Chapter 8

A smell woke Sasuke. It was a smell that he knew but couldn't exactly place. It was from a time long past and only vaguely remembered. Following his nose, he got out of bed, pulled on his wrinkled suit pants, and went toward the light. He found Sakura in the kitchen, Kenji in his high chair, his face and hands covered with food, and wet clothes were everywhere. Shirts, pants, underwear, hung from the light fixture, the door jambs, the crack in the plaster over the stove. And in the middle of it all Sakura stood over an ironing board using an iron that should have been in a museum.

"What time is it?" Sasuke asked sleepily.

"About five, I think," Sakura answered. "Why?"

"How long have you been up?"

She turned the shirt she was ironing so the wrinkled sleeve was exposed. "Most of the night. Little rascal, he does love to mix up his days and nights."

Yawning, rubbing his eyes, Sasuke sat down at the table beside Kenji's high chair and handed him a dried peach. Wordlessly, he motioned to the wet clothes hanging around the room. It had been a long time since Sasuke was a child and his father had spread their wet clothes about to dry, but it was a smell one never forgot. "What happened to the dryer?"

"It broke about a year ago and I haven't had the money to get it fixed. But the washer works great."

Standing, Sasuke put his hands in the small of his back, stretched, then walked behind Sakura and unplugged the iron.

"I have to finish this. It needs to be—"

"Go to bed," Sasuke said quietly. "No, not a word of protest. Go to bed. Sleep."

"But Kenji . . . And the clothes, and . . ."

"Go," Sasuke ordered in a quiet voice, and for a moment he thought Sakura was going to cry in gratitude.

With a smile, he nodded toward the bedroom, and gratefully, she went into the room and shut the door.

"Now, old man," Sasuke said, "let's see if we remember how this is done." At that, Sasuke plugged the iron back in and picked it up.

At eight A.M., Sasuke's cell phone rang and he put it on his shoulder as he finished ironing a shirt.

"Did I wake you?" Naruto asked his older brother.

"Of course," Sasuke said. "You know how lazy I am. No! Kenji, leave that alone! What do you want, little brother?"

"I want time alone with Sakura. Remember? That's what this is all about. I want to take her out tonight and tomorrow. I even got tickets to the Amaterasu Ball."

Sasuke well knew that the Amaterasu Ball was the only social function worth attending in the entire western half of Fire Country—and it was nearly impossible to get tickets. "So who did you have to kill to get the tickets?"

"I didn't kill; I saved. I saved the life of the chairman of the committee to something or other. Anyway, he got me the tickets. Christmas Eve. I'm going to pop the question. Sasuke? Sasuke? Are you there?"

"Sorry," Sasuke said once he came back to the phone. "Kenji was pulling on a lamp cord and about to bite into it. What was it you were saying?"

"I said that tomorrow I'm going to ask Sakura to marry me. Sasuke? Are you there? What's Kenji doing now?"

"He's not doing anything," Sasuke snapped. "He's a great kid and he doesn't do anything bad."

There was a pause from Naruto. "I didn't mean to insinuate that he was doing something 'bad.' It's just that children Kenji's age do tend to get into things. It is a normal and natural process of growing up, and they will—"

"You don't need to take on that doctor tone with me," Sasuke grumbled.

"Boy! Are you in a bad mood this morning. Where's Sakura anyway?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but she's in bed asleep and I'm taking care of Kenji. And doing the ironing," he added, knowing that Naruto would nearly faint at that information.

"You're doing what?"

"The ironing. Hyuga dumped mud on the clothes she sent me, so Sakura washed them, and now I'm ironing them. You see anything wrong with that?"

"Nothing," Naruto said softly. "I had no idea you knew how to iron, that's all."

"So who do you think ironed your clothes when you were a kid?" Sasuke snapped. "Dad? Ha. He had to earn the money to buy the food, so I had to . . . never mind. What was it you wanted to tell me? Wait, I have to get Kenji."

"Sasuke, dear brother," Naruto said minutes later, "I think I'd better talk to Sakura in person. I want her to go out with me tonight and tomorrow night, and I think I should ask her myself."

"She's busy."

"Is something going on that I should know about?" Naruto asked. "You and Sakura aren't . . ."

"No, we aren't!" Sasuke said quickly. "The last thing I need in my life is a daffy, head-in-the-clouds female like her. The man who takes her on will have his hands full taking care of her. It's a wonder she can tie her shoes. She can't even feed herself, much less a child, and—"

"Okay, okay, I get the picture. So, what do you think?"

