Chapter five
The forbidden room to the left
A/N: Thank you to those who answered my question…it really helps a lot when I get feedback!
Okay, on with chapter five!
"This is my room." Anemone pointed to a room filled with pink. No doubt, Sakura decorated that room. I nodded and tried to smile. Lately it seemed as if all my smiles were forced, which they were, and it truly was becoming painfully obvious that I needed something to take my mind off things.
"It's very pretty." I told her and she smiled.
"Yeah, that's because Mommy decorated it. Pink was her favorite color and it's mine too." She said matter-of-factly. "I wish I had pink hair like her so I asked Dad if I could dye it that way…Mommy started to laugh while Dad just shook his head." She started to giggle.
I remembered when Sakura told me that. I, too, laughed.
Still giggling, Anemone showed me the next room, which was Daisuke's and Kisuke's. As expected it was a dark navy blue. "This is Dad's favorite color." Anemone said. "I think pink is better though because blue is a boy color."
Anemone was so talkative and cheerful, I was almost jealous. How could she be so happy when a big piece of her life had been ripped away from her? She, a child, was obviously coping with things better than I, an adult, was.
"That's it for our rooms…and that room over there…we can't go in there." Anemone pointed across from her, to the left, at a door that was at the end of the corridor. "We'll get in trouble if we do and since I don't want you to get in trouble, please don't go in there."
"I won't." I said and she turned back to go downstairs but my gaze still lingered on the door. What was there and why wasn't anyone aloud to go in there? Of course it was none of my business but the question still stayed in the back of my mind.
"You know where your room is, right Hinata?" Anemone asked as she poked her head back into the corridor. I nodded and she retreated back down the stairs. Shortly after, I followed suit. Daisuke and Kisuke were elsewhere but Anemone had sat her petite self down on the piano stool and had set her fingers on white keys.
A black, exquisite piano had been placed in an alcove where three large windows sat adjacent to one another. I waited to see if she would play but she didn't press a single key. She just sat there, her hands placed on the keys, looking solemnly down at them.
"Mommy was supposed to teach me to play." She called out, letting me know that I had been caught watching. "But she can't now…so when Dad get's home I'm going to ask him if I can take lessons."
Feeling it was right to approach her, I walked up to the piano. She turned to me. "I'm a little nervous though." She was nervous? Just a few minutes before she had been talkative and cheery, why the sudden change of emotions?
"I'll…I'll ask him for you." I don't know what possessed me to suggest the idea.
Anemone smiled. "Really? Thank you."
Suddenly the doorbell rang. It resounded through the whole house almost like an echo. Doing the normal thing, I paced up to the door and opened it. There stood Ino Yamanaka, a bottle of wine in her hands. The moment she saw me she frowned.
"Hinata Hyuga? Why are you here?"
I really hoped she wasn't getting the wrong idea. I explained things to her and she nodded in understanding "Yeah, anyway this is for Sasuke. He asked me yesterday to send it over." She held the wine bottle up and proceeded into the kitchen but didn't forget to wave at Anemone.
Setting it down on the counter, Ino reached up into a cabinet and took out two wine glasses. "Babe, you're working for Sasuke Uchiha now. You'll be in need of some hard liquor." At first I thought she was joking but as she poured the wine into the glasses I began to think she wasn't.
"I'm testing it for him." She told me as she handed me the glass. Grinning, she continued. "He likes it strong."
I took a sip of the wine and it tasted expensive…something like Neji would buy. "It's really…strong."
Ino looked at me. "This is just child's play…you should taste what he told me to bring last week. Now that was a killer." She sounded so at home and comfortable. I took another sip. Was everybody except me getting over Sakura's death?
"You know, Sakura often told me I didn't have to do this but I like doing it. I guess now I don't really have a reason to. The only reason I ever did bring wine was to see Sakura, really." I didn't know why she had just shared that personal information with me but I nodded anyway.
Ino laughed bitterly as she took another sip. "He drove her to death, literally." Why was she telling me things that made me remember? The car accident, the funeral, the talk with Naruto…everything was coming back and I had a feeling it wouldn't go away. Why couldn't I let go? Was it because I didn't want to?
"She'll haunt this house…"
That comment made my heart skip a beat and apparently my face showed it because Ino suddenly looked at me apologetically. "I'm scaring you, aren't I? I'm sorry, Hinata…I have a habit of doing that to people."
Ino set her empty glass down and gave me a departing salute. "Good luck." That was the only thing she said to me before she left the kitchen. I heard the main door close after that and I set my glass down to go lock the door. On my way there, I noticed that Anemone had left the piano.
I locked the door and ventured over to the piano. Out of curiosity I took a seat and looked over it. My eyes caught a strip of words that had been printed in script on one of the keys. Anemone Uchiha was the two words.
So this is her piano?
"A gift, maybe?" I wondered aloud.
