It was a rainy late autumn night, when father returned back home. I heard the door opening and his familiar footsteps which had me running furiously from my room's loneliness to the living room's warmth generously sprayed by the fire place all around the spacious room.
Upon my entrance at the room, I violently came to a halt. My dad turned his head to nod at me while I stood frozen in my tracks, unsure of what to do, in front of the sight of two total strangers, invading our personal space, an adult with a black coat and a wet hat,around my dad's age as I quickly figured, and a young boy, probably 4-5 years older than me, dressed in the same style as the older man. I stared at them rather rudely, while my dad had to cough at least 2 times to get my attention back.
I turned my gaze to my father who looked at me, rather annoyed by my lack of manners.
"This is my youngest child, Ino. Excuse her for her childish behaviour."my dad murmured, half smiling as I kept rather stubbornly in my silent observation of the strangers.
Dont get me wrong but it wasnt often when we had guests at our mansion, especially after mum's death. The only people I was used to seeing was my sister, my father and the servants. Oh and sometimes, the postman when he came early in the mornings and I was up eating my breakfast.
"Oh, but don't worry, she's not doing anything wrong. What a cute little lady may I add." the creeply adult said with a heart warming smile. I averted my gaze from his, feeling rather shy at the sudden refer to my person.
"Ok, Ino, this man here is Mister Uchiha,a fellow businessman. We are going to have a hopefully long term and fruitfull cooperation, so you will see him often coming to our house, as we will discuss work stuff together." my father told me in a rather cold tone, more as if he was explaining things to the other man than to me, that I didnt get half of it either way, being at this young of my age.
"And this is my son, here. Sasuke. He will often tag along with me, as I want him to start learning how businesses work early on. It'd be nice if you could show him around when you have time." the adult man said looking at me as if he was talking to a handicapped retard that needed double explanations.
I looked at the young boy. He seemed disinterested, his gaze lost somewhere at the other side of the room. I suddenly, felt my cheeks flashing for being ignored. An intruder, in my own house,and he didnt even do as much as greet me. I was secretly upset. The boy made a bad impression on me with his seemingly rude mannerisms but I said nothing. What could I have said? I was just a kid, afterall, noone ever took me seriously.
His father gently pushed the boy on the shoulder, urging him to be polite.
Sasuke made a rather annoyed grimace at him but slowly turned his gaze to examine me.
"Hi."was all he could bother himself with to say, I guessed.
"Hello, Sasuke." I said back, his name rolling off my tongue rather too easily.
After the brief introduction, my father and his walked off inside the living room and took a seat, with Sasuke following right after.
"Maid, bring us some warm tea with biscuits, please." I heard my father saying, snapping his fingers at the female servant. I remembered I was still standing on the same spot, rather stupidly, staring after where they had previously been.
Seems with time I had become quite the unsocial being, but who could blame a young child that had gone through what I had?
I turned slowly on the spot and walked off, the manly voices still trailing behind me, as their discussion grew heavier.
I ran to my sister's room and was about to open her door and storm in, when I remembered how much she hated people going in without her permission first.
So I knocked. She didnt reply for some minutes, I figured she was already asleep. But for some reason, I felt so weird about the strangers that I wanted to let her know how I felt.
I knocked again, and repeated till I finallygot an answer. She stood up from her bed, where she was laying waiting to fall asleep, and dragged herself towards the door.
She opened it slowly, popping up her head behind it to look at me.
"Ino, what's wrong?" she asked, furrowing ever slightly her eye brows. Her eyes seemed red. A proof that she had been crying again tonight.
I normally didnt annoy her at such times, cause I knew her emotional condition but this was a different situation.
"Sister, let me in. I wanna talk to you." I said and she looked at me with worry but still made me space to walk in.
She closed the door behind her and sat on her bed, looking at me calmly.
"Is everything okay?" she asked, her gentle green eyes looking ever so tired under the sparse light.
"No. There are two strangers in our living room! Dad says that they will work with him, but one of them is a boy! Are we going poor?" I asked, finally gettting it out of my chest as my sister took in what I had said.
She stood up and approached me.
"Oh don't worry, silly. I'm sure this is not the case." she said trying to reassure me. We had often heard dad speaking about the possibility of us going bankrupt as his business didnt go that well lately so this new allianced had allarmed me.I was so young and there was only as much I could understand.
My sister seemed kinda curious now that I had mentioned it to her.
