It was going to rain today; she knew it from the moment she stepped outside that morning.
She didn't quite know how she knew since not the faintest wisp of cloud marred the perfect pale blue dome arching overhead, but there was a sort of restless tension in the air that whispered and warned of torrential rainfall in the near future. Sakura just sighed and went on her way, however: she was already late to the training grounds for her sparring match with Lee (and there was no chance that he'd be late as well) so she wouldn't've have time to go back for her umbrella even if she'd remembered to buy a new one after her last one had broken a month ago.
Oh well, she though as she hurriedly went on her way. I'll just have to hope it doesn't rain until later...
Sometimes, she hated being right.
A very tired, very muddy Sakura trudged wearily down the streets, scarcely seeming to notice the rain pouring down on her, soaking her already-wet clothing even more. At least it's getting the worst of the mud off of me, she thought, stopping for a moment to stare dully down at herself and getting quite a bit of rainwater down the back of her shirt for her trouble.
Today was supposed to have been her day off--her first in quite a while--but she had decided to use it to get in some much-needed training instead. Looking after Sasuke and researching his condition had been taking up most of her time recently, and she felt that her training had taken a back seat ever since she had taken on her latest "mission."
Sakura had sparred with Lee before, but because of said mission, it had been a while since the last time. She knew how fast the self-proclaimed "Beautiful Green Beast of Konoha" was, but somehow she always managed to underestimate him just a bit, and the results of that constant mistake never failed to be unpleasant.
The first time she'd ever approached him to ask for a bout a few years ago, he'd gone pale as a sheet, his already ridiculously round eyes somehow going even rounder and wider until Sakura had thought they'd fall right out of his head. He'd stammered and stuttered unintelligibly for a while, but Sakura had finally gotten it out of him that he didn't want to fight her because he was afraid of accidentally hurting her. Though she had found his concern to be gentlemanly and rather sweet, she had insisted that she'd be fine, to his near-desperately repeated refusals. After about ten minutes of getting nowhere, it was time to start playing dirty; but to her surprise, even the promise of a date wasn't enough to sway the stoic Lee. Finally, aggravated beyond reason, she'd drawn back her fist and smashed a rather sizeable hole in the wall scarcely a foot away from a very surprised Lee, then posted her fists firmly on her hips. "I think I'll be fine," she had said, looking up at him with a tight smile. After that he'd had no choice but to agree to her "request" (though she'd had to nail him hard a few times during an actual fight before he'd stopped obviously holding back), and they'd usually had a bout once a week ever since.
Lee was by far the better of the two at hand-to-hand combat, but Sakura wasn't an easy opponent by any stretch of the imagination; he was a great deal faster than she, but if she ever actually managed to land a punch, the round was usually hers.
It had been well over a month since their last bout, however, and Sakura could clearly feel the evidence of that now: nearly her entire body ached so completely, she almost wished the rain was cold; but it was early summer, the start of the rainy season, so it was warm and almost sticky, though the viciously temperamental wind that blew it in stinging sheets against the windows of houses and the faces of the foolish few out and about was bitterly cold.
Sakura shivered, breaking out of her daze, and scurried for the nearest cover: the green tarp awning of a nearby curio shop. She shivered again as she pulled her hair out of the low, sloppy ponytail the rain had reduced her once-neat bun to, wringing what water she could from it before retying it in a (she hoped) less disheveled manner. She tried to wring some water out of her black tank top as well, but both the tank and her black shorts were rather form-fitting and resisted her best efforts to force any moisture out of them, though they held it well enough, resulting in them being even more clingy than usual.
The wind seemed determined to drench her and keep her drenched however, and began periodically forcing the rain to fall almost horizontally to achieve this end; Sakura pressed back against the shop window, unconsciously leaving a wet smear across the glass, but when an especially strong gust spattered warm, wet drops over her feet and nearly up to her thighs, she decided to seek new shelter.
And just when I was starting to get dry, too...
She darted quickly from awning to overhang to doorway, moving quickly but getting soaked again anyway. She was sorely tempted to go into an especially cozy-looking bookstore, but she doubted the proprietors would appreciate her dripping all over their nice clean floor or touching any of their precious books with her wet hands.
She'd paused in a tea shop to let an especially heavy torrent of rain pass by, and was about to dart out once more when a gentle hand caught her shoulder. A bit bewildered by the unexpected touch, she turned and found herself looking up at Hyuuga Neji.
