Author's notes: hope you'll like this chapter, it reveals pretty many things concealed B4
Read and Review, please)
Chapter VII
Chapter Seven summary: regular visits turn into addiction. Suppressed feelings start to reveal. Life seems more or less even until a peculiar meeting with what used to be forgotten. The elder Uchiha's abode and Sakura's realization.
All was dark and quiet as night came down the village, the hall seemed utterly lightless. Itachi's silhouette was barely discernable as they stopped by the door and the girl turned her head to say goodbye.
He was speechless and Sakura guessed he was pondering over something, something connected with her as the sixth sense told her.
- You know, I really have no notion what you look like, your appearance
Sakura suddenly had a transient feeling of fear, she glanced at his face, or maybe it wasn't his face since in the gloom the girl could hardly see a thing.
- I happened to take a look at you there on my way to Suna, from afar and for a few short seconds, - he thoughtfully went on. – So now speaking to you all I imagine is a young pink-haired girl.
Her inner strings were touched, she saw it clearly what he was asking for. Narrowing her eyelids Sakura tried to discern the outlines of his body only to see nothing again, then she sighed stepping closer to the man.
He moved forwards, their bodies coming in light contact. She kept on staring blankly into murk perceiving warm breathing on her skin. Itachi raised his arm in a wordless question, metal strip of the bracelet clinked quietly. Sakura held her breath and nodded, she couldn't say anything at the moment while he, catching the answer by the motion of air, released some chakra and small flames of blue fire glowed on his fingertips. The kunoichi felt yet-perceptible prickling of chakra and reassuring coolness of his fingers which slid softly, touching ever-so gently in that way she scarcely sensed them: that overly broad forehead, nose, cheeks, lips, those eyes of hers, she closed them letting the fingers glide over her lids, touch her lashes. In her imagination the contact lasted for hours, world revolving around while she stood still and she would be. Forever.
But the prickling stopped unexpectedly, Itachi's arm descending and the girl opened her eyes and she drew breath as she hasn't been breathing until that moment.
Blackness would never disperse.
- Thank you, - he was polite.
A nervous smirk,
- Well, now that you know what I look like, - she turned to the door and lingered. – Can I… come again?
- You can. Goodbye
- Goodbye, Itachi
Sakura walked in nervous strides past closed cafes and stores leaving behind late strangers in the street, her face burning, marks from his touch seemed stinging, biting as if traces of red-hot iron on her skin.
--
And that was what she kept on doing. Visiting him, meeting with him became regular transforming into a habit, getting a drug-like addiction. Seeing, speaking – anything. Not about Sasuke, about other unimportant things rather, though she didn't know what for. He wasn't among those she could fall for, far from it! Not only had he ruined Sasuke's life making a hell of it, he was the reason for all her family issues as well. At times, brooding upon this, Sakura realized she was terribly jealous of her husband's love for his own brother.
Yet she kept on doing it over and over again. Sitting in the kitchen and looking at Itachi was so… odd. Unreal. It felt like floating in light silvery fog with her feet off the ground, body weightless, actions insignificant. Tough depressing thoughts escaped and flew away, down, unable to hang in semitransparent curls of smoky silver.
It felt weird, beautiful and horrid.
And still it was clear the fairy-tale state wouldn't last long, sooner or later she wouldn't be able to float high in the air thus slowly and incessantly dropping down on the ground. Or it might be a fall, her landing so painful she would be broken getting hurt against sharp stones.
She roamed about the house brushing a wet cloth against items, rearranging, then again placing them on their usual places on the shelves. Sakura didn't have to dust the furniture, that was the servants' task, however the girl refused to hire a housemaid as anybody else's twenty-four-hour presence in the Uchihas' estate would be unbearable. Nevertheless, the kunoichi found it quite reasonable to examine every room in case anything was missing or misplaced. Knowing her husband's over-punctiliousness about such things being as he couldn't stand changes in the present interior, she didn't blame him, after all he has suffered she was aware of how afraid he was that his so-neatly-built new life might collapse.
Sakura strolled along the sunlit gallery pleasurably inhaling astringent September air. Leaves were still green and nights not-too cold, days hot as in summer, the pink-haired kunoichi smiled at the warm fragrant wood under her feet. She was about to finish housework when her attention was suddenly attracted by a shoji at the end of the passage. She has not had a chance to take a look inside that room. No one actually was allowed to go there for Sasuke forbade it. Anyone would be afraid to contradict the younger Uchiha, let alone the scared-to-death servants who trembled with fear when pierced by the icy Sharingan, Sasuke in their eyes was no head of Police Department nor a hero of Konoha but the King of Snakes. Sakura didn't judge them.
