"She really said that..?" Eri trailed quietly, pausing in stride for a moment.
Sasuke peered back over his shoulder, angling his body with one hand chilling out in his pocket. He had calmed down throughout the course of the day, his expression just as tempered and relaxed when speaking about it now as he would be during any other conversation. It was as if it never happened. "Yeah."
The brunette brushed her hair behind her ear, chewing at her lower lip whilst gripping the handle of the bag in her hand.
After the squad assigning and meeting their sensei, the both of them found themselves standing on the edge of the same circumstance. Their examination was hinging on the judgment of their senseis, and whether or not they proceeded into their placement as genin was up to whatever their respective teachers had in store for them the next day.
As a result, the idea was for them both to get ready together, using each other as a back-up checklist to make up for any oversights they could have had in preparation. For that reason, they now walked through the roads of the village's shopping district, lined with market stalls and various other small shops that sold the necessities for budding shinobi and elites alike. It gave them the perfect opportunity to talk like he wanted in the process, and boy was she surprised at what she heard.
'He's got no parents, no one to teach him right from wrong. No home-training.'
She understood there were a multitude of things that could have set Sasuke off, he wasn't exactly hard to annoy, but she wasn't expecting that to be so drastic: for Sakura to say something like that.
Whelp. Chalk one up for Momo.
"Mm... Well..." Eri trailed, fumbling with her words whilst pushing from her pause to continue walking. "She... to be fair, she didn't exactly...know."
"You're serious," He remarked dryly. The way he cast a side-glance to her teemed with an incredulous suspicion. She had to be joking. To say that it was fine for her to say something like that, because she didn't know? Not only was it ridiculous, but it was borderline uncharacteristic. Eri was the type to go out to incredible lengths and limbs to stand up for a victim in any given situation - for her to now extend this protection for someone doing the 'bullying' in a sense was completely outlandish, "It shouldn't matter if she knew or not."
"I mean," She lifted her finger now further up to tighten around a thick bunch of her hair. Her face twisted into a thoughtful expression, a look that showed the beginnings of an internal struggle, "I'm not saying what she said was right. That's not what I'm saying at all, because it wasn't. No matter how you slice it, if she said something like that in a rude way, it can't be justified." Her lips upturned, a hum tumbling from her pursed lips, using it to drag out her response, likely until she got her words together, "I'm just saying... Sakura. She..."
His brow quirked. He said nothing, nor did he interrupt her, but he continued to pass those timed side-glances to size up her expression or to get in her mind and see what she was thinking on this one.
She sucked in a breath, finally collecting her words, "Sakura wouldn't do anything to specifically hurt anyone. Sometimes... Sometimes she gets carried away, and sometimes she just doesn't understand that things aren't okay to do or say." It wasn't exactly what she was trying to say or the best attempt to clear things up as seamlessly as possible, but it felt incredibly difficult to get out her thoughts. She knew what she wanted to say, surely, but verbalizing that felt incredibly difficult.
That confusion made itself known to Sasuke, because, well, it was hard to say exactly what she meant by that. The effort she put into trying to sink into Sakura's case made him more curious than anything. It didn't change his mind; he had a pretty solid opinion of his pinkette teammate, and he didn't have too much of an interest in changing his mind. Still, he had to wonder what kind of hold she had on Eri, "I don't know why you're defending her."
Eri recoiled back from examining the wire on the edge of one of the stalls, whirring around to face him in disbelief, "I'm not defending her!" Despite how she refute it, it came off more as a childish huff than anything serious, "It's... It's just..." Her strong tone dwindled towards the end of her sentiment, her eyes likewise diverting back to the wire that her fingers fidgeted with in her hands. She didn't know how to further defend her point, but she wanted to at least make it known how she felt.
Sasuke, contrarily, watched the way her fire died out, his eyes masking the twinges of both curiosity and sympathy. It forced his a hardening in his face, though as he picked up a bundle of bound kunai to buy, his filter breached enough for his next words to peek out, "It's just that you keep breaking your back caring for people that wouldn't do the same for you."
