Heck the long hiatus. It's almost new year already (again haha)

How one could faced so much embarassement in just one night?

She was making a scene with the wine bottle, weeping like a child in front of him, then after he consoled her and comforted her, she took his stuff without his permission and left him without a word.

And now, she forgot about her own stuff which was the reason why she came to see him in the first place.

Sakura burried her face onto her palm, "How should I tell him!?"

Mai was looking at her with amusement. The fact that Sakura came to her to sharing her most romantic night had left Mai's imagination run wild. "This should be another chances, don't you think, Sakura?" Her eyes sparked with mischievous thought.

Sakura hit her forehead on to the desk.

/

h E R e • a F t e R

16

/

Karin was casually strolling at Suigetsu's kitchen wearing only a wornout oversized tee. She took a Starbuck bottle out of the fridge then gulped it down right away as if it was hers. She also took a jug of lemonade for the empty glasses that she had prepared on the kitchen counter.

"What are you waiting? Give him the photos, Suigetsu," She snapped at suigetsu with a frown.

Sasuke's focus shifted to his friend on the opposite seat. Suigetsu showed him two photos—the very controversial photos Karin hardly acquired after the incident on the night she was being assaulted—placed on the table between them.

"This is?" Sasuke's question halted as if someone paused him from moving. He could not believe what he saw. "Madoka and Ryouichi? This is Ryouichi Kudo, right?"

Suigetsu nodded his head without a slighest doubt.

"I was shocked to know that she's actually working with you at the hotel. And then I remembered Nagato gave me this, when Orochimaru-sama and I settled things up after the brawls back then at our place."

"Where were they? When this is taken?"

"It seems like they were staying at some villa by the beach, Nagato said probably Bali or something," the photos showed Madoka and Ryouichi holding hands together while they were getting off of a boat. "These photos were taken a year and half after her husband was dead. That time she barely got free from the charge of the lawsuit againts her. And since then they spent couple of months together."

"They're together!? Hold on—a lawsuit? About what?" Clearly Karin's words was a lot to take in for Sasuke.

Meanwhile she was busy at the kitchen; taking out a roasted chicken from the oven then transfered it to the plate on the counter, Sasuke had to wait—with eyes widen unpatiently—until she is done plating the chicken.

"You remember Orochimaru telling you about how Ryouichi betrayed Danzo, right? About him stealing Danzo's money or had a secret relationship with Danzo's stepdaughter, Madoka."

"God this is making my head hurts," Sasuke forced to shut his eyes with two fingers, "Why it never occured to me that this Madoka was Danzo's stepdaughter that Orochimaru talked about."

"And what about the lawsuit?" Inwhich Karin had not answer to him.

"Her husband's family sued her for an attempted murder againts her."

The constant terrible news left Sasuke shocked and speechless as if it was mocked him right on his face. He merely staring straight at Karin with wide eyes.

Suigetsu watched while scratching his unitchy head. The sour situation left him nervous, he cleared his throat, "Does Itachi know about all these?"

The idea to call Itachi did not cross Sasuke's head at all. "No, he could've been overlooked this as well. What else do you know about these two?"

Karin sighed as Sasuke was looking at her intensely. "I really hope I could help you further, but this all I got for now."

"The fact that she's having a normal life, while Ryouichi's whereabouts remained hidden is kinda unsettling," Suigetsu added.

"Besides, no one cared about him anymore since Danzo dropped his case with him." Karin brought the wide tray from the dining table and joined with the others.

"Could it be that he's dead?"

"That's the least we could assume," Karin shook her head quickly to answer, "from now on you should be very careful, my gut telling me she also has contribution to the fraud of your hotel."

"Anyways," Suigetsu sighed looking at Sasuke—the dark aura which surrounded his friend was quite unnerving to him, "this shouldn't affects your relationship with her yet, until we get all the proofs."

Sasuke muttered only a "Hn" to them.

