Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Chapter Sixteen
I spend most of the night in Hidans embrace, crying my eyes out. But when dawn finally arrived, I felt a lot better. I had gotten back my emotions and now I was pissed, I was going to tear sound apart, piece by piece, until the only thing left was the memories.
I knew that it was not going to be easy, getting back to the person I was. But I knew that I could to it, and that was all I needed right now.
I sat at the kitchen table and was trying to make my body realize that it needed food; let´s just say that I was not succeeding. I pushed away the bowl of cereal, suddenly disgusted with its soggy appearance.
"You need to eat Blossom…" Said Deidara as he entered the kitchen. I knew that Kakuzu had told them what had happened to me and what problems I had so that they could help me.
"I know, tell that to my stomach…" I answered and closed my eyes, resting my head on my arms.
I heard him move around in the kitchen but didn´t look up until I heard him put something down in front of me. "Try this Blossom, un." I opened my eyes to see that he had put a bowl of fresh fruit cut into small pieces in front of me. He proceeded to pour some plain vanilla yoghurt in the bowl and then sat down in front of his own bowl.
I hesitantly put a spoonful in my mouth, chewing slowly. Then my eyes lit up, this was good, I wanted to eat this! I quickly recognized that there was banana, pear, apple and strawberries in the bowl but there was a fifth fruit that I didn´t recognize… "What´s in this except from banana, pear, apple and strawberries?" I asked him.
"Mango." He answered and smiled at me as I quickly emptied the bowl. I put the now empty bowl in the dishwasher and gave Deidara a kiss on the cheek.
"Thank you!" I told him and then I went back to my room to change clothes. I felt the need to train.
I quickly put on a pair of blood red shorts that went to my knees and hung low on my hips despite the drawstring. I then put on a simple black sports bra and put my hair up. When I arrived at the gym it was empty and I happily skipped to the stereo. I put on my favorite playlist with Halestorm and skipped to one of my favorite songs, Daughters of Darkness.
I quickly ran my 8 miles before changing the song to I miss the Misery, also by Halestorm, before deciding to do some stretching exercises. I tried to reach my toes with my legs straight and found out that without the lowest ribs it was almost too easy.
I tried reaching further backwards and soon found myself with my head actually between my knees, my legs still ram rod straight. I was clutching the edge of the mat, trying to bend even further when the door suddenly opened and Kisame entered.
"Hi!" I told him with a smile, my eyes widening in surprise as he simply turned white and fell to the ground, completely passed out. I quickly straightened myself and yelled for Kakuzu. I didn´t have to wait long before Kakuzu showed up. He took one glance at Kisame and asked me.
"What happened?"
"I don´t know, I was just stretching when he came in. He took one look at me and fainted." I told Kakuzu while leaning against the wall.
Kisame chose that moment to wake up again and Kakuzu asked him what had happened as well. Kisame just looked at me and said. "Humans aren´t supposed to be able to bend like that." That made Kakuzu look at me again as well and he then asked me.
"How exactly did you stretch?"
"Like this." I said and put myself in the same position as before Kisame decided to pass out on me. I looked at Kakuzu from my upside down position and saw that his eyes were huge and he too had paled a shade or two.
"Kisame is right, you shouldn´t be able to bend like that even with two ribs missing…"
"Oh… is it bad then?" I asked after I had straightened myself.
"I wouldn´t say that either… As long as it doesn´t hurt it´s not dangerous for you." Kakuzu said to me before leaving us again.
Kisame still looked a bit pale so I decided to end my training and go back to my room and shower. While in the shower, my mind wandered and some dark memories resurfaced.
Flashback
"No… Sasuke please… please stop!" I begged him as he punched me in the stomach. "Why would I do that?" Was his eerily calm response as he kicked me in the knee. I fell down and he leaned over me, biting me hard in the neck before saying. "You are after all mine to do as I please with."
I came back to reality when someone knocked on the closed bathroom door. "Sakura are you okay? You´ve been in the shower for over an hour now…" It was Hidans voice and he sounded slightly worried.
"I´m fine." I told him before turning off the water and getting out of the shower.
