Tuesday passed uneventfully. Mayu-sensei reminded them all that the Harvest Festival was coming up next week, but that was it.
The next thing anyone knew, it was Wednesday, the day that the three were scheduled to go to Ayame's shop. Tohru opted to come with for the fun of it, and where Tohru went, Kyo was sure to go. Yuki decided to stay home, saying that if he wanted to dress like a woman, he'd call Ritsu. None of the shinobi understood what this meant, but Kyo and Tohru assured them that they would eventually.
Walking down the street in the direction Tohru pointed, Sakura shivered. It was already October, and getting colder every day. Because it was always so warm in the Fire Country, she had only experience these conditions one other time, in Yukigakure. Even then, she had been working for most of it, and her body heat had kept her warm.
Sasuke noticed her shiver and unconsciously wrapped his arm around her petite frame. The girl 'eeped' at the contact, but didn't do anything to move it.
'He's so warm…'
'Never thought the human glacier could be like this, eh?'
'I used to wish for it. A long time ago…'
Sasuke, on the other hand, was being intoxicated by the wonderful smell coming from his female teammate's hair. It was strawberries and cream.
'Did she always smell this good?'
'Probably. But you were too obsessed with revenge to notice.'
'Wait, what do you mean 'you'? Don't you mean 'we'?'
'Nope. The leaving Konoha thing was all your decision. I had no say.'
'Hn…'
Naruto, noticing his friend's position, smiled to himself.
'If things keep going like this, they'll be together by the end of this mission!'
When the group finally reached Ayame's shop, the silver-haired man rushed out to meet them.
"FRIENDS! I'M OVERJOYED TO SEE YOU!" He ran hug Naruto, but the boy sidestepped the oncoming threat, causing him to collide with Sakura instead. There was a loud POOF and where Ayame once stood, a small, white garden snake sat. Instinctively, it slithered over to Sasuke. The boy knelt down and let Ayame crawl up his arm and rest on his shoulder.
"I've dealt with a lot of snakes before." He said emotionlessly when Kyo and Tohru just stared at him. Just then, a woman peeked out of the window. She saw the group, smiled, and opened the door.
"Welcome! You must be the group that Ayame-san was expecting. He came out here to greet you, but it seems he's run off." She said, looking around. Sakura stepped forward.
"Yes, Ayame-san remembered that he had to get something from the grocery store. He said he'd be right back." The woman smiled again.
"Oh well then, come on in! We'll just have to wait until he gets back to start."
As the teenagers entered the shop, Naruto and Sasuke leaned over to Kyo.
"Start what?" Naruto whispered. The orange-headed teen just shook his head.
"You don't want to know."
Sakura stared at the shop in wonder. They had everything here! From wedding dresses to lingerie to what Ayame had fondly called "Princess Gothica". The woman who had brought them in introduced herself as Mine, Ayame's assistant. Said snake had slithered towards the back of the store, where there was a storeroom and a back door.
After a POOF and the rustle of clothing, the silver haired man burst through a red velvety curtain that lead through the back room.
"I'M BACK, MY DEAR!" He yelled, and Mine rushed over.
"Oh Ayame-san, I didn't even hear you come in! Did you find what you needed at the store?"
"No, they did not have it in stock. But FEAR NOT! I will retrieve it some other time." He walked towards the front of the shop, took out a ring of keys and locked the front door. Then he flipped the 'OPEN' sign over to 'CLOSED'.
"Ayame-san, why are you closing the store?" Sakura asked naively. Something was telling her that this might not have been a good idea after all. Ayame whirled around, beaming.
"So that we may start the private fitting for you two lovely princesses!"
"Private fitting? Oh no, that's quite alright Aya-" That was as far as Sakura got before the snake man clapped his hands.
"Nonsense! MINE!" Suddenly, the calm assistant was at her employer's side, looking at the two girls like a lion would look at its prey.
"Yes sir." She said before whipping a tape measure out of her apron and measuring every inch of the kunoichi's body. Sakura was about to smack her away when she was grabbed by the back of her shirt collar and dragged into a nearby dressing room. She reached out for her friends.
"Help me!" She yelped as the curtain closed. Kyo sat down on a nearby couch, and gestured for the two boys to sit as well.
"This could take a while."
Naruto winced as he heard Sakura's screams of protest. Sasuke's eyes were wider than normal. Ayame was nowhere to be seen.
"What are they doing in there?" said blonde asked.
"Trying on clothes." Kyo said bluntly.
A few minutes later, Ayame came back from wherever he had been, and cleared his throat in front of the nervous men.
"Let me introduce to you the two lovely ladies who entered my shop today, reborn! Haruno Sakura and Honda Tohru, please come out!" The curtains separated and the boys gasped at what they saw.