He then slowly sipped his glass of lemonade that Karin had given to him. Whilst inside his brewing head he tought about all of the possible plans he should take.

This all somewhat make a lot of senses. We need to find just tiny bit of connection.

/

The barrage of facts that Sasuke had been hiding from Itachi—for the sake of his health—finally reached Itachi's ears. The immediate reaction was somehow not too surprising. He felt rather calm.

On the other hand, his brother sounded furious—talk about Sasuke's typical as easy as reading a book for Itachi—so Itachi caught the earliest flight to Tokyo right away.

"Yes, she told me that she used to belong to a Yakuza family, but that was like ages ago. Then she was 20 something when her Yakuza father sold her to his own friend from abroad," Itachi explained.

"Fuck sake, you believed her after what she had told you?" Again with the deep furrowed forehead, Sasuke could not grasped where his brother's composure came from.

"Somehow, we just get along and be friends. And she introduced me to Terumi-san, she also helped me getting close with her. She's always there throughout our marriage, I never feel like her background make any difference than other people."

Sasuke knew that Itachi's weakest point was always about woman. He was always clueless. Literally had no interest on his own love life's state before he met his wife. The irony was he could not even saved his marriage despite it was the beginning of his one and only love life.

"It turns out her background did make any differences, right?"

Itachi exhaled a deep sigh. Although looking very calm, he was feeling unnecessarily tired. "Are you sure she should be included to this fraud case?"

"I had no better option. That's why I need your help. Think about the times you had with her, did something ever happened between you two?"

"We don't, why won't you believe me?" Itachi's eyes said the same thing.

"I believe you, Itachi, she's the one that I don't." Sasuke kept his stare, "did you know that her husband's family sued her for an attempted murder of her husband?"

Silent took Itachi over. His lips pursed slightly. "From what I could recall, she ran away from him because he was very abusive."

"And came back to Japan, moreover to Tokyo where her father who sold her lives and rules the town? That doesn't make any sense."

"No, at some point she said they finally settled things down between them. Moreover, she rarely mention about her father."

"And she never mention about Ryouichi as well?"

Itachi nodded his head.

"About Ryouichi though, my hunch always telling me that he never likes me," Said Itachi to continued. "On our way to make this hotel, dad had rejected his involvement several times and make his father alone helped me as our initial board of CEOs. Dad kinda sees him like a spoilt brat and Kudo-san himself quite agree to Dad's decision."

Sasuke turned his whole body toward his brother. He hesitated for a second before spat out his anger. "What makes you think this pieces of information is not important so you keep it away from me!?"

Itachi raised a hand to Sasuke and shook his head slowly. "I just don't wanna drag this matter far more than I could handle, Sasuke. In fact, I never expected to involve these people around us."

"They wanted to drag us down, Itachi! Have some fucking sense!" Sasuke was raising his voice now. He huffed his chest out of desperation. "I'll call Naruto right away, so you realize how big this matter is."

He stomped his way to the fridge in the dining room in no time. Then he gulped down a can of beer to calmed down his nerve.

Itachi looked down to his feet, thousand of thoughts rushing through his mind.

After some times, he felt something cold on his right shoulder. As he looked up, "I'm sorry for raising my voice," said Sasuke holding a beer can for him.

"And I'm sorry too," Itachi corrected him, "You know that I knew it better than anyone else about how big this was. I've learned my lesson, in order for us to keep moving forward we need to let go the things that dragging us backward. And I think we need to stop getting distracted with other problems that's beyond our reach."

"Yeah, that's why I left you out with all these bullshits for a while." Sasuke plopped down to sat beside Itachi, "what you're saying is right, I'm sorry."

Smile forming on Itachi's face. He used to fight a lot with his little brother, and he would never ever heard Sasuke doubled his apologize moreover the sole reasons was only because he is raising his voice. Sasuke used to muttered the words as if he did not have the intention to even say it.