"Mm...," she wanted to argue that point, but she settled for peering back down to the wire in her hands, brushing it with her thumb to give the illusion there was something else to keep her attention. Maybe it did hurt a little, but she figured maybe it would only hurt so much, because it was true. The past had taught her that once or twice, and yet she couldn't just accept that answer and stick with it. What was she supposed to do, just stop caring about people? She couldn't imagine prioritizing herself over others that way; it just felt selfish.
Okay... maybe that was a little harsh. It wasn't like it was directed at her specifically, maybe at her overly charitable ways, but it was more so a quip to the ones he suspected took advantage of her kindness. He peered over his shoulder, hooking the bag of tools around his wrist and expecting to find her still sulking and waiting for an apology.
Instead, she looked up, a little bit of a smile curved up on her lips. "Well," she began, storing away her purchased wire and walking back up to him so that they could continue treading the shopping strip, "you go out of your way to help me out and give me advice, don't you?" she tilted her head, "even if I don't want you to?"
His face fell into blandness. Amusement? A bit - but he couldn't let her get away with that - so blandness it was. "Nnnope." He could swear that she went through more emotions in one day than he went through in a week, but on the bright side, he hardly had to worry about his brash way of speaking and blatant behavior, or the way that he sometimes said things that he didn't completely mean. She bounced back so quickly, that a simple apology, or even what somewhat resembled an apology or regret for his actions was enough to send her right back to normal.
She quickly trailed after him as he walked ahead, her smile now growing, "I guess if I can be nice to a couple of people, and they appreciate it as much as you do, I don't really need anything back!" She bumped into his side now, hooking her arms around his for nothing more than the sole reason of knowing it would annoy him to no end. "Because now you're one of my super, closest, bestest friends, right?" She practically nuzzled into the top of his arm, ignoring the way he shook it vigorously while quietly ordering her in a keen blend of embarrassment and fluster, "get off of me."
"Nnnope~."
"Alright, fine," he decided instead, no longer putting up a fight and thus causing her head to perk up and tip with visible confusion. He wasn't arguing it anymore? What was he up to? She received her answer as he peered down at her, a dark smugness overtaking his expression as he quietly muttered, "but I'm surprised you would openly embrace the possibility of all these people getting the wrong idea."
Damn it! She really did hate when he won! She could have played along, and really it probably would have been just as mortifying for him as it would have been for her, but she just didn't have the bravery to pull that off, and for that... he was grateful. It made things all the more entertaining for him when she couldn't fight back.
She recoiled her hands, brushing them down her shirt as if trying to wipe off all of his germs, "you don't play fair."
"Fair doesn't win."
They proceeded further down the stretch, reaching near the end of the market strip.
"So are you feeling confident?" Eri started up, tilting her head to take a look at his expression. He hardly ever said what he thought, especially when it came to his own ability, so she always had to keep checking to see if there was anything visibly telling. If it was nothing but good stuff, he would be sure to give her a great deal of confidence to listen to, but if he had his uncertainties or reservations, then he'd reply more simply and with less assurance.
"I don't know what to expect yet," he started off truthful, though the descent was swift, "but I'm not worried. The guy's a joke."
"Ooo. Arrogant, aren't we?" she sat down on the edge of the street bench, pulling her leg underneath her to sit up on her chin, and after a moment longer of standing, he took a seat too.
"It's not arrogant when you can back it up. It's confidence."
She'd heard that one so many times that she practically lip synced it the moment she was sure he was falling back on that go-to phrase. "I know, I know." She hooked her fingers together, "I feel like we're both going to do fine. I can tell."
"Confident enough to skip the shrine?" His smirk grew, a challenging quirk of his brow taking hold. Before anything big happened, she went to that shrine, quickly praying for a reinforcement on her fortune before taking a leap of faith. He already knew that the challenge was anything but fruitful, though she just sounded so confident that he had to give it a try.