"Think about what?"

Naruto gave a great sigh. "Do you think it would be all right if I took Sakura out tonight and tomorrow? Can you keep the kid?"

"I can keep Kenji forever," Sasuke said with some anger. "Sure, you can take Sakura out. I'm sure she'd love to go."

"I think I should ask her myself."

"I'm not going to wake her up just to talk on the phone. What time should she be ready tonight?"

"Seven."

"All right. Now give me Hyuga."

"She's, ah, she's not up."

Sasuke was so shocked at this that he left the iron on the back of a shirt until it began to scorch. "Damnation!" he said, lifting the iron. "Wake her," Sasuke ordered, then was surprised to have his secretary get on the line almost instantly.

After a moment to recover from his shock, Sasuke told Hyuga to get two more tickets to the Amaterasu Ball.

"You do know that that is next to impossible," she said, and again Sasuke paused in shock. What in the world was wrong with his secretary? The impossible never daunted her.

"Get them," he said, annoyed. In fact, what was wrong with his whole world? First, two of his executives get themselves involved in his private affairs without his permission, and now Hyuga was telling him that something he wanted was going to be difficult. If he'd wanted someone who couldn't do the impossible, he wouldn't be paying her the outrageous salary he did.

"I'll need my tux from my apartment in Suna," he went on to say, "and Sakura will need something appropriate to wear to the ball. What's that shop near my apartment again?"

"Dior," came Hyuga's instant reply.

"Right. Dior."

"And who shall I get for your escort?" she asked.

"My—Oh, right, my date," he said, and realized that he hadn't given that a moment's thought. But then he wasn't giving any of it a thought or he'd be wondering why he was going to the ball when he was supposed to stay home with the baby. And if both he and Sakura left, who would take care of Kenji?

"I believe there are any number of women who would be available at a moment's notice to go with you," Hyuga was saying in that efficient, no-nonsense way of hers.

For a moment Sasuke paused to think over the many available women he knew. And when he thought of them, he knew how nasty all of them would be to Sakura—and how nosy. "Get yourself a dress, Hyuga. You'll go with me as my date."

It was her turn to be shocked, and it almost made Sasuke smile to hear the hesitation in her voice. "Yes, sir," she said at last.

"Oh, and get hair and makeup people over here for Sakura. Think up some story so she doesn't know it's a gift from me."

"Yes, sir," Hyuga said softly. "Anything else?"

Sasuke looked down at Kenji happily chewing the tail of a yellow duck pull toy. From the look of the thing, his father had probably chewed on it thirty years ago, and Sasuke wondered if the paint was lead-free. "Everything all right there at my father's?"

"I beg your pardon?" Hyuga asked.

"I asked if you and Hiro are comfortable at my father's house."

"Oh, yes," she said hesitantly. "I'm sorry, sir, you don't usually ask personal questions, but, yes, we are doing well. Now."

"What do you mean? Now?"

"Hiro had to make a few adjustments, but he's all right now. He should be at your house soon. And your father reminds you that you and Mrs. Senju and the baby are to come here for Christmas dinner."

Sasuke ignored most of what she said and got to the point. "What kind of adjustments?"

"The kitchen needed . . . augmentation."

"Hyuga!" he warned.

"Hiro tore out the back side of your father's house and added what is actually a kitchen for a small restaurant. He had to pay the men triple time to work twenty-four hours a day to get the room done quickly. Then he bought enough equipment to furnish the room, and, well, your father is having rather lavish dinner parties each night and—"

"I don't want to hear any more. We'll be there on Christmas Day and don't forget the clothes."

"Certainly not, sir," Hyuga said as he hung up.

Ten minutes later Sakura wandered into the kitchen, looking like the most grateful woman on earth—until she saw that the ironing had been done. "How will I repay you for the furniture now?" she wailed as she sat down on a rickety kitchen chair. Kenji was happily sitting in his new high chair, his face smeared with half a dozen various colored substances.

"I promise to get everything dirty today so you'll have more to do tomorrow," Sasuke said, smiling, obviously unworried about how he was to be repaid. "Now, would you mind watching Kenji while I take a shower? I've been in this shirt for days and I'd like to get out of it."

"Yes, of course," she murmured as she picked Kenji up. As soon as he'd seen his mother, he'd started to whine and wanted out of the chair.

For a moment Sasuke paused in the doorway. Nothing bad could happen in the next fifteen minutes, could it? he asked himself, then gave one last look at Sakura and the baby and left the room.