Title: Dessert of the Day
Author: paws-bells
Beta-ed by: MelissaRose85
Characters/Pairing: Haruno Sakura and Uchiha Itachi
Type: One Shot/Drabble Collection (InComplete)
Genre: Romance/General/Humor
Word Count: 1773
Rating: T (Contains content not suitable for children)
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto-san.
Summary: Random ItaSaku drabbles/onesies featuring various universes and various storylines for your reading pleasure. Chapters may or may not be interconnected.
Created on: 12/04/13
Completed on: 12/04/13
Chapter Last Revised on: 25/08/14
Prompt: Sakura wants to get Itachi's attention and leaves encoded messages for him, knowing that he could decode them. Itachi wonders who these messages, that make his days a bit brighter, are from.
There it was again, a simple white envelope sitting on his desk, patiently waiting to be opened by its intended recipient. His name was carefully written on the front in a graceful and neat script, and as always, there was nothing to indicate the mysterious identity of the sender. Itachi took his time to examine the envelope before he finally broke the seal and took out the letter that was tucked within, long, pianist's fingers carefully unfolding the piece of paper and gently straightening out the creases, deliberately prolonging the anticipation of finally reading its contents.
Dear Itachi,
I write because you exist.
When I met you,
flowers started growing
in the darkest parts of my mind.
You touched me in places so deep,
I wanted to ignore you.
Isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes,
but when you look back, everything is different?
It frustrates me that I have all these words inside of me that you will never get to hear.
It had been a few months since he had started to receive these little notes, and he was still nowhere near figuring out the identity of his secretive sender. He had a pretty good guess that his one sided pen pal was a woman, judging by the feminine cursive of her handwriting as well as the whimsical nature of her unexpectedly observant and intelligent notes. Itachi was not a stranger to receiving unsolicited attention from members of the opposite sex – for reasons he did not fully understand himself, he was rather well liked and often earned admiration from the ladies (and the occasional gentleman), experiencing all sorts of adulating behavior ranging from excessive fawning to sometimes downright alarming levels of stalking…but this was something different than the usual, and despite his initial reservations, Itachi found himself increasingly intrigued.
Dear Itachi,
I think when you like someone,
you are only infatuated with them.
When you love someone,
you care for them.
Isn't it that simple?
You're all locked up in that little world of yours,
and when I try knocking on the door,
you just sort of look up for a second and go right back inside.
Sometimes, the sun sets earlier. Days don't last forever, you know.
But I'll fight as hard as I can. I can promise you that.
You are the only exception.
The messages always came unsigned, but the quiet intensity and the sincerity of the deeply thoughtful words left a profound impression on him, and Itachi would ponder each and every sentence intently, wondering about the identity of his mystery letter writer in an almost fixated manner that was completely uncharacteristic of him. The raven haired male stared at the piece of paper in his hand for a very long time, silently committing the words and that now familiar, immaculate handwriting to memory. Then, he carefully refolded the note, slipped it back into its envelope, and tucked it safely in his drawer, together with the rest of its brethren. By now, he possessed a rather sizeable collection of letters from his secret sender, and even though Itachi still did not know who she was, he quietly realized that he was getting to know her really well.
Dear Itachi,
It's so easy to laugh
It's so easy to hate
It takes strength to be gentle and kind.
I aim to be lionhearted,
but my hands still shake and
my voice isn't quite loud enough.
What I want is to be needed.
What I need is to be indispensable to somebody.
Who I need is somebody that will eat up all my free time, my ego, my attention.
Someone addicted to me. A mutual addition.
How far should a person go in the name of true love?
Another day. Another note. Once again, he was gently captivated by her words, and slowly, ever so slowly, he was starting to become obsessed with the need to know this fascinating person whose beautifully contemplative, introspective words touched his soul and made his blood stir with a rising anticipation to meet her. It was becoming increasingly difficult to continue to wait for her to show herself to him, and so he consoled himself by rereading her notes all over again, the tiny little pieces of her heart that she had chosen to share with him. There was an understated but intent sort of intimacy in all of her personally handwritten messages to him; he ran his fingers wistfully across each and every line of the carefully penned characters, tried to picture the ardent, passionate woman who wrote such provocative words, and in his mind, her bright and earnest gem-like eyes pierced his own.
Dear Itachi,
We're all a little weird, and life's a little weird.
And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours,
we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.
Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.
Maybe I need somebody that can save me from the parts of myself that keep making me crazy.
I do not need someone to complete me
but if you wanted to
we could walk next to each other
into whatever is coming next.
I crave adventure, attention, and you.
