I would have had this out the day before, but it had to be carefully done. ;D

You'll never believe what I sometimes hear nowadays, in that there are people criticizing both the Disney "Beauty and the Beast" as well as the fairytale itself. They say it's a case of Stockholm Syndrome on Belle's part, others call it overall glorified domestic violence. F.Y.I to those: Belle is NOT in love with her captor because of warped perspective. She never let him trample her; she put her foot down, put him in his place, and stood up for herself. HE was the one who needed the real rescuing. Whoever is saying this BS is nothing but a fool.

When I was thinking of a title for this chapter, I really was stumped for something passionate, but then again, a simple and typical title can mask the surprise...

Chapter Eight

Does True Love Exist?

"You look like you had a...night," Kizashi noted when she came home that evening. Maybe her cheeks were pink because of the cold; she could still feel it. "Did something happen after the dinner meeting?" He cracked her a grin that made her red enough that she shrugged off her coat and hung it on the rack.

"Dad, don't be silly! Nothing of the sort happened. After that, he just took me out to sit under the stars, and we talked more about each other." Including Mom.

"Oh, I'm sorry, kumquat. But usually after dinner, there is -"

Sakura quickly put her hands over her ears to block out what he was saying, biting her tongue to keep from saying something else, but she did hear his laughter as she hurried to her room. Her father had feared Sasuke Uchiha and was threatened by him but now he was making jokes about them getting together.

She was starting to think that her dad was really trying to set her and her boss up without being direct. However, at the end of the day, it was her choice what to make happen with Sasuke and herself.

He took her to dinner - and met with his colleagues - and that meant she literally took another step into his world. Now it was her turn...but how?

She found herself in her room that same Thursday night when she found herself looking through the DVDs her family owned. There were many classics from the fifties and sixties in this country - and a couple caught her attention very much. She had a plan. Tomorrow, she would bring this to Sasuke's attention, and maybe next week they could do this at his house if they had time. Mostly me than him since he has plenty.

These films were such masterpieces that she had a feeling they would be up his alley. A busy man like him couldn't have had much time to think about something like this before, or was she wrong?

The next day, she asked him if he was interested in a movie night here, and surprisingly he said yes. "I used to enjoy it with Kabuto, but then, somehow, it just stopped," he admitted. "What do you have in mind?" She grinned at him when she told him the answer, and his eyes just about popped out of their sockets with recognition.

"...haven't seen them since I was in high school, but I never had an interest in them."

"You're in luck then." Sakura grinned. "How soon do you want to enjoy them?"

He chuckled and took them both from her. They were in his office, he at his desk, and he turned over Kwaidan to read the back in an attempt to refresh his memory. That one was as much of a treasure as the other was. She remembered when her parents were both children when this came out, and at first, people were disappointed because it lacked the excitement you'd expect in ghostly media, but once it sank its teeth into your psyche, the artistic, dreamlike tales would haunt you with the morality and human spirit for the rest of your life.

"In that case, how does next Friday night sound, if you have nothing going on?"

One more week from tonight might have seemed like forever.

~o~

"Sasuke, dinner and a movie at home with the lady," Kabuto noted as he was busy in the kitchen that night, and they were both making dinner before she arrived. This primarily was rice balls with mackerel filling and wrapped with seaweed, as well as green tea and a sweet treat called hanabiramochi, which was usually served at the first tea ceremony of the new year. He made it clear sweets weren't for him, but he figured she might like this. The white mochi around the anko bean paste was white, centered with pink, but not sealed on the sides, because there was also a thin strip of a stick from the burdock plant.

He wasn't even sure why an actual plant stick was on display like this. But on second thought, when he licked off the sugar of one of the remainders - he cringed a little at the sweetness - he decided he could enjoy this for himself, so Sakura didn't feel left out.

The week to pass seemed like forever, and each day that went marked towards the end of this month, which made him realize that he'd known Sakura Haruno for an exact month now.

