Taken
"Whether he loves me, hates me, feels nothing for me, it does not change the fact that I have won."
"Back at our hotel, I offered to stand in for him on the board, give him a little more time. Hopefully, you'd come around by then. He declined. With you, three days may as well be three decades; you don't go back on your decisions. He's right. I should have known better."
Sakura faces the mirror, combing through her hair, professionally stylized and layered. It's shorter than in our college days, but long enough to tie back. It makes her appear far more mature. Women will do anything to look younger, but for Sakura, the look works strikingly well for her. It speaks of experience. Competence.
She eyes me through the glass.
"Sasuke, let me say I didn't stay behind to convince you to come to my wedding. I would prefer if you came, but a wedding is a joyous event. If it's going to be a miserable experience for you, then don't bother." She places the comb down firmly on the dresser. "Instead," she says, turning around. "I'm here to talk about your brother."
I don't want to hear this; I don't trust Sakura with her words. In her younger days, they were riddled with assumptions and ignorance. Even now, she crosses lines, and can strike nerves that may or may not lead to a lot of blood. And I don't trust my own self-control if she pushes me past my limit, especially under these circumstances.
I stare out the window, the flash of lights outside.
But I don't have a choice, do I. She is not the first to want me to listen, but she is the first to successfully make me.
"Ah, where to begin," Sakura sighs, as she joins me on the bed. "Don't movies begin with first encounters? Then I believe I start with February eighteenth, sophomore year. Hard day to forget. Naruto won the Delegation award, Ino just returned to Paris, we had sex, finally, three days former, and the weather was subzero enough for Naruto to yell at me to hurry up to the noodle shop before his testes froze off. Some things, you never forget.
"It was there we met a supposed graduate student engaged in... what did he come up with again? Philosophy of Mathematics? Logic? Mindfuckery. In any case, he played us for fools, to the point I still can't tell exactly whether anything he said was deep, or crap, or both. Nonetheless, he gave a pleasant first impression. Amiable, witty, sensible, maybe a bit outlandish. And even though his face was near symmetrical to yours, never in a million years would have I ever connected him with you.
"Naruto took a immediate liking to him and invited him to dinner with us. In retrospect, I can't help but suspect the whole event wasn't as coincidental as I initially assumed. But you know the rest. You have no idea how much confusion I was in that day, Sasuke. You made me doubt my own judgment, made me wonder exactly what kind of man Itachi Uchiha really is, and what he has done to wrong you, because the amount of pure hostility and intolerance you brought in that day was absurd.
"February eighteenth. The day I first met the brother I never knew you had. Itachi is an excellent actor. And you, an excellent liar.
"The second time was after my job in Germany, at a social gather. I did my research that time. I was quite well aware who he was, as well as everyone else in the entire country. I was extremely cautious, skeptical, and shamelessly, a little curious. Even I would have thought I'd gone mad it if I said I once conversed with the most powerful man of the century about the immaterial in a noodle shop an ocean away.
"You can imagine my surprise when out of the thousands of guests, Itachi recognized me, identified me by name even, and kindly invited me to dine at a private table. Offered me a seat, poured me champagne, and treated me as the high goddess herself. It soon became apparent he wasn't interested in discussing business, only in keeping me comfortable and well situated. It was if I made a second encounter with the friendly philosophy graduate again, only with food and clothes now a thousand-fold more expensive.
"I was so baffled, I couldn't keep up the pretense anymore. I remember when I finally dared ask him, why on earth he was doing this, he smiled and told me, Miss Haruno, I will always be a servant to the significant other of my little brother.
"At the time, he didn't know we were finished. He wasn't even aware that you went on to law school. From what I could tell, you told him absolutely nothing, and after graduation, you cut all contact with him.
"You have no idea how much he wanted to know of you. How generous he was to know how you fared in college. To keep me in the country a little longer, he provided me the highest accommodations... covered my travel, food, and living expenses. I was looking for rent at the time; he got me the most luxurious penthouse of the city. After then, we met together numerous times. Not always formally for dinner; sometimes, a break at a local coffee shop, or a bakery. The occasions he invited me to his home, however, I must say was what became my undoing. His culinary skills were extraordinary. His dishes were enough to make any chef, nutritionist, connoisseur, or dieter melt... a blend of ethnic cuisines he learned from his childhood, he said. So delicious, so wondrously healthy and sinless. I indulged so, so much, and didn't gain a single pound.
"It was perfect... He was perfect." Sakura smiles, runs her fingers through her hair. "Held an umbrella if it rained, provided a coat if it snowed. Never spoke a harmful word, never closed a door to your face, never walked ahead and left you behind, never once proven to be unreliable. Even if stressed, never once angry, bitter, nor cold, never gave me anything but warmth and sincerity. I couldn't have dreamt of anyone better if I tried.
"Thank you, Sasuke, for giving me all that. Thank you, because you brought us together," she chuckles.
The lighting is dull, almost orange in hue, but Sakura is incandescent, like a school girl whose quixotic chases for love finally rewarded itself, and is now confiding in a close friend. I want nothing more than to rip the image to pieces and pour ice cold water on her dreams, wake her up to reality.
