Stockholm Syndrome
A/N: I'm sorry for the slow update!!! Please, enjoy.
Sasuke's POV
"Oh.... my..." my voice dies. Based on a true story?! Now, I must admit, this is kinda troubling.
"Wow, Sakura..." Naruto mummers. "You're really good at this."
She gives him a look. "That's why I wanted to investigate crimes and solve mysteries when I grow up as a profession, because I'm good at it." she looks at the book a moment longer before handing it back to me. "Come over tonight. Both of you." She looks at Naruto then back to me. "Okay? I think we've got an investigation on our hands."
For a moment, I was no 15 year old brother to a lunatic, I was 7 years old again, playing crime investigation with Naruto and Sakura. We would play around with different stories each time. Missing person, missing cookie from the cookie jar, or even looking at someone funny. We did it all. It always ended with Itachi either being our victim or prime suspect.
He seemed to have loved joining in on our games.
And when crime investigation was around, he was ready and waiting. One time, when we went to lookfor him, he jumped out from behind the couch and scared us all to death.
Something Sakura was good at, making up stories, then building evidence that could mean something. She loved watching those crime investigation t.v shows. That's all she'd watch when she was at my house. It used to be all she could talk about too. No one can deny, when it came to solving mysterious, Sakura was good at it.
"Oh, I saw this crime where this guy got angry and shoved his wife down the stairs and she broke her neck.... oh, there was this other one where this lady killed her husband because she thought that he was cheating on her with her own sister...." I remember hearing Sakura say rapid fire.
"Alright!" Naruto exclaims enthusiastically.
I nod. "Need to ask my mom, but I'm sure she'll let me."
Sakura nods. "Alright, now-"
"Ok, Youthful children alike, welcome to 9th grade!" says an over-enthusiastic teacher as he walks into the room. Black hair in a bowl cut with black eyes and in a green jumpsuit. "I am Might, Gai! Now who might you be, little missy?" he asks, pointing to a girl by the name of TenTen. She looks around, shocked to have been called on.
"TenTen, sir."
"Ah! Ten-Ten," he muses, stretching her name out.
"Uh sir, it's TenTen."
"You seem very youthful today, TenTen!"
"I do?"
"Yes! The fire of youth burns strong in you!"
TenTen makes a face. "Awesome, thanks... I think."
Mr. Might gives her a huge thumbs up and a cheesy smile. TenTen gives a nervous smile back and looks around for someone to help her out. I would, but I frankly don't want the attention on me, so I stay quiet. Seeming like all the other kids were thinking the same thing. All except Naruto.
"Wow! Mr. Bushy-brow, you are so cool!!" Naruto exclaims, jumping out his seat and pumping his fist in the air. I sigh and Sakura smacks her hand against her forehead. She moves to her seat behind me.
"Mr. Might, I am Rock Lee! I am your biggest fan! You are so amazing! Take me as your apprentice! Please, I beg of you! I will work hard to be able to be looked upon by someone so awesome as you, Mr. Might." Lee says, stars twinkling in his eyes. TenTen sighs with relief now that the spot light has moved off her and onto someone else.
The day goes by smoothly. I have a weird ass group of teachers as my own. Seems, Mr. Might is my P.E. teacher. Mr. Hatake is my english. Ms. Anko is my science. Mrs. Sarutobi is my social studies teacher and married to my health teacher, Mr. Sarutobi, who is the son of our principal and apparently is a smoker. Believe me, I have had one hell of a day.
When school finally let out, I went to my locker and shoved all my books in there and shut it. No homework, first day, you see. So, I'm really a good student just, not wanting to carry an empty backpack around, now that's dumb.
"Hey," Sakura comes at of nowhere, her faithful companion Naruto was not even that far behind. "you call your mom yet?"
I shake my head and dig around in my pocket. "Not yet." Pulling it out, I press the button to turn it on. While I wait, I go to look for Itachi.
Itachi's POV
That 'beginning of the year brain capacity test' was extremely easy. He just wanted to see what we knew, and apparently, I won't be having a hard time this year, all the beginning of the year tests were easy.
"Itachi," I hear Sasuke's voice behind me. I stop and turn to look at him. "I'm going over to Sakura's house, can you let mom know when you get home? If that's ok..." he mumbles the last part.
I feel rephreshed. He's going over to her house so that they can be investigaters again, like they used to all those years ago.
I nod, giving a slight wave before turning on my heel and heading for my locker.
"Bye!!" Naruto and Sakura call in unison.
"Later, bro." Sasuke calls then their voices fade as they walk in the opposite direction as I.
Kisame and Deidara appear next to me, like they were hiding in the shadows, waiting for me to walk by so that they could pounce. I don't know, something to think about.
"How was your first day back?" Deidara asks. I look at him then point to a group of football players that look at us as we walk by. They have doubtful looks in their eyes like I would crack and kill everyone in the hall. One of the mutters something along the lines of "It's always the silent ones to crack..." before looking away.
"Ignore them." Kisame tuts, putting his blue arm around my shoulders. "Besides, look at it this way, you have us."