On Friday night, the third to last day of January, Sasuke found himself waiting anxiously for her in the kitchen, helping Kabuto get the food ready just as the outside gate opened. She had arrived. Half of him considered asking her if she wanted to stay the night with him, but there was a chance her father could ask her questions. But his daughter was a grown woman who could make her own decisions.

Sasuke had the entire week as promised, and it was then that he got himself a small pack of protection with an expiration date until the next month on the final day. He thought to go small because if she wasn't ready...

"Oh, looks great!" She stood there, and she looked very sweet and relaxed. Her dress was olive green, peasant-like, the shoulders bared, and the front of the dress was embroidered with a tribal print. He held his breath at the sight of her legs outlined by brown tights and boots that reached her knees. And in her hands was a bowl covered with aluminum foil, which she pulled back to show pieces of sliced nashi pear, citrus, red yangmei fruits, persimmon, and apples. "Because I know you don't like sweets," she said, giving it to him, and her eyes sparkled when he exchanged the omelet-like mochi with her.

"How does your father feel about you being here tonight?" Kabuto asked. She giggled a little.

"Dad is going to be gone for the weekend. He was called away out of town, which is a rarity for him. Apparently, an old friend of his from when they were boys asked him if he wanted to be away from the house so they could catch up on old times. He'll be back on Sunday." Which meant that they would be all alone for the weekend - and Sasuke quickly caught how inappropriate that sounded.

She brought with her Ugetsu and Kwaidan, two Japanese films that were adapted from well-known stories with moral lessons and supernatural entities. When they sat with Kabuto, himself sandwiched between them, and they enjoyed the rice balls and tea, the first showed absolute promise even if Sasuke hadn't read the Ueda stories in a long time.

Taking place in the Azuchi-Momoyama period, the main story told of a civil war, and there were two men. One was a farmer and pottery maker with a wife and child, and they seemed like a happy family even if they had so little. The father and husband, however, seemed to have wider ambitions - and his idiotic friend was no better. The friend's wife seemed to be the voice of reason. Then one night, the army swept and attacked, forcing all to flee, but then the potter saved as much as he could of his work. Then as the couples journeyed up the lake, a man who was attacked by pirates came to them on a boat and died moments later - which proved an opportunity for both men, who left their families, but the dreamer's wife, stubborn as hell, refused to let him leave her. But the farmer/potter's wife, with their son in arms, pleaded with her husband to stay with them, only he promised he would return for them when he had so much money for them.

This was bound to not end well from the start.

In the market was when the troubles began. With the potter himself, he sold his work very well - and one day a beautiful noble lady and her maid approached with interest in his art, and then they brought him to her manor. The story supposedly was that soldiers ravaged the place and killed all but the lady and her servant - and her father's spirit supposedly haunted the place, still. It wasn't long before the seduction began and then the marriage despite the fact the man had a wife already...and meanwhile, she and their son were in danger back home.

Again, meanwhile, with the samurai dreamer, he slipped away from his wife to purchase samurai armor and the like, in which his wife eventually went off to look for him only to be raped by a group of samurai. This led eventually to her becoming a concubine. Now this he discovered when he returned a victorious warrior himself, presenting the head of an enemy, and then finding her in a brothel where a heated argument broke out and the guilt gnawed at him for his foolish mistakes. Sasuke had to smile when the idiot threw his armor into the river.

Then back to the potter who was an equally bigger fool. Then came the revelation the woman he was married to was actually a spirit. He met a priest who hoped to save him by writing a rite on his back to exorcise the spirit who refused to let him go. She'd been in the world so she could experience the joy of love which she had been deprived of in her previous life. The confrontation ended with him grabbing his sword and throwing himself out of the mansion only to wake up and find it nothing more than rubble as it had been. Soldiers found him and took away his possessions, leaving him to return home to his wife - who was beyond happy to see him, and nothing else mattered...or so it seemed.

By the next morning, the man got yet another terrible, nasty surprise. His wife had been killed by soldiers in his absence. Their son had been cared for by the village chief. The film ended then and there with a funeral service being prepared for her, and he heard her say she would always be with him. It was all in all, bittersweet.

