I BE BACK!
I fail at deadlines I know. Shoot me now.
Anyway, WOW guys! There was such an overwhelming response to last chapter's inquiry, and we have clear winners!
NEJISAKU and AKAKAO shall be the two official pairings for this story. Apologies to the AkaSakuKao shippers, if you wish, I can write an alternate ending/spinoff where those three end up together?
Anyway! Lots of drama in this one!
Now, without further ado,
ENJOY!
The silence that reigned in the room was deafening, and Sakura found it unbearable. She was aware of the two pairs of eyes staring at her, mixture of shock and to some extent, relief, clearly apparent on both faces.
After she had been invited in, they'd sat down in the living room, the two boys sharing a sofa while Sakura sat opposite them. When nobody seemed ready to start, the rosette sighed and hung her head, resigned, but determined to get this over with.
"I can hear the gears turning in your heads." she snapped, colder than intended. "Go on, ask, I won't bite I promise." Akane snorted quietly, and just like that, some of the tension dissipated, though it was still present in the air.
"Why don't we start with exactly what happened when we left." Kaoru murmured, brown eyes hesitantly rising to meet her own, though much more guarded than she remembered them being, and she felt a stab of regret at the distance that had formed between them.
She sighed, trying to steel herself for the onslaught of memories that reaching back three years would bring, only to find that she didn't know what to say. "I-I don't know where to start." she admitted quietly, looking anywhere but at the two teens in front of her.
"What made you end up in that river would be nice." Kaoru replied, voice cold, and Sakura fought hard to mask the wince that his icy exterior caused.
"Hey, Kaoru-chan," Akane murmured, hand seeking out the brunette's, lacing their fingers together and squeezing softly. "You're channelling Ibiki again." he informed, a small smile forming, and Sakura noticed that the tired bags under his eyes seemed a bit less pronounced when he gazed at the brunette. A weird, uncomfortable lump formed in her throat and she tried – and failed – to swallow past it.
Kaoru closed his eyes and sighed, some of the tension leaving his body when he squeezed back. "I'm sorry." he replied, eyes briefly meeting Sakura's before falling to their interlocked hands.
But Sakura shook her head, took a deep breath of her own, and started speaking.
And once she started she discovered that she found it hard to stop, the emotions, memories, descriptions of experiences and challenges spilling out of her like an unstoppable flood. She did not stop to address gasps, gags or indignant interjections; they'd broken the dam - this was the result.
Which led them here, to this moment, nearly six hours after she'd knocked on the door, night outside and her two ex-teammates sitting in front of her, with Sakura thinking that they had taken all that information surprisingly better than she had expected.
"Well," Akane finally broke the silence, "that was definitely more to digest than any of your teammates had tried to prepare us for." he said with a breathy, disbelieving chuckle at the end.
Sakura managed a small smile as well. "Yeah, Yugao had mentioned something about coming over to 'pay you a visit' with Hiachi. I didn't realise she'd actually done it." she chuckled shortly, shaking her head in what Kaoru believed to be fond exasperation.
"Yeah, and having read that file from the Hyuuga, you'd have thought we would've been more prepared but clearly-!" but he cut off at the warning look in Kaoru's eyes, yet clearly not soon enough as Sakura was suddenly frozen.
"File, Akane?" she asked, voice steady and calm yet Akane knew better than to trust that facade. With Kaoru, it usually meant one of three things: a) you-are-so-dead b) i'm-either-pissed-as-hell-or-sexually-frustrated-have-fun-guessing-which or c) someone-is-about-to-die. The redhead guessed that this one was Sakura's equivalent of Option C and he nearly found himself pitying the Hyuuga bastard. "Neji-chan gave you my file?"
Yup, definitely C. Akane thought as he exchanged an 'oopsie' glance with Kaoru, who was looking at him with his patented you-are-so-dumb-how-are-you-still-alive face. Yep, Akane could totally feel the love.
"Ah... um, yes?" he replied haltingly, having a fairly hilarious deja-vu with all the times he'd messed up while they'd still been genin and the world still felt like it was his oyster. This time, luckily, the rosette's wrath - (he still found it hard associating that word with a 5'5" kid four years his junior) - was not aimed at him.
"I'm going to kill him." she announced, as sweetly and innocently as if she was talking about the weather or ordering dango, and Akane finally appreciated why people always said that the passive -aggressive ones were the scariest. Just why, oh, why, was he surrounded by them?
"Actually, Sakura, I think he did you a favor." Kaoru announced, surprising the two of them with his sudden input, and Akane found himself what had changed in the last three years that Kaoru suddenly grew enough balls to disagree with someone, and with Sakura of all people. Or maybe the water in his bottle was actually sake? He tried to inconspicuously sniff the brunette's breath, but only gained a raised eyebrow for his effort, which lowered when he flashed a cheeky grin (thank kami).