Somehow, without his knowledge or consent, she had already captured his full attention. He did not want to just sit back and only receive her feelings any longer. He wanted more. Just reading those words were no longer enough. He wanted to hear them as well, directly from her mouth. What did her voice sound like? He wanted to hear her speak his name. He wanted to speak hers.
It would not be long now, the day of their destined meeting.
Dear Itachi,
It sucks you can't "make"
someone love you.
When technically speaking
they made you love them.
I only want two things in this world.
I want you.
And I want us.
You deserve good things, and I want to be one of them.
But you see, there is
a graveyard in my mouth
filled with words that
have died on my lips.
Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been.'
You'll always be my favorite what-if.
This time, it was he who chased after that fleeting flash of pink. As he ran down the hallway in swift, loping strides, his colleagues stared at him as if he was crazy – they had never seen him behave like this before. He ignored the surprised looks and slipped into the elevator before its doors slipped shut silently behind him, and finally, finally, he was looking at her. Now that they were finally face to face with each other, he quickly realized that she was even more exquisite than he had initially imagined. Her face was fine boned and heart shaped, her wide eyes were the shade of the purest emeralds, and her lips were full and shaped enticingly like a cupid's bow. He tore his attention from her mouth and met her stunned gaze with his own instead.
"Your name?" he asked abruptly, strangely breathless, only belatedly realizing how brusque and rude he sounded after he had blurted out the burning question that had been stuck in his mind for what had seemed like ages. Astounding. He was actually feeling nervous.
She immediately bowed as low as she could go and just as anxiously stuttered out. "M-My name is- I'm Haruno Sakura."
Sakura. So her name was Sakura. And her voice was also lovely and clear, music to his ears.
His tone gentled at her jumpy and cautious demeanor. He had no wish to frighten her away. "…Are you the one who has been writing me letters all along?"
She had not expected to be called out on her little secret so openly, and her face immediately turned a bright tomato red. She could not even look him in the eye anymore, but nodded mutely, her mortified gaze fixed to the ground instead. They were both still stuck inside the elevator – there was nowhere for her to run even if she wished to retreat from this completely distressing situation. Oh god. He knew who she was now.
"I'm sorry," she burst out at last, her face burning with stark embarrassment. "I never meant to trouble or harass you; I just-"
"I like you," he suddenly uttered, still looking a bit dazedly at her, and she froze and gawked back at him as if he had just grown two heads.
At that moment, it was difficult to tell who was more mortified. The lightest hue of pink crept across those aristocratic cheekbones of his, and Sakura could only stare at him, entranced by the rare sighting of an embarrassed Uchiha.
The raven haired male coughed slightly and spoke as calmly as he could, attempting to regain his previous dignity and composure. "Your letters, they were-" Amazing. Incredible. Captivating. He broke off abruptly before he could make an even bigger idiot out of himself, and then he was suddenly filled with the urge to drag his hand through his hair. He barely refrained, recognizing it as a nervous tic. His dark, enigmatic gaze focused intently on hers.
"I- Did you really mean every word…?"
She hesitated briefly, still caught by embarrassment, before she nodded slowly, bashful and uncertain now that he knew of her feelings. She bit her lip nervously, and he had a fleeting thought that she was unexpectedly adorable.
"Would you like to have dinner with me after work?" he asked after a thick, awkward moment of silence, sounding about as subtle as a freight train. He really wasn't very good at this sort of thing, but she privately found this side of him endearing.
She started to smile slowly at him and nodded.
"I'd love to," she told him, her face radiant with happiness like a bright, blooming flower.
It was the tender beginning of something new and wonderful and marvelous, and just as always, he was giving her something more to write to him about.
And this time, he might just write back.
Dear Itachi,
Rules For Happiness:
something to do,
something to love,
something to hope for.
You're my favorite reason to lose sleep.
You're an example of better things to come.
I want you to be happy but I want to be the reason.
It has always been you.
- Sakura
Dear Sakura,
I fell in love backwards;
I fell in love with words,
that belonged to thoughts,
that belonged to a mind,
that, simply coincidentally,
belonged to you.
I'm happy that we met. I love you.
- Itachi
::owari::
Questions That I Would Like To Answer Before You Ask:
FYI, all the little messages (in italics) that are being passed between our lovely couple are consolidated into note form from random quotes gleaned from various books, movies and the internet by yours truly. Other than for arrangement, I hereby disclaim any intellectual rights to them.
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Once again, I'm currently not accepting any prompts at the moment, so please do not send me any until I request for them, thanks.
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Thanks for your kind understanding, and as always, thanks for reading! Until next time!
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-paws