Sakura had on a black tube top that covered her chest, and ribbons that criss-crossed once across her stomach and hooked to a short black leather mini skirt, which stopped about halfway down her thighs. She wore high black strappy heels, and on the back of the tube top was a pair of small black butterfly wings, the bottom parts sprouting off into two long black ribbons. A black satin choker adorned her neck, and two small black horns could be seen protruding through her pink hair.
Naruto gaped, while Sasuke stared. Suddenly, his face became the color of his favorite fruit, and he clasped his hand to his nose. Sakura swore she could see red liquid leaking through his fingers as he sprang from the couch and fled from the room.
'Did… Did he just get a nosebleed?'
'No duh! And who wouldn't? You look HOT!'
'Thanks, but that's impossible. Uchiha Sasuke does not get nosebleeds.'
'You also didn't think that Ino could ever date someone as lazy as Shikamaru. And look at them now! Steady for almost two years.'
'True, but this is different. This is Sasuke. I must've been imagining things.'
'Hun, you can deny it all you want, but that's not going to change that it happened.'
'It was my imagination. Nothing more.'
'The imagination sometimes shows us what we truly desire. Admit it. You wanted him to look at you that way.'
'…Shut up.'
"…Sakura-chan!" Naruto yelled, and the pink-haired girl snapped out of her thoughts to see that the blonde had been trying to talk to her.
"What?"
"Did you see the Teme's face? It was priceless!" he collapsed back onto the couch laughing. Sakura frowned and looked over at Tohru and Kyo, both of whom were blushing furiously.
Tohru's outfit was the exact opposite of Sakura's. While Mine had gone with something from the Princess Gothica collection for the kunoichi, she had deemed Tohru to innocent for anything like that, and decided to do an Angel-Devil theme.
The girl now wore a white silk baby doll dress that stopped right above her knees gathered underneath the bust and had two small poofy sleeves. She wore high strappy heels (that Sakura had to take five minutes to teach her how to walk in) and crystal jewelry. Two small white feathered angel wings where attached to her back, and a nearly invisible wire stretched from her back to about four inches above her head, where a feathered halo was held in place. She really did look like an angel.
Kyo was struggling to find what to say, and Tohru looked at him worriedly.
"Do I really look that bad, Kyo-kun? It's okay, you can tell me the truth." She fretted. Kyo looked mortified and shook his head.
"No, it's not that! It's just…" he trailed up, and Naruto (who had recovered from his laughing fit and was standing next to the orange headed boy) jabbed an elbow into his side. "You look really nice." Kyo said quickly, blushing and looking at the floor. Tohru smiled and laughed a little.
"Arrigatou, Kyo-kun. That really means a lot to me." This maid said, making the boy blush even harder. Sakura smiled.
'They're meant to be together.'
And for once, her Inner didn't argue with her.
Meanwhile, Sasuke sat in the men's bathroom that Ayame had pointed out, stuffing toilet paper up his nose to stop the bleeding.
'Well, this is humiliating.'
'But well worth it. Did you see Sakura in that outfit? I mean YAHOO!'
'Why does she make me feel like this now? It never happened before.'
'Well, last time you were with her for a long period of time, you were 12, and didn't have as many of these RAGING hormones. And you've never been this close to her personally.'
'How am I close to her personally?'
'You're learning more about her on the level of a friend, rather than on the level of a teammate. You know that her favorite food is her mother's homemade dango, she has a cousin who is on Kiba's geninn team, and when she was little she was afraid of the dark.'
'So how does that explain these reoccurring feelings I get when I'm around her?'
'You like learning about her. You want to know more about who she is, what she likes, what she dislikes, and most importantly, who she likes.'
'Hn… That says nothing.'
'Oh, don't even play that game with me. I'm You, and I'm getting all these feelings too. Only they're coming at me full force, and I can interpret them better.'
'And…?'
'You're gonna need to figure that out for yourself.'
Sasuke was startled when the door suddenly opened. He ripped the toilet paper out of his now dry nose and whirled around to be face to face with Ayame.
"Oh, it's just you." he sighed. The snake-man beamed.
"So you liked my clothing! Oh, I'm ever so glad!" Sasuke huffed and faced the mirror, silently checking his face for any sign of blood. Behind him, Ayame's beam became a sly smile and his eyes narrowed slightly.
"Don't put yourself in denial, Sasuke-san." The blunette perked up a little.
"About what?"
"About her."
"About who? Sakura?" The silver haired man nodded and Sasuke scowled at his reflection. "She's just a friend."
"Just a friend? I don't think so. You like her."