"Let's not get crazy," She laughed quietly into the backs of her fingers. She settled back, leaning her arm against the back of the bench and settling her chin against the top of her hand. She felt pretty good: serene and comfortable. She always enjoyed when they had some time to hang out, and more often than not, it was nearly every day. For them, it usually just felt like a good excuse to keep busy and avoid going home. Playing games, training, shopping, or just walking around absentmindedly, all of it was pretty fun. The only thing she couldn't really convince him to do was go hang out with other people.
So a thought came to her mind.
She debated if she should bring it up; they were having a pretty nice time, and she would hate to bring down the mood by posing this, but...-
"What comes next, right?" He was facing forward, arms folded idly across his abdomen and fingers twisted up into the handles of his bags. His eyes were closed, so there was little a chance that he peeked at her expression, though in the moment of silence that followed his inquiring, he opened one eye, his dark iris sliding to the corner to pass her an appraising side-eye.
She didn't know what to say for a second. Even if it was probably almost certainly what she was thinking, her surprise left her with nothing but a questionable, "huh?"
He closed his eye back, leaning back further into his relaxed posture, "That's what you were thinking right? You're obvious."
Her lips twisted up into a pout, but she had no rebuttal. Instead, turned her head up to look at the way the sun began to set in the sky, dimming their light and casting the shadow of dusk out atop them. "Well... yeah. When we're both ninja and doing missions and stuff-" Her head perked up as she heard the sound of a hefty breath, the sound of him quietly scoffing at her comment.
"Hey!" She sat up, pushing her hands down into the fabric of her skirt layer, "What's so funny? I'm having a moment here!"
"If I didn't know any better..." He dragged out, gearing towards the build-up to an assumption that he knew she was aware was coming.
"no."
Yep, she knew what was coming.
"It sounds like you'll miss me or something."
"No, see I'm actually going to do not that at all. The opposite even."
A playful sarcasm wove into his tone, "I'm hurt."
"Anyway," She shifted, not taking a single moment to entertain his attempts at poking and prodding at her. A pocket of air swelled into her cheek, "It'll just kind of bug me a little bit not having somebody to annoy all the time, that's all. Like. What about my stress relief?"
He snorted faintly, and shook his head, "I'm sure somebody else's volunteer."
Another round of bait it seemed, trying to get her to accidentally admit that she would prefer to hang out with him as opposed to somebody else. She was too clever this time around, and sliding off of her shin, she swung her feet forward and bounced to her feet. "Yep! Guess that's what I'll have to do. Shouldn't be too hard to replace you."
"What?" It was his turn to be taken aback. His brows knit and as she began to take such exaggeratedly energized steps away, he narrowed his eyes then rose to trail her. That wasn't how this was supposed to go. It wasn't as if she'd actually have more fun bumming around some of their other classmates than she would hanging around him, "I'm one of a kind."
"Wow." Eri's eyes turned seemingly into dots, "I don't think that was intentional."
He searched her response, the comment as well as his own words going right over his head and just further proving her point that he was oblivious to the double meaning of his statement. "Oh." He blandly shot, though now not willing to hear her excuses for such a tasteless joke, he rose his knee to roughly urge her along, "Keep walking."
"Ah! Hey! I'm goooing!"
Neither of them could promise that this would continue to be a regular occurrence, or that hanging out with each other would be as simplistic. It was impossible to guarantee that days of missions and potential weeks of being out of the village wouldn't dampen the time they spent together...
That was okay, though.
Eri summoned a deep breath, balancing her content only with the calm reservation of days to come. "If we still hang out, but not as often, it'll make it more special."
"..."
"What..?"
"That's so cliché that it hurts."
"You're a jerk!"
A/N: Ahhh. A time where things were peaceful. u-u I'm going to milk these times for all that they're worth.
SO! I'd like to thank you guys for the love and support on starting this story! I hope to hear from you guys on what you think as we progress further in, but this has been super exciting for me to start, and I can't wait to keep going!