I dried myself off and put on dark red boy short panties and a matching bra before putting on one of Kisames hoodies. His shirt reached to my mid-thigh, making pants unnecessary and was a dark blue.
I entered my bedroom to find Hidan leaning against the wall, waiting for me. He took one look at my face before pulling me in for a hug, asking me. "Bad memories?" I nodded against him but then pulled away a bit to look him in the eyes.
"Yeah but how did you know?"
"You´re eyes looked haunted…" He answered and I locked my arms around his neck and kissed him. At first he froze, clearly thinking that I would have troubles with this because of Sasuke. He didn´t realize that he was so different from Sasuke that I didn´t have any troubles at all.
But I kept on kissing him and soon he relaxed and kissed me back. It didn´t take long after that for his hands to find their way beneath my shirt but just as it was getting good a knock on the door interrupted us.
Hidan went to his own room through our shared bathroom as I opened the door to find Deidara on the other side. "Hey Blossom, have you eaten, un?" I didn´t dare answer him and instead looked to the side, hoping he would just let it go. But I should´ve known better than to hope for that.
"You haven´t eaten since this morning, have you Blossom?" He said and then pulled me to him in a hug.
"Sorry…" I whispered but he only shook his head.
"Don´t be sorry Blossom, it´s not your fault. Come on, let´s go to the kitchen and get you something to eat." He answered and then started walking with me still pressed against his side.
I sat down at the kitchen table, waiting as Deidara worked on some food for me. I felt bad about keeping him up, it was rather late at night, and about making him cook for me. If my body didn´t tell me it wanted food then I didn´t need it, right?
I was so lost in my thoughts that I actually jumped a little when Deidara put down a plate in front of me. On the plate was a nicely cooked chicken breast, a small amount of rice and vegetables and some curry sauce.
I really didn´t want any food but I ate it anyway since Deidara had made it for me. He watched me eat but didn´t say much and it made me nervous. "Why are you looking at me like that?" I finally asked him.
"We´re worried about you Blossom, you haven´t reacted at all as we thought you would." At hearing him say that, I felt myself flare up with anger before I was overwhelmed with an immense sadness.
"Well, sorry for not doing what you expected then." I told him before I left the kitchen and locked myself in my bedroom.
Deidara stood outside my bedroom door for almost thirty minutes, trying to make me unlock the door or at least talk to him. I felt a little guilty about not answering him but I really didn´t want to talk to him or anybody else right now.
I sat on the floor, leaning against the wall. I held one of my knives in my hand and the sharp blade was resting against my collarbone. Tears fell silently down my face, I was so tired but still couldn´t sleep…
A sudden knock on my bathroom door made me flinch and accidently cut myself. I sighed as the blood started gushing from the rather deep cut beneath my collarbone. "What?" I asked the person on the other side of the door.
"It´s me, Hidan. Can I come in?" I glanced at my bedside clock and saw that it was almost 2:30 in the morning. I got up from the floor and unlocked the bathroom door, letting Hidan in.
His eyes immediately locked onto the bleeding gash and he quickly pressed a small towel against it, trying to stop the bleeding. "What happened?" He asked me as he started to drag me through our bathroom.
"When you knocked on the door I flinched and accidently cut myself." I told him truthfully but the look he gave me told me that he didn´t believe me. "You don´t believe me?" I asked him, my muscles tensing up. We were outside of Kakuzus bedroom now but since he didn´t answer me I took that as a no. It made me even more angry and sad and I quickly entered Kakuzus bedroom before slamming the door shut and locking it, effectively keeping Hidan out.
"What the! Sakura?" It seemed like I had woken up Kakuzu with my door slamming. I started crying; too much had happened tonight for my fragile mind to be able to deal with it. "Hey don´t cry Sakura… Tell me what happened." Kakuzu told me as he pushed me down to sit on his bed as he looked at the cut on my collarbone.
"First Deidara told me… that I didn´t… react as you thought I would… Then I got… angry and… sad and I locked… myself in my bedroom. Then Hidan… knocked, making me flinch… and I accidently cut myself. Then he… didn´t believe me… when I said that… it was by… accident!"