She sat back on her bed.
"You are? You have to see them, though! They look bad!" I said, with a complaining tone.
Sakura smiled at me.
"Yes, I am. Don't worry yourself with that. Mum would agree with I need to sleep, I'm feeling tired. You can sleep with me, if you want though." Sakura said as she got ready to lie down on her bed.
No, I wasnt taking any of that. I wanted her to see them just like I did. I ran to the side of her bed and grabbed her hand, dragging her out of it with all my force.
"No, you gotta come! Come!" I said and my sister almost lost her balance.
"Wait, wait, fine, I'll come! Stop dragging me." she said, rubbying her hand in pain.
I mumbled a sorry and stood away as she quickly dressed in her casual whitish dress and her shoes-the ones mum had bought her for her birthday-.
I felt kinda bad for having her to do this, but after not having any guests for years and years, this was a big event for the kid me.
She brushed her hair indifferently, looking weakly on the mirror, and when she was ready she casually nodded at me.
We joined hands and I took her to the living room, leaving her hand as soon as we saw the light.
I stopped behind a chair and stared at the strangers. The young boy had moved and he was now sitting in front of the fireplace, on a big comfy chair, pensive and lost in his own thoughts.
The two dads were in the far back of the room, still chatting, as serious as ever.
Sakura walked ahead of me, only to stop suddenly when she took notice of the boy.
She stared at him for some moments. I could see the expression on her face was like a miracle. So far, the only genuine emotion on her face had been sorrow. All her smiles or laughs were forced or fake. But now, it wasnt sorrow. And it wasnt fake. It was a mixture of surprise and wonder.
Her cheeks were flashing, ever so lightly, but under the fire's plain light,it was more than visible.
The boy hadnt realised her presence, or so it seemed. My sister coughed weakly and walked towards him, surprising her own self.
She extended her pale weak hand towards him, causing the boy to turn his head to her, ever so lightly surprised.
"Hello, I'm Sakura Haruno, the older daughter. Nice to meet you." she said, forcing a smile.
Sasuke looked back at her, examining her for a few seconds. His black eyes seemed so unreadable, sending cold chills down her spine. He looked so beautiful and refined, under the fire light. He had skin and characteristics that many girls would be jealous of. And however, no matter how femminine he looked, there was still something very dominant and masculine about him,
He caught her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the top of her palm softly,without breaking the intense eye contact.
"Pleased to meet Uchiha." the boy said . I was kinda surprised,may I say, I didnt expect him to even say hi back, let alone do all that. And once again I was furious because he was ruder to me before.
Sakura's hand seemed to tremble, but she tried to hide her embarassment and sat on a chair beside him.
I walked off to him, furiously.
"Hey,you're rude." I suddenly said, surprsing myself.
My sister turned to look at me,not understanding.
Sasuke looked at me, grinning lightly but mysteriously.
"And why's that?" he asked softly, his gaze too intense and pinned on me.
"You barely even said hi before!"
"If you bring me a glass of water, I might even try to remember your name." the boy said, his raven hair playing with the light elegantly.
"You..." I started off.
My sister interrupted though.
"Oh, please, don't tease her. My sis's just a child. Just go along." Sakura tried to laugh it off.
I kept staring back at Sasuke. The raven suddenly cracked a small but heart warming smile at me.
"Ino's a nice name." he suddenly said and just as simply, breaking the cold walls that had been raised between us.
"Sasuke is so not." I said though, still mad at him and ran off before I could see his reaction. My cheeks were flastered and my heart was beating fast, however, I could hear my sister laughing genuinly for the first time in so long behind me. Uncosciously, I smiled.
"So what brings you here?" Sakura asked suddenly, causing Sasuke to turn around and look at her.
She felt her heart beating faster and the heat returning to her cheeks.
"My father wants to me follow his conversations with your father. He thinks that it's gonna train me to become like him." the boy said, rather soulessly.
"Oh, I see. Why are you sitting here then?" Sakura asked, out of curiosity, though she was grateful he was sitting right there, with her.
"I'd rather be with you than with listen to boring adult conversations." Sakura felt her cheeks reddening and turned her face away, trying to hide her excitement.
She couldnt bring herself to say anything, as embarassed as she was, so she dove in silence. But when she turned to observe the boy, briefly after, to see him staring off at the fire ahead, she didn't miss how the corner of his lips had turned into a handsome, but mysterious smirk.