Chapter 7 – 8

Chapter 7 – Dinner Date… or Death

Smiling sardonically at everyone seated around the table at the fanciest and most expensive restaurant in Suna, she wondered if it was really necessary for her little brother to get married. If she had to get dressed up again, she was going to kill somebody.

Maybe the one with the black hair.

Itachi.

Her smile widened at the thought of putting Itachi through some rather… humiliating and painful things.

He must have sensed her look or read her mind because he looked up at her with an expression showing her that he really should die. He dared undress her with his eyes. In front of her family, no less.

The waiters came and served the first course of what was to be a very long dinner. Sasori and Deidara were no where to be found so they were left back at the mansion. Sakura and Gaara sat next to each other, one glaring the other attempting to initiate polite conversation. Kankuro just sat there looking at all of them with amusement.

But the worst of it all was that Itachi had decided to sit next to her.

With the current homicidal thoughts running through her head right now, that was definitely not a good idea.

On his part anyway.

Itachi on the other hand, enjoyed the looks she was given him, even though every single one of them screamed 'murder' and the way she way eyeing her knife, it would be a painful death.

He started laughing at the obscene thought going through his head. Temari looked at him strangely before stroking the blade of her knife pointedly; Sakura looked at him and rolled her eyes, used to his bipolar mood swings; Kankuro didn't even bother to look at him, just continued to eat his food; Gaara didn't react in any way, not even rolling his eyes or eating his food. He just sat there.

Sakura had no idea what to think of her new fiancé/betrothed. He was an enigma.

First, there were all the rumors about him being a heartless sociopath. Secondly, the rumors hat he was reformed. And to contradict everything was the way he and the people around him acted.

Random passers-by looked at him with fear – as was expected – but his own siblings didn't seem scared of him like they should have been if he was still sociopathic. Then there was the way he himself acted. The floor had caved in because of a trap he had set which led to the question of why he had tried to kill/seriously injure them.

It could have been for any number of reasons. Option one, he wanted to test them. Two, he was a sociopath attempting to kill them for his own sadistic pleasure. Three, he and his siblings were working together to take down the Leaf village they had tried to do at the Chuunin exams. Four, he had set the trap for someone else. Five, it wasn't him after all and she was delusional.

Pushing her thoughts aside, she concentrated on the present situation, ignoring Itachi who was still laughing for no particular reason. Shrugging it off as him being bipolar – not that she would ever accuse him of that to his face – she picked up her knife and fork hesitantly and began consuming her delicious meal.

She noticed that Gaara didn't eat any of his meal, instead sliding to his brother who happily ate it without a second thought, proving her theory that it was a common occurrence that he didn't eat.

Meaning poison was out of the question.

Observing the way the waiters treated him deferentially, she debated whether or not she would be able to get them on her side should anything happen.

Not that she was planning anything but it's better to be safe then sorry and all that.

Dismissing the waiters as possible allies, her thought drifted again to her two companions who had been unable to accompany them.

Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary in the way they had been acting around people they didn't know but when she had glanced in on them she had seen Deidara throwing ice cream at Sasori who had been just lying on the bed, ignoring every word and action. Seeing that, she had decided not to invite them, choosing to let them sort out heir own problems.

That word triggered another series of thoughts.

Problems.

Like the fact that she was getting married to someone she didn't know anything certain about. The fact that he had two siblings who acted as if they detested her. The fact that she had no idea if she would ever see her village again.

Oh, and the constant attempts on her life that had been happening frequently.

But those could be solved a lot easier then her other 'issues'. Simply track down who was trying to kill her, find out why and then kill them.

No difficulties and no regrets.

To bad she just couldn't go and kill every single person in the restaurant. It would solve her problems and relieve some of the stress that had been building over the past week. But then she would become a wanted criminal and all that jazz.

Sighing inaudibly, she sank back into her own thoughts, not noticing the three men who sat behind her and wouldn't stop staring at her even as they ate their meals.

Under normal circumstances, someone would have noticed the attention they were receiving but everyone was lost in their thought, eating or talking/arguing. And the one that did notice, well he really couldn't care less.

He was used to people staring at him.

Not to sound conceited – even though he was – all his life he had people looking at him for whatever reason. He was the heir to a clan – one he had slaughtered mercilessly, he had managed to create and master several jutsu's beyond what anyone had thought him capable of, and he thought that he was pretty suave.

Not that the girl he had his sights set on thought the same thing, but there was still time and the night was still young and any number of pointless sayings he remembered at that point.

Smiling what he and his many fangirls thought was a winning smile, he turned to Temari and tried to coax a response out of her that wasn't vindictive or violent.

He failed.

Glaring and making him glad that looks couldn't kill, she spun the knife in her hand, successfully distracting Itachi from staring at her not so obvious cleavage, with her other hand she picked up her fork and jabbed him in the ribs with it making sure that it didn't kill him, only hurt him enough to get the point across.

She failed.

With a look that bordered on indecent, he looked her up and down, drawling, "A feisty one, are we? Good thing dominant women make me… shake."

Form the way he said it, it was apparent that he didn't mean out of fear.

Disgusted but amused despite herself, she tuned out his insistent chatter and awkward innuendos and turned to her own meal.

It would be fun to make him squirm.

With that thought in mind, she pounced.