White Lace
Author's Note: Thanks for all the reviews. Sorry this one is a bit late. I've gotten a bit side tracked by my other stories, particularly Opportunity. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter. If you have any ideas or requests for what'd like to see in this story or others, feel free to leave them in a review or private message me.
New Story: For those interested, Love Conquers All is now up. It's a Sasuke x Hinata. A what if story. What if Kakashi had taken Sasuke in after the massacre? First chapter is slow. Sasuke is only 7. Chapter two will have a major time skip though.
Chapter Six
Sasuke was torn between bliss and terror. Bliss that he could finally spend some time with Hinata. Terror that his grandfather and Shisui were going to embarrass the Hell out of him while Hinata was there.
"So you can take whatever guestroom you like best. You can tell they are guestrooms because they don't have the family crest on them." He explains.
"Oh alright. Which one is closest to you? I m-ean if we are going to be partners for this mission, we should be cl-ose to each other." She stammers.
"This one is closest to me. It's right across the hall." He says and leads her inside one of the rooms.
Hinata looks around curiously. It had a queen sized bed. It seemed white and gold was the theme of this room.
The sheets and blankets were white. But the canopy and pillows were gold. She was pretty sure it was all silk. The walls were white and the carpet was gold.
She could see a connected bathroom. There was a large vanity and a handsome wardrobe. In the center of the room was a proud grandfather clock. There was a desk by the bed with a lamp on it.
"It's beautiful." She says.
"I'm glad you like it." Sasuke replies.
A little later that night, Hinata was hungry. She decided to go sneak a midnight snack. She didn't expect anyone else to be in the kitchen. Hearing voices, she uses her ninja training and hides, not wanting to intrude.
"You are going to be nice to her." Mikoto says and places her hands on her hips.
"I see no reason not to be. She's a sweet girl. I'm not sure how she'll react to being around our clan. The Hyugas are very traditional and very formal. We are less so." Fugaku says.
"I'm sure she'll be fine. Sasuke will help her." She says.
"He follows her around like a lovesick puppy." Fugaku observes.
"Mmm you used to do the same to me." She taunts him.
"Oh I still do. One can not argue with the view." He smirks.
"You and your father have far more in common than either of you care to admit, my love." She muses.
"I'd rather not discuss my father now." He says and pushes her onto the counter kissing her.
She smiles and kisses back. He was such a cold man in public. But she never doubted for a moment that he did love her. He was anything but cold in private.
Hinata blushes scarlet. She decides immediately to head back to her room. She didn't want to interrupt such a private moment. The Uchiha family was…an affectionate one it seemed.
"Hinata?" Sasuke calls out.
"Oh Sasuke!" She says.
"What are you doing up? It's like three in the morning." He asks.
"I was just going to get a qui-ck snack." She mumbles.
"Why are you blushing about that?" He asks and raises an eyebrow.
"I um…well someone else was in the kitchen." She answers.
"Uh huh? Probably just grandfather trying to sneak some sweets in behind mother's back." He assures her.
"No…not exactly." She mumbles and thinks, Though at the rate they are going your mother might be on her back soon.
"Hinata." Sasuke says warningly in a voice that told her quite clearly he was going to get an explanation out of her one way or another.
"Your parents. They are…" She trails off.
"Really? Damn. Sorry you walked in on that. Didn't know father still had it in him to be honest. It's alright. I doubt they are mad. It was an accident." He tells her.
"They didn't see me. At least I don't think they d-id." She mumbles.
"Then what are you so embarrassed about?" Sasuke asks.
"You are acting like this happens to you every day or something." Hinata says and tilts her head in confusion.
"My clan is huge. It's pretty much a given that somewhere in the District someone is…with their most precious person." He finishes and decides that was a suitably "proper" way to put it.
"Oh." Hinata says and seems to be trying to process this.
"I mean, it'd be traumatizing to walk in on my mother and father doing THAT. But it happens. It happens A LOT when your cousin is Shisui." He continues.
She couldn't help but giggle at Sasuke's expression. He seemed so horrified by the possibility of walking in on his parents. It made him look his age. Sasuke normally looked so…intense. He was one of the most deadly ninjas in the world, even if he hadn't quite reached twenty yet.
"Is he really that big a playboy?" She asks.
"He talks a bigger game than he actually has. But he's had a few lovers. He's not very discreet. He's…loud." Sasuke says with a shrug.
"What about you?" She asks and then blushes scarlet.
She couldn't believe she had actually said that! Sasuke was going to be so annoyed with her. That sounded like she was hitting on him. She sounded like some hussy at a bar coming onto him.
"I'd make sure to soundproof the room." He answers.