She blinked slowly. "Uh...hi."
He snorted a bit at this greeting, his brow wrinkling as he took in her bedraggled appearance. "What are you doing out in this sort of weather, Haruno?"
Water dripped from her hair onto his hand, which he seemed to have forgotten to move from her shoulder. She averted her eyes and gave a little shrug, apparently reminding him of this fact, for he removed his hand rather hastily as she replied, "Today's my day off, and I just got done training. I got caught in it on my way...home." Actually, she'd been heading to the hospital to check on Sasuke, but for some reason she hesitated to admit that; it was her first day off in a long time, after all, so she had no real excuse to be going to the hospital today.
She knew from the way that his pale eyes narrowed just slightly that Neji had probably seen through her lie, but at the moment she didn't care; she was feeling thoroughly dull and apathetic. She was tired, she was wet, she was sore, she was hungry, and on top of it all she knew she looked terrible, and in front of the immaculate-as-ever Hyuuga Neji, Konoha's most handsome and eligible bachelor, no less.
Wonderful. Just wonderful.
"I...have to go," she said, turning back towards the open door only to find Neji's hand on her shoulder once more, staying her.
"It's pouring. At least wait a while and dry off a bit before you go back out."
Sakura shook her head, refusing the pull of his hand on her shoulder as he tried to turn her back around. "I'm drenched already, it doesn't matter. I'll change when I get home."
"I'll buy you some tea to warm you up."
Now there was a tempting offer.
"...Tea?" she said faintly, trying to hide the sudden shiver that ran through her; Neji felt it, however, and gently pulled on her shoulder again, succeeding this time in his attempt to turn her about, smiling down at her with an unusually obvious kindness.
"Yes. As much as you like. And whatever you want from the menu as well. This place has great tempura."
She felt a sudden smile pulling her lips inexorably upwards--the first to cross her face since it had started raining. "Are you...bribing me? To stay and wait out the storm with you?"
A trace of his regular smirk tainted his otherwise pleasant expression. "I prefer to call it 'monetary encouragement'...though it's for your own good, so there's no reason for you to take offense."
"None taken."
"Good. Our table is this way," he said, heading for the back of the shop.
"Rough day at the training grounds, I see," he remarked in a deceptively casual tone as they settled themselves at a small table tucked in its own little nook at the back of the shop.
Sakura looked sheepishly down at her hands, which were folded neatly in her lap. "It was a bit, I guess...I'm a little out of practice, it seems, what with constantly taking care of Sasuke-kun, and Lee-san is rather good—"
"Lee did this to you?" Neji didn't attempt to hide his surprise.
Sakura couldn't help but chuckle at his reaction. "Yes, he did. At my repeated, and rather forceful, request."
The Hyuuga snorted. "If you can't beat Lee, then I've been giving you too much credit."
"Hey, that's not fair! And I do beat him sometimes...just...not today...at all."
"You use only your taijutsu skills in these matches, I take it," Neji said, then paused as their waitress came by to take their orders.
"Yes," Sakura answered as the woman bustled off towards the kitchen, "otherwise I'd be having a much easier time with him. But I had a...special reason for choosing Lee, and I was looking for challenging, not easy, so no ninjutsu or genjutsu allowed."
"If you were looking for a real challenge, you might've asked me. After all," here Neji smirked almost wickedly, "Lee still hasn't ever managed to beat me."
The pink-haired kunoichi folded her arms over her chest, her face twisting with a vague sort of displeasure. "Naruto's right, sometimes you really are a bastard."
Smirk still firmly in place, Neji chuckled. "So they tell me. But regardless, the offer still stands."
Sakura found herself smiling once more, though this time the expression was a bit more careful and shrewd. "Thanks," she said, allowing a bit of cunning to slip into her voice as well. "I'll...keep that in mind."
Before he could inquire as to what exactly she meant by that, their tea arrived, and after that she chattered on as brightly as ever about her current assignment, her hospital work, and Naruto--specifically about his relationship with Hinata. Though he had been determined not to allow her to sidetrack their conversation, this item caught Neji's interest enough that he engaged in a rather serious discussion about it ("She could do worse, I suppose," was his stance on the issue); when their food arrived, Sakura ate deceptively quickly while keeping the focus on Naruto and Hinata, and before Neji knew it, she was standing to go.