By now I was sobbing as well, making it hard for Kakuzu to examine my cut. He pressed the towel against the cut again before pulling me in for a hug. When I felt his strong, warm arms wrap around my body I broke down and clung to him almost desperately.
When I finally calmed down he told me that the cut needed stitches. I only nodded and soon he injected me with pain killer and begun stitching. "You believe it was an accident, don´t you?" I asked him with big, tear filled eyes. He nodded.
"Yes, I do believe it was an accident. Had you done it on purpose it wouldn´t have been so deep or in this angle."
I let out a sigh in relief and then asked him. "What should I do?"
"You shouldn´t have to do anything, I told all of the gang how to handle you but apparently they didn´t listen. I will talk to them in the morning." I felt myself relax and when Kakuzu laid me down on the bed before lying down next to me and pull the covers over us, I let him.
I laid my head on his chest and wrapped my arms around his middle. One of his hands rested on top of my arm, the other one holding me around my back. It didn´t take long for Kakuzus calm breathing to sooth me enough so that I fell asleep.
I woke up alone in bed but I saw Kakuzu sitting at his desk, working on some papers. I sat up and he told me. "There´s clean clothes for you in the bathroom and I´ve talked to Deidara and Hidan." I set course towards his bathroom.
"Thank you Kazu." I told him before locking myself inside his bathroom.
After a hot shower and some clean clothes, I almost felt as myself again. I left Kakuzus room and headed for the kitchen, thinking about making myself some breakfast. I stopped in the doorway however, since Deidara was in the kitchen and I wasn´t sure if I wanted to talk to him or not.
A hand landed on my shoulder and I turned around to come face to chest with my brother. "Please talk to him, he spend the whole night being sad and moody. I don´t think he meant something bad when he said that you didn´t react as expected." He squeezed my shoulder in a comforting manner before disappearing down the hallway.
I turned back around and saw that Deidara was standing still at the counter, his hands gripping the edge of the counter hard enough to turn his knuckles white. I carefully stepped towards him, thinking about what Sasori had told me. If Deidara really had felt so regretful then I would forgive him.
When I came closer I saw how tense he was, it was almost as if he expected me to still be angry with him. I put one hand on his rock hard shoulder and he gave a pained expression before turning to me. "I´m so sorry Blossom…" He opened his eyes and his usual sky blue; glittering eyes were dark and dull with obvious regret and sadness.
I hugged him, making him tense up even more, and told him. "It´s okay Deidei, I forgive you." I felt him finally relax his tense muscles and a weak smile entered his lips.
"Would you like some breakfast then Blossom?" I smiled back at him and said.
"I´d love some."
About an hour later I was searching the house for Hidan, now that I had fixed things with Deidara, I wanted to do the same with him. Even if he had really hurt me by not believing me…
When I finally found him it was on the attic of all places. He was sitting with his back toward me and hadn´t heard me enter. He was playing a guitar, and he was absolutely gorgeous. He had no shirt on and his usually slicked back hair was free from the gel and hung forward, hiding his eyes from view.
He played something that reminded me of a lullaby, its soothing tones calming my soul. Then he started singing, his voice dark and smooth like melted chocolate and velvet, and I was frozen in place. He had a wonderful voice.
I didn´t move or say anything, I just listened to him singing. He sung about love, regret and sorrow, all in an amazing mix that made me both want to smile and to cry. I felt as if I could see inside his soul, like he had reached into the depths of his own heart to make this song.
All too soon it was over and as he put the guitar down, he caught sight of me, still standing frozen in time. His eyes widened and he quickly stood up, clearly afraid for some reason. He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something but I didn´t let him.
Instead I quickly went to him, locking my lips against his. He instinctively wrapped his arms around me to keep me steady as I forced my way into his mouth, hoping that he´d respond to me soon. He finally caught on and kissed me back as the worst shock of me being here went away. When we broke apart, both of us panting for breath, I told him. "That was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard in my entire life."
"You mean that?" He asked me, his voice strangely quiet. I nodded and said. "Yeah, I really mean that…" He kissed me again and when he finally let go of me, I was out of breath and my eyes was glazed over with something that I dared not say out loud.
He smiled at me before leaving me standing in the attic, the memory of what just happened my only company.