That used to be Itachi's room.
Cautiously she came up to the door and scrutinized its smooth surface. Sasuke must be late as ever. Scare, remorse or doubt, that Sakura had lost a long time ago.
Then softly the girl moved the door disappearing in semidarkness of the room. Once inside Itachi's sanctuary she closed the door behind and switched on the light. Ordinary room with little furniture, a rolled-up futon in the corner, several bookshelves and a desk lamp. Nothing else. She looked around. In that unexpected avalanche of ideas Sakura found that part of the house unique, among all other rooms it was the only one that appeared absolutely unchanged as if air got frozen there. Striking cleanness equal to that in Itachi's new lodgings bore the imprint of the former host. It felt like he's just left the place for a mission. A minute ago. Room, devoted to its past owner. Like altar.
Curiosity forced her to walk about turning left and right to scan things. Her eyes paused on the shelf, she stretched out her arm fingering books' bindings: historical essays, jutsus' descriptions, classics… What's this? The girl took out a small shabby book opening it at random. Poems? Itachi didn't seem a poetry idolater. Sakura ran her eyes along the lines shuddering at the just-read. Weird, creepy, dreadful verses, unclear, almost meaningless flows of thoughts entwined into fearsome surrealistic images. She slammed the book close remembering the author, she never came across the name. Then the collection was retuned to its habitual spot. She wanted to get rid of unpleasant memories developed by the poetry. A pile of albums rested near the half-empty second shelf, it looked untidy and out of place as Sasuke might have carried it here. She sat down carefully holding the top photo album putting it on her knees and opening afterwards.
Old pictures.
Sasuke's parents' wedding. Fugaku and Mikoto, their names she kept in mind. Smiling faces of unknowns, black-haired, dark eyed, each one having something reminding of either Sasuke or his brother. Men, women, aged, young, little children and oldmen. The dead Uchihas.
Sakura turned over the page and froze.
A picture of her husband's parents. They are standing at the hospital's entrance, a small roll in Mikoto's arms.
Sakura's heart beat faster. Another turn-over.
Mikoto with a baby in her hands, big dark eyes staring at the lens with surprise and slight interest. In the next picture he's seen taking his first steps, next depicts Fugaku with the same three-four year-old boy. A proud father is sitting close to the child who's holding a shuriken in his palm, his son's air seems truly serious and a bit sad.
Sakura thumbed page after page studying Itachi's pictures which were scarce being as he wasn't a child whom the camera particularly liked, all his photos presented him inanimate and impassive, eyes hiding unchildish strange sorrow as if he saw far more than anyone else around, as though he perceived something others couldn't get.
Next shot, seeing which Sakura couldn't help an astounded and happy cry, a big photo showing Mikoto, tired, half-sitting in bed pressing a tiny someone to her breast, little Itachi, leaning against the edge of the bed, curiously inspecting this wrapped-up ball, his black eyes wide and full of bewilderment.
Sakura smiled feeling warm flutter spreading all over her.
Sasuke.
She went on with an interesting survey.
Unlike the elder brother, Sasuke was loved by the camera, so cute and funny and seeming completely normal. In this one he's standing embracing dear mommy and daddy, this portrays him swaying on a see-saw, next catches him bathing in a tub. Smiling, playing, training…
Itachi's photos were rare, in them he looked official, like the one where he'd just got the chuunin rank.
At the bottom of the pile under the last album, very thin and ragged there lay a single photo in a plain wooden frame, the kunoichi pulled it out and felt sick all of a sudden. Little Sasuke of about seven folding his arms around Itachi's neck, he's laughing, his plump infant cheeks blushing, eyes sparkling. The elder smiles too, with that same desolated, barely perceptible curve of his lips he had once given to her.
Gazing at the shot Sakura knew the haze that was enveloping her was now floating away, it dispersed so unexpectedly, easily, by one simple yet too-clear and bright realization.
He loves Sasuke.
'Then why?..'
She placed the item under the heap and put the albums back thus trying to restore their initial position. Sharp and abrupt were her movements as the girl got up and glanced around the room before hurriedly walking away switching off the light.