It blossomed like a fungus.
You could see it Ashita's cheeks.
In Sasuke's lips.
If you were stealthy enough, sometimes you could catch them outside together, standing underneath an oak tree. There was this tranquil air between them that wasn't quite there before. Then the hints of kisses and hands that had just freshly separated.
Ashita seemed to be a lot pinker these days.
The two hid it well, really. Practically no one raised an eyebrow at them, and if they were hiding from anyone else in the entire world, they probably would have gotten away with it, to fuck one another into disaster.
But Kabuto didn't miss a thing.
He caught the glow in that young woman's face. He caught that she began to pluck her eyebrows with just a little more precision. And absolutely no one missed the far away glances that were directed at nothing in particular. If you asked her a question when those lime greens were like that, she'd just glance at you and say,
"What?"
That look was plastered onto her porcelain white face nearly every time she came into her father's room to sit and eat dinner. That plate of rice and vegetables would sit there while attention got misplaced and scattered all over the room. Ashita earnestly looked around, with her eyes focusing on nothing and her mouth occasionally moving with a word or two that got no voice.
She didn't even seem to realize she was doing it.
So Kabuto kept a close eye on her. Like watching a child trying to lick an electrical outlet. She wouldn't go near him when any set of eyes came rolling towards them, but the moment the surveillance moved away, the pair practically ate one another alive.
Beta fish on their best behavior.
But the spectacled man started to pay attention to the whisper quiet footsteps in the hallway. To the tiny voices that peaked out beneath Ashita's door. To the disembodied moans that would seep out from the walls and even in the forest, coming from far, far away.
They were extremely careful.
And that's why it took a while.
He had even seen them once together, embracing. Ashita's face was all hot pink flush and lip pucker. The two would fit in a room full of dull candle light, beneath tangled covers and clothes scattered about the floor. Sasuke even seemed like he liked her—this weird anomaly that actually fit in the Uchiha's mismatched jig-saw heart.
There was almost a tragedy around them. Two star-crossed, stupid-as-shit kids that were smart enough to know it wasn't love, but dumb enough to fuck each other blind anyway.
The grey sky sat above the village for a long time with no rain. Because it was spring and that's when the showers came rolling in.
But the storm was so ready to break.
It was only a matter of time.