"Ohhh." She says.
"I'm not really sure if I'm loud or not…" He admits.
She blinks. Hinata hadn't expected that. Sasuke had basically just said he was a virgin.
She'd always known that he was more…aloof when it came to women. But with the way the girls of the Leaf and other villages threw themselves at him, she had kinda expected he would have taken at least one or two up on their offer. The fact that he hadn't, was surprising.
She wasn't silly enough to think that many people held out for the ideal of being each other's firsts on their wedding night in this era. Did he? Was he that big a romantic?
"Oh. Um what were you doing up?" She asks, trying to get her mind back to a SAFE topic.
"I was going to take a shower. Itachi has a habit of hogging all the hot water, if I don't get there first." He answers her.
THUD. Hinata fainted. That definitely was not a safe topic. Her mind went to the gutter instantly. Sasuke + shower = Fainting Hinata. This is very basic math.
"Hinata!" He says and leans over her, quickly checking her pulse.
He sighs in relief. Her pulse was normal. She had just fainted. He shakes his head. Yeah good thing they had gone with carpet for the floors and not tiles.
"I can't believe she fainted just because I said I was going to take a shower. Just how sheltered are Hyugas?" He mutters and scoops her up into his arms, taking her back to the guestroom.
He sets her down gently on the bed and tucks her in. Sasuke couldn't help but smile down at her "sleeping" form fondly. Gods and Goddesses, she was beautiful. Though…winning her over was apparently going to be difficult.
She was definitely a fainter. Oh well. She was his fainter. He places a chaste kiss to her forehead and heads off to get his shower. There was no way in Hell Itachi was getting all the hot water this time! He'd get in the shower before Itachi got back from Kurenai's place!
Meanwhile with Itachi and Kurenai, Kurenai shows Itachi to the guestroom. She hadn't really had company in a long time. She sighs, the guestroom had seen better days, but Itachi didn't seem to mind.
"You know it would be better if we shared a room. Being in separate rooms does seem to defeat the purpose of the Yin and Yang Formation." He informs her.
"You have a point." She concedes.
"If it bothers you, I can sleep on the floor. I'm used to sleeping on the forest floor. Your bedroom floor is likely to be far more comfortable than that." He assures her.
"No. That wouldn't be fair to you. It's not like you asked for this mission. And you've already been through enough trauma with the kidnapping. I can take the floor." She says.
"I'm not kicking you out of your own bed. It's fine." He replies.
"We might as well share. It doesn't look like either of us is going to budge on this." She laughs.
Itachi uses his years of ninja training to put on a pokerface. He didn't want to let Kurenai know at this point how happy this made him. She'd walked right into that one. He knew that she was far too kind to let her guest sleep on the floor.
So yeah…it was sneaky. It was manipulative. It was probably wrong on ethical perspective, but it had worked.
"How big is the bed?" He asks neutrally.
"Queen sized." She answers.
"It suits you then. Well your Grace, it's late. Shall we retire?" He inquires.
Kurenai shakes her head in amusement. Itachi did have a dry sense of humor. Though it was nice to see him more relaxed.
The boy, well man, was the picture of alertness most of the time. He'd been forced to grow up way too fast. She was thankful that at least Sasuke had a relatively normal childhood by ninja standards.
"Yes, we shall." She says with a smile and heads to the bedroom with him.
"I'm going to go change in the bathroom out of my uniform. It's hell if you actually sleep in this at night. You can change in here if you want." She says and heads to the connected bathroom.
"Alright." He says and pulls of his Jonin vest once she was in the bathroom.
Kurenai curses under her breath. Most of her nightgowns were…well they could be at best filed under the playful category. Asuma might have been gone but the outfits she had gotten to dress up for him, they weren't. It was almost impossible to find something that wouldn't give Itachi the wrong idea. Eventually she found one that while playful, probably wouldn't make it look like she was hitting on him.
She came out wearing a purple satin long sleeved shirt and matching pants. The neckline was lower than she would have liked, but likely the most tame of the nightgowns she had. The pants were also more form fitting than was probably appropriate. But it wasn't anything outrageous. She could probably get away with this. No woman wore pants to a seduction.
"Which side of the bed do you prefer?" He asks when she comes out.
Dammit! Dammit! He was good at pokerfaces. But he couldn't control involuntarily body responses like his Sharingan being triggered. It just had to be purple satin?
He really hoped she hadn't seen that. He deactivated the Sharingan as quickly as he could. Itachi didn't think he'd ever deactivated that fast before.
"I'm flattered. Oh and I suppose it is nice to make the board on Operation Wildfire." She teases.
"…" Itachi didn't know how to respond to that.