Somehow, it appeared to be Sasuke also had learned his lesson.

"I'll call Naruto and ask him to meet with us this afternoon, is that okay?"

Itachi nodded while opening the beer can. "Hoped he had time for us."

"He will."

/

Two days after she left Sasuke's penthouse, Sakura received her forgotten package she wished to take it herself.

"Hello, Sasuke-kun,"

"Hi, how are you doing?"

"I'm fine, I mean… you know," Sakura chuckled, feeling embarrased to hear her own nervous voice. "Are you busy? Do you have time?" There was another awkward chuckled from Sakura.

Sasuke looked at his watch, and then wrinkled his nose. "Sorta," he muttered his answered. "Have you receive the package, Sakura?"

"Oh, yes, yes I have. And thank you for that, it was beautiful."

"From my mom, actually. As your late birthday's gift, she was insisted."

"How sweet, I'll make sure to give her a call."

"Hn."

She thought she would hear another words, but he went silent.

"Sasuke-kun, there's something I forget to tell you, that night—" She managed not to stop midsentences, "—I also brought your cardigan without permission."

"That's fine, I was about to give it to you anyway."

"Aah."

Sakura took a deep breath after a beat of silent. "It would be nice if we could spare some time to meet and talk again."

"Hn," There was a long pause. "It would be nice of course, but I—"

"It doesn't have to be right now, though."

"You're right." In fact, he literally got no time for today. He sighed, knowing that he probably needs more than days or even weeks.

Across the phone, Sakura caught the sigh and interpreteded in a different way. "When you have time, mind to text or call me, Sasuke-kun?"

"I will, Sakura."

To hear the firm answer she felt a tiny bit of relieved. Small smile graced upon her face.

Sakura already had in her mind that time would not be a matter to her. Still she held the phone wishing to hear another words, and waited for couple of seconds before she realized she was the only one who was waiting.

"Okay, then. I'll talk to you again later, Sasuke-kun."

"Thanks for calling, Sakura. Take care."

Even though the call was ended short—and left a strange feeling for her—she knew that it could be the beginning of her long-awaited cherry blossom to finally bloom.

/

Naruto's cerulean eyes stared at the two pieces of photos on the table—it was so intense as if it could pierces through it. Meanwhile the two other guys beside him were nervously waiting for his response.

Itachi kept Sasuke's restless thought in check, "By the look on his face, it's not so surprising, isn't it?" he whispered to him.

"Hn." Sasuke blinked his dry eyes—he had been staring at his bestfriend too long.

It took almost half an hour for Naruto finally glanced up to the Uchihas. His expression solemn, "This makes all a lot of sense now."

That's what I thought. Sasuke was ready to listen further, thinking that nothing could go worse than he already heard from Karin.

"For starter, this is what I got so far," Naruto brought down a stack of files he had prepared on his desk to the table, "as I said before, Sasuke, my initial investigation was start from the above and I had included Madoka for that as well. Eventhough she's an outsider of the hotel's managerial, but having formal to informal relation with both of you and the most crucial is because she gained big lump of money from inside the hotel, she is qualified to be a suspect too, doesn't she?"

Both Uchihas said nothing but nodding their heads.

"She also have some loyal buyers or collectors from the hotel, one of them is this man," Naruto took one paper from inside the files then gave it to Sasuke.

"The senior executive, Kohaku Mineguchi," Naruto continued to explain, "what made him stand out is because he was unexpectedly under our list of the banned collectors due to his several violation on illegal antiques belongings."

"There was rumour about it," Itachi tried to remembered, "but, that's it and nothing more."

Sasuke scrunched his nose in absolute confusion.

"Yeah, he already got his charges and punishment few years ago. What I wanted to pinpoint is Madoka was pretty close with this man. His secretary also drew our attention as Mineguchi's personal courier for his art collection, because of that he also made contact with Madoka very often."