"Looks like the rain's let up for now," she said lightly. "Thanks for the food, Neji-san...even if it was a bribe."
"My pleasure," Neji said, rising with her and bowing slightly.
She flashed him a winsome smile over her shoulder as she turned to leave. "Bye, Neji-san."
And with that she was off, leaving him feeling just slightly bemused. How did the time go so fast? he wondered, watching her go. She had kept talking, then had gotten him so deeply interested in another topic that he never got a chance to question her about the rather devious tone of voice she had used when she'd said that she would keep his offer in mind...and if he asked her about it later, she could easily claim that she'd forgotten and play dumb. He smiled, knowing that he'd been manipulated, even if ever so slightly. Masterfully done, Sakura...perhaps I really haven't been giving you quite enough credit...
Swallowing the last of his tea, he left the appropriate amount on the table, then made his own way out beneath the still-threatening skies.
Sakura did not particularly enjoy lying. She knew that every good shinobi had "the ability to hide the truth beneath a thin layer of deception" as Kakashi-sensei had once said during one of his brief moments of serious instruction, "just enough to be misleading, but not so much that the untruth is glaringly obvious." However, Sakura was pretty sure that he had meant for them to use this ability on missions and against real or potential enemies, not for personal situations and with their friends and peers. (After all, Kakashi himself had been a particularly wretched liar, at least when it concerned his dealings with Team Seven.) In any case, lying was not something that Sakura usually took any particular pleasure in; it was just something that she had proved to be naturally good at.
So after she left the tea house, she did go home...but only to quickly wash her face, fix her hair, and grab a clean set of clothes for later (the ones she was wearing were already nearly dry) before dashing off to her original goal: the hospital.
The dark, low-hanging clouds roiling overhead promised more rain, urging the pink-haired girl to move even more quickly, and it was a good thing that she did; the first warm, fat drops fell to the ground just moments after she had stepped through the Konoha Hospital's front doors.
"Hey, you're awake," Sakura said with obvious surprise when Sasuke looked up as she stepped into his room, and unfortunately she had a good reason to be excited. She hadn't told anyone as of yet (though she knew she'd have to tell Tsunade soon), but his fits of madness were getting steadily worse, and if things continued as they had been, it would soon be quite rare for her to find him in a sane, self-possessed state.
But his eyes were unmistakably clear now, and perhaps just a trifle suspicious, leading Sakura to wonder just how much the silent Uchiha remembered of the previous night.
She had awakened before dawn, and after a brief moment of semi-panicked shock and bewilderment, she had recalled how Sasuke had asked her to stay, calling her "Kaa-san," pulling her close and not letting go, forcing her to spend the night there with him. Finding to her immense relief that he was still soundly asleep, she had finally managed to remove herself from his grasp and slip silently out of the room, heading for her apartment where she promptly collapsed in bed to catch a few more hours of precious sleep...though unbeknownst to her, his eyes had drifted partially open as she quietly slid the door to his room shut.
His eyes narrowed a bit as if he somehow knew what she was thinking about, and she blushed faintly beneath that piercing gaze before shaking off her embarrassment. It hadn't been her fault, after all.
"So...did you sleep well last night, Sasuke-kun?" she forced herself to say, successfully keeping the blush from returning to her cheeks. "Any more nightmares after I...came in to check on you?"
His accusatory glance hardened, and his mouth turned down a bit, but he made no reply.
Why did I come to see him again? Sakura wondered with a flash of irritation.
"I have today off," she said aloud, keeping her voice carefully neutral. "I didn't have to come here, you know."
"Then why did you?" Sasuke muttered darkly.
Good question, actually.
Sakura forced a cheerful grin onto her face. "Because I wanted to take you out today--as a friend, not a patient."
Oh, THAT was a GREAT lie...now you're stuck with him for the day, as usual!
"I didn't think I'd get to, though, considering the...current circumstances..."
Meaning since he's crazy most of the time now.
"...But since you're really awake right now, it'll be fine! Just like old times."
The look he gave her clearly said that he didn't think things would ever be 'just like old times' again, but she pretended not to see.
"Come on, get up! You have to listen to me, you know. I'm still your doctor, day off or not."
Looking rather irritated but bowing to the inevitable, Sasuke did as she said.