"How so?" the rosette asked, and Akane forced himself to tune into their conversation.
"Well, at least we had the time to freak out before we faced and actually talked with you. Imagine if you told us what you did, but we had nothing to help us understand, to make us believe, how much had actually changed. I mean, I'm still trying to come to terms with the fact that you've jumped from chunin to ANBU Captain in just three years. I mean, damn, Sakura, many don't manage to even brush ANBU in their entire lives." Kaoru explained, and Akane did a double-take at the expletive, and sighed inwardly when he realised that the rosette was still not convinced. So he did what he did best – he meddled.
"Actually, I'm not too freaked out about that. I mean, we were awesome enough to be dubbed the Demon Siblings when we were genin. When you got the entire Village coming up with corny names for your team, it's kinda obvious you're not gonna end up mediocre." Akane reasoned, his argument sounding bulletproof in his head (clearly not so much out loud judging by the surprised and exasperatedly amused reactions of his audience). "I mean, what I'm struggling to come to terms with is the fact that you're dating the Hyuuga. I mean, c'mon Sakura-chan, I thought you had better taste!" he huffed at the end, crossing his arms, well aware of his similarity to a petulant child and playing off of it hoping for-
Yup, there it is, Akane thought smugly as the room filled with loud, startled laughter and Sakura looked as surprised as the redhead guessed Kaoru must've felt when they realised he was still capable of coaxing a laugh out of the rosette. He knew he must've looked like a smug little shit, but he didn't care. This, this laugh right there, and Kaoru's quiet, I've-just-caught-on-to-what-you're-doing chuckle proved what he had most hoped for and feared wouldn't happen after all that they had been told. It proved that there was hope left for them to go back to how they were. Not immediately, he wasn't so idealistic to think that it wouldn't require time, and maybe not a team seeing as Sakura was in ANBU and Akane was 100% sure that that was the place where him and Kaoru would not hasten to follow her, but the friendship that they'd had, the closeness that they'd shared, their incredible in-tune-ness on the battlefield; that, he had missed. And, judging by Kaoru's relaxed sprawl and half-lidded, content eyes, and Sakura's considerably more at-ease demeanour, he was willing to bet that they shared his feelings.
But there was still one gaping hole, one untouched topic, and Akane feared to breach it, but also knew that if he doesn't, the other two won't either. So he sighed and resigned himself to his fate. He shuffled to the edge of the seat, pulling his hand free of Kaoru's, knuckles cracking quietly, but enough to draw the other two's attention. He leaned forward, and in a quiet whisper recalled the words he'd said what felt like centuries ago.
"Watashi wa anata no koto o itsu made mo aisudeshou." and he leaned back, satisfied, waiting for the rosette to remember for her eyes to light up with comprehension and aaay there we go. But her reaction was something he did not expect – she tensed and scrambled up the cushion to sit up straighter, eyes wide and mouth opening and closing, yet no words coming out.
The redhead turned to face Kaoru, a cocky response ready at the tip of his tongue, but it died before he even had a chance to use it when he saw the brunette's face. No matter how much Kaoru asked, Akane had never told him what he'd whispered to Sakura when they left. Now, he saw the comprehension flash across his features, a glint of hurt and something else flashing across his eyes, but both were gone too quickly to identify or address. Akane winced inwardly when he understood the source - hearing "I will always love you" from the mouth of your three years - boyfriend? partner? lover? friend-with-benefits? They were due for some serious DTR after this - point being, hearing something like that, and having it not aimed at you couldn't have been pleasant. Kami above, Akane felt like an asshole. He cringed inwardly, and turned back to Sakura, anything to distract him from the kicked-puppy look he could read underneath Kaoru's frantically assembled wall of impassiveness.
But the rosette was having a crisis of her own. She remembered Akane's words, remembered the day that they were whispered in her ear, a parting gift, or a promise, she did not, does not know. And now, three years later, she was going through an encore, and she was no better prepared than the first time the words were sprung on her.
Or was she?
Because now, she had Neji. She had a rock, a comfort, a family of her own (she'd always thought of the Hyuugas as her second family, but now when Hiashi had allowed her to move in with Neji, or even started hinting at grandchildren in a tone as joking as a Hyuuga could muster, and she'd struck a close friendship with his daughters, Sakura found herself unwilling to let that go) and though she had never given it much thought, Neji had behaved like a lover should way before he officially took up that position in her life. His presence was a given in every day of her unpredictable ninja life, a fixed point in her daily routine, and she loved him for it.
Wait.
Pause.
Rewind.
What?
Turns out that, trying to answer Akane, she'd unintentionally experienced an epiphany. She was in love with Neji Hyuuga.