"Is that to be reassuring?" Sasori asks, appearing around the same way Deidara and Kisame did. "For him, to say the least?"
Deidara waves him off. "Psh, Danna, Itachi loves us and would never give us up for anyone, right?" he looks at me. I shrug.
'You have your uses...' I don't say.
"I'd give you guys up." Pein mutters also materializing with Konan on his arm. I smile a little at that while Deidara and Kisame start to argue saying that Pein loves them more then I do and that they are the only ones that keep him sane.
"True," Pein mutters. "I guess I'll keep you guys until better people come along."
Konan rolls her eyes. "Ha! No one is better than us, baby!"
Kisame points at her. "See, Pein? Your woman has the right idea!"
Pein shrugs while Deidara raises his hand up high at Konan. "Gimme some love!" She high fives him and smiles at Pein.
"Maybe I should dump your ass and go for Dei. He treats me good." she jokes. Pein raises an orange eyebrow with a cocky smile on his face.
"Deidara has nothing on me, my dear, and you'd be a fool to leave a god, like myself, behind." he says smugly. We all used to joke about Pein being god. He's stronger then all of us, physical wise. He never looked it, but he was, and is, a natural born leader. Where he goes, all of us are never too far behind.
I miss my friends. I miss them so much. No one will ever know how badly I wanted to be with them the last 2 years. How badly I wanted to just tell my story so I could get back to them. They are like my personal family. My real family, I have to share. This family, is for me and me alone. No one can claim them as their own. They understand me a lot better then my real family and I can't help but love them like a real family. I was never one to get in trouble before I met them. I was always the polite, quiet, smart boy that did everything right. But, sense I met the best friends in my entire life, I've been more outgoing, more happy.
I never smiled as a child and that worried my parents, but when we moved here I smiled all the time. I wasn't alone anymore. And best of all....
Sasuke was born here.
Sasuke's POV
When we walk into Sakura's house, her mother comes fluttering in from the kitchen. "Oh, Sakura, I-" she stops when she sees us. A large smile crosses her face. "Sasuke, Naruto, how are you boys' doing?" she asks.
"Good!" Naruto chirps.
"I'm ok." I say softly.
She gives me a sympathetic look but says nothing, knowing that if she said that she was sorry, it would only upset me. I love that about Sakura's mom. She always knows what to say and when to say it. She always knows when to say nothing at all. Something I wish everyone had.
"Sakura," her mom says, "I'm going out with some old girl friends from high school tonight. You'll be ok, right?" she asks. I know she doesn't suspect us of doing anything inappropriate. Naruto has a girlfriend and I'm gay, so she knows that there are no worries. One more thing to love about Sakura's mom.
"Yes mom," Sakura nods. "We'll be fine."
She smiles and claps her hands together. "Great! You kids have fun! I'm going to go get ready but first I gotta take your dinner out of the oven, Sakura- chan. Naruto, Sasuke, feel free to have some!" she chirps before whisking away back into the kitchen.
Sakura shrugs at us then waves for us to follow her up the stairs to her room. Sakura's house is a lot smaller then my own but very comfy, Naruto lives in a shitty apartment so we never go there.
Sakura's room is all reds, greens and pinks. It's always been like this, but before it was all pink so Naruto and I would have to hiss like vampires before we could enter. It was almost like a physical wound. It's a lot better now, considering the red and green now over-power the pink so we play it cool.
Sakura has her own laptop. It was all red. She pulls it off her desk in the corner of the room and sits down on her bed. Narutoand I sit on both sides of her. Her background is a picture of us. Naruto and I have our arms over her shoulders and she has her hands on our waists and we are all smiling at the camera.
Itachi took the picture. He wanted me to smile so he wore all pink and had his hair up in a high ponytail jumping around pretending to be a cheerleader. I can remember the last time I laughed so hard. He never did it again though, said he emotionally traumatized himself and would never do it again. Too bad, though. I wish I could have got a picture of him.
Blackmail central.
Saukralays her laptop on the bed and walks over to her closet. "Just give me a moment..." she mumbles, digging around in her closet for a few moments. She finally walks back over to us witha book full of what looks like news articals from our daily news paper.
"What's that?" Naruto asks, nodingto the book.
"News articles," Sakura says slowly, crawling back onto the bed between the two of us. "I started collecting them about 10 years ago. My mom used to collect them too so the one furthest back is like somewhere between 20- 27 years ago." she explains.
"There is a five year gap in that, Sakura." I point out.
She nods like she's thought it over. "I know. That's why I'm going to use the Internet to fill the gap. Itachiis trying to tell us something, we just need to figure out what it is." She says slowly, her green eyes burning with determination.
She is right. Itachi is trying to let me in and this is the only way he can allow himself. I need to find out, and do it soon. I believe whatever Itachi saw that night, is watching him and is scaring him. It's holding him and that's why he won't speak. He's not going to hurt everyone dear to him. Even if it caused him to go completely insane in the process.
Itachi would give up everything for his family and friends. I know he would, and sadly enough, his attacker, whither be physical or mental, seems to know it as well.
A/N: How was it? Let me know. Rate and review! Have a good day!