"What I got from my team's report recently; they've managed to collect these files," he handed another files to Itachi, "that Mineguchi's secretary, Kabuto Yakushi, was in charge to lead the hiring team of Itachi's inventing and renovating project."

"The fraud project," Sasuke remarked hastily.

Inwhich Naruto gave a nod to him. "It is. And we found that the profile files of those consman were being fabricated hence they make it through to the higher ups, to you. My guts telling me it was Kabuto Yakushi doings."

"We've been speculating the same, but eventhough he was the one who was in charge for that project, the management team got all the files filltered first before he received it. And we found nothing wrong with that. How—" Itachi was about to ask more about the proofs, yet he looked at how Naruto tilted his head slightly toward the files he had given to Itachi just a minute ago.

"That's the part where you missed, I'm not specifically saying it was Kabuto who fabricated the documents."

Hesitant but hardly patient, Sasuke asked out, "He was being the informant, doesn't he?"

Itachi was thinking the same thing, but the fact that he was holding a bunch of proofs he himself could not get for months was left him utterly taken aback. He got no time to be so self-deprecated when Naruto continued to showered them with another facts.

"Hear this out, do you know that Asahi Kudo had his house intruded back in early 2020? And only two hours after he reported it to the police, he cancelled the report himself saying nothing was missing so the police doesn't have to come and check on his house."

"When I called the chief officer in charge in that area, they said it had happened twice on the same month, at the exact same time which was on the broad daylight. But, when my team dug it deeper and asked the neighbors, there were some of them who heard and saw Kudo-san having a heated arguments with his son," Naruto paused for a brief moment glancing between the two brothers besides him, "which was strangely coming home after so long right before the incident."

"Ryouichi, he's breaking into his own house? Does he tried to steal something?" Itachi raised his eyebrows high.

"But, then Kudo-san caught him while doing it," added Sasuke.

"Hence the heated argument. And what's the corellation to our case, Naruto?"

The blonde prosecutor nodded his head in certainty, "Because Kudo-san himself said nothing was missing, then there's implication that Ryouichi was involved in the intrution; I'm guessing his motive was not to steal, but to sneak up something."

As if seeing some light of enlightment shone bright through Naruto's eyes, Itachi with gaped mouth finally got to notice the pattern. Yet, Sasuke was the one who was able to spoke it up for them.

"Those consman documents."

"Exactly," The smile Naruto had been holding finally reached his face.

"Kabuto got all the information of the project, he then passed it to Madoka, and Ryouichi provided the rest of it; including the fabricated documents. Those consman were obviously his acquintaces and he finished it by snuck out the documents into his father's house," In the end Sasuke compiled all the tiny pieces into one big nasty fraud scheme.

Being able to reach to the conclusion they terribly needed, Itachi and Sasuke looking at each other emosionally drained.

Naruto was looking at Itachi and his cerrulean eyes were soften. "I was trying to look more about the miss connection between Kabuto or Madoka with those consman, and you guys bring me this at the perfect timing."

"So, with these photos here I assume Madoka and Ryouichi were allied, we just need to find their motive. And as we wait for your next exhibition with her at the end of this month, we could filed up Kabuto Yakushi to the police department."

"What about Madoka and Ryouichi?" Asked Sasuke.

"I think we have enough proofs to put Madoka in a trial. Actually we could charge her for several kind of other reasons, her suspicious source of income probably from the black markets. She'll be easy to be detangled, but for Ryouichi it's another story. Heck, we still couldn't find his whereabouts."

"Should we talk to his father about this?"

"That's what I was thinking, and I hope I could leave it to you both."

They said nothing more after that. As the sun getting lower to the horizon, Sasuke and Itachi left the building holding a heaps of heavy files, yet half of their weight had been lifted from their shoulders, so it did not burden them at all.

For the sun tomorrow would shine brighter and warmer than ever, they both spent their night sleeping soundly for the first time after so long.