This is filled with neglecting family, a forbidden relationship with a spirit, and the struggles of surviving in war - and the fact your actions have consequences.

"Oh, man, you're really shedding a tear, Sasuke," Sakura told him, reaching up to wipe away the corner of his eye. He blinked; he hadn't realized he'd been crying. Kabuto chuckled and stood up to replace this movie with the next.

Four stories - three of which he enjoyed most of all - in this one.

The Black Hair overall told of how a samurai left his poor but devoted wife for a cruel, selfish noblewoman so that he could attain social status. With wealth came great unhappiness, and the more time passed, the more he came to regret his actions. And when the second wife discovered this, she lashed at him, which made the final decision for him to return to his true love...only to be faced with a grotesque discovery after what seemed to be a happy reconciliation. Nothing was EVER as it seemed - but the man also got what he deserved, in a way. At least he realized his error.

The second segment to come was Sakura's personal favorite, The Woman of the Snow. During a raging snowstorm, a young woodcutter and his mentor took refuge in a hut by the river - and it wasn't long before a yuki-onna, which meant "snow woman", arrived to suction the life out of the old man, and she spared the young man simply because she saw him handsome and young...but on pain of death, she made him swear NEVER to tell anyone, even his mother, what he saw tonight. He then found himself home to his mother, and a year passed before he saw a beautiful woman named Yuki; her resemblance to the ghost was uncanny in his eyes, and it was clear at first sight that they were in love, and his mother grew to adore her, too. They eventually wedded and had three young children. Life seemed perfect and peaceful, until the man made the gravest error of his life when he finally told her about the night he saw the "snow woman", and that was when she revealed that she was the spirit. She became furious that he broke their vow, which was supposed to bind them for life, but she didn't kill him simply because of their children. It was then that she left, but not before threatening him with a painful death if he so much as mistreated them. He was left devastated and alone.

Sasuke felt his heart clench, but he didn't weep again. This man had been through a "wrong place, wrong time" scenario, and he could never have known the woman in the snow was the woman he would fall in love with...but either way, a promise was a promise.

For some reason, Hoichi the Earless took epic to the next level, if told in simplistic form. The flashbacks of the war between two clans, during the battle of Dan-no-ura, were told in art in its most ambitious yet. Eventually, they met Hoichi, a blind musician who was prided on retelling the epic battle between the Taira and Minamoto clans in the final stage of the war, only to be frequently called by what appeared to be a royal family deep in the woods - which eventually got the attention of his priest and friends who then went to desperate measures to protect him by writing the sacred text all over his body, to hide him and to have him sit as still as possible when the spirits came...but they missed the last and most important part of his body, which were his ears. Hence he became known as the Earless Hoichi after they were ripped by force in an attempt to take him back to perform the tale.

There wasn't much to say regarding In a Cup of Tea, for it simply told of a writer who eagerly anticipated the publisher whose story covered a samurai who repeatedly saw a mysterious man's face in his own cup of tea, hence driving him to insanity levels.

All in all, a symphony of color, story, and prose. "One of...the most beautiful collection of ghost stories in one I've seen," he told Sakura as soon as it was over. By this time, the hour was late, and they had tomorrow to work, and she was welcome to stay the night since her father was gone for the weekend. Sasuke was a bit surprised she'd packed an overnight bag to bring here. He had a feeling she assumed this might happen, but she didn't seem to have it in her to ask him. Chuckling, he assured her she could ask him this anytime.

"There's a guest room for you that hasn't been used, so it's yours..."

~o~

The guest room happened to be none other than the room he gave her to work in when she wasn't doing errands; that included the bed with the silver floral comforter. How time flew, right? Sakura found herself looking around it with real appreciation and thanked both the master and Kabuto for this. And if you were wondering, she did have a feeling that she would end up being too tired to drive home after they spent that relaxing evening enjoying a fantasy drama as well as a collection of spooky stories. But at the end of it, they had more than enough fun.

