"So?" a voice at the door inquired.
Sakura looked over her shoulder and smiled coolly. "What are you 'so-ing' at me for? I always get the job done." She returned her green eyes to the setting sun, incautiously disregarding Neji's advance. He twirled a loose strand of pink hair in his hands and exhaled: a question. He wanted to know when and how long she was planning to sleep with a stranger in order to accomplish the objectives of their mission.
The pink-haired girl placed a hand on his chest warningly and then retracted it with a haste that didn't show on her delicate features. Neji smoothed down the strand of hair and withdrew his own hand.
It was to be like this. Bitterness lodged in her throat and she longed for distance. Futilely, Sakura turned and left the balcony, ignoring the three hooded and cloaked figures standing at attention. In truth she could have reached out and brushed her hands against each of them, lingeringly, as she passed. But her hands dangled limply at her sides. The door closed with a tiny snap behind her.
"She's angry with me," Neji said. The recesses of the room cradled his voice and sent it back: the three could not ignore the echo of its implications.
"Why?" Sasuke inquired. It was the first time he had spoken in Konoha since his return and his voice was deeper with more than puberty. It slithered through the room.
Neji faced them, the veins in his temple bulging with the might of the Byukugan. "I see too much for her liking," he said. "Oh," he added – an afterthought, "and don't think she doesn't know who you are. Sakura sees what I see."
"You're sure she knows?"
This voice was Kakashi's, but lacked a certain characteristic laziness that put Neji on his guard.
"It was swirling, converging in her fingertips."
The next question was left unspoken, but it swept tangibly through the room. How? Neji's eyes were transparent ice cubes. "There are more ways of seeing than one." And the three men standing at attention accepted this answer, although it was not what they wanted to hear. His lips couldn't deliver that answer anyway. They weren't soft enough or petal pink.
Knowing this, Neji turned to again face the setting sun. The balcony opened to a magnificent view of Konoha, but it soured before him tauntingly, as if to say you will never reclaim what you once thought you had. The door sighed shut when he left, and the figures clothed in black stood still.
If he was going after her, they couldn't see far enough to know.