She couldn't help letting a soft whistle escape her at her own cluelessness. Feeling more confident than she thought she would, she raised her eyes to meet the expectant gazes of the two boys in front of her.
"I know." she replied, voice much steadier than she expected. "But I also know who I want to spend the rest of my life with." The and it's not you was so loud she might as well have said it. "Perhaps, if you hadn't left…" she trailed off, feeling slightly mean, but unremorseful, still glowing in the face of her earlier realisation.
"So that ship has sailed then?" Akane asked, looking accepting and, not hurt but… disappointed perhaps? But he didn't seem willing to argue with her about her choice, which Sakura was grateful for.
"Yes." She agreed, then her eyes fell to the passive brunette beside Akane, then back to him. "Besides, I thought you were happy together?"
"We are." Kaoru agreed sincerely at the same time as Akane snorted derisively and Sakura's heart stopped, and she had mere seconds to take in the brunette's shattered, betrayed expression before he was marching out and slamming the door behind him and the rosette realised with a jolt that this was the first time she'd seen tears in his eyes.
She turned her stunned eyes to Akane who looked lost, and confused, and she was torn between feeling sorry for him and some sort of sick satisfaction that he was finally feeling what she had three years ago.
"And here I was thinking we were really in need of a DTR." He snorted, but the sarcasm behind his words was diminished by the sniffle that followed. "I'd never been more annoyed at myself for being right."
"Well, go after him then." She suggested, feeling awkward and out of place. They had barely established a civil attitude towards each other; she was not ready to play relationship counsellor. "Unless… you do not love him?" she inquired.
"I don't know what I do and don't anymore." Akane snarled, eyes wild with hurt and confusion. "I need to establish one thing though." He announced as he rounded on her, jade eyes boring into her own emerald. "Do you forgive us?"
Sakura knew what he was referring to, but it was too early, she was not ready for that yet. But she took a deep breath and told the truth anyway. "Forgive, no." she replied, seeing the redhead deflate. "But," she interjected before the metaphorical storm cloud above his head grew any bigger. "I'm willing to give you a second chance to set things right, on one condition." She paused until she was sure she had the redhead's attention. "Don't let him slip through your fingers."
Akane seemed to take in the sincerity of her words, assess her quietly, before he made a move as if to hug her, but stopped half way, nodded, and shunshin'ed out of the house, leaving Sakura alone in the living room, the wall clock claiming that it was ten minutes past eight in the evening. With a sigh, she too shunshin'ed home, her earlier realisation still fresh in her mind, and a small seed of hope growing in her heart.
Things were looking up.
The next morning found her and Neji, as well as Yugao and Haichi in the Training Grounds, having a 2v2 spar, Sakura and Neji against the other two. They had wordlessly agreed that the brunette would take Yugao as he was more proficient with a sword than Sakura, and her past with a genjutsu user made her a better suited match for Haichi, who would combine genjutsu, explosives and playing dirty and perfect them into an art that had Sakura dashing and dodging, light on her feet and waiting for Haichi to slip up than to straight out attack like she normally would, when a distantly familiar chakra signature burst out of the woods and into the clearing. Before she could shout a warning, Yugao was already launching her kunai at the intruder, and Sakura was convinced she was going to witness a bloodbath, only to realise that the kunai had been deflected. She narrowed her eyes, despite yesterday's attempt at reconciliation, she was still angry at the redhead.
"What are you doing here, Akane?" she inquired coldly, not missing how Neji stepped closer to her, laying a comforting hand on her shoulder, a silent support.
"It's Kaoru." He replied, breath coming out in harsh, uneven pants.
"He's gone."
It turned out that Kaoru had gone to the Hokage requesting a mission, and was assigned a simple delivery mission to Suna which, at most, should take no more than four days.
It's been two weeks since then.
Ah drama, drama, how I've missed thee.
Well, this is the reconciliation, Attempt Uno.
I know that the ending was slightly anti-climatic, but I like writing break-up make-up fics, and y'all love my cliffhangers xD
I'm going to stop apologising for delays. I'm shit with deadlines, I know.
Official pairings for this fic are going to be NejiSaku and AkaKao.
Although I do have one question – would you like to see all the Akatsuki drama spin out, with Team 7 and Pein and Sasugay and all that, which, with my style of writing would probably stretch this fic to at least 70 chapters? Or would you rather have me resolve the drama, then leave it at a happily-ever-after, not mentioning/avoiding the mention of Pein's Invasion and all that lovely crap that happens? Option numero dos would give this story maybe 10-15 more chapters…
Opinions?
FYI to those who don't know - DTR = Define The Relationship
Anyway! Thanks so much for reading! As always, if you have any questions, do not hesitate to PM me and leave your opinion in a REVIEW!
Love,
Invincible Shadow