After explaining the situation to the nurses both at the floor and front desks, Sakura led the way towards the hospital entrance, happier than she'd been in quite a while. Sure, it might still be raining off and on, and she was still sore from her training earlier, but Sasuke seemed to be more in control of himself now than he had been in quite a while, meaning that they might actually get to spend some quality time together.
All we have to do is swing by Naruto's place, and then... Her thoughts trailed off as she looked back at Sasuke, who had stopped just inside the doorway of the hospital, staring out at the clouds overhead with wide eyes, and she could almost physically feel her levity drain away as she saw the tumult of emotions that were swirling in them. Oh no...not again, not now...
"No," he said, voice straining oddly. He clutched at one shoulder as if it pained him, but Sakura knew for a fact that he was completely healed--he didn't have a scratch left on him. "No! I won't go out in this. If I do, I'll find that they're really gone, all of them...that it wasn't a just dream."
"Sasuke," she said, returning to his side and taking his hand. "Calm down...stay in control. You can do this, Sasuke. Please...please stay with me." She knew how pathetic that last plea had sounded, but at the moment she didn't care: she would say nearly anything if it helped him stay in control this time.
He shook his head, eyes still clouded, and a shudder ran through his body as he fought some incomprehensible inner battle. "I—can't, Sakura," he gasped after a short while. "I—" Closing his eyes, he doubled over suddenly, ripping his hand out of her grasp to clutch at his head. A low, strangled moan broke from between his clenched teeth, and his entire body shuddered again, violently this time, prompting Sakura to throw her arms around him, her cheek pressed tight against his shoulder blade--both in an attempt to comfort and restrain him.
She held him until his trembling subsided, only then daring to pull back enough to look up into his face, though she was fairly certain of what she'd find: the all-too-familiar disinterested expression, along with dead, sightless black eyes glazed thick with madness.
One glance proved her suspicions to be correct.
Sakura sighed. Sometimes, she really hated being right.
"Come on...come on out in it. It won't hurt you, it's just rain, you know that." She tugged on his arm again, this time with nearly enough force to dislocate his shoulder, but he still wouldn't budge.
The blank-faced Uchiha slowly shook his head. "No, not just rain...tears of blood from a scarlet sky..."
Sakura bit back a frustrated growl. Though Sasuke's reversion to his maddened state had disheartened her, she had sucked it up and taken him out anyway. She had been sorely tempted to turn him right around, march him back up to his room, and leave him there, and she very nearly had, but something about that just felt wrong, like she was abandoning him or punishing him for something he couldn't control.
After all, it's not his fault he's crazy...well, actually it is, but still...I suppose he can't help it now...
But regardless of who was to blame, this evening had not gone at all how she'd hoped it would. She knew that Naruto was back from his latest mission, but the blonde was not be found either at his apartment or Ichiraku, which left the Hyuuga manor, and there was absolutely no way that she was going there. With the way things were going today, Sakura wasn't going to tempt fate by making another chance meeting with Neji an all-too-easy occurrence; she didn't particularly feel like explaining to the smirking Hyuuga genius why she was "babysitting" on her day off.
When Sasuke had refused to budge from the hospital's entrance, Sakura had gone to Shizune (who was currently in Sakura's office, neck-deep in paperwork) to borrow the older woman's umbrella. Sasuke had submitted to being led about beneath its negligible cover, though he'd insisted on carefully avoiding the puddles that had collected here and there on the street ("Don't splash in them, it'll stain. Blood is hard to wash out."); but when an especially strong and vicious gust of wind had turned the umbrella inside-out and they had darted beneath a very familiar green tarp awning, Sasuke had refused to venture out into the rain again, spouting off more of his rambling, delirious nonsense.
Sakura had had just about enough of that for one day.
"Come on," she said, getting behind him and pushing him out from beneath the shelter. "It's just a light drizzle now. It's warm, so you won't catch cold."
For a long moment Sasuke just stood there, eyes half closed, staring up at the dark night sky as if the falling rain held some deeper meaning for him, something that he alone knew or could understand. Sakura stood in the rain beside him, feeling the tepid droplets slowly soak through her clothing for the second time that day, but unable to tear her eyes from his face and the expression of utter hopelessness displayed there. He might have been crying; the rain made it impossible to tell.
Finally she slipped one of her hands into his, and he followed its gentle tug, letting her pull him along down the street, his dark eyes focused immovably on their joined hands.