"Yeah, it was a gift." A voice spoke up from behind me. Turning around sharply, I came face to face with Daisuke. Breathing a sigh of relief, I scooted over on the piano stool, thinking that he might want to take a seat.
He took up the offer and like Anemone; he put his hands on the keys but didn't press a single one. "I know how to play already and Anemone wants to learn…but she'll have to ask for lessons." So he already knew.
"I didn't know you played the piano?" I said, honestly surprised.
"Dad had me learn."
We didn't speak much after that. I was about to suggest we go outside with Anemone and Kisuke for some entertainment but Daisuke rendered me speechless when he said,
"You're…you're not our mom…and you're not part of…" He stopped suddenly and I watched in sadness as tears fell down his face and on the keys of the piano. "Why did it have to be you? Why did Dad have to pick you?" He choked out in pain.
I slowly put my hands to my mouth in shock and in sadness. I didn't know Daisuke felt that way. I didn't know that he would see me as a replacement as I saw myself. How could I explain to him that I wasn't trying to be his mom but a friend…or a help, of some sort?
"Please don't tell him," Daisuke whispered as he wiped tears away from his eyes. "that I cried." He turned to me. "Please," With that he stood up and walked away from me and the piano. "I'll be in my room…Kisuke is with Anemone in the playroom."
Now I know that Daisuke was closer to his Mom then I had originally thought. But then again there were also a lot of things I didn't know
I had decided to go back into my room. Sasuke had told me, days before that this room was specifically modeled for me by Sakura. I wasn't exactly sure why she had done it and Sasuke had found it interesting that Sakura hadn't told me about it. I brushed it off thinking that she wanted to keep it a secret.
Taking a seat on the end of the bed I looked over at my bags that still needed to be unpacked. Would I even need them anymore? I still questioned whether I would stay at the Uchiha household permanently. I should…for Sakura.
Getting on all fours I made my way up to the pillows at the front of my bed. I laid down on them and took a deep breath. So soft…and they smelled so good. Losing me to the comfort of lying down I closed my eyes and slowly drifted into a deep sleep.
But the thought of getting caught sleeping on the job made my eyes snap open. I really needed to stay focused. I doubt Sasuke would have any confidence in me if he caught me sleeping when I was supposed to be watching his kids.
Afraid that something had happened while I had been snoozing, I hurried out of my room and up to the playroom which was relatively easy to find. Thankfully, I found Anemone and Kisuke. Anemone was reading a picture book while Kisuke was sitting on the middle of a rug that had been modeled to look like a racetrack. He was running cars over the plushy, black roads and keeping to himself.
Anemone looked up from her book and smiled, as always. "Daisuke's in his room." She would make a good, responsible mother. I could tell by her warm, feminine, nature. It comforted me to know that she cared about what her brothers were doing.
"He's been acting really weird lately. He says it's nothing so I leave him alone." She told me as she closed her book. I saw that the title was Beauty and the Beast. I had read it once and it was a nice story. What a fitting name, though, for Sakura and Sasuke. Would his cold exterior eventually melt away into something warm and inviting? Not likely possible because that was a fairytale. There was no happy ending in Sakura's or Sasuke's case.
I was about to comment on the book but was cut short by the slight rumble of her stomach. She started to giggle. "That means Dad is going to be home soon! And that we should get ready soon to eat." Standing up, she walked over to Kisuke and took his hand. He willingly obliged.
Than I remembered what he said, Sasuke had told me that every day they went out to eat for dinner. Usually, he said, he got home around six so I should prepare the kids and be waiting by the time he got home. How could I have forgotten?!
"Let's wait downstairs, Hinata!" Anemone grabbed my hand. Hand-in-hand we walked downstairs only to find Daisuke had already beaten us. He was sitting on the back of the couch. I noticed he removed most of the pillows.
Apparently he wasn't in a very good mood because he didn't speak to us or even acknowledge our presence. "See?" Anemone whispered loud enough so I could hear. "The real, nice Daisuke would be nice and say hi but now he doesn't do that."
I made my first move of trying to be the responsible adult as I should be because I was. "Just give him some time, Anemone. He'll return to normal." I tried my best to comfort her. That was what I was supposed to do, right? Be like the mom but not become the mom.
"That sounds like something Mom would say." She sounded satisfied.
They all took a seat on the couch and I temporarily left to go freshen up my appearance. A dab of lip gloss and some brushing of my hair was all I needed. Taking one last look in the mirror I decided it would do and went back downstairs.
We waited and when I finally heard the sound of the door unlocking, I mentally prepared myself but the man who stepped in wasn't Sasuke, though he was, in a way, just as good-looking as him. Apparently he was just as confused as to why I was there instead of somebody else.
Anemone's face broke into a big smile. "Mr. Sai!" She exclaimed.
Mr. Sai? Who was that and why did he have a key to the house? Sasuke never told me anything about a 'Mr. Sai'! Had he forgotten to tell me or was this simply somebody like Ino? A passerby who just had something to do with Sasuke?