This was fucking humiliating. He wasn't some teenager. She had seen his Sharingan activate. Kurenai obviously knew what that meant. He needed to come up with something to save face here.
"It's fine. Like I said, I'm flattered. It's a natural reaction. Oh and the right side by the way." She says and lays on the bed.
"You still want to share a bed?" He asks and tilt his head to the side an adorably childlike way.
Kurenai almost laughed at that expression. It was so…unlike Itachi. She'd never seen him look so unsure of himself.
"Yes. It must be frustrating…to have no control over that. I don't know what I'd do if every time I found someone attractive, my eyes let them know that automatically." She says.
"You have no idea." He admits and takes the left side of the bed.
"Do you want to take the first or second watch?" She questions.
"Second. I'm a morning person." He informs her.
"Alright." She replies and watches as Itachi closes his eyes.
It was a marvel really. She doubted many people ever saw Itachi sleep. She couldn't recall a time when he didn't have his guard up. But he trusted her enough to sleep next to her. It was…heartwarming.
In the morning, Hinata awakens to the smell of bacon. Naturally, she was curious and heads to the kitchen. She saw Aiya and Mikoto cooking.
Mikoto was making bacon. Aiya was preparing pancakes. Hinata really hoped that someone had cleaned that counter between now and the night before. It seemed that the Uchihas apparently had a different version of a "Midnight Snack" than most people.
"Good morning, Hinata." Mikoto says cheerfully.
"Good morning, Mi-koto." She says and tries not to blush.
Mikoto tilts her head. Why was the girl blushing? Oh well. She was a sweet girl, but painfully shy it seemed.
"Good morning. Would you mind passing me the batter?" Aiya asks.
"Good morning. Um sure!" Hinata says and passes the elderly woman the batter.
"Kenji was trying to be stubborn. Trying to pretend he didn't need the pain medication. I know better though. I swear men are such babies." Aiya states.
"Fugaku does the exact same thing when he gets injured. I think that is why women live longer than men. We don't feel the need to posture." Mikoto chuckles.
"Is Sasuke like that too?" Hinata asks curiously.
"It depends. If it's just him and the medics, he'll be a good boy and take his medicine. If he's by Naruto and Itachi though, he'll try to tough it out. That boy can be as stubborn as his father, when he wants to be." Mikoto muses.
Hinata tries not to laugh at the phrase, He'll be a good boy. It just didn't compute with perception of Sasuke. She had seen Itachi, Naruto, and Sasuke be outnumbered by more than 100 to 1 and still win. She didn't think anyone could call him a boy with a straight face. Well now she amended that. It seemed Mikoto could.
"Well let's pass the time while we wait! I'll get out the family photo album!" Aiya says happily and pulls out an old book.
"You see this is me and Kenji on our wedding day. Yes, yes he's always been that dreamy. Oh and this is the day Itachi was born. No, he hasn't always had those markings on his face. There's Sasuke and Itachi when they caught that damn cat. Aren't they adorable? Oh and there is Shisui posing for the cameras. He does love the limelight." She says and points at all the pictures excitedly.
"She loves breaking out the family album every time she gets an excuse to do so." Mikoto laughs.
"Oh that's it Missy. I didn't want to have to do this! But you made me fight dirty. Here is Mikoto that night that she lost a bet with Fugaku. She had to dress up as a bunny. See the cotton tail? Note the fishnets no her legs and the floppy ears. I'm surprised your bosom fit in that tight little top!" Aiya smirks.
"MOTHER!" Mikoto says and shuts the book, scandalized.
"What on earth is THAT picture doing in the family photo album?! That's private!" She hisses.
"Oh it makes for good blackmail material." She says cheerfully.
"I wouldn't have thought Fugaku would like…bunnies?" Hinata mumbles helplessly.
"Oh everyone has their kinks. He just likes Mikoto in animal type lingerie or costumes. My husband likes silk most of all. Itachi and Sasuke, well I'm not sure. It's an Uchiha thing I think. " She muses.
"Really?" Hinata asks and blinks in disbelief.
"It's harmless. I remember your mother going on about how your father liked to use chakra cuffs." Mikoto adds.
"EEP!" Hinata says and she was about to fall over, when Sasuke comes in and catches her.
"On the carpet is one thing, but you really don't want to fall on a tiled floor." He murmurs.
"Good catch!" Aiya says cheerfully.
"What'd you two say to her?" Sasuke asks and raises an eyebrow.
"Oh it was just a little girl bonding time." Mikoto replies.
"Uh huh?" Sasuke asks.
"That would violate the Girl Code to tell you." She says to her son.
"Well we wouldn't want to violate the Girl Code." Sasuke says and rolls his eyes.