It was late by the time they returned to the hospital. Visiting hours were over, and the nurses and medic-nins working the night shift were starting to settle in at their stations. Still clasping his hand firmly in her own, Sakura towed Sasuke up the stairs and down the hall, finally disengaging their hands and leaving him standing there in the middle of his room. She snatched some towels from the linen cart in the utility closet down the hall and returned to find him still standing there in the middle of the floor, shivering and dripping and staring down at his wet, sandaled feet.
She approached him in a very businesslike manner, pulling his shirt up over his head, slipping his feet from his sandals and moving him out of the rather large puddle he'd made on the floor. Sasuke continued to stare at his feet as she patted him dry as best she could with one towel, wrapping another around his bare shoulders and tossing the first over the puddle as she stretched to towel his hair dry, though he was too tall for her to do a very thorough job. Her own hair held the water like a sponge and long, damp tendrils of it kept getting firmly plastered against her neck and the sides of her face, occasionally obscuring her vision somewhat.
Finally satisfied that she'd done what she could, she dug a change of clothes out of one the drawers in the bedside table and set them out for him on the bed. "Go ahead and change, Sasuke-kun, I'll be right back—"
As she turned to go, she slipped just a little in her wet sandals, not really losing her balance, but wavering noticeably. Before she knew it, a pair of warm, firm hands caught her shoulders, steadying her; but when they fell away and she turned back to look up at him, Sasuke's eyes were still vacant and turned firmly downwards.
"I'll be right back," she said again and backed out the door, catching up the bag with the change of clothes she'd brought from home earlier before making her way to her office, slipping off her soaked sandals to avoid leaving a watery trail in her wake.
Shizune had gone home for the night, thankfully, so she wasn't there to question the rather pitiful-looking kunoichi as she stumbled into her office. The hospital was cold, and Sakura was shivering pretty forcefully herself now, her hands clumsy and awkward as she fumbled to remove clothing, dry herself, and dress once more. Neji should show up any time now, she thought wryly as she slicked her long hair back into a quick, messy bun, since he always seems to run into me when I look my worst. But soon she'd finished cleaning herself up, and there was still no sign of her handsome ANBU teammate; nonetheless, she peeked cautiously out into the darkened hallway, glancing both ways just to be sure, before padding barefoot up the stairs and down the hall back to Sasuke's room.
She found the Uchiha sitting listlessly on the edge of his bed, head bowed, hair dripping onto the floor and his new clothes.
Something about that picture caused Sakura's mounting annoyance at her unfortunate ex-teammate to melt away, and with a tender smile she crossed the room to sit on the bed beside him, taking the towel from his limp hands and beginning a second attempt at rubbing his hair dry. She'd been working at it for a bit when she heard him give a quiet, half-hummed sigh; glancing down at his face, she found the expression it bore to be a deep contentment, his eyes closed and his mouth curved in a small, peaceful smile.
Still smiling herself, Sakura finished drying his hair, then deposited the wet towels in one of the hallway linen hampers and hung his wet clothes up to dry in the bathroom; finally she helped him into bed, whispering a quiet, "Good night, Sasuke-kun," before turning out the lights and leaving him to sleep.
Sakura let out a long, low sigh as she slid the door to his room shut, then just stood there a moment, staring at it meditatively. Remembering the comfort of the previous night, she had almost voluntarily climbed into bed with him again, but her common sense had prevented her from obeying that admittedly odd impulse. She knew she'd been lucky that she hadn't gotten in trouble for it the first time; she probably wouldn't be so lucky a second time.
She was very glad of her decision the instant she turned around: for standing behind her was none other than Hyuuga Neji.
Again? Inner Sakura gaped, just as taken aback as the outer one. Isn't twice in one day a little much?
"N-Neji-san...what are you doing here?"
"Naruto told me I might find you here," he said quietly, giving her some unreadable look.
"Oh?" she replied, desperately wracking her brain for something to say, or at least for a logical reason for him to be there. When in doubt, just ask. "But why—"
"I came to walk you home," he said calmly, gesturing for her to accompany him as he turned to make his way back down the hall. "It's raining quite hard, and I know you don't have an umbrella. I didn't want you to get drenched again...for the third time today," he said evenly, leaving Sakura to wonder just how much those pale, ghostly eyes had seen.