After all, what was the worst that could happen?

Her bag included shampoo and conditioner, her favorite perfume, tooth cleaning supplies, and so on, and the outfit for the next day. When she was done, she slipped into the nightshirt which was navy blue with tiny pink rosebuds all over. The sleeves were three-quarters long. She noted the time was approaching eleven, and she was tired from both the delicious food and the movies - and just sitting next to Sasuke the entire time.

Although, when she fell asleep, she found herself dreaming in a way that enhanced what had slowly been growing over the last month.

She lay beneath him as his smooth, muscular body rubbed against hers. She moaned and held onto his back as she wrapped her legs around his waist, his masculine length rubbing against her in a way that made her head tilt backward, and the sensitive parts of their chests rubbing against each other, amplifying tenfold...

And when she woke up, her lower body was aching in a way she hadn't felt since she was a hormonal teenager going through that stage. But Sakura didn't want to use her hand to relieve herself of this problem; if she ever thought about it as an adult, she would have her partner relieve it.

But as soon as Sakura was out of bed and just leaving the room, it was barely even one in the morning. What was she thinking, getting out in the middle of the night because of a stupid wet dream? But it happened for the first time, on a night like this, and though she wasn't a foolish child anymore, she was sure that she could make this decision. She wasn't ever afraid of him when she decided to come to work for him, for the sake of her father. She wasn't scared in the weeks to follow.

But this was something else entirely.

And at the same time, it seemed like fate had been on her side - or should she say, both their sides?

He stood there in the middle of the hallway, down the corridor where his bedroom was, and hers had been further down the hallway. It looked like he couldn't sleep either, but why? It was then that she saw the look in his eyes. Smoldering and tired - but alert and aware. He was in his T-shirt along with dark shorts that showed his legs. His eyes roamed over her but said nothing.

"I...couldn't sleep," Sakura said finally, and it seemed like her legs were moving on their own - and before a second passed, he was moving her way as well, and they stopped until they were inches away.

"I couldn't either," he admitted.

She looked down nervously, biting her lower lip before releasing it. "What was your reason?"

He chuckled, looking off to the side. "A...dream I had. I'm not sure how to explain it without wanting to retreat to my room. Just that as soon as I woke up, I didn't know what to do." Sakura looked at him with surprise. Just like me. He must have known what she was thinking, for his face was inching a bit closer to hers now.

"If I'm not being that straightforward, was it...something more personal?"

Sakura nodded, unable to speak now, but she eventually forced it out. "...yeah. I didn't know what to do either. It was something that I never expected. And I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do, at this time..."

"Well, I guess we can agree on this one fact: trust your feelings," Sasuke said, his lips grazing over her cheek. "We're both adults; I think we can handle this, Sakura. We both want this, except..." He sighed. "I'm a little concerned it could change our stand." That was what she was also concerned about, but like she said, what was the worst that could happen? They'd both never done this before, so there could always be something they never expected.

But it wasn't like they anticipated the road coming to this. Once you crossed this street, there was no going back. Should she dare to take that walk...?

Decision made in a heartbeat, Sakura took his hand and ran it over the start of her thigh which was beneath the end of her shirt and didn't stop until he was cupping her breast. It was bold, but as soon as his palm rested over the peak which was hardening, she shivered. He looked a bit taken aback, and his hold closed a bit tighter, increasing the friction and going straight down to her groin. She pushed her body against him now and he wrapped his free arm around her waist to keep her...

...and their lips smashed together in a heated frenzy.

The spark that had begun turned into a flame that needed more wind to grow.

Maybe there IS such a thing as true love.

"Kwaidan" and "Ugetsu" are wondrous Japanese treasures, and they are worth a watch if you can find them. :3 Both you have to look for on HBOMax (or anywhere else, like DailyMotion and the Internet Archive for "Kwaidan", and YouTube for "Ugetsu" until someone takes THAT down).