"That's right. It's like the Guy Code. It's sacred and should never be violated. I knew would understand." She says with a smile and kisses his cheek.
"Hinata, you alright?" Sasuke questions.
"Yeah. I'm fine. Your family is just very…open." She mumbles.
"You get used to it. I know your family is more…" He trails off.
"Private?" Aiya offers.
"Yes, private." Sasuke says with a nod.
"Yeah." Hinata says, not sure how to respond to that.
"So I was thinking we could have breakfast and go see the loser. He's probably going to want to see us anyway." Sasuke suggests.
"Alright. I'd like to see Naruto." She agrees.
"Good morning, Dear." Mikoto greets her husband with a chaste kiss on the cheek when he walks into the room.
"I believe I just saw Itachi approaching with Kurenai and her daughter in tow. They should be here shortly. Is that bacon?" He asks.
"Oh good. I wonder how they made out." Mikoto says and Sasuke snickers.
"What?" She asks in confusion.
"Nothing. It's nothing." Sasuke says and tries not to crack up at the made out part, if she only knew.
"That's two nothings. In Sasukese that means something." She says and places her hands on her hips.
"I can't. It would violate the Guy Code." He says smugly.
"Well I suppose that I walked right into that one." She admits.
"Yes, you did." Aiya laughs.
The kitchen suddenly got a whole lot more crowded when Itachi, Kurenai, Mirai, Shisui, and Naruto showed up. Sasuke raises an eyebrow at Naruto like, Already? He soon found out why though, Naruto was stealing bacon just like his father was.
It got so crowded that Hinata took a couple steps back. She ended up bumping Sasuke. He "fell" into the chair, sitting on it. As he was falling, he grabbed at anything he could to prevent it. It didn't work, but he ended up taking Hinata down with him. So now Hinata was in Sasuke's lap. Much to Shisui's delight.
"Talk about falling for a guy." He says.
"Shisui, I swear to God if you embarrass her further." Sasuke growls and trails off.
Hinata blushes. She looks at Kurenai helplessly. Kurenai shakes her head and gives her a sympathetic look.
"It's cute how protective he is of his little girlfriend. Remember what Jirayia said." Shisui continues.
"OH THAT'S IT!" Sasuke gently moves Hinata off of his lap, gets up, and charges at his cousin.
Sasuke tackles Shisui to the ground. He starts throwing some punches. Thankfully, Shisui was also a skilled ninja and was able to block most of them. But Sasuke was awesome in his fury. Hinata wasn't sure what Jirayia had said, but it sure set Sasuke off.
"Wait. What did Pervy Sage say to you?" Naruto asks.
"Loser, just drop it. I have to teach my perverted cousin a lesson in manners!" Sasuke growls and punches at Shisui again.
"File it under the you don't want to know category and leave it at that." Itachi suggests helpfully.
"Oh. Okay." Naruto mutters and makes a mental note to harass the bastard later to find out what was going on.
"Oh good! Pancakes." Kenji says cheerfully and stumbles into the kitchen, leaning on his cane.
"You. Bed. Now." Aiya orders him.
"But I want some pancakes?" He asks.
"I will get you, your pancakes. You should be resting!" She thunders at him.
"Aiya, I am a ninja. A retired ninja, but a ninja all the same. I've survived far worse." He informs her.
"Don't make me use this frying pan, Mr." She warns him.
"Alright. Alright! I'm going." He eeps at the sight of wife wielding a frying pan in a rather menacing fashion.
"I swear my mother is the only person alive that can scare my father." Fugaku says and shakes his head.
"So, foolish little brother…you might want to let him up now. You don't want to kill a family member. You know he was only teasing." Itachi states.
"I don't know. I think he needs a Chidori to the nuts to really drive the point home." Sasuke replies.
"OUCH. Harsh. You are so vicious." Shisui whines.
"That's Sasuke for you." Naruto agrees.
"Eight out of Ten." Fugaku muses.
"Only an eight are you serious?!" Sasuke says in outrage.
"Well it lacked originality. But it was effective. So eight out of ten on the threat scale is a reasonable score." Fugaku argues.
"You'll never get a perfect score. I don't know why you bother trying. The highest I ever got was a 9.5." Itachi tells Sasuke.
"I'll get a perfect score one day!" Sasuke protests.
"What are they talking about?" Hinata whispers to Mikoto.
"Fugaku believes it is important to work on your intimidation skills. Since they were children, he would rate their threats on a scale of 1 to 10. One being weak. Ten being perfectly menacingly. It's… his way of bonding with them." She says.
"That's really weird." Naruto says, overhearing it.
"Well…it gives them something to aspire to." She says with a shrug.