, I'm not the one with blue skin!" I retorted smartly and Kisame scoffed.

"I'd rather have blue skin than your nasty hair," He growled back angrily.

The both of us glared at each other, you could almost smell the hate waves between the two of us. We were hyped up and ready to go but the both of us had reached an unspoken understanding.

We were friends.

Haruno Sakura

My black, plastic ballpoint pen scratched away noisily as I tried to write each and every individual character so that they were at least legible. I growled inwardly as I messed up the simple character for mouth and grabbed at my throbbing head. I losing it, and losing it fast, if I couldn't even draw a stupid box. The music had long since ended and had left Itachi and me in a quiet but comfortable silence. I resisted the urge to glance quickly at the aforementioned Sharingan Master and instead rested my pale cheek against the cool rosewood of the writing desk, closing my jaded eyes.

I was barely aware of a quiet rustle of cloth and the muffled footsteps that followed it, too tired to care. I wasn't even aware of the table top sinking slightly as extra weight was added to it and it was only when something soft and cloth like swept across my face for a fleeting moment that I shot up rigidly. Something cool touched the back of my slim neck and I looked up at who was touching me, in other words, the silent Sharingan master. I calmed down instantly and he removed his slender fingers from my smooth skin, his dark red eyes fixed on the nearly illegible report I had been working on for the past few months. He raised an elegant black eyebrow at the messy handwriting and I could tell he wasn't impressed at all with the work.

I was surprised with his sudden forwardness; but I supposed the music had made us both a little more open, a little more sentimental. We had both lowered our guard for a few hours and had an onlooker seen the two of us they would have imagined us a couple of friends or perhaps something more. I wished for a moment that the two of us were always like this but quickly dismissed the idea; it had been a stupid thought.

He picked up the black biro pen that I had put down a few moments before and he arranged his pale fingers around the pen delicately if not absentmindedly. He pulled out a clean sheet of paper that wasn't too badly creased from the bottom of the pile and began to write. I stared up at him in surprise, he had never shown much interest in my written work before, but allowed him to do what he wished seeing as he wasn't doing much harm by writing on a clean piece of paper. A long, straight lock of his midnight hair fell into his beautiful, porcelain face and his facial expression changed slightly, a quick tightening of his masculine lips. The two, long diagonal scars that traced a painful path down his taut cheeks strained slightly with the movement and I wondered for a brief moment how he had managed to get them.

A loud chink of hard plastic on wood brought me back to my senses and Itachi turned away from me, returning to his post on the wide windowsill like some faithful soldier. I contradicted myself there, faithful definitely wasn't the right word since he couldn't prove himself a loyal ninja. He had a strange attachment to that windowsill; he never left it for long. I glanced at the white, slightly crumpled paper he had been writing on a couple of seconds past and pulled it closer to me so that I could read what he had written on it. I wasn't surprised to find his writing elegant and each stroke carefully written; it was like looking at a piece of priceless art that he could recreate again and again effortlessly. I didn't really focus on what he had written until I realized that I wasn't even reading the characters and my jade green eyes narrowed at what he had written.

Your writing is disgusting. I'm not surprised though, since it is your work.

I resisted the urge to growl loudly at Itachi and instead ripped up the paper he had written on angrily before crushing it into a ball that looked more like a pancake. I stood up suddenly in my makeshift chair and threw it at him as hard as I could, my stressed eyes narrowed and burning with the fury of a thousand hells.

"You're such a jerk!" I screamed at him and he caught the ball of paper effortlessly.

I sat down on my plastic folding chair in a huff, gripping the black pen tightly imagining it was Itachi's neck. I began to write again but then something unexpectedly struck the back of my head quite hard and a ball of paper rolled harmlessly along the messy tabletop.

I grabbed another sheet of paper, a page of the report I had just been writing and smashed it into a ball, turning around to throw it at the prepared missing-nin. He ducked and the paper missile went sailing out of the window and into the dense forestry below. He looked out of the open window and watched it fall, an unreadable expression on his face and he glanced at me blankly.

"You're going to have to rewrite that," He stated flatly and my face fell.

I screamed in frustration and had half a mind to jump out of the window and get the stupid piece of paper. I glared at Itachi and his usually impassive red eyes glittered at me in amusement.

A/N:

Hey! Sorry about all of these late updates but this is a big important message so I would greatly appreciate it if you read this. I will not be here in both the end of December until early February. Christmas holidays are acomin' you know? But in any case, my long absence has an explanation.

I'M IN A SHOW! hoohoohoo! I'm gonna be in the Philippines for a show! So if you wanna see me, go watch Peter Pan in the Cultural Centre and try and guess who's me. (lmao, I'm under fourteen so I'm a Lost Girl) Try and guess who I am. I'm not Wendy though (grr, I'm too voluptuous) someone else got Wendy.

OH MY GOD BUT PETER PAN he's so hot. He's got abs man. DUDE but I'm not really friends with him...that is my new goal. Become friends with Mike. Or something like that.

Oh but you know what? I can speak tagalog.

Pangalan ay Selandora. Ikao talagang maganda.

HOOOHOOO.

Selandora (the undeniably sexy one you must fear)