"Of course I like her. I've known her since I was a kid. You have to like people you've known since then."
"Oh really? Kyo and Yuki's hate for each other goes back just as far, and do they look like best friends?"
"This is different."
"How so?"
"She's… she's… she's Sakura, for Kami's sake!" Sasuke was now getting slightly frustrated (although he hid it well), and Ayame could tell that he was trying to convince himself that he didn't like his pink-haired friend as much as he was trying to convince the snake.
"This whole thing is rather shady." The silver-haired man continued, dropping the subject. "Akito randomly lets three children with no connection to us whatsoever know our secret, when so many others have been punished for it."
"And your point is?" Sasuke asked, now annoyed with the other man.
"It's just strange, that's all."
"Whatever." Sasuke said as he started to walk out of the bathroom.
"I will find out what you and your friends are hiding, Sasuke-san." Ayame said, his eyes narrowed, and a cold smile dominating his features. This was definitely not the Ayame they had been dealing with before. This man before him was a completely different person from the bumbling, dramatic idiot they had met at Shigure's.
Sasuke turned around and stared at Ayame. Not glared, just stared. A smirk played across his face.
"I don't know what you mean, Ayame-san. My friends and I have nothing to hide." And he was gone.
After meeting Naruto, Kyo, Tohru and Sakura back in the front of the shop, the group left. As they walked from the shop, Sasuke turned his head slightly to look back. Ayame was watching them, the same look he had on in the bathroom plastered onto his face. He was staring right at Sasuke. Said boy smirked one more time before turning his head back to face his friends.
"What's wrong, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked, pretending like the whole outfit thing didn't happen.
"Nothing." Which meant 'I'll tell you about it later' to the shinobi.
Back at the apartment, Sasuke recounted his talk with Ayame (excluding the whole first part about Sakura) to his friends.
"Do you think he knows?" Sakura asked.
"No, but I think he's caught onto the fact that something's up. We still need to get closer to all the Sohmas, not just Tohru, Yuki and Kyo. That will better our chances of being near them if Akatsuki decides to attack." The blunette suggested.
"That's a good idea. But Sakura-chan, what are we going to feed the Sohmas when they come over on Friday? I don't think we have that much instant ramen left-" Sakura bopped Naruto on the head.
"Baka, you think we're going to serve them instant ramen? I'll cook something, and we'll have a nice visit. But you two need to ninja-proof your room in case one of them stumbles in there. I'll do the same to mine."
"Arrigatou, Mom." The blonde groaned. Sakura grinned and pinched his cheek.
"You're welcome honey." Sasuke inwardly smiled at his teammate's antics. Getting up, he walked over and opened up the fridge. He sweatdropped when he found that it was almost completely empty.
"Sakura." he called, and she looked up at him cutely. "You need to go shopping at some point, if you're going to cook for them."
Suddenly Sakura's cute expression twisted into a sly smirk.
"Of course, Sasuke-kun. Not only do we need food, but we need other things too."
"What do you mean?" Naruto asked.
"I need a new dress of course. Actually, I need two; one for the dinner and one for the Harvest Festival next week."
"Okay… and what does that have to do with us?" Sasuke asked, slightly afraid of the answer. Sakura's smirk got wider.
"Usually Ino would go with me to give advice and such, but since she's not here…" Naruto gulped.
"Uh oh." Sasuke shook his head.
"No freaking way are we going shopping with you. Much less dress shopping."
"Well that's too bad." Sakura said, strolling towards her bedroom. "Because that wasn't a request. That instant ramen won't last forever, and I know for a fact that Sasuke can't cook for his life." She shut the door.
Both boy's eyes widened and they looked at each other. She was seriously threatening them with starvation? The blonde threw himself at the pink-haired girl's door.
"ALRIGHT WE'LL DO IT!!!! JUST LET US EAT!!!!!!!!!" He screamed, and fell face first to the floor when the door swung open. Sakura already had her shoes and coat on, and put her hair into two low pigtails. She smiled brightly.
"Let's go!"
"You want to go now?" Sasuke asked.
"No time like the present!" Sakura giggled and headed towards the door. The two boys looked at each other before throwing on their shoes and rushing to catch up with her.
Both boys were about to learn something very important about their female teammate that Kakashi could've never taught them. Sakura may have been an intelligent, strong, forceful, capable kunoichi, but she was still very much a woman. A woman who was going to teach the two of them something they would use for the rest of their lives. It was a one-sentence lesson.
Hell hath no fury like a woman shopping.
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Hi guys. I know this chapter is later than expected, but I'm really busy right now, and trying to work through my rut with this story. I'll be posting some other things to try to get my creative juices flowing again, so bare with me, okay? Thanks guys! :D