"I thought you came to talk about my brother," I say, my lips pulled in a wry grin. "I am afraid I don't recognize the person in your story."
Here, Sakura's fingers stop, and she looks at me, blinks.
Then, she laughs. "Didn't I already say it? The actor and the liar. Unfortunately, he beats your lies with his acts." Her toes dance, as she finds the carpet once more and gracefully slides off the bed. "You think I'm too deluded to realize he's a bastard despot who engages in criminal activities with the underground community, has practically cracked into the very fabric of the world wide web, and is violation with fifty different governments, including the United States? You think I am going to take charge without familiarizing with his traffic of 30 trillion dollars worth of weaponry, enforcement of illegal immigration of eight billion people, and iron-grip control of the top financial corporations in the United States, China, Japan, U.K., and France? You think I don't realize I want to marry a deceptive, merciless, sadist despised by a ridiculous percentage of the world population, including his own father and brother?"
My jaw is locked tight, my eyes bitter cold. "Watch your mouth."
"Thank you for your concern, but I've lived six months with high level protection without my knowing. Now I know enough, and I can tell you the U.S. is currently with us. Your brother is safely out, and no one can hear our conversation regardless."
The diplomacy has ended, as Sakura shows her inner colors, a scowl on her features. "Now, it's my turn. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
"I think you believe only you know everything about your brother. Since you were young, probably, when you had some suspicions about him, and started prodding your nose into old archives, hacking into the internet. It wasn't very soon before you started examining him like you would a victim of your next case.
"I think you currently find me some secretarial paper pusher who, under very lucky circumstance, will land a trophy husband because I took advantage of the situation to get close to your brother and used my wily woman skills to seduce him.
"Finally, dare I say, I think you believe I somehow, miraculously, made Itachi fall in love with me enough to want to marry me."
I narrow my eyes. "Enjoy it. You would be the first."
"No. I will be the last. The evidence is bare, but existent and enough for me to confidently say that Itachi has truly loved at least two women before me. He didn't marry them for their sake, and for yours. His time was extremely limited, and whatever little he had left, he dedicated almost all of it to you, whether you knew it or not."
For once, my expression falters.
"I've been the closest woman to Itachi for the past two years, and he loves me enough, but hardly with the same passion as to whomever gave him that necklace. He faithfully wore it every day until I proposed." Sakura sighs, buttoning her blouse.
"Sasuke, I got where I am because I am very good at knowing my facts. Very bluntly, he is marrying me because he has little choice. He is marrying me because of what I know, which is crucial and dangerous information that I uncovered and he cannot have leaking out. He is marrying me because what I can do, which is play for his side. And finally, he is marrying me, because what I can give, which is you."
She tosses her shirt to me; I numbly catch it.
"If there's anything I've understood, it's that I can't compete with you, Sasuke. I won't even try. His eyes become soft when he talks about you. He's risked imprisonment several times with the government just to see you. He's risked your hate and left you to protect you.
"For once, I do believe I've stopped falling in love with love, and actually fell in love with a man. I didn't have to make the proposition that I did; Itachi would have my accepted my proposal regardless. My marriage is a sealed deal, a logical business decision that things like love or hate don't influence. I made my proposition to make him happy, and, I thought, would make you happy as well."
Sakura strips down to her undergarments, stretches, exposes her bare back. She examines me from the mirror again.
"Of course, I apparently got the latter wrong. I never have, and I don't think I ever will, understand you, Sasuke. You defy my rationality, my understanding of psychology."
"And now you are here to make me explain myself."
"No."
Her eyes catch mine through the glass.
"Naruto wants to know why the fuck you did what you did. I'm different. I don't care why. I am just here to tell you what an asshole move you pulled.
"Consideration. Is this word not in your vocabulary?" She violently whips around. "Because I have come to realize it is the one thing Itachi... no, not just Itachi... everyone, has given you nothing except, and you have given everyone nothing of."
She steps up towards me, eyes furious. "Stop feigning ignorance. You can't possibly not know how much Itachi wants to see you again, how much he wants to make amends. Nor can you possibly not understand the exact repercussions your actions have on him, on his well-being and health, how he swallows down a lot more of what you say than he lets on. You are not mad at me, you are mad at him; he did something that you did not approve of, and what you did was a clear punishment aimed at him.
"So Sasuke, as your friend, I am going to do you a favor. I am not going to comfort you. I am not going to give you space. I am not going to analyze the complexities of your mind, find reason and excuses to pardon you for your actions, nor comprehend what part of your psyche is in turmoil, what has gotten you in a bad mood, what unpleasantness or discomfort, anxiety or confusion, pain or hatred you might be undergoing. I won't ever understand, and it'd be annoyingly pretentious of me to try.
"Instead, I am going to say to your face what no one in your life has ever dared nor fathomed to say to you: Grow Up.
"'If this were a test of Solomon, you failed miserably. Your childish spite amends nothing, only splits the person who cares for you," she sneers, by the door of the bathroom. "As a law student, find the lines of justice, mercy, and the common good, and step back behind them. And when you do, maybe then I can approve of you as the brother of my